The man squinted his pale eyes against the glare of the late afternoon sun. The change of seasons was abrupt on the northern plains. Already the sun rode lower in the sky; the summer days were shorter, the shadows deeper, and the nights colder, when one saddle blanket was scarcely enough. The year was growing old in its inexorable march towards winter.
The sun’s rays were hot, though storm clouds piled up on the western horizon. He dismounted and reached for his canteen. He knelt in the sere grass, disturbing grasshoppers that rattled a short distance away and resettled, clinging to withered stalks in the erratic prairie breeze.
He took a long, cool swallow, letting his gaze drift to the valley below, and once more the old pain touched him.
His heart lay buried there in that meadow, near a small pond where the aspen leaves were already beginning to turn.
He drew a tightened breath, closing his eyes against the memory, then deliberately put it away from him.
In the years since he'd lost her, he'd made an uneasy truce with his emotions. With maturity had come acceptance and an awareness of the cycle of life. The inevitability of loss, but no real sense of why he continued living when she had not.
Yes, there had been other loves, some short-lived, others more lasting. But none with the intensity he had known with her. None with the promise of tomorrows that never came.
He didn't know why he had come here. Most times he avoided this place and the sorrow it still held out to him. But it didn't really matter where he was. Not a day passed that his heart didn't find her.
He stood and retied the canteen and was preparing to mount up when a slight movement in the trees arrested him.
He froze. A young buck stood at the edge of the clearing. He reached for his gun, easing it slowly from the scabbard.
The buck, still in velvet, gazed at him with liquid brown eyes. Unafraid, it dropped its head to graze. He hesitated, finger on the trigger. It would be a clean shot.
His mare snorted and swished away the pestering flies, and suddenly, the deer’s head was up, and it was gone.
The man lowered his weapon. No matter. There was enough left of his previous kill to last out the week. Besides, maybe they would meet again. There was a time and season for all things.
~~
The End
8/2004
