Excerpt from Chapter Ten
- The Horse Angles
Anne
lay sleeping on the couch. After her meltdown, she had fallen into a deep
slumber brought on by stress, trauma, and pain meds. She was completely
exhausted and lay in a dreamless state of suspension, far away from her pain,
cares, and concerns.
Samantha
had covered her mother with a brightly colored crocheted afghan and sat beside
her until the police returned to say their goodbyes. Rosie spoke with Officer Parker
out on the front porch with the door closed so as not to disturb Anne. The conversation
was held with a thin veil of professional politeness, and was short, terse, and
filled with tension. Parker gave the clearance for Anne to leave at will, but
threatened Rosie about hiding any evidence connected with the murders at the
High Star Ranch. Rosie did her best to conceal her contempt for this man, but
both of them knew each other far too well to be fooled by appearances. The
officers left Angel Ridge with no hard evidence of the crimes they were sent to
investigate.
The
afternoon sun was leaning westward. A cool breeze had started from the north
and the farm took on a lonely cloak of apprehension, as all of its inhabitants
knew the worst was yet to come. The farm operations continued unabated, but
those charged with the work walked slowly, talked in hushed voices, didn’t
smile, and kept their heads pointed down at the dreary earth. It was as if a
fog had fallen over the farm and smothered out the clarity of life and future.
When
Joe opened the hidden door at the clinic and descended the stairs into the
basement he found Nolan asleep on the military cot. The lights were still on,
giving the space a cold sterile glare. Nolan opened his eyes.
“Are
they gone?”
“Yea,
they cleared out a while ago.”
Nolan
sat up. His arm was in the sling, causing him to wince as he brought himself
upright.
“You
hungry?” asked Joe.
Nolan
sat still for a moment as his brain came back online. His eyes blinked and he
rubbed his face with his one good hand.
“Where’s
Anne? Is she still here?”
Joe
took note of the way that Nolan asked this question. There was an intention, a
motivation that he hadn’t seen in Nolan before.
“Yes,
she’s napping up at the main house.”
Nolan
considered the words as if they had some great meaning.
“I
need to see her.”
“Okay,
let’s go up there and see what’s going on.”
“Give
me a minute,” said Nolan, as he stood up and walked over to the sink and
mirror. Within a few minutes he had washed his face and run a comb through his
hair. Joe waited upstairs and chatted with the vet about some of the new
arrivals. Before long Nolan came clomping up the staircase and appeared in the
room with Joe and the vet.
He
looked at Joe. “What did she say?”
“Who?”
“Anne,
did she say anything?”
Joe
saw a look of uncertainty in Nolan’s eyes. He was searching.
“I
haven’t talked to her. I have been down here all day,” Joe said with a slight
smile. His eyes sparkled as he probed Nolan’s intentions.
Nolan
just looked at him with a straight face. “Well I’m going up there. You coming?”
“You
know, I need to finish up here. Why don’t you just go along and I will catch up
with you in a few. Then we’ll go get some grub.”
Nolan
nodded.
“How’s
that arm?” asked the vet.
“A
little stiff, but I’ll mend,” Nolan said. He gave the vet a weak smile and
turned and walked out. After being in the stuffy basement for the last several
hours, the cool fresh air felt good on Nolan’s face. He started for the house
with the intention of finding Anne and telling her how he felt about her. It
was a strange mix of confidence and self-doubt that ran through his mind as he
slowly walked up the hill. He knew that he had feelings for this woman, that he
found in her a spark of life missing in him for all too long. Maybe it had been
much too long. He had not pursued a love interest since Catherine had died
almost ten years ago. The pain of that loss was much faded now. But worse than
the pain Nolan had gone through were the remnants of doubt that had developed
over the years. Nolan had never faced the loss. He had shut it away, turned it
off. His imagination said he was over it, fooling himself into thinking
Catherine’s death, and his love lost, was just a faint memory, something that
many people went through. It had not occurred to him to consider the fact that
the energy still lived, still existed within . . . transformed through the
years of denial into a dark, brooding force, a force that kept him alone,
apart, and separate. Quite unknown to him this force lay hidden in his psyche,
entwined in his thought patterns, wrapped around his self perceptions, his most
inward beliefs. As Nolan got closer to the house, it was this brooding force
that raised up in his mind. With each step closer his mood darkened and his
feelings of self-pity came front and center.
