Page 84 of Coyote

"Dark. Cool. Something damp to rub against when the skin starts to give." I looked at the broken lid. "And for everyone to leave her the fuck alone."

He huffed.

"What?" I asked.

"I know the feeling."

I sat there, hand resting on the crooked lid. The cave ran cooler than anywhere else on the ranch. Pitch black, silent, and nothing came in unless I carried it in.

"I'm taking her to the cave," I said.

John stopped. His hand stayed flat on the lid of the suture kit, and his eyes came up to meet mine. "You aren't crossing the perimeter alone," he said.

"It's forty minutes up."

"I don't care if it's forty seconds. Rafe put the rule on the board for a reason, Coyote. Nobody goes past the fence alone."

"Rafe won't even know."

“You want to go up there? Fine. Take Cruz. Take his rifle."

My throat tightened. Cruz had been looking at me a certain way since we buried Miguel. Quiet. Sorry for me. Forty minutes of that look riding at my back made me want to claw my own skin off. I couldn't do it. I couldn't stand being watched for another second.

"Fine." I picked at the split wood on the crate lid. "I'll grab Cruz."

"I'm not tying you to the ranch," he said. He set the kit lid down instead of dropping it. "Make sure Cruz carries the long gun."

"Yeah."

I stood up and the empty sheath knocked against my hip. The knife was still on the floor by my bedroll where I'd dropped it after we buried Miguel. I picked it up.

Then I picked up the crate. A blind snake loose on a horseback ride would bite me before the second barn. I grabbed a roll of heavy black friction tape from the bench and bound the lid down tight, wrapping it until the wood didn't budge.

I saddled the mare and didn’t bother Cruz, heading straight for the arroyo trail.

The arroyo wasn't mine anymore. Somebody had walked it right past me and put his hands over a kid's face.

But the ranch was too loud. I wanted to be somewhere nobody looked at me like I was the one who'd let a kid die.

So I told myself what I'd have laughed at coming out of anybody else's mouth. He wouldn't use the same door twice.

I rode past the second barn.

The mare knew the way. I gave her the reins and let her pick through the loose rock herself. The tape-bound crate bumped rhythmically against my thigh. Nimue stayed quiet inside. My collar was bare, and my shoulders kept hunching up around nothing.

The trail climbed until I couldn't hear the ranch behind me anymore.

No radio crackling on my hip. No heavy boots behind me. No one asked me to play doctor, fix a fence, or make a goddamn decision. Up here nothing wanted anything from me except a blind snake, and all she wanted was the dark.

I'd found this cave when I was seventeen. Nothing could come at me from behind in there. Back then, I couldn't have explained why that mattered so much, but it did. It still did. I'd slept up here whenever the noise at the ranch got too loud to stomach.

The mare broke through the rocks beneath the overhang and stopped. I tied her in the shade, loosened her cinch, and carried the crate the rest of the way on foot.

The bones hung across the cave mouth on their wires. I'd rigged them to rattle if anything came through. Nothing moved them today.

Inside, the air ran cool off the stone. I set the crate on the flat stone bench at the back. I sliced through the friction tape with my pocketknife, worked the lid off, and set her up. Nimue lay coiled in three tight loops, her head tucked. I filled her shallow water pan from my canteen, folded a rag over the edge, and pushed it down until it was soaked. Something wet to rub her snout against.

"Two days," I told her. "Then I'm coming back."