Gavin Beeman tended to his father's garden. He was so careful in the water he spent for each row of crop so that he wasted none of the precious water from the baskets that was allocated for his father's acreage. The garden might not prove to be as green as Colt might have hoped. The livestock might remain too skinny to ever satisfy Colt's longing. Gavin remained proud all the same. His father's homestead might always remain windy and dry. The land might always remained rocky. Yet they had established a hold upon a planet they called Sutherland, and that hold was enough to make the ghost of their leader, mentor and prophet Zeb Griffin happy.
Gavin hoped his father would feel that pride whenever he might return home. Gavin suspected his father had only gone on search for a new plot upon which to erect a new homestead. Gavin thought his father might have gone on search for a homestead where Gavin himself might raise walls of his own making. Gavin believed his father had always been an unselfish man.
And if trouble found Colt Beeman, Gavin knew his father had that gun upon his hip for protection.
It was all a settler who considered him or herself a student of Old Zeb could ask for. For the sake of the aliens that lived somewhere in the planet's rocky hills and mountains, Gavin hoped no harpie challenged his old man to water.