Chapter Twenty-eight

Soon, Burninghead Farm fades to just a speck in the distance, and then to nothing more than a memory somewhere over the horizon. We fly due west across open fields and abandoned farmlands, the grasses and scrub overgrown but not overwhelming, more evidence of the earth’s newfound dominance over what was once occupied territory. We keep off the highway but near enough to follow its lead. The pavement would be too hard on the horses for them to manage for any length of time, especially at our current speed. Not that I had known that, of course, ignorant as I am about all things equine. To me, taking the horses up onto the pavement seemed the most logical thing in the world. Thankfully, Dunk warned me off the highway, preventing me from what would have been a boneheaded mistake that could have ended our little adventure before it had really begun. I am all too aware that for all my protesting, Dunk has already proved his worth by saving my dumb ass.

We ride the wind, racing against the turning of the planet, and I have never before felt such a sense of freedom. Stu’s powerful legs churn up the ground beneath us, and I swear I can feel him reaching down into his heritage, to the days of his ancestors running wild across the plains. This is what horses used to know, back before man conquered them, when they were allowed to simply run free.

I have no idea how long we can keep up this pace, although I am certain it cannot go on forever. The horses, despite their power, are not machines. Even I know that much. I have to trust Dunk to set the pace and slow us down when it becomes too much for our rides. Still, selfishly, I dread the coming of that moment.

Eventually, Dunk slows, pulling back on the reins and easing Goldie into a walk before stopping her altogether. I follow suit, pulling up beside them. Dunk pats Goldie’s thick neck and whispers into her ear. She whinnies slightly and stomps her front hoof. Clearly she wants to keep running.

“Easy, girl, easy,” Dunk coos, loud enough for Stu and me to both hear. “There’ll be plenty of time for that later. For now we need to give you guys some rest.”

Stu snorts, as if to say that rest is for beings far less powerful than he and Goldie.

“Come on, Stu, you know I’m right,” Dunk says with a chuckle.

It is strange sitting here astride this giant horse, listening to Dunk have a full-on conversation with him. Yet once again, I am taken by how Stu seems to respond to Dunk, how he and Goldie always seem to understand every single word we are saying and answer us back. Finally, the matter appears to be settled enough for Stu and Goldie, and we continue on our way.

Already the sun is starting to slip lower into the sky, and I know we only have a few hours of riding left, if we are lucky, before night claims the day. We ride on in silence, me lost in my thoughts, Dunk seeming to sense my mood. I’m not purposefully ignoring him, but I feel guilty just the same. Still, we aren’t college freshmen on some glorified road trip, and I push my guilt aside. Besides, Dunk doesn’t really seem to mind the lack of conversation. I notice his head bobbing and weaving in time to some tune I can’t hear, and every now and then a little bit of the melody in his head escapes his lips in a low hum.

“We probably ought to find a place to stop for the night,” Dunk says after about two hours.

By my calculations, keeping an eye on the mileage signs that mark the side of the highway, we’ve only made it about twenty-five miles. Truth be told, I have absolutely no idea how far a horse can go in one day, or how long it will take us to reach Asheville.

I sigh my frustration.

“Horses can only be pushed about ten hours a day when we’re traveling like we are,” Dunk says, having picked up on my disappointment. “Otherwise, exhaustion sets in, and these guys won’t be able to make it back.”

That thought scares me. I haven’t even considered how hard this will be on the horses, and I certainly don’t want to do anything to harm them. I realize that it isn’t just Dunk’s safety I am responsible for.

“Ten hours a day? How far do you think we can get in that time?” I try to sound only mildly curious.

“Well, depending on the conditions, maybe thirty to forty miles a day if we’re lucky. We pushed them kind of hard today, but these horses like to run, so we’ll see. We just have to be careful.”

I quickly figure out that it is going to take us at least another four days to get to Asheville. If stupid were a town, I would easily be its mayor, running unopposed and winning in a landslide. I don’t know what in the hell I was thinking. I had just figured I’d take a horse and be there tomorrow. Clearly that isn’t going to be the case.

Stupid, stupid.

“I know you want to get there,” Dunk says, trying to make me feel better. “And we will. But it’s just going to take some time. For now, let’s just find a place to make camp. Get some food and get settled in for the night.”

We find a small clearing in some woods about a mile farther along, far enough from the highway to hide us. My legs are jelly as I jump down from Stu’s back, and my mind flashes to that day riding with Kate, and how she’d had to catch me to keep me from falling. This time I manage to stay on my feet after I dismount. Kate would be proud that I seem to have gotten my horse legs. Dunk goes to work caring for the horses, getting them fed and tucked away for the night. I gather wood for a fire.

