Ride On

by Gwen Cole

  Movement catches my eyes downriver.

  A horse stands there, looking at me and Jack, with a saddle and bridle and supplies—riderless. I glance around and see no one. The horse is buckskin colored with black legs, now mostly covered in dirt. His nostrils flare and he takes a step forward. Jack moves from my side and approaches the horse, his movements cautious but his ears perked forward in search of a friend.

  When they’re close enough to touch, both horses take in the other’s scent. The newcomer flinches at the smallest movements and keeps an eye on me the whole time.

  I start forward slow, giving him a chance to see me. He’s a healthy horse, his build just as good, or maybe even better, than Jack’s. I’m careful not to spook him. He steps away at first, almost like he wants to bolt in the opposite direction, but his nostrils flare again, catching a scent that makes him want to stay.

  I let him come to me. When I feel confident he’s familiar enough, I lift my hand and touch his neck. He flinches but doesn’t back away. It reminds me of the horses Mom used to bring in from the Wild—abandoned, unwanted things that needed a new start. It’s how she made a living—selling horses to whoever could afford them.

  “Where is your rider?” I whisper to him.

  Both horses swivel their heads, ears pointing in the same direction. They hear something I don’t, and the last thing I need is someone seeing me and reporting it to the Lawmen.

  “Time to leave,” I tell them.

  I tug Jack’s halter once and he follows me down the river and toward the rocky hills to the south. For a little while, I hear nothing. Then there’s the sound of the buckskin horse following us. At the base of one of the hills, I find a small footpath that is nonexistent if you aren’t looking for it.

  This morning, Margaret sent Henry to show me this place. They said it’ll be safe for me to camp here until she finds out news about Finn. It was hard leaving the city, willingly putting distance between us, but me being arrested will do him no good. At the top of the hill there’s a divot, large enough to hold a decent campsite and deep enough to hide a fire at night. The footpath switchbacks up the hill, hidden enough behind rocks to be invisible from travelers on the road. But there’s a place at the top that I can climb to where I can see the gates of Kev.

  In sight while out of sight, that’s what Henry said.

  This is the first time I’ve felt safe in the Wild, and even this close to the city, I feel hidden enough to sleep tonight.

  The path leading into the campsite sits between two rock faces, wide enough to fit two horses side by side. There’s remnants of an old fire, and then my saddle and the supplies I left behind earlier.

  I look back and watch the new horse come through the crevice into the camp. His head is low, taking in the scents on the ground, but his eyes are on me.

  From the way his ribs are slightly showing, I wonder how many days he’s been on his own. A few days at least. I dig around in my saddlebags until I find the feed I got from Margaret. Jack is already at my side, eating a few mouthfuls from the sack. I take it away when he’s had enough, but he nudges me for more.

  “You’ll have more tomorrow,” I tell him.

  I have to ration it, not sure how long we’ll be here.

  I take an extra handful and step closer to the other horse. I hold my hand out, palm flat. It takes him a whole minute to come to me, but I would’ve waited longer. Mom was always patient with horses because that’s how she gained their trust.

  His soft nose brushes my hand and the feed is gone in seconds. I give him more, and every time I go back for feed, he’s closer. I wipe the crumbs from my jeans and contemplate trying to take off his saddle. It needs to come off or else he’ll have sores—he may have them already.

  I reach for the cinch but he sidesteps, keeping a healthy distance between us. He does it again and again, and I finally throw up my hands and say, “Fine then, I guess you can get saddle sores if you want them so bad.”

  He stares at me.

  I try approaching him again, but he backs away.

  “Look, I know you don’t know me, but I’m trying to help.” I shake my head, almost laughing. “I sound like a crazy person,” I mumble to myself. “Talking to horses and thinking they’re actually going to talk back.”

  To my surprise, he steps closer. I keep talking to see if it’ll work.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself,” I say. “I’m Avery. And you are?” I wait. “Well, in that case, I’ll just call you Moose.”

  The horse flicks his tail and comes a little closer. “I’ve never seen a moose in real life, but I’ve seen a picture of one,” I tell him. “I’m not saying you resemble one, because you don’t, but it’s one of those animals I wish I could see in person.”

  He presses his nose into my hand. “Do you mind if I call you Moose?”

  A shake of his mane brings a smile to my lips. I talk to him while loosening the cinch and slide off the saddle. His coat is matted down with dried sweat and dirt. After checking him over, I see no sores or wounds of any kind, which is surprising. I pull the bridle over his ears and the bit slips out of his mouth.

  Moose wanders over to Jack, and I realized we may have picked up a permanent member for our little group.

  I crouch over the saddlebags, wondering if it’s wrong to go through other people’s things. I flip the leather flap, promising I won’t take anything but too curious not to look. The first bag is filled with ration bars and horse feed—my first clue to knowing this horse isn’t from around here. There’s a lever-action rifle strapped to the saddle, which could come in handy since I only have a few more bullets left for Levi’s gun. Mom had one before she traded it for a shotgun that is still hidden away in our closet, or else I never wouldn’t have known what it is.

