“You must be Mr. Hutton.” He extended his right hand and shook. “I’m George Maxwell. We received your telegram yesterday afternoon. Ever since, he’s been watching the clock like a hawk.”

Thatcher was led through the main rooms of a house that smelled like lemon oil and homemade bread. The bedroom he was ushered into was bright with sunlight filtered through gauzy curtains.

A woman who was bent over the bed adjusting the covers straightened up and turned as she heard Thatcher enter. “Welcome, Mr. Hutton. My name is Irma.”

“Ma’am.”

“Would you care for something to drink?”

“Thank you, but I’m okay for now.”

She gave him an understanding smile. “Then I’ll leave you to your reunion.” As she passed him on her way out of the room, she said, “Bless you for coming.” She and her husband withdrew and closed the door behind them.

Thatcher almost wouldn’t have recognized the person on the bed. His memory was of an average-size man, but one who had seemed larger than life, a man robust enough to fit into the seemingly endless landscape that he’d lived on, worked on, and loved.

Propped against a stack of fluffy pillows, he looked diminished. The stroke had paralyzed his left side and distorted that half of his face. The eye was permanently closed, his mouth drawn downward.

No, Thatcher might not have recognized Mr. Henry Hobson Jr.

But Mr. Hobson recognized him.

His right eye was lit up with joy. He raised his right hand and reached out toward Thatcher. Although his countenance and reduced form were unfamiliar, Thatcher would have known that calloused, crusty hand anywhere. It had taught him how to rope and shoot and brand, how to pack a saddle bag, start a campfire and put it out safely, how to hold a poker hand, tie a necktie, and how to use his table manners. It had patted his shoulder in congratulations for achievements, and had squeezed it with encouragement following failures.

Just about anything worth knowing he had learned from Mr. Hobson, the principal lesson being that a man was only as good as his word. He crossed over to the bed and took Mr. Hobson’s hand in his. “I promised you I’d be back.”

* * *

In his mind, Thatcher had replayed the telephone conversation with Trey Hobson’s secretary, and realized how the condolences he’d extended had been misconstrued as a reference to Mr. Hobson’s debilitating stroke, not to his demise.

The Maxwells told him that following the major stroke, Mr. Hobson had suffered several minor ones, and that his doctor predicted a cerebral “event” from which he wouldn’t recover.

“Irma has nursing experience,” Mr. Maxwell explained. “Several years ago we began making our spare room available to patients in Mr. Hobson’s condition. When he was dismissed from the hospital, we had a vacancy and invited him to move in. His son agreed that being with us was preferable to a nursing home.”

And the kind couple were far preferable to Trey, Thatcher thought.

The Maxwells gave him a bedroom on the second floor and treated him like an honored guest, but largely he was left free to pass the time with Mr. Hobson.

His visit stretched into weeks.

He and his mentor spent hours together in the homey bedroom. For the most part, Mr. Hobson stayed in bed, but occasionally Thatcher would move him into a chair where he had a better view out the window. He couldn’t converse, but he was an attentive listener and expressed himself eloquently by using his right hand to gesture and his right eye to blink twice for yes, once for no.

Thatcher read to him daily, either from the newspaper or from the dime novels he loved about the wild West, cattle drives, and shoot-’em’-ups. Thatcher shared war stories, some funny, some harrowing.

He told Mr. Hobson about his jump from the freight train and the unpredictable turn his life had taken since. He described in detail all the people with whom he’d become involved to one degree or another.

As he talked about them, Thatcher realized that even those with whom he’d barely crossed paths and would never see again had been woven tightly into his memory and would stay there forever.

He got angry all over again when he told Mr. Hobson about Bill’s deception, the selfishness behind it, the betrayal of a man he’d come to respect. Mr. Hobson didn’t immediately respond, and then he moved his right hand laterally, parallel to the ground, as though saying Let it pass.

And of course, Thatcher talked about Laurel. He described her physically but was frustrated by the inadequacy of his words. He groused about her stubborn streak but admitted to Mr. Hobson that he’d lost his heart to her sassiness. He could have sworn the old man chuckled.

Often Thatcher just sat with him, saying nothing, hoping that Mr. Hobson was as content simply being in his presence as much as Thatcher was simply being in his. It was during those quiet times that Thatcher reflected on his experience of the past several months, and began to realize that there might have been a purpose behind everything that had happened, a governing why for that he hadn’t perceived while he was living it.

He wondered if Mr. Hobson, somehow, even in his limited capacity, had influenced that insight.

* * *

One morning, Thatcher asked Mr. Maxwell if he could borrow his car. “I’d like to drive out to the ranch.”

Having spotted the car’s wake of dust from a mile away, Jesse was waiting for it outside the bunkhouse, holding a shotgun across his chest. The dog, who was part wolf, sat growling at his side.

When Thatcher stepped out of the car, Jesse dropped the shotgun, called off the animal, and, although he was well past seventy, ran out to embrace him, thumping him on the back and laughing.

They opened a contraband bottle of mescal and spent the day sharing it and recollections. They laughed with hilarity over some. Others made them pensive or downright sad.

Thatcher was reunited with his saddle. It was on a stand inside the bunkhouse. Thatcher ran his hand over the smooth leather. “It’s never looked better, Jesse. Thank you for keeping it in good condition.”

When the old ranch hand asked about his former boss, Thatcher told him he’d considered packing Mr. Hobson into the car and bringing him along.

“But I think he’s too frail to have made the drive out here.” Thatcher gazed off into the distance, past the empty corrals and cattle pens where the dust had settled for good, and the whoops and hollers of rowdy cowboys would never be heard again. The magnificent span of the Panhandle’s horizon was now interrupted by the silhouettes of drilling rigs. Thatcher added, “And it would have broken his heart.”