Chapter Text
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PART ONE: To Brokeback Mountain
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1.
Natalie Scatorccio and Charlotte Matthews met on a clear, sunny day in the late spring of 1963, waiting for the foreman to arrive.
They had taken very different roads to the Ranch and Farm Employment Office—a one man trailer in a dusty Wyoming lot—and could tell their differences at a glance. Natalie was pale, wiry and compact, with a combative, almost feline face, a well-worn hat that hid her bleached hair, and a repertoire of surly grunts and glares.
Charlotte, meanwhile, was tall, dark and unmistakably beautiful, in spite of her drab garb and voluminous unkempt mane. Her silence was more wistful and present, and she carried the vestigial poise of wealth with her. Why anybody of means would debase themselves with cattle herding was beyond Natalie, who’d worked for a few rich families in her twenty-six years on this earth and found them uniformly indolent—especially the adult children.
This one looked older than her, but was actually fourteen months younger, a fact expertly concealed by her height, posture, and pedigree. She waited patiently in the shade of the office trailer, sending cautious glances Natalie's way while Natalie's own gaze flickered tentatively around the other woman’s edges.
Not a word was exchanged between them during the nearly twenty minutes it took for the foreman to arrive, nor did any passing vehicles or vagrant birds mar the afternoon quiet.
When the car pulled into the dirt clearing and a big, balding, bullish man with a half-open shirt stepped out, they focused their attention on him, and when he unlocked the trailer and asked them if they were coming or not, they both followed him inside, eyes straight ahead, as though the other wasn’t there.
*
“You ladies here about the job?”
Foreman Aguirre prepared a cigarette at his desk, yet to look either woman in the eye. Natalie shuffled in place and removed her hat, feeling as listless as a penned horse. The cramped space and pokey furniture were uncomfortably familiar, and it was much warmer inside than out. The foreman’s desk fan pointed only at himself. “Yes, sir,” she croaked.
“That’s right,” said Charlotte, her first words. An east coast delicacy colored her voice. Gentle but firm; an assessment that would ring true again and again over the years.
Natalie tensed. It was the wrong tone to use with this man, she could see that immediately, and what’s worse, she had a sinking feeling that it was the tall, dark-haired woman’s natural tone, soft, confident, and unknowingly antagonistic. As if in agreement, Aguirre looked up, his perpetual frown lending the stare a threatening undercurrent.
“Sir,” Charlotte amended.
The stare lasted a second or two longer, and then the man dropped it with a soft hmm and resumed his wrangling of tobacco. “Summer job,” he intoned. “All sheep, need’em fed and fit. You’ll be based out of Brokeback, twenty odd miles north’a here. Plenty of pastures for graz—“
The phone on his desk prattled and he sighed, snapping it up with a deft, angry hand. “What?” he barked into the receiver, followed by a string of binary, monosyllabic answers, and then, “not on your fuckin’ life!”
The phone piece returned to its cradle with a hearty bang. Aguirre took a minute to light his cigarette and shake out the match.
“It’s a two-man operation,” he continued, sparing them a quick, unimpressed look. “So to speak. Lost half my herd to coyotes last year, and the whole damn lot to Forest Services back in ‘59. So, one of you sleeps outside to watch the cattle. Non-negotiable. Any sheep come back sick or dead or too light for the meat, it comes out of your docket.”
“Which is?” Charlotte asked.
He smirked, the kind of smirk Natalie knew well. It was the smirk of drunken fathers and lusty suitors and lawmen everywhere: a smirk that said, aren’t you a feisty little one.
“Three hundred," he told her casually. "Split it however you want.”
Natalie was ready to accept there and then. The odd farmer’s widow might give her a summer job like this, but if they had enough cattle to bother with in the first place they’d likely have a ranch hand in house. Probably a cook, too. Having not eaten a full meal in three days, Natalie would take any paycheck she could get. But Charlotte, well. They came by different roads.
“Three hundred?” she questioned, seemingly more confused than anything. “For twelve weeks?”
“I’m an independent businessman,” said Aguirre, feigning cordiality. “Overhead is tight, and we all have debtors. Best I can do, sweetheart.”
It was during the next minute or so that Natalie first began to understand something of who Lottie Matthews really was. It would be a puzzle she turned over and over in her hands for the rest of her life, slotting one memory, one word, one scent next to another, always coming up with beautiful, fragile creatures that never quite equaled the real thing. But it enchanted her endlessly, the glorious enigma. The one, the only.
