Free A Frontier Christmas by William W. Johnstone

eaten anything at all since they first heard about this.”
    â€œIt’s hard to eat when you’re grieving.” Duff was speaking from experience, recalling how he had felt after his fiancée Skye was killed back in Scotland.
    â€œI wish you would go talk to the mayor. He sets quite a store by you.”
    â€œAll right,” Duff agreed. “Meagan, would you like to come with me?”
    â€œAll right. I don’t know if I can say or do anything that will make them feel better, but I’ll come with you, if you want me to.”
    â€œI do.”
    They walked up the line of vehicles until they reached the lead coach. R.W. was sitting on a stool behind his coach, staring at the horse he had bought for Timmy.
    â€œIt’s a beautiful horse, R.W.,” Duff said.
    â€œYes.” The one-word response was barely audible.
    Duff walked over and squeezed the horse’s ear. The horse lowered his head in appreciation.
    â€œR.W., are you a believing man?” Duff asked.
    â€œI thought I was. Until this happened. Now . . . I don’t know. All I know is that my son and my grandchildren have been taken from me.”
    â€œNo, they haven’t.”
    â€œI know, I know,” R.W. said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’ll see them all in the by-and-by.”
    â€œYou can see them right now.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    Duff leaned back and crossed his arms. “Have you ever heard of a man called Kierkegaard?”
    R.W. looked up. “No, who is he?”
    â€œHe was a writer and a theologian. He wrote once that when we die, we are kept in God’s memory. That’s a pretty powerful thing when you stop to think about it. Is there any particular moment with them that you can recall, right now? A moment that gives you pleasure?”
    â€œYes. The last time they came to visit, we went to Chimney Rock Mountain for a picnic.” Despite his grief, R.W. managed a smile. “Timmy scooped up a bunch of tadpoles and started chasing Suzie with them.”
    â€œAccording to Kierkegaard, that moment is in God’s memory. That means that all you have to do is think about it, and as you are remembering, John, Nora, Suzie, and Timmy are actually reliving that very moment, right now.”
    â€œHe hasn’t caught her yet,” R.W. said. “Timmy’s chasing her, but he hasn’t caught her.”
    It didn’t escape Duff’s notice that R.W. said Timmy “is” chasing her, rather than he “was” chasing her.
    Duff smiled, nodded, then turned to walk back to his own coach. Meagan, who had watched the exchange between them without offering any word of her own, followed him.
    â€œDuff?” R.W. called.
    The Scotsman turned back toward him.
    â€œThanks.”
    Duff nodded again.
    â€œHow did you do that?” Meagan asked.
    â€œHow did I do what?”
    â€œHow did you manage to get a smile from R.W. after what he has been through?”
    â€œI just gave him something positive to think about.”
    â€œDo you believe that? I mean that, once someone has died, all you have to do is think about them, and they are there, just on the other side of your thought?”
    â€œAye, ’tis one of my strongest beliefs,” Duff said.
    â€œThat is beautiful. I’ll have to remember that.”
    Crowley’s Gulch
    â€œYeah, it’s still there,” Jesse said, pointing to a small log cabin.
    â€œI’ll be damned. I didn’t think it would be here,” T. Bob said.
    â€œI told you it would be. It’s been five years since we last seen it, but it’s well built. It’ll more ’n likely be here a hunnert years from now.”
    â€œWho owns it?” Sunset asked.
    â€œDon’t nobody own it no more,” Jesse said. “It was built by a trapper named Crowley fifty years or so ago. That’s how come they call it Crowley’s Gulch. He’s been gone for a long