Chapter 21

Clint felt his heart beating so hard that it vibrated his chest. He forced himself to not look down, because he knew if he did that, he would probably slip or make the incessant beating worse. He was about halfway up the slope, all the while keeping his eyes on his destination.

Halfway slowly turned into almost there, and almost slowly turned into nearly there. The muscles in his arms grew tired and started to give. Nonetheless, he pulled himself up until less than a yard separated him from the top of Almighty.

Then, he made the mistake of looking down. His vision blurred as he saw how high he was. One slip of his hand and he could go tumbling down that slope and never see the light of day again. Trying his best to clear his head, he reached for the next rock jutted out of the solid wall of earth.

A few more shaky steps up the mesa and his hand touched the top. He pulled himself up until he could roll over onto the top of Almighty.

He laid there on his back, staring up at the grey sky, his heart pumping fast as the adrenaline ran out of him. His breathing was heavy and ragged, his chest heaving in efforts to catch his breath.

He had done it. He had actually done it. Clint would have smiled, had not he been reminded of Miss Cooper’s presence down below him and her and her anxiety to get to the place which he was laying. Pushing himself into a standing position, he looked around and found a suitable rock that he could tie his length of rope around.

After tightening the know around the rock. He walked to the edge of the slope and tied a rock to the bottom of the rope to make it go down to the bottom of the mesa. His heart began to beat faster again as he neared the edge. What if Miss Cooper fell?

Shoving the thought from his mind, he waiting until he saw her small form at the bottom of the slop grab on to the rope, tie it around herself, and begin to climb up. He stood as far back as possible to still be able to see her yet not be too close to the edge of the mesa. Miss Cooper’s ascent was slow and steady, and she rested her arms every once in a while by relying mostly on her foot to steady her on an outcropping. He waited and waited until she climbed so far that he could make out her face. Soon, he could make out sweat gleaming on her forehead. One hour passed and turned into an hour and a half. He clenched his fists, as if the act would help her climb, and watched her every move until she finally reached the top and threw her hand over to grasp a handful of grass on the top of the mesa. He walked to the edge with shaky legs and reached down to help her up. Once her two feet were firmly planted on solid ground, he began to breathe easier.

She was safe, and so was he.

A beaming smile split her face as she looked at her surroundings, her transparent coffee-brown eyes revealing her excitement and wonder of finally being at her destination.

*****

Bliss took in the land around her. The top of Almighty looked just like the land down below. Scattered tufts of grass poked out of the earth here and there while a hard rock or two jutted out from inside the mesa. The grey sky provided very little light from the sun, and yet the place seemed to sparkle and shine with hope.

There was hope.

She turned and nearly ran a far piece until she reached an area around where her mother was found at the bottom of the mesa. She looked down below at her surroundings until she came upon the area her mother was found dead. She gasped as she took in her view of the land that stretched on for miles and miles out in front of her. She stepped close to the edge, though not quite far enough to need to use very much caution, and just stared.

“Come see this, Mr. Slade. I can see the whole ranch from here!” she smiled.

“Na, I’m good here,” he replied.

Bliss barely heard his answer. The she called home seemed to roll on forever, going above and beyond any beauty she had ever seen before in creation. Pride welled up in her chest and she felt as if she could sing. She wanted to stand there and watch the land until dark, but another part of her wanted to look around.

She was at the top of the mesa. Her questions would start getting sufficient answers now.

Turning away from the scene, she looked around at the ground around her. She imagined her mother standing at the edge of where the mesa dropped off, preparing to leap as tears streamed down her face.

Was her heart breaking? Was she angry?

More questions of what was going through her mother’s head when she chose to kill herself ran through Bliss’ mind, causing more cloudiness and confusion.

She set her thoughts aside and began looking at the ground more closely, Clint following her lead.

Nothing. Not a single trace of any living thing in a ten-yard radius. The place was eerily deserted. Bliss let out a groan. She had got her hopes all worked up over finally getting her answers, only to get up here and find only more questions.

It wasn’t fair!

Everyone else around the ranch knew more than she did about her own mother’s death, and she was tired of it. A fire lit inside of her and rage seared through her veins. She wanted to scream and punch at something.

*****

Clint watched as Miss Cooper plopped down on the ground and heaved a weary sigh. The poor woman was probably tired of trying to find the answers no one saw fit to give her. It must ache awfully bad to have so many secrets kept from you. She must have felt horribly neglected.

Clint kicked at the dirt and snuck a glance back up at her. An ember behind her eyes grew into a flame and her hands curled into fists.

Oh no.

That woman was about to explode, and he didn’t’ want to be the one she released her fury on.

He was too late.

