“I’ll get my car,” Amanda decided, turning for the door and her keys.
Lee followed right on her heels. “No! You won’t reach him in time. You know how that road is, Amanda. It’s twisty and narrow, and the rain’s made it too slick.” Just inside the door, she grabbed Amanda’s arm. “Grayboy,” she said. “He can get me across that meadow faster than Jake can take the turns. I’ll head Jake off.”
“Lee, it’s a mess up there. You can’t really outrun a truck.”
“It's not even a fourth of the distance,” she said. “And Grayboy’s still the fastest thing on four legs. Please, Amanda.”
Amanda spent precious seconds vacillating. Finally, she nodded. “Come on,” she commanded, shoving her out the door. “I’ll follow Jake in my Jeep. And be careful!” she yelled to the girl’s fleeing back. “It’s getting dark!”
As she turned out into the drive, Amanda saw Lee swing onto Grayboy’s bare back and spur the horse into a full gallop up the meadow. The sun teetered along the edges of the mountain, throwing the valley into shadow. Water glistened on the grass, and the last of the storm clouds blotted out the other half of the sky. A dazzling sunset, like all sunsets in Wyoming. Amanda never noticed.
The rain had left the road slick and dangerous. Jake fish-tailed the truck a couple of times turning onto the mountain road that led up to the cabin. He didn’t see the deer skitter back into the woods to his left, or the hawk make its last turns for the evening high over his head. He didn’t see the sun strike sparks off the gleaming white snow on the mountains or the gem-blue sky west of the last clouds. All he saw was the look in Lee’s eyes.
The horror. The confusion. The betrayal.
He’d done that to her. He’d done it year after year, lying to her, breaking her fragile trust as surely as if he’d stolen something away. The fact that it hadn’t been his choice didn’t matter.
He couldn’t face her again. He couldn’t face Amanda, knowing that he’d left her to clean up his mess. She’d probably held Lee in her arms while she’d told her about her brother’s little problem. She’d soothed and instructed, as compassionate and pragmatic as always. Taking over the job that had always been Jake’s. Assuming the privilege he’d always cherished more than any other. Because he hadn’t been there. Because he’d been the problem.
Jake rubbed at his face, at his eyes that burned unbearably. He slammed through the gears and skidded along sharp curves, the truck protesting like a freighter in a storm. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. He just had to get away. He had to get up to that meadow where no one else walked, where the old dreams still lived. He should have gone up on Buck, but Clovis would have been in the stables with all his questions and assumptions. Buck had stayed in his stall and Jake had taken the truck.
It would be dark by the time he got up to the cabin. Too dark to go in where Amanda’s aroma, her books and her dulcimer would keep him company. He’d be fingering his memories in there, remembering what that comforter had felt like against his back when he’d had her in his arms.
He couldn’t bear that he’d lost the peace of that cabin by finding happiness there. Even so, it was the only place he knew to go. The only isolation that would suffice. So today he would settle for the meadow.
Almost too late, he slammed on his brakes rounding a corner. There was a slow-moving pickup ahead of him. The truck whined in protest as Jake geared down, riding his gas and brake pedal unmercifully, edging too close to the slower truck in front. He was usually a careful driver. He saw no sense in risking his neck or anybody else’s on a road, when the feeling of speed was much more satisfying on a horse.
Tonight was different. Tonight, he wasn’t in the mood to share the road. He wasn’t in the mood for tact or understanding or common sense. Which was why he needed to be alone.
Which was why he’d needed to run.
An addiction. Amanda had been right. Hiding his disability was an addiction, consuming more and more of his life until there just wasn’t anything else left. It ate away freedom and made a joke of choice. Every day the lies that surrounded his deception got a little bigger, that supported it got a little stronger, until they were prison walls no man could scale, and Jake was left with nothing but the taste of futility in his mouth.
And once in, there was no way out. He’d met the face of humiliation once; he didn’t have the courage to do it again.
And so he ran. And he’d keep on running the rest of his life, from Amanda and Lee and Zeke and Gen, until he’d end up alone and frightened and frozen on that ranch with no way out.
He noticed the car behind him just as he finally lost patience and pulled out to pass the truck. The car was coming on even faster than he was. Jake’s smile was grim. Maybe somebody else had worse news than his. Well, they wouldn’t catch up. By the time they wanted to pass him, he’d be on the service road that led to the cabin. Another two turns and he’d arrive at the bridge over Parson’s Creek.
He already had his blinker on when he saw the sign. A crude cardboard square hung to a light post with big scrawled letters. Probably somebody with a lost cat. Behind him the approaching car was flashing its brights. Jake figured the driver had just come up to that other truck back there. He took half a second to notice and wonder what kind of luck he’d have getting around where the only shoulder was a steep grade straight down the hill. When he turned back, it was too late.
“No!” he screamed, jamming on the brakes. The truck spun into an arc on the blacktop, skidding over toward the steep drop to the right. He jerked the wheel hard, trying to miss her, trying to send the truck right over the side if he could just miss her.
He missed her. It didn’t matter. Somehow Lee had appeared in the middle of the road seated atop Grayboy. Waving frantically at him. Yelling. The sudden appearance of the truck around the bend spooked the horse. The screech of tires sent him straight up into the air.
Jake battled the truck to a stop inches from the horse. He pulled the door open even before he’d stopped, trying to get to Lee. Trying to stop it from happening.
“Lee!”
She scrabbled to stay upright. Grayboy’s shoes slid across the slick road. His forelegs flailed in the air. His whinny was shrill and terrified. Lee fought him, trying to regain balance. Jake ran for them both.
“Jake!” was all she was able to scream before the two of them toppled backward into the yawning hole in the road.
***
The hospital was too bright, too noisy and impersonal. Amanda hated it. She hated the brisk nurses and the stern doctors and the machinery that kept her from Lee. She hated most of all the lights that betrayed just what kind of toll this was taking on Jake.
He sat for a few minutes and then he paced. Then he sat again, rubbing at his face as if he wanted to abrade something away. Drinking cup after cup of coffee and then crushing the plastic cups in his hands. Blaming himself, torturing himself for what had happened.
