The Return of Max Stonebridge #

It has been a few years since the “retirement”. The day it all changed and he walked away from his life and his badge.

Maxfield Stonebridge walked uneasily through the roads of Strawberry. His senses consumed by the cacophony of the men on horses, the weary travellers driving their carts, the drone of the waterfall and the murmurs of people going about their business.

Max tried to remain uninteresting and invisible. It had been three years since he left it all behind. Now on his return to the frontier, everything seemed so familiar, yet quite alien. Memories flashed as he walked by various buildings that, in what he calls “His past life”, were occupied by friends, and citizens whom he had once interacted with daily as a Sheriff.

Max watched as a group of Lawmen wearing their shiny tin badges strode on through. His mind wandered to the long patrols with his fellow law as they passed from town to town. His thoughts drifted to one in particular.

A sorrowful sigh escaped his lips as her face appeared in his mind’s eye. Her almost parchment white skin accented her piercing, sharp eyes as they gazed back at him from his memories. A warm smile crossed her face and her cheeks blushed. Max’s own mouth creased into a slight smile as he remembered Amber. Her face darkened and disappeared as the sounds of his own cries echoed from his memory when he learned the news of her passing.

His anguish poured forth out of his memories and caused his face to contort into what looked like physical pain. Max shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.

A tear started to form at the corner of his eye. “Am I ready for this?” He asked himself. His uncertainty rising. He looked back toward the lawmen riding away and sighed again.

One thing he knew above all things, that he could never put the badge back on again. The pain and anguish of his “Past life” would consume him, he feared.

He assured himself this was a clean slate. He needed to rebuild his life, and fill the void in his heart left by the badge, and his lost love.

Max had no idea what would come from this. Or if he could heal from the trauma of old, but he would try.