Shades of Honor Read Free

with pride. His brother had become a giant of a man. Wider in build than Radford, though an inch or two shorter, Kyle still easily topped six feet. Radford couldn’t begin to imagine the changes he would find in Duke and Boyd.
    Kyle extended his hand. “You’re early.”
    Radford experienced a moment of confusion before it dawned on him that Kyle wasn’t going to welcome him home with the backslapping hug he’d expected. Mile after mile of the trip from Boston, Radford had staved off anxiety with visions of a joyful, rollicking reunion with his brothers.
    Kyle was offering a
handshake
.
    Hope began slipping away like steam from the cooling boiler, but Radford took Kyle’s broad hand in his and gave it a hard shake. What could he expect after being absent since the war? Though he’d come home occasionally during the last five years, he’d never stayed more than a few weeks before his shame drove him away again. It wouldn’t this time, he vowed silently.
    Radford glanced at the mill building. “You’ve made changes while I’ve been away.”
    “We expanded the building and bought a new mill so we could keep up with Tom Drake. You remember Tom?”
    “Of course. Our toughest competitor with the pretty daughter.”
    Kyle nodded, but turned his attention to Rebecca who was peeking at him. A grin climbed his cheek as he studied her. “She resembles her uncle Boyd, but you’d better hope she doesn’t grow up to be as wild as he is.”
    Radford glanced at Rebecca and knew that wildness would be a welcome change from her frightening withdrawal.
    “Come on,” Kyle said, gesturing for Radford to follow him. “I’ll show you the mill.” They entered the building and stopped by the saw where Kyle proudly laid his hand on the heavy iron husk. “This girl has doubled our output. These dual saws chew through twenty thousand feet of timber a day. The smaller saw speeds up our cutting time and allows us to use thinner blades, which means less kerf and sawdust waste.”
    Radford remembered his father’s crude mill. The thought of running the new, powerful machine made his hands itch. A wide leather drive belt wove through a series of pulley wheels and up over a mandrel shaft that was powered by a stationary engine and boiler. A sawdust elevator had also been attached to the mandrel shaft to carry the waste outside where three huge piles spilled across the ground.
    “Are you still selling the sawdust?”
    “Of course,” Kyle said as if it was a dumb question.
    Radford laughed, then scanned the interior of the building. “Why are those logs wet?” he asked, balancing Rebecca on one arm to point at a nearby stack of logs.
    “We rinsed them. It saves the blades from eating dirt so we spend less time sharpening them.”
    No wonder they had grown so much, Radford thought with pride. Fighting the sudden urge to fire up the saws, wrap his hands around the metal levers, and finish slabbing the white pine waiting on the carriage table, Radford throttled back his excitement. Tomorrow, he would do it. He’d stand beside the huge blades and feel the vibrations shimmy his legs. He’d look over and see his brothers and pretend he heard his father’s voice shouting orders in the yard. Then he could silence the other voices and everything would be all right again.
    “Let’s go out through the office so I can lock up,” Kyle said, waving Radford and Rebecca into a room with a thick maple table in the center. The walls were buried behind metal hand files, saw blades, log hooks, and shaving knives. “It's not pretty,” Kyle said, stepping outside and pulling the door closed behind them, “but we’re doing a good business. Since I was left in charge, I did what I thought best.”
    The meaning behind Kyle’s words didn’t elude Radford. He knew he hadn’t been there for his younger brothers when they needed him to run the mill after their father died. The best he’d been able to do was send money home to keep them going. More