Chapter 31

The Ride

Adam was sure that never in his life had he saddled his horse so fast. He had spurred Sport into a gallop that made the horse’s usual working canter look like a collected trot. Nearly standing in the stirrups, he literally seemed to fly over the road to Virginia City. Less than two hours was an awfully short time to ride from the Ponderosa to town, but Adam was sure he would make it. He had done the ride from Goat Springs to Virginia City in an hour and a half once, and the distance he had to cover now wasn’t that much longer. Of course, he had no fresh horse waiting half-way, as he had back then…but the stage coach would be late anyway. It usually was.

Adam steadied Sport and took the turn to the shortcut through the rocks. He crossed the path to The Study, and allowed himself a short glance up the boulders. Juliet had nearly kissed his palm when they had had their picnic up there. He remembered it as if it had been only yesterday. Even though he had been surprised about the unusual gesture, he had attributed it to her churned-up state. And then they had eaten that queen cake…. God, she had baked a cake for me!

Sport stumbled, and Adam, caught unaware, nearly fell but miraculously retained control over his horse. He shook himself. Really, if he wanted to make it to Virginia City alive, he had to concentrate on the road rather than on Juliet. Juliet, whom he had held in his arms at the barn dance as if she belonged there. Juliet, who had smiled at him so delightedly when he had said he’d be mighty concerned about Josiah if the boy were twenty years older. Juliet, who had asked nothing of him but to live. Juliet, who had resisted the grand story and written a three-liner about his duel with Langford Poole, without even mentioning his name or profession.

How could he have been so blind?

He cautiously made his way down the last stretch of rocky trail before he rejoined the broad road to town. Sport seemed to have gotten his breath back, and Adam forced him into another wild sprint. Ten o’clock; the coach left at ten o’clock. How late was it now? How much time did he have left before Juliet would go out of his life forever?

He urged Sport into an even quicker gallop and crouched low over the horse’s neck; not that it made any difference, but it felt like being even faster. Lately his life seemed to depend on being fast: fast enough to keep the woman he loved from leaving him; fast enough to keep a gunslinger from killing him. How much must it have cost Juliet to refrain from writing the whole story of that? And how on earth had she made Goodman accept such a short article? I’ll always be loyal to you—these words hadn’t been spoken into the wind by her. He had believed her back then, but only now he understood the full extent of her allegiance. And what had he given her in return?

“I’d have to move to New York, and…I like it here. Somehow.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes, that’s all. Unless you know any other cons.”

He had offered her nothing. How could he have been so stupid? She had given him every opening she possibly could have, and he had been too ignorant to understand what she was trying to ask, what she was trying to tell him without saying it out loud. And that dress…she had never looked so lovely, she had never looked so seductive—well, she had, but not on purpose, when he had seen her barefoot, with her skirt ruffled up to the knees, down at the lake. But he wouldn’t think about that now; he would push the image back into the depths of his mind, where he had pushed it ever since that day he had seen her with her hair hanging low.

Yes, she had tried everything, and he had been too dense and too…hurt. Another thing he realised only now. To leave Virginia City to become a writer at a more important newspaper had been something he had understood. But that she honestly considered marrying Jarvis Raymond, for whatever reason, that had hurt him. He had felt…rejected. Humiliated. God, he had just risked his life for her, and she told him she planned to marry another man; a man she didn’t even love. With that she had injured his pride more than Langford Poole ever could have accomplished. And he had known nothing better than to lash back. To tell her to go. Then she had taken his advice, with a stony face and starched words; and never in his life had he felt so left alone.

It wasn’t that women hadn’t left him before: first his three mothers; not by their own choice, but nonetheless each passing had filled him with a feeling of abandonment. Then the women he had loved; they had left him for some greater good, for another man, for reasons he didn’t know. Neither of them had made him her priority, neither of them had failed to answer his apprehension that they would eventually leave him anyway. Juliet had been different. She had put him before everything; she even had made her future conditional on his decision. She had trusted him. And he had betrayed her trust by not trusting her enough, and had pushed her away; because while being busy with feeling humbled, he had failed to see what Juliet, in her own awkward and anxious, self-conscious way, had tried to make him see: that she just wanted him to ask her to stay.

Adam saw silhouettes of the few scattered houses just outside Virginia City. He was nearly there. Only a few more minutes, only a few more miles, only a few more anxious moments. Don’t let me be too late.

___________________________________________________________________

“Hope” is the thing with feathers—
That perches in my soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm—

I’ve heard it in the chilliest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

Emily Dickinson

 

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