Chapter 41 Tragedy Strikes
Alexandra sat in stunned silence, the truth of Evelyn’s words settling deep within her. Evelyn was right, of course. What was astonishing was how perfectly she’d articulated something Alexandra herself had wrestled with in the darkest corners of her mind. Cameron’s infidelity wasn’t about her not being enough; it stemmed from his own failings—his lack of respect for her, his diminished belief in their partnership. It was no excuse, no justification. He could have spoken to her, could have ended their engagement, but he lacked the courage. He was a coward. It was as simple, and as brutal, as that. He had changed in Glendale, become a stranger hiding behind a familiar face. She now saw it all with chilling clarity: his awkward fumbling attempts to be the 'old Cameron' upon her arrival, the subtle shifts she'd dismissed as stress. It had all been a facade. The realization ignited a cold fury within her, swiftly followed by a quiet consideration of Evan, and the quiet, solid connection they had forged before she’d made her decision.
“I really have no right to pass judgment,” she said. “I slept with a cowboy in Colorado. He is the one who taught me about horses and how to ride.” She waited for a comment from Evelyn again. Again, the comment never came. “Anyway, I had decided to go through with the engagement anyway and was determined to make it work. I would have too.”
“Then he actually did you a favor,” Evelyn said.
“Yeah,” she replied. “In many ways, he did. Better than getting all wrapped up in a marriage with kids and all that and find out that the two of you really don’t fit well together.”
“But you came here instead of going back to Pittsburgh or to your man in Colorado,” Evelyn said. It was more of a statement than a question.
“I couldn’t,” she said. “It wouldn’t be right to Evan.” She paused a moment as she figured out how to express her next thought. “I need to know who I am before I go looking for someone again. I only just discovered myself a couple of months ago, and it was Evan who helped me do it, but...” How could she express what she was feeling? It was a strong desire for freedom and wide open spaces and solitude, but mixed with dependence and an animal that had awakened everything else in her. “I don’t know how to say it, but I just have to be around horses and in the wide open spaces. Something is calling to me out here.”
“I understand,” Evelyn said, smiling. “We'd better saddle up and head back down out of here. It will be dark when we reach the trailer as it is.”
They gathered up their stuff and saddled their horses. The two of them watched with a longing desire as the view of the valley and the mountain range that they had enjoyed all afternoon was obscured by one of the ridges as they started back down the draw. The sights, sounds, and smells seemed a little bit commonplace and dull after having basked in the grandeur of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Truckee River Valley all day, and the two of them fell into something like a brooding silence.
Alexandra was exhausted. She had carried around a tension and a burden for quite some time. The exhaustion hit her as she realized that it was all over with. There were no more worries. Somehow, unloading everything to Evelyn had released her from the stress of Cameron and of Evan. The release and contentment flowed all through her body, and she felt herself smiling and free again. There was nothing left to fight against. She could relax completely. It had been such a long time coming that when it finally arrived and she was able to relax, her body responded in total exhaustion. She could feel her head bobbing softly as she fought to keep herself awake as they continued down the trail with Evelyn in the lead.
Suddenly, something went very wrong. She wasn’t sure what had happened, but she felt Champ spin around in the trail beneath her. She clambered to get her reins gathered up as she tried to maintain her balance in the spin. Champ was suddenly plunging ahead through the trees at the side of the trail. A branch slapped her hard in the face. She was pulling on the reins as hard as she could. She heard Evelyn shout something; a command of some sort that was lost in the blur of the blow of the tree branch. She was still in the saddle when Champ plunged across the draw in a long, lunging leap. His front hooves struggled to gain traction on the steep slope on the other side, and his back hooves were having no luck catching up. He had not leapt far enough, and they were struggling in the soft dirt. He slowly began sliding backward and fought against falling. In his panic, he turned to try to go back down into the ravine. As he did so, Alexandra’s balance shifted too far to the downhill side, and he could not brace himself with the added weight and her hand pulling hard on the bit in his mouth.
The soft dirt and the unbalanced weight on his back overcame Champ’s balance, and he fell. Alexandra could feel him going down and began to scramble to try to free herself from the saddle and not go down with him, but it happened so fast that she had no time to kick her downhill foot free of the stirrup. She screamed in terror as she felt herself tumbling over and saw the rocks and tree stumps in the bottom of the ravine coming up toward her rapidly. She knew that she was about to die. She felt the jolt of her body hitting a stump and then the crushing weight of Champ as he tumbled over her. She felt her leg snap, and an excruciating pain shot through her entire body. She tumbled over again, felt a sharp pain in her back, a deep, dull thump that sounded like thunder went through her head, and then everything went black.