Wind sways the pines,
And below
Not a breath of wild air;
Still as the mosses that glow
On the flooring and over the lines
Of the roots here and there.
The pine-tree drops its dead;
They are quiet, as under the sea.
Overhead, overhead
Rushes life in a race,
As the clouds the clouds chase;
And we go,
And we drop like the fruits of the tree,
Even we,
Even so.
George Meredith
"Dirge in Woods"
The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more.
Mary Shelley
"Frankenstein"
It was full twilight as Heath and John approached home. Heath could never pass under that remarkable wrought iron gate without thinking of the first time he rode up and saw his brothers standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the veranda of their impossibly impressive house. They had seemed so proud, so confident, so unshakably at home. Heath had felt anything but confident as he faced those Masters of the Castle, wearing his best threadbare shirt and his own dusty pride. Yes, he had pride, and in that moment he made up for the rest by being a bit cocky.
He knew his brothers now to be human, not so unshakeable, but in Heath's eyes, they still carried a bone-deep confidence, a rooted at-home-ness that he had suspected he would never attain, born as it was from a lifelong experience of belonging. Heath could see this was a well of strength for his brothers, and while he himself might never tap into the source of those waters, he drew from that stream, and, watching them, tried to understand whence it came. Lately his line of sight had become so closed in on the task of getting through the day, one hour at a time, even one minute at a time, that he didn't much think himself into the future. But when he could picture it, he hoped that his own children would have that knowledge of belonging that he saw in his brothers.
In the meantime, though, Heath did purely enjoy rattling his brothers' confidence and keeping them just a bit off balance when he could.
On this evening, though, as he and John neared home, Heath was thinking of Hannah, and of the two women whose pine-shaded graves she tended in that dusty, threadbare town up in the hills. His mother was only 19 when he was born. As brutally hard as life was at times for her, her love for her son, and her belief in him, was unshakable. He could feel her love in his bones, running through his veins. It was what he was made of. Times he was alone and terrified, times he lay dying, his body empty, it seemed that love was all that was left of him.
Standing beside his mother, in his mind, always, was Rachael. She had been there for Leah since before he was born. Rachael was in love with Leah, this was always clear to see, but her devotion to their unconventional family was ferocious and deeply rooted, undiminished by any unrequited romantic feelings. Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people. The verse was inscribed on the small silver jewelry box Rachael had given to Leah, which she used to hold her best sewing things. The box was cradled in his mother's hands as she was buried.
Rachael had sent Heath off with her love and blessing to find his father's family, but soon after, she followed her Leah into death, murdered trying to defend her son's path forward into his new life. The loss of Rachael had been a massive shock to Heath, a grievous wound within a wound, coming as it did so soon after the death of his mother. At Hannah's urging, Heath had allowed Jarrod to handle the matter of bringing Heath's Uncle Matt and his Aunt Martha to justice for the murder. Instinctively, he knew she was right. Overwhelmed, he could not venture near that task of reprisal lest he be lost in a bottomless whirlpool of anger and revenge. Losing both Rachael and his mother had been a shapeless, wordless pain, and he felt he had barely begun to grieve for his mother, and for Rachael, each and together.
These three women had given him his own well of strength and compassion. He knew this, though lately he realized he'd been losing sight of it, thinking he was lost in the desert. One year ago, he had returned to Strawberry to place decent headstones for both his mother and for Rachael. Standing in the hush of the forest over the side-by-side graves, Heath had begged Hannah to come with him down to the valley. He had been frantic to keep her safe, to keep her with him, to keep from losing her too. She had laughed at him, grieving though she still was herself.
"Heath, child, the people we love, they like manna from heaven. You gotta love 'em while you got 'em. You can't store 'em up somehow for later. You jes' gotta believe that when the sun come up in the mornin' there gonna be love there for you if you know where to look." Reaching up, she took his face in her small, strong hands and looked into his eyes with a sad smile. "If you willin' to look, you understand me?"
"But, Hannah, I –"
"You need to find your way with this new family, Heath. You always have me, where ever I be. Besides," she winked at him, tipping her head toward the two graves, "them two ladies always did spoil you, boy. You know I never did, and I ain't gonna start. Not sure you can handle jes' me on your hide."
