The Long Ride Home Read Online Free PDF

help you track down your dad.”
    Skye’s heart took off and her gaze darted from Millie’s eyes to the letters in Millie’s hands.
    “These are all letters I wrote to your dad and Charlie Hamlock—the other inmate I knew.” Millie flipped through the pile. Turning the last letter over, she handed it to Skye.
    Skye saw that it had been addressed to her dad. “But why aren’t any of these opened?”
    “Remember I told you that your dad wouldn’t see me or write? And remember I had said that I had written to Charlie for awhile, but he stopped writing?”
    “Yep,” Skye said.
    “Well, these are all letters I had intended to mail, but I never did. I finally decided it was no use. Why I kept these letters all this time is beyond me.”
    “So how can they help Skye?” Emma asked as she examined a letter.
    “Look on the back,” Millie said. “It’s not really the letters that will help. It’s what’s on the envelope.”
    “There’s some kind of number here,” Emma said. “Is that important?”
    “You bet your booties,” Millie said. “The average person can’t just decide to send a letter to someone in the pen. The inmate will never get the letter unless that code number—it’s called the ‘inmate number’—is on the back. Without that, the prison returns the letter without the inmate ever seeing it.”
    Skye looked at the envelope and read, “LX-4102. So this was, or is, my dad’s number.”
    “Yep, and here’s Charlie’s number, too.” Millie handed Skye another envelope.
    Skye read, “QH-9332.”
    “Hey, Mom, that’s super,” Emma said. “Skye can write and see if she gets a response—from either of them.”
    “I’m going to write, too, and see what happens,” Millie said. “If either of them is there yet, they just might write back this time.”
    “Are the numbers ever changed?” Skye asked.
    “No,” Millie said. “I remember Charlie telling me that early on. He joked that he was stuck with that number for life.”
    “Is there anything in the letters that might be important?” Emma asked. “Or are they private and you don’t want us to read them?”
    “It’s okay if you read them, but there’s nothing in any of them that will help Skye,” Millie said. “Skye, keep one letter from your dad and one from Charlie.”
    “What if they’re not at that prison anymore?” Emma asked.
    “Well, the way I understand it, the prison will forward the mail to the person if they know where he is,” Millie said. “They’d definitely know if he’s in another pen or at a halfway house. After that, I’m not sure if they keep track. So, if the letters come back—”
    “I’ll be up against another stone wall,” Skye said.

Chapter six
    S kye hurried to the barn, and after she checked on Champ and gave him a big hug, she found Mrs. Chambers in a stall grooming Pepsi.
    “Mom,” Skye said, rushing to her foster mother’s side, “Look what Millie gave me.”
    Mrs. Chambers poked back her Stetson and wiped her brow. “What do you have there, honey?”
    Skye waved the letters in front of Mrs. Chambers. “She gave me real old letters that have some kind of inmate code on them for my dad and Charlie. She said if I write to them, they might write back. That is, if they’re still in prison.”
    Mrs. Chambers took the envelopes from Skye and examined both sides. “My, that seems like a very good lead, Skye,” she said. “But what if they’re not there anymore?”
    “Millie said that if the prison knows where the released inmates live, it will forward the mail to their new address. I want to write to them the first chance I get. But I’m not sure what to say. Will you help me?”
    “Sure, the first chance we get.” Mrs. Chambers handed the letters back to Skye. “Right now we’ve got to bed down these horses, and by then it will be suppertime.”
    “Mom,” Skye said, “can we pray about this? If God’s in this, then it will happen, don’t you think?”
    “I agree,”