Oakridge, Oregon danced through the night, lost in festivities so unlikely the mountain lions stayed up late to watch.
During their first week hiding out on Kanan Dume Road, if there had been a contest for most composed fugitive, Cecile would have captured every vote.
When her cracks began to appear, they were slight, barely noticeable blemishes. Her poise did not evaporate as much as it shifted from something resolute to more nuanced.
The other four fugitives accepted the appearance of these fissures.
But they did not discuss them or spend much time considering their source. The rhythms of their days unfolded with few variations. Their hours were filled with discussions of ways they might go to war against the frackers. More time was spent on philosophical deliberations of good and evil than battlefield strategies and tactics.
Their days were relaxed. They felt secure and comfortable with one another. They felt fulfilled, fed by the excitement that accompanies the prelude of something big.
In spite of this, Cecile felt she was running out of gas. Before she stole more than half the cartel’s money, she thought adrenaline would help fuel her life as a fugitive.
It turned out the adrenaline didn’t flow that way.
She found that once there’s a price put on your head, chunks of confidence chip away. The underpinnings of survival shift from one gear to another. They grind down the alchemist’s golden edges of whatever trust you once had in yourself.
While Cecile wasn’t ready to judge her loner’s life as doomed, a reappraisal seemed fitting.
Maybe this was just the enjoyment of being with people she liked, the enjoyment of life itself. Winding up with these strangers hadn’t been in the cards.
She had traded the shadows of one cloistered world for another. How long this would last she wasn’t sure.
She wasn’t ready to decide.
And she wasn’t ready to dance through the night in Oakridge, Oregon.
