"Now let the night be dark for all of me.

Let the night be too dark for me to see

Into the future. Let what will be, be."

― Robert Frost

"Absolutely not." Cripps said, his arms crossed in defiance. I threw myself down onto the stool and lit a match on my boot, lifting it to light the half-wet cigarette clinging to my lips.

"Would you rather I get shot?" I asked angrily. I had made the mistake of telling him the man I'd met at the bounty board how I'd offered him work on the wagon. Our wagon, Cripps had pointed out.

"For Christ's sake, Nora. You don't know anything about this man, what makes you think you'd be any safer with him in tow? Who's to say he won't take the goods for himself?" He was animated, hands waving in exasperation.

"I don't know that he won't. But he had a perfect opportunity to shoot me before and he didn't." I shrug. Cripps is right, I can't trust Arthur. I don't know Arthur.

"A hundred-dollar bounty and a six-hundred-dollar wagon are two very different things, you know that. If you are worried about going alone then let me go with you!" he shouted, I raised an eyebrow at him and blew out the smoke.

"And leave all this unattended?" I wave my finger around camp; we'd acquired enough equipment throughout the years that it has rendered us impossible to miss. "Or should we take all our money and kit with us and lose everything at once? We've been over this a thousand times, you can't come."

He laced his blood-stained fingers together behind his head as he perched on the corner of his table. I wondered if it ever bothered him, living and working in the gore, or if he was so used to it by now that it never crossed his mind. It still bothered me.

"Look, I know it's a risk. But times are getting more desperate by the day. It's not just bandits that I gotta watch out for anymore and I can only shoot in one direction at a time." I counter, it was only on the last sale that I'd had a run in with a man on his own. He'd asked me for directions to Emerald Ranch before pulling a gun on me. It was over quickly, but I'd found his notice of unemployment in his pocket when it was all done. People were struggling now more than ever, and struggling makes us all do crazy things.

Cripps sat in silence for a moment, the frown lines carved deeply into his face, darkened by the dirt that no amount of scrubbing would ever remove. Eventually he held his hand out for a cigarette, I passed him a drier one.

"If he kills me, I'll let you carve 'I told you so' into my tombstone?" I say, relieved to be met with his usual toothless smirk. We decided to speak on it no further that night, we both knew that the situation was dire and we both knew there was no right answer. Over the years that I had lived off the land I had come to learn that there is never a right answer. You can only do what you can and what will be, will be. This was no comfort, but then again what was?

Cripps got back to working on the pelts while I stocked the saddle for another night of hunting, the wagon was almost full and it was time to make a head start on the next batch. I knew there was a big cat in Black Bone Forest, I'd heard its screaming cry the night before as I willed myself to sleep. I checked the arrows for cracks or splinters, it was always best to get them between the eyes with one of these. It was cleaner, if I got it right. I'd hunted with a bow since my childhood, not being allowed to shoot guns until I'd first mastered archery. My father had told me that a gun can strip a hunter of all patience at best and compassion at worst. I wrapped my hand around the bow that once belonged to him, carved with the knife that ended him.

"It takes time, it always takes time. The best things often do." he whispered, beckoning me over to join him in the tall grass. I walk over slowly, couched as low as I can get my little body to go without crawling. We'd been at it all afternoon, following the prints of the pronghorns, preserved in the wet soil. I was tired, I was bored, I was done with this. And yet the second my father lifted a finger to his lips to hush me, excitement pooled in my stomach.

It was finally my turn. My brother had been going out on hunts ever since he turned 11, but it was finally my turn. No longer was I watching from a distance, this time the bow was in my hands. The blisters were on my fingers. The shot would be mine.

"Look over there." he pointed out ahead of us where a buck was feeding, its jaw chewing the sun-bleached grass in the unhinged way it always did. He looked calm, he looked safe...he was not.

"Slowly now, remember it's not about haste, it's about precision." He said, telling himself as much as he was telling me. I raised the bow slowly, pulling the arrow back against my cheek. My hands shook for a moment, I took a deep breath to steady myself before giving my father a small nod.

He grinned, his smile too big for his face, and then stuck his fingers in his mouth and let out a deafening whistle. Everything moved slower than I thought it would. The buck raised his fragile head towards the sound and I looked him straight in the eye. Perhaps it was the adrenaline, perhaps it was imagination, but I could have sworn he blinked. As though he accepted his fate, he knew in that second before I released the arrow that it was all over. It took me a moment to register the impact after it happened, the thud of the buck's still warm body hitting the ground seemed to make the ground shake beneath me.

