Lost

by jann

WARNING: Possibly disturbing content

He rode out of town with no direction in mind but away, with no thought but to outride the sun not yet risen, to escape all the months of mornings since coming to that place and all the years of them stretching behind.

Years of having awakened with the sun weighed him down, the burden of them grown heavy in the months of its gentle light stealing into the wagon that was all he had of home -- no more than wood and canvas strung together with half-formed hopes that seemed always ahead of him and never found. Each morning of his life he'd faced the new day with an expectation of something to come, something beyond reach and worth the endless years of always looking ahead. And each morning had turned to afternoon and then night and on to another new day -- and still he waited, looking ahead, but his gaze drifting in months past to what lay behind and even at times lingering on what lay within sight yet just beyond reach.

And with each turn of his head back, with each lingering gaze on what lay beyond touch, the way ahead seemed to stretch that much farther, the ending of it becoming less and less sure. Until at last that morning he'd awakened far ahead of the sun, all the months of mornings that came and went with hope unfounded stirring in the dark, the weight of them settling heavy on his chest. And no longer able to bear the ache of wanting what couldn't be found, he'd turned from what lay ahead, slipping out of his wagon to run from what lay behind, closing his eyes as he rode away to what lay in sight.

Through the night lit by distant suns he rode, unknowing of the way, lost to himself as he'd never been lost to the world, the trail he followed through the darkness within faint, landmarks unfamiliar to him and his destination no longer certain. Yet something in the world pulled at him -- true north and in him a compass that led him unerringly in its direction, the dark shape of it standing against the night as he drew near to it.

It never occurred to him to turn away from it, morning never having come to him in that place, hope found there and never lost. And riding straight to it, he dismounted and climbed onto the porch of the cabin that held within its walls more of home than he knew or could recognize. Without hesitation or thought of the hour, he knocked on the door, waiting for it to open as he knew it always would to him. Then a soft light glowed behind the window and an unwavering voice demanded to know who was at the door in the dark reaches of the night when only trouble walked.

"It's me, Nettie," he called out.

"Vin?" The tone was one of surprise rising with alarm. And with a rattling at the door, it swung open, Nettie Wells framed by the light of the lamp set onto a table, her Spencer carbine tucked under one arm. "Land's sake, son." She took in the sight of her late-night visitor with worried eyes. "You liked to scare me half to death. What's wrong?"

She gave him no chance to make reply, simply reached out to take hold of him, as much for the feel of him warm beneath her hand and in one piece as to direct him inside. And setting her rifle down, she searched out signs of harm, finding it nowhere but in the depths of his eyes, a fear starting in her at the loss she read there. "What is it, son? What's happened?"

Before he had a chance to reply, another voice sounded. "Aunt Nettie?" It was Casey, calling from one of the back rooms. "Is everything okay?"

Nettie moved to the door of her bedroom. "Everything's fine, honey. You go on back to bed. I've got me some sitting up to do."

Casey gave a sleepy good night and did as she was bid, Nettie returning to the room where Vin stood as one bound in place, unable to move forward or step back, his eyes on her as if she had the moving of him. And reaching out again to him, she took gentle hold of one arm and led him to a chair, tugging to get him to sit, then lowering herself into another chair across from him.

"Now, tell me what's brought you out here this time of night."

He shook his head, not wanting to look back on the trail that had led him there, closing his eyes against it. But Nettie had long since learned the futility of such a gesture and had no intention of allowing him to hide from what needed to be faced. "I reckon you can do better than that. You come knocking on my door in the middle of the night, it's not because you just happened to be passing by and figured you'd stop and visit a spell. You got something eating at you. And you wouldn't have come here if you weren't wanting me to help you with it. So what's wrong? You in trouble?"

Again he shook his head. But the weight of his burden seemed suddenly more than he could bear alone. So he accepted her offer to share it, eyes opening. "I just can't do it no more. I don't want to, Nettie. Every night going to bed in some place that ain't home and never will be, waiting for the sun to come up again on a day that won't be none different than the one before it -- no matter how hard I wish it better. I ain't got it in me no more to believe that or to abide the thought of my having already had all there is of what's good in the world."

