Nadia Nichols - Buffalo Summer

His eyes had held hers in a steely grip that she couldn’t break. “Don’t let the past haunt you, Pony. Don’t let it destroy your life.”

He was right. She knew he was right. But she couldn’t change what had happened by pretending that it hadn’t. She would have to live with the guilt for the rest of her life.

Now Pony climbed the ranch-house steps, arms wrapped tightly around her waist, and stood for a moment in the vast, almost-palpable silence of the night. She suddenly felt alone and lonely, overwhelmed and scared. Sometimes those dark memories became too powerful to push back and she felt as if she were drowning in all the mistakes she’d made.

Sometimes, she wished she’d died that summer.

CALEB MCCUTCHEON WAS NOT a night owl, but at one o’clock in the morning he was still reading by lamplight, studying the history of the Crow Indian tribe. He was reading a book called Parading Through History by Frederick E. Hoxie, because he felt compelled to learn more about Pony and her boys. He found the book fascinating enough to make a pot of coffee at midnight, turn up the lamp wick and draw an old wool blanket over his lap to thwart the night chill. At 1:00 a.m. he paused to listen to the wild and eerie song of a group of coyotes yipping in the foothills and wondered where the old bull buffalo was, glancing at the window and hoping he wouldn’t see the reflection of the great beast looking back at him.

He didn’t. He got up, poured himself another cup of coffee and returned to the comfortable chair, the warm blanket and the book. It was 2:00 a.m. before he finally blew out the lamp and went to bed, and a short three hours later he was rolling out from under the warm blankets with a reluctant moan, boiling up a fresh pot of coffee, drinking his first cup on the porch, bare toes curled over the edge of the weathered porch boards, and shivering in the quiet, mist-shrouded dawn.

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