After the Fall Read online

  He slumps down beside me. The sky is beginning to trade its bright blue majesty for the golds and grays of early evening.

  “You’ve been watching me, have you?”

  I feel him studying me, trying to determine whether or not I am mad. I’m not, but I let him wonder.

  “Just keeping an eye,” he says with deliberate vagueness. “You’ve been gone all day. Folks started to worry.”

  “Folks?”

  He shrugs. That means Kate or Buck, or both. Maybe my fan club. He is studying me again, now trying to figure out whether I’ll be mad they sent him. I’m not, but this time I tell him so. He seems happy about that.

  “Did you get any work done today? Other than stalking me, I mean?” I banter.

  “Hey, I’m no stalker. I was tracking. Totally different thing.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes, really. It involves skill and stealth and it’s, uh…much more manly.”

  “Manly, eh?”

  “Sure,” Dunk says, apparently missing my sarcasm. “See, it’s about reading the land and opening yourself up to the world. You look for things other people don’t see and listen for things other people can’t hear. My daddy started teaching me when I was young, like his daddy taught him, and his daddy before that.”

  He pauses, studying some thought in his mind, or maybe just remembering something he had forgotten he knew. He grins and shakes his head.

  “I wasn’t good at it when I was younger. Daddy always said, though, that my time would come once I was older, when I was man enough to focus on what wasn’t there.”

  “Well, you seem pretty good at it now. I guess you must be man enough.”

  I think Dunk might actually burst. Clearly the idea of being a man is important to him. I can relate, if not to the gender then to the concept. I spent my whole life younger than most of the kids, and later adults, around me. My first-grade teacher was concerned because I was unengaged in the classroom, refusing to work on my reading with the other kids. Kids like that usually get shipped off to a remedial class somewhere, but thankfully I had a cussing and smoking nun for a principal who wasn’t content to assume I was incapable of success. She asked me why I wasn’t living up to my potential. I told her I was bored, that the work we were doing was way too easy. I was a precocious five-year-old. Within a year they had moved me up a grade. They thought about promoting me two years ahead, but decided it would be hard enough for me socially to move up one year. They were right. My new classmates never let me forget I was an outsider. From that moment on, I always had something to prove.

  I know Duncan lost both of his parents to the plague. He doesn’t talk about it, at least not to me, but it is clear it still hurts. Of course it does. It is bad enough to have lost people you loved, but on top of everything else, Dunk was just a kid when his whole world was stripped away.

  “I think your mom and dad would be proud of you, Dunk.”

  He looks up at me, startled for a moment. Tears threaten to flow, and he works hard to hold them back. He seems to be fighting with himself, the need to be a man warring with the need to express his grief. I will him to let it go.

  Whether he wins or loses his internal battle, I don’t know, but once the dam is breached there is no turning back. He sinks into my arms, sobbing for all that he has lost. I stroke his back and hold on tight, fighting back my own tears as his pain soaks into my shirt. It just won’t do for us both to be bawling messes up on this hill.

  After a while, his choking sobs ease into softer sniffles, and he withdraws to sit beside me. He avoids my eyes, I am sure out of some sense of manly embarrassment. The notion that boys don’t cry, shouldn’t cry, is as stupid as it is destructive. Yet another psychological disaster for which we have football and beer commercials to thank.

  “There’s nothing wrong with crying,” I say, taking care to keep my tone neutral. “But just so you know, no one else needs to know.”

  He swipes away the last of his tears.

  “You won’t tell anyone?”

  “Nope. It’s just between us.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise. And I don’t break promises to friends.”

  I’m not sure what compels me to add that last part, although both the statement and the sentiment are true. I guess somewhere along the way, although I didn’t mean for it to happen or even know that it had, I started thinking of Dunk as my friend.

  Dunk, for his part, does not miss the classification, and the dazzling smile that lights up his face makes his delight plain. It is my turn to be embarrassed, but I shake it off. Then I punch him in the shoulder.

