Sophie Littlefield - Horizon

The horses had navigated the steep incline and thick forest growth well, but Cass had difficulty walking the rutted path. As she ascended the mountain, the air grew colder and thinner. Here and there, in the hollows of rotting stumps, in the loamy soil layered with leaves from seasons before, there were pockets of grimy snow, flecked with debris and slick from melting. Once or twice, Cass saw shoots poking through the snow, pale green fronds tipped with tight-rolled leaves, plants whose delicacy belied their hardiness. Cass wasn’t sure exactly what the plants were-checkerbloom, perhaps, that would soon grow tiny pink blossoms-but whatever they were, she counted their presence a hopeful omen.

The notes said that after a couple of miles the path evened out, and crossed a broad plateau before arriving at the river gorge. Salt Point was on the other side, a heel-shaped promontory that had been carved by a bend in the river, when prehistoric waters rushing westward down the mountains met the volcanic rock face and turned south. Beyond, Mount Karuk rose sharply to the highest peak for many miles.

There were two ways to the point, the longer of which took switchbacks up the eastern incline and featured steep drop-offs and a waterfall that made the path impassable later in the spring when the snowmelt was at its highest. The other was the bridge, built in the late eighties by the developer whose planned resort never materialized after cost overruns on the early development killed enthusiasm for the project among its backers.

It took Cass an hour to ascend to the plateau, but it was worth the effort for the spectacular view alone. The path hugged a drop-off down to the roaring river, a few pines clinging valiantly to the earth at the edge above the sheer rock face. Hundreds of feet below, the water coursed over boulders rising from the bed of the river and formed deceptively placid pools here and there along the banks.

But the falls that fed the river were even more astonishing. Droplets misted Cass’s face from all the way across the gorge; its roar was thunderous. Rainbows arced above, glittering against the blue of the sky, darkening the rocks with water. Birds dipped and soared, suspended far above the water, between the walls of the chasm, and it was dizzying to watch their aerial play.

The bridge lay far ahead on the twisting trail. It looked out of place here, its man-made symmetry in sharp contrast to the natural beauty carved by the vicissitudes of wind and water and time. On the other side of the bridge, the road disappeared into the forest that grew, as on this side, practically to the edge of the cliff. The developers must have planned to cut down the trees to give access to the views that would have been the star attraction of the resort, but for now they would make a perfect windbreak for the settlement that was located on the cleared land beyond. In the grainy aerial photos, Cass had been able to see the stumps left from when they began work on the resort; it was like a giant had gouged a huge square into the forest, lifting away the trees and leaving the rich land exposed.

It really was a perfect location: remote, and easy to protect. Would-be attackers could be repelled in so many ways, most of them ending with their bodies crushed and broken on the rocks far below.

She found a spot to wait, a loamy patch of earth below a tall tree, and leaned back against it, enjoying the sun on her face. She’d worn an extra fleece tied around her waist, and she pulled it on and reveled in its cozy warmth, breathing in the good clean scents of sap and kaysev. A bug crawled over her hand and she lifted it closer to her face: an iridescent-winged beetle of some sort, searching for tender leaves, itself food for birds, evidence that the earth’s insistent journey back toward life continued apace here in the north.

Cass let her eyes drift shut and daydreamed about the settlement, the home she might make there. She and Suzanne and Ingrid would be the first mothers, but there would be others before long. New babies to join Rosie, new friends for Sammi and the other young people. And the garden she’d have up here! So many things she hadn’t been able to grow farther south. She’d have beds of lettuces and kale and beans and squash, an entire patch of pumpkins, every kind of herb. In one summer she could lay up enough to can, produce a cutting garden, a cold frame to see them through the winter. In two summers she could have fruit on the trees, apples and pears.

Real pies, she thought with a smile, not the bitter ones made from hawthorn berries. And she wanted to try growing grains, give everyone a break from the kaysev flour. Wheat should be possible in this climate, maybe barley. As soon as things were straightened out with the settlement, she and Dor-

Dor. She was thinking of him again; he had become the place her mind went whenever she let it roam, the note to which her heart gave voice when she let her guard down. But that couldn’t be right…could it? Her life was barely back on track again, far from ready to share with anyone else besides Ruthie. She was eighteen days sober, and she needed to get to 180, and then 1,800. She needed to stay sober forever. She had to learn to live with the hurt and damage she’d suffered and the rocky path she walked before and still walked now. She would take one day at a time and be worthy of Ruthie, and this would be enough.

But Dor. Dor, with his ebony eyes and his voice like sandstone, his breath on her neck and his hands tracing that place on her back-

She could not shake him. She couldn’t even pretend to try anymore. Smoke’s return had not eradicated him. Danger and battle and bloodshed and loss had not eradicated him.

And even more shocking: she had lost her shame. She was tired of feeling bad about Valerie. She was tired of second-guessing herself about Sammi. She was even tired of thinking of everyone else’s needs before her own, when what she needed was more of him, more of Dor, without a plan or a pledge.

Cass drank in the sun and dug her fingers into the earth and breathed the good air and allowed herself to wonder if maybe she was more than the sum of her addiction and her sobriety, more than just Ruthie’s mother, if maybe she’d done her penance and suffered enough and deserved something only for herself. Even with the scars and the regrets, some of her spirit remained, and some of it was good, and some of it was worthy, and at least some tiny part of her bid to live came from these depths, from this place that had been there when she was born and hung in there during all the terrible years and survived the addictions and the bad decisions and the self-punishment.

And this part of her, this part that was not mother and that was not pilgrim or penitent or servant, this part wanted Dor. Wanted him savagely.

Smoke had been her lover, her salve, as she had been his.

Dor was her fire. And as long as she lived, she would burn for him.

“Dor…” She spoke his name softly, testing it, tasting it, as though for the first time, erasing for a moment all the history they’d shared, the chaos in which they’d first come together. Her heart raced with the thrill of recognition, and suddenly it was all so clear.

It seemed as though the earth itself trembled in response to Cass’s new knowledge, but then she realized it was the approaching horses pounding the earth with their hooves.

They crashed around the bend in a cloud of dust, Dor in the lead. When he saw Cass he reined in his horse, and Rocket reared and snorted to a stop. The others circled around, Nadir in the rear, and it took a second for Cass to realize that the bundle he had slung over the saddle in front of him was a body.

“Cass, what are you doing?”

“I just came to-”

“There’s no time, get up here with me.” Smoke made room for her in front of him. “We’ve got to get back to the others now. ”