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“Not if it’s a waste of money.”
The thought hits him before the words have all left her mouth. He gives his head one little shake in an attempt to dislodge it but it is stuck there, inexplicably. He lays eyes on the rifle, exactly nine steps away, as his thoughts hum, desperately trying to rationalize the origins of this impulse. He only has as long as it takes to walk across the room to convince himself of the idea.
Before he can even take a step, a scene rises up unbidden from his memory, one of the remnants filed under ‘to be forgotten,’ that never quite disappear, no matter how long he avoids examining them.
He sits waiting for a flight, the oft cherished words of “White Christmas” ironically mocking his present journey over the airport speakers. He hasn’t been “home” since he started law school. It is with singular purpose that he makes the trip now. Acquire. That is his goal. The handing-off part will come at the end of another plane ride.
Eight steps to go. Another memory.
He stands in the little Durant shop, holding it in his hands. It’s a different take on what is already an uncommon practice these days, but this bothers him less than placing green bills into white hands to prove to who-knows-who exactly that his identity is not just skin deep. He lets his hesitations dissolve in the cold air as he walks away from the shop. Halfway there.
Seven steps.
Another flight. This one full of brown eyes, black hair. Glimpsed first across a sea of seated heads, then again amidst waves of marching bodies. A friend. Then more. Inseparable in body and spirit, she pursues a goal and he follows, excelling alongside her. Near the end now and it’s time. He knows it’s an unnecessary gesture but isn’t that what makes it beautiful? Offer and acceptance. Completion. A contented smile rests on his face as the fields fly by beneath.
Six.
He blinks, unable to comprehend the unexpected. The hazy phrases that float through the dim room following the first word. “—white man’s ritual—” He shakes his head slowly in disbelief, wishing he could shake the words out of his ears, maybe shake his own back into his mouth. If he could just rewind, leave the goddamn rifle in the fucking store. Or better still, never leave New York. He’d be with her right now—
“—white man’s name—” His blood runs cold, tightening his chest, making it difficult to breathe. “—trying to take her away—” What the fuck is he doing here? “—tribe needs her—” The fire returns as his lungs fill with arguments that are extinguished as soon as they leave his lips. “—maybe you could—” He can’t listen to it all. The rifle comes with him when he leaves.
Five.
A third one way.
He watches the frozen landscape passing below, the window cool against his forehead. His best laid plans incinerated before his eyes, and who was the one holding the match? If he could fail after being so confident, so sure , how could he believe the plane would not simply fall out of the sky?
The words echo through his head and their truth is almost too much to bear but he continues to listen. Closing his eyes, he lets their dismal refrain suffocate him.
His worst fears proved true. He’s not anyone. There are no rules.
Four.
Her questions. His harsh words. A heavy silence.
His hand goes numb gripping the empty bottle in front of him. If he relaxes he risks throwing it across the room. Her words reach out to reassure and he tries to hear but brushes them away instead.
On his way out anger surges and he can’t help but raise his arm to fling the bottle into the open bin. He needs to hear it shatter. It would be blissful agony to know it lies there in jagged shards, even without seeing them.
It hits bottom with a hollow clunk.
Three.
The door slams and he cringes but she’s not here. That's almost worse. Still out with her friends, he reasons as he rifles through the closet, chasing the calm that has evaded him for a month now. He finds the matchbook in a jacket two years missing. The memory of folding it around her brings a dull ache to his chest and the threat of a smile to his lips, a joy he no longer deserves.
One match left in the pack. He holds his breath and strikes it. A spark flickers, then fades, and he knows.
Two.
A lonely three months. A gust chills him as he passes her building. Remembered warmth brings his gloved hand to the stair railing. Remembered words, his own, shove his hand back in his coat pocket. He clutches at the lighter but he needs more than fire in his lungs. He needs it in his soul. He needs something to break, to burn. Anything to leave the pain behind and begin the formidable process of rebuilding. He can’t change the past but he can erase parts of it as he moves forward.
One last plane ride. Home this time.
Almost there. He hears his voice far away, continuing a conversation from another lifetime.
“Mr. Poteet is both—”
Zero.
Right hand touches warm wood, and the initial impulse from all those years ago to give the rifle is revived in his mind. He questions himself for just a moment before left hand reaches cool steel.
“—highly dependable—”
He raises the gun. The impulse and worrying implications fade. Surely they are long gone.
“—and highly efficient.”
He considers all that the rifle put him through as he tests the lever action. His arrogance led him on a fool’s journey that ended in fire, started by his own hand. It burned up the offending pride and charred his heart in the process. He knows now he is stronger for the loss but holds on to the last of the ashes, a reminder of the destructive power of the open flame.
He’s turning now. Putting away his thoughts of what it has meant to him. What does he mean in giving it to her?
He sees in the woman standing before him a version of himself from years gone by, but there’s something else. She has hope that is far from blind and stops at confidence, so unlike his youthful conceit that led him to his worst mistakes. This combination seems like a recipe for survival in a world he knows well, having lived it himself for a few years following that last plane ride.
She may not require the same transformation the rifle had inadvertently given him. It had been a valuable experience, his would-be fatal flaw laid out plain before him. For Cady though, he thought it likely a similar fire would only harden her resolve, increase her belief in herself and what she was doing. He admired her for it.
“Are you threatening me?”
He shifts the gun so both hands touch cold metal now. Mind fully returned to the present he starts to explain as if it holds no special significance to him.
“In Cheyenne culture, the most prized dowry a groom can offer his new bride's father is a rifle. There's a reason for this tradition. Do you know what it is?”
Oh, if Walt could see him now, speaking of guns and dowries with his beloved daughter. Would she ‘tell’ on him? Not that it would matter at all. He had long since stopped trying to appease Walt; it was a winless fight if ever he'd known one. The man would believe the worst of him no matter what and even the situation with Cady could not add to that infinity.
“No, clearly.”
There it is again, the self-assured defiance that does not quite bubble over into pride.
“The idea is that you never arm your enemy.”
Was he arming his enemy right now? Not her. Walt. If Walt blames him for anything to do with Cady, it is because he thinks he has the power to lure her in, without her knowledge. To convince her of something untrue. To seduce her with promises of helping people and improving lives. Of course he could do those things if he so chose but there was no malice in his actions. No hidden blade. But it was not a rose without its thorns. Perhaps that was the gift of the rifle. To him it had been fire. To her, a rose.
“You're making a deep, and dare I say, courageous commitment to this tribe.”
And with this gift, I to you.
“The rifle is a symbol of my trust. Take it.”
He shifts his hands on the rifle again, leaving only cool metal available for Cady as she receives it.
Her wide eyes are full of uncertainty as she raises her hands to the gun. They settle into something approaching resolve and he lets the weight of it transfer to her sure grip. “Thank you.”
Humility. It strikes him that the woman in front of him might be better suited for this kind of work than he ever was.
“And for those times when symbols don't suffice—”
He walks back to the table, finally understanding his own instinctive reasoning behind the gift.
“—you should have these, as well.”
If this woman, so bold in stating her ideas, is somehow not crushed by the hopeless reality he is sending her into, her stubborn idealism will surely lead her into trouble of a violent sort sooner or later. He hopes against every terrible thing he has seen in his lifetime that it will be later, but surrenders, as he must, to pragmatism, and passes her the bullets.