Chapter Text
The night was dark, and your parents were dead. You sat before them, knelt as if in prayer. There was no praying now.
Flashes of earlier memory bit at you like the chilling air, but you didn’t allow them in. You didn’t allow their pain or their reality. There was a bridge, a cliff, the turn of your stomach as you fell. Then this. Then nothing.
Some animal made its sharp call in the night, but you couldn’t turn to listen. Your eyes were stuck staring. You couldn’t think of what kind of beast made that noise, no matter how many times your father had told you. Your father, nothing but a shell on the ground. Broken in the defeat of death, still warm from blood that had run so thick through his veins mere moments ago. Your blood.
You turned to your mother. She was a hard woman, made harder by the life the three of you had lived so far away and so deep in snow. Her hardness was no match for the rocky ground. For the weight of a wagon bearing all of your belongings crashing down on her. Part of her leg was still trapped beneath it, stuck out at a morbid angle.
You turned back to your father, laid their much more peacefully. He could be sleeping if you didn’t look too closely. He could be climbing into his shared bed in the early evening hours, claiming the morning was more worth his while. You could be climbing in beside him, too old to be doing it but clinging to him anyway, glad for his warmth in the house that somehow always let the cold in.
You moved and laid beside him now. Sleeping. All you wanted was to be sleeping beside him. To drift away with both of them, never to be without them again.
You tangled your gloved fingers in his already too stiff ones. You blamed it on the thick fabric and closed your eyes, imagining the rock sticking into your back to be one of the books in the bed your mother was always reading. Imagining the cold to be seeping in under the walls instead of all around you. Imagining you would all wake up in the morning before the sun rose, happy to live another day together.
The shock of things released like a breath, and you allowed yourself a few silent tears before drifting into darkness, letting the night overtake you too.
~
“Christ.”
The echoing word woke you, but you didn’t open your eyes. Everything was wrong. You remembered the trip to Nebraska you were supposed to be taking, the unfamiliarity of where you were. You remembered the pain curling up your side and why you were sleeping on the ground instead of inside the wagon, all covered in blankets and curled between the wall and your mother.
You opened your eyes. It was morning. Far above you hung the bridge that forced a sob from your chest. On the bridge sat a man atop his horse, looking down at you. You shut your eyes again. Maybe he would think you dead too. Maybe he would kill you and this nightmare would finally end.
You could hardly find the will to listen to your surroundings, but you forced yourself to. It was easier than the thoughts that plagued you. You eventually picked up the tracking of a horse’s hooves against stone, riding not above you but from behind. Likely the man who had seen you all the way down here, no more than a smudge of the earth.
“Easy,” you heard, then the clinging sound of the horse’s bit as it obeyed its rider. Boots hit the earth so close by your eyes flinched, but you kept them closed.
The man approached, rocks crushing against each other beneath his boots, spurs clicking with every step. He spoke, low this time. “Jesus.”
He stopped a moment, likely taking in the view of the wreckage you didn’t want to think about. Then he approached again, heading for the wagon a few feet away. He could take it all, you didn’t care. All the provisions and the blankets, all your belongings and what little money your father brought along. The man could take the whole damn wagon and you wouldn’t so much as open an eye. Your parents were all you needed anyway. To die beside them.
The sound of pilfering hands echoed against the rocky walls of the cliff face. The man’s horse snorted behind you. It made you think of your horses. The horses you loved so much, pulling you through two states. You didn’t have to look last night to know they were dead. The older mare your father favored, the young stallion you had raised yourself. They were both gone. All of them, gone. All but you.
A dragging noise met your ears, something scraping against the ground. Then splitting wood, a grunt made in effort of breaking something. You couldn’t help your curiosity and opened your eyes to watch. You studied the man’s back as he broke the wagon apart to get inside of it. It had landed upside down, its back end crashed so flatly against the earth that there was no way to get to its hidden treasures below. Unless you broke it apart, more so than it already had been. Just as he was.