“If we’re sleeping outside to keep your cattle safe from rangers, something tells me those overheads don’t extend to grazing permits,” Charlotte replied coolly. “Sheriff might have a qualm or two on that score. That was his office I passed, wasn’t it? About ten miles east?”
Time seemed to stand at attention. The air grew slow and thick. Aguirre reddened, almost swallowing his cigarette, that smirk nowhere to be seen. “You uppity cunt,” he spat finally.
Natalie had resented Charlotte’s tone only moments ago, but hearing it now sparked a small ember of admiration. It didn’t waver, didn’t rise in pitch or quicken in pace, and as far she could tell, the woman didn’t even flinch.
“I’m sure you’re right, sir,” she said. “And I don’t suppose you’d even be considering to hire such an uppity cunt as myself, lest you were desperate. So think of it this way: you could eject me from your office, at which point I would alert the sheriff about your plans to graze on federal land and you’d be coerced to fork out for the permits and the fine, still no closer to keeping your cattle grazed…”
Natalie clenched her fists by her sides and studied the strange woman’s face. Her unmuddied grace and soft, full cheeks belied the hardness of her eyes.
“…or,” Charlotte continued. “You could supplement our fee with the would-be permit costs and save yourself hassle and money. Seems an obvious choice to me, but then I’m no independent businessman.”
And that’s how, on the day they met, the tall, dark, beautiful girl from Jersey got Natalie her first ever raise.
*
“What the hell was that?” she demanded once they were free of the trailer, whirling on Charlotte with as much affront as she could muster at her decidedly nonintimidating five foot six.
The other woman looked at her demurely. “Negotiation,” she replied. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
“I didn’t ask for your help,” she fired back automatically, her adrenaline turning to anger as it so often did.
“Great, I’ll keep your share, then.”
She scowled at that, shooting a menacing look at the ground and kicking at it idly. When no further comment was made, Natalie buried her hands in her pockets and leaned against the telephone pole that provided their only shade. “Who are you, anyway?” she asked after a strained pause.
Her companion smiled easily and extended her hand straight out on a long arm. “You first.”
The reply was forward and childish, and Natalie was in the mood for neither. She snorted, but the unwavering arm and unwavering smile which presided over it wore her down. Begrudgingly, she grasped the stranger’s strong, calloused hand with her own. “Natalie,” she said. “Scatorccio.”
The woman’s smile deepened. “Charlotte Matthews,” she said, and shook Nat’s hand rigorously.
She could count on said hand the number of times a woman had ever actually offered her a handshake. Mostly they were fellow farm girls, sisters in squalor and orphanage. Nobody who ever learned to curtsy, as Charlotte surely had, should have a grip this strong.
“Are you thirsty, Natalie?” she asked, releasing her. “I’m thirsty. Come on, I’m sure a man like Foreman Aguirre can’t work too far from a bar.”
2.
Among all the other things that would continue to prove true of Charlotte Matthews for as long as Natalie knew her, she was right. They found a watering hole not three miles down the road, a quintessentially American West establishment with malformed barstools, a malfunctioning pool table, and a wellspring of basic beer on tap. There they claimed a tentative place by the bar, ignoring sidelong glances from the old man behind the counter and the two young men by the jukebox.
“What’s your poison, Ms. Scatorccio?” asked Charlotte with an easy grin. She executed the soft palatal trill of Italian nameage perfectly, a rare feat this far from Chicago.
Natalie placed her hat on the bartop and cleared her throat. “Cheap and domestic,” she replied.
The woman raised two slender fingers to call the bartender’s attention. “Two of your cheapest, most domestic lagers, sir” she requested. “And two shots of rye.”
The man nodded curtly and prepared the order with the speed and ease of an old hand. Natalie wondered how long he’d been slinging drinks across this faded pine counter. The saloon owner her father had frequented two towns over, fella by the name of Carl Garland, he was a lifer. He had taken up the job six months after V Day at the age of twenty-two and Natalie thought he might very well die behind that old slab of wood, pitch into a pitcher after a stroke at eighty, and maybe get a memorial plaque or something on the wall. C. Garland, 1923—2003. He kept us drunk. Not a bad legacy, all else considered.
When the two womens’ drinks were put before them, Charlotte snapped open her purse and Natalie reddened. She dove blindly into her wallet, fishing out two crumpled ones and holding them out to the woman silently.