“I’m sick of this!” she exclaimed, jerking up to stand. “Sick of being treated like I’m a child, sick of people looking at me with pity behind their eyes, sick of people not trusting me with the secrets I’ve earned to know, and sick of feeling alone.”

She kicked at a plant on the ground, sending dust flying.

Clint wasn’t usually one to back away from situations, but he felt like running far and fast away from Bliss Cooper at that moment.

He looked down and dug the toe of his boot into the dirt once more. His boot his something hard. Moving the dirt around to examine the area, a dull shine came from beneath the layer of dirt. Bending low, he bent to retrieve the item from the dirt. His fingers closed around something metal, and as he straightened, he came to recognize it as a belt buckle. His eyebrows drew close together.

“What did you find?” Clint looked back up to find that Miss Cooper had collected herself, and all signs of rage had vanished from her countenance.

“Looks like a buckle,” Clint said as he handed her the item in question.

Miss Cooper examined it closely, her face reflecting the same confusion he felt. He looked back down at the earth and saw another dull shine coming from the same place he had found the buckle. He picked it up and brushed most of the dust off the small object. He picked most of the dirt off with his fingernails until he made out its shape. An old, rusty pocketknife sat in the palm of his hand, far too rickety to use.

He held it up to Miss Cooper. Her eyebrows pulled close together, and she slowly clasped her fingers around the knife and took it from him.

“Wh-Why is this up here? Momma didn’t have a knife,” she asked, tears beginning to glisten her eyes.

Clint pressed his lips into a thin line, not sure what to say. He knew that there was one reason that knife was there, but he could be wrong.

“Did… um…” he felt his heart beating quicker. He would hate to upset her.

Only because I fear her wrath.

He told himself.

“Did… your mother have any blood on her when they found her?” he asked.

Miss Cooper jerked her head up. Her tears had vanished quickly while her head was down, though sorrow was still the main emotion resting in her eyes.

“I… I don’t think so. I never saw her,” she looked back down at the knife in her hands before dropping it as if it were on fire and hot to the touch.

Clint immediately regretted the question he had asked. Now she had more doubts than before.

She handled the buckle in her other hand and her lips twisted.

Deciding that she needed time to be to herself, Clint took three steps backward before turning his back to her and walking a few feet away. Even he was beginning to get curious about their dilemma. He had seen that look of determination in Miss Cooper’s eyes a minute ago. She was planning on figuring everything out until it was crystal clear or she would die trying. This was the most important thing in the world to her, and he shouldered some of that weight. Then and there, Clint decided in his heart that he wouldn’t stop until she got the answers she wanted. She deserved that. He forgot all about the money, all about his job, and all about his feelings for a moment and simply thought of her. She needed his help.

Suddenly, a scream seared the air he jerked around. Miss Cooper had vanished from the place she was standing. He panicked, running back to where he had left her. He looked around but found nothing. He heard a whimper but no sign of an owner. Four fingers curled around the stiff corner of the mesa caught his eye just as one of them slipped.

He dove to the ground just as the other three disappeared. He didn’t know how he did it, but somehow he had clasped his hand around the wrist attached to the fingers and his gaze locked on the terrified eyes of Bliss Cooper. Yet just as soon as he got hold on her hand, it began to slip. He gripped her hand tighter.

He could feel her grip lessening. Images of her falling filled his mind as he looked at how high up they were. He felt his heart racing and his adrenaline pumping as the strongest sense of fear he had ever felt filling his being.

“Don’t you dare let go, Bliss Cooper, do you hear me?” he smothered his voice with as much authority as he could muster.

Her eyes darted to their hands then back up at his face. He tried to pull her up, but he didn’t have enough leverage. He stretched his left hand out to her.

“Grab my other hand,” he demanded.

She complied, though somewhat delayed.

With his right hand, which was now freed, he pushed the upper half of his body up until he could push up with his knees. Her hand began to slip from his again.

“Don’t let go of my hand,” he demanded again.

He felt her grip tighten around his hand and a small part of him felt relieved.

He focused on pulling her up with everything he had in his left arm while pushing his own self up with his right. Once she was pulled up high enough to get a grip on the firm dirt of the mesa, she helped pull herself up until she could crawl back to safety. With the relief that she was back to safety, Clint rested back on his heels and watched her as she lay flat on her back, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Her eyes were wide and terror still filled them, but he could still feel her emotional strength from where he was a few feet away.

“What… happened?” Clint found that he was breathless himself.

“I slipped. I guess I stepped too far to the edge,” she explained.

Clint sighed and closed his eyes. We’re all fine now. Everyone’s safe.

