A Cowboy Followed His Horse Into the Mountains—Then Discovered a Woman Everyone Thought Dead
Chapter 11
The envelope sat on Wyatt’s mantle for three weeks, unopened. He checked it the way he checked the sky, out of habit, waiting to see what it would do.
In the end, it was Clara herself who forced his hand.
She did it from the cab of Tom’s truck, on a Saturday morning so bright the frost glittered off everything like scattered glass. Tom parked in the yard, and Clara got out on her own, using a stout walking stick and walking slow but walking, and she made her way to the porch and folded herself into the old chair without asking leave.
“You going to make me walk all the way up that mountain, Wyatt?” she asked. “Because I’ll do it. I’ll crutch my way up there, and I’ll be a week doing it, and you’ll have to hear me complain the whole time.”
Wyatt studied her face instead of the damaged leg. Fear was there, but so was the same stubborn defiance that had kept her alive on the mountain, and he understood that she needed certainty more than sympathy.
“When?” he asked.
“Now. The truck’s loaded. Tom packed lunch, which means beef sandwiches and pickles, and you know that man’s pickle game is weak. I want to go up there while the light’s good.”
The light was never good on Cutter’s Pass, Wyatt thought, but he said, “All right. But we’re riding, not walking. And Adrien picks the trail. He always does.”
Getting Clara onto Adrien’s back took ten minutes and twenty-five profane suggestions, but she did it, swinging up with a strength that the pale hallway wall-walker at the hospital hadn’t hinted at. She settled into the saddle the way a person settles into the only warm spot in a cold house, and Adrien turned his head and blew softly on her boot, and Wyatt pretended not to see her eyes go bright.
They climbed in the morning sun, Wyatt on foot ahead of them, picking the easiest line while Adrien carried her with the same careful, deliberate steps he’d used to carry her down. The mountain had changed — the dead timber leafed out, the scree covered in wildflowers, the cave’s hidden shelf dappled in sunlight — and when they reached it, Clara was quiet for a long time.
She slid down, favoring her good leg, and walked into the cave alone.
Wyatt stayed at the mouth with Adrien, watching. She touched the old fire ring, the cold ash, the shredded corner of the blue tarp he’d peeled back that frozen afternoon. She stood there for a long while, her shoulders moving, and Wyatt looked away and studied the view like it was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen.
When she came out, her nose was red and her eyes were wet, but she was smiling, fierce and real.
“Thank you,” she said. “Both of you. I needed to close that door on my own terms.”
Then she looked at Adrien, and Adrien looked back at her with those patient, knowing eyes, and Clara said the thing that would stay with Wyatt long after the sun went down.
“You know what I asked the doctor, when I was coming out of the surgery? I asked if the horse was all right. He thought I meant the ones in the field at home. But I meant him.” She nodded at Adrien. “I’ve never had a creature stand between me and the dark like that. Not a person. A horse. And I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of what he did. That’s a big thing, Wyatt. That’s a measure. I got a measure now, and everything else — the leg, the scars, the bad dreams — it all falls under it, and it all turns out small.”