Mayfly Melodies

Six

"Have you tried to get her help?"

Noah scoffed. "I've tried everything. I've taken her to doctors, psychologists, you name it. She won't talk to anyone and the only thing they ever recommend is medication. Caroline doesn't need to be put on meds. She just needs...I don't know. Something to wake her up again."

He took a long pull from his water bottle. It was lukewarm now and not nearly as satisfying as it had been when he'd pulled it out of his cooler a half-hour earlier.

"Well, why don't I try talking to her? I haven't seen her since you guys moved. Maybe a familiar face could help?"

"You're welcome to try, Ethan," Noah said. He was certain, though, that talking to Ethan would have no effect whatsoever on his mute sister. Still, he was desperate. He just wanted to hear her voice again. Wanted some indication that maybe she wasn't as bad as he thought she was.

"I'll stop by tomorrow before I head back home."

Noah gave him directions from the motel that Ethan was staying at and then the conversation was dropped, doomed to be picked up again some other time. He could tell that Ethan wasn't happy about his talks of retirement, but it was the only foreseeable future that Noah could envision. His first priority was his sister. If she got better, then he would consider his own wants but, for now, his life was tangled with hers.

Ethan clapped Noah on the back and steered him away from the paddock fence. "Now, c'mon," he said. "You still have a few hours of freedom before you have to get back to Caroline, right?" He grinned at the entrance to the community centre. "And I know just how to help you spend them."

*~*~*

It was at least an hour and a half later when Noah found himself alone again, this time perched at the side of the bar. Ethan had gone, some pretty, petite, girl tucked under his arm as they departed for his motel. He'd waved the pair of them off with assurances from Ethan that he would see him in the morning.

Ethan had been trying to introduce Noah to girls all night but none of them had made a lasting impression. That was standard, though. The girls Noah met at the rodeo generally weren't the type of girls he would settle down with anytime soon. Most were buckle bunnies, girls who followed the circuit and tried to get with anyone who could pull out a winning round. That meant that Noah was a hot commodity that night. Ethan made sure that everyone in the hall knew exactly who they were dealing with. The Tishomingo Rodeo Classic bull riding champion with a score of ninety-two-point-five and a few thousand dollars to add to his bank account.

But Noah didn't care about any of that. He didn't care about the score or the new buckle he'd won. The money was nice and it would help him out a little bit at the ranch. Maybe he could even afford to fix up his truck, but he would have traded the prize money in a second if he could hear his sister's voice again.

Noah waved the bartender down and got a refill on his beer and then turned to look out over the mass of people on the dance floor. He'd been living in this town for almost a year and yet he didn't recognize hardly any of the faces of people present. There were the few that everyone knew, like Annie Eckhart who owned the local diner and Chuck McClintock the mayor. He saw the sleazy owner of the car dealership and the sour-faced woman who owned the riding school on the other side of town from where he lived.

He recognized another few familiar faces, people whose names he would never be able to recall but were familiar enough for him to recognize that they were locals. And then there were the others, the people he knew from his old rodeo days, from his past life, the ones who looked at him like they knew he was burned out. Done.