Summary: A ghost from Adam’s past returns with memories of love.
Rating:  PG  Words:  960

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Better After Death

My heart didn’t expect to fall that evening. But my party dress was new and the night sky so lovely. I fancied that I’d never again see such beautiful darkness, but then, I saw your eyes. 

We were young, effortlessly so, but the streak of agelessness within you pinioned and enchanted me. You were striking, really, with your midnight eyes and tongue that dripped of poetry. I’d never before met a man who adored poetic language as fiercely as I did. 

I never felt my heart give way. But I felt your kiss, your eyes: that penetrating gaze that threatened to inhale me as if I were perfume. We took to meeting daily at the shore of the lake, riding our horses in endless circles, spouting sweet poetry as we went. It rained, once or twice, and somehow, poetry from your lips sounded even more pristine in a shower of falling raindrops. You told me of your brothers, Hoss and Little Joe, of the strength and purity of the one and the mischief and dazzling smile of the other. You told me about your Pa too, a stern man with more love beneath his veins than the fates could have imagined. You kissed me beneath our maple tree, with a shower of springtime leaves sprinkling about your head. Even the very air was nearly as sweet and heady as your kiss. 

But then I got lost, one morning, on my way to meet you. I had a new book of poetry, you see, and I was reading as I rode, searching for the perfect little sonnet that I knew you’d just love. I was hardly aware of the way I was going, and my poor little mare was startled, suddenly, by something. You’d always warned me about her skittish temper. She reared, I fell, she ran, and I was left with just the sonnet. I didn’t recognize the meadow where I’d fallen, and so I walked, aimlessly, for three hours before you found me. When I asked you how you knew, you simply smiled and touched my hair. I was sure, right then and there, that you were an angel; but then, angels aren’t usually held hostage, are they? 

Things always happened so swiftly out there, and we were surrounded by seven gunmen before the sonnet could leave my lips. They were bank robbers, fleeing from Virginia City. The leader wore a white shirt scarred with fresh blood; the blood didn’t belong to him. A posse was pursuing them, he said, and we were deemed the ideal hostages: the eldest son of Ben Cartwright and the only daughter of the banker who they’d just robbed. 

You were scared, I could see it, but you stroked my hand to stop my trembling. The leader, a tall man whose eyes seemed carved as if from flint, demanded that you lead us to a hiding place. We rode, with me clinging about your waist, to a deserted line shack of your father’s. They tied you up, but the leader began to bother me. You’d always said I was beautiful, but his coarse lips were never meant to say so. He touched my hair, but his hands were nothing like yours, and I slapped him before I could clearly think. 

Angrily, he hit me, and you sprang up, because they’d only bound your hands. A struggle ensued, and in the sudden confusion, a gun slipped from someone’s holster. It was meant to save us, or so it seemed. But I’d never shot a gun before, and the leader’s gunmetal gray eyes were clear evidence of his experience. He said he’d shoot you if I didn’t drop the weapon. So, I did, my veins pulsing at the searing thought of losing you. I’d never before witnessed the irrevocable swiftness of time, and the words of that sonnet kept rambling about in my head. And then, the leader shot me.

I’ve never felt such fire, such awash of fleeting blood, and he kissed me after I fell. I can still hear your panicked screams, your frantic voice distorting my name. I can still smell the bloodied rags of his shirt as he shot me again. 

Some people simply like to kill, but the leader allowed you to hold me afterwards. There was far too much of my open blood, and your tears simply swam in it. The robbers left then, their departure as senseless as all else about them had been. 

My funeral was lovely, but I still bled, from heaven, every time I saw your silent tears. You always were so strong, so fierce and silent, and though you’ve never said my name since, and your father and brothers tiptoe about every vein of my remembrance, I know. I’ve seen my ribbon that has lain, since that day, across the crest of your mirror. It’s black, just like your eyes, my hair, and the dirt you scattered atop my coffin. 

It’s only been a year, and still your spirit bleeds. I can’t bear that, and so, I’ve come to tell you, to whisper within your ear in the depths of a midnight dream, that: a girl can live on just your love. And even dying in it is a treasure as rare as it is sweet. So please, don’t worry. You didn’t dream me, Adam Cartwright. Seventeen is far too young for a dream such as that, but reality is a far crueler master. And yes, I’m happy, still ensnared within your love, but despite all the joys and dreams of heaven, I’d die again just to feel your fingers caress my hair. After all, it’s just like our sonnet said: “I shall but love thee better after death.” (1)