Charlotte eyed the offering, and for a moment Natalie feared she would refuse it and insist on paying. But she casually swiped the cash from her hand, using the other to give the bartender a crisp five dollar bill and then pluck her glass from the countertop.
“To Brokeback Mountain,” she proposed, her shot raised.
Natalie clinked her own glass sloppily against Charlotte’s, muttering “cheers,” and downed the whiskey with one neat motion.
*
Neither of them owned an automobile. Natalie had yearned for one for as long as she could remember, but never made enough money for savings, let alone a down payment. Charlotte, conversely, had no interest in motoring. She preferred the bracing travel of horseback and open air, which unfortunately meant that their trek north put her in good spirits.
“Wyoming skies,” she mused loudly as they trotted through a field of flowers, the bleating of their custodial sheep and the evening breeze conspiring to compete against her words. “Better than Montana, if you ask me.”
Sparing her not even a noncommittal grunt, Natalie kept her eyes on the ground ahead. Another six miles or so till they could make camp. The cattle had been well-behaved so far, provoking her off-course only once, but give them time. All sheep were dullards at base, sweet enough and hopelessly defenseless, but a mighty hassle to keep in line. It was hard, hot, uncomfortable work; that’s why those who could afford paid others to do it for them. The thought brought her back to Charlotte, once again prompting her to wonder, what’s a girl like her doing in a place like this?
It was, technically speaking, none of Natalie’s business. As long as the woman did her share of the job, she could be the queen of fuckin’ England, excuse her French, for all Natalie cared. But damned if it didn’t put a funny taste in her mouth.
“I heard about a general store just outside of town,” Charlotte spoke up again, and turned her head to peer to the west, hand to brow in a tepid salute to cut the sun’s glare. “Probably our best bet for supply runs.”
Natalie gave a quarter-nod to her left. She was aware of the general store, had seen it on her way to meet the foreman. It was a pretty spiffy thing, for the area. Post-war pine with the painted sign outside not yet showing much weather damage. It would certainly do for supply runs. Natalie simply didn’t feel the need to expound.
A couple more inconsequential observations went by without her acknowledgment before Charlotte Matthews took the hint and fell into an untroubled silence.
*
The pastures of Brokeback Mountain always were beautiful, she would admit that much. Early dusk settled in by the time they had traveled far enough for both their likings: the woods, fields and river glowed in amber, and the temperature had dropped enjoyably. They dismounted and stretched out, Natalie’s lower back sighing with ambiguous motives. The pain could ease overnight, or it could worsen. She still counted herself as young, at least compared to the last group she’d worked with, but her body would tell you otherwise.
Their cattle wandered lazily past them, thinking whatever passed for thoughts in the world of sheep, and milled around the grassy hillside, testing the produce here and there. Charlotte got to work putting up the tent and locking down the horses, and Natalie took a moment to let her. Rainclouds gathered in the north, probably nothing too serious. She tipped her hat forward to shade her eyes and swiveled on her hips, getting a proper panoramic view of their surroundings.
It was Wyoming, alright. Big, beautiful and deathly quiet.
“So, uh,” she said, clearing her throat. “About the sheep-guarding situation. I’m no stranger to sleeping in the open, so I’ll take that card, I guess.”
The woman looked at her with a crinkle in the corner of her eyes as she bundled a long, white slip into a spool around her wrists. “We take turns,” she told her, as though Natalie had forgotten which end of the fork to hold.
She felt that red creeping up her neck again. Truth be told (and damn the consequences, as her father would say), she wished she could have just done this job alone. Pay might have been worse, but Natalie Scatorccio craved silence more than she craved tobacco, and had never really found the stomach for friendship. The only friend she’d ever had was a boy who had lived three lots down from her, and his companionship had been dearly cherished for several years, but then they grew up and he, of course, wanted to fuck her. Excuse her French.
It had wounded her beyond her own wildest expectations, even though she was no idiot and had seen it coming. That he saw her that way, the way every farm hand desperate enough to work for her father did, the way young men at every saloon, store and stable did; it was like he had dropped her hand and stepped behind a veil she could never cross, gone to her forever. She had hated him for it. And she never felt the urge to make another friend.
“Really, it’s no problem, I’m used to it,” she offered, shifting uncomfortably where she stood.
“Natalie,” Charlotte’s voice was clear and commanding. The tall brunette looked at her with something like annoyance, and then threw the last of her clothes into the tent’s far corner and bent down to undo her shoes. “We take turns. That’s the deal.”
