He does not look at me, does not touch me.
Montana is beautiful. It is hard to care.
We left Colorado just past six in the morning. A little after five thirty in the evening, we are passing through pastures of endless fields, hills and mountains all around, everything green and the sky larger and deeper and wilder even than in the Rockies. The pastures, along the two-lane road, are fenced in with old posts strung with barbed wire. Horses roam in clusters, some here, some there, all of them dappled and splotched with color, white and black, brown and red and white, spotted like dogs. In the distance, a horse rears up, front hooves pawing at the air, head shaking—as it touches down, it launches into a gallop, head tossing, mane waving.
I see Kane watching this. He is now carved from marble again, only his head and hands and feet moving, controlling the motorcycle.
There is a turnoff, a dirt road. Narrow, gravelly. The pastures line this road as well, and here I see some horses even closer, right at the fence line. If things were different, I would ask to stop so I could pet them, or at least see them more closely. I do no such thing.
We go for several miles along the dirt road in a ruler-straight line, angling toward the foothills which in turn lead to high mountains. Then the road turns, and here huge, gnarled, twisted, ancient trees line the road, the pasture hidden behind them. Miles more of this, and then the trees end and the pastures are farther from the road, down a steep embankment.
The motorcycle slows. Stops. There is a white cross in the grass at the bottom of the embankment, an old, dried wreath hanging from it. Kane plants his feet wide, bracing. Looking at it. His head droops, and I hear him breathe, roughly, shakily, rasping. His broad, heavy shoulders lift, and I feel his head turn, look again at the cross.
And then, with a shake of his head, like a dog shaking away the sting of a bee, he twists the throttle and we rocket forward, tires skidding in the dirt, slewing sideways. I have to cling hard to him, feeling myself being nearly thrown off—a small teeth-clenched scream escapes me. He says nothing, but he slows, rights the machine, and proceeds under more control.
The road continues past the marker, but I feel his attention, and it is back there. Where she died.
I wish to say something to him, but I have said all I can say, so I say nothing.
After another ten minutes along the dirt road, we approach a structure across the road: a frame of giant logs, a doorway, with words wrought from iron across the top saying L-Bar-A Ranch.
Beyond it, all is the same. More fields, more horses, more posts and barbed wire. The foothills are close, here. Close enough to touch. To our left, a forest stretches as far as I can see, the pasture butting up to the edge of it. Closer and closer to the hills, and then the road curves left, toward the forest. And now, a huge house of logs in the shape of the letter A, two stories, with a balcony over the front entrance and a porch wrapping around both sides of the house. To the left, perhaps a hundred yards away, the enormous barn he described, white with red trim. The pastures all connect here, to this barn. There is a series of connected pens with dirt floors, a larger enclosed grass pen connecting to the dirt pens and the pastures beyond. In this grass pen, a circular enclosure of metal; a man in a cowboy hat has a long rope connected to a horse, which is running in circles. Other men in cowboy hats walk horses in pens, another is doing something to a horse’s hoof, and near the barn, four men astride horses ride away together, headed for the pastures.
The road cuts in a large curve in front of the house before curling around toward the barn. The hills butt up behind the house, and the forest stretches away beside the barn.
I can almost see a young, bleeding Kane limping along the fence off in the distance.
Kane guides us past the house. There are several large pickup trucks parked in front of the barn, one of them larger than all the rest. Down a gentle slope, coasting toward the barn, which as we draw near becomes larger and larger, until I realize we were farther away than I thought and that it is much, much larger than I originally understood. It is a colossal structure.
All work stops as the motorcycle rumbles to a stop near the trucks. Men stare. Kane toes down the kickstand, turns his hat forward and slips his sunglasses up onto the brim. I feel him, and he is shaking. He waits for me to alight, and I do so slowly, back aching, thighs screaming. I twist and stretch, and then watch as Kane swings off.
A man peels away from the pens and sprints for the barn—two enormous doors are gaping open, and he vanishes between them. A moment later, a tall, lean man emerges, wearing a dusty black cowboy hat, dark jeans, black boots, and a black button-down shirt tucked in with a black leather belt. His hair was once light, perhaps blond like Kane’s, but now is more gray than blond. He wears a mustache and short goatee.
As he nears us, I see that he is still very handsome, in a rugged, weathered, lean and sharp-featured way.
He halts in the dirt some twenty feet away from us, his hands clenched into fists at his thighs.
Kane is motionless beside the motorcycle; when the man—whom I assume is Luke—stops, Kane stumbles a halting pair of steps forward, then shuffles to a stop.
Turns back to look at me. The agony and terror on his face are a knife to my heart. I can see him hating me for bringing him here and begging me to let him run away again.
“It will be okay,” I whisper. I know he hears me. “Go to him.”
He turns back to Luke. Closes the distance to within arm’s reach. “Luke.” It is a ragged whisper.
“Sevengoddamnyearsyou’re gone, not a single word. No idea if you’re evenalive.” Luke’s voice is shaky and angry.
Kane is silent. Just looking at Luke.
“All this time, and you show up outta the blue?” Luke steps forward, and Kane braces, ready for a blow. “What do you have to say for yourself, son?”
Kane flinches as if struck. “Don’tcallme that,” he hisses. “I lost that—I…Ikilledthat.”
Luke’s features are hard, expressionless—until now. Until that bitten-off word—killed—and then he flinches, pain carving into his face. “Kane—”
Kane shakes his head, chin tucked to his chest. “I’m sorry.” It is a lost and broken sound.
Luke moves closer. Kane will not look at him. “Kane, look at me.”