  “Ow. What was that for?”

  I laugh and stand up, stretching my back.

  “We should probably head back. I’m getting hungry.”

  “Dinner!” he shouts, jumping up to his feet and setting a brisk pace back toward the barn. He might have manlike tendencies, but in the best ways, he is still a boy.

  We arrive back at the dorm with just enough time to wash up before dinner. I meet up with Dunk in the dining hall and settle in for the best bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup I have ever had outside of my stepmother’s. The tables fill up quickly, and soon the barn is full of chatter and laughter.

  “Hey there, you two.”

  Just the sound of her voice makes me smile. I’m not the only one.

  “Kate!” Dunk says excitedly, giving her a one-handed hug with his spoon still in hand. As excited as he is to see Kate, he is even more excited about his soup and quickly dives back into his bowl.

  Kate sits down next to Dunk with her own bowl. Funny how I have suddenly lost interest in my dinner. I idly push my spoon around the bowl while stealing glances at her from across the table.

  “Where were you guys all day?” she asks absently, although her eyes are directed at me from above her bowl as she swallows her first spoonful.

  Dunk tenses, glancing up at me nervously. I shoot him a quick look.

  Trust me.

  “I decided to go for a walk.”

  Kate’s spoon pauses in mid-air. “All day?”

  “I know. Not one of my brighter ideas. But thankfully Dunk was there to bail me out. He nearly had to carry me back to the dorm.”

  Dunk’s surprise is clear as he looks back and forth between me and Kate.

  “He did?”

  His mouth opens and he starts to sputter, but I cut him off.

  “Absolutely. There I was up on this hill, practically in a coma, when Dunk spotted me. He pretty much saved me.”

  I’m laying it on a little thick, but I figure the white lie won’t really hurt anyone. Dunk’s mouth hangs open, and I am sure he is going to blow the whole thing.

  Kate looks between us skeptically, but finally seems to decide to accept the story. She pats Dunk’s shoulder. “Good job, Duncan.”

  Dunk looks back to me, and I nod, trying to convince him to just let it drop.

  “Uh, thanks?” he says weakly before returning to his neglected soup.

  I feel slightly smug about my deft handling of the situation. Of course, that illusion is quickly shattered upon my next glance at Kate, who is discretely giving me that eyebrow of hers. She hasn’t bought a second of it, but she doesn’t let on for the sake of Dunk’s pride.

  “So, Taylor,” Kate says, changing the subject much to my relief, “I was thinking you might want to join me for a ride tomorrow.”

  Although I can’t be sure, I have a dreadful suspicion I’m not going to like whatever she’s talking about.

  “Ride?”

  “Horses,” Dunk says helpfully, having once again found his voice.

  “Horses?”

  My voice shifts about an octave higher than normal. No one seems to notice.

  “Kate goes out for a ride every weekend. You don’t have to go for a long ride though, right Kate?”

  “No. I suppose I could take it easy on Taylor, seeing as how she’s still weak and all.”

  Somewhere I am vague
ly aware that Dunk and Kate are still talking, that Kate is teasing me, but words have lost all meaning. All I can do is repeat them. That tends to happen when I’m petrified.

  “Weak,” I say, nodding.

  “How about it?” she asks. I force my eyes to regain their focus and look up at her, and see understanding dawn on her face. “Oh.”

  “What?” Dunk asks, not comprehending. He looks at Kate, then at me, still not getting it. “You should really go, Taylor. It’s fun. Kate will go easy.”

  “She doesn’t have to go, Duncan,” Kate says, trying to give me an easy out. She smiles to tell me it is okay, but I see the glimmer of disappointment.

  “Sure she does! What else is she going to do all day?” Dunk presses.

  “Duncan—” Kate starts to warn.

  “No, it’s okay,” I interrupt, making up my mind as I speak. “Yeah, sure. Riding. Sounds…fun.”

