Words Never Spoken by Buckskin

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Remembering Maria

Word Count 1910

Thanks to Catherine and Chris for the beta

Part of the Conversations With A Gunfighter Series

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Dawn broke in soft yellow light that melted down the mountainside, signaling a glorious day.  A hawk screamed as it rode the thermals, higher and higher, before veering to the left, then vanishing from sight. 

The solitary man rested on the rock as his horse grazed the sweet, high-country grass.  Johnny’s gaze swept the panoramic scene before him; the vista left him to volley between sheer joy and anguish.  This was his birthright.  It was home, a home he should have shared with his family, but that had not happened.  Johnny reached for his hat and tipped it off to slide down his back, suspended by the stampede strings, brushed the hair from his eyes, and sighed.

He thought of his mother, the beautiful Maria, and his heart shattered for the millionth time.  Shouldn’t there be scars by now?  Shouldn’t the hurt fade away?  How long had it been?  The pain shouldn’t be that sharp after all this time.  But it was.  Every time he came to that place, Johnny battled the conflict that assaulted him. 

There were no distractions, nothing to take his mind off the tragedy that had happened; he wished the hawk would catch his anguish in those deadly talons and carry it away, far into the clouds… if there had been clouds.

Mama, you should be here with us.  Then he turned his attention to the mountains and valleys that surrounded him.

Lancer.  It was beautiful.  What were the words Teresa had said when he and Scott first laid eyes on the estancia from the ridge high above?  “Lancer, the most beautiful place in the whole wide world!”  And she was right.  But Maria wasn’t there to share in the joy, and there were days when Johnny fought the anxiety that settled in his heart.  Today, he fought against those emotions, not wanting to stain the morning with the darkness that his mother’s suffocating absence triggered.

Johnny took a cleansing breath.  There were days when he just needed to start over, and he decided that today was one of them.

A smile twitched the corner of his mouth, thinking how Maria would have reveled in this time, these early hours, this beginning of a new day.  A fresh, clean page of life here at Lancer waiting to be written.  A place she loved, according to the things she’d noted on papers, papers she kept tucked away in an ornate box, hidden, awaiting the perfect time to read again and again. 

“Wish you could see this, Mama.  You’d ‘a liked this spot.  I asked Murdoch if he’d ever brought ya here.  He didn’t remember, but if he had ta guess, he said he didn’t.  But I sure can feel ya sittin’ here next ta me.  It woulda been nice ta have all of us together; the mountains are pretty and the valley below grows the greenest grass in the San Joaquin.

“I come up here a lot, mostly by myself, but sometimes Scott or Murdoch is here with me.  But what I’d like the most is ta share this place with you.  In the spring, wild flowers cover the ground; there’s patches where ya can’t see the grass cuz there’s so many. 

“I remember ya liked roses, an’ when T’resa found out, she planted them in her garden.  Sure smells nice; on hot summer nights, the air is sweet with their scent an’ it reminds me of you.”

The call from the hawk drew his sight skyward; the raptor drifted effortlessly across the vast expanse of blue.  The ultimate freedom.

Then Johnny’s thoughts returned to his mother; her comforting hugs, her singing to him when he was sick or hurt, and the brief times she would help him learn letters and numbers.  They were cherished, unforgettable times, and they were gone too soon.  Taken from them all in a violent death.

A cool morning breeze ruffled the thick, dark hair and caressed his cheek, soft as a mother’s touch.  A butterfly hovered over a bunch of white and yellow daisies, then flew close to Johnny’s face, lightly stroking his cheek with delicate wings.

“Was that you, Mama?  Cuz if it was, I miss it.  I miss your touch; you had the best hugs, an’ I miss them more’n I can tell you.  How’d ya like that?  The big, bad gunfighter missin’ his mama’s hugs…  Don’t tell anyone I said that, huh?  It’s bad for my reputation.  Oh, hell… sorry, I did it again.  You could yell it from the highest mountain top, an’ I wouldn’t mind.  I’m proud ta say it, Mama, an’ I wish you were here right now ta give me another one ‘a those hugs.

“We never had much time tagether ta talk; I was too young ta understand what happened, then, you died an’ I didn’t have any answers.  Even a kid as young as I was, I needed ta know.  I wish I could roll back time; change everything; maybe I coulda spared you all that heartache an’ abuse, but dammit...” and suddenly the words stopped.

“Lo siento, Mama, I know ya don’t like me talkin’ that way.  Pido disculpas.”  (I apologize)  Then Johnny chuckled.  “Do ya remember washin’ my mouth out with soap for talkin’ bad when I was a little kid?  Dang, that was some nasty-tastin’ stuff!”

The chuckle faded as he thought about that disciplinary action, then honestly wished with his heart and soul for one last incident, one more minute with Mama, despite how bad that soap was.

A sparkle graced his eyes, remembering that salty mouth of his had gotten him into so much trouble.

