“Stay back, bro. We’re good. Just an accident. No big deal. We’re good here. Right, boss?” John tries to make eye contact with her.
Reagan warily watches as Kelly backs off and returns to his own horse, but not before he looks over his shoulder once more. John’s eyes travel between both of her hands with a puzzled look and then back to her face.
“Reagan?” John calls her name softly. Now she looks directly at him. His eyes, which she’d thought were brown, are actually a dark blue. Those deep pools reflect the anxiety she feels and more than a little sympathy, which she sure as hell doesn’t want from him. She’s left to wonder at his own scars. He’s probably seen more than a few friends die over the years. “That won’t happen again, ok? I get it, boss.”
Her breathing slows as she feels herself calm down. Her anxiety lifts, and the pin pricks on her spine subside. She gives him a quick nod, swallows hard and takes her hand off of the holster. They return to saddling his horse, and she notices how careful he is about avoiding touching her in any way. And if he sees that her hands shake, he doesn’t say anything.
“You’re rifle will go in this sling here,” she says on a shaky breath. “And your... your water canteen can hang here.”
“Sure thing, shorty,” John tries to lighten the mood as he shoves the 30.06 caliber rifle into the leather scabbard.
“Um... sorry,” Reagan whispers.
“No problem, boss. You got a pretty good start back there, but I’m still not sure you could kick my butt. Although with some help from me I could teach you. Of course, that might be kind of dumb on my part,” John offers and laughs at himself. She has learned that he is never serious about anything.
“Really?” Reagan asks tentatively.
“Sure, I mean we’re Special Forces, so we’ve all been trained on just about every kind of hand to hand combat technique you can think of. Might not be a bad idea to teach everyone on the farm some self-defense stuff,” he reflects.
“Uh, maybe. Ok, you’re done. I’m gonna go help Kelly, or we’re never getting out of here,” Reagan says as she hurries away. The idea of getting more defense training is great. The idea of the hand to hand or touching part- not so much.
Twenty minutes later the three of them are in the paddock, mounted up, and she has the men walking the fence line. She takes turns riding beside each of them giving pointers- heels down, hands soft on the bit, sit up straight. John seems to be a natural or else his childhood riding is coming back to him. Kelly’s a little more awkward, but he’s catching on well enough. Neither of them mentions the incident in the barn again, and she’s thankful for it. Her aversion to touch isn’t something she wants to explain, nor is it something she likes to visit even in her own head. As a doctor, she knows her behavior is irrational at best, but it’s not something she’s been able to overcome yet. The mental trauma from the night of her escape at the hand of the devil himself has scarred her. She realizes this, but for now there are too many other things to deal with than pitying herself.
After about forty five minutes, Reagan announces, “Let’s head into the woods. There’s a difference in trail riding and plodding around in a pasture. Since I guess you two are sticking around for a while then I’ll show you the back of the property and the path that will take you to the city.” Reagan stops to open a gate at the back of the pasture without dismounting which seems to impress the men and then recloses it after they are through. Harry starts his prancy dancing beneath her.
“Hey, what’s wrong with your horse, Reagan?” Kelly asks, getting nervous which in turn makes his mare unsure of herself under him.
“Oh nothing, he’s just antsy, wants to run. Kelly, just tighten your reins on her a little. That’ll calm her back down. This is the path I take every morning with him, and it’s usually not at this pace. He’s just ready for his morning run. He really just wants to get it over with, I’m sure. Now, when we come back you’re gonna want to hold those two mares back. I mean, don’t yank their mouths off, but once a horse gets sight of the barn they tend to want to run back. They see the end and they’re ready to get us off. And I don’t think we’re ready for anything other than just walking today. Tighten your reins and talk to them. They’ll settle down once you show them you’re still in charge.”
Reagan leads them up a steep incline, explaining to lean forward. And just like that, they are in over three thousand acres of nearly untouched woods. It’s beautiful, serene and peaceful, and a person would never know the world had fallen apart if they just came out here. It’s also probably one of the reasons she patrolled this part of the property every morning. It is her own personal escape from the crazy.
