Jalesville, Montana - February, 2014
THE IMAGE OF HER IN MY HEAD WAS SO CLEAR I BATTLED the urge to reach outward, even as my hands were frantic with motion, saddling my horse, stowing gear. I breathed clouds of exertion into the cold night air inside the barn, pausing only to lean my forehead against Arrow’s familiar hide, trying desperately to keep level. I would help no one if I lost all control right now; deep inside, my heart shrieked at me to hurry.
I would tear myself inside out to have her returned to me. To see Ruthann enter the barn from the freezing winter’s night and tell me I had been worried for no reason. I gritted my teeth at the pain of this thought, at the longing for her that spiked in my blood. My father’s barn, the barn in which I’d spent thousands of hours learning the way of horses, cleaning tack, shoveling shit and forking hay, was dark with nightfall, bitter with cold. My mind stalled, rebelling against the absolute fucking agony of being separated from her, pulling me from the hell of this February night and tossing me backward to the first time I’d taught her to saddle a horse.
As though echoing my thoughts, Banjo, her mare, gave a low-pitched whinny from her stall, stamping her hooves. Arrow whickered in response; the two of them were accustomed to riding together and attuned to one another’s moods. The sun had been setting as I showed Ruthann the steps that summer evening, bathing her in its radiance, and the familiar process (which I could have performed blindfolded since age five) were all but lost as I studied the woman who owned me, heart and soul. Did she know how much I loved her, how that love filled me every single moment, day or night, waking or sleeping; filled me whole.
I am coming for you, angel. I will not give up until I find you, this I swear on my life.
“Goddammit,” I muttered, throat raw. I bumped my forehead against Arrow’s neck, despising myself for provoking the fight that led to Ruthann leaving our apartment only yesterday.
Don’t think about that. If you fucking think about that, you’ll only panic and lose precious time.
The memory of the way her eyes looked when I told her to go was a blade jammed in my heart. Arrow nickered and stamped his hooves, and I pressed my palms to the warmth of my horse’s hide, gaining strength. The lyrics to “Yesterday,” the beautiful old Beatles song I had drummed countless times while my brothers played guitars, flooded unbidden through my brain and a sharp jab of fear caught me off guard, fear as primal as any instinct. I longed for the impossible; I longed for yesterday. If I could only go back to that moment when I told Ruthann to go and bite back the jealous, angry words.
The sickness of regret threatened to cave my chest.
Oh God, let me find her. Don’t let it be too late.
“I need you, old friend,” I told Arrow. He was saddled, the leather gear bags at his haunches bursting with the supplies I’d had time to gather from my childhood home. I could not consider what I would do if it didn’t work – if what I was riding toward this early morning, an hour before sunrise, was not possible. It had to be possible; I would will it so. I whispered to Arrow, low and insistent, “I need you more than ever right now. Don’t let me down. You hear me? Don’t let me down now.”
I thought for only seconds of what would happen here, in Jalesville, in the aftermath of my sudden disappearance in the wake of Ruthann’s. Tish and Case knew where I was going; they had agreed to explain things to Dad and my brothers, and to Ruthann’s family back in Minnesota, if we hadn’t reappeared within a week. Good fortune willing, we would be back even before then. I turned up the collar of my down jacket, settled my hat lower over my head, and mounted my horse. Within seconds we’d cleared the yard, headed due west, toward the site of my family’s old homestead, founded well over a century ago by my many-times-great grandfather, Grant Rawley.
I used my teeth to free my right hand from its thick leather glove and reached inside my pocket to touch the folded papers I’d placed there. A chill made my spine jerk and Arrow sidestepped, neighing in irritation. I closed my eyes and saw Ruthann’s face, her golden-green eyes that saw to the deepest part of me and from which I could hide nothing. I pictured the fullness of her mouth, her thick, dark curls in which I had buried my face and hands so many times now, the soft silkiness of her belly, her graceful arms and legs, and the strength with which they wrapped around me. The sweet scent of her freckled skin, the way she fit so exactly against my body, how I fit so exactly within her, made for her alone.
Longing for her clenched me so hard in its grip that I groaned, the sound lost in the accelerating wind. Arrow’s hooves crunched the thickly-packed snow. Determination overrode the icy numbness of my hands and feet.
“I’m coming, Ruthie, I promise you,” I vowed to the snowy dawn, concentrating on the thousands of images of her I held sacred in my heart. “I love you more than I could ever love anyone in this world and I am coming for you.”
I knew she had disappeared into the past.
I would find her, or I would die trying.