In
the past this mood would have driven Nolan back, running for shelter. He would
have fled into his work with horses or withdrawn to the books that he read.
Those two things, horses and knowledge, were what Nolan had found to keep his
dark thoughts at bay. He could lose himself in the presence of horses. He could
find solace in the thoughts of others written out in countless volumes
throughout the ages. As well-read as he was, Nolan had only skimmed the surface
of psychology and death. He was completely blind to the facts about his inner
turmoil, his self-perceptions. He kept plodding up the hill trying to think of
what to say when he saw her.
A
gust of north wind bore down forcing Nolan to pull his jacket tight around his
shoulders, difficult with his arm in the sling. As he walked up to the house,
past the dinning hall, past the paddocks, past the barns and arenas, he took
note of the fact that the place seemed deserted. Everyone was either indoors or
had their heads down concentrating on the task before them. He stopped for a
moment to peek into the training barn. The stalls were empty except for three horses
near the entrance. One of the horses, Coley, stuck his head out of the stall
and gave Nolan a nod of the head. Nolan could see the horse within the blue
flower, there was a sense of sorrow that passed from the animal. Nolan smiled
and gave the horse some kind words and turned back toward the house.
As he came into view of the main house, Nolan’s heart
began to pump. Normally a very confident man, with clear values, and transparent
motives, Nolan was out of his element. But his heart nudged him toward his
goal. His self-doubt slowed his steps but just as quickly, his bold intentions
pushed him forward. He stood at the front door in a moment of hesitation, then
knocked.
Anne
could not have been more shocked when she opened her eyes to see Nolan sitting
by her with his quiet gaze fixed on her face. In a moment of recognition she
both rejoiced and recoiled. Rejoicing because, in her heart of hearts, she
wanted to be near this man, to share herself, and to unlock the secrets of his
soul. Recoiling because, in her self-reflective femininity, she knew her face
was a nightmare, her hair a mess, and her breath foul. As she gained full
consciousness she withdrew into herself. Nolan must have felt this energy being
pulled back because his face altered from the current patient, thoughtful gaze
to one of confused rejection. Anne put her hand over her mouth.
“Nolan!”
The words came out sounding slightly angry. “What are you doing?”
Nolan
read the expression on Anne’s face as disapproval. His calm was rattled as he
struggled to gain some balance of his reeling feelings.
“I
. . . came to see you . . . to see how you’re doing . . . I was afraid you
might have gone.”
“Umm
. . . ” Anne just remembered she had been planning to leave. “Yeah, well, the
cops wouldn’t let me go. I am being detained . . . or something.”
Anne
looked around the room. There was just the two of them. Rosie and Sam were
nowhere to be seen.
“Where
is everybody?” she asked absently.
“Everyone
went down to the hall for dinner.”
“Oh,”
said Anne reflectively. “Why aren’t you there?”
Nolan
looked at Anne and smiled. It was a relaxed and satisfied grin.
“I
wanted to be here with you.” He kind of shrugged as if to say, “Why do you
think I am here?”
Anne
was quiet for a moment. She looked at Nolan’s face, his chiseled good looks and
his knowing eyes. Her self-conscious fears rose up and forced her to act.
“Nolan,
give me a minute to freshen up, okay?”
“Of
course.”
Anne
threw the afghan to the side and swung her casted foot onto the floor.
“How
is it feeling?” asked Nolan gently.
Anne
struggled to her feet.
“Sore,
it’s a bit sore,” she said, as she limped out of the room and into the main
bath just around the corner. She moved into the small space and closed the
door. When she looked into the mirror she was mortified. Her entire cheek from
her eye to her chin was covered with the most ghastly bruise. The area was
ringed with varying shades of a disgusting bluish color mixed with yellow and
red-brown patches.
“Oh,
my God!” Anne gasped. “I can’t let anyone see me like this.”
Equally
as bad was her hair tangled and matted from her nap. She glowered at her image.
She finally meets a man she is interested in and this is how he sees her.
