“Kane, my god.”
I shrug. “Once he figured I was done for, he went back inside. Nailed a piece of wood over the window. Don’t know what happened to Ma. I guess I assumed she was dead. How, I’ll never know, but I got to my feet and I walked away.”
She looks up at me, chin on my arm. “Kane.” Just that, in a broken voice, tears on her face, like it’s her pain.
“I just walked. Not even toward town, though I couldn’t have known it. Through the woods, just…walking. It was November, so it was fuckingcold. I was bleeding, everything fuckin’ hurt. Hurt to breathe, hurt to move. I didn’t know what the hell else to do, so I just…walked.” I shrug. “My legs just…kept going. I dunno. It was light, at some point. Walked all goddamn night, I guess. Came across a fence, horse fence. Followed it cause it hurt too much to go over. The fence, after who the fuck knows how far, took me to a big ol’ barn. Monster fuckin’ barn, never knew a building could be that big. Never been anywhere but the cabin, to the town a few times with Dad to pick up supplies.” I trail off, remembering the barn. The moment. “White, with red along the roofline, red doors. The big doors were open, and a real live fuckin’ cowboy was ridin’ out on a giant-ass black-and-white horse. Dude had a big ol’ white cowboy hat on, the boots, spurs, everything. Thought I’d walked onto a movie set, I dunno.”
“Who was he?”
I smile. “I had no clue. My legs wouldn’t quit, just movin’ on their own. I couldn’t stop walkin’. Legit, I tried, I couldn’t. Made it to the barn, and he saw me. Swung off his horse and just stood there. He came over to me, caught me. Picked me up. Started hollerin’. Hard to remember much after that. I remember he took me to his house, huge-ass log house, like in a magazine. Deer heads on the wall, moose heads, coyotes, wolves, jackrabbits, a bear, a bison. Bear skin rug on the floor by the fireplace.” I shake my head, sigh. “Legs were still movin’, even laying down. He put me on the couch and…” My eyes blur. “‘You’re safe now, son.’ That’s what he said. Long as I fuckin’ live, I’ll remember that. His face was…rough. Salt and pepper beard. Blue eyes, kind eyes. Kindest eyes I’ve ever seen.” I look at her. “Till I met you, at least.”
She smiles sadly. “He helped you?”
I nod. “He nursed me back to health. Fed me with his own hand. Bandaged my ribs, all the cuts.” I swallow hard again. “His name was…is…Luke Alanson. And he took me in. After I was healthy again, he gave me a room in his bunkhouse with the other hands.” I glance at her, explaining. “Ranch hands, guys who help run the ranch.”
I pause for a moment. “Luke gave me work. Taught me how to ride a horse. How to rope, how to brand, mend fences. How to foal—help a momma horse give birth. How to break a horse for riding. All of it. I fuckin’…I loved it. Loved him. Loved the life.” I manage a smile. “Turns out, I wandered onto one of the biggest and most successful horse ranches in all of Montana. The L-Bar-A ranch.”
“That was very fortunate for you.”
I nod, laugh. “Yeah, it was. In a lot of ways. See, Luke had a daughter.” I swallow, tasting bile, tasting the nightmare to come. “Della-Marie.” I can only whisper the name. “Fuck, fuck,fuck. Haven’t—I haven’t spoken that name in seven years.”
“I am here, Kane. I am listening. I am here.” She kisses my arm.
I nod, my head hanging. Poke the fire. Add a log, watch the sparks jump up to the sky, wink out. “She was a year older than me. Fuckin’…beautiful. Blond hair, all curly. Big blue eyes. We, uh, we grew up together, sorta. The other hands were all grown men, and she was an only child. So, naturally, we clicked, bein’ the only kids of an age on the ranch. Up to, oh, sixteen or so, we were just kids. Just friends.”
She smiles. “But not forever, no?”
“No, not forever,” I agree. “Luke—he loved me like a son. Trusted me. Made me foreman when Billy decided to move on. Foreman is a supervisor. Important job—second only to Luke himself. Big deal, especially for a young buck. The other hands liked me, respected me. I had a way with the horses, see. Like, I just…spoke their language, I guess. So, when Della-Marie and I started lookin’ at each other different, Luke didn’t stop it. Guess he saw it as natural as anything.”