  The other saddlebag is filled with personal items. I stare at the open pack, not feeling right going through things like this. There’s a baseball cap at the top, like it was the last thing to be put inside. Dad had one—a faded red one with a white P on it. But this one is dark blue with a KC printed on it, frayed at the edges and well used.

  It’s actually reassuring—knowing this horse doesn’t belong to the Lawmen with their white armbands and wide-brimmed hats. Moose belonged to someone normal—at least as much as I can tell, but definitely someone traveling a long way. Without moving anything, I can see a pair goggles and an old book with a cracked spine.

  I think of home. Is someone going through the things we left behind right now? Do they even care we’re gone? I close the saddlebag and get to work preparing a fire for the night, just in case I need one. Earlier, I found an old stack of wood nearby. It won’t last long—it just assures me I won’t freeze on the cold nights if I need a fire.

  Being out here in the Wild is like sitting alone for a lifetime—with only my thoughts for company. And I’m beginning to feel like my thoughts aren’t enough to fill the empty space where everything else should go.

  Especially not out here, where there is nothing.

  13.

  Seph

  Despite my exhaustion, I don’t sleep well during the night. The walls are too close and the air much too still. While everything in me wants to escape this place, I somehow convince myself to wait. I know my body cannot leave this cell, but my mind can.

  During the hours when sleep doesn’t come, I imagine myself on Cade, riding away from here—anywhere. The way we grew up together. The nights we slept side by side to keep warm. The rivers we swam in to keep clean. I don’t know what I’ll do if something happens to him.

  Voices rise from down the hall and I sit up, feeling every hour of lost sleep. My cellmate is awake, too, looking as dead as I must.

  A pair of men, followed by a Lawman soldier, make their way from cell to cell, sliding plates of food to the prisoners. The dishes make uneven scraping sounds against the stone, each one digging deeper into me. My finger taps the floor—a twitch I haven’t experienced since a run-in two years ago. Something I
don’t even like to think about. My heart beats at an irregular rhythm, and I close my eyes to get a hold of myself.

  By the time the plates of food are pushed underneath our barred door, I’ve calmed down. I stand and take my plate, retreating to my corner again, only to wonder if I can stomach hard bread and a mush that doesn’t resemble food. I swallow as much as I can before I think too hard on it.

  “The quicker you eat it, the less you taste it,” he says.

  The boy in my cell hasn’t said anything to me since last night—something I have absolutely no problem with.

  “I think it’s more my stomach than the taste.”

  He sets his plate down with a half smile. “Well, it tastes like horse shit to me.”

  “Not many people would know that.”

  “It was a dare,” he says.

  “Someone really must have hated you.”

  He smiles again as the cell doors open down the hall. The Lawmen usher the prisoners out. I get to my feet, wondering what they’re doing. From across the hall, Rami smiles at me as his door opens and he follows the others. Our cell is the last they come to.

  I step outside and follow the hall down a series of passageways, each doorway branching off blocked by more barred doors, like we’re cattle following the only path we can.

  “What’s your name?” the boy asks behind me.

  I glance down each hallway I pass, attempting to get my bearings. I finally answer, “Seph.”

  “Finn.”

  I glance over my shoulder, catching his eye in the dim light. “How long have you been here?”

  “Only since yesterday.”

  After we go down multiple stories, I see light through the next opening and then I’m outside. I can breathe. The dark, cloudy sky is the most comforting thing I’ve seen within the last day. I never want to go back inside again.

  Other than that, there’s nothing else to really take in. The prison yard is surrounded by a tall fence, and beyond that is the city. At this point, I don’t care as long as I’m under the sky. As long as there’s air to breathe.

  Finn steps up next to me and I see him for the first time in real light. His brown hair is cut shorter than mine and his eyes remind of someone I can’t place. Blue. “Come on,” he says. “I heard there’s a place to shower.”

  I follow him across the yard, and soon I’m aware of the men I pass—every one of them looking at me like the crowd in the city when we arrived. The yard is good sized. Filled with prisoners from more than one cell block. There’s a large, barred gate farther down, separating us from the prison entrance. I can see the whipping post from here. Behind us, Lawmen soldiers watch from the prison’s roofs and balconies, and others patrol outside the fence. They never get too close.

  Finn leads me to the other side of the yard where there are multiple outside showers—one-man stalls underneath large water barrels with hand levers. There are already lines forming, and men push others out of the way and some punches are thrown. Finn and I take our place in the back of one of the lines.

  Something foul reaches my nose, growing stronger when the wind picks up. Then I spot a man pissing in a trench nearby. There are others there, too, but it’s something I don’t want to look at for long.

  I turn back around to see the man ahead of us staring at me. His eyes flick down and then he moves off to join another line. Then it happens again and again—they whisper to each other and looks are exchanged. We move to the head of the line and I nod my head for Finn to go first. He shoots me a grateful smile and shuts the stall door behind him.

  “Well lookie here,” a voice says behind me. It’s Rami—every one of his words drawn out in that southern way. “It seems you and I meet again, this time with only our hands to defend ourselves. Do you feel lost without your gun, cowboy?”

  “I wasn’t aware it was a compass,” I say without turning.