"OH, YES!" my father exclaimed beside me, lifting me off the ground to spin me in a victorious circle. I burst into laughter at the sensation, hand still firmly clasped around the bow.

"Right through the eye! I knew you would do it!" he ran over and pulled the arrow from the lifeless buck, wiping it off on his shirt before sticking it back in his makeshift pouch. He grabbed my hand, pulling me over to stand with him. "Remember to always say thank you."

"Thank you." I whispered, bending down to rest my hand on the buck's hind.

"Right, go and get the wagon. I'll load him in."

I smiled at the memory; my father was a rare man. He cared not for pride, nor wealth or intimidation. He cared only for influence, for love, for us. I shoved the bow into the saddle holder, and mounted Aine.

The hunt had taken all night. The cougar had been elsewhere for the majority of it and I'd had to abandon my post a couple of times when the wolves descended. But eventually I got the cat. It takes time, it always takes time. It was light by the time I made it back to camp, Cripps was sleeping in the wagon with a bottle still in hand. I took it from him and placed it on the table, before getting to work on the skinning job. It was the worst bit, getting the pelt from the body undamaged. I'd gotten good at it over the years, still nowhere near as precise as Cripps, I remember he damn near had a heart attack then he first saw me hack at a pelt with my old rusty knife. He routinely upkeeps all the knives now, including my own. With the cougar stripped of its skin and the meat harvested for another stew, I washed my hands in the stream and threw myself down onto the canvass matt, and into oblivion.

Cripps woke me in the afternoon, asking if I could go to valentine to pick up some liquor. They don't sell the good stuff in Strawberry, he had said. Valentine was no quick trip, but I could make it there before the store shut and I had no other plans. It was no hassle, although I made sure that Cripps didn't get that message. With an eye roll and a huff, I packed my satchel with some tinned peaches and some carrots for Aine and set off. I decided to go through Cattail Pond, there was always some good hunting to be done around those parts, big game as far as the eye could see. I let Aine enjoy a loose rein as we strolled through the trees, I had to remind myself to savour these moments. Just me and my most trusted companion, the sun on our faces.

I had met Aine four years ago, she was the shell of the horse that strode proudly below me today. I had been picking berries in the Heartlands when I had spotted her, emaciated and shivering. Her fear was not stronger than her hunger, and she had hesitantly approached me in search of food. How could I say no? She was taller than any horse I had owned before, a thoroughbred. I hadn't been able to see her true chestnut colour until a few days after I'd brought her back to camp. Only once fed, happy, and safe did she really begin to shine. Cripps had commented that she had sought refuge in a fellow red head, perhaps she had. I'd been riding the wagon horse for months at that point, after a bad encounter with the Lemoyne Raiders had left my poor old Willow dead in the mud. Aine had followed me all the way back without a rope, hoping for more food. She was clearly not wild, having struggled on her own for a long time before spotting me, a feeling I could relate to all too well. I named her after my grandmother, who's stories of rebellion and survival I had been told throughout my childhood. Aine had barely left my side since and I never wanted her to. I don't know where she came from, I don't know who had given her the scars that littered her hind legs, I don't know why she was frightened of certain men. All I knew is that she was mine now, and we had found a home in each other.

It had rained and valentine was sloppier than usual, I struggled to find steady footing in the mud as I hitched Aine to the post outside of the store. I didn't hang around in there, despite the shopkeeper's persistence that I just needed to see the latest styles that he'd just had delivered. Not the most subtle tactic, but we all had to make money somehow. Two bottles of rum, two bourbon and two gin. This should see him through for another week or so. I shook my head at the thought of the drunken bastard as I filled the saddle bags. It was getting dark out and I didn't feel up for the trip back just yet, I especially didn't feel up for another Cripps special stew. God only knows what would be in that pot. I decided to rent a room for the night and treat myself to a few luxuries, a bath, a meal, a bed. Oh god, a bed. I took Aine to the stable and paid the keeper to take care of her overnight, he was always so gentle with her and she always enjoyed the stay. If I were treating myself, it was only fair she should receive the same.

With nothing but time for the rest of the night, I made my way over to the saloon in the hopes of dinner and a bottle or two. However, that's not what I found. What I found was Arthur, drunk as a man could possibly be, slapping another young man in the face. Oh no wait, being slapped in the face?

What on earth had I walked into...