The sunlight streams through the branches and filters down between the leaves of the old oaks, elms and maples. The pines provide a brittle bedding of needles that crunch under the horses’ hooves, and they nicker and call to each other as if they too are delighted to be out. Wild berry bushes are in full season, and there are many blank areas where deer have been grazing on them. Bright green, wide ferns cover large open areas of the forest floor and spread out like Victorian lace fans. Sprinklings of delicate white Baby’s Breath inch and climb their way over boulders that stick out of the hills. Thick, wild grape vines twine skyward around pine trees like ligaments and tendons of nature. A gentle breeze provides relief from the midsummer heat and occasionally teases about in the curls lying against her forehead. Every once in a while Harry snorts or startles. He’s always on high alert. She just coos to him softly.
“Easy, big guy,” Reagan says gently as they climb another incline.
“What’s his problem?” John asks as he pushes his mare in beside her gelding on the narrow path that opens up when they reach flat ground again. They are in a flat meadow with summer flowers and flora. “Should we be worried?”
“Nah, he’s just like this. Probably smells a deer or something. Or something equally threatening like a chipmunk. All three of the horses would let us know if someone was in these woods. They’re better than dogs when it comes to detecting things. Probably because they are flight animals and scared of pretty much of everything. Aren’t you, ya’ big sissy?” Reagan teases her horse. John chuckles.
“Hm, interesting. Good watch dogs, huh? I haven’t seen any actual real dogs at the farm,” John comments.
“Yeah, well Hannie’s allergic. Keep your heels down. Good, that’ll keep your arse from falling off when we cross this next stream. She’s always been a little weak- our Hannie. I don’t mean that as an insult. She’s just fragile. Always has been.” At the sound of her sister’s name, Reagan notices that Kelly has inched his mare closer. Luckily for him the path has widened.
“Hey, Reagan, was she born that way?” John asks. There is no judgment or acidic humor in his voice.
“No, there was an accident when we were just kids. I think she would’ve been maybe six or eight. It happened right before our mom died. We lived in a house that had a pool, and we were diving and playing, you know just kid stuff. When you’re young you don’t think about consequences or danger.” Reagan pauses to take a deep breath. It isn’t easy talking about this particular subject. But she’d rather tell them than have to have Hannah do it. “Now lean back; this is a steep embankment we’re gonna go down. Hold on to your saddle horn and grip with your legs. The horses will follow mine. And whatever you do, don’t lean forward! You’ll go right over your horse’s head, and then she’ll probably step on you and break her ankle. And I don’t want my horses hurt. We’ll water the horses at the creek. I always stay close to the tree line when I get to the meadow just in case someone else is out here. We’ll be back in the woods soon.”
When they reach the bottom, both men look relieved. That hill was steep for a new rider, but there is no time for babying people anymore. Baptism by fire is what Reagan believed in when it came to learning horses anyways.
“So what happened to Hannah?” Kelly prods as they cross the meadow. Reagan sighs. Harry prances under her, longing for a run, but she reins him back while the other two horses continue to follow.
“She hit her head doing a backward dive off the diving board and was knocked out. Mom rushed us to the hospital. Grandpa took the first flight and came straight to the hospital, too. There was swelling on her brain which led to cortical visual impairment or post-traumatic optic neuropathy. Hannie was in a coma for two days, woke up, had a bad concussion and was blind. Grandpa worked for weeks with specialists around the country. They had meetings, he flew to more meetings, took Hannie and mom with him and... nothing. They tried to do surgery, optic canal decompression. It didn’t work. There wasn’t anything that could be done. She says that she can see a tiny bit. It has to be just the right light, but then bright light is too much for her. If you notice she wears sunglasses when she’s outside. The bright light of direct sun hurts her eyes.” They reach the creek and allow the horses to drink. Reagan shows them how to hold their reins loosely so that they can also get a drink from their canteens. John is staring at her with a strange, fascinated look on his face.
“But I thought there was such a thing as retina transplants or something like that,” John questions.
“Not retina, genius. Corneal transplants, but that isn’t what was damaged with Hannah. She’s something of a medical anomaly. And no, it’s not fixable. If anyone could’ve found a fix for her, then Grandpa would’ve. He’s something of a super brain in case you didn’t already notice that. He graduated med school at eighteen, one of the youngest in our country,” she says proudly.
