The rain has been steady for as long as I can remember, which as best as I can figure, is about two weeks, it’s hard to tell when you can’t see where the day begins or ends. My eyes are cloudy and my head is ringing like a mission bell, holding me back from concentrating. And the rain, this detestable rain! Raining steady and constant, the air thick and hard, and wet so deep under the skin my very soul feels as if it has drowned. I’ve given up on looking, shelter does not exist.
There are some things I remember,like, I used to be a family man, I’m good with a knife, and I’m a good tracker. But those things I don’t remember far outweigh the things I do, like, How could any man do what those men did? Who was that Indian? Why do I have this pouch sewn to my neck? And, what in Hadley’s furnace did they do to my horse!
Termite is the first thing I remember seeing when I opened my eyes. Staring at me with eyes I hardly recognized, his face dripping the blood from a wound on his head I’ve yet to figure out. He hasn’t been the exact same horse I remember, a once scared and timid creature that chewed a hole in the door of our cabin in an attempt to get away from a family of jackrabbits, he now plods along, without a shrug from the thunder, without a startle from the lightening, not bothered by the rain.
As Termite carries us down the sodden slopes toward our destination I here a deep rattle within his chest from each breath he takes. I gently pat his flank, letting him know there will be rest when we are through. I promise him green fields and warm sunshine.
I know we’re getting closer now. The tracks are more plentiful. The horse droppings can now be found before the rain stirs them into it’s foul soup. The small broken branches still hanging tell me I’m getting near. It will only take a few hours before they're too heavy to stay on the tree. And even though my memories are as soggy as the ground beneath my feet, I do remember, clear as crystal, the men who killed my wife and baby girl. For those men, shelter does not exist.