A raindrop fell and hit his hand at that moment. Clint inwardly groaned. It had to wait to rain until they were this high up in the air. Just his luck.

“We better get home before the bottom falls out,” he said, standing up and reaching down to her.

She reached up and took his hand in her own trembling one. He felt her fear of climbing down the mesa she had only moments ago nearly fell from.

“We’ll go down together, and I’ll be right below you,” he assured her.

She gave him a strange look and it dawned on him that, yes, he was doing her a favor of his own volition.

She looked down and he realized that he had yet to let go of her hand. The second he realized it, he let go of her hand and rubbed his hand on his thigh to get rid of the tingly feeling. She bent down to pick up the knife she had dropped and the buckle as well.

An hour later, they were both on solid ground with the mesa stretching tall up to the darkening sky above them. They had reached the top. The fact that he had climbed to a place so high and made it back down safely caused pride to well up in his chest.

The rain, however, was beating down around them brutally, and Clint didn’t know how they would make it back to the ranch without getting sick once they get there.

“We can’t make it back in this rain,” Miss Cooper spoke his thoughts.

She had done very well coming back down. She had gritted her teeth and kept her gaze up, not looking down at him once.

“There’s a shelter about a mile from here. It’s more like a pile of lose wood, but it should keep up dry,” she went on to say.

Clint nodded. “I’ll follow you.”

They mounted their waiting horses and Clint followed Miss Cooper as she pressed her horse to go faster to the west, the rain beating down around them.

When they finally did pull up to an old abandoned building of some kind, they were both soaked through. Clint took the least amount of time as possible to make sure their horses were in a mostly dry place before rushing inside the building.

Miss Cooper had piled up a stack of sticks that she had found lying around inside the building that had most likely fell from the gaping hole in the ceiling. Clint stared up at it, shaking his head.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a match on you, would you?” she asked.

Clint looked over at her. She was a sight to see. Her hair had come loose from its braid and hung wet and stringy around her shoulders, and her face was dripping with water. The hem of her dress was covered in mud, and Clint had to choke back a laugh at her, his failed attempt resulting in a smile.

She shoved her hands to rest on her fists. “Are you laughing at me?”

Clint cleared his throat and vanished his smile. “Of course not. You’re in luck, because I happen to have this unexplainable need to carry a box of matches around. I find that they become quite handy when you spend as much time as I do around a campfire.”

Miss Cooper grinned widely - not a grin that a box of matches could elicit by itself.

“Something funny over there?” Clint reached inside his vest pocket and withdrew a box of matches.

“You actually smiled,” Miss Cooper’s voice was hardly above a whisper.

Clint looked up at her. “I do that sometimes.”

He withdrew a match from the box and lit it on the heel of his boot before kneeling by the pile of sticks.

With the fire started and giving off sufficient warmth, Clint sat cross-legged by the fire and Miss Cooper sat on the other side with her legs folded up under her.

There was a long moment of silence before either of them said anything.

“Do you know what time it is?” Miss Cooper finally asked.

Clint looked out of where the rain poured through the hole in the ceiling on the other side of the room.

“I guess it’s a little after noon,” he answered.

She nodded, reaching inside her dress pocket.

*****

Bliss withdrew the knife from her pocket and stared at it, rubbing at the dirt on it with her finger. The thought that her mother possibly killed herself with the knife in her hand gave Bliss the cold chills. While she had been hanging off Almighty with nothing more that Clint’s strong arm to keep her from falling to her death, images had flashed in her mind of her mother falling and screaming the whole way down. She shut her eyes against the same images replaying in her mind at that moment. She opened them again to stare at the knife again. The longer she stared and rubbed at the dirt on it, the more familiar it became.

Then, the truth hit her like a brick wall.

“This is my father’s old knife.”

So, tell me what you think guys! Well, no. Don't do that. I have an announcement to make - well, more like a favor to ask - and I'd like ya'll's attention! If you think you know where this story is headed or you might have figured something out, PLEASE KEEP IT TO YOURSELF! I would appreciate it if you didn't leave it in the comments, because that might ruin it for the readers who haven't had that "ah-ha" moment yet. I'm not doing this to be mean or controlling, but I would appreciate it. I know you guys understand. If I find any comments like these, then I'll be forced to delete them :( So PLEASE PLEASE do me this favor? Thanks!

Love you guys and you mean a lot to me!

One more thing! This story has been rated up to PG-13 because of some strong elements in the future. No, it's nothing having to do with the body or anything... well, it does, but I think you know what I mean by that. I'm still holding to my "innocent love" convictions. The new rating is simply for violence, because I'm not sure if some of the elements in the future are for EVERYONE, know what I mean? Anyway, I'm really leaving now.

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