You watched and watched, let the man take a few select provisions without protest. He even lifted your father’s satchel, the one your mother had insisted he keep in the back of the wagon to avoid wanting eyes. And still, you laid there quietly, letting him do it. Where you were going, you wouldn’t need anything of the sort anyway.
You could hardly stand it, but when the man turned and faced your parents, you shut your eyes and stayed still. You let him pick over your mother’s body like a vulture, let him take everything he wanted. Your father was next, and he lifted him slightly so that his fingers were ripped from yours. You laid there limp. Ignored the dull thud of the body beside you when it met the ground again. Ignored the hands that met you, patted you down. Lifted you to search beneath your coat. Only, something must have been different about you. As soon as he moved you, the man froze. Then, slowly, he sat you up.
“You alive?”
How had he known? He shook you, and you let your limbs flail around like a doll. You did pray this time, that he would realize he had made a mistake, that he would think you already gone.
His gloved hand met your face and tapped against your cheek. “Hey,” he said. “You alive in there?” You weren’t. Hadn’t been for a while now.
You heard the sound of fabric against skin, then felt his bare fingers touching your neck. Looking for a pulse. It would give you away. You held your breath, but it would give you away. That damned little lifeline, ruining this good thing you had.
“Shit,” he muttered as his hand fell away. He knew. “You’re either gonna have to wake up, or I’m taking you with me.”
That should have done it, should have made you look at him at least. But he could be talking to a corpse for all he knew. You remained limp in his arms, refusing to do as he said. That is, until he tried to lift you.
You groaned in pain, the wound against your side pulling. He stopped.
“There you are. Wake up for me.”
You wouldn’t let him take you. Wouldn’t let him leave your parents behind.
He patted against your face again. “Come on. I know it hurts.” You knew what he was likely thinking, that falling from that height and surviving was damn near impossible. So you had to be hurt. You just hoped he didn’t notice whatever pain was burning against your rib cage. You didn’t want to be mended.
“Can you open your eyes for me?” Knowing he would try to take you if you didn’t, you let them open a fraction, seeing a blurred face and a bright white sky overtake your vision.
“There,” he said. “Stay with me.” You couldn’t keep them open. Couldn’t watch this. You just wanted to lay down again.
He took your arm and raised it to get a better hold on you. You knew what came next and pulled back. The movement swallowed your body in pain, making you groan again.
“Let me get you up, then you can rest, okay?”
He pulled on you again to lift you, and you finally managed a word. “No.” It was low and pitiful, and you immediately regretted it. You wanted your last words to be spoken to your parents, not this stranger.
“Come on,” he coaxed. “We got to get you up or you’ll die out here.” You shook your head almost imperceptibly, but he caught it. “Yeah we do. Let’s get you up.” He pulled you again, and you didn’t have the strength to fight him. All you could do was reach out, reach for your father’s hand. Grasp for his help one last time. You met those gloved, stiff fingers before the man could pull you up far enough and immediately knew how he had determined you were alive. Unlike you, your father was as stiff as a board. Cold and dead. Gone. That didn’t stop you from grabbing his hand, holding on tight with what little strength you had left.
The stranger tugged on you and met resistance, stopping and turning.
“I know,” he said lowly. “I know you don’t want to leave him.” You didn’t let go, letting tears fill your eyes at those words.
Caught by your gripping fingers, the man gave up trying to lift you and laid you back down. “Tell you what. I got some folk coming through here soon I was out scouting ahead for. How ‘bout we wait for their wagons so we can take the…take your family too?”
You couldn’t answer. You didn’t want to leave here and didn’t want them to either. You wanted to die here beside them.
When the man waited long enough to know you wouldn’t answer, he took it as compliance enough. “Okay then. You just rest. They’ll be here soon.”
A sob racked your frame. They would be—your parents. They had to be. They would come reach out their hands and lead you to eternity themselves. You couldn’t stand the thought of anything else.
You slowly rolled onto your good side and into your father, burrowing into his warm coat sleeve. It smelled like him. Woodsmoke and snow and horses. You wanted to be between him and your mother, but she was too far. Broken and bent wrong, too far gone for your delusional mind to believe you were laid in bed beside her. So you cradled your father, sobs shaking through you, warm tears spilling across your nose and hitting the ground.