Another chuckle escaped him, thinking his mother wasn’t the only one who didn’t care for that mouth.  “Murdoch don’t like me talkin’ like that either, but he’s never threatened me with soap.  Likely it’s cuz he knows I can outrun him.”

Murdoch.  It’d been a…  challenge, sometimes grueling, trying to adapt to Murdoch’s demanding ways.  Rules, there were always rules for everything.

“It’s takin’ time ta settle inta this family stuff.  Me an’ Murdoch, well, you know how he can be, an’ ya know how I can be, but it’s gettin’ better.  Scott’s always puttin’ himself between the Ol’ Man an’ me, tryin’ ta stop any arguments before they get ta be arguments.

“Mama, did you know about Scott?  It seems like things didn’t go very well for Murdoch.  I know he tried ta get Scott from his grandfather, but the ol’ goat fought him an’ threatened ta drag him an’ Scott inta court if Murdoch didn’t give it up.  Murdoch didn’t have the money for that, an’ it had ta break his heart, but he decided ta let it go.  Scott stayed in Boston an’ didn’t get ta Lancer until the same time I did.

“I wish you coulda met him, you’d woulda liked him.  He’s a good man, an’ he’s smart, too.  Went ta one ‘a those fancy schools in Boston.  It makes me laugh when I think of the trouble me an’ Scott woulda got into if we’d been raised tagether.  Probably been a well-worn path ta the woodshed, huh?

“He’s got… heart.  Yeah, he’s got a big heart.  Remember me askin’ ya for a brother?”  Johnny chuckled, “Guess I embarrassed you in fronta them other women; I don’t think they heard me, but I know you did!  Ya cuffed my ear.

“Well, it was worth the wait.  Ol’ Boston’s one helluva… lo siento, Ol’ Boston’s one heck of a big brother.  He does a pretty good job ‘a keepin’ me outa trouble.  Well, kinda.  He does his best; let’s leave it at that.  I wish you’d ‘a been here ta raise him; maybe he woulda liked eatin’ all the spicy food you woulda made.  The Eastern Dandy’s mouth can’t take the heat.  It’s funny that he doesn’t believe me when I tell him the spice is mild.  But we keep a lotta milk on hand for him.”

Memories swirled in his brain, sweet memories of incidents he’d give anything to repeat, to know she was close, to feel her gentle touch and hear her soothing words.  Words not spoken in years.

“Remember how you’d sing ta me when I was little?  You’d pull me onto your lap, wrap me in a big hug, an’ sing; your voice soundin’ like soft rain.  We didn’t get ta spend much time tagether; you… leftme when I was ten, but we made the best of the time we had. 

“I’ll never forget when we watched the sun set over that lake, turnin’ it ta yellow, orange, an’ red lookin’ like it was on fire; ya pointed ta the shooting star; it was faint, but we could see it.  Then it faded out ta nothin’.  I thought it was some kind of magic, that you made it happen for me, an’ I felt I was the luckiest kid in the world having a mama who could do things like that… just for me.

“I miss you, Mama, more’n I can say.  We both got cheated, ya know?  You were supposed ta grow old here with Murdoch, Scott, an’ me.  But none of us got that chance ta live like we shoulda — ta live like a family.  Maybe one ‘a the things that makes it so hard without ya is that it’s so pretty here, an’ sometimes knowing you’re not with us, makes it feel… empty. 

“So many places on Lancer take your breath away, with each turn in the trail, or every mountain I cross an’ ride through the valley beyond, you should be here with us… you should be there.  You deserved more’n life gave you.”

It was time to tell her those words, the ones he’d never spoken.  It was hard pulling the air into his lungs, past the lump in his throat that seemed to block the passageway.  It was a battle, but air finally flowed.

“I need ta tell ya somethin’, Mama.  I found that bastard that did that to ya, and I killed him.  I ain’t gonna apologize that time for cussin’, cuz that’a what he was, a bastard, plain an’ simple.  But he paid the highest price he could for what he did.  He wasn’t worth much alive, an’ less dead, but he’ll never hurt anyone else like he did you.  Ever.  But it don’t bring you back; it won’t ever make up for what he took from us.  But I ain’t sorry for puttin’ that slug in his head.  Not even a little.

“That’s probably not anything you wanted ta hear, but it was the only thing I could do ta honor you.  It gives me comfort ta know he can’t do it ta no one else.”

Was it enough?  Would Maria hear the truth in his heart?  He hoped she would. 

It was June, and the day was hot.  There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, ensuring no chance for rain.  But that was alright.  As he talked with Maria, the void in his heart began to close; the anxiety he felt earlier when he first arrived at this beautiful place began to fade.  His smile reached into his soul, and for the first time that day, he felt contentment wrap around him, or was it a hug from Maria’s spirit?

And Johnny Madrid Lancer felt peace.

~end~
July 2025

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