There’s no escaping that kind of heat. The sun rests atop an inverted tureen of hollow, muted air. Even as she grooms Taxi the horse, talking to him as she performs that little ritual, her words fade slowly and knowingly until they are lost in the murmur of shimmering heat as she puts her tools aside and gives in to windless defeat.
Finishing up, there isn’t enough water; it seems, to cool her down. Both she and her horse drink down what water they have in reach, gulping down the liquid without taste or even cold until they finish it, the drops on her lips already dancing like water on a skillet as she headed back to the house.
There’s a creek a short ride away. Tonight, when it cools down, she will ride down there for a dip, and make a decision. She misses being able to go canoeing on the water, but can’t risk being seen, not knowing who yet lingers on her mountain and what their intentions would be. She does remember the last time she dared it. There had been a few thundershowers; just enough to raise up the water level above the level of her spirits. She grabbed the canoe and stepped into the stream the water yanking at the edge of that last bit of fear and hesitation, pulling her down, water fast and huge and furious. Once she picked up the paddle, there would be no going back, she had to be there, to see if for only a few minutes she was free or die trying, water in a place that’s inside of us, water in a place that’s somehow holy.
As she stepped into the canoe that day she held her breath and in the silence that followed, so did the water, tremendous and patient and waiting for her to make up her mind. And she hit the water with solemn abandon, simply in recognition of the life left in her, the air rushing from her lungs, supple muscles gathered into the forward motion of arms, and head and heart.
When she was done, she hid the canoe in the brush and hiked back home. She wonders if she will ever return to this land and if so, would the canoe still be there?
Tonight would be one last dip in the creek. Her work for the day is almost done and it is time to break free of it, the heat and the solidity of it weighing down even our sleep if we let it.
Even before she gets to the still waters of her evening she has made her decision. Last winter was exceptionally mild, and this summer looks to be a scorcher. If there is a fire of any size she would be trapped. The first summer after secession, there were no vacationers returning to the cabins within earshot and a short trail ride. Her neighbor John has gone silent and she dared not risk a drive to his home. In their last conversation, his voice had changed as if he had heard something he knew to be true, but would never be ready to believe. She didn’t know if he was dead, Mother Mature being somewhat unforgiving of error in the woods, or if he had headed down into the Valley, risking it just to see if indeed life had returned to some semblance of normalcy, his grown children safe somewhere.
There’s cloud cover coming in from the ocean, the temperature should drop for at least a couple of days. If she stays, there’s plenty of grass in the meadow for Taxi but there would be nothing for winter. It’s not just that her horse is family to her, her only companion throughout this last year but he’s her only escape. There’s no way she can hike over the Nevada border, even though she’s in better shape now than when she finished school.
She’s going to make a run for it, or trot, if you will
Perhaps it’s the heat outside that makes her bold, perhaps it’s the heat within her. It’s always the first jump into the unknown that is the hardest, that hesitant leap upward propelled by desire and only held back by the gravity of restraint. Once you are past that feeling of helpless weightlessness as you stop off into space, it gets easier. For life waits. It waits to come to you in the heat of the day, secret and swift, wearing air and water and blood and need that flow away like a garment revealing all that you knew. If you close your eyes to it you will see, drifting until the water grows tepid and the sound of future Cicadas is all that remains.
She’s going to escape to the America she remembers, and hopes it will take her in. For it waits. It waits in the heated movement that is not the wind. It waits in a rush of roaring water; in a patient pool in the evening, where the hurts of the past are left lying upon a drifting and imponderable shore, washed clean in the heat of a yellow afternoon.
She figures if she stays away from the main road, she can make it in three to four days, and assuming no run-in with bears or Militia, she can pack out what she needs to survive as well as the cash she will need to find her new life.
Perhaps she’ll ride out to find that everything she feared down in Cali did not come to be, that after the initial violence and upheaval, it settled into a self-sufficient land, where the citizens had what they wished for and she’s been hiding in fear all for nothing.
In her heart, she is doubtful; the breakdown in the grid, the silence on the radio waves speaking volumes.
As she mentally makes a list of what she needs to pack up, she pauses for a moment, among the trees. She’s reinforced in the smallness of her form next to their trunks, smiling as the branches separate her from the chatter of the world that echoes outside the woods. There is comfort in these trees, old and strong, even if scarred, their roots sunk deep into the ground becoming one with it, taking nourishment from it with a gravity of purpose we poor ground dwellers wouldn’t understand.
The seasons are changing and a small sting of warm rain against her face tells her it’s time to get going. The rain wakes her from her thoughts, a pinprick of fluid, each lance full of the promise of its remission, here one moment, then gone, like the tears of a child. One moment, there is the rumble of thunder, water released from above, then it’s gone, fleeing southward on the wind, leaving behind only spent confetti of moisture on pale limbs that gather and drip into puddles that reflect the sky that only moments before had imprisoned them.
Leaning against the trees, sun glinting off of those small drops of water that cling to ancient wood, the secret whisper of the wind invisible to her and silent, asks of her — would we find the beauty in anything if we lived forever? Would the gems of thoughts and feelings and desire be so precious if we knew they would always be on our shelf? Or would they fall to the earth, trickling through our hands like water, evaporating on the cold ground, because we thought our hold on them was eternal?
She readies her home as if she is coming back to it. She realizes the improbability of that. She doesn’t think Cali will suddenly go “sorry, we made a mistake can we rejoin the team?” She still can’t believe Congress even bought off on the secession in the first place but for the incessant bleeding of money from federal coffers to a state that was being abandoned by industry as well as many of its legal citizens at a breakneck pace as it slid into bankruptcy.
So many memories here, she thinks as she grins at the antique “explosives” sign on the horse stall, the “Bee Happy” sign one of the local beekeepers gave her.
With dried food and water for the trip, not a lot but enough to keep her moving, her rifle, her revolver close by and her supplies in saddle bags, it was time to go.