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"Rain," she said.
"That is a good name. Why did you name her that?" He asked. She rode along for a while and Hayden was starting to think that she wouldn't answer his question when she spoke quietly.
"It hadn't rained for a long time, two years even when my father bought her for me and the day that he bought her, it rained," she said.
Hayden thought about it for a while then he nodded.
"I think that is a good name," he said. He waited for her to ask him, but she didn't and he decided not to volunteer the name. He noticed the way she sat astride the horse with skill and confidence, her back straight and her eyes moving around almost lazily. Her brown hair was tied back and her eyes were a dull grey but he saw that it teetered close to blue when she was annoyed, which she almost always was. She was all yet her confidence made her feel a lot bigger and there was something about her that flustered and annoyed him at the same time. He waved it off. It didn't matter anyway. She didn't matter.
†
Lee stared at the fire, wondering what it would be like to be Austin, chased by your former employers who seem to have a closer relationship than just being employers to him. They probably saw him as a member of their family, and they perceived what he did as a terrible betrayal. She looked at Ike and Hayden who were very alike yet very dissimilar even from the way they behaved and their gestures. Ike had not even tried to speak to her once and apart from the effort he made at an Olive leaf, Hayden had said nothing either. She was starting to think that both men didn't care about talking a lot.
"You're a cowgirl, yes?" Ike asked from where he sat. Lee looked around to be sure that she was the one that he was speaking to.
"I was. I…don't think I am any longer," she said, and he smiled in a knowing way.
"If you were one then you will always be one. It's not something that leaves you once it is in you. I see it from the way you ride and the way you carry yourself. You don't complain about anything and you're tough. It's impressive," he said.
Lee didn't know what to say to that, so she just looked back at the crackling flames then shrugged.
"Thank you," she said. He didn't reply. A long time went by before he spoke again...
"How did you get lost? It is rare that People want to ride off into these remote parts and people who do are usually trying to ride away from something or are chasing something. The latter is what we are doing but the former seems to be what you were doing," he said.
Lee looked at the man and said nothing for a while but she knew that his silent gaze demanded an answer from her, so she sighed deeply and stared at the sky then at him.
"I just…there were things I just wanted to clear my head from," she said and that seemed to be enough answer for Ike. Lenanee half expected Hayden to ask her these sorts of things since an annoying question was just the kind of thing that could go up his alley, but he merely looked at her and said nothing.
"Bad luck that you would meet Austin here, of all the people that you could meet," Ike said.
"I don't think it is bad luck actually," she blurted out and the man looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
"You think so? Why?" He asked.
"I think, considering the amount of dangerous people who are lurking in places like this with the tendency to do me harm, I lucked out. From everything that I saw of Austin during the time that we started together, he didn't seem like a terrible person," she said.
Hayden's face did not so much as change when Lee spoke and that made her slightly unsettled. She wanted to annoy the man. It didn't seem that anything she was saying was effective.
"He's not a bad person, most of the time. He's just. There are things that he seems to be struggling with and those things are what drive him to do strange things at times," Hayden said through clenched teeth like this was a difficult thing for him to say. Ike was nodding in agreement.
"Seems like he was close to the family," Lenanee ventured in curiosity and Ike looked at her with a smile.
"Something like that. His father worked for my father then for me, grew up on our ranch and his sons also grew on that ranch. Three boys. One of them is serving in the military and the other…he is somewhere I don't actually know. Austin was the only one who decided to stay and just as well since he was the one who was closest to us and ate at our table, worked at the ranch, and made everywhere lively. Best rider and roper on this side of the country and let me tell you something else. He has one of the warmest personalities you'd ever find but…his father died, and the man seemed to have some opinions about that and those opinions changed him, made him into something he had no business being and it has come to a head now," Ike said.
Lee wanted to ask them what they were going to do to him if they caught him then decided that it was probably best that she didn't know, and she just nodded and said nothing else. Ike didn't speak again, and it looked like all the talking he had done was something he'd rather not do, and Hayden played around with a small dagger.
Lenanee tried to sleep but that didn't seem like something she was capable of. She remembered the bed back at the McClenny ranch and the warmth of the room she had been given. She thought of her own bed back home and just laying out under the stars didn't seem as romantic in her mind, not that she wanted any romance at this time. She looked around the camp to see that Ike was asleep and Hayden wasn't even there. She looked father to see him standing down the slope and staring up at the sky. Experience had taught her that when people stood off alone and stared up at the sky, they were usually not Okay.
Lenanee thought the best thing to do would be to just lie there but she decided that she was going to speak to him, so she stood and started walking down the slope to where he was standing. He didn't look at her when she came close, and she just stood there feeling foolish and thinking the best thing to do was to go back to her sleeping bag.
"You should be sleeping," he said.
"Yeah? So should you," she replied, and he looked at her then shook his head.
"Sleep is hard for me these days," he said.
"When that happens it's usually because there is a lot on your mind, and I think that is something you should… I don't know, I find that it helps to just let go of what is in your mind. I mean, that's what has worked best for me," she said to him, and he nodded then shrugged a little.
