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and Dad raise you. One day, you had one of your many major fits, snagged one of the horses, and bolted. The horse threw your bony ass, and you banged your head real good on the fence post on the way to meet the ground. That’s how we figured you lost your memory.”
    “Good Lord! I didn’t know. God, Harvey, I’m so sorry. Why would your folks ever consent to taking me in? Why did they keep me? Why didn’t you kick my ass for making you give up your education? Did I suddenly become my now charming self after nearly cracking my skull open? I thought you said that I lost my memory because of trauma?”
    “Smacking your head against a fence post is traumatic,” Harvey laughed, and then raised his hand to stop the barrage of questions that Dalian was hurling in his direction. “After your fall, you did change. Maybe losing your memory was a good thing, because you were a lot easier to handle afterward. Downright friendly. Also, I fairly begged Mom and Dad not to dump you at the closest orphanage. You see, I remembered your mom from when we were kids, back when we first met. Remember I told you that she was married to the fifty-year-old grandfather figure? She sure had changed a lot from when she was a kid,” Harvey whispered longingly, and then shook his head to get his thoughts back on track. “Anyway, I owed your momma one from back then. A big one. That’s why I couldn’t kick your butt for being a pain and why I begged my folks to let you stay.”
    “How could this possibly get any more complicated?” Dalian shook his head, bemused.
    Harvey snorted. “Oh, believe-you-me, it can. You see, I wouldn’t even have been around to help raise you if it wasn’t for your mom. I did something stupid, fell into the river, and would have drowned had a gangly fifteen-year-old girl not jumped in after me.”
    “My mom.”
    “Yeah, your mom.”
    “What stupid thing did you do?”
    “I stole into my dad’s liquor cabinet. Decided that, at eleven years old, I was man enough to take a swig or two – or ten. Then decided that I could swim – which I couldn’t. So, when that same gangly fifteen-year old girl returned over a decade later, son in tow, and asked for their help, I wouldn’t let my mom and dad say no. Not that they would have. They felt obligated also – for my life. “A life for a life”, they said.”
    “I guess I owe you one then as well.”
    “You’ve already repaid me – a thousand times over.”
    “I don’t see how you figure that? What you did for me and mom...”
    “Don’t you remember our reunion thirteen years ago?”
    “Oh, yeah, that.”
    “Yeah, that.”
    “You thought you were man enough to handle a swig or two – or ten – of whiskey, and big enough to take on ten equally drunk cowhands.”
    “Yeah, losing your wife and kid will make you crazy.”
    “I know.”
    “I know you do, but if you hadn’t magically showed up that day and kicked ass for me, I probably would have been buried next to my wife. I never did figure out how you knew where I was.”
    “Your parents told me.”
    “Ah. Well, you know the rest. You started this spread and asked me to come work for you. Helping you build this place and keep it running, kept me going all these years. You may not have realized it at the time, kid, but if you hadn’t brought me here to work with you, I probably would have gotten into another bar room brawl eventually and ended up with my head bashed in.”
    “What gets me is that I’ve known you nearly my entire life and you never mentioned any of this.”
    “I promised your mom that I wouldn’t, and that I’d keep you safe.”
    “And ignorant?”
    “And ignorant. She figured the two went hand-in-hand. Of course I never expected...”
    “That I’d go back?” Dalian interrupted. “That’s why you seemed so surprised when I told you I was leaving for the reservation. Not because you were concerned that I was abandoning the ranch, but because...”
    “I wasn’t sure