Page 33 of Broken Cedar

“You kinda did.”

The trail levels briefly before climbing again. Ahead of us, half a dozen cattle have wandered across the path, grazing without the slightest concern for where they’re standing.

I instinctively slow, but Colt doesn’t. He gives one low whistle and his gelding’s ears flick forward. With nothing more than a shift of his weight and the lightest touch of the reins, he guides the horse in a wide arc around the cattle. They lift their heads, then drift aside almost lazily, opening the trail again before returning to their grazing.

When he rides back toward me and sees me staring, he shrugs. “They’re stubborn.”

“I noticed.”

We ride side by side where the path allows it, close enough that our boots brush in the stirrups. The conversation drifts toward easier things. The summer Colt decided he was going to learn to juggle and spent three days dropping apples off the porch until Mom threatened to make him eat every bruised one.

“The funny part,” I say, laughing now, “was that you actually tried.”

“I got up to four.” He keeps his eyes on the trail ahead.

“You absolutely did not.”

“I nearly did.”

“You hit yourself in the face.” I demonstrate, loosely, with my free hand.

“That only happened once.” He shakes his head.

A comfortable silence settles before another memory surfaces. The night we sat on the roof of the barn and counted shooting stars because I was convinced they were good luck and Colt was too polite to tell me I was full of shit.

The trail steepens. The horses lower their heads, settling into the steady rhythm of the climb. Their breathing grows louder in the quiet around us. Sage gives way to open grassland, then scattered rock outcrops where stubborn wildflowers cling to impossible cracks.

Without either of us saying it, the conversation fades. I know where we are before Colt says anything. The familiarity isn’t just visual. It’s physical. A tightening beneath my ribs. A prickle along my skin. The hill where everything started. And everything stalled.

Where two people sat on the tailgate of an old truck watching a storm roll across the valley, telling each other truths they weren’t yet brave enough to live.

Colt feels it too. I can tell by the way his shoulders settle, by the way his gaze fixes ahead. He doesn’t look at me. Neither of us speaks. We ride the last hundred yards in silence.

The lookout appears gradually, the trail leveling onto the broad shelf of rock that overlooks the valley. I rein the chestnut to a stop before the edge, suddenly unwilling to move.

Eight years. Eight years, and somehow my body remembers this place before my mind catches up. The wind is the same. Dry, carrying the scent of sun-warmed sage and pine. The meadowlarks are still calling somewhere down the slope. Far below, cattle drift across the pasture like scattered pebbles. Nothing about the view asks where I’ve been. Nothing accuses. It simply waits.

I swing down from the saddle, my boots finding the familiar rock. The stone is smoother than I remember, worn by decades of boots, truck tyres and weather. Someone has built the fire ring up again since we were teenagers, fresh black soot staining a few of the larger rocks.

I wander toward the edge while Colt tends to the horses. The old juniper still leans stubbornly over the eastern side of the ridge, twisted by years of wind that never quite managed to break it. I trail my fingers across its bark and my hand catches on something. Faint letters, almost swallowed by the tree. H + C. The carving is crooked, barely deeper than a scratch.

I’d forgotten we’d done that. Or maybe I’d convinced myself we hadn’t. I smile despite myself. Some things survive simply because nobody thinks to erase them.

Colt finishes looping our reins around a low branch of the juniper. We stand at the edge, side by side, taking in the view. Below us, the ranch looks smaller than it does from the ground. From here, you can see the way the paddocks fit against the barn, the way the creek cuts through the east pasture. It’s beautiful.

After a minute, Colt moves. He walks back to his saddlebag, unstraps it and pulls out a wool blanket that’s been rolled and unrolled so many times the edges have gone soft.

I recognize it instantly. “You still have that?” Colt glances down. “The blanket.”

He looks at it as though seeing it properly for the first time and shrugs. “Never had much reason to get rid of it.”

I smile softly. “There used to be a burn mark.”

“There still is.” He flips back one corner. Sure enough, a thumb-sized black circle mars the fabric. “From where you dropped your marshmallow.”

“Only because you bumped my elbow,” I mutter.

“You were waving your arms around trying to stop it from burning to a crisp.”