Page 109 of For Fillies and Monsters

“Gus, it’s Dale. You’re out. You got Stetson out. You have to let go of her so they can help her. Please, let me help her.” I sag at her words, recognizing the familiar voice.

“Help her, Dale.” I’m swimming now, my mind floating in a black, spiraling pool. Voices shout all around me, and I have the faint sense of being lifted into a vehicle, harsh light filtering into my inky void.

“Stetson, help Stetson.” I push hands off my skin, desperate to get every voice to focus on her. On the only thing that’s actually important.

“We got her, man. She’s alive. We’re taking you guys to the hospital—you’ve inhaled too much smoke. But we’ve got you. You’re in good hands. Your friend is getting in the ambulance with your girl. You’re both okay. Just hang on.”

I try to sit up, but I’m swimming once more.

The vehicle jolts forward, sirens blaring. But I’m fading, the voices and lights becoming farther and farther away. There’s nothing but silence in my head, the flickering glow of the flames dancing around Stetson’s bruised and bloody face, the only thing swimming in this void with me.

And then it all fades into silence.

FORTY-SEVEN

STETSON

December 10th, 2024

Watching Gus working a new colt,in the brand-new iron corral we just finished two days ago, is a good reminder that things do work out. Even if we don’t always think we deserve them. Scratch that—we’ve paid our dues to this miserable world ten times over, and we fucking deserve this one little slice of heaven.

I giggle. Gus would be proud of my attempted attitude shift.

Lord knows he tries to fuck it into me how “valuable I am”, how “special I am”, and how “I deserve a happy ending” the same as good-hearted people whodon’t have blood on their hands.

The truth is, I’m starting to believe it. I love the idea that the traumatized, broken, filthy people deserve happiness too—I’m tired of only happy people getting happy endings. So, even if I have to carve it out with my own bloody hands, I think I’ll keep this little slice with Gus all to myself.

I giggle again.Well, almost all to myself.

Back to my previous train of thought, I pull my lip between my teeth. Things do work out, you just have to be willing tofight for them. Almost five months ago, I nearly died a fiery death next to the only man in the world who means anything to me. I watched my dreams go up in flames—literally—watched any hope of financial recovery go up with it, all while recovering from the most brutal kind of assault a person can escape. But that is the key phrase—I did escape.

Not a month after the fire, I was contacted by an insurance agency, wanting to let me know that I could file my claim on the life insurance put on my father any time I was ready. After the barn fire, the police were forced to dig into Craig—the details about my cattle being stolen, photos and threatening messages from him to me, and all of his gambling history surfaced, laying bare a truly evil man. Evil enough to kill his own brother to get the ranch he felt like he deserved—or so I told the police as part of his confession to me. They believed me—didn’t even question it.

The details made sense. If you didn’t look too closely, and with a couple of deadbeats who liked to strangle people in the heart of Texas? The police didn’t care to look closer than they had to.

A better person might feel guilty, or shame, letting someone else take the blame. But I haven’t lost a wink of sleep over it yet. The truth is, I don’t know if Craigwouldn’thave eventually killed his brother; he was desperate after all. And it never was about me murdering Gibson—even though years of trauma and violence might have been enough of a reason to do it on its own. No, his eventual death, at my hand, was simply an act of survival. And I made my peace with that the moment he lunged at me.

I’ve never been sorry I killed him. I’m only sorry Gus found out the way he did, instead of from me. I should have trusted him enough to tell him—something he punished me thoroughly for.

I smile, rubbing a loving hand over my stomach at the memory.

Craig was pronounced dead at the scene, and his dying confession of killing his brother was enough to tie up the dangerously loose ends in my life. It also allowed the life insurance to become available to me; life insurance my mother applied for only months before she was killed. Her way of taking care of me, I imagine. I still have a lot of mixed feelings about Poppy, about the kind of mother she was. And about the kind of mother I want to be. What things did my mother do that I want to pass on to my baby? What things do I not?

With the insurance money, one thing I insisted Gus and I start doing is once-a-month therapy. He grumbles every single time, but goes with me, holding my hand as we talk and work through our traumas together—saving space to be there for the other. It’s magic. If I could tell myself to just suck it up and start therapy ten years ago, maybe Gus would have felt like he could have come into my life sooner.

But then again, things work out the way they’re supposed to.

I step down the old stairs, now shiny with a new coat of stain and sealant on them—one of many projects we’ve finished since we got the money—and head toward Gus. I groan, the sight of his muscular back bunching as he holds tightly to the end of a rope that’s connected to a rearing colt on the other. The horse dances around Gus, his dark mane billowing in the cool Texas breeze, his eyes wide and wild. Hooves hover in the air, slashing at their captor, but Gus doesn’t back down. He doesn’t show fear, no matter how often I beg him to be “just a little careful”.

It’s a breathtaking dance to watch—a man and a wild horse—learning to trust each other. Who will bend first? Who will be bravebefore the other? Who will show vulnerability? Looking at Gus—teeth gritted, tanned, glistening forearms straining, the veins all but jumping out from under his skin—I know he will hold on, even if the colt decides to drag him around the arena. It’s not to scare the poor horse, but to show him that he can trust him. That even when the colt is at his worst, Gus will be there. Waiting to help him.

I lean against the corral, looking up at the sign creaking in the breeze. I still want to get a new one made, one that’s metal and a little less weathered, but Gus hasn’t given up on that fight yet, either. He says he likes the way it shows character.

I’m still glad Gus stuck to his guns after the fire and insisted we switch the ranch from cattle to wild horses. I was just being stubborn, and he was right. This is what we were both meant to do with our days on this earth. So if a wooden sign that Gus carved from a slightly less burnt piece of old barn is the sign he thinks we should stick with, I guess I can give him that.

He’s probably earned the right to make some decisions around here, anyway.

“Like the view?” Gus asks, his voice breathless. I smile at him, shading my face with a hand to get a better look at him.

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