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Lorna hesitated and finally accepted the risk of being rebuffed again She didn’t have herherwith her father

When she entered the parlor, she saw Benteen standing next to the boxes of personal belongings that she and her iven them permission to remove the personal articles from the house They had kept them here for Benteen’s return

Lorna was struck by how old Benteen appeared His sun-browned features looked haggard and drawn, showing an age that came from brutal experience rather than the accumulation of years Even when the dirt and dust from the trail ashed away, it would still be there

Lorna felt dreadfully innocent and naive How foolish she had been to think she knew the words that would comfort him, when Benteen had seen so much more than she had What did she know about death and hardship? It had all happened on the periphery of her life

His dusty, loned hat was held at his side The tight hold of his gloved fingers was curling the stained bri on top of the folded clothes and various other articles that had belonged to his father Lorna crossed the rooaze wandered over the jacket, stretched tautly across the wide set of his shoulders The air was almost electrified with his tension

“We tried to find you when your father died,” she told hilance “Mr Boston sent out a couple of his men, but they weren’t able to locate you”

“I don’t iine he tried too hard” Benteen’s voice was stiffly dry as he continued to stare at the tintype

“Daddy said it would be hard to find anybody in that rough country,” Lorna lanced at the picture of the wole “That’s your hborsit So many had come to the funeral and offered their sympathy that she didn’t recall which one “She was very beautiful”

“Yes” It was a clipped answer

In an effort to understand what Benteen was feeling, Lorna tried to put herself in his place, i what it would have been like to be raised without athe one parent that remained She had been so loved by both her ine a life without them

“Your , didn’t she?” she coht talk about his rief for his father bottled inside him

When Benteen swiveled to look at her, Lorna was shocked at the bitter hate in his dark eyes “She isn’t dead” Hisanimal “She ran off with another man and left us”

“I didn’t know” Lorna recoiled a little froiving

That look was finally directed at the daguerreotype “Pa kept waiting for her to come back, but she never did” The pitch of his voice was absolutely flat, containing no emotion “He never heard from her once in all these years, but he waited anyway” There was a slight tre the picture It was in his low voice, too, when Benteen spoke again—a treer “He doesn’t have to wait anymore”

A s in the fireplace to take the nip out of the springtiuerreotype and carved wood frame into the fireplace Glass splintered and broke as it crashed against the andirons holding the s Lorna flinched in shock, and recovered irab for the iron poker and rescue the picture before it caught fire