Immediately her self-confidence sunk to a new low. She wasn’t one to make a
huge fuss over her appearance, but she did have limits. Because, like it or
not, she was subject to the media-induced opinions of the masses when it came
to acceptable boundaries of beauty. She opened several drawers before finding a
brush. She turned on the hot water and went to work on herself. At least she
could present a more stable persona, bruised or not.
Nolan
sat out in the living room listening to Anne shuffling around in the bathroom.
He could hear the muffled sounds of running water, the gurgle of the drain, the
opening and closing of drawers, her heavy footsteps. The dampened noise pushed
through the thin walls and out to where Nolan waited and, against the backdrop
of the silent empty house, seemed unnaturally loud. The noise only increased
the tension Nolan was feeling. He sat on the couch going over in his mind what
it was he wanted to say.
He
thought back to the night before when he had finally caught up with Anne out in
the desert. The warmth that she had shown him still lingered in his mind. He
could still feel the way she had pressed up tightly against him as they rode
back to the ranch with her gentle voice whispering into his ear. It was the
subtle way that she had completely submitted herself to his leadership, opening
herself up to him with such humble honesty, that had softened him. He saw to
the pit of her heart and soul and was touched by the utter beauty that lay
beneath that stern exterior façade. He longed to return to that space, that connection
he felt with her. Sitting on the couch, waiting for her, he got a different
feeling. His doubting mind bore a hole beneath his confident memories of what
had happened between them the night before. The hole was made even wider by the
tense reception he had just received from her, and before long the weight of
the self-created doubts collapsed upon themselves sending his confidence
crashing into the deep pit of ambiguity and hesitation.
“What
am I doing?” he thought to himself. The answer did not come back. Instead his
mind took him on a torrent of disjointed thoughts and old memories. He found
himself thinking about Cloud Runner and the horrible moment of the passing of
that great steed. He thought of the beautiful gift of the blue flower that had
passed from the horse to him and the responsibility that came with it. He
thought of his old horse Silly and how the pain of that passing still lingered
deep within the recesses of his consciousness. He thought of Catherine and the
love that had been so long lost, his heart grown cold and emotionless. His life
was passing before him and the sheer loneliness of his days had been such a
part of his existence it didn’t seem wrong anymore. The connection he had made
with Anne Harper was like a small bright spark of possibility, a potential, a
little light glowing against the dark heap of reality he had been living for so
long. He longed to feel that hope again. He wanted to protect that small light,
that spark, to keep it alive, to keep it from being snuffed out like so many
hopes before. The doubts came again but so did something else, something
unexpected, a steely resolve to reach out and grasp this possibility, to risk
his heart and his honor, to stake a claim to his desires and go after what he
wanted, what he deserved.
Nolan
smiled at his own weakness. He was nervous. He had come for the girl and the possibility
of rejection was tormenting him. In all other things he was confidant, a
master. In this matter, the matter of love, he was as weak as an inexperienced
teenager, consumed by his first crush. The thought humored Nolan in a
surprising come-back of his wit and will. He had nothing to lose here. Only
something to gain, something he knew in his heart Anne was feeling as well. He
would take the lead, he would make the first move. Nolan’s newfound confidence,
as fast as it rose suddenly came crashing down when he heard the bathroom door
open and watched as Anne came out.
Anne
clunked into the room limping hard on her new walking boot. In the few short
minutes she was away she had managed to brush her hair, pull it back into a
neat pony tail, wash her bruised face, and generally pull herself together. She
looked beautiful to Nolan. He didn’t see her wounds. He looked past the outer
scratches and saw into her deep pooling soul. Her hazel eyes appeared deep
brown in the dim light of the living room. Nolan saw in them a light, not a
physical light but the light of energy, of purpose, of life. It thrilled him
and he smiled a goofy, tender grin that matched what his heart was
feeling.
