Vanessa lifted the brim of her hat to wipe away the sweat beneath it, looking up to the storm starting to form above her. As she let her hat settle back down on her head, she reached down and gave her tired mare a gentle rub on her sweaty neck.
"Looks like it's going to rain, Phoenix. Let's go."
A nudge of the heels, a cheek click, and they were off again at a slow gallop. Vanessa's mind, though, wasn't in the saddle that evening. It was far off, over the next hill, following her next hit, Brent Sinclaire. Wanted for robbery and murder in two states, he was the top of her list, even though those weren't the reasons she was after him. She had a personal score to settle with him. Without realizing it, her jaw tightened and she squinted, the anger burning deep inside of her bubbling back up to the surface again. Her mind took another skip, from the distance ahead of her to the memories she was trying so hard to put behind her.
~
A smile lit across Vanessa's face as she looked out the cabin window to her husband Jasper, hitching up their mule Benjamin to plow the garden in their small yard. Mary tugged her skirt, asking her a question she didn't quite hear.
"Mama, are we making butter after we milk the cows?" the little girl asked, hope in her eyes.
"Yes, Mary, be patient. You're to stay here and help your father take care of baby Jacob, alright?"
Mary nodded and took off, laughing in high-pitched glee. Vanessa smiled when Mary glanced back to her, hovering over the cradle of her little brother. Reminding her to be quiet and not wake the week-old baby boy, Vanessa put one finger over her lips. As Vanessa let her arm down, watching how Mary lovingly kissed her little brother's forehead, she thought to herself how blessed she'd been.
~
The anger was boiling now, bubbling and frothing. Her hands were so tight around the reins that Phoenix was starting to toss her head and grunt, pulling at the bit. Silently apologizing, she let her have some slack in the reins, looking around briefly. Some time during her mental skip, the rain had begun to pour, soaking Phoenix's hide and cooling the back of her neck. With a sigh, she slid back into her reverie.
~
The wild strawberries were wonderful, red and sweet this time of summer. Wading through the meadow, Vanessa took a deep breath of fresh mountain air and looked around. There were deer in the meadow, who lifted their gaze as they heard her moving through the tall grass. Everything was perfect and beautiful. When she reached the strawberry patch, she knelt down, opening her basket and starting to pick the plump, juicy berries.
Something happened then, something she would never understand. She heard thunder, but it wasn't thunder. It was the beat of many hooves, the hooves of a gang of bandits she'd never heard of until that day. Her instincts were screaming that something was wrong back at the cabin. Vanessa jumped up, and turned to look into the distance, just over a small ridge where the cabin would be. Curls of smoke were beginning to rise above the crest of the ridge. She could her the cries of her children. Gun shots.
Forgetting the strawberries, she lifted her skirts and took of full tilt across the meadow, the deer already having bolted from the gun shots. Tears were streaming down her cheeks by the time she reached the top of the small hill, panting for breath. The cabin was engulfed in hellish flames, the smoke rising into the sky like a black snake above them. She felt her knees hit the ground as she cried out, seeing the two bodies, on in the doorway and another in the field.
A thread of hope took hold in her heart as she heard her baby's pathetic cries from with the cabin. Vanessa took off running again, but before she could reach the cabin, the solid main beam of the small house collapsed. The crying stopped. It was Mary in the doorway, whose body Vanessa dragged to the field, next to her husband Jasper. Benjamin was nowhere to be found, but one of the bandits' horses had been left behind. A pregnant mare, due to give birth within days, obviously worth something to them, but unable to travel quickly enough to keep up.
~
Lightning cracked overhead, the trail beginning to look like a small creek of mud under Phoenix's tired hooves. She'd slowed down some time ago, whether from her own tired protest or Vanessa's cues, she didn't know. She was so hot that the rain was coming off of her as steam, wafting the scent of salty sweat and dusty leather up to Vanessa's nostrils. Phoenix was a brave and sturdy horse. Vanessa had never seen her trip or fall, even on the steepest trails and rockiest river crossings. She could out run, out jump, and out smart any other horse or cow west of the big muddy, that much she was sure of. She knew, because she knew the mare's mother, that one castaway mare, heavy with foal...
~
Vanessa waited up at her destroyed cabin for four more days. She buried the bodies of her infant son, young daughter, and husband. Searching through the ashes of her home, she found what the bandits had come for. It was widely known that she had been a lady of fortune, one to inherit a large chunk of money from her family. The trunk she'd kept it in had't turned up in her search. While she was digging through the remains of her belongings, she heard the mare squeal and grunt in pain from the small fenced pasture beside the field.
When she arrived, the mare was full in labor, kicking and thrashing her tail. Vanessa cooed to the mare, watching her carefully. She'd been raised with horses, and she could tell that this mare was having a difficult time with the large foal. Finally, the big mare gave birth to a gorgeous grey filly with a blanket of spots on her little rear end. She had long spindly legs and good hooves.
"One day, you're going to make a good ranch horse. I think... I'll call you Phoenix. And your momma, we'll call her Hope."
Hope and Phoenix became Vanessa's life for the next month, until Phoenix was big enough to follow Vanessa and Hope on their ride down into the valley east of the cabin. Vanessa was ready for revenge on the group who had murdered her family and destroyed her home.
No comments:
Post a Comment