“Well, from what we’ve heard, you’re kind of a genius, too. Graduating med school at twenty-two is no small feat, little Doc,” Kelly says, and Reagan looks away with a shrug and continues.
“Grams says it’s just the way God wanted her in the first place. That’s a load of shit if you ask me. Kids do stupid things and get hurt. That’s what I think,” Reagan says harshly. She urges Harry across the creek as the men follow. They travel up the other side of the steep ravine and manage to hang on. They are once again in a deep forest on all sides.
Her sister’s accident had always bothered her. She’d felt guilty somehow, though Sue was also in the pool that day. She and Hannie had always been close, and it had felt like her fault. And talking about it with these guys isn’t easy. Talking about any of her feelings had never been easy. It was also one the reasons she’d wanted to become a surgeon first and then later take over Grandpa’s practice once he retired. Performing surgery on an unconscious person’s insides was easier than speaking to families about their sick, little kids or their husband’s cancer diagnosis.
“You know when I think of some of the stuff me and Derek did growing up, it’s a wonder we made it to adulthood. And yeah, the doc is really smart. I think if he can do everything he’s done here, then he would’ve found a solution for your sister’s blindness if it was possible,” John says and they continue on in silence for a while until Reagan points out some important notes about their surroundings.
“There’s another creek farther to the west of us. It feeds the springs that water the animals in the back pastures. And if you take this path, it’ll circle the entire farm. But if you go off up ahead to the right, that’s the path that will take you to the city eventually,” Reagan tells them and points.
She has purposely changed the subject. She doesn’t want to get into her own history with Hannah’s blindness. Or how she studied for a solid year when she was about fourteen on the eye, advancements in new technology, transplants, eye trauma cases and in general every piece of information she could get her hands on. It had become her obsession. She went for weeks without riding or spending time with her family until Grams put ends to her short hiatuses. And how after everything she’d studied, she turned to Grandpa one day crying and frustrated and angry, wanting to know the answer on how to fix her sister. And how he’d held her close and told her that some things just aren’t fixable and that it was Hannah’s fate. She was angry but had learned to accept her own defeat. Her grandfather had taught her the most important thing about medicine that day: humility.
“You guys own this much?” John asks her, steering Lady away from Harry just slightly.
“No, but it gets to where it’s no man’s land. We only own three hundred and fifty acres. I think the government owns a lot of this land. If you noticed a while back that our fencing stopped? That’s where our actual property boundary on the back ends. Grandpa and I would ride out here, though, and spy on what the oil frackers were doing. It’s almost all government land, but now it’s nobody’s so who cares, right? Not like some federal marshal is gonna come knocking on the front door to fine us for trespassing,” Reagan tells him.
“Yeah right, I think we’re safe on that account. And only three hundred fifty acres? I grew up in Deerborn Estates. Like what the heck does that even mean, Deerborn? And the back of our property butted up to the sixteenth hole of a stupid golf course, so it was just a tad different than this,” John laughs.
“Well, around here, this is small potatoes compared to some of the big dairy farms,” she informs him. “Did... did you grow up in the city?” Reagan asks. Small talk feels weird. Shouldn’t they be discussing nuclear war fall-out or something?
“No, not exactly. We lived in the burbs outside of Denver. Lots of good skiing if you like that sort of thing- which we didn’t. So me and Derek and our dad would go on hunting trips during just about every available hunting season. It was kind of the only time we got to spend with him,” he says, reflecting on the past.
“Yeah, John’s old man was a hot shot lawyer in Denver. Corporate stuff,” Kelly chirps in.
“Really?” Reagan asks incredulous.
“Yeah, most of the time he was a pushy jerk, but hunting time was cool. Till he got going on one of his career day lectures. Man, those were the worst. I think Derek just went to college to shut him up. But it helped him to become an officer. And as soon as I got outta high school I signed up for the Army, which teed him off,” John explains. Reagan notices that he doesn’t ever swear. Kelly on the other hand could give her a run for her money.