A/N: This story is not about self harm, nor does it happen.

A life saved

a life anew

free to face the world

with a different view

the thrill of being

the thrill of seeing

what once was lost

is there to find.

1 - Settling Accounts

Turning my palms up to the sun I stare at thin, raised pink scars crossing my wrists, was I really that desperate, then plant the tips of my toes at the roof’s edge. The ground lies four floors below. A stiff gust of wind cools my sweaty back and threatens my balance. Suicide was too easy. Maybe that’s why, at eighteen, I’m still alive. I tried the easy way, and here in this, the last stronghold of medieval disciplines and internet technology, life is never easy.

Below, students scurry about the school grounds, mindless minions, perpetually at their tasks: unloading hay, grooming horses, or sparing with staves. With the precision of army ants, cars and truck’s progress on the asphalt ribbons between bright green forests and motley fields, against the backdrop of the deep green forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains surrounding the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The Knight Riding School, my home, is nestled in the land’s embrace. A dream, a far cry from the alleyways of Richmond.

If I jump, who would notice? No one will say, “Look at what Grace did.” It would be, “Did you hear about the Scarecrow?” Some girl called me that when I first arrived. At five foot eleven, with short hair, there is nothing to identify me as a woman. I arrived with a badly bruised face and the name stuck. Someday when I find out who she is, I’m going to pound her for it.

A shadow hovers over me. I look up at a giant of a man in his knights uniform, his long black hair braided neatly down his back. He steps up to my left, also placing his bare toes at the edge.

“Gathering clouds again, Grace?”

I sweep my arm over the view, “Sir, is this worth it?”

Bear smiles, “If you save one life, even if it’s your own, then yes it is all worth it.”

“Have you ever saved anyone?”

“I will save you; if you allow me.”

Grrr… I hate it when he tries to needle me. I retort, “Sir, there is nothing as exhilarating as committing suicide and failing.”

Bear ignores my comment, but asks “How long have you been standing here?”

He knows, or he wouldn’t have asked. “About ten minutes. I heard you coming up the stairs.”

“It’s been an hour. You missed your Self Defense lesson. Run an extra hour for makeup. It’s time for your next lesson with me.”

My knight-master, Sir Bear Two Feathers, steps off the wall and I follow obediently.

He points outward and tosses a coil of anchored rope to hang over the edge. “For missing Self Defense.”

I sigh, put on my leather riding gloves, pull the rough hemp rope between my legs, up my backside, over the left shoulder, and wrap it around my right forearm, taking a firm grip. I lean back over the edge to start a well-practiced slow emergency rappel to the ground.

~

My feet touch the ground and Bear, now wearing only his loose black shirt and trousers, punches, and my left wrist deflects the huge fist as it rakes the side of my face. It feels as if my ear has been ripped off. I howl and Bear grins at my pain. Spinning, I bend low, slamming my bare heel onto his toes. I circle to grab his back, locking my arms around his bull neck. I squeeze hard, harder. He reaches overhead, grabbing at my cropped hair. I scream into his ear as hard as I can, while a chunk of the infamous Grace Howard crew-cut rips out, but I don’t let up. My chokehold quickly saps his strength. Sinking to his knees, he falls forward, senseless.

I stand over Bear, waiting for his eyes to again point forward and for him to regain control of his body. For once I see a way to finish him off, just by stomping on the side of his neck. I clutch the end of his ponytail and place my foot under his ear, and grin at my first ever win with the giant. A man’s neck is the key, his weak spot. I let go.

With bulging biceps Bear pushes himself up, “Well done Grace. You are, but a wisp; you win by using wild street fighting. For you, it is a power, but in seconds it saps your moxie. Don't play with your opponent; the longer you fight, as a wisp of smoke evaporates, your chances of winning also vanish. The only good fight is the winning fight.”

I bow to the knight. “Thank you, Sir.”

“You won't thank me tomorrow, Miss Grace Howard; not when your next lesson begins.”

~

In the morning I report to Sir Bears cubbyhole of an office to receive the day’s orders. “Sir, Squire Grace reporting.”

“Grace, I’m taking you to see your father,” Bear says.

The sides of my neck crawl. “He can go to hell; he abandoned me.”

“He’s dying.”

“So.” I’m steamed now. I wonder if this is part of a lesson.

“I’m ordering you to go see him.”

“Never!”