Nettie sat back in her chair, old bones that had seen too many hard years settling. "What's brought this on, son? Did something happen to make you think you're never going to get anything more than what you've got now?"

Another shake of his head. "Ain't nothing happened. Ain't nothing never happened. Leastways nothing I wouldn't have run from if I could. And I'm bone-weary tired of it. I've been biting and scratching my whole life just to keep from falling so far behind that I'd get to where I was going faster if I was to turn around and head the other way. My whole life, Nettie. And I ain't got nothing to show for all that pain and misery but a bounty on my head." He gave a bitter laugh. "Hell, the only worth I got to anybody is for something I ain't even done. And I'm worth more dead than I've ever been alive."

"You got more worth than that, son. And don't you ever let me hear you say different again."

Vin fell silent for a time. Then he lowered eyes old with seeing and doing too much, with giving too much and getting too little back. "I always thought that whatever I had to go through in life would be worth it in the end if it got me to where I was going. And maybe I didn't ever know just where that was exactly, but I always figured it had to be someplace better than wherever I was. I figured, too, that it was the same for everybody. Leastways it was that way for them I was ever around. The white ones, anyways. They all seemed the same as me -- waiting on something to come that would be better than what they had. So it didn't seem so bad that I'd go to sleep on hard ground hungry, with nothing to keep the rain off. And hunting buffalo or bounty seemed as good a way as any to keep me going 'til I come to wherever it was I needed to be."

He shifted his gaze past the old woman sitting listening, to the window behind her and to the dark beyond growing faint ahead of the new day's sun. "I always thought that was the way things was supposed to be. Then I come to this place and I seen how it was for other folks, some of them hardly older than me -- and some even younger. They got homes and families and their own places in the world. They get up every morning knowing they're where they're supposed to be, and they know they'll be there still at the end of the day. They walk the streets of this town and people tip their hats to them. Or maybe they stand and pass the time, talking about their lives and their families and their town. When one of them gets hurt, the others pitch in and help carry the load that's been dropped. They ain't none of them in this life alone."

"You're not alone either, Vin. Not anymore."

Vin sighed. "No. I ain't alone. I got six good men I trust to watch my back. And I got you to open your door to me in the middle of the night when I ain't got the sense to let you sleep. But I ain't got no place in this world, Nettie. All's I've got is a wagon always ready to move on to some place else and a job that keeps folk from running me out of their town -- 'til they don't need me no more. And then what? The boys will all drift away in six different directions and I'll head off in a seventh. Then I'll be alone again with nothing to look forward to but hard ground and the rain on me. And I just don't know that I can fool myself into believing that it'll ever be any different, that there will ever be anything on the trail ahead of me worth the waiting on."

"And just what is it you're waiting on? If you were hungry, would you sit around with a stew pot in hand waiting on a rabbit to come along and jump in? Or would you go hunting one up?"

Vin turned his gaze back to her, frowning, and Nettie continued. "Son, I ain't going to deny that some folks seem to get life handed to them easy as you please. But the rest of us have to go out and make our own places in the world. And that's true of everyone in these parts. We've all come from somewhere else, somewhere we weren't wanted or where we had no place -- or somewhere we just plain didn't want to be. We left behind everything we had and went in search of something else. And for some of us, there was no name on a map to head to, no wagon road to follow. We just blazed our own ways here and then picked a spot where we decided our place in life was going to be. Then we fought and we scratched and we made whatever dreams we had come as true as we could make them. It wasn't easy, but we did it."

"And you're reckoning I can do it too," Vin added for her, his voice as weary as his eyes, his tone having something of accusation in it. "But I ain't like you, Nettie, nor like the other folks hereabouts. I ain't growed up knowing the things you all know. I can't go just anywhere and fit in. Even if I didn't have a bounty on my head."

