Page 12 of Tattooed Cowboy
By all rights, I should ask for help from my other kin. Wildbloods still roam these hills, some ranchers or farmers, others ranch hands who help out permanently or seasonally. But I can’t risk my secret coming out, so I’ll take the herd alone. Disappear until things right themselves again, and I can forget about the raven-haired beauty with mossy eyes that make my soul sing.
Action transforms fear into hope, though it’s a hollow sort. I push the herd northward, Winnie breathing hard from doing the work of many horses. But my skin hums less the further I get from the mountains and Melody. I need this solace, the quiet that comes with it.
At the cabin, I strip to my waist, nothing worse than fabric against the marks when they burn. The dark air fills with their luminosity. Not sure what they mean, as I eye them moving and pulsing. But it’s faint this time, growing more so. I’ve done right, though my heart aches and complains behind the breastbone.
From my saddlebags, I pull a small box, painstakingly wrapped in a thin, silver-like metal fabric. Inside, I stare at the dampener. Don’t know if it’s more helper or torture. The crude device, half machine, half stone, holds the promise of pain … and forgetting.
The ancestors built it to keep us hidden. Seems like all we’re meant to do beneath the shadow of the Starborns.
I activate it, and a strange bluish-white light mirrors the echo of the girl, of the mountains in my tattoos. I reach out an unsteady hand, press my palm to the device that disrupts vibration like a pulse.
Memories flash, older than me. Of a ship meant for stars, home but not. Fragments of another world, one made of spirit, vibration. A woman’s voice—singing in a language of light—cuts through the pain before it’s gone. My flesh burns until the smell fills my nostrils.
The device cracks. The hum strengthens. Melody’s voice whispers my name. Not heard, felt.
I pull back, eyeing the angry melt of flesh. Better my suffering than hers.
I go to the window, drawn by the pull. The sky over the Starborn Range glows faintly red, the kind of light locals call aurora. As if a name could mask the strangeness.
The air shifts, thick and heavy, my pulse synced with the distant mountains. I feel the hills answer me, like inevitability. But I can’t believe that. Won’t allow myself.
Instead, I mutter to myself, “You can’t know, Melody. You can’t ever come up here.” I pause for a long moment, say what I really need to. “You can’t come near me again.”
Eyeing the device in the box, a final relic of another life, another world, I can’t touch it again, the pain of suppression inching toward something far worse. Instead, I wrap the box in the cloth, speaking over it things I don’t understand. Things taught down through the generations without explanation.
Night falls, storm rolling in as I check the herd, survey the fences one more time. The horses sprint around the paddock, like they’ve caught the fire in their veins. Winnie spooks, rears back and nearly throws me from the saddle.
I whisper to the fracturing mare in secret tones, patting the side of her neck and crooning the steady peace I need from her. She snickers, whole body relaxing as I notice the distant lights moving through the mist, too deliberate to be lightning.
The next morning, I awaken to the hum. Only this time it’s far closer … in the walls of the cabin. Not fading, following me. The radio on the nightstand crackles. A burst of static. Then faint, metallic voices: “Frequency anomaly… Wildblood signature detected…” The ancient ones. Sentinels. Hunting.
My palm burns, singed flesh aching and pulsing. So does my flesh where the ink hums. I sit up in bed, grip the sheets, focusing into the pain, the great purifier, the great solidifier.
They shouldn’t be able to find me up here at this elevation, atmosphere thinning. Land around me heavy with metal veins of ore. All natural defenses the Wildbloods learned long ago. Things I once discounted, thought of as old wives’ tales.
Not now.
Sweat drips, body aches, and terror grips me.
“It’s not supposed to work this way.”
Chapter
Five
MELODY
Dawn breaks, thin and silver, a new ice threading the air. No rose, no gold. Warmth itself has gone missing.
Even the light sounds brittle, like frost cracking beneath its own weight.
Silence follows, too deep to trust. The hum is gone. At first it’s a relief. Then, it feels like a held breath, the world waiting for something to break—like the air itself is bracing.
The stillness presses against my ribs until I realize I’m holding my breath.
The radio crackles once and dies. I switch it off, though I’m sure I did that last night. My fingers find my lips. No heat. No ache. The burn of the cowboy’s kiss is gone, like it never happened. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was just fever and lightning.
Yesterday, he kept to the far fence line, back turned each time I looked his way. Pretending nothing happened. Perhaps I should, too.
