Valiente whinnied and tossed his head. An answering whinny came from the old Tanner shack near the barn.
Mac dismounted, looped Valiente’s reins around a fencepost, and strode toward the shack. He pushed open the door and saw Shanty.
Will lay on the ground beside the gelding.
When the door to the shack opened, Will sat up with a gasp.
“Are you all right, son?” Mac asked.
Will frowned—he wasn’t Mac’s son. “How’d you find me?”
“Your mother sent me to look for you.”
Will sat silently. He’d known people would search for him, and someone was bound to find him eventually.
Mac sat beside him. “Your mother said you protected her yesterday. I’m proud of you.”
Will rubbed his pockmarks. Mac must not know how ineffectual Will had been, how Mama had beaten Johnson while the man choked him, how Maria had scared the intruder off with the gun. Will had done nothing.
Except find his world destroyed.
Mac sighed. “You learned some things we hoped you’d never find out.”
“You mean things you wanted to hide from me,” Will blurted.
“Has it done you any good to know I’m not your father?” Mac asked.
“So who is?” Maybe Mac would explain what Mama had said.
Mac heaved a deep breath. “This won’t be easy to tell you.” He turned to Will. “Nor for you to hear.”
Will waited. When Mac said nothing, Will croaked out, “I can take it.”
Mac nodded. “All right. Man to man. Here’s what happened. Your mother was raped by three men. Before I met her. One of them fathered you.”
Rape—why hadn’t that occurred to Will? He knew of such evil, but he’d never heard of it happening to any woman he knew. “And Jacob Johnson was one of them?” He felt better about Mama, even as the horror of his own paternity began to sink in. He’d been fathered by a rapist.
“Yes.”
“Who were the others?”
“Jacob’s father Isaac. And a man named Bart Peterson.”
That name Will knew. “Mama’s stepfather.”
“Yes. I told you it’s not a pretty story.”
“What happened to them?”
“The men?” Mac blew out a long breath. “A couple of months after their first attack, I stopped in Arrow Rock where your mother lived. That day, I found the three of them assaulting her again. I shot and killed Isaac Johnson. Jenny shot Jacob in the arm.”
“Is that why his arm doesn’t work right?” Will asked, remembering Johnson’s weak left arm.
“I didn’t know that,” Mac said. “Could be.”
“And Peterson?” Will asked. “He’s still in Arrow Rock, isn’t he?”
“Yes. He told us to leave town, and I took your mother to Independence. She told me the story along the way. I couldn’t leave her alone, so I took her to Oregon with me.”
“Did she want to go?”
Mac smiled wryly and stared toward the cracks in the roof. “I’ve never been sure. But she didn’t have much choice.”
Will looked at Mac, wondering how the love between Mama and Mac had developed. That they loved each other had always been obvious to him. “But she married you?”
Mac shook his head. “Not then. And not before I left the two of you on this claim. But we married when I returned.”
“Then I’m a bastard,” Will said, trying the word on for size.
“You’re my son,” Mac said, putting an arm around Will’s shoulders. “As much as Cal or Nate. I love you as I love them.”
Will shrugged off Mac’s arm. “But you’re not my father, and you don’t even know who is.”
“Come on home, son,” Mac said, standing and holding his hand out to Will.
Will stood without Mac’s help. “Don’t call me that. Don’t say it ever again. I’m not your son.”
