Something Blue

Chapter 2

Gabe

There were seasons of grief to this place.

At first, he had drifted aimlessly through the changing leaves and fading light of autumn. He had died a slow death in those early weeks after she had sent him away for good. What sleep he found was populated by ugly nightmares-- her face, bloodied and twisted in fear and pain. Her cries, echoing into daylight. He had come every night, in the hours before dawn, and sat in that spot by the river. Chill air had nipped at his skin just as desolate understanding nipped at the boundaries of his soul.

Then had come winter. Long, bitter hours. Starless nights and slate gray mornings. The edges of the river had frozen, the water a thin black strip of obsidian as it rushed by, gathering up the last of his hope as it passed and carrying it away. He had brought coffee with him in the winter, to keep him warm and to fill the time. He never brought a second cup, because he knew there was no use. In the winter, he lived in the frigid knowledge that she would never come. Why he still returned, he didn't know. Stubbornness, maybe. It was all he had left of her-- this promise that he had made. Perhaps she had walked away from what they had, but at least he could sit there, shivering and angry, and know that he had stayed.

Fortunately for his soul, and the folks who had to live with him, winter eventually gave way to spring. The strain eased. The ice thawed. He still knew, as he had in the winter, that she was never coming. But, where in the winter he had nursed the wounds that festered and tore at his pride, in the spring, he finally decided to let them heal. He brought coffee and two cups, and he sat by the river and thought of what he'd say, how he'd kiss her, if she emerged from the woodline. When dawn broke with no sign, he packed away the coffee with an empty feeling of loss, fading echoes of bitterness, and the perverse comfort of knowing he would try again the next night.

And finally, summer.

For most of the folks in these parts, summer was cause for celebration. They were mountain folk, who spent three quarters of their lives buried in three feet of snow. So of course the warm summer sun and the sound of birds were a blessing. But Gabe Townsend wasn't mountain folk. He was born in a steamy brothel in the ass crack of Texas. His first five years had tasted of dust and sweat, and every year thereafter came with a chorus of threats of eternal damnation. Burning in the fires of hell. Boiling in vats of molten rock. Suffocating on a haze of burning sulfur.

Summer was a dangerous time for the spawn of Satan. It reminded him of where he was headed when it was all said and done. And summer was right where she ultimately left him. After the pain of autumn, the bitterness of winter, and the hope of spring, all that was left was the sticky, unpleasant reality of summer. A summer that lasted four long years, dragging him through snow and rain, through pitch black nights and silvery moonlight.

In the summer, he brought no coffee. He felt no anger and no yearning. He waited by the river, not for the hope of her arrival, but out of habit. It was a nice place when he moved beyond the memories. The river was a steady hum, the spot far enough away from the ramshackle society of town that he could pretend for a moment that he was nothing more or less than a man. Not the misbegotten son of a whore. Not the sinful bastard who had cuckolded the local preacher. Not the abandoned lover of a fallen angel. He was just a man, made fool by a woman, sitting by the river beneath the stars, waiting for the rising sun.

He made the trip every day, and he knew the way so well he could walk the path with his eyes closed. The night that endless summer finally broke, it was muggy and unpleasant and he was bone tired. He walked in a sort of fugue, his eyes half closed as he followed the game trail toward the sound of rushing water. Sweat dampened the back of his shirt and he pushed the sleeves up to his elbows, swiping droplets from his forehead with the back of his hand.