The girl lived with her grandparents in a tiny ranch house that settled peacefully into the sweet wild grasses of the wide Valley. A wild river spilled down through the mountains that rose up over them, running through their flat plain and dividing it. The valley was where she went to find solace, moving up from where her father lived in the desert. It was where her grandfather raised his cattle, where his horses ran free in the warm months, where she watched her grandmother’s mare as she birthed the Sun, a fiery red filly with the girl’s own spirit inside her. The Valley was where the girl wrestled that same filly down to the river when the year turned, where she washed away the rough edges in the waters there and taught her filly to trust her the way her grandfather had taught her to teach. It was where she and the filly tore across the valley as one soul, bareback and without a bridle, racing after nothing but their own freedom. It was where she helped her grandfather round up the cattle at the turn of the season, where she and her grandmother laid underneath the stars that night, her grandmother telling her the stories of the earth until she fell asleep. It was where the girl and her grandfather buried her grandmother not long afterwards. The Valley was where they sold the sun to save the ranch, and the Valley was where she left, riding high into the mountains with tearstains on her cheeks and a bitter pain in her heart.

The Valley was where the girl rode back to in the same way, a month later. It was where her grandfather greeted her with patience, and where her filly, now a mare, came back to her. It was where she saw the sky for the first time, the summer she turned seventeen. It was where she found that the sky was wide and deep: he was a bright smile that greeted her alongside her grandfather in the kitchen one morning, a presence that stayed and followed her over the plain when she found her grandfather a year later and ran again from the helplessness she felt; he was light eyes that watched her with understanding and compassion when she broke down in the field, and always after that; he was strong arms that pulled her in and a sturdy chest that she cried on freely; he was a heart that wanted her happy, and a boy who did what she asked ("Simply because you asked me to," he would tell her). The Valley was where he helped her look for her mare the night the bad storm came, and helped look after the mare as they tried to nurse her back to health. The Valley was where he held her as they watched her mare birth a smoky colt, a wild, scrawny, sickly thing, and where he tried to soothe her when her mare passed that same night. It was where she felt her soul tear into pieces, and where loss and bitterness latched onto her mercilessly. It was where he showed her patience when she hurt him, when she tore at him like the river tore through the Valley. The Valley was where he left when she asked, with only an quiet apology and soft understanding. She told him to take the smoky colt with him, and he did, because she asked. Always, just because she asked.

The girl lived alone in a tiny ranch house in her Valley in the mountains. The Valley was where she wove her blankets and let her horses out in the warm months. It was where she raised her cattle and drove her dusty truck to extra work at the small store in town. It was the place she came back to when the Sun sank behind the mountains and she was empty, tired and worn down. Hard edges formed on her as the time wore on. In the Valley, when she slept, she dreamt of the sun and the sky and the smoky, wild fog that settled over the mountains. When she woke, the Valley was where he greeted her one morning in the kitchen, two years later, as light and warm and good as he had been the first time she had seen him. The Valley is where he came back to her, because in her dreams, she had asked him to. He always did what she asked.

The Valley was where he took her down the river in the quiet mists under a red sky, and in the waters he washed away her rough edges and taught her to love him again. It was where he rode the smoky colt beside her up into the mountains, where they laid out underneath the stars, and she told him the stories of the earth. It was where she felt her soul weave itself back into wholeness. The Valley was where she wore white, and walked with bare feet through the sweet wild grasses she had forgotten, where she made her way down to him, to fall into him, crying and laughing, broken but whole. It was where she held hope in her arms a few years later, and where she looked down into the eyes of the future and felt wonder. It was where she watched their own filly run across her Valley, where she grew and aged and leaned against him as her child took her own sun down into the river and taught it to trust. It was where she realized that brokenness was not always weakness, that sadness wasn’t the end of happiness, and that true forgiveness came freely but true freedom did not. It was where, through teaching trust to another, she learned it, and in seeing love in another, was able to show it. It was where she was torn apart like her Valley, drowning in her own wild river that split her apart, and where she was woven back together, stronger and wiser than before.