After long enough that you hoped the man had gone away, you cracked your eyes open again. He was still there, watching the bridge above. Waiting. You wanted to tell him to leave. But like earlier, you couldn’t get the words out and didn’t want to. Each word not said to your parents felt wrong.
He turned and saw you looking at him. “Any minute,” he said. Like you were hoping for rescue. You shook your head and turned back to your father, the pain in your side beginning to throb.
You soon heard voices, a few shouted words. You caught one of them echoing down from above: bridge. Be careful, they were likely saying. Narrow bridge ahead. Too narrow for your own father to navigate, to keep a wheel from catching over the side.
The man beside you shouted, his voice so loud you startled. “Hey! Down here!”
“Arthur?” another man shouted back. “You okay down there?”
“I need some help,” he answered. “Send a wagon.”
You reached out and grabbed the man’s arm. He turned to you. You shook your head at him, trying to make him understand. You wouldn’t leave this place. Wouldn’t take your parents away.
“I can’t take all three of you,” he said. You shook your head with more urgency, but he only turned away, looking back up. “I ain’t leaving you here.”
You wanted to tell him, please do. But you couldn’t get the words out.
You tugged on his heavy coat, curling closer to your father when he looked at you again.
“No,” he said, enough of a demand in his voice for you to know he had made up his mind. “You’re coming with us. We’ll bury them proper.”
You felt a tear escape at that. Burying them…here was as proper as anywhere. More so. You didn’t want to take another step of this journey without them. You tugged on his sleeve again.
“Quit it,” he said, shaking your hand off. “I’m not leaving you.”
You gave up, turning back to your father, closing your eyes once more. You tried to let the life leak out of you. But even you knew you were too far from death, too rooted in living to get there. You imagined it instead, imagined what eternity with them would look like.
After a while, the creaking of wagon wheels met your ears. This was no place for a wagon. Not for one standing or one crashed aground.
“You okay, son?” came that same voice from before.
“Fine,” the man beside you answered, standing. “Girl here’s alive.”
Girl. Not woman, despite your age. You always got onto your mother for calling you that. But now it felt proper. Now it felt like daughter, like you belonged to the two laying beside you.
“Alive?” said a voice you hadn’t yet heard.
The man walked toward the others. “She’ll be all right, but her folks…” He walked farther away, dropping his voice. But you could still hear every damning word. “Folks are dead. She won’t leave them.”
“Won’t leave them?” one of them replied.
You wouldn’t look at them. Couldn’t. Their wagon and their passengers so whole, yours so broken.
“I told her we could take them, bury them proper. Ground’s too hard here.”
You knew just how hard the ground was. First hand. How it hadn’t killed you, you couldn’t figure.
One of the newcomers spoke. “We’d have to bring another wagon down, lighten the load a little.”
The load. Like your parents had become nothing but weight. You couldn’t stand it. You lifted your head, eyeing them. The wagon was closer than you thought, your vision still slightly blurry. Maybe you’d hit your head.
“Hello there,” said the one on the right, an older man. “No need to be afraid, we’re here to help you.”
No they weren’t. They were here to take you away.
You gathered your strength and moved, ignoring the pain in your side. It was so much harder to do now than it had been last night. Like the shock of the fall had worn off. You sat up on your knees, looking at the three men. Then, to prove a point, you made them watch as you crawled over your father and laid down right on top of him, never taking your eyes off of them. Speaking would be easier, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it.
“What’s that about?” the man on the left asked.
The one who had come down alone earlier, younger than the other two now that you could see them all, spoke. “She keeps doing that. Doesn’t want to leave.”
“She’ll die,” the other said. You nodded at him. Let him see, let them all see how desperately you wanted that.
“You have any other family?” the older man asked.
You thought of your father’s siblings in Nebraska, of their growing families. Of the reason you had been taking this trip in the first place. You couldn’t face them now, not without your parents.
