The Indian sat tall and strong on the back of the spotted horse, a fearless kind of pride resonating from how he sat, his back arched, chest out. There wasn’t a thing in the world that scared that Indian. He just sat there at the edge of the ravine and stared far off to where the sun shined brightly. There wasn’t the slightest impression of uncertainty. Come hell or high water, that Indian would get to those plains.
I reckon it was the certainty and fearlessness that kept me watching him most times. I sat on the couch and gazed at the picture for hours and hours trying my damnedest to figure how he’d brave the gap. It wasn’t here or there that had ever been scary. It was the middle ground, that long desolate space between, that scared the hell out of me. That type of jump from where the Indian sat took faith, and that was something I’d never had. Faith made a man vulnerable and weak. Faith led to letdown and pain and regret and all of that shit that broke a man past saving. There was safety in not believing, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to give that up just yet.
Maggie was different, though. There’d always been something in her that seemed to say she and life had an understanding, some sort of deal between them that guaranteed it’d pan out. Even when we were children, back when cold mountain water froze our wobbly legs numb and our biggest worry in the world was whether or not the spring lizards would squirm through our fingers before the other had a chance to look, she’d had her eyes fixed on that far-off place. She was almost there now.
Evening brought little relief from summer heat, and I drove faster than usual to keep the wind whooshing through the cab of my pickup. I didn’t tell her I was coming, but I needed to see her. Phone calls and text messages wouldn’t suffice for what I had to ask. Tonight Rogers would do what needed done, and in that morning sun would come my time to jump. So I drove.
Breedlove Road cut through hillsides lined with Fraser fir that speckled yellow pasture with dark green cones. Turkeys had always loved wandering through those trees. A rafter of thirty or forty birds strutted between the rows as I passed, three or four gobblers sporting beards that drug the ground as they bobbed. The Dillards owned most of those fields, and they kept the plots trimmed neat even in summer. Last winter, money kept folks from wanting any tree over eight foot, so the Dillards had to cut the older trees short, burned those stumps in a pile as big around as a small house. The dark scar left behind still held in the field by the road, just a big black circle where nothing new had grown.
Pavement dropped into gravel just before a sharp switchback, and Maggie’s house rested on the brim of a steep slope that cut off high to the left. I didn’t really care if her parents were home, but as I pulled up her drive it was a relief to see that they weren’t, an even bigger relief to see Maggie’s bedroom window was lit. I sat in the truck and watched her body cut shadows against the curtains. I couldn’t tell her what was about to happen. She’d never understand. No one would question why my father had been murdered, and if it all went smoothly, I’d ride out the investigation, bury his body in rocky ground, and walk away with it all. But if it turned sour, the way most things in my life had a tendency of turning, I’d tear off on the lam with the money in the safe and never look back. Either way, Maggie would determine where I wound up. Either way, I needed to know if she wanted me with her.
She answered the door in white shorts and a thin gray sweatshirt that had the neck cut wide so that it hung off of one shoulder, and though she hadn’t been expecting me, my standing there on her doorstep brought a smile to her face. “Talk about catching a girl off guard. Jesus, Jacob. I look horrible.”
“That’s not true.” There no longer seemed to be a filter to hold back things I typically wouldn’t say. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“That’s sweet, but I don’t have any makeup on.” She stepped across the threshold and took my hand, led me into the front room of her parents’ home without questioning why I’d come.
“I didn’t mean to just show up like this, but I have to ask you something.”
“What is it?”
“Can we go in your room first?”
“Yeah, of course we can, but what is it, Jacob?” Maggie led me down a hallway lined with family pictures, late-evening sun through a tall bay window lighting the hallway through the open door to her mother’s office. Maggie’s room was the last door on the right. It was the only room in the house with the lights on, the light almost blinding in a house filled with evening shadows. There was music playing, some newfangled poppy shit that passes for country now, some bullshit song I could never name. She turned the volume down on her stereo until it was silent, and we sat beside each other on the edge of her bed. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Walls that had always been covered with brightly colored posters and paintings, with pictures of family and friends with smiles stretching their faces, were almost bare now. She’d packed most everything except for her clothes, all of it sealed in boxes stacked in the corner by her window. I had to take it all in before any words came to me. That emptiness—the plain white walls, the vacant dresser top, everything—seemed to affirm this was not home anymore.
“When I took you up on the Parkway, you said something, and what you said has been bothering the hell out of me.”
“What was it?”
“You said that I could go with you. You said that if I wanted to, I could follow you down to Wilmington and start a life with you, maybe be a mechanic or something.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Well, what if I wanted to do that? I mean, what if I was willing to just pack up and go? I need to know if you really meant it. I need to know if you meant what you said.”
Maggie scooted closer to me until there was no space left between us. She rested her hands on top of mine and looked back deep inside of me. “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”
“Then that’s what I want to do, Maggie.”
“Are you sure?”
“I haven’t ever been sure of anything in my life, but I’m sure of this.”
“This is a big decision, Jacob. This is a really huge decision.”
“I know it is, and I want to go.”
Maggie’s face scrunched. She looked like she might cry.
“What is it?”
She just shook her head.
“No, what is it? Do you not want me to—”
She slapped her hands against mine, stopped me mid-sentence. Maggie kept nodding her head, and a smile came across her face as tears fell from the corners of her eyes. It wasn’t sadness in her anymore. Her face was flushed. She was happy.
I wrapped my arms around her and held her tightly, her head finding that safe and solid place against my chest again.
“I was scared of leaving, Jacob. I was scared of going there by myself.”
“And you’re not scared anymore?”
“No.”
We fell back onto her bed, lay flat beside each other, and told each other, “I love you.” One of my arms was folded under her head, her cheek resting against my bicep. The other arm was wrapped around her, my forearm running across her chest, my fingers tracing that soft place at the base of her neck. We fit together perfectly. Everything about it was perfect, and perfect was something that in all my life I’d never known. That feeling, that type of perfection, is what waited across the plains. Far off where the Indian stared, the sun sank down on forever. It was the promise of forever that would lead a man to jump.