Kirk didn’t want to discuss any of that, though, and what else could he tell his friends about his current life? Each day, he tended the horses, then often rode or hiked across the Idaho hills, even during the cold and sometimes snowy winter months. He occasionally went into Lost River for supplies, or farther afield, to Blackfoot or Pocatello or Idaho Falls. Twice, he’d visited the lava flows and cinder cones of Craters of the Moon Monument and Preserve. Last summer, he’d tried his hand at cultivating his own fruits and vegetables, but had discovered that he possessed little interest in the activity, not to mention something less than a green thumb. Now as then, he thought that some Orion joke must’ve hidden in that last observation, but it still eluded him.
Leaving the office, Kirk walked back out into the living room. A sofa and a pair of easy chairs, all old and timeworn, formed a cozy sitting area about the hearth. The mantel and the two end tables on either side of the sofa remained bare, though, and no personal photographs or artwork adorned the walls-not just in this room, but throughout the house. Since he’d come here, Kirk had done little to make this place his own. He’d brought with him several crates of books and personal, naval, and antique artifacts that he’d collected through the years, but he had for the most part left those items packed up and stored down in the cellar. Every so often he would descend the old wooden stairs and rummage through one of the crates to find one volume or another to read-and usually to reread. At the moment, a black, leather-bound edition of Great Expectations lay on the sofa, a gold ribbon halfway through marking his place in it, but the book hardly qualified as decoration.
Kirk padded across the living room to the front door and opened it, knowing that he needed to take care of the horses. The spring had been exceedingly mild so far, and the dull sky-more gray-blue than blue-promised another cool day. Kirk grabbed his light-blue jacket from where it hung beside the door and pulled it on. As he stepped outside, he hoped that the sky would clear and that by the afternoon the mercury would climb.
Great expectations, he thought, but the phrase resonated less with respect to the weather than to his own life. On his way to the barn, he considered the classic novel, which he had already read several times before, and he suddenly faced a moment of self-revelation. Have I become Miss Havisham? he asked himself. Jilted at the altar, her heart broken, the Dickens character had subsequently locked herself away, spending the rest of her life in her manse, Satis House, which she had then allowed to decay around her.
And me? he thought. Have I locked myself away? Kirk had not been abandoned on the day of his wedding, but fifteen years ago he had watched as Edith Keeler had been killed. The death of the woman he’d believed his one true love had affected him deeply, and though he hadn’t physically sequestered himself away as Miss Havisham had-at least not then-hadn’t he isolated himself in other ways? After his loss of Edith, he had become involved with other women, and for a couple of them-Miramanee, Lori Ciana-he had developed strong feelings. But he had lost his memory prior to his romance with Miramanee, and in the end, he’d found that his relationship with Lori had been something less than healthy, something less than real. Yes, after Edith, he had become enamored of other women, perhaps even fallen in love with one or two, but in truth, he had kept the fullness of his heart locked away from all of them.
And now, he thought, like Miss Havisham with Satis House, I’m letting my uncle’s old farm crumble around me. He knew he exaggerated that last point, even as he pulled at the barn’s plank door and it creaked open in apparent support of the assertion. But while he hadn’t let this place fall completely into disrepair, neither had he truly lived here. He had survived, but not lived.
I need to change that, he thought. He had no desire to go back to Starfleet, but he wanted to regain his equilibrium, to return to being the entire man with whom Edith had fallen in love-and then he wanted to move past that. With a sense of determination, he resolved that when he returned to the house later in the day, he would bring some of his crates up from the cellar and dress the house with his belongings. He would also sit down at the com/comm station and contact Bones and Spock.
Feeling more positive than he had in quite some time, Kirk hauled bales of hay from within the ragged old barn and out to the corral, where he broke them down. Then, after cleaning and refilling the watering troughs there, he went back into the barn and checked the two horses he kept-Tom Telegraph and Fellow Jacob-for signs of illness or injury. After verifying their apparent health, he cleaned their hooves, then led them outside. While the horses ate and watered in the corral, Kirk mucked out their stalls.
Later, he walked Fellow Jacob around the grounds for a while, then let him out to pasture. He then saddled up Tom Telegraph and rode him out into the hills. There, he broke the horse into a gallop. The chill of the dawn had burned off now, the temperature rising nicely, and the rays of the midmorning sun warmed Kirk’s face. Tom Telegraph’s hooves beat rhythmically along the ground, accompanied by the whisper of the switchgrass through which they moved. As always, it felt good to ride.
Tom Telegraph moved well and seemed strong today, and Kirk decided to take him over to the ravine. He directed the horse into a moderately wooded area, and amid the trees and bushes, they picked up speed as they neared the meters-wide chasm. Kirk loosened the reins, leaned forward out of the saddle, and grabbed hold of Tom Telegraph’s mane.
At the ravine, the horse leaped up and forward. As it always did, Kirk’s heart beat faster in his chest as they crossed the wide gap in the earth. No matter how many times he had made this leap, it still scared the hell out of him whenever he did so again. A break in stride, a bad approach, a short landing, all could have spelled trouble for Kirk and the horse. But Tom Telegraph landed in stride and continued on up the rise on the other side. Kirk glanced back over his shoulder at the ravine, a last look at an old foe once more vanquished-
“That was foolish,” declared a voice.
Kirk peered forward again as Tom Telegraph reached the crest of the hill. There, in a saddle atop her own horse, sat a woman Kirk had never before seen. Tall and attractive, she had deep brown eyes, a Roman nose, and a wide mouth, all framed by full, dark hair that fell in waves past her shoulders. She appeared perhaps ten or fifteen years younger than Kirk, but the lines around her mouth suggested that the two of them might actually be about the same age.
As he brought Tom Telegraph to a halt in front of the woman, Kirk said, “Pardon me?”
“I said, ‘That was foolish,’” the woman repeated.
“Oh, I heard you,” Kirk said with a slight grin, naturally flirting with her. “It just seemed like a curious way to say hello.”
“Maybe that’s because I wasn’t actually trying to say hello,” the woman told him. She offered no expression on her face, and Kirk couldn’t gauge the seriousness or lightness of her disposition.
“I see,” he said. “You just wanted to administer a scolding.”
“No, not a scolding,” the woman said. “More a judgment about your poor horsemanship. I suppose I was just trying to protect a life.”
“Thanks,” Kirk said, his grin widening as he contemplated the number of times his life had been in far greater jeopardy than when he’d taken Tom Telegraph over the ravine. “But I don’t think my life really needed protecting.”