"Why is that, Vin? Why do you think you couldn't fit in anywhere?"

Vin let out his breath with a scoffing laugh. "Decent folk take one look at me coming most times and pull their children in close. And that's before they even know a thing about me. Just let them find out who and what I've been, and they lock their young 'uns up tight and hide the keys." He shook his head. "No. Ain't nobody ever going to want me part of their lives 'cepting those I wouldn't want no part of. So even if I was to pick me a spot and stake it out as mine, what good would it do me if I ended up just as alone as I ever been?"

Nettie eased back in her chair still more, the lines of her face shadowed in the dim lamplight. "So then you reckon me and Casey aren't fit for your company, much less for that of decent folks? Mary neither, nor Mrs. Potter?"

Vin looked at her in alarm. "I ain't said that."

"No? Sure sounded to me like you didn't figure anyone who cared beans about you could be worth anyone's knowing."

"But I didn't mean y'all. Ain't none better nor kinder in the world."

"Then how do you explain us caring about a no-account like you? Or the boys or anyone else decent who's ever smiled at seeing you coming? You figure we're all too stupid to know how worthless you are? You figure you got the wool pulled all nice and tight over our eyes?"

Tangled up now in his own sentiments thrown back at him, Vin tracked through truths long held to ones never before grasped. And hoping to mark the trail for him a little more clearly, Nettie said, "Son, a man is more than the clothes he wears or the length he grows his hair. He's more than the way he talks or the book learning he's never had. And he for sure is more than all the things that happened to him because he had no one to teach him better or to keep watch over him. Yes, you've done things in your life you aren't proud of -- but that's true of everyone, to one degree or another. And it's not so much what we do in life as what kind of person we grow to be that matters at the ending of it all. So if a man never steps outside the law, if he never does a thing to be ashamed of, but hasn't an ounce of kindness in him, if he's never cared more for others than for himself -- what good does all the wrong he's never done do when he's never done right? And if a man rides on the shady side of life, but regrets the doing of it, if he risks his life again and again for other folks simply because it's something that needs doing -- do you really figure decent folk will hold all the wrong he's ever done against him when he's done more of right in his life?"

She shook her head. "Son, all you need do is pick the spot where you decide your place in life is going to be -- whether it's here in this place or on some other piece of ground, whether it's a woman to hang your heart on or a friend willing to share whatever burdens you carry. You do that, and I guarantee all the folks worth knowing will make room in their lives for you -- just like they've done here."

The trail, however, remained unclear. "I don't know, Nettie. I feel like I've lost whatever trail I was following and I don't know that I can pick it up again. I just don't know that I got it in me no more."

"Then maybe you'll just have to blaze a new trail and leave it to others to follow along behind you."

Vin sighed, unconvinced. "Sounds like a hell of a lot of mornings ahead waiting still."

"Maybe. But if you haven't found a place yet where you don't have to keep that wagon of yours loaded up and ready to go, you at least have a place with folks who care about you. And that's bound to make the waiting easier. Wouldn't you say?"

Another look out the window to the sky growing light, morning at hand and him having lost ground ahead of it. Yet, sitting there in that small room with an old woman who always reminded him of those things lost and never regained, who stood with back straight in defiance of life and death and all things in between, he felt an easing of the weight settled on his chest. The way ahead remained unclear still, the direction shrouded in uncertainty, but that which lay in sight was nearer to his reach now. So with a nod, he said, "I reckon I can stand to hold on a while longer."

Nettie reached out to lay a hand on his knee. "If the time ever comes again when you feel like you can't hold on anymore, you just remember -- you only have to reach out to me or to the boys, and we'll hold on for you."

His gaze shifting from morning light to all of life that lay within his reach, Vin placed a hand over the one on his knee, his fingers wrapping around frail old bones that knew more of strength than he'd known in all the years since his mother's death. And as another new sun rose, its gentle light slowly banishing the night's shadows, he looked neither ahead nor behind, content in that moment to simply sit there with that woman in that place -- holding on.

The End