Feud of the Heart

*West Virginia, 1883* *William* Rain poured down in heavy drops, a crescendo of relentless moisture falling from above. He looked up at the sky, bruised and swollen with a storm the likes of which he hadn't seen since childhood. The hollow scream of the West Virginia wind blew the woolen collar of his coat against his neck and sent his horse's mane defying gravity.  Lightning lit the sky, far reaching fingers of white burned the belly of the clouds turning the dead of night into momentary daybreak.  The sound of colliding boulders shook the ground and shivered the tall standing pines as thunder rolled above him in its pursuit of the lightning.  Nickel, a well mannered and well trained gelding he'd had since he was a boy, snorted and scratched the ground with his hoof in agitation.  Will patted his neck, righted his black mane from the wind's disturbance before looking back to the angry sky.  He could feel her in his chest before her memory came to mind, a painful burn that centered in his heart and radiated out with each beat. In mere seconds her memory drowned him in misery like the rain flooding the creeks and rivers below. The dimples of her smile, the way the light shown in her cherry wood eyes, her scent... He took a deep breath, filling his lungs to capacity and blew out slowly around the pain twisting in his chest, knowing that this self-inflicted cruelty of remembering her was far from over.  It was only the beginning.     Like rain storms clean the lands and bring to surface lost things, this storm brought long buried memories of better times straight to the forefront of his mind. Will may have been sitting on his horse high on Rattlesnake Knob summit but in his head, he was with her.   Lightning had lit the sky that night too, the thunder so loud that the vibration it had made in their chests had her laughing and her eyes wild with excitement.   "Did you feel it?"  She had asked, voice breathy in the moment and her porcelain cheeks flushed pink from exhilaration and the October chill.  "Yes."  He smiled, her elation contagious. He was raptured in her beauty, her long mahogany hair wet and loose down her back and sticking to her heart shaped face in damp curls, her cherry wood eyes bright in her happiness. She stood alone with him deep in the high pines as they always had done since they were little, her unabashed in her dress that had been thoroughly soaked through from the rain.  Only this time Will was painfully aware that they were no longer children, but on the cusp and deep in the in-between where childhood meets adulthood. She wasn't a little girl anymore and he was no longer a boy. Both had lived lives that closely wove together like his mother's knitted blankets. Inseparable since toddling, thick as thieves as knobby kneed kids but something had changed over the years. Just two kids playing house had Will making plans to build her one, years of pretend marriages and sweet grass rings had grown into the iron ring burning a hole in his pocket. He was done with stolen kisses and hidden hand holds. Will loved her. He would always love her. Lightning split the midnight sky again, lending light to her features briefly and illuminating her smile.  "Charlie,"  Will said his nickname for her, but thunder drowned it out as it crashed above them. "Charlotte!"  He called over the continuous growl of Mother Nature and startled Charlie into sobriety, her exuberance faded into concern as Will hardly ever used her name unless it was a serious situation, and it was.  She was only sixteen, he was on the backside of seventeen but they both had experienced more life than most. Both had needed to grow up quicker than the kids they had been to school with, their lives were messy and neither knew which day would be their last.  "What is it? What's wrong?" Charlie asked, alarm clear on her face even in the dark. She quickly looked around, scanning the tree line for any threat animal or human. Will used her distraction to drop to one knee, hand in his pocket and holding the ring he had made from an old nail she had found and given to him when they were five.  She turned back to Will, startled that he was no longer standing.  "Are you ill?" She asked, confused and dropped to her knees before him, her hands lightly trailing over him to take inventory.  "I'm fine, baby." He answered, surprisingly unafraid. He was so confident in her and in them, he knew without a doubt that she would say yes. He knew they would spend the rest of their lives together, no matter what threat, no matter the circumstances. Will knew it would always be him and her, come what may. "I need you to stand up."  Charlie froze at his words, he could see the confusion on her pretty little face.  "Why?" She asked the word in confusion. "Because I can't propose to you proper if you don't."  She leaned back, a little shocked.  "You can't be serious."  She breathed, the heat of her words fogging the air between them. He touched her face and she leaned into his palm, his thumb tracing her full lips with a movement so soft he wasn't sure he was capable of it.  "Stand up and find out." Will teased, giving her what she had always said was her 'favorite crooked grin'. She stood shakily, from the cold or nerves Will wasn't sure and took her hands in his.  "Charlotte LeBlanc-“ Will swallowed hard, he had said these words to her a thousand times in play but saying them now felt different, felt like more.  "-I ain't got the pretty words that you deserve, I don't got money but I have my name a two good arms to hold you with." He swallowed again, a lump forming in his throat as the love he felt for her had never been stronger than this moment. Her chin shivered, her big cinnamon eyes welling with tears and she gripped his hands tighter in hers.  "Marry me, Pretty Girl and I promise I'll do my damndest to give you the world."  She smiled as tears dripped down her cheeks to mix with the rain.  "I wouldn't want the world without you by my side." She whispered, her words heavy with emotion and he knew that they tasted different for her too, this time.  Will stood, taking her slender waist in his hands and pulled her close to his chest, her arms wrapping around his neck.  "You and me, forever." He whispered.   "You and me, for always."  She replied, and he took her left hand from around his neck and gently placed the ring on her finger where it had and will always belong. He kissed her, long and deep with more skill and earnestness than ever before. Her sweet and subtle scent and taste invaded his senses, destroyed all reason as she melted into his arms, his chest, right where she belonged. He'd move heaven and earth for her. He'd trade his very soul.  "You're freezing, let's get you home."  "I don't want to go home, Will."  She whispered, never wanting to go home. He couldn't take her back home with him, his Mother would pitch a fit. Charlie had stayed many a night at the Hatfield house, but tonight he had supposedly taken her home hours ago. They both would get switched if he took her back now. "The fort?"  He offered and she nodded. They walked hand in hand, the lightning forgotten the thunder miles away even if it was right over the top of them. It was only he and her, and he couldn't take his eyes off of her. His future wife.  The "fort" was nothing more than a forgotten shine shack on Cabin Hill smack dab in-between her Pa's cabin and his.  As kids they had cleaned it up and made it a place to play, a hideout and a safe space for them both. Now they came to the shack to steal kisses.  He started a fire in the old forgotten stove to warm her, watching her as she fussed with the ring on her finger with a smile playing on her lips. She took his breath away, stilled his heart.  Her beauty, her personality, everything about her. It was easy to imagine that this shack was better, that nothing mattered outside the broken door that kept the weather hardly at bay, it was easy to pretend that this was their home. His eyes caught hers and she blushed, a habit of hers that he adored.  "I gave you this when we were out by Tug Fork." She mused looking down at her finger and spinning the ring.  "I didn't know you kept it." She bit her bottom lip as tears dripped down her pink cheeks in heavy drops.  "Of course I did."  His voice was hoarse, seeing her cry for any reason twisted his insides something painful.  "I knew then that I loved you, Will-"  Her eyes met his for a heart beat before she looked back at the ring.  "-More than a five year old should know how."  She sniffed, swallowing her emotions with a gentle movement of her throat.  "I've wished for this night since I could remember."  She finished and clasped her trembling hands together and pulled them to her chest.  "Come get warm." Will extended his hand and she came to take it. He wrapped his arm around her, pulling her close and tucking her petite body into his side.  "I kept that nail so I could have something of you with me even when you weren't." He rubbed warmth into her arms with his palms, taking her clasped hands and bringing them to his mouth to breath heat onto them. She snuggled closer to him, relishing in his warmth.  "It lived in my pocket during the day, on my night stand during the night and in my hand whenever I thought of you." He lifted her left hand to rub his thumb over the old nail that was now her ring, the metal was once rough and rusted, pitted with dirt and small grains of sand.  "That's why it's so smooth now, from every thought of you." She hiccuped a quiet sob, burying her face into his chest and he held her tight.  "What's the matter?"  He asked, before kissing the top of her head.  "Nothing, everything is so perfectly right."  Will moved her just enough to hook a finger under her chin to lift her face enough so their eyes could meet.  "Then why are you crying?" He asked as she worried her bottom lip before answering, hesitating to find the words. "I've always known how much I love you." She whispered, tears fell again down her cheeks. "But to know you loved me like I loved you all these years-"   She breathed, closing her eyes under the touch of my thumb skimming her bottom lip before continuing;  "It's such a serene feeling that I'm afraid I might be dreaming." He tucked the damp strands of her hair that clung to her temples and cheeks behind her ears and pulled her close, burrowing his fingers in the long wet strands to massage her scalp in slow circular motions.  "I love you so much that it hurts sometimes. I should have told you more, Charlie. I'll tell you everyday." He lifted her chin so their eyes could meet again.  "I'll show you everyday." And then he kissed her.  