“What deal?” Natalie asked her.
A couple of sheep baaaed at each other, or with each other, and Charlotte kicked her boots from the end of her long legs, sending them flying. She fell in an improbably graceful heap on the ground, more or less sitting. “Our deal,” she said simply.
This was the first Natalie had heard of any deal between them. Their only deal was with the foreman and the flock. She thought fleetingly of their handshake earlier that day, but that had only been by way of introduction. She adjusted the rim of her hat, thinking for a moment, and then hummed her acquiesence.
“Well,” she said. “I’ll take tonight, then.”
On that, at least, Charlotte didn’t resist.
*
They didn’t bother with a hot meal that night, eating in the low glow of firelight from open, unwarmed cans of beans. Charlotte cleared her throat very loudly once, but her eyes were on the ground when she did it, and she didn’t chase it up with any words. Natalie made no sounds whatever, save for chewing, which she kept her mouth closed for.
When the stars were out in full, she threw her sleeping sack on the ground and gave it a kick to roll it out, and Charlotte slipped into the tent to prepare for bed. Natalie kept their campfire at a low smolder, enough to warm her until she fell asleep and go out on its own around two in the morning.
Assuming that their business was done for the day, she bundled herself up in the sleeping bag and pulled her hat down over her eyes. She was starting to drift off when Charlotte poked her head through the tent flaps to call out to her.
“Goodnight, Ms. Scatorccio.”
Natalie rolled over and blinked at her stupidly. “Yeah,” she mumbled in reply.
Charlotte’s head didn’t retreat into the warmth of sleeping quarters immediately. Natalie kept her gaze, not knowing what else to do.
“If you have trouble sleeping,” her companion said, serious in tone but with the hint of a playful smile. “Try counting sheep.”
The joke hit her belatedly, camped out among the herd of woolly things that stirred and snorted in the dark around her, there for the proverbial counting. Natalie blinked a few more times. “Yeah,” she said, again.
3.
Low-slung rays of golden sunlight woke her. A half-remembered dream toyed with her around the edges, an image of her standing in the dead, dry crops of her childhood farmhouse, her shotgun trained on a paralyzed deer. But it sank beneath the surface as she roused herself from the ground.
The day was newly born and already warm, champing at the bit for summer, which rushed to greet it, less than a week away. Natalie pulled herself into an upright position and cautiously gaged her body’s protest. A little stiff in the neck and sore around her right hip, and a pleasant numbness in her lower back from yesterday’s ride. She’d woken up to far worse.
By the time she shambled a respectable distance to take a profoundly relieving piss and shambled back, Charlotte had already risen, dressed, built a fire and started a tin of coffee bubbling above it. Her alacrity was somewhat astounding, especially for Natalie, who in spite of a lifetime of early starts had never been what you’d call a morning person. But she made no comment. She merely tipped her hat and grunted.
Charlotte broke her fast with a dry cracker and a small lump of drier cheese. Natalie contented herself with the dark, invigorating sludge from her copper mug.
They prepared for the day in silence; only when Natalie emptied the dregs out of the pot and kicked out the fire did the other woman finally speak.
“We could get a head start droving,” she commented, looking to the east. “Should be a mild enough day for it.” Her eyes came back to Natalie. “Or we could take it easy for a while.”
“Head start,” she confirmed. She itched to get away from Charlotte and wanted to get her riding in while she still felt physically alright. If the brunette wanted to join her, she’d make up some excuse to be alone.
She didn’t need to, as it turned out. The woman only nodded and stretched her arms out high above her head, interlacing fingers with her palms out, pulling at every inch of her frame. Natalie pushed the rim of her hat down.
“Head start it is,” declared Charlotte. “I might as well grab a few supplies while you’re out.”
The women approached their horses and the animals whinnied at them, sensing their intentions, shaking at their tethers listlessly. Natalie unfixed the rope and brushed her rough hands over svelte, brown hide. Charlotte’s horse stamped its front legs lightly as she led it away from them.
“This is Winter, by the way,” she said, her eyes creasing and glinting amiably, leaving Natalie utterly confounded.
“It’s nearly summer,” she replied, unsure what else she could be expected to say.
Charlotte’s loud and unselfconscious laugh erupted out of nowhere, and Natalie felt a warm prickle return to her neck, both embarrassed and intrigued. “The horse!” She covered her laugh with one hand. “My horse’s name is Winter.”
“Oh.” Natalie nodded.
