Episode 8-9: Hungry Like The Wolf
She had taken his breath away. Morgan had worried, briefly, that he would clumsy, oafish, so accustomed as he was to solitude. But he couldn’t keep his feelings from her any longer. Although he recognized that the time had been short, it seemed as though he had carried his growing fondness for her for far longer. When she returned his affection, he found himself both elated and humbled.
When she spoke, explaining the decision she had made, grief washed over him. He found himself studying her, drinking in her presence, trying to capture the light in her eyes, the sound of her voice, her smile, everything about her in his memory, recognizing that the pictures he carried of her in his mind would have to last him for a long, long time.
He couldn’t ask her to stay. Not because she intended to seek out a way to free him from his perpetual darkness, but because to do so would be a disservice to who she was. She was uniquely talented, gifted in ways he couldn’t begin to fathom, and she needed to learn how to harness what she’d been given. Regardless of how deeply he would feel her absence, he understood that she had made the correct decision. It was a journey she had to take.
Unbidden, he found himself recalling his mother. He was eight years old, walking with her up to the porch of his family’s home in Lawrence. Suddenly curious, he had asked her where the house had come from. ”Your father and I built it,” she explained. As she had looked at the weathered building, a smile had crossed her face. ”It wasn’t much at first. Only a couple of rooms. The first night we spent in it, there was a windstorm and the front door fell off.” He had laughed over the revelation. ”The roof leaked. Grass grew up through the floors. And we had to replace the window in the kitchen three times. The glass kept cracking.” She had smiled down at him, patting his shoulder. ”But now it’s as solid as can be. Keeps me, you, and your brothers safe and warm, doesn’t it?” He had nodded in agreement. ”That’s true of a lot of things, Caleb,” she had said, her tone serious. ”Those things that are important, that matter most, they take time. But they’re worth seeing through.”
When he spoke, his voice was quiet. ”I’ll miss you. More than I can say.”
Gazing at Coraline, more taken with her than he had ever been before, he recognized that while she was beginning a new path, the one that he had been on had finally come to a close.
He was silent for several long moments, looking out at the prairie, the long expanse of rolling terrain. ”I’m tired, Coraline. During the war, I hunted men who used the hostilities as an excuse to pillage and destroy. When it came to a halt, I pinned on a badge and kept hunting them. Sometimes, it feels like it never ended.”
“But now Quantrill’s gone. And most of his men that went to outlawry are in prison. Or in the ground. There are still bad men out there, no question. But I think it’s time that someone else put a halt to them. At least for a while.”
“A few years back, I tracked down a fugitive, one of Bill Anderson’s partisans. He had murdered several Cheyenne men and women up North. When I was on his trail, I came across a group of braves that were also seeking him out. We worked together. I became close friends with a warrior named Dull Knife. Saved his life before it was all said and done.”
“That was where I met the medicine man. Because of what I’d done, the chief, Four Bears, told me that I would always have a place with them. A home, anytime I needed one.”
He looked back at her, still struck by how beautiful she was. ”I could go there. Hunt. Tend the horses. Teach the young people how to track and ride. And I could heal. Put some things behind me at last. Find my brother, Josiah. Rebuild that relationship. And I wouldn't be alone."
“You need to go with Whateley. To learn what he has to teach you. It’s the right choice. If I tried to go with you, I’d only get in the way.”
“You are an amazing woman, Coraline Hawthorne. The most courageous, kind, intelligent woman I’ve ever known. And you are very, very precious to me. I’ll be up North. I’ll wait.”
He met her eyes. ”I would wait for you forever.”