You shook your head. Maybe it would get them to leave you alone. The older man turned to the others, and they all stared at each other in silent conversation. Finally, the younger man sighed, turning toward the wagon. “You two go back up then. I’ll get this done and let her do what she wants.” He pried a shovel off the wagon, turning and making for you.
“Ground’s too hard here,” the older man assured him.
“I’ll figure it out,” he answered. “Y’all go on, I’ll catch up.”
A small part of you was grateful to him. For helping you and doing as you asked, no matter how senseless.
When the others took the wagon away, leaving only you and the younger man, you looked up at him. He was staring at you, studying you like a wild animal. Maybe you weren’t so different from one.
His face softened some. “Where you want ‘em?”
Your chest caught. You hadn’t thought of it. You hadn’t thought this would be done so quickly, without any sort of ceremony, without all the recognition they deserved. Just you. Just a stranger that had robbed them less than an hour ago.
You would find the strength to do it for them. You wouldn’t leave them laying here like this. As much as you wanted to join them, it was becoming glaringly obvious you wouldn’t die alongside them. It was your duty to do this right, to be there for them when no one else would be.
Ignoring your pain, you backed off of your father and raised up onto your knees, looking to the trees leading up to the cliffside. The nearest was a lumbering pine, its roots reaching through the rocky shale effortlessly. Like it had been here longer than you’d been alive.
You pointed to the tree’s base, drawing the man’s attention. He dropped his head then sighed, picking up the shovel. Heading for it. You watched all the while. Watched him pick a spot and lift his shovel, bringing it down on ground so tough he hardly made a dent. He cursed. He lifted it higher and tried again. The ground didn’t budge any more the second time. He took to running his boot over the ground, checking for places the rock gave way to softer dirt. When he was satisfied, he lifted the shovel. This time, the ground gave.
He raised the shovel and moved to a spot a few feet away, trying again. The ground gave there too. He raised his head, looking over at you. “This’ll do. It’s gonna take me some time, breaking up all these roots.”
“Don’t kill the tree.”
You were as surprised to hear your voice as he was. You just couldn’t stand the tree dying too.
“She speaks,” he said, going back to his shoveling.
You watched him then, watched him a long time. So long that he began to sweat with the work, stopping to shed his huge fur-lined coat. He kept going. He got to the second grave. You debated who should go in which. As much as it pained you to think it, your mother needed to go on the left, your father on the right. Because that was how they had slept around you for over two decades.
You didn’t realize you were crying until a gust of wind shifted the air, making the wetness on your face turn cold. It was too much. You couldn’t do this.
Would the stranger bury you alive if you asked him to?
As soon as you had the thought, he turned to you. “Come look, see if I got this how you want it.”
You stood silently. Your side burned, but it wasn’t unbearable. Remarkably, almost unbelievably, you didn’t think you were hurt anywhere else. You just ached. Though that may not have been from pain.
You eyed your father at your feet then moved, walking toward the trees. Like a child learning to walk, a woman learning to navigate the world, all on her own.
You stepped up to the graves and looked down at them with the man. Roughly cut holes in the ground. A few of the roots from the tree had been preserved, sticking out of the sides. It made you want to smile, but smiling made you want to cry. Instead, you turned and went back for your father. If you didn’t do this now, you never would.
You thought of the pair of them living under this tree forever, the roots twining around them both until they were one. Part of the land and nothing more than memory. It was better than you could have done for them out here, all alone.
You reached your father and smoothed his coat out. Avoiding the pallid look of his skin, you noted his hat was gone. You searched the nearby ground for it.
“What is it?” the man asked, coming up behind you.
You motioned to your head and continued looking, rounding the wagon’s back end. You soon heard a board shift and looked over—he was pulling the hat out from under the wagon.
“This it?”
You nodded, going over to take it from him. He spoke before you could.
“We need to get your momma out from under there.”
Something about him using that word, calling her what you always called her…it crushed you. He didn’t even have to be told these were your parents. Because it was obvious. You had her hair. You had his nose. Your shoulders began to shake, and you were crying again, turning away so the man couldn’t see.