“I thought you should be properly introduced,” she explained, her laughter reduced to a giggle. “What about your boy there, what should I call him?”
Natalie hoisted herself up onto the boy in question, feeling for the reins on pure muscle memory. “Whatever you’d like, I guess,” she told her. “Never named him myself.”
“Your horse has no name?”
“None to speak of.”
Charlotte folded her arms and looked up at her, making no move to mount Winter. It wasn’t much, but it felt vindictively good to finally be above her, if only for a minute. “Ms. Scatorccio, that simply cannot stand.”
Her smirk filled her face, pushed her cheeks up and made her eyes slightly crescent. Natalie looked around at nothing. She didn’t know the rules of engagement for this kind of talk, had never needed to before. Frankly it pissed her off. “Well,” she said.
And then nodded one last acknowledgment and tugged at the reins, leading the horse away and to the north. She didn’t look back.
*
When she returned to camp hours later, Charlotte had rebuilt the fire, stronger this time, and was frying up a concoction of onion, spices and cured meat that smelled heavenly on the smoky air. Natalie had caught the scent two miles out and felt her wizened stomach groan. Her usual droving fare was jerky or apples, and not too much of either. These days just a couple of heavy bourbon pours were enough to keep her sated for the night.
She stretched and surveyed the surrounding land again, remembering to keep an intermittent eye out for rangers. The blackmail stunt with Aguirre earned them some extra cash in hand, but it would only be a once off. By next summer he would have arranged for grazing permits—or, more likely, come to some other arrangement with the sheriff’s department. Local lawmen were always resentful of the feds, in much the same way that anyone resented their superiors. If there’s one thing Natalie knew more about than cattle or drinking, it was resentment.
They ate as the sun set around them, all the nocturnal birds of the countryside finally waking up and crying out loudly for some coffee of their own. Natalie gestured to her bowl with a half-full mouth. “Appreciate it. How much for supplies?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Charlotte replied, her eyes cast down at the food as she lifted a forkful to her mouth. “Just don’t shop too low-end on your supply run. And don’t burn anything too much when you cook it.”
In the clear evening air, Natalie allowed herself the ghost of a smirk. She was feeling good, at least by twisted Scatorccio measures, with a full belly and a nice light ache in her legs. A drink or two would not go awry, but she could hold off for a night. “Right,” she said. “That deal of ours.”
“You’re a fast learner,” the woman remarked, looking at Natalie with a casual interest as she shoveled a large morsel into her mouth, forced to open her lips wide. It was a surprise to see that Charlotte ate this way, like a starving child. It wasn’t an unpleasant one, either.
“Always have been that,” Natalie responded, and didn’t say anything more for the night.
When they settled to bed, after a brief postprandial smoke and a discreet change of clothing, they honored their deal and Charlotte slept outside. Natalie pulled the tent door closed and shuffled herself, wormlike, into the far corner. She heard nothing from the woman who wasn't there, and thought of her only once, and only on the very cusp of deep sleep, where thoughts are forgotten as they occur.
*
That was more or less how the days went.
Every third morning one of them would take the herd out to stretch their legs, and make sure to bring them all back. There were sixty sheep and twenty lambs, and more than once Charlotte or Natalie were forced to round up a truant or two, dawdling in the woods to the south or caught behind a log. Every second afternoon, one of the women would ride to the general store or even into town if they were feeling fancy. Once, Natalie lost the whole loot when a mountain lion spooked her horse, sending her flying three feet and losing the wind in her lungs to the hard, wet ground. Even the two cans of beans she’d had were forfeit, split open on the rocks. That night she returned to camp two hours late, tossed the twice-bought supplies at Charlotte and stormed off, mutely fuming, into the trees.
Every morning Charlotte would rise early with hardly a yawn and Natalie would haul herself up with the sun, yawning enough for the both of them. Charlotte would throw out pieces of friendly chatter and Natalie would grunt or tip her hat in response. If that. Charlotte would cook them redolent slapdash suppers with strange and, it seemed to Natalie, utterly arbitrary aromatic vegetables. Celery, carrot, turnip, spinach, even beets. It somehow all came together in the end, though, and Natalie had manners enough to at least shut her mouth and accept a meal.
For her own culinary contribution, she relied on an ersatz minestrone recipe that her mother had imparted on her when she was twelve, the only socially recognized dish she knew how to construct. If she had stopped in at the saloon on her way back from shopping, then she would usually just put out makings for a sandwich and let the dark-haired woman feed herself as she may.
