Found your way in me didn’t you, Arbuckle?

You was always in me, my love.

There was a whistle in the distance, the cracking of a whip, and the sloshing of hooves in mud. Lady Mae watched as the men and animals burst through the tree line farther south, the tall hats of the Deputies tucked under their arms so as to not get knocked off by the low hanging branches. They weaved in and out of the trees fast, the Deputies kicking their heels into the animals’ sides. The horses cried out and reared, but they obeyed. Lady Mae stayed where she was until the last galloping faded away and the sky once again began to darken. When several hours had passed without another sound, she stepped out from behind the birch and began to walk the last few meters toward the structure beyond the trees.

Lady Mae found herself standing in front of a wooden shack not unlike those in the settlement. Arbuckle had built it with his own hands and for that, she fell to her knees inches from the first step. Placing her palms on the wood still warm from the afternoon sun, she pushed herself up one two three steps, dragging her feet behind her until her entire body was on the porch. The grooves and notches left by a hammer—and by Arbuckle’s hand—held her body as she lay there, her eyes closed, the call of the wild his voice in her heart.

18

When Lady Mae opened her eyes, the sky was black. She had lain on the porch for the afternoon, or maybe it was the next night or the night after. Her clothes were dry in any case, and only the dark earth and the stars above surrounded her. She felt her way around and found her satchel. Then she crawled toward the door, which was wide open as if someone were expecting a visitor. She slid her hands up the frame splintered no doubt by a Deputy’s axe. They had come for her. But the rain had slowed her, and for that she was thankful. Had her feet hit dry earth, had she run faster, they might have found her. If they had, she’d be dead like her mother. No trial, no scaffold, no atonements. They’d never let her go, and it was only a matter of time before they descended once again upon Arbuckle’s tiny shack up in the mountains.

The moment she walked through the doorway she smelled Arbuckle and nearly collapsed at the threshold. It tumbled toward her: the woosh of grief, the sharp bite of an agony so deep and fresh it was as though she’d been cut in half. Maybe she was. Maybe her mother was half and Arbuckle the other and now there was nothing. After all, what was left now? Lady Mae was there, in the same space Arbuckle had been only days before. And instead of having him by her side as they’d planned, she stood there alone, the gulf of loneliness wide and deep.