You felt his hand on your shoulder. “I’ll do it. You’re in no state to lift the wagon anyway. Just hold her for me, would you?”
You could hold her. Had wanted to, had been too afraid to touch her in such a fragile state. You nodded and let him lead the way.
Your mother was face down, the only part of her trapped under the wagon her leg. If you ignored that, she looked peaceful too. You were afraid to turn her over, just as you were afraid to move your father. You had a feeling whatever damage had been done was worse on their undersides.
The man set your father’s hat down and stepped up to the wagon side, preparing to lift it. You stepped up to your mother. You crouched and touched her back, the same cold lifelessness meeting your gloved hand as it had when you touched your father. You swallowed your sorrow and steeled yourself. You owed this to her.
With a grunt, the man lifted the wagon and attempted to push her leg out from under it. You couldn’t watch, knowing how wrong it would look, but you could help. You could hold her one last time. You wrapped your arms around your mother as you had so lovingly before and pulled.
“There,” the man said, letting the wagon back down with a crash of more broken wood. You couldn’t stand the sound—you were sobbing again.
“You take whatever time you need. I’ll carry ‘em over when you’re ready.”
You wordlessly thanked him for it. You had been dreading that, wanting to remember them as whole and nothing more. So this would be the last time you looked upon them. You would recall them sleeping, resting. Waiting for you.
You heard the man walk away as you let your mother go. Looking between her and her husband she loved so dearly. The only man to ever soften her.
His hat was resting beside him now, another small kindness from the stranger. You waited until he was far enough away not to overhear you before saying a word. Then you spoke, swearing it would be the last time you ever did so.
“I know why you wanted to take this trip.” You whispered it through a sob and were surprised to hear the words. Their reasons didn’t matter now. But it had mattered enough to you before to act coldly toward them. Now all you wanted was to tell them you understood. They had just been trying to show you love any way they knew how. You wanted to take back all that resentment, show them the love you felt in return. So you said it aloud. No matter that it would fall on unhearing ears.
“And I understand it now, and I forgive you for it…” You broke down, words impossible. How to sum up how deeply you cared for them in so little time? Your father always said it was actions that mattered, not words. Maybe that was all you could stomach anyway.
You bent down and kissed your mother on the side of her face, what little bit of it was showing. You moved and kissed your father on the forehead. You put his hat back on his head. They were too far apart for you to grab both of their hands. So you laid between them, facing the sky.
“Another morning,” you whispered, the cold air stinging your face. The words your father always woke with, repeating like a prayer. And your mother’s constant reply. “May it be as kind as you are.”
Your eyes welled with sadness, so you shut them. Back in the drafty room you had grown up in. Between your sleeping parents.
“I love you both.” You half heartedly wished death had been close by all along, waiting for you to say this to take you. But the pain in your side was too real. And the darkness behind your eyes wasn’t full enough. And your parents were on the wrong sides of the bed.
You laid there and cried for a long time. You weren’t sure how long, only that it didn’t feel right to get up and leave them now. To keep on living. It was unfair.
You heard the same animal from the night before make its loud call, the only thing to stir you. It was an elk. Strong and proud and always afraid. The three of you combined. But if you were the fearful one, when would you ever be allowed to rest?
You sat up, turning toward the sound. It was too far for the animal to be in view. But in that direction was the man from before, the one you had completely forgotten about. He was turned away, watching the sky. Waiting. You thought of his offer to go away from this place and felt that fear clutch you tightly. But what else would you do? Stubbornly stay here, neglect the very thing your parents had wanted for you? It was your refusal to take this trip all over again. You wished with such harsh regret that you had stood firm, made them stay home with you. Then they wouldn’t be lying broken on the ground, and you wouldn’t have to force yourself to do something you could never find the will to do in the first place. But your parents had wanted you to start your own life, one out of the snow and the hardship. Maybe this was the world’s cruel way of forcing you.
You sighed, shaking off your crippling sorrow and rising to your feet. You gave one last look at your parents. As much as you hated it, you would do it for them. Of course you would.
