The Cunning Man || ONC 2021

11: Awakening

I came to sprawled out on my back, squinting blearily up at a sky that was stained crimson and amber. It took a few seconds for memory to return, but once it did I bolted upright with Nora's name on my tongue.

"I'm right here, Cade," she answered wearily.

I snapped my head to the left and heaved a sigh of relief when I saw her sitting up herself, her back propped against the oak tree's wrinkled trunk. A few flicks of my eyes more and I realized that Harlan was nowhere to be seen.

"Where --" I barely got the word out of my mouth before Nora cut me off with a shaky smile.

"He died, but I brought him back."

"How?" My jaw dropped.

"That's a conversation the two of you can have later," a gruff voice reprimanded.

I started so hard I nearly jumped out of my skin. Then I gawked up into Captain Randler's sharp brown face and even sharper eyes. He shifted his stance and my eyes fell down to the box he'd propped against his left hip. Shame immediately washed over me and I found it impossible to look up any higher than the bottom of the Captain's throat.

"You an' me gonna' have some words, Sheriff," his tone left no doubt in my mind that I'd leave that promised conversation having been put quite properly in my place.

"Yes sir," I mumbled.

The relationship between the Captain and I was not, to put it delicately, the way of our world as we both knew it. But I'd never forget what it was like to be starving, desperate, suppressed by an evil spirit that had attached itself to me somewhere between Memphis and St. Louis, and running for my life. Not a single person bothered to hold a hand of help out to me, until I stumbled across the path of a retired Buffalo Soldier from Boston who held the truest teachings of Christ as close to his heart as the powerful magic of his ancestors.

"In the meantime, though, you an' your missus can stay at the cabin. I'll have my foreman bring down some food and other supplies for a few days. You two lie low and outta' my way while I try to figure out what this evil spirit's gonna' do next."

"Thank you, Captain," Nora murmured.

"What about Harlan?" I insisted one last time.

"I sent him back to town."

"By himself?" I panicked.

"What kind of man do you take me for?" Josiah pierced me with a stern glare. "He's in good hands."

"Who's?" I pressed.

"Guerrero, Wallace, and Lunas."

I finally breathed a sigh of relief. All three cowboys were experienced practitioners. I could sleep a lot easier tonight knowing that Harlan was in the company of people who knew what they were up against and how to deal with it.

"Now, if you're done askin' me stupid questions, you might want to get going before the sun sets."

Josiah held a hand out to me and helped me get to my feet. We were within walking distance of the cabin, but with my busted hand and Nora's torn up leg, we weren't getting back without assistance. The Captain helped me get my wife up onto his horse's back, and then prowled along beside me the entire way back to safety. The hard set of his jaw and the constant scan of his eyes around us told me that he was on high alert for any possibility. The thought was comforting, even though I knew he wasn't happy about the situation, or with me.

I didn't know how it could have been avoided, though, short of me coming to my senses about my magic well before Nora appeared in my life. I thought about saying so as we walked, but I was too worn out for conversation and I knew Josiah would want to say his piece before he listened to mine.

It took a whole ten minutes to get back to the cabin, but by then Nora looked like she was going to fall out of the saddle. I wasn't in much better shape and the thought of bed had never been so damn appealing. The Captain and I both got Nora beneath the blankets and he even wrapped up my hand. Before he closed the door behind him, he leveled me with a look I knew he'd given to more than one soldier in the course of his Army career.

"Don't cross this threshold until I come back to get you, ya' hear?"

"Loud and clear," I nodded from my seat by the fire.

"Good."

The Captain glanced over at Nora's softly snoring form and then back at me. "I'll be back in three days. Sort yourself out in the meantime, Sheriff, an' do right by the people who depend on you."

Then he left me with the ghosts of my past and a future I'd done everything in my power to avoid. I stared out the window until the deep night outside turned the panes into mirrors, and my reflection brought home a truth I couldn't change any more than I could my red hair or my magic.

I'd thought for years that I'd rather die than be a Cunning Man. But pulling the trigger on a man I'd called my brother in order to save his soul, and seeing how my lies and omission made Nora vulnerable to unspeakable evil, forced me think about my options in a very different way.

I'd rather be a Cunning Man, than let anyone else die.