I can get there on my own. you can leave me here alone.
He is a simple man.
Or, at least, he thought he was.
But he has spent the last few days wondering when his life had become so deeply complicated.
He has dissected every moment of what little of his life has been worth remembering.
It would be easy to place blame, certainly. He could say that it started when he’d met Adna. Or even when he’d met Sabbath. But he knows that his meeting the both of them served only to compound a complication that had already been set into motion.
He has never been one for soul-searching, finds himself deeply uncomfortable with the idea of introspection. But he is hell-bent on find someway to shoulder this blame alone. Because he should have known. Because he should have kept to himself. He should have cast himself out to sea and left this place behind. He should have condemned himself to some desert somewhere, alone. So that he could never touch anyone and no one could ever touch him.
Because he’s got a weak, bastard heart and he was not built for this. He was not built for being a man worth having around. He is simple and his view of the world is narrow and, more often than not, he sees nothing of the world that is any more than ten feet in front of his face.
But he has thought about the daughter that he has not met tirelessly. He has wondered about her. Sabbath had called her beautiful, said that she deserved the world. And he thinks that this is true for both of his daughters, though Gospel absolutely loathes him. He considers striking out in search of her. Seeking her out. Finding her and telling her the truth. That he hadn’t known about her and he’s sorry and that he’ll always love her, even if she doesn’t want anything to do with him.
He has thought about Adna, too. And how quickly she had taken Gospel and left. He has tried to find the beginning of the knot so that he might unravel it. But he has never been smart enough. So, he has done the only thing he knows how to do: he has walked. Traveled the perimeter of Taiga until his joints ached. He has thought about their venom and their hurt and the part he has played in all of this and it dams up his throat, makes it hard to breathe. So, he punishes himself the only way he knows how and he continues to walk.
He thinks her a mirage when he happens across her. He only knows that she’s not in the way relief surges through him. The muscles, tired, relax and he hangs his head. He hangs his head and he says, “Adna.” He sighs it and it sounds like the beating of his heart. “Adna,” he says again and he loiters. How desperately he wants to go to her, to lay his weary head upon her shoulder. But he does not, because he knows that he’s done something wrong even if he doesn’t know what it is.
BETHLEHEM
I'm just tryin' to do what's right. oh, a man ain't a man unless he's fought the fight.
