Henry stood looking down at the grass for a long time, wanting to say more but suddenly no longer feeling the need. “I guess it’s time for me to go now.” He placed his hat back on his head and adjusted it slightly. “I’ll come again when I can.” He wiped his face again with the handkerchief, and then returned it to his back pocket. “I hope wherever you are, you’re both safe and warm.” He smiled. “I love you both.”

And with that, Henry turned and made his way back to the truck. Jessie reached up and hugged him when he got to her, then gently wiped a tear that remained on his cheek with her hand, and smiled reassuringly. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I am now.”

Jessie kissed him on his cheek, went around to the driver’s side of the truck, and climbed in. Henry opened the passenger side door, then looked back toward the graves. There, standing next to one of the old trees, he could have sworn he saw Annie, her arm around Josh, and both were smiling and waving to him. He smiled back and climbed in the truck. When he looked back, they were gone.

Jessie took Henry on a drive down the main street of his old hometown. It hadn’t changed much, although things in Humboldt never really did, which was one of the things Henry liked about the place. The biggest change Henry could see was the one stoplight in the middle of town where there used to only be a stop sign. It made him smile—the thought of how the sleepy little town putting in a stoplight must have been a big deal for the local population.

“Not many people in town today,” Henry commented after noticing the lack of cars and pedestrian traffic. “I wonder if somethin’s goin’ on somewhere.”

“I don’t know.” Jessie drove out to the end of Main and turned on Brine, the road that led to the rodeo grounds. At least a hundred cars were parked on both sides of Brine and as they got close to the entrance to the grounds, they could see countless more cars in the parking lots and around the buildings.

“Must be a rodeo, or horse sale or somethin’,” Henry remarked.

“We don’t really have anywhere to go right now,” Jessie said, turning into the main entrance. “Why don’t we go see what’s going on?”

“I don’t know, Jess,” Henry protested weakly.

“Oh come on…it’ll be fun.”

“Gonna be hard-pressed to find a place to park.”

“I don’t know,” Jessie smiled. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.” They took a right past the office, went past the grandstands, and then took a left at the concession stand.

“Looks like the whole damn town is here,” Henry commented, looking at all the cars that were parked in every nook and cranny. Jessie drove slowly on, and found an empty parking space right next to where the event was taking place. Getting out of the truck, they followed a young couple, townsfolk by the looks of them, toward a large crowd. Stepping around the corner of Barn E, they came on a crowd of nearly two thousand people standing in front of a big white building set back from the road. There was a sign above the door on the front of the building that was covered by a large white cloth that rippled in the breeze, and a stage under it with three men and two women, all wearing jeans, white shirts and green ties symbolic of 4-H leaders, sitting on chairs behind a podium with a microphone.