Blair
The air’s still and quiet for the first time all morning, thanks to the seven children under the age of ten who turned the clinic into a playground while I gave their sweet, tired mother a Pap test—and twenty minutes relaxing alone in my office with a coffee from the machine Denver bought.
Now my brain’s fried, and it’s not even ten o’clock. I wheel my desk chair over to the new mini-fridge again, grabbing an individually wrapped chocolate and pushing myself back to my desk. Popping the treat into my mouth, I stare at the X-ray results in front of me for a middle-aged patient who’s been complaining about hip pain. I’m trying to do my work, truly, but my eyes refuse to focus and my brain rejects any words I manage to read. So I glide back over to the fridge and try again.
Rolling my neck, I crack my knuckles and reach for my phone. Clearly work isn’t happening today, and I desperately need out of my head.
: Hey, does that offer still stand for me to borrow a horse?
I toss the phone down on the desk and shuffle through papers, trying to look busy even though nobody’s here to notice. I could be sleeping at my desk and it wouldn’t matter. I glance at my phone, huffing over the fact that Denver hasn’t texted me back within two seconds of receiving my message. After our long conversation the morning after the wedding, he’s been even more adamant that I do some self-care, so I was expecting him to jump at this opportunity.
I’m swiping an obscene amount of chocolate wrappers into the trash can, silently cursing Denver for buying them, when my phone buzzes.
Denver: Always. Grab the buckskin in paddock six. I’m pretty far out, so I can’t join you, though.
Denver: Think you remember how to tack up?
: Bet I can saddle a horse faster than you can
Denver: Loser gives a BJ
: Sounds like a win for both of us either way
Shutting my laptop, I grab the light hoodie from the back of my chair and head out. It’s finally a slightly cooler day, but the sun’s shining. The perfect weather to clear my head somewhere on the back of a horse. Get a little taste of Hart circa mid-2000s, before adult life stamped out my spirit. Now I’m back home, eager to pick up the fragments of my old self scattered around Wells Canyon like puzzle pieces. And I might finally be ready to let Denver help put me back together.
After a quick stop at home for a pair of jeans and my old boots, I’m flying up the mountain with the windows down and the playlist Denver made for me when we were kids blasting into the midsummer air.
—
“Buckskin in paddock six,” I mutter to myself, standing outside the barn and staring at pen after pen of horses. “Why do they need so many damn horses?”
I squint, counting away from the barn. Okay. No. There’s nothing but a sea of bay horses in the pen six away. Okay. Closest to the barn?
That really feels like the most ass-backward way they could possibly do it, but truthfully, I wouldn’t put it past them to number the paddocks in the dumbest way possible. I mean, clearly they didn’t do it the way any normal person would, or my first guess would’ve been correct.
There is a buckskin gelding in the pen closest to me, so I walk to the gate, halter swinging at my side. Given the way he saunters over immediately, this must be the horse Denver was talking about taking.
“Hey, bud,” I say softly, letting him greet me before opening the gate and walking in. “Wanna go for an adventure? It’s been a while, so go easy on me.”
I lead him over to the barn, get him ready, then take an embarrassing amount of time to find the right-sized saddle and get it on him. Thank God Denver isn’t here, because he’d never let me live this down. Odessa could probably beat me in a race.
“I forgot to ask Denver what your name is, but I can’t just call you ‘hey you’ all day…. I mean, I guess I could, but that feels ridiculous. So I’ll call you Sandy for today, okay?” I settle into the saddle, getting acquainted with the feeling and making sure Sandy feels good about it.
I might’ve been a bit spoiled with Chief. I could do anything I wanted with that horse—there was mutual trust and love. And I was double-spoiled, because I had Lucy Wells to show me the ropes and help train my horse. But Sandy is one of many horses in the remuda, and he’s likely only used to Denver.
So we start slowly, walking across the ranch to a trail I know well. One that switchbacks up the mountainside, leading to the upper hayfields. From there, it branches to the lake, the upper part of Timothy River, unending pasture, and beyond for infinity. If you head in the right direction, you can ride for days into the middle of nowhere. No roads, no signs of civilization.
Sandy hikes the steep terrain in a series of grunts and huffs, shrinking the ranch buildings with every step closer to heaven. The scent of cattle slowly dissipates, replaced with cut hay and summer air. I’m breathing the deepest I have in ages by the time we reach the top, and I lean forward to give Sandy a loving stroke on the neck.