Sir Bear Two Feathers points a rough finger at me and says, “I’m not giving you a choice.”

~

Before I knew it, we left the Knight Riding School and took a cross country flight, from Richmond, Virginia to Los Angeles, California, to see my father, arriving in the morning. Bear rents a cheap car and drives to the hospice. “Be on your best behavior,” he warns, “He is dying, and in his last hours is due the respect only you can give.”

The air feels heavy as I enter the room to see a shriveled old man sitting on a chair, a blanket over his shoulders. “Hello,” he wheezes.

He has to be the wrong man, he is not my father. “Hello, Sir. I’m Grace, sorry, I must be in the wrong room.” I spin on my heel to leave.

“I had a girl named Grace. They took her from me.”

Memories flood back as I hear my heartbeat and pitch over into the arms of Bear.

~

I dream to see a couple talking and a little girl with them. They are arguing about her, no, not about her, but about me, and where I should go. My mother tells my father to find someone to help take care of me. He says no one would marry him, not now. I look at myself with long blond hair and piercing blue eyes. My father looks just as I last saw him, tall, with a chiseled face, strong arms, and those big hands. My mother… I never see her face. I never saw her after she went to the hospital.

~

I wake up on a yellow vinyl couch in the lobby and say to Bear, “I remember it now. It was all a lie, and you knew it. He didn’t abandon me, they took me from him. Aunt Dorothy dragged me away. I had it all wrong.”

“No, he didn’t leave you, but you had to find out for yourself,” Bear says. “You would never have believed me.”

We walk back into my father’s room where he’s now propped up in bed. I move to stand next to him, but he asks me to stand in the light of the window. “Yes I can see it now; you are my little Grace. You’ve grown up tall and true, but your hair, your beautiful hair; you’ve cut it so short. Please, tell me about yourself, what do you do?”

I sit and tell him my story.

My father says to Bear, “Please take care of my little girl. I need to talk to her alone.” The knight nods and steps out, and my father tells me, “It was just a routine checkup when the doctor found tuberculosis, the bad kind, drug-resistant. The securities firm forced me out of work, and nobody else would hire me. Your mother died and my sister, Dorothy, took you away. I moved to a small room, and when it got too bad, the health officials put me here”.

“I tried to find you; I walked the streets with your picture. No one knew you. I’ve saved you a little money and haven’t touched it. It couldn’t help me, but it will help you.” He points to the chest of drawers, and I search it to find an envelope holding his will, a key, and his wallet. He tells me to take them all. He tries to smile but instead starts a deep hacking cough. He can’t stop and coughs blood onto his shirt, I go to the bathroom for a towel, but get sick and bend over the sink, gagging. After my dry heaving stops my father also stops coughing, so I walk back in. Despite his protests, I wiped the blood off his face with shaking hands. He says, “I love you, I always have.”

“I know, father.”

He reaches to touch my hand, but his arm falls back on the bed, his breathing slows and stops, his eyes still fixed on me. I stare at him and see the same strong, gentle, and kind man I worshiped as a child, and cry.

~

When my crying stops I go to the lobby to tell the nurse he’s dead, and am informed I have to claim the body. I pull Bear out to the car and ask him to drive to the First Savings Bank. Before we go in, I dump the clothes in my saddlebags, which I used for luggage, into the trunk and carry the bags into the bank. Bear follows me in and starts to withdraw cash for the cremation, I don’t have near enough in my bank account.

I go to a clerk’s desk and he looks up at me and in a bored voice asks, “My name is Eric, may I help you?”

I show him the death certificate and ask to see my father’s safety deposit box. He stiffens on seeing the document and demands my driver’s license. I show it and he gives some double talk about how he is doing me a favor for his old friend, my father, the hair raises on my neck. I’m a good poker player, and he lied about my father; he turned his head to the left, lowering his eyes as he said it. It’s a sure sign, he’s lying, and I am steamed. He leads me to the vault and pulls out a large safety deposit box. I pull the curtain in a private cubicle and open the box with my father's key. My knees weaken, it’s not just a few hundred dollars, but bundle after bundle of hundred dollar bills. With shaking hands, I arrange them on the table. Each bundle holds a hundred bills worth ten thousand, and all told there are a hundred and thirty-one bundles; I am rich, me a street rat from Richmond am rich.