  Dunk nods triumphantly, pleased with his powers of persuasion. Kate smiles at me, concerned yet obviously happy with my decision. I smile weakly at both of them and wonder how I am going to convince myself to get out of bed in the morning, let alone ride a horse.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The last memory I have of riding a horse is the blurry view from the ground after being thrown off. I was ten. I don’t know if it was more the tears or the minor concussion that turned practically everything around me into undulating lava lamp globules. I wasn’t so much thrown off as spun off, the result of a saddle that decided to slide down the galloping horse’s side with me still in it. One minute I was riding the wind, the next I was eating dirt. The thing I remember most isn’t the suddenness of the fall or the pain in my head, but how there on the ground, amidst the churning acid trip my vision had become, there was one thing I could see with perfect clarity. The horse, towering over me, all legs and chest and bottomless, soul-sucking eyes.

  Despite the mind-numbing fear that accompanies that childhood nightmare, I somehow end up standing in the barn doorway Saturday morning, thinking the unthinkable as I watch Kate brush down a chestnut mare. Kate is oblivious to my presence, but the horse notices, pinning me with those hellish, obsidian eyes.

  “She’s not going to bite your arm off.”

  Okay, not so oblivious after all.

  “Well, maybe a little nibble, but only if you don’t give her enough carrots.”

  The horse snorts her agreement. I shudder. Apparently, the compassionate Kate of the night before, who seemed to understand my fear of horses, has been replaced by tease-me-mercilessly Kate.

  “You just going to stand there all day, or are you going to give me a hand?”

  Kate strides toward me, her ponytail swinging in time with her hips. It is a nice distraction from the arm-chewing monster behind her.

  “Hey,” she says, her voice softening a touch. I glance at her momentarily before shifting my attention back to the mare over her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “Uh-huh,” I mumble, my brain unable to focus on things in the room that are not the horse.

  Kate moves in closer, blocking the animal from view. Her face is less than a foot from mine, demanding my attention.

  “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

  Her voice carries no judgment, her face carries no condemnation. I can stay or I can go, my choice. I search her face for some hint of what she wants from me but find nothing other than patience and concern.

  That makes it seem silly, this fear of mine. Heaven knows I’ve seen a lot scarier things than a stupid horse, and I have lived through much worse pain than any horse could bring me. So I could fall off. Big freakin’ deal. What’s the worst that could happen? A broken arm? Maybe a leg? And I have to be taken care of a little while longer? By Kate?

  That thought sparks a naughty nurse fantasy that has me ready to become a professional rodeo rider. If Kate notices my eyes glazing over while I let the fantasy play out in my head, she doesn’t mention it.

  “I’m fine. Just a little nervous.”

  “There’s nothing to be nervous about. I promise.”

  Her smile chases away the last of my doubts. I follow her through the barn and out the back to where two gigantic behemoths stand saddled and waiting.

  “The dark brown one is Goldie. This one is Stormchaser. Stu for short.”

  Goldie is the color of melted chocolate, except for a white patch extending from between her ears down to the top of her nose. Stu is pure black, like the deepest, darkest moonless night imaginable. Goldie nuzzles Kate’s hand, happily accepting a scratch between her eyes. Stu, on the other hand, just stares at me.

  “Goldie sort of adopted me when I first got here. She’s been mine ever since. You’ll be riding Stu.”

  I eye the horse warily, wondering if he is as thrilled with the idea of me riding him as I am. He snorts and stomps his front hoof in the dirt. It isn’t a good sign.

  “So, is that for me or the horse?” she asks, glancing at the bat peeking at her from above my shoulder as she tightens the saddles on Stu, then Goldie.

  “I don’t know. You planning on making trouble?”

  Her eyebrow answers my question.

  “Mugsy’s my don’t-leave-home-without-it. Like American Express used to be.”

  “You like being prepared, don’t you?”

  “It makes things easier. You have everything you need, whenever you need it. You’re never left wanting. You’re never left wishing for something you don’t already have.”