The days became weeks and the routine solidified. They didn’t hurl any curses or break any skin, which passed for a social success in Natalie’s book; they slept and they ate and they did what they were being paid to do.
And every night, of course, one of them stayed inside the tent and one of them stayed outside with the sheep.
4.
“There’s gonna be a storm,” Charlotte said.
They were approaching the end of July and had sweltered through eighty-three hours of oppressive heat. The sheep were certainly feeling it, and Natalie had half a mind to contact Aguirre and beg permission to begin shearing early. The day was taking its sweet time dying, and Charlotte stood on the west facing slope with her one hand outstretched, turning slowly in the still, dry air.
Natalie finished tying up the horses and strode over, dusting off her hands. She halted a little further up the hill, ten or so feet from the taller woman, and squinted toward the horizon. “No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”
Charlotte dropped her hand flatly and didn’t respond for several seconds. Every so often she did something like this, go silent and just stare off into the distance. Natalie assumed it was a rich girl thing.
“Care to make a bet?” the brunette asked abruptly, seemingly breaking her trance. She turned her head and flashed a mischievous smile.
Natalie gave a tight, grin-like grimace, rubbed her lips thoughtfully, and ran her eyes over the far-off sky once more. There were big, low clouds decorating the mountains to the north-west, but they were paler than cream, with smooth bases, and more than a thousand miles away. She hadn’t sown kernels since she was tall enough to hold the bag without learning how to spot incoming rain, and this looked nothing like it.
“Sure,” she said. “What are we playin’ for?”
That irksome, perversely charming smile was positively plastered onto Charlotte’s face as she approached Natalie with shocking speed, coming to a dainty halt four feet away.
“Bottle of hard liquor,” she proposed. “Winner’s preference.”
And she stuck out her hand, exactly the same way that she had when they met, with her elbow extended and her fingers parted.
Natalie stole one last glance at the clouds on the horizon and then locked eyes with her. “Deal,” she said.
They shook briskly on it, just as a healthy breeze swept in from the north-west and rustled Charlotte’s long, thick, black hair.
*
Natalie lost the bet. She couldn’t understand how, but she did.
Fifteen minutes after that first breeze, stronger ones followed, rippling the great sea of grass that stretched out north beyond the river. She pulled the rim of her hat down and ignored Charlotte’s smirk.
Ten minutes after that and the clouds she’d dismissed as being too smooth and pale and distant had grown like mold, covering a quarter of the sky. The sun winked out and a gust hit them.
“Ah, hell,” she muttered, and Charlotte laughed.
When the rain hit it hit hard, drenching them to the bone in relentless sheets like the waves of the ocean, washing away the week’s lazy heat. Natalie dashed for the tent, and only realized when she turned to let her through that Charlotte wasn’t behind her. She was out among the sheep, her hands held high in the battering rain, a scintillating grin on her face as she looked up to the sky.
"Charlotte!” yelled Natalie, going unheard in the deluge. "Charlotte, for Chrissake!” The woman only turned to face away from her, still grinning, or maybe she was laughing, and basking in the flood.
With an irritable shake of her head, Natalie marched back out of the tent and down the hillside after her.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she demanded.
Charlotte’s only response was to laugh. Her shoulders shook with mirth as she laughed, a picture of delight itself, hair painted across her face in slick, cloying ropes, her nose scrunched up and her lips pulled back to reveal her wickedly long incisors. Natalie stared at her in bewilderment, and found a chuckle bubbling out of her own throat.
Crisp, blinding light whited out the world for a split second, before an almighty thunder clap shook the air around them, startling both Natalie and the sheep. The animals stampeded away in a panicked mess, stumbling over one another to escape what was already done. The two of them would have to spend a full day tracking them down when the rain eased, forgoing a supply run and supping only on stale bread. When sheep made up their minds to cover some distance, they scattered like dandelion puffs.
Natalie knew better than sheep, but even she herself had to wait a moment for her adrenaline to lower, and realized embarrassingly late that she’d unthinkingly pressed a hand to her heart, like some fuckin’ old lady, excuse her French.
Not Charlotte though. Charlotte hadn’t moved a muscle, Natalie realized. She kept her jubilant pose, her hands still high in the air, her face still damn-near split open by her smile, and she looked at Natalie there on the soaking, windswept hillside like she held the mad, wonderful, terrifying secrets of the universe in her eyes.