Vella Munn - The Return of Cord Navarro

Sweat broke out on her temple. Angry, she wiped it away. The rest of the time, she kept her hands close to her body so a branch wouldn’t snag her-Indian style, the way Cord had taught her.

And she prayed to the spirit that moves in all things to shelter and protect a ten-year-old boy.

Had she lost sight of the creek? For a moment, the sudden change in terrain confused her. Then she realized she was back on rocks where precious little growth could take root. Blinking back tears of desperation, she stared at her surroundings.

She could see for a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty feet. At the far end of the unexpected clearing, she caught a glimpse of faded denim and white cotton.

Cord. Kneeling over something, eyes trained on his surroundings, body ready, not for flight, but fight.

She didn’t know she’d shoved her fist in her mouth until she tasted blood. Somehow she forced herself to stop clenching her teeth, but now she couldn’t make herself move.

She’d turn around. Walk away.

That way she’d never have to see if her son had been killed.

But she was, above everything else in life, a mother. No matter what had happened, she couldn’t leave.

When she started running again, her legs felt so heavy that twice she stumbled. Still, she couldn’t take her eyes off Cord’s hunched form now holding something-someone.

Don’t let him die, Cord. For me, for you, for the rest of our lives – don’t let him die.

“Mommy!”

Matt’s voice washed over her like a sudden, brilliant sunrise. Stripped of muscle and bone, she dropped to her knees beside father and son.

“Mommy!”

Eyes wide and deep and boiling with emotion, Cord clutched Matt tightly to his chest. All she could do was touch her son’s back, run her fingers into his hair, draw in the smell of little-boy sweat. Sob in relief.

“Are you all right? Oh, Matt…Cord?”

“They didn’t hit him. Thank God, they didn’t…” Cord gaped at her, then stared at his surroundings.

Her heart ached. Only embracing Matt would take away the pain. Yet Matt had his arms around Cord’s neck, his face buried against his father and was crying a little, muttering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over, and she knew that no other sound on earth would ever mean as much as hearing his voice at this moment did.

Hot tears burned their way down her cheeks. She should wipe them away, blunt a little of her fear and relief so Matt would recognize her as his mother and not a half-insane woman, but she couldn’t take her hands off him long enough for that.

“I tried. Dad, I wanted you to be proud of me.”

“I know you did.”

“But I got lost. You’re never lost.”

All too soon she became aware of the cadence of silence. Cord should say something to his son, some words of reassurance and love. Instead, he simply knelt on dirt and rocks and held Matt. She couldn’t see his face now, could only guess at what was going on inside him.

“It’s all right.” She spoke for her ex-husband. “You did a wonderful job, honey. You were so brave, so strong, so -”

“Mommy?”

Matt hadn’t called her “Mommy” since he’d started school. Wise in the way of growing boys, she’d learned to respond to a casual “Mom.” Now he was taking her back to when a little boy needed his mother’s loving reassurance.

That’s what she’d think about-not the bullets that had nearly ended his life.

“What, honey?”

“You’ve been looking a long time, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” She ran her hand over his small, wiry shoulders, down his straight back. His shirt was torn and filthy. The warmth beneath the ruined fabric made it possible for her heart to go on beating.

“Just you and Dad?”

“Yes.”

Matt lifted his head off his father’s chest to look at her. His face was wind-chapped and sunburned, and she wasn’t sure any shampoo would repair the damage to his hair. He had a few mosquito bites and two parallel scratches near his right eye.

This wasn’t the ten-year-old boy she’d been going to make pizza for a few days ago. Dirt and tangled hair and chapped skin made him look older.

Only, it wasn’t the outward signs of his ordeal that had matured him. His eyes-Cord’s dark eyes-were different somehow. Wiser. Experienced.

“I’m proud of you,” she whispered when he did nothing except stare at her with those newly mature eyes that so reminded her of the man she’d made love to last night. “So very proud.”

“You aren’t going to punish me?”

“No. Oh, no. Did you think I would?”

Instead of answering, Matt planted his hands on his father’s chest and pushed back just enough so he could look into Cord’s eyes. The very forest seemed to pause, almost stop its rhythm. From where she knelt, she was privy to the emotion going through her son and understood it in a way she’d seldom understood anything else. He might have called her “Mommy” and asked if she was going to punish him, but it was his father’s reaction he sought and needed. She had no will or strength to fight her tears; Matt would simply have to see them. If he was as wise as she now believed, he’d understand that her tears traced the depth of her love for him.

Cord’s hands were at Matt’s waist; maybe Matt could feel something intangible and vital through that silent contact, and maybe Matt hadn’t stopped staring at his father because he didn’t know enough.

Please, Cord. Say something .

“Just you and Mom?” Matt’s voice was still that of a little boy’s. “There’s no search and rescue?”

“No.”

She thought Matt would ask why not. He simply nodded. “You followed my tracks?”

“Your dad did, yes.”

“All-I didn’t do so good. I got pretty lost.”

Cord didn’t speak, didn’t move. His eyes still locked with his father’s, Matt slowly pulled free and pushed himself to his feet. He glanced down at his dirty boots. “Mom? I’m sorry I scared you.”

A thousand words rolled through her, but she didn’t try to sort through them. She stood and held out her hands. Cord, please! Say something!

“It’s all right,” she managed as Matt buried himself against her. “You’re alive. That’s all that matters.”

He felt wonderful! A dirty, tired bundle of bone and muscle now pressed against her. His arms slid around her waist; she gripped his shoulders, buried her face in his matted hair, and wondered how much longer she would be able to look down at him.

Matt, alive and well.

Matt, not a victim of some hunter’s gun.

Matt, given back to her by Cord.

Cord, who now stood a few feet away looking as if he didn’t know what to do with his body.

Talk to him, Cord. Tell him you love him.

Cord spun and stalked away from them. She nearly screamed at him before she spotted what had caught his attention. Standing at the edge of a bushy thicket were four men, all of them armed with rifles. Cord! No, don’t! They might-

He couldn’t hear her silent warning, and even if he had, his long, purposeful stride told her he was beyond listening. Without saying a word, he walked up to them and grabbed the rifle from one of the men before slamming it to the ground.

“Damn you! Damn you! You almost -”

The rifleless man turned toward one of his companions, a shorter man in a faded red-and-white checked shirt and a face like sun-dried leather. “Chuck! You said it was an elk!”

“That ‘elk’ was my son.” Cord’s strong fingers had become fists. He kept them at his side, just barely. “You’re hunting out of season, shooting at anything that moves. If you’d been a decent shot…” Although close to a hundred feet separated her and Matt from the others, she saw Cord shudder. He concentrated on the man with the checkered shirt. “Chuck?” he asked. “Chuck Markham?”