I have to stop.
When I’ve gotten the shakes to stop, I keep going. “Turned into a real thing, her and me. Love. Had it all planned out. Get married, have a bunch of babies. Run the ranch with Luke. Had it all.” The fire wavers in my vision. “Until Bruiser. A stallion Luke caught, a runaway from another ranch. Didn’t recognize the brand, no one he knew did either, so we took it in. That fucker wasmean. But, until him, I’d never met a horse I couldn’t break, so Luke trusted me with him. I was workin’ him, lunging him—running him in circles on a long rope. Had him eating out of my hand, letting me pet him, all that. He’d been ridden, we could all tell, but he’d run wild for a long time. Wasn’t about to go back to being ridden, I guess.” I shake my head, the day imprinted on my brain like all the others. “It was a beautiful day. Clear blue, warm. Della and I were planning on havin’ a picnic out in the north range later that day. And then, I got cocky. Put a hackamore on him, like a bridle without the bit. Figured I could jump on, let him buck out some of his spunk. I lasted all of six fuckin’ seconds.”
“Oh no.”
I make a sound that’s not quite a laugh. “Broke my back—got damn lucky that I didn’t end up a quadriplegic. Still ended up helpless as a baby for several months, with a lot of physical therapy to get back to normal after that, and I still had a lot of pain even after it was healed.” I pause; this is where it gets bad. “The pain was…fuckin’ debilitating. I couldn’t ride a horse, so I couldn’t do my job. I was goin’ fuckin’ nuts. Got prescribed some pills. Oxy.” I look at her. “Know about that shit?”
She tosses her head. “No.”
“Opioid. Addictive as fuck, as in, nationwide epidemic addiction.” I wave a hand. “Don’t matter. Point is, I got hooked. Needed those fuckin’ pills. I knew it was happenin’, talked to Della about it, talked to Luke. I quit ‘em cold turkey. Fuckin’…misery you cannot begin to fathom. Drove me to drinking.”
“Oh dear. This does not sound good.”
I laugh, a bitter huff. “No, it’s not. I quit the pills, but that meant the pain was worse than ever. But alcohol felt like a safer choice. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. Problem was, Della-Marie was a wild child.” I grit my teeth, force it out. “She and me…we took to drinkin’ like we’d invented it. We’d take a bottle and a blanket and ride out somewhere and drink ourselves stupid, and only come back when the booze was gone. We’d drive into town and tie one on—get wasted at the bar. She…when it came to the drinkin’, Della was an enabler. See, her mom died when she was young, and Luke did the best he could to raise a young girl on his own, but he had a ranch to run, and he was dealin’ with grief himself. So by the time we hit twenty, twenty-one, when this happened, she was just a wild child. Nobody, butnobodycould control her. Not me, not Luke, no one. She thrived on causing trouble. And when I got into drinking to deal with the pain, she was right there with me.”
Anjalee clings to my arm. “I do not like where this story is going, Kane.”
“’Cause it aint’ goin’ anywhere good, honey.” I shake my head. “Just gotta get it out, I guess.”
She kisses my arm. “Tell me, please.”
“About a week after my twenty-first birthday, we were at the bar in town. Now, town was a good thirty minutes from the ranch, so it wasn’t exactly a short drive. And we, uh—we got hammered, like usual. And like usual, hammered led to frisky, so we figured we’d head out and find somewhere to, you know.”
She nods. “I understand.”
“Being frisky, and just plain ol’ being clobbered outta my fuckin’ skull, I, uh…” I shake my head, but the images are there, burned into my brain. “Fuck. Wish to fuckin’ Christ I’d blacked out. But I didn’t. I remember every single fuckin’ second. Going around a curve. Lost control. I wasn’t buckled, neither was she. Truck rolled fuckin’ six, seven times. She got thrown out. Snapped her neck, plus she went through the windshield and was cut to fuckin’ ribbons, skull was…” I feel nauseous, bile in my throat.
I jerk to my feet, pace away, breathing hard, fighting the urge to hurl. I feel her behind me. “Don’t. Please, don’t. Don’t fuckin’ touch me, Anj. Not now.”