She made him laugh, and then she kissed him and shooed him on his way with a promise to have the schoolmistress help her write a letter to him if she needed anything over the winter. Smiling a little at the memory, Heath began thinking through a list of repairs and supplies for around Hannah's small house that would need looking to before winter arrived.
The gate in sight, the horses picked up their pace, eager for home themselves. As they trotted under the archway, Audra came running out the front door, calling to her brother.
"Heath! You're finally here! I have something to show you. Give Ciego the horses and come inside." She ran alongside Charger, breathlessly looking up at Heath. He laughed down at her.
"What is it?"
"I'll show you when you come in. I've been waiting for your all afternoon! Just hurry." She ran off, calling to Ciego to get the horses.
John watched her go, smiling. "Does she always come barreling out to you like that when you come home?"
Heath laughed again. "No, honest, that's not typical - though it is kinda nice."
At Victoria's insistence, the men were sent off to get cleaned up for dinner, though she unhesitatingly allowed John to pull her into an embrace on his way upstairs, road dust and all. Jarrod and Nick grinned at each other. Audra fussed over the dust on her mother's dress and scolded her uncharacteristically as she brushed her off. Victoria smiled at her.
"Audra, it's just a little dirt. Listen to you! You sound just like me, except you tended to do such things as climb trees and chase horses in your nice dresses."
"Well – I feel like someone's got to keep an eye on that Marshal Smith. Getting you all messy right before dinner – Nick would never get away with that – and he's supposed to be keeping Heath out of trouble, and it looks to me like somebody punched him!"
Jarrod appeared to offer his mother a drink before dinner. "I think she's right on all points, Mother. Nick would never get away with that. And I want to know what happened in town today."
As soon as Heath appeared on the staircase dressed for dinner, Audra ran up to grab his hand, fending off Victoria, who wanted to see if Heath was injured. "He can tell us all about whatever fight he was in afterwards," she insisted, her impatience getting the best of her. Heath looked a question at Nick, who only grinned and shrugged, but followed along as she led him into the library.
"Heath, I think she's Friesian! Come look at these books."
That got Heath's full attention as he recognized the name. He and Audra bent over the volumes that lay open on the library table. He was nodding. "Yes – yes, you may be right – I've heard of them. Never seen one. They're rare in America, at least outside of New York. And very expensive. So how did she end up in - -?"
Nick interrupted, confused. He turned to Jarrod. "Freezing? What does she mean, she's freezing?"
Victoria laughed as she entered on John's arm. "Not freezing, Nick. Friesian. It's a horse breed, though I can't say I know much more about it than that."
Jarrod agreed. "I've heard the name. I think perhaps I saw a team of them pulling a hearse at a state funeral when I was in New York many years ago. They called them "Belgian Blacks". Incredibly beautiful. Four perfectly matched black draft horses."
"They're actually from the Netherlands," Audra said, looking up from a giant illustrated book on equestrian history and breeding. "The breed goes back 600 years, according to this. The Dutch brought them to New York in the 1600's."
"Wouldn't she be registered somewhere, if she is a – what was the name – a Friesian?" Nick wondered.
"Maybe not," Heath said, reading from a current breeder's catalogue. "Looks like they've only recently begun keeping a studbook. But from what I see here, Sombra might have too much of a white blaze to meet the standards. She's easily big enough – I measured her at 16 hands, and now that Audra's fed her up, she definitely has the conformation. The arched neck, the feathering on her legs, the long wavy mane and tail – but says here to be registered they must be full black, with no more than a white star between the eyes. I wonder if that blaze would be enough to decrease her money value, enough that an ordinary family could have owned her."
Victoria looked over his shoulder at the catalogue. "That's possible. If she couldn't be registered and bred as pure, she'd basically then just be a very pretty draft horse, wouldn't she?"
"Well, it should be easy for me to find out who she belonged to up there," Heath said, starting to leaf through one of the other breeding books Audra had opened.
"Up where, Heath? You planning to go somewhere?" Jarrod asked, suddenly a little concerned. "And who, by the way, punched you in the face today?"