Chapter 27 - Lowyn

There is a turn-off from the highway that leads up to Blackberry Hill. I've tried my best to forget about it over the last nine years, but you don't just forget about a man like Ike Monroe.

I don't care who you are, male or female, once he walks into your life, he's an obsession.

Everything that happened to me that weekend—my mama's very first birthday after she died—was because my little car hydroplaned on the wet road during a thunderstorm and I slid into that little scrap of a road and right into the woods and hit a tree smack-on.

Just a few seconds of time changed my whole life. Because I was stuck there, and I had hit my head, and I didn't actually know where I was because I was just drivin' blind. Crying. Everything was blurry. Not just from the rain pelting down on the windshield, but from my tears.

That first anniversary hit me hard. It was tough. The whole season of Revival without Mama. I had to do everything. I had to quit school, and come home, and look out for Bryn, and make sure she didn't ruin her life in some way. I was exhausted by the time Christmas Eve came. And then it felt like I slept away the whole rest of the winter in a depression.

When I woke up it was spring and the Revival was startin' again. And I couldn't take it, I guess. I just kinda lost my mind. I got in my car during the storm and I just drove around the hills. I didn't have anywhere to go.

These days, if that happened, I would go to Clover. Spend a weekend with her in the spa. But she was still in school. And I didn't feel like driving all the way over to West Virginia University just to be reminded of all the other things I lost when my mama died.

So I drove, and I wrecked, and I spent the whole night out there in those woods. It was cold, and my car wouldn't start to keep the heater goin', and I was too scared to walk up to the road in the middle of the night and wait for someone to come by and save me.

Someone did, anyway. Ike Monroe came. I don't recall why he was up so early, but I do recall the time. It was six-thirty in the morning and the rain had stopped a couple hours before, so everything outside was all wet, and crisp, and pretty, and clean when the sun first started peeking up from the horizon.

And then there he was. Something out of a Viking movie. Tall, and blond, and muscular.

He knocked on my window, but of course, the battery was dead so I couldn't just buzz my window down. I had to open the door.

And once I opened that door, it was over. The life I had before was over and the new life that took its place was one where a man like Ike Monroe existed.

We talked a little. He started asking questions. And as soon as I said who I was and where I came from, he changed. Like… he saw me different in that instant.

And I would wonder, for years afterward, if it would've turned out different if I had said I was from somewhere else. Not Disciple, or Bishop, or Revenant. Then he might've called me a tow truck or something—a cab, an Uber—or just taken me straight home, but then of course, he would've taken me to Disciple, so he would've known anyway.

If I was an outsider, he most certainly would not have taken me up to Blackberry Hill. And I wouldn't have stayed the weekend. And I would've never seen their little festival, or met any of his family or friends, or nothing.

I would've known nothing.

That's what I think about that now. That I would've forgotten about him if he had just called me a tow truck.

But it's a lie. From the moment I laid eyes on him, I was obsessed.

Of course, less than forty-eight hours later I had snapped out of it. But the point is, it was done. One look at him, gettin' one look at me—that was it. Life as I knew it was over.

These days I don't think about him at all. Like ever.

There was that one moment when Collin took me to dinner down the Watauga River and he asked me, ‘Where is your husband?' and I about choked. But Collin, of course, wasn't talking about Ike, and Ike's face only flashed through my head for a split second as that whole thing played out over a series of moments, and then… I promptly forgot about him again.

We're not really married. Not in a legal way.

But in a Blackberry Hill way? Well, I guess there's an argument for that.

Whatever spark there was between Ike and me that wet morning nine years ago, it was a faint one. It needed to play out. However that happened didn't really matter. But Ike Monroe isn't the kind of guy you can just forget about until you have a good reason.

I needed that good reason. So that's why I'm thankful that it happened as quick as it did. Otherwise my obsession could've lasted for months, or years, or still be in full swing right now.

The dirt road ends and I park my truck next to a couple of others. By now, they probably know I'm coming. So I debate here. Should I wait in the truck for an escort? Or should I just start hoofin' it up the hill?

I get out and start walking, passing the barn on my right. There could be a horse in there, but I am not stupid enough to take one of their horses without permission. It's a two-mile trail up the hill and they use horses from here on in because the trail is most certainly not a road. Now there is a road that goes up there—I know that for sure because when I was up here last, I saw a whole bunch of cars and trucks—but how they got up there, I don't know. Some secret back road, I guess.

I only get about two hundred yards before I hear the clip-clop of hooves.

And then there he is. Looking like a fuckin'… whatever.

His hair is long and blond, almost exactly the same as his brother Lasher's out in Revenant. They've got the same build too. They are twins, after all. They used to have the same temperament, but not anymore. That's why Lasher left this place back in his early twenties.

There can be only one boss of Blackberry Hill and that boss is Ike, not Lasher.

He doesn't get off his horse, just kinda stands there. It's a big horse with lots of energy, so it's prancing and making me nervous.

He doesn't offer me a greeting, so I guess it's up to me. "Hi," I say. "I… um… Jim Bob told me that there was a misunderstanding this morning and…"

He turns his horse around, like he's about to go back the way he came. But then the horse starts backing up and I let out a breath.

"Listen, Ike?—"

"Get on, Lowyn. We're gonna have this talk up the hill." His voice is the same. Deep, and rumbly, and… well, different too. Because it comes out kinda mean.

But there is no way out of this. I have to have this conversation and I already knew when I got in my truck that it was gonna happen up on the hill. So I walk over to the horse, and he offers me his hand. I raise my arm up and he grabs it—tight—right at the elbow, and then he says, "Jump up," and the next thing I know, I'm sitting on that horse right behind him.

There's no saddle or nothing. Just me and Ike on the back of a horse. And a moment later we're galloping up the hill at a breakneck speed and I'm holding on to him like my life depends on it.