Chapter 33 - 1 - Last Ride

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Last Ride

 

Edra puttered around the kitchen. She’d started working on dinner a while ago, but that didn’t mean it was close to being done yet. The chili she’d learned to make took the better part of a day to complete. The ingredients had all been put together about an hour ago, but now they’d spend a few more hours getting to know each other, flavors of meat, vegetables, and spices melding together as they simmered over the flame.

She lifted the lid to give it a stir, and breathed in the wonderful smell, that would only get better as the afternoon wore on. A taste of the spoon also told her that the recipe was progressing about as it normally did. She nodded, satisfied. But as she put the spoon back on the counter, she felt a chill seep down her spine. A look around the kitchen proved that none of the windows had been open. She looked back at the simmering pot, and hoped it wasn’t something in the taste she’d just had. But a minute passed and nothing else happened, so she left the chili to its cooking and returned to the table where she’d been reading. Kieran and Serah had sent them a message to say that they were expecting their second daughter. The news made her smile, and she couldn’t wait to show Henry when he got back.

 

But two hours after the chili had been ready and waiting, he still wasn’t back. She knew he enjoyed surveying the property, but he enjoyed his meals as well, and he knew what she had cooking. It was possible he’d had a fall, and was injured enough to leave him stranded. So she walked the distance to the barn and when she found he hadn’t been untacking his horse, she talked to the stable hands. It was agreed that they would start a couple search teams. However, when they realized she was prepping to saddle her own gelding up, they protested. She only shook her head, insisted that she was going out too, and continued to brush out Orpheus’ coat. She couldn’t sit around, she argued, wondering what may have happened.

Twenty minutes later, everyone rode out in different directions, a medkit, duffle with blanket and clothes, and an alarm badge to be activated when he was found–once if all was well, and three times if it was an emergency situation. As she rode away from the barn, Edra noticed that there were only a couple hours, at most, of daylight left. She hoped, with 5 of them looking, that it wouldn’t take too long, but there were many acres to cover.

She tried not to think about why he hadn’t made it back. Neither of them were Spring chickens anymore, and any injury would take longer to heal, even more so if left untended. But continuing to dwell on that would only worry her, which was counter-productive. She needed to stay positive.

An hour and a half later, she was still trying to stay positive, but it was getting hard, as well as dark. The sun had already set, and nobody had set off their alarms yet. A scare a few fields ago left her feeling jumpy, but those vultures had found a deer carcass. She tried not to admit it, but she was more worried than she had been in a very long time. And as much as she didn’t want to give up, she knew she couldn’t be helpful when the light was completely gone. Her eyes could no longer adjust as easily as they used to. But she wanted to check this last field, then she’d make the decision to return to the stable. She pulled out her hand lantern and began sweeping the fields as Orpheus plodded along. At about the halfway point, she lifted the lantern to sweep wider before returning to looking closer. And as her eyes picked up something at the other end, she heard her horse huff, as if he’d caught wind of something. She couldn’t make out what she was looking at, only that it was a little less than two meters tall. Her legs directed Orpheus in that direction, while she alternated between illuminating the ground in front of him and the object in the distance. Then Orpheus stopped and whinied, and when she held the light into the distance again, she saw a head come up on one end of the mystery object, and an answering call. It was another horse. Upon further inspection, she was certain it was Zeus, his horse.

She lightly kicked Orpheus back into gear, which was usually enough, but he stayed where he was. Another kick, a little harder seemed to work, but his ears told her that he wasn’t thrilled with the command. But if that was Zeus they were trotting toward, then Henry must be around here somewhere. She called out his name but didn’t get an answer. As they neared the large black horse, she slowed her own down and swept the area around them with the lantern again. She still didn’t see anything until her beam picked up what looked like a pile of something on the fourth or fifth sweep.

It was him.

She called out to him again as she swung one leg back and over the saddle and dismounted. Her hands went automatically into the saddlebags for the medkit and blanket. Just as she was about to step away she remembered the alarm, tacked to the reigns. She pressed it three times then hurried over to him.

She had no idea if he’d heard her as she approached. He was on his side, back to her, so she went around and knelt on the other side of him, ready to scan him to see if it was safe to roll him onto his back. But something seemed wrong. It was more than him just being knocked out. She could see from the light how pale his skin was.

“Please, don’t be,” she whispered as she reached out and touched his cheek, then his arm. And when she also felt that his chest inside the collar of his shirt was ice cold, her tears immediately began to fall.

Henry was gone.

The man who had woken up beside her for most of her life, who had protected her, and loved her could no longer do those things. She wouldn’t hear his voice anymore, or see his smile, except for in her head, and she was suddenly scared that they would fade too quickly. As she wept, she remembered things, like the first time he’d showed up at her door with blue and white flowers, or saving her from a ship-board stalker, or going along with her whim and saying “I do” for the second time just between the two of them. Everything she could remember played over again. But it wasn’t enough. They’d had so many years together, but Prophets help her, she wanted more. She hadn’t been ready for this. Hadn’t been prepared. And as her hand cupped the side of his face, she found she couldn’t say goodbye.

She felt and heard the thundering hooves as the first ranch hand arrived, but she didn’t pay any attention to it. They would figure out what had happened, or rather, already had, most likely. And soon enough the others would arrive and they’d begin doing what needed to be done to get him back. But until then, she wanted what little bit she could get from these last moments. The last bit of him to herself.