That night they weren't two kids playing house in an abandoned shack, they were young and in love. Two young adults playing grown up games that neither had ever tried but instincts had given them rules to. They drifted to sleep that night wrapped in each other, nothing between them but the need they felt for each other.    He smiled to himself as the memory washed through him, young love was the purest love. Every emotion was so raw and new that he didn't have the sense to restrain it, he just felt it because he never knew to be afraid of it.  Will soaked in each second of it before it was burned away by what happened after and left him fighting for air around the pain of it. He had woken that morning cold and alone except for a scrap of paper on the pillow they had shared. 'I'll meet you here when you're done with work at the mill. I miss you already. Forever and For Always, Charlie' Never having felt so happy in his life, he had grinned and hugged the pillow close just to smell her scent on it.   He didn't go home that morning, he decided to skip the tongue lashing from his mother and go straight to the mill where he knew his father would be. Will's father, Devil Anse Hatfield was talking to his foreman and younger brother, Will's Uncle Elison. Both big men in stature and nature. Tall and broad, the bodies of hard labor and years of it but where his fathers hair had started to gray, Uncle Ellis's was youthful with burgundy. Good men, and Will had always hoped to be like them.  That day Will felt that he was one step closer to being the type of man he knew them to be. His fathers eyes fell on him, blue steel and tight around the edges.   "Sorry I'm late, Pa, won't happen again." Will apologized as he passed, grabbing an axe and readying to climb to the hill side to work on a pine.  "Cap!" His Pa hollered after him, using the nickname he'd acquired after catching a stray wood splinter in his left eye, causing it to milk over. Will's Uncle Jim thought "Cap" short for "Captain" was a mighty fine nickname to use and it stuck.  He turned to his old man, 'I must be in some sort of deep trouble’, Will thought as his father sauntered over with his jaw set, the muscles fluttering under his salt and peppered beard. His hard eyes softened, and Will knew something was wrong, very wrong, he only looked like this when someone died.  "What is it?" Will asked instead of asking 'Who', as he was afraid to know.   Devil-Anse came close, putting his sizable hand on Will's shoulder and squeezed, looking everywhere but his son as he swallowed hard and tried to find the words.  "Son-" Devil-Anse had said solemnly and Will immediately moved to pull back, but his father's grip tightened on his shoulder.  Johnse, Will's older brother who always had something smart to say stood quietly, his blue eyes a mirror to their father,  ringed in red. Will's stomach did sickening flips, his fingers tingled while his heart hammered in his chest.  "Charlie-" Was the only word his father had managed before Will was running, having torn from his grip and sprinting to the first horse he saw.  If his father called after him, he didn't hear. Will couldn't hear anything over the sound of his own heart beat slamming in his ears.  *Anyone but her.* That's all Will could think, anyone but *her*. By the time Will got to Charlie's father’s cabin, he had run the russet horse to sweat, salty white foam coated its hide and dripped down its legs.  The Sheriff was there, an old man with a swollen belly and handlebar mustache, standing near the porch with a rolled cigarette in hand.  "Hatfield!"  Sheriff Tubs shouted at Will as he ran for the steps meaning to blow right past the mountain of the man known as the law in those parts, but Tubs grabbed Will by the arm with more strength than Will thought a man of Tubs’s age could muster.  "Cap, you can't go in there." Will looked at him, looked in his dirt brown eyes that were like islands in a sea of wrinkled leather and felt his heart sink. Tubs gave the Hatfield boy a quick nod knowing he had his attention before continuing;  "I was coming to see you, boy." Tubs words were labored and rough from the exertion of holding Will Hatfield in place.  "Where is she?" Will asked, voice distorted with the painful emotion he was trying to hold back.  "We don't know son, but I ain't about to lie to ya’, I don't think she's well." Will froze at hearing Tubs words, could feel his adam's apple bounce in his throat like a heavy bobber in a lake as he barely held on to what little composure he had.  "What do you mean?" Will asked and the sheriff shook his head sadly.  Will's father interrupted startling them, startling Will at his nearness having not known Devil-Anse had followed him.  "Just tell him, Tubs. He's grown, he can handle it." But Devil-Anse put his hand on his son's shoulder anyway as he always had done since Will could remember.  Devil-Anse's voice, Will would never forget how his father's voice shook at the end of his words. Sheriff Tubs adjusted his belt under his round belly then lit a rolled cigarette. "Her father came to me early this morning and said an intruder broke in and Charlotte's done been taken."  Tubs looked back to the closed cabin door and took a deep inhale around his cigarette. "Can't imagine someone doin' anything like that to a little girl." Tubs gritted his teeth, his jaw flexing visible even under the extra pounds from his wife's good cooking as his stomach turned at what he had seen inside that cabin.  