A Wild Raven

RAVEN

It’s an unconventional ranch dinner. No one sits together like you’d think; instead, everyone grabs food and moves off to their own little corner.

Timothy and Haline are being cute on the couch as they play a board game.

Anna stares into the fire with a notebook on her lap and charcoal in her hands.

The adults are the only ones who stay seated at the table. They talk about the recent damage to the fence and how many cattle it cost them.

I feel strange, as if I shouldn’t intrude on their private matters about the ranch, but I also feel I can’t sit with the teens as they play and relax by the fire.

I sit on the large, lilac couch with my feet tucked under me, scrolling through my phone, as I overhear the family drama.

The only one missing tonight is Iza, who is still somewhere in town with her boyfriend.

Coal links the damage to the fence to Iza’s boyfriend. “Timothy and I went tracking. They left all their trash at their different campsites. That’s why you can’t find Iza in town: they’re moving from one place to the next. My guess is she led them to our best camping spots. That’s why they ended up wrecking our fences and letting the cattle out. It was probably some kind of prank.”

“We lost contact with Iza around the same time it all happened,” Trish murmurs. “How are we ever going to get her back in line, Coal? She’s too young for this. Sixteen and already this wild.”

“I talked to her earlier on the phone. She’s fine, she’s not dead,” Anna calls out. “I told you, Mom—Iza hates it here. She is never coming back.”

“This is about respect, about family, not about her own selfish desire to do whatever the hell she wants,” Coal says. There’s a force in his voice, and I’m guessing there’s a little projection about his ex-wife too.

“Maybe I can help,” I say before I think twice. I sit up and put my phone down. “I’ve lived a transient lifestyle for five years. I can find her. She’s only sixteen. The younger you are, the rougher it is out there. I can probably convince her to come back home. I’m not family, so maybe she’ll listen to me.”

As I speak, a profound and heavy silence fills the room. Oh, crap. Even Coal looks directly at me, also dead quiet. Perhaps I shouldn’t have offered.

I pray I haven’t completely overstepped the mark, but after the weight of what I said truly sinks in, Trish immediately stands up, her napkin scrunched in her hands. “Please,” she says as she starts to cry. “Can you help us, Raven? We have no idea what to do with her. Every time we bring her back, she runs away again, and it’s harder and harder to find her!”

“Calm down, love,” Ken says, grabbing his wife’s hand and getting her to sit back down. Once she’s back in her seat, he looks me dead in the eye. “Yes, Raven, thank you. We’d appreciate any help we can get with our daughter.”

“Does your sister ever tell you where she is?” I ask Anna.

“Nope,” she shrugs, seeming uncaring, but after spending time with her these past few days, I know it’s a front. “She just sends a message every now and then to say she’s fine.”

“I’ll go into town and look tomorrow,” I suggest.

“You have to be careful,” Coal warns. “She’s with the Freshies, a bunch of hippie transients from the city that are addicted to meth. They chased the cattle off with dirt bikes.

“It took us days to find all three hundred that got out. Do you have any idea what would have happened to the ranch if we didn’t find all of them? Or if the heifers hadn’t been on the other side of the property? Their joke could have ended us.”

Coal is clearly furious. He closes his eyes and takes a breath to calm down before looking at me again. “I’ll go with you tomorrow to talk to these idiots, if we can find them. They’re always hiding. When they see my pickup, they scurry off like cowards.”

“They could be dangerous if they have weapons,” Aunt Jean murmurs, hand over her heart. “Maybe we should just call the police?”

“I don’t want a firefight if they pull guns on the police. Iza could get hurt, or killed. We don’t know how reckless they are with the law. They have her well under their influence. We have to do this with her life and safety in mind; we have to move quietly,” Trish hisses protectively.

“I know what it’s like to want to run and be ‘so cool’ and enlightened living on the fringe of society, or I understand the reasons behind it. I’ll talk to Iza,” I add, confident I can understand her and convince her to come back home, especially if I share some of my own risky stories.

Living free is an ideal, but it’s far from ideal.

It all depends on your reason why, who you’re with or if you’re alone, what you know and where you want to be, where you want to go.

Maybe I could help.

“Good luck, Raven.” Anna looks at me. “My twin doesn’t listen to anyone. She’s the most stubborn one in the family. Second only to Coal. She’ll go wild too if you upset her. So mind her temper.”

“Absolute brat,” Coal growls out in agreement.

“It’s true; she won’t listen to any authority,” Timothy speaks up, looking disappointed in her. “Not to us. But maybe she’ll listen to Raven.”

“She’s running away from something,” I murmur under my breath.

I just have to find out what.

However, I also quickly realize, with a heavy heart, that what I just offered all of them will raise their hopes that their daughter and sister will come back home.

I see that expressed clearly when I glance up at Coal as he leans on the kitchen counter looking me over—not staring rudely but clearly thinking deeply to himself. He must be wondering: Can she do it? Or is it all words and bluff? An attempt to extort money? An attempt to get even closer to the family and manipulate them for her own benefit?

I don’t want to do any of that.

All I want is simple: I don’t want to let any of them down.

Especially not Coal.

In my promise, I’m most worried about impressing him. Or perhaps disappointing him.

Coal clearly expects the worst in people. From what everyone told me, he had once been the optimist of the family, full of heart. But he’s different now, after the divorce. He is clearly hurting and does not trust people like me.

Then there is his own young family, taken from him, which really tugs at my heartstrings. Coal walks with three shadows trailing him, one for each absent son.

My parents had been taken from me, and his sons had been ripped from him. Somehow, someway, that’s intriguing to me. Like a magnet, I’m drawn to his sorrowful eyes.

Maybe it’s because he is older than me by thirteen years. Maybe I have daddy issues. Oh god. I inwardly roll my eyes at myself—I certainly hope not.

Coal was sweet to me as I washed down Galvin earlier. There was a real attempt at coming out of that darkness, but it was with such vulnerability. It made me very shy.

When he called me beautiful…it almost felt like a cry for help.

I feel like I can answer that call if he’s open to it.

I want to look after his heart.

I just met Coal, and I already feel like that’s what I’m here to do.

Just be.

Here.

However I ended up in this situation, it feels like Coal and I met at the right time.

Am I crushing?

Kinda? Okay, yeah.

Very much yeah. I’m crushing hard on this lonesome cowboy.

But before tomorrow begins and we can search for Iza together, I have to survive the night with him in his tiny cabin.

Hopefully it isn’t…you know…awkward.