By the time I get back, Dunk has finished with the horses and has found about a dozen medium-sized stones and made a small circle for a fire pit. It isn’t long before he has a small blaze going, after my own attempts to start the fire fail.

“What were you, a Boy Scout?”

“Eagle Scout, actually.”

“Figures,” I mutter. “Wish I’d had you with me all those months on the road. Lots of cold nights I wished I’d had a fire and could never seem to get one going for long.”

“Yeah, well if I’d been there, I would have whipped you into shape in no time. Starting fires, tying knots, pitching tents, skinning squirrels—”

“Skinning squirrels? What in the hell kind of Eagle Scouts were these? Future Serial Killers Troop 101?”

“Hey, don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it. Squirrel is good eating.”

I gag at the thought. A hearty laugh erupts from Dunk’s throat, and I can’t believe how gullible I am.

“Asshole.”

“Well,” he says, still chuckling, “thankfully Franny packed us a lovely assortment of cornbread, dried food, and a few canned goods, so no squirrel tonight.” He rummages through one of the supply sacks.

We fix our dinner, and the scent of the cooking food, wafting over the fire, has my stomach growling. Soon we are digging into hearty helpings of Spam and beans.

“Mmm, tastes like squirrel.”

I nearly spit out my dinner, laughing. Dunk keeps his head down, focused on his food, but I see the smile tweaking the corner of his mouth. I laugh again. Dunk can be pretty cheeky when he wants.

We make quick work of our dinner and the cleanup, burying our refuse and packing away our cookware and supplies. We opt to not unpack our tent, preferring instead to lay out our sleeping bags directly under a blanket of stars. It will be cold overnight, of that I have no doubt, but the temperatures are not yet frigid. Besides, there is something comforting about being stretched out with the sky as our ceiling, seeing stars that have only returned now that the glare of man’s lights are no longer polluting the nighttime sky.

“Do you think they’re up there watching us?”

I am nearly asleep, soothed by the rhythmic twinkling of the stars, and it takes me a minute to respond. “Who?”

“All the people we’ve lost.”

I look over at him. He is bundled up in his sleeping bag, staring up at the great big sky.

“You mean Heaven?”

“Maybe.”

I finally understand his meaning. I turn back to the stars.

“When I was a kid, I had this cat. His name was Billy. He wandered into our yard one day, all dirty and scrawny. My dad was worried the cat was feral, but he was just about as sweet as a cat could be. All he ever wanted to do was curl up in your lap. He was my best friend.”

This many years later, the thought of that cat still tugs at my heart a bit.

“But even when we took him in, he was pretty sick. We did everything we could for him, but in the end…we just couldn’t let him suffer anymore. I cried for days. One night, my dad took me outside and pointed up at the stars. He told me about the constellations, about the Big Dipper and Orion and the others. Then he searched the sky for a while until he found this one particular star. It wasn’t as bright as the others, but it flashed in the sky like it was winking at me. He told me the star was Billy, keeping an eye on me from Heaven. I asked him why it was twinkling, and he said Billy was trying to let me know he was up there, watching over me. Any time I was missing him, all I had to do was look up at the sky and look for that winking star, and I would know Billy was there.”

Dunk doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking up at those stars.

As the silence lingers, I find myself growing embarrassed. “Sorry. That was a really hokey story.”

“See that one there? Next to that really bright one?” He asks me after a while, pointing up to the sky. “That one’s my mom and dad.”

I smile, my embarrassment vanishing. “That’s a good star, Dunk.”

He seems pleased at that, and I watch his eyes fall slowly closed. I lie back, watching the stars, until sleep claims me.

Early the next morning, we break camp and begin again, heading ever west. We quickly develop a pattern of riding for a few hours and then resting the horses, then beginning again. When we are hungry, we eat. When it gets dark, we make camp. We are blessed with mostly good weather, although it turns noticeably colder by late the second day, and that first night under the stars turns out to be our last. From that point on, Dunk and I share a tent at night.

The days pass, and I barely even notice when we cross into Illinois. The road is quiet, and I am thankful we do not run into anyone along the way, living or dead. Not a single body litters the roadside, at least as far as I can see. But every now and then, death soaks the air, and I am reminded that things are not always as they appear. We stay south of Chicago, not wanting to take the risk even though it would shave at least thirty miles off our journey.

On the seventh day, just past noon, we enter the city limits of Asheville, Illinois.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-31