A Cowboy in Ravenna by Jan Irving Page A

wanted to cover his ears, but if he did that he’d have to take his hand off Trin’s empty eye socket.
    Sweat prickled his face as he slipped down what felt like a giant water slide, gaining momentum so that his body leapt off the slide into free fall. As he tumbled, all around him were points of light. Colours. To keep himself whole, he named them. Burnt sienna, yellow ochre… Pigments used by prehistoric humans to paint caves. He wanted to go to France and see them and maybe he could convince Trin—
    Trin.
    Chace shivered.
    “Reach his heart,” he heard Calhoun say. “You have to reach his heart.”
    The first time they’d shared a connection, Chace had seen Trin as a wasteland of dead grass, enclosed by high walls. Nothing could grow there. There was only the wind, as endless as life without the piece that was missing.
    My son.
    Trin’s voice. Chace heard him, surged towards him and felt Trin, felt the burning brand of the wound that had never closed.

    Trin was sitting in a cave with a tiny fire. He was naked and he had a rag wrapped around his eye. All around him were tools, some recognisable, some esoteric, that Chace guessed he used as a healer.
    Chace knelt beside him.
    “I can’t heal myself,” he told Chace. “I can’t see Sage. I felt him tonight but I can’t find him.”
    “I can help you.” He opened Trin’s travelling bag, which was inexplicably in this Other Place, and found the familiar pencils and drawing pad Trin always carried as a backup for Chace. Trin had done that for as long as he’d known how much Chace loved to sketch.
    Chace’s throat tightened. He couldn’t lose Trin. But drawing was all he had to offer, as if his talent had the power to heal.
    His fingers took over and he drew without glancing at the paper, which was some trick, even for him. And he did it with his left hand. His right hand he put over the makeshift bandage covering Trin’s eye. “Let’s look for Sage,” he said. “I believe you when you say you sensed him tonight.”
    “Been sure…so many times,” Trin whispered.
      “Take a look.” Chace handed the finished likeness to Trin. “See your son, see Sage.”
    “Holy shit!” Trin crushed the paper in his fist. “I didn’t see. How could I not see?” Trin touched Chace in wonder and blue light sparked between them. Their connection was suddenly visible, arching like silent lightning.
    They weren’t in the cave anymore, but standing on the grass, the long waving grass moving like hair on the earth—pale yellow and endless.
    Trin took Chace’s hand.
    A sparrow dived low, hunting for airborne insects. The single bird couldn’t make this arid place a garden, but it was the first sign of life Chace had seen in Trin’s private world.
    “You’re a healer as much as I am, Chace,” Trin said. He leaned his forehead against Chace’s. “I’ve never cared what happens to me.”
    “But I do,” Chace said. “So you’re goddamn going to care.”

    “Ouch!” Chace stared up at Calhoun, seeing his worried face washed by firelight. “Why’d you slap me?”
    “You were out of it, sunshine, visiting lala land. You’d finished what I sent you to do. I needed you back or I’d have to cook you breakfast and I never hang around for breakfast.”
    “Trin!” Chace rolled over and spotted his lover curled up in the foetal position next to the dying fire. The moon had sunk and the stars had moved. How the hell long had they been here? His body felt stiff and sore, his arms and legs not his own, but sticks attached to his body.
    “You were in the healing place most of the night,” Calhoun said, as if he read the question in Chace’s eyes. He nodded towards Sabin, who was pouring steaming liquid from a carafe into a cup.
    “Is that coffee?” Please let it be coffee. He didn’t crave the stuff the way Trin did, but he felt tired, like old cloth that had given way and torn at the seam.
    “Yep.” Sabin looked tired too. “Trin’s okay. I checked on