Then it hits me, this money might be stolen. The clerk gave me the box without making me fill out paperwork, and without talking to a manager. I don’t like it, maybe he wanted the box opened so he could lay his hands on it. I don’t have time to find out. I stack the money into my saddlebags. At the bottom of the box, I find my parent’s wedding rings and a diamond engagement ring. At the very bottom is an envelope with just my first name on it. I stuff it into the inner pocket of my uniform jacket and walk out.

Reentering the bank lobby, the clerk glares at the now heavy saddlebags. his hands knotted into fists, his right snapping his pen, and his left holding the phone receiver shakes. Without taking his eyes off of me he makes a phone call, and with dread, I see my guess maybe true. With a hasty walk, I leave the bank with Bear and throw the bags on the back seat of the car. We drive to the funeral home. On the way, I tell Bear what I have, and what the clerk said and did. I make arrangements with the funeral home to have my father’s ashes sent to the Knight Riding School, and we leave.

~

We leave Los Angeles on the next flight to Las Vegas, I don’t know why Vegas instead of Richmond. After landing, Bear hires a taxi to take us to the western edge of town. I could have played poker at one of the casinos, but no, Bear says, “Easy come easy go. Do you think you are good? They will take you for everything you have.”

At a rundown gas station, Bear buys a rusty pickup truck, bottles of water, and cans of extra gasoline. We head west on the highway which soon turns into a narrow strip of road not worthy of the name; Las Vegas is lost in the distance. After boring hours, he turns onto a gravel path heading south and we are in the real wasteland. The path ends at a wooden shack, and in the shade of its small porch, a thin weathered man sits, a rifle resting on his lap.

Bear greets him in Native American sign language. He smiles and says, “Welcome Little Girl, I am the Keeper; please come in and refresh yourself.”

Little Girl… Grrr...

Out of the sun and under the tin roof, it’s even hotter. I sit at the rough table. The old man pours water into tin cups and sets out a plate with slivers of dried meat. He and Bear nibble on the meat, washing it down with sips of water. I take a piece and chew; it’s salty.

I ask, “What is this?”

“Rattler,” answers the old man with a sly grin.

“It’s good,” I lied.

The two men start to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

“Most people spit it out when they hear what it is. It’s a delicacy among the Mojave,” answers Bear

“It’s okay.” The cup of water is bitter, but I drink it anyway. Seeing my expression, they laugh again.

Bear says the water we brought is for the keeper. The two men talk in Mojave, and I can’t follow along, I just make out the words for trouble, horse, and big. They reach an agreement and clasp hands to their forearms.

Before the sun sets, Bear and I bury the water and gasoline we brought, in the sand to keep cool and walk to a shed where several horses huddle in the shade. The keeper picks out two, neither of which looks well fed. Bear tells me they are desert mustangs and will do just fine. We mount up using blankets instead of saddles and use hackamores to guide them.

~

The horses prove willing and run at an easy cantor in the light of the full moon. The ground is well-packed gravel and doesn’t show our passing. After about an hour of riding and walking the horses, Bear stops at a group of small bushes, and digs with his hands into a patch of sand. I help, and we are rewarded when we reach moist sand. He pushes a thin wooden straw into the sand and sucks on the end and spits out wet sand. After a few mouthfuls of sand, he pulls up clear water and spits it into his upturned hat.

“We’ll water the horses first and then we can drink.” He says.

He finishes and I take my turn drawing from the tube to water my horse. The water is sweet, not bitter, and I drink my fill. Bear fills in the hole, wiping the sand clean, and covering our presence. During the night we stop several more times for water.

Curiosity gets the best of me and I ask, “How do you find those wells?”

“Remember the small bushes? They have short roots and have to be near groundwater. There is always water under the sand; you just have to find it. Look for those bushes in low areas.”

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“To my tribe, the place of my childhood.”

“How far is it?”

He answers with a sly grin, “All night long and over a hundred years ago.”

Grrr… The sun starts to rise and the steam puffing from the horse’s nostrils disappears as the freezing night turns into roasting heat. It doesn’t take long before we round a hill to arrive at a small adobe hut near a large pond. Small goats, guarded by an alert dog, graze on the green grass surrounding the pond. Dismounting, we turn the horses loose to drink.

We enter the hut through a low doorway, guarded by a tattered curtain. The weathered woman shelling beans by the hearth glances at me, but says to Bear, “Welcome son, it is good you are here.”