“Hey, whoa. Let’snotditch me here, okay?”
Though whale-eyed and blowing hot huffs of air on my face, he’s no longer testing my grip on his hackamore bridle—freezing in place as another bout of thunder rolls through the dark clouds.
Rain litters the canopy overhead, trickling down through the fluttering leaves, until only a few drops crash to the earth. And in the field we just crossed, it comes down in sheets, sideways and hitting the earth with such force it bounces back up. I’ve ridden around this hillside enough to know the trail back to the ranch is treacherous in bad weather—a combination of slick mud and smooth, slippery rockface can spook even the most bombproof horse.
With a hard swallow, I look over at Sandy, catching my reflection in his deep brown eyes. Seems the fear in his dilated pupils is a damn good mirror of my own.
“Fuck,” I mutter, rubbing a clammy hand down the dampdenim stretched over my thighs. “We need to get home somehow…. Maybe if we take it slow, it’ll be fine.”
Standing next to him, I stare at the saddle, racked with a sudden, irrational fear.
It’s not irrational. You don’t know this horse, he could spook and throw you off.
Swallowing my fear, I reach for the saddle horn and step a boot into the stirrup.
You used to spend every free moment in the saddle. You know how to ride. You’ll be fine. Like Lucy used to say: do it afraid.
My right foot anxiously bounces on the ground before I swing it up and over. And I’m in the saddle. Sure, I can’t breathe, and my sternum might be collapsing in on my heart. Black speckles distort my vision, and I can barely get my right boot into the stirrup because my entire leg’s trembling out of control. But I’m here.
Lifting the reins, I encourage Sandy ahead. And for a moment, he obliges without question, until lightning strikes so close I hear the sizzle of electricity and he’s sidestepping through thick forest. I duck to narrowly avoid an oncoming branch, frantically shushing him with hoarse noises that only seem to make the situation worse.
I yank a foot from the stirrup just before his side smacks into a thick pine tree, and I’m out of the saddle faster than a relay horse racer. I nearly lose hold of the reins when he threatens to rear, tossing his head around like he’s headbanging to the drumming thunder.
“Okay, okay…” There’s no convincing him I’m calm, but I cautiously reach to rub his neck anyway. “Let’s walk home.”
I don’t want to think about how many hours it’ll take to get back if we walk, but it’s a better plan than sitting in a clump of trees waiting for somebody to find us. In my experience, nobody ever magically appears when you need them to. I lost myself in that purgatory before—waiting for the help I was too afraid to ask for but assumed people would know Ineeded. So I learned to help myself. I’m the only one I can count on.
It’s a slow start, moving through thick underbrush on foot, tugging a flighty horse behind me with an aching grip on the reins. After about fifteen minutes, and barely any ground covered, I head for the tree line. I’d rather become sopping wet in the storm than trip over a fallen log and break my ankle.
Sandy and I step out into a wet blanket of fog socked in all around us, so dense it cuts the sun, and I genuinely can’t tell whether we spent fifteen minutes in the forest or five hours. No valley or mountain views to indicate how much farther we need to walk. No recognizable boulders or trailheads.
And I don’t know where I am, but it feels like I should know where I am. Everything’s familiar and completely foreign simultaneously.
Reaching a spot where the fog doesn’t lie so heavy on the earth, I’m finally able to get a good look around. And I’m hit by a slug to the chest over the view of a tree just beyond this forested strip. I’d know it anywhere, even though the world around it has grown and changed. New growth, a million tiny blue flowers freckling the soil, and one unmistakable carving etched deep into the bark.
The deep carvings are weathered and smooth, yet everlasting despite the tree’s best efforts to heal itself with a thin sheen of hardened sap. I trace the lines with my fingertip, heart skipping with the reminiscence of Denver’s love-drunk smile as he marked up this tree.
I slowly wet my lips, tasting tears I hadn’t noticed were slipping down my dewy skin. What I would give to be just as sure about our love and our future as I was that day. As sure as Denver is now.
Never loosening my hold on Sandy, I rest my back against the bark and run my free hand through my hair before sinking to the cold grass, inhaling the petrichor and waiting formy heart rate to slow to normal. I’m not sure how long I sit there since every second feels an awful lot like an hour. But eventually the sky’s brighter, the clouds sit a little higher, and the percussion of rain slows to a light tip-tap.
“Think we can go now?” I hesitantly ask Sandy, making no move to actually leave.
The thought of walking back to the ranch exhausts me. The thought of riding back to the ranch by myself…fuck,it terrifies me.
Why does it terrify me?
I study the horse casually grazing on a patch of clover, no longer affected by the storm. He seems okay—surely safe enough to ride. And yet the idea of sliding into the worn leather saddle makes my stomach clench and my lungs collapse.
A leaf twists and twirls through the air, flitting down to land on my shin, and I glance up at the sturdy tree. Standing solo in a field of tiny blue forget-me-nots, the tree stands strong in the worst of storms, cutting the harshest wind. Entirely alone.
My eyes snag on the spot where Denver carved our names.
Denver…Maybe…
I shake the thought aside, though it pops back up less than a second later.
I can ask him for help.