Anne
came around the corner and saw Nolan sitting on the couch with a smile on his
face. He was looking at her with an intention that made her both frightened and
thrilled. Her heart had been a fortress in lockdown for many years, but now in
this moment she felt the key to that lock was before her, she felt a shimmer of
life softly rising in her spine. It was like her womanhood was unfolding from a
tightly bound knot. All the years of deflection, of denial, and refusal of the
attentions from countless men had trained her spirit to reject these natural
feelings. Her heart and love had been wound up tightly into a steely cold coil,
a tension of opposing forces held in place by fear and self-loathing. When she
came into the room and saw Nolan, that coil released itself and the energy held
within the psychic spring burst apart, spinning wildly in all directions. The
sensation produced a warm cathartic shudder from the depths of her pelvic floor
to the very crown of her skull. She felt this shock go through her body and
when it reached its peak of intensity she could not help but smile herself. The
two, Nolan and Anne, in a moment of recognition, looked at each other with
smiles of knowing gladness, their hearts danced together in the ancient
patterns of understanding, kinship, and love.
Anne
giggled. “You look like shit,” she said playfully, breaking the tension.
Nolan
only smiled wider with a flush of embarrassment. “You look beautiful,” he said
shyly.
Anne
gasped in disbelief as she came closer. “Oh, really! Do you need glasses? Have
you noticed anything particular about my face?”
“Well,”
said Nolan looking at the great bruise stretched across Anne’s face, “purple
looks good on you.”
Anne
plopped down on the couch next to Nolan. They both felt the connection. Nolan
reached over and took Anne’s hand.
“I
heard you were leaving.”
Anne
looked at the floor. Her thoughts of running away now seemed like ancient
history.
“I
don’t know what I am doing,” she said as she squeezed his hand. “Everything
that happened just freaked me out. I thought getting out of here would be
best.”
“But
. . .? ”
Anne
turned her gaze to Nolan. His eyes were full of life, kind and knowing. She saw
in him the hopes that had been all but lost in her life.
“But
. . . well . . . I had second thoughts.”
Nolan
nodded. “I’m glad you didn’t leave,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you, to tell
you how damn sorry I am for what happened. It’s my fault. I feel really bad
about it.’’
Anne’s
face took on a contemplative tone, her lips pressing tightly against her teeth.
“You don’t have to apologize,” she said looking down. “I know what all this
means to you . . . the horses and everything.”
“That’s
not the only thing I care about,” said Nolan as he leaned into Anne and gently
kissed her lips. The kiss came suddenly and caught Anne off-guard. She withdrew
just a bit and the two sat there face to face. Nolan, not backing off, looked
into her eyes. His knowing heart pierced through Anne’s hesitation and she
surrendered herself to the moment. Pushing past her thousand reasons why this
was a bad idea, Anne moved closer to Nolan and closed her eyes. The two
embraced in a passionate kiss and in a rushing, endless moment they unleashed
the awkward tension that had built up between them over the last two days.
The
kiss lasted only a few moments, but in those few moments Nolan saw the blue
flower open its mystical petals arcing wide across his vision and reaching into
Anne’s heart and mind. The misty blueness swirled delicately and expanded into
the room growing ever larger until it enveloped the two within an inviolable
indigo cocoon. Anne felt this energy as a rushing sensation tingling down her
spine. The energy moved down her entire body pushing through the floor into the
earth, then it came back up and through her crown, continuing up past the
ceiling into the open air, then down again before settling just behind her
navel in a warm, glowing sensation of wellness and power. Anne shuddered and
pulled away. She looked at Nolan with an expression of open-eyed awe and a wide
satisfied smile. Her face said, “Did you feel that? Was that real?” Nolan
understood the look on Anne’s face and smiled too. He gazed into her eyes for
an eternal second before pulling her back into another longer and even more beautiful
kiss. There was a fraction of a moment when all the worries and pressures and
memories of the past forty-eight hours melted away and the two sat embraced in
eternal bliss, their souls dancing among the misty blue strands of light.
All
too soon they pulled away and looked at each other in complete submission.
Anne’s bruised face was lit up with a glowing perfection; Nolan’s face was a
study of gentle love and masculine confidence.
“One
more,” whispered Nolan as he pulled Anne back, again kissing her with deep
passion. Anne gladly accepted his advance and wrapped her arms around his
battered body. This energy was something she had never felt before. It was like
coming home, a glowing warm reception of complete understanding, no secrets and
no restraint.
Copyright 2013 - Mark Neihart