Will reached for the door lifting the latch... and he wished he hadn't.  A  Dark viscid fluid clung to the inside of the door, handprints smeared the wood, the substance having dripped from it in copious amounts. Drops of it, large and small, pocked the hard packed dirt floor, having absorbed and spread.  The smell hit him then, a familiar scent, sharp and gamey.  Blood.  *Her* blood and it was everywhere.  Every flat surface, every wall told a story of where she'd been, what she'd used to hold her upright as she moved for some sort of safety, and then the drag marks on the dirt where she had been pulled out of the back door.  Will spun quickly, looking to the only man he knew who could make sense of this nightmare, explain how this could happen, explain how it would all be alright because after all there was no greater man in Will's eyes.  Gone for Will was the feeling of being a man that he had so strongly felt just an hour prior, now he felt little more than being a terrified boy.  Devil-Anse could offer his favorite son no respite as there was not any in these circumstances. Devil-Anse Hatfield had seen many unpleasantries in his lifetime, done many to others in all of his years walking on this earth but he didn't know how to comfort his boy who had seemingly lost his whole world over night.   "Tubs, where's Dermot?" Devil-Anse asked about Charlie's father,  "Hell if I know, he came into my office all in a hurry, made the report and said he was gonna go look for her. Ain't seen him since." Will's throat threatened to close, Charlie's Father was anything but a good man, he liked to take a beating to Charlie whenever the wind blew funny and now that her Mother was gone, the wind blew funny often.  Everyone in the valley suspected Charlie's Mothers death was by Dermot's hands, but nothing had ever come of it. Ice trickled through Will's veins, settled in his stomach like lead. “Tubs-“ Devil-Anse took his hat off and slapped on his thigh in agitation, “-I think we all know this wasn’t no damned intruder.”  Tubs tried to ignore the accusatory tone in Devil-Anse’s voice along with the anger in his ice blue eyes. “You know as well as I do that I didn’t have nothing to hold him on, Devil-Anse.” Will’s father scoffed at Tubs, “That badge you wear holds you back from doing what’s right just as much as it does what’s wrong.” “You’re entitled to that opinion.” Tubs adjusted his belt under his round belly as he spoke sheepishly. “That’s a fact.” Devil-Anse bit back as he took his pipe from his mouth and leveled it at Tubs. “If you won’t get your sorry ass out there and find Dermot, then we will.” Having grown impatient with old man squabbles, Will felt his tension rise to the levels of panic. "We have to go look for her!"  Will shouted, moving through the small two bedroom cabin and checking where Charlie had once told him she would hide when Dermot's temper set to flaring.  She wasn't under her bed, or in the old hutch. The sinking feeling of utter helplessness stole through Will's core in a cramp, painful and twisting as he looked for her, both hopeful and terrified that he would find her. "Son, we've searched the house-" Tubs started,  "Did you look in the cellar?"  Will yelled the question, panicked desperation working through his veins like fire, the feeling clear on the usually stoic boy's face for everyone to see.  Tubs looked surprised and shook his head. Will almost knocked the round Sheriff over as he shoved around him on his way out of the door.  Will rounded the cabin at top speed, Devil-Anse and a winded Tubs on his heels. Sliding to his knees in the patchy grass at the old plank wood doors, Will threw them open, taking the rickety cellar stairs two at a time to get to the bottom.  He searched between the shelves, under the dusty sacks of grain, anywhere she once said she would hide and found nothing, not a trace of her.  The Hatfield family, friends and neighbors from town all searched the woods that night around the LeBlanc cabin, searched any place Will knew she might go on her own accord and found nothing.  They searched the woods in the directions an animal might have dragged her or where someone might have taken her and every place in-between, even dragging the deep ponds and beaver dams for her body with nets and rakes. Nothing.  They found nothing, in fact no one ever did.  Charlotte LeBlanc disappeared without a trace and along with her everything that was good in Will Hatfield. Will squeezed his eyes shut as the pain of Charlie's memory threatened to suffocate him high on Rattlesnake Knob where the air was plenty.  He cursed himself as a hated tear slipped from his eye, Will hadn't cried since that day he found she was missing and he hated that he was now, hated that he was weak.  Never finding her had broken him, twisted and disfigured him into someone he had a hard time meeting eyes with in the mirror. Forgiving himself had never crossed Will's mind for not waking up the night she left him and the bed they both lay in.  He couldn't forgive himself for not noticing the loss of her warmth that he lived for daily.  Will looked back up at the bruised sky and cursed as the rain poured furiously down on him, washing him clean of everything but her memory.