  “Sounds kind of sad.”

  I bristle slightly. “How’s that?”

  She shrugs. “It’s the wanting more that drives us, keeps our lives from being ordinary. Everything we’ve achieved in the course of history came from wanting something we didn’t have. Fire, the lightbulb, airplanes…they all came from wanting something more, something better.”

  Here I was just making light conversation, and she goes all psychoanalyst on me. Okay, my light conversation had gone a little Zen, but still.

  “Tell that to the millions of people Hitler exterminated. He wanted something better, too.”

  I have grown defensive. Old habits die a slow, painful death, if they ever die at all.

  “Yes, but Hitler was a paranoid xenophobic masochist with delusions of grandeur. Not everyone’s like that.”

  “More than you think.”

  Kate starts to object, so I press on. “It’s a biological imperative to take as much as you can as often as you can, and to protect all that you have taken. It’s survival of the fittest. He who has the most has the best chance of surviving. But unlike the rest of the animal kingdom, man eventually evolved past all that. Through tools and technology, we learned how to make and grow and gather enough of what we needed until survival was no longer our primary concern. Suddenly we had free time. It was the beginning of the end.”

  “Technology didn’t cause the plague, Taylor.”

  “Didn’t it? How do we know that damn virus wasn’t created in a lab somewhere? That some scientist didn’t create it in a petri dish one day, just to see if he could? Or test it out on some unsuspecting mental patient somewhere, and then it got loose?”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “True. But it’s not like it hasn’t happened before. Remember Tuskegee? Or what about those Guatemalans in the ’40s? Man gets dangerous when he gets bored.”

  “Well, we’re not bored now. We’re too busy trying to survive again.”

  “Which just means we’re back to killing each other over the basics.”

  “You always see the worst side of everything, don’t you?”

  “You see the glass half full. I’m a half-empty kind of girl.”

  “No, you see the glass as cracked and laced with arsenic.”

  I would laugh if she wasn’t serious.

  She cocks her head, as if she has had some new insight into my psyche. “What’s wrong with seeing the world as it could be instead of as it is? What’s wrong with choosing hope instead of fear?”r />
  “Nothing. Other than it’s a waste of time.”

  “I don’t believe it’s a waste of time to believe in what might be instead of dwelling on all we’ve lost. My parents are dead, my friends, my neighbors, the first girl I ever kissed. They’re all gone, either killed by the plague or God-knows-where now. I grieve for them and for myself. Every night I pray for them, pray the ones who died are someplace better and tomorrow will be better than today for the ones still living. And then I go to sleep and dream about building a new life from the ashes of the old.”

  I have a hundred pithy responses to that. Instead, I find myself speaking in titles from the Cinderella songbook.

  “‘A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes’?”

  She smiles shyly. “Something like that. There has to be something more to life than just surviving it, Taylor. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. And I really don’t know anything other than that I have lost the will to argue. “I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.”

  “I guess,” she says. “For now.”

  She is damn near as obstinate as I am. I like that about her.

  “So, are we ready?” I ask.

  “Just about,” she says, handing me the reins to both Goldie and Stu, which makes me return my attention to the momentarily forgotten horses and the fear they inspire. Goldie happily munches on some tall grass at her feet. Stu is staring at me again.

  Kate returns from the barn carrying a rather ominous looking shotgun.

  “I’m just going to assume that’s for me and not the horses.”

  “What can I say?” she says, smiling as she slides the gun into the holster I had failed to notice attached to Goldie’s saddle. “You’re not the only one who likes being prepared.”

  With that, she sets her foot into the stirrup and mounts Goldie in one fluid, graceful motion. If Grace Kelly had ever mounted a horse on the silver screen, this is what she would have looked like doing it. I, unfortunately, have none of Kate’s grace, and I’m sure I look more like Jerry Lewis as I haul myself up and plop down into Stu’s saddle with a less than delicate thump.