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CHAPTER ONE
Sweat trickled down her back, but it was the good kind. It was not the kind that came from hard work or the sort that was born from hardship. This was the kind that came from her doing the things that she enjoyed, or rather, the thing that she enjoyed since the only thing that Lenanee could say she enjoyed was riding.
She felt the strength of the horse beneath her, the wind in her face and the scent of grass and freedom as she rode through the plains. This was her own rebellion. This was her middle finger to the world since, somehow, she had not ridden anything in a long time, and this was due to the fact that Kenneth seemed to have something against horses, or was it something against her? Something about the entire encounter hurt her, and not in a good way, something about remembering him seemed to drive a nail into her heart, and she shook her head, trying to shake him off, but she wondered how possible that was.
There was a creek, and she stopped the canter of the horse to look at it. There was something relaxing about creeks, about theway the sound of water over rocks felt. It was an almost hypnotic thing. It was strange that she found a likeness between how it felt when she listened to the creek and how it felt when she was with Kenneth since he did not really care about any of this. This wasn't his problem, and she knew that if he were here, he would get extremely furious at her for bringing him out on a ride. She shook her head.
"I have to forget," she muttered,
"I have to put him away from my head so I can have some peace," she said, then inhaled deeply. She turned and walked to Rain, her brown mare, the one her father had gifted her for her eighteenth birthday five years ago, about the same time she met Kenneth. She hated him, hated that he infiltrated her life and corrupted every memory, the way he took away from the taste and feeling of everything made them feel less, feel weaker without his presence, and the truth was that she did feel weaker in his absence. She felt like wine that had been watered down, felt like there was a huge chunk of her missing, and when she looked at herself in the mirror, she almost felt incomplete.
Lee kicked the horse into a gallop, and it thundered away, hooves pounding against the ground, the freedom of speed across the plains coming to her as she rode with the wind against her face and her heart full of broken promises, pain and the allure of freedom.
Lee rode for a long time, not paying attention to what was around her. In a sense, she was running but she did not know what she was running from, what it was that she was so afraid of, but she knew that she had to run, and this was not the sort of thing that she could pause to think about because to pause andthink about it meant that she would let whatever it was come up to her again.
Finally, when the sun had started receding onto the horizon, she stopped and looked up at it, thinking of the fact that she should probably go home, but where was that again? What direction was home? She had changed direction so many times and didn't even realize what she was doing until it was too late, and she had no idea where she was, but that did not matter. She would figure it out by the morning. She rode Rain into the woods and found a place that would be good to camp out for the night, remembering the time her father had brought her to do this often, the times he made her start fires and find water, the talks they would have stared up at the sky, and somehow, the stars always seemed brighter out here.
Lee smiled at the thought, then remembered that she never had that with him, never had that with the man that she had loved for so long. Every meeting they had ended with her either angry or happy, staring up at the wood ceiling of her house, feeling his wetness inside her and the strength of his arms wrapped around her slim waist. She shook her head as if the thought was some loose thing that would fall off, and she would not have to deal with it anymore.
She sat down there through the night, thinking, and when the tears came, she cried. That was the good thing about being alone. She did not have to be strong for anybody. She did not have to pretend that it was okay that the man that she had loved for the longest time left her, and treated her like she was some burden that he had to let go of immediately. She cried quietly and when she was done, she still wished that he would console her, that he would tell her that it was all okay and thathe loved her, but she knew those were the wishful illusions of a broken heart. She slept with her head on the saddle.
Lee was awake and on her horse by the time the sun started to make things bright and though she felt aches and sore in parts of her body she didn't even know was there, she felt full, and happy. It felt like her body belonged to her again, like it was territory that she was slowly reclaiming and that was when she heard the pounding of hooves in the distance, she then turned her head around to see a man. He was big, making the stallion he sat on seem like a pony, but he had seen her before she saw him, he was riding toward her. Lee knew the wise thing would be to send her own horse into a gallop, but she remained and watched him stop a fair distance away from her. He wore a black hat and sand-colored jacket with jeans and a gun strapped to his saddle, but his eyes were curious.
"How do you do ma'am?" He asked Lee who, for some reason, saw no point in answering. She stared at him for a while, and he tilted his head to the side. A part of her wanted to just turn around and gallop away but there was something intriguing about him or was it the fact that she just didn't care?
"Are you lost? You don't have to be scared. I'm just passing by and maybe I can help you? Point you in the right direction?" He asked.
"I'm not lost," she said.
"Aha, is that so now? Well, ma'am I know you're scared, and you don't trust me, and I must admit that is wise but the only way you can be in these parts is either because you are lost or you are looking for something that's lost and you don't seem to be looking for anything," he said.
Lee stared at his narrow brown eyes and the concern on his face. He didn't seem like the person to hurt her and she knew that even if she was to gallop away now, there was a good chance he would be able to catch her considering the way he sat very comfortably in the saddle like someone who was born to it and for him to have a rope and a gun meant that if he wanted to harm her then she would be, most definitely, harmed.
"I was out riding and can't seem to find my way back," she told him, and he nodded.
"I see, you have spent a night in the woods already, yeah?" He asked and she nodded though she felt slightly embarrassed for some reason.
"Yeah. You said that you can point me in the right direction?" She asked him and he looked around then back at her.
"Yeah, I reckon I could do that but from here, it doesn't matter where I point you to. If you don't know these woods, you don't know them, and you would need me to guide you out of them and that is something I would have done but…" he stopped and shook his head. Lee immediately started to feel wary.
"But what?" She asked.
"But I am looking for something lost, and I have to find it before the evening comes or someone will find it before me and…well, that wouldn't really be nice now, would it?" He asked her.
"What are you looking for?" She asked.
"A horse. A Black stallion. You seen it?" He asked her and she shook her head.
"No, I have not," she replied, feeling a Little relieved. He sucked his teeth and looked around with squinted eyes.
"So…what do you want to do? You're scaring your horse with your skittishness. I won't hurt you and I promise I'll stay at least ten feet away from you. Is that okay?" He asked and she shook her head slowly. She considered it. There was no way that he could leave here on her own and she didn't want to spend another night in the woods. There was also a fair Chance that she would meet someone else with no good intention. She looked at the man who was looking around like he was hoping to catch a glimpse of the horse he was looking for.
"Uhm…yeah, I think that's okay," she said and he nodded.
"Good. We'll find my horse then I'll show you home. If we do come to a place where I can point you in the right direction then I will do that," he said and turned his horse then started trotting away. Lee stared at his broad back and rounded shoulders, thinking of how massive he was, then she shook her head and urged her own horse into a trot behind his.
They had ridden for what seemed to be an hour when he picked up a trail and they followed it until they came to a river then he stopped and walked down to it with a canteen of water and took some of it into a bottle he carried with him and drank.