Shutting my eyes while we cross the open field, I let my mind think of absolutely nothing. Nothing but the way the sun feels on my face, and the summer breeze lifting up the ends of my hair, and the steady movement of the horse under me. Everything about this little slice of heaven is astonishingly poetic—something I forgot to miss while I was so busy missing everything else about this place. And I don’t bother stopping the tears or wiping them before they fall.
I also don’t check the time or touch my phone in my saddlebag. I simply ride and talk to Sandy, treating the saddle like a therapist’s couch. “The thing is, I don’t know what it’s like to rely on someone, because I don’t ask for it. My sister always needed help from my parents growing up, so I didn’t ask. I didn’t know how to ask for help, and when the time came when I desperately needed it, Denver didn’t know. Because how could he? And yet I blamed him….”
We stop at the river so Sandy and I can both have a drink in the shade. I need something to soothe my sore throat from talking so much. And I scoop glacier-fed water into my cupped hands to splash away the tear streaks down my cheeks before climbing back into the saddle. My legs ache from going so long without riding, but the warmth in my chest keeps me pushing on.
“I love my career choice, and I loved most of my life in Vancouver. It was just missing something. And I shrugged that off for years, going back to school for a master’s degree, dating people casually, signing up for team sports. Searching for something to make me feel like myself.”
We cross at a shallow section of the river and continue along a trail weaving among thick trees. The air has a sudden coolness to it that I assume is from being so deep in a thicket and close to the river. “All of the people and things and prescription medications couldn’t fill the depressing-as-fuck emptiness. Between you and I…getting dicked down in a small town hasn’t magically cured all my problems, but I feel more like the person I want to be than I have in a long time.”
We carry on past the spot where we spread Grandpa Wells’s ashes years ago—a cliffside overlooking the entire valley. On a clear day, you can see into town and well beyond, but dense, dark clouds seem to have settled in the valley during our ride. I smile at the indication of rain cloaking the mountain range beyond the ranch. Farmers pray for rain during a normal year, but a particularly dry summer like the one we’ve had elevates that to a new level. It’s not simply about losing crops or struggling to water your animals. It’s about losing everything with a single spark turned deadly forest fire.
“Let’s get home, Sandy.” I nudge his sides and start back down the mountain.
Within minutes, thunder’s rolling down the valley, and Sandy’s ears perk at the crashing roar. I gnaw the inside of my cheek, trying to remember if there’s a faster route home rather than going back the way we came, which would mean two hours on the trail. Two hours and a guarantee we’ll be riding through a thunderstorm.
We stop in the middle of an expansive field. Grass brushes across Sandy’s knees with a whistling, damp gust. His body tenses under my legs, ears pricking at the swirling sounds of wind and rain and thunder that seem to be all around us. I run a palm over his neck, other hand anxiously rubbing the saddle horn until it creates hot friction against my skin.
I’ve been caught in storms before. I’ve driven cattle in intense rain and howling wind. But that was then—when I was young and reckless and trusted my horse with my life—now my head’s getting the better of me.
I was an idiot to think I could still do this after fourteen years.
A crash of thunder has Sandy sidestepping, and my blanched knuckles curl around the reins. With a series of desperate soothing sounds, I manage to steer him toward a thicket of poplars as the first few droplets of rain fall.
We both just need a minute to get our bearings, and we’ll continue on to the ranch.
It’s fine. I got this.
I can’t get out of the saddle fast enough by the time we reach the trees. The claps of thunder come from directly above, rattling my bones and sending shivers up my spine. Sandy throws his head back, backing up in a threat to run.
“Hey, whoa. Let’s not ditch 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 damp denim 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 I needed. 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 for my 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.
My knees threaten to buckle when I stand and make my way to the saddlebag to grab my phone. Reflexively, I’m talking myself out of calling before the phone’s even in my hand. He said he was busy today, so surely he won’t be able to come help me. The preemptive ache in my chest says it’s not worth asking in the first place, when no is such a likely answer.
But …he loves me. Maybe even more today than he did back then. And what if he’s serious about wanting to make things right? What if those promises actually mean something now?
I what-if myself for so long, even Sandy is giving me the side-eye. I’ve suffered in silence countless times because it felt easier than asking for help. And now there’s a man who insists at every turn that he wants to help, and he’s already been doing so without me asking for it. We aren’t eighteen and misguided by heightened emotions anymore. He’s here. He loves me.
Clutching my fear close to my chest, I shakily hold the phone to my ear.
“Denver?” I let out a pent-up breath. “I need you.”