"I think it's because children don't weigh their words before they say them." He laid his knife on the stump

and stood. "I think it'd be best if I waited until tomorrow to start work on the monument."

She wiped a stray tear from her cheek. "All right I'll come back tomorrow."

"I'll open the shed early so you don't have to sneak in."

She forced a quivering smile. "I wasn't planning on sneaking. See you in the morning." She turned to

leave.

Stopping, she looked at him.

He extended the wooden carving toward her. "This is what your husband looked like the day he told me

he was going to marry you. Thought you might want it."

She took the offering and studied it. "He couldn't have been any older than twelve."

"That sounds about right."

"Why are you giving me a present?"

"It's not a present It's just something I carved, and now I've got no use for it. If you don't want it, you can

throw it away. Makes no difference to me."

"Is this what you were working on when we traveled to Austin?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She trailed her fingers over the small features he'd carved. Then she extended it toward him. "I can't take

it."

"Why not?"

"Because we are not friends. We will never be friends. If I accept this, I'd be-" She shook her head. "I

don't know. I just know I can't take it."

"Consider it payment for stitching my head. I know it's not much, considering I nearly bled to death, but

it's all I have to trade. The carving for my life. Considering the value you place on my life, it's probably a fair trade."

"Doesn't it bother you that I hate you?"

Shoving his hands into his pockets, meeting her cold blue gaze, he said quietly, "It bothers me a great

deal."

Meg stared at the land where Mama Warner's sons and daughters had once toiled and crops had flourished. One by one, her children had left to build their own homes and harvest their own dreams. In abundance, the wildflowers had reclaimed the fallow fields.

Shortly after her return from Austin, with a strong need to tell someone about the granite and the monument, she'd confided in Mama Warner. She knew Kirk's grandmother wouldn't judge her actions and would understand her motives.

She'd come here today to savor and share her first victory, but she'd only shared the carving of Kirk that Clay had given her. She didn't know why, but she couldn't boast about the pain she'd seen reflected in Clay's eyes when he'd answered her question.

Lowering her gaze, she touched the delicate petal of a wooden flower that Mama Warner had planted in a wooden box. Kirk had made the box for his grandmother when he was ten. Clay had carved the flowers from twigs and bits of wood and painted them blue.

Everywhere Meg looked, she ran into their lives, intertwined.

"Do you like my buffalo grass?" Mama Warner asked.

Wiping the tears from her cheeks, Meg turned and smiled at Kirk's grandmother. She'd grown frail since

the war. Her grandsons and two of her sons had ridden away in gray. Only one grandson had returned, but it was Kirk's death that had nearly broken the woman's spirit. She'd always been closest to Kirk.

"They look like bluebonnets," Meg said.

"Years ago, when I was young and filled with dreams, I watched the buffalo forage on the blue weeds that coated the hills. I haven't seen a buffalo in a good long while, but I always have my buffalo grass."

She pressed the wooden carving against her breast. "And now, I almost have my grandson again."

Quickly, Meg crossed the room and knelt beside the rocking chair. "I didn't mean to upset you with the

carving."

The older woman touched a gnarled finger to Meg's cheek. "Ah, child, memories don't upset me. They're all I have in my winter years to keep me warm." She trailed her finger along Kirk's likeness. "I can almost see his freckles. Kirk hated them so, and Clayton knew it, but he still put the shadow of them here. He always carves what he sees. Honest to a fault that boy is. Did you notice the freckles?"

Meg smiled. "No, ma'am, I guess I didn't look (hat closely."

"It's just a little difference in the shading. Over the years, Clayton has become skilled at carving. When he was a boy, he'd bring me things and ask me to guess what they were. Cot to the point where I hated to guess. I said a cloud once, and it was a pig. Nearly broke his heart. Not that he'd let me know that, of

course, but his eyes don't just see more than most. They also tell more than most. But you gotta look closely. Have you looked closely, Meg?"

"I try not to look at him at all. I hate him and all he stands for."

"You said that too strongly."

"Because my hatred for him is strong."

"Or is it not strong enough? You accepted his gift-"

"I only took it because he didn't want it, and I thought you might like to have it. I certainly don't want it."

"But it's a likeness of Kirk when he was a boy."

Standing, Meg held up her hands to emphasize her point "He made it. I can't keep it."

Mama Warner leaned back in her rocker. "But you've asked him to make you a monument"

Meg walked to the window and gazed at the flowers Nature had created, trying to ignore the flowers that

a boy had made. "That's different. The monument isn't for me specifically. It's to serve as punishment for him, and it'll serve as a memorial for the others."

She heard the gentle creaking of the rocking chair. Sometimes, she wished she were small enough to

crawl onto Mama Warner's lap as she rocked. She glanced over her shoulder and watched the older woman slowly touch every line and curve of the carving.

"I'd say Kirk was about twelve when he looked like this," Mama Warner said.

Returning to the woman's side, Meg placed her hand over one disfigured by years of fighting to survive.

"That's what he said."

"He? Will you not even say his name to me?"

"Speaking his name sickens me."

"And yet you plan to spend the coming days in his company."

"So I can witness his suffering."

"Revenge has a way of turning on itself, sweet Meg." Mama Warner gently touched the tip of her finger

to a tear ALWAYS TO REMEMBER.

that clung tenaciously to Meg's eyelash. "Are you not the one who will suffer?"

Roughly, Meg swiped the tear away. "I made the mistake of asking him about Kirk. In the future, I won't

speak to him at all."

"In silence you'll watch him work? Sometimes, silence can be so very loud. Remember how you cried when Kirk's mother wouldn't talk to you?"

"Which is why I know it'll be an additional punishment for him."

"You feel strongly about this, don't you?"

"Yes, ma'am. They were all so young, so brave, filled with conviction. They were men of honor. He

betrayed them when he didn't stand by them."

"And you think he'll come to recognize his failings as he works on this monument?"

"If he doesn't, he will by the time he's carved every name into stone. He'll have to face each man's

memory again."