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Apr. 3rd, 2013 07:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Spur's place is a second home to Jim in many ways. It's as entangled with his history as his own homestead, and with his father dead, there is no one Jim trusts more.
Even now, knowing he's a Harrison.
Riding up the hill along the rail fence, Jim smiles as he catches sight of the ramshackle house, built between thin trees with nothing at its back but blue sky. Jessica's arms are looped loosely around his waist as they have been for hours, and Kate is close behind on her Beaut. The sun is shining, the air crisp. He finds he's looking forward to seeing Spur's face when he realizes Jessica has come for a visit.
"Spur!"
He slows his horse.
"Spur!" A brief Pause. "Spur!"
Still no answer.
"Damn," Jim mutters, coming to a stop.
Even now, knowing he's a Harrison.
Riding up the hill along the rail fence, Jim smiles as he catches sight of the ramshackle house, built between thin trees with nothing at its back but blue sky. Jessica's arms are looped loosely around his waist as they have been for hours, and Kate is close behind on her Beaut. The sun is shining, the air crisp. He finds he's looking forward to seeing Spur's face when he realizes Jessica has come for a visit.
"Spur!"
He slows his horse.
"Spur!" A brief Pause. "Spur!"
Still no answer.
"Damn," Jim mutters, coming to a stop.
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Date: 2013-04-04 10:38 pm (UTC)"Thank you," he tells her, "for going along with all this."
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Date: 2013-04-05 02:05 am (UTC)She keeps alongside Jim apace with little difficulty. The terrain is certainly different from Texas, but nothing a girl who's been riding since she was in swaddling cloths can't handle.
She smirks, soft and sympathetic, but not without her usual spark.
"Things may not be goin' the way y'planned, but I'm here for the long haul. She's dear t'you. I don't mind the detour."
Expression softening further still, she looks away.
"You ain't worried he's got himself in trouble too, are you?"
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Date: 2013-04-05 02:17 am (UTC)A quiet word and soft touch on the reins brings his horse to a stop. Jim looks ahead, at the creek just coming visible, and shakes his head again.
"He's probably in his mine," he guesses. "We'll check there next." Then, "She is. I care about her, of course."
Silence.
"But I don't think she knows what she wants, and I do." His eyes flick to Kate's face, bright and solemn under his hat brim.
It's probably clear this ride to the creek is as much about stealing a word as it is finding Spur.
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Date: 2013-04-05 02:48 am (UTC)But the laughter dies before it can even breach the air.
I don't think she knows what she wants, and I do.
She doesn't turn to catch his eye. She lets the words hang there, without answer, for a moment.
"Well. You're both young."
Her words curl at the end, almost as if she means it like a question. It's not exactly what she wanted to say, but when she thinks on it she doesn't know where to begin.
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Date: 2013-04-05 03:44 am (UTC)Well, that's it lad. You can't stay up here.
"I reckon some days that's true."
Go down to the low country and earn the right to live here. Just like your father did.
He purses his lips, caught up in thoughts of being able to hold his own, proving that he's man enough to make a go of it. Such thoughts bring him around to Jess again, and he looks back the way they came, pensive.
"It's not..." He pauses, using his horse's brief restlessness to think as he turns him in a circle. "You heard what she said about her father. He expects her to be one way and she chomps at the bit in the other direction. I think Jessica sees me as her escape."
He exhales slowly, not quite willing to say he suspects Jess sees him as something new and exciting, and that feeling would fade once she knew the realities of his life, his goals, his heart.
"She's impulsive. Angry. I don't blame her."
Harrison blood.
"When she figures out what she really wants, what's sustainable," he says, wishing he had a handful of dirt to let slip through his fingers, "I won't be it."
And that's okay, he realizes. It's fine.
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Date: 2013-04-05 04:12 am (UTC)Some days that's true.
But most days it's not, living the way we do, frontier children already turned to weathered mainstays.
"I see."
She catches his eyes at last, not sure whether she has the right to this information. It isn't her business, is it? But he's entrusting it to her, so she ponders over what he means.
"No — no, I wouldn't blame her myself. The lure of escape is hard t'resist, if that's the way it is. And you — "
She shakes her head. He's a good man, certainly a desirable one. Jess would be foolish not to see that. However, Kate knows it wouldn't be proper to speak those feelings so plainly.
"I'm sorry, Jim. Really, I am."
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Date: 2013-04-05 10:11 pm (UTC)Even friends would think that a lie of omission, surely.
"No need," he says. "It'll work out."
Given time. In any case, none of this is going to help him capture the brumbies, and that is where his heart and head truly lie.
"We should be getting back."
His eyes linger on her face before he turns again and starts up the trail to the house.
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Date: 2013-04-06 10:52 pm (UTC)She stares after the spot where he used to be for a moment, listening to brush crackle underhoof.
"Jim?"
She isn't really sure why she's calling after him, except —
No need. It'll work out.
She turns over her shoulder, brow furrowed.
"D'you know what you really want? What's, ah — sustainable?"
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Date: 2013-04-08 08:20 pm (UTC)Do you know what you really want?
His silence isn't indicative of hesitation, or an admission that it's complicated. It isn't representative of confusion. What he feels, what's written all over his face, is clarity, determination and an undeniable relief that the answer comes so easily.
"Yes."
He breaks into a grin, boyish and yet also very much not.
"I'll start with the brood mares in the brumbies," he says confidently.
The mares will make all the rest possible, and for the first time, Jim knows it can be done. He can do it, and he will.
Everything else he wants will come in time, God willing. Or it won't. But a man makes the effort, does all he can, proves he's worth it. For the first time, Jim is eager to prove himself for his own reasons, not because those mountain men ordered him to earn the right to call himself a mountain man.
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Date: 2013-04-08 10:17 pm (UTC)Relief to hear his answer.
Relief that he keeps his head on straight.
She tips her chin down, laughter curling in the mountain air. It's as sweet as steam from a freshly baked pie, lacking even an ounce of doubt. She knows it can be done; she knows he can do it, and he will. She brings Beaut around and catches up to him, laughter still in her eyes.
"S'a good start, I'd say. But we'd better get to it."
She makes sure their legs brush as Beaut nudges by, a tease, an encouragement, a shared joke — freedom, for the first time since finding the suspicious tracks left in the mud, to feel like it's just the two of them in all these great mountains. The ease of friendship, and the calm before a big job.
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Date: 2013-07-11 02:22 pm (UTC)"There's a trough just there," he tells her, gesturing to the ramshackle paddock and looping his reins around the fence. "I'll be back."
He has to tell Jess Spur is nowhere to be found.
[OOC: Continued here.]