A Wild Raven

Chapter 3

Raven's POV

It's an unconventional Ranch dinner, no one sits around all together like you'd think, instead everyone grabs food and moves off to their own little corner.

Timothy and Haline are being cute on the couch playing a board game with Bella.

Izabella stares into the fire and tries to sketch the moving flames into her notebook.

The adults are the only ones who stay seated at the dinner table, Trish, Ken, Jean, Grey and Annabelle.

Coal reports to them all as he stands after eating only a little. I sit away from them, feeling strange, as if I can't intrude on their private matters about the Ranch, but I feel I can sit with the teens as they play and relax by the fire.

I scroll through my phone on the large lilac couch with my feet tucked under me, resting on an oversized pillow while I overhear the drama.

The only one missing tonight is Bell, who is still missing in town with her boyfriend.

I overhear Coal linking the damage to the Ranch's fence, to Bell's mysterious boyfriend, "We went tracking – along all their trash from their camp sites, that's why you can't find Bell in town, they're just moving. My guess is she led them to our best camping spots. That's why they ended up wrecking our fences and letting the cows out. It was some kind of prank."

"We lost contact with Bell around the same time that that all happened," Trish murmurs, "How are we ever going to get her back in line, Coal – she's too young for this. 16 and already this wild."

"I talked to her earlier on the phone, she's fine, she's not dead," Bella calls out, "I told you, mom – Bell hates it here. She is never coming back."

"This is about respect, about family, not about her own selfish desire to do whatever the hell she wants," Coal speaks with a little projection about his ex-wife, is my guess.

"Maybe I can help," I speak before I think twice, I sit up, putting my phone down as I say it, "I've lived a transient lifestyle for 5 years, I can find her. She's only 16? I can probably convince her to come back home. I'm not family, so maybe she'll listen to me."

As I say it, there is a profound and heavy silence from everyone. Oh, crap. Even Coal looks directly at me, also dead quiet. Perhaps I shouldn't have offered.

I pray I haven't completely overstepped the mark, but after the weight of what I said truly sinks in, Trish immediately stands up, scrunching up her napkin, "Please," Trish starts to cry, "Can you help us, Raven? We have no idea what to do with her – every time we bring her back, she runs away for longer!"

"Calm down, love," Ken was always quiet, but when he spoke, it was final, he holds his wife's hand, gets her to sit back down and then he looks me dead in the eye, "Yes, Raven, thank you, we'd appreciate any help we can get with our young daughter."

"Does your sister ever tell you where she is?" I ask Bella.

"Nope," she shrugs, uncaring, "She just sends a message every now and then to say she's fine."

"I'll go into town and look tomorrow," I suggest.

"You have to be careful. She is with the 'Freshies', Raven, a bunch of hippie transients from the city that are addicted to ice, they chased the cows off with motorbikes – just for the hell of it," Coal adds, "It took us three days to find all three hundred that got out. Do you have any idea how quickly that would have ended this Ranch – if we didn't find all of them?" he directs his attention to all the adults, "Or if all of the heifers had been out on the north end of the property? Their joke could have ended this," Coal is clearly furious, before he also calms down as he glances back to me, "I'll go with you tomorrow to talk to these idiots, if we can find them. They're always hiding. Especially when they see my pick-up, they scurry off like cowards."

"They could be dangerous if they have weapons," Aunt Jean murmurs, hand over heart, "Maybe we should just call the police?"

"I don't want a firefight if they pull guns on the police. Bell could get killed. We don't know how reckless they are with the law. They have her well under their influence, we have to do this with her life and safety in mind, we have to move quietly," Trish hisses, protectively.

"I know what it's like to want to run and be 'so cool' and enlightened living on the fringe of society, or I understand the reasons behind it – I'll talk to Bell," I add, confident I can understand her and convince her to come back, especially if I share some of my own risky stories.

Living free was an ideal, but it was far from ideal.

It all depends on your reason why, who you're with or if you're alone – what you know and where you want to be, where you want to go.

Maybe I could help.

"Good luck, Raven," Bella looks at me, "...my twin doesn't listen to anyone. She's the most stubborn one in the family. Second only to Coal. She'll go wild too if you upset her. So mind her temper."

"Absolute brat," Coal growls out, in agreement.

"It's true, she won't listen to any authority," Timothy speaks up too, looking disappointed in her, "Not us. But maybe Raven."

"She's running away from something," I murmur under my breath.

I just have to find out what.

However, I also realise quickly with a heavy heart that what I just offered all of them, will raise their hopes at bringing a daughter and a sister, back home.

I see that expressed clearly when I glance up to see Coal as he leans on the kitchen bench, looking me over, not staring rudely but clearly thinking deeply to himself – can she do it? Or is it all words and bluff? An attempt to extort money? An attempt to get even closer to the family and manipulate them for my own benefit?

I didn't want to do any of that.

All I wanted was simple, I didn't want to let any of them down.

Especially not Coal.

In my promise, I was most worried about impressing him, I'll admit – or perhaps disappointing him.

Coal clearly expected the worst in people when he had once been the optimist and full of heart. He was clearly hurting and did not trust people like me.

Then there was his own young family, taken from him, which really tugged at my heart strings. I saw how Coal walked with three shadows, one for each absent son.

While I had no parents, he had his sons ripped from his life. Somehow, someway, that was intriguing to me, like a magnet, I was drawn to his sorrowful eyes. Maybe it's because he was older too by 13 years. Maybe I had daddy issues, oh god, I inwardly roll my eyes at myself – I certainly hope not.

Outside the homestead Coal was sweet to me just before as I washed down Galvin, a real attempt at coming out of that darkness, but it was with such vulnerability attached to it, it had made me very shy.

When he called me beautiful... it almost felt like a cry for help.

I felt like I could answer that call if he was open to it.

I wanted to look after his heart.

I had just met Coal, and I already felt like that's what I was here to do.

Just be.

Here.

However I ended up in this situation, it felt like Coal and I met at the right time.

Was I crushing?

Kinda? Ok, yeah.

Very much yeah. I was hard crushing on this lonesome cowboy.

But before tomorrow began and we could search for Bell together – I had to survive the night with him in his tiny wood cabin.

Hopefully it wasn't... you know... awkward.