We passed a family on the trail today. A wagon, slow-moving and clumsy, dragged through the dust by two exhausted mules. A man walked beside it, sunburnt and proud. Two children waved at us from beneath the canvas. The mother offered a weak smile.
Billy lit up. He waved back, bright as sunrise, called out something kind I didn’t catch. For a moment, he looked like the boy I had first met—the boy with stardust in his grin and wind in his blood. Then the wagon was gone.
“I could’ve had that,” he said, more to the horizon than to me. “You ever think about it?”
“All the time,” I said, though my voice barely made it past the wind.
The trail narrowed after that. Billy rode ahead, occasionally pointing things out: a hawk circling, a funny-shaped rock, a lizard with too much confidence. I responded just enough not to be cruel. But inside, I was folding, folding, folding.
We stopped at a spring near dusk. Billy stripped off his shirt and splashed water on his face, yelping at the cold. “You could try it too,” he teased. “Might even wash the brooding off.”
“I’m holding out for a thunderstorm,” I replied.
He laughed. Genuinely. But I saw the shadow behind it.
