Settling Down

Settling Down (Reader/Joshua Graham)

Tap. Tap. Tap. The sound of fingers against the weather-roughened surface of a wooden table, a constant rhythm that is almost as even as the pitter-patter of the rain just outside the entrance of the cave. It's become white noise by now, a numb sound that lies in the back of your brain as you try to focus on the blank pages in front of you.

Your fingers press too hard of the pen into the long-stained pages until the ink begins to bleed just a touch too much, leaving a dark mark betraying your lack of focus to the words you want so desperately to write down. Another day of travels, another day of setbacks–keeping the events written down seems to be the only thing keeping you sane nowadays, especially since it's a much less lethal alternative than getting into a gunfight.

"Something on your mind?" A voice asks from beside you, echoing slightly against the cave walls.

It catches you off-guard for only a moment, dragging your thoughts back from the sound of rain and thunder that seems to fill the valley outside.

When you turn, it's to look into the eyes of the man at the table, just slightly deeper in the cave. Joshua Graham is sitting at a makeshift desk, a hobbled-together piece of work with just enough structural integrity so he can focus on tending to the guns sitting upon it. It's been two days now, and with the rain yet ready to offer mercy for the relocating tribe of the Dead Horses, your traveling partner saw it fit enough to keep himself busy in the meantime.

He looks at you with a mixture of stoic curiosity and concern, if only because you can't see more than the expression hidden within his eyes, as the rest of his face is masked away with bandages.

You don't share his gaze for too long.

"Just feeling a little antsy is all," the words tumble out of your mouth in a cobbled-together mess, though they are mostly honest. "I'm so used to moving around, and yet I feel so out of place here. In the valley. Zion." The words feel just a tad too awkward.

A second passes, and you can practically feel the gaze of the man just a few paces away. It is a hard look, and you can feel him attempting to peel back the layers of your words, tone and thoughts. It's been this way ever since the two of you first met, a silent game of cat-and-mouse, one trying to extrapolate the inner feelings of the other.

Still, the feeling shifts when you guess he focuses back on his guns again, carefully checking, cleaning, and maintaining them one after another.

"The Dead Horses have considered you apart of their family and tribe for weeks now," the man says simply. His tone is not cold, but he does speak with a level of bluntness; inviting you to correct him, to steer the conversation where you feel comfortable. "If any of them have made you feel otherwise, I'm sure it is a mere misunderstanding or perhaps even cultural difference you mistook."

You debate leaving the conversation there and letting Joshua assume what he liked, but the desire to confide in the man, to share a moment of even simple intimacy, was enough.

"It's not the people," You say with a sigh. "It shouldn't even be an issue anyway. I've been traveling for so long that new places shouldn't feel so...uneasy."

The book closes in your hands when you finally accept there's nothing to write, your mind too jumbled and anxious to get much of anything down. You didn't want to waste the precious resource either with scribbled-out nonsense, not when finding even a stained, but blank journal was a rarity in itself.

After a minute, you realize that there is nothing but silence hanging in the air. Where there had been the careful tapping of fingers or metallic shift of guns being maintained, there is instead nothing.