  He laughs. “You’re a funny guy.”

  “I don’t know any jokes.”

  “I do. You wanna hear one?” I don’t say anything, but he continues anyway. “Knock knock.”

  I turn to face him. “Who’s there?”

  Rami smiles, his eyes a little crazed. “Me.” He laughs again and then something catches his eye from across the yard. “Just who I wanted to see,” he says, almost to himself.

  He touches two fingers to his forehead, kind of like a salute, and walks off in that direction, leaving me to wonder.

  Finn comes out of the shower, his face now blood free and hair wet. I take my turn and lock the stall door, not wishing for Rami or anyone else to find me here. I strip off my clothes and hang them on a peg near the door. The stone floor seeps cold into my bare feet, and when I pull the lever, the water is the same. A sharp breath escapes me but I don’t move, loving the way it feels on my back and sore muscles.

  My shoulders still ache from being in cuffs the last couple days, but oddly enough, I no longer feel anything from the gash across my back. I reach behind and touch my fingers to it. It’s a scar now, still fresh, but healed over in two days.

  There’s no soap, so it doesn’t take long. Just enough to wash the dirt away. Without anything to dry off with, I slip my pants on, figuring they’ll dry on their own. I put my arms through the shirt and pull it over my head, and it clings to the wet places on my back.

  When I push the door open, people are running past the showers, toward a crowd gathered a little ways off. There’s yelling and pushing, but they’re all trying to look at something I can’t see. As I get closer, I slip past people to get to the front. Some start to say something about it, but then they notice who I am or others whisper in their ears to tell them. I pretend to notice none of it.

  I find Finn at the front, staring at a body on the ground.

  The man’s neck is broken. His arm is twisted under him and his eyes stare at the sky. It triggers something in me, enough to make me look up and scan the crowd. The only person not talking or looking at the body is Rami. He’s across from me, wearing a smile I’ve already seen from him more than once.

  “It’s the man who was yelling at Rami last night, right after you got here,” Finn says beside me.

  “So he killed him for it?”

  Finn says, “He’s not right in the head.”

  Someone shouts and the crowd disperses faster than it came together. The Lawmen unlock the gate separating us from the main prison yard. There are more soldiers now than before, and they all move aside as a man on a horse comes through the gates.

  More prisoners walk away as he dismounts, yelling for answers about what happened. But I’m looking for Rami and not seeing him anywhere.

  Finn stiffens beside me.

  I ask, “What is it?”

  He shakes his head and looks around. “We should get out of here.”

  Everyone else leaves, and Finn starts backtracking. When his eyes flick back to the Lawman soldier coming through the gates, I follow his gaze. The man wears a dark hat and long coat just like the rest of them, white armband around his arm and a dark beard covering his jaw. But he has the presence of someone even Hatch can’t compare to. He’s the reason everyone left the scene so quickly and most likely the reason this town is run by fear of these men.

  He walks over to the body and yells at someone to take it away, then his eyes land on me. I don’t have the will to look away, even though something tells me I should.

  “Do you have a problem with your legs, boy?”

  I glance around, only to find myself alone. The other prisoners watch from a safe distance. I shake my head. “No.”

  “No, sir,” he says, stepping closer.

  “I’m not aware you’re my superior.” Everything inside me yells for me to shut up. But I can’t. I don’t want to.

  “But you are my prisoner,” he says. “So you will call me sir.”

  I take my time to study my surroundings, and then I meet his eye. “I’m nobody’s prisoner.”

  Jeremiah’s voice yells out from the gate, “I
’d be careful of that little wolf, Torreck. He’s got bite.”

  His name fits him.

  Torreck smiles at that, but a rage pulses through his veins. He sees the red cloth around my wrist and asks, “A little young for that, aren’t you?”

  I don’t know what he means by it—I still don’t know what the cloth means to these people, but I know my answer to his question. “It was my father’s.”

  Torreck looks at me hard now—still angry at what I said to him—ignoring the Lawmen who come to flank him and the others carrying the dead body away. “Maybe your father should’ve told you what happens to those who wear that.”

  Only the wind separates us, the yard so quiet like nobody else is here.

  “Sir?” a soldier asks, daring to break the silence.

  “Bind him to the post,” Torreck says, turning his back.

  Before I have the chance to breathe, soldiers grab my arms and pull me forward. I fight against them, but it does no good. It’s not quiet anymore. The prisoners yell and Lawmen laugh and cheer. The noise draws a crowd to the prison’s fence—people peer in, their fingers gripping the bars. The moment we pass through the first set of gates, they lock them behind us. I glance over my shoulder and see Finn through the bars. I should have taken his advice and left when he told me to.

  Why did I have to open my mouth? I could’ve melted away with everyone else and he never would’ve known I existed.

  Someone grabs my shirt from the back and lifts it over my head, leaving me bare chested. They pull me forward and I don’t know how my legs are moving. They cuff my hands on the other side of the post and connect them to one of many hooks on the other side—one that stretches my arms high and makes the metal cuffs dig into my wrists.

  The soldiers leave me.

  I try everything to control my breathing. I name the states in my head, one after another. It doesn’t work. Nothing works.