Roan

My hands are balled into fists, every muscle strung up tight to keep from going after Lucy and hauling her into the cabin to make her mine.

I heard her stifled sob and knew she wouldn’t want me to see her cry. The girl’s proud, and she should be. I hurt and humiliated Lucy, and her words ring in my ears: “Fine. I’ll leave you alone. If that’s what you want, I’ll leave you alone forever.”

She means it. She’s done chasing me.

Go get her, dumb ass!

No.

It’s better this way.

I have to stop this before it goes any further. Nothing has changed. I am who I am: damaged, a man with a past and no future. Not the man for her. She should have some nice do-gooder from town, one of the surviving deputies maybe, a flannel-shirted white boy like Gummer.

We’re done.

I drag my eyes from the spot where she disappeared into the trees and notice my eagle feather on the ground. Lucy must have knocked it out of my hair while we were kissing.

Golden tipped with black, the feather was a gift from Phil Standing Rock, the one bright spot in my screwed-up adolescence. “Only warriors can wear an eagle feather in their hair,” I protested when he gave it to me.

Phil just shook his head. His braid, blacker than my grandfather’s but just as long, swung side to side with that gentle, persistent movement. “We can make our own traditions, Roan.” He held the feather out to me, a beautiful reminder of wild majesty. “You’re brave, Winterboy. But the eagle feather does not just show us courage.” He ran his hand along the length of the quill, from the white fluff at the base to the golden tip, his expression thoughtful. “The eagle only has two eggs. All living things are divided—man and woman, evil and good, light and dark. Like the colors of this feather. Keep it safe. Learn its lessons.” He held it out to me and I took it, already planning how I’d hide it from Grandfather. “Man is a duality—he deals kindness and hurt, generosity and greed, foul and sweet, love and hate. Look to the eagle feather to remember that.”

Taking the feather, a symbol of Phil’s trust in me, gave me a thrill of confidence.

Maybe I wasn’t all bad.

Grandfather didn’t like me hanging out with Phil after school at his garage, working on cars. He wanted me earning money, though, so Phil paid me a little something and I told Grandfather I was mowing lawns.

Now the feather’s frazzled and the spine’s broken. Bad luck, a terrible omen.

I stroke the vane, bringing the barbules back into alignment, hooking them into smoothness. I curse as I sit on the porch, shaping what remains of the feather.

Light and dark. Man and woman. Lucy and Roan.

Grandfather told me Phil didn’t want to see me after I was sent to jail because I’d shamed him. But I kept the feather, taking it with me when I was sentenced. Five years later, when the guard passed me the plastic bag of what I’d had on my body when I went in, the feather remained. Trapped and suffocated as I’d been, but still strong. Still unbroken.

Funny that after all these years, kissing Lucy is what finally cracked it.

Nothing can be done about the damaged spine. I pull out my knife and trim the quill at the broken place.

Just like Lucy and me. Cut off at the broken place. And I’m the broken place.

I tie the remains of the feather back into a side lock of my hair, my movements heavy and slow.

The sun’s still out, but all the warmth and light followed Lucy into the woods.

There’s no point to anything, to any of this.

My chest is sore. I rub my left pec, hard, trying to get the pain to go away as my body moves through motions: donning my shirt, picking up the skins and securing them to the drying rack in the closed cabinet on the back porch. Putting away the soap, I try to forget how good she felt in my arms: satin strength, warm curves, so hot I’m still aching with it.

How am I going to go back to the Haven and act like nothing has changed? Because it has. This was the confrontation we’ve been leading up to all these months.

I’m not ready to see her, or anybody.

I’ll leave a note for JT inside the back hatch of the Haven so he doesn’t call out the cavalry—his brothers—looking for me. And then I’ll go deep woods hunting, for as long as it takes to get the smell, feel, and taste of her off of my body and out of my heart.

I’ll hunt something big. Bear, maybe, only using arrows. Or cougar. I’ll hunt something that will take me to the edge of survival, and put me back together again. Or not. I don’t much care.

Inside the cabin, I assemble my equipment, checking and sharpening each piece. The tomahawk Grandfather taught me to throw, just the right size and weight for my hand, is sharp enough to cut hair. My Buck knife is honed to a line of blue fire. I clean, oil, and load the Colt revolver that Grandfather left out here and the Remington shotgun, stashing extra ammo in my pack along with a bedroll, some dehydrated food, my firemaking kit, and a pot for water and coffee.

Packed and armed, I close up the cabin, shuttering the windows and putting the padlock on the door, slipping the key under an old pot that we used to grow herbs in.

I untie Adelle’s rope, giving her a handful of grain. She pushes her forehead against my chest and leans into me, the horse version of a hug. Shadow’s weight rests on my leg. These animals know I’m hurting.

My eyes sting. All a man really needs is a good horse and a good dog, and I’ve got both. But I’ll leave Adelle loose. She can’t come where I’m going.

I pet her neck before heading into the trees, Shadow at my side.

Lucy’s scuffed up the path, kicking the soil and disturbing the dried leaves. The ghost of her rage and pain are imprinted on the forest. My chest tightens, strangling my breathing.

I push through it and keep moving. I need to just get away.