Chapter Ten
Not being a religious man,I nevertheless felt a certain calling to reflection on Sunday mornings.
A week after that momentous first ride for Bishop, I lay awake on a glorious Sunday morning, the sun already up and playing coy with me. Peeking through the slatted blinds, it fell in slim strips over Bishop as he softly snored. I touched his bare shoulder, awed at how the sunlight added hues of copper and gold to his tanned flesh. And his hair…
What the sun did to his hair left me in awe. Did admiring your young lover’s flesh and locks count as spiritual?
Chores awaited me, but I felt lazy this morning. Well-loved from the night before, I was sated and sleepy. Speaking of which…
I rose up to rest on an elbow and yep, there was Bane, curled into a ball between Bishop’s long legs. My bladder and my ridiculous work ethic poked at me. I leaned down to kiss his shoulder then slunk from the bed. A quick piss, a shower, and a cup of joe later, I was ready to tend to the horses. Several of our hands had Sunday mornings off to attend church in Copper Falls. There was a small Methodist church nearby that seemed to appeal to some of the Native American workers, although the elders such as Aaron tended to keep a wide berth of most of the Christian churches for some rather obvious reasons. As I was wholly not into organized religion of any kind, I generally was happy to take on extra work so the others could tend to their spiritual needs be they in a church, a prayer rug, or seated on the warm ground thanking the planet for its blessings. Of late though, leaving my bed and the warm man in it was growing harder and harder.
Pushing away my complaints, I padded back into the bedroom to find Bishop wide awake, lying on his back, with a fat ginger cat on his chest. The sound of purring filled the room.
“Sneaking off to do chores?” Bishop asked as his hand moved down Bane’s back. The cat looked to be close to passing out in sheer joy. I could relate. Those rough, big hands had the same effect on me. “Want some help?
I sat down beside him, gave the cat a chin scratch, and then pushed my fingers into his silky hair. His lashes drifted downward as I finger-combed his hair, gently working free the small tangles from sleep and sex. Caring for him as deeply as I did, I nodded slowly, letting the tiny idea of riding out to the lone oak this morning die off.
“You wanted to go off on one of your solo rides?” I blinked. I’d not realized he’d noticed. I’d had to rearrange things a bit since he and I had become lovers. My days were now packed with work, Bishop, and more Bishop. So I’d been sneaking off after Sunday chores to spend time with her. “Are you seeing some other man?”
“What?! No, God, no,” I hurried to say. “I just…” And there I hit a brick wall inside my mind. I’d had so many years of hoarding the misery that even speaking of going to spend time with her, talking to her memory, seemed like a gross invasion. But he was in my bed now. Shit, he was in my bed, my life, and my heart now. I owed him some honesty. “It’s not that at all. Let’s saddle up the horses after chores and you can come with me.”
“I’d like that,” he softly replied. I stole a kiss and left him to shower and dress. When he joined me in the kitchen fifteen minutes later in jeans, a white tank top with a rock-n-roll Brontosaurus on the front, and boots no sandals—he was a quick learner—I handed him a mug of coffee. “Let’s pack a lunch. Do you know a romantic spot?”
I knew several but one in particular stood out. “I do. The spot that I go to visit isn’t far from the Lone Vale Cabin.”
He waggled a golden eyebrow. “A remote cabin. Sounds perfect.”
We made some sandwiches, grabbed some apples and a few bottles of water, and set off for the stables. The morning was joyous, the air full of birdsong and insects warming, the soft whicker of horses, and the sight of the Tetons touching the yellow-pink sky. The work went faster than I would have liked, and soon we had Jezzy and Tiberius tacked up.
Since Bishop was new to riding, I stayed at his side and we kept the horses at a slow pace. Neither of the steeds seemed to mind the laid-back pace. Bishop picked up the chitchat as we rode along, perhaps knowing in that way that lovers did, that I might draw back into myself. So, the more he talked the more I had to stay engaged. Such a smart man.
The wildflowers were alive with bees, the soft pink and purple petals brushing our boots and the horses’ bellies. The sun was warming the planet and the winds rolled and raced down the slopes of the mountains. I had to work to keep my hat on my head. Coming up over a sloping hill, I slowed Tiberius then came to a stop. There, down below, alone in the middle of a pasture that ran on for a few hundred acres, was the solitary oak. It was old, bent, and looked like some sort of pagan tree spirit. When the cattle were on this pasture, they loafed in the shade.
Bishop stopped beside me, giving the palomino mare a pat or two. “Is this where you come?”
I nodded, the wind impishly tugging at my hat. “Yeah, it’s a sacred spot.”
“Oh yeah? Is that what Perry’s grandfather told you?” He’d heard of Aaron from Perry and me but had yet to meet the man.
“Well, no, although it has to be a magical tree of some sort to have survived alone out here for as long as it has.”
“That’s legit.” I smiled at the Cali speak that fell out of him from time to time. He tried so hard to sound like the professor he was but every so often the surfer boi appeared.
We rode down in silence then dismounted by the base of the tree. The funnel-shaped green-gray leaves overhead clung tenaciously to their branches as the wind whipped around us. I slid down to the thick grasses then took the reins of both horses. Bishop dismounted sloppily, but he’d get it. That was his first time getting down off a horse without a block. I let the reins fall to the ground then walked around to the back of the tree. There stood the cross with a hundred rainbow hair ribbons tied to it. The ribbons fluttered about.
I knelt beside the cross and tied on a new yellow one. Bishop sat down beside me, with his legs folded into a lotus that I could no way recreate. Instead, I dropped to my ass, my legs out in front of me then removed my hat. I placed it on my lap, the wind cooling my sweaty scalp, and spent several minutes in silent conversation with her. Bishop never barged in or asked questions. He did wiggle closer so that his hip was tight to mine.
“I come here to talk to Kailey,” I confessed.
“Tell me about her, if you want.”
A small blue butterfly winged by his path totally dependent on the rowdy Western wind.
“She was the most pleasant child, even as a baby. Which was good because Devon and I had no clue what we were doing,” I said with a soft chuckle. “Sure, we’d read all the books but books are not a live baby.” I fingered the brim of my hat as I stared at the ribbons dancing in the sun. “She laughed all the time and was so bright! Inquisitive, just full of questions. She loved puppies and ladybugs. Her room had a ladybug theme. And she had beautiful dark hair and eyes, like mine, not that I’m saying my hair and eyes are beautiful because—”
“No, they are. I can tell she brought you great joy. What happened?” He let his head fall to my shoulder. I closed my eyes, inhaled Wyoming wind and coconut, and found the strength to somehow go on.
“She started complaining about her head hurting right after her third birthday. We asked our pediatrician about it but she assured us that it was nothing unusual. So we took her home. Then she quickly developed some coordination issues, behavioral changes. Then she had a seizure. This all took place within a month or so. When Kailey had the seizure, they did some tests to see if she might be epileptic and did a routine CT scan. That was when they discovered the tumor. It was at the back of her skull.” I tapped my own head to show him. “Medulloblastoma it’s called. The tumor had spread through parts of her brain and into her spinal cord. Surgery was discussed, but the neurosurgeon advised against it as the tumor removal would take so much of her brain functions away. So we took her home and stayed with her twenty-four-seven until she died three months later.”