Within the hour, the man had brought them both to their final resting places and married the dirt with the ground it belonged to. He had asked if you wanted to do the honors, to speak over them, anything. You couldn’t even find the will to shake your head at him. You just watched from a distance, knowing you didn’t want to see them like this anyway.
When the deed was done and the man stepped away, wiping his brow with the effort, you turned and walked back to the wagon without a word. It was over. And you were still alive.
The man spoke. “Look, I know it ain’t my place but…you don’t need to be staying out here. There’s bears and wolves and all manner of animal that’ll eat you for the hell of it.”
He didn’t understand it and likely never would—what wanting to die looked like. But as much as you hated it, he was right. You wouldn’t meet your death here because of the same stubbornness your parents had tried so hard to correct.
You refused to respond and got to the wagon, prying through its broken boards and trying your best to ignore the sound. You wanted the keepsake you had been too weak to consider taking until now. You hadn’t truly thought you would find the strength to leave them, to need something like this. But the stranger of a man had come along like your parents’ very own dying wish, and you wouldn’t wrong them again.
You crawled on your belly underneath the wagon, the inside of it nearly unrecognizable—a tangle of ripped canvas and splintered wood. You dug through what the man had left behind after his search for anything valuable, knowing this wasn’t something he would have taken. You lifted a blanket and heard a familiar ruffle of pages as something small fell to the ground. Underneath the blanket lay the leather-clad book your father couldn’t bring himself to get rid of—a ledger. Though it hadn’t started out that way. You recalled growing up and learning your letters from your mother, sitting beside your father as she forced him to do the same. You picked up the ledger and looked through the first few pages, his terrible attempts at words. You knew without having to look further their spelling got better over time, though his handwriting never did. Then how his words turned to numbers, to how much hay and meat and skins he had sold or traded, how much the three of you needed to survive. It was obvious on the pages you had pored over time and again that words were not his specialty. The concern and care he showed his family was, written in determined number after number.
You closed the ledger and clutched it tightly to your chest. It was your father’s essence, your mother’s determination to teach him. You would hold onto it like your life depended on it.
You heard a knock on the wagon side and startled. The man was staring in at you. Maybe he was beginning to understand you better—he didn’t say a word. Didn’t try to convince you to come out. That alone had you feeling a little less uneasy. You were taught not to trust strangers, but this man had done more than most people you knew well would. The least you could do was show some semblance of thankfulness and let him take you somewhere safe enough to please him before you parted ways.
He moved out of the way as you shimmied out from under the wagon, outright ignoring your pain. It was a fickle thing to you now. It came and went, and you couldn’t give much care to it one way or the other. It just was. Just as the state of the wagon was. Just as the newly dug graves were, forever marring the ground now.
You clambered to your feet with ledger in hand and faced the man, unspeaking.
“You coming then?”
You hesitated, knowing how this would shape your life. To live or to die. To do as your parents wanted or to live the way they had—not long enough.
You met the stranger’s eye and nodded at him.
“All right then. Come on,” he said, as simply as if you had just agreed to a warm meal or a night’s rest. Not your life. He motioned you to follow and made for his horse. “Name’s Arthur.”
You couldn’t bring yourself to answer. Your name circled through your head, one of the last things your parents had given you that was still yours to hold. He didn’t need to know it anyway.
He soon mounted his horse and helped you up. You settled onto the back of the beast, making it shift with the new weight. Unnecessary weight. An added burden. That’s all you were now. The only purpose you stood lay hundreds of miles away in either direction. So where to go and what to do if not lay underneath the dirt beside your parents? They would have been able to tell you. But that was the very thinking that had warranted this trip.
You gave one last look at the rough-cut graves now covered with earth, noting the tree, the rock face, the bridge you would not forget. You would be back someday. You would not let them lie here forever, unknown and uncared for.
When the newly named stranger spurred his horse forward, you were filled with every ounce of hurt, pain, regret. Determination. You would not let the two people that mattered most to you die thoughtlessly, in vain. You would meet them again with a story to tell. For them, you would live. Crushed beneath the weight of death, you would live.