“Did you ever go back to Iceland?” she asked.
He nodded. “About four years later.”
“Years,” she repeated, shaking her head.
He smiled. “I picked up a cheap, secondhand camera before I left Iceland the first time. Writing things down wasn’t enough. The phone technology back then, at least the one I had, didn’t allow for pictures, and I wanted to record the things I was seeing. I wanted to keep all of it with me as I continued onward, the sight, the smells, how the air felt. I couldn’t do all of that, but pictures plus my words were a start.” He looked out across the lake now, and she could see that his mind had wandered back to that time. “I had this idea that I’d become a photojournalist. Me, with my rodeo schoolroom education and GED.”
“You were a voracious reader,” she reminded him. “You read everything you could get your hands on, from the classics to science books, graphic novels to the history of the world. If the point of higher education is to expand your mind, I’d say your education is far more complete than most.”
His smile was self-deprecating. “Thank you. I appreciate that. But it was still a pretty far-fetched dream to have.”
“A kid who took off from a rodeo crew with next to nothing, and his first stop ended up being Iceland, then Greenland? Yeah, you were already overachieving at far-fetched.”
He laughed. “Well, when you put it that way. And there’s a grain of truth to that. Because of what I’d already done, I felt kind of fearless. I mean, what did I have to lose?”
“So, how did you start?”
“Femo’s brother lived in this tiny village a distance from the capital—you have to understand, when I say capital city, the entire population of all of Greenland is like, less than sixty thousand people—so his tiny village was the true meaning of the word ‘tiny.’ He was fighting to keep the halibut fishing revenue for their village. I took photos, interviewed him and others, wrote a story about it, then tried—admittedly very clumsily—to sell the story.”
“Did you?”
He laughed. “No. But I knew then that I was on to something. My story did change things for the village, got people talking about the problem in a different way, and they figured things out. I didn’t come up with the solution to their problem, but my talking to them about it got them to discuss it in a new way.”
“If you didn’t go back to Iceland, where did you go from there?”
“From my time in Greenland and Iceland, I knew I wanted to bring a voice to those the world rarely heard from. I just didn’t know how. In Greenland, the direct route hadn’t exactly panned out, but the goal had been reached. So I started thinking about things differently.”
“Greenland certainly seems a good place to start. So, was that the fluke?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t stay. I couldn’t in good conscience take a job away from someone who was born there, who needed the work because they wanted to grow old and die there. I could leave, go anywhere.” He lifted a shoulder. “So, I did.”
He pulled one knee up and looped his arms around his bent leg, and Chey flashed back to a memory of them, sitting in the flatbed of her uncle’s pickup, late at night, looking at the stars, watching the moon rise. It had become something of a ritual for them. Zachariah had usually passed out drunk by then; their chores were done. It was the only time that it was quiet, and, for Wyatt, safe. They could really talk without fear of interruption, or of anyone overhearing their secret thoughts and dreams. They’d always start off sitting just as they were now, each leaning back on a wheel hub.
Wyatt would pull up his knee like he had just now, so she could stretch her legs out. Hours later, they’d always end up lying on their backs, staring up at the moon. Talk of the day, the current gossip swirling around camp, would eventually turn to hushed recounting of their future dreams. They’d make plans for what they’d do if they won the lottery—not that they’d ever bought a ticket, but Chey’s aunt and uncle often did—nonsense plans, but it had been fun, and stretched her mind, made her think about a life beyond the circuit.
“I felt so utterly liberated,” he said, drawing her thoughts back to the present. “The confidence I’d gained from working commercial fishing in some insanely rough conditions, traveling through such an inhospitable terrain, meeting the most wonderful people, people who were so different from me, but at the same time, wanting the things I’d always wanted. Fairness, respect, the right to feel equal.”
Chey felt that hard pull inside her chest again. She was looking at the man who’d taken her on a wild ride not twenty minutes ago, thrilling her with his brash smile, palpable enthusiasm, and easygoing assertiveness, all while risking life and limb to help others understand the complexities and challenges of living in worlds she’d never even known existed.
But she was hearing the boy she’d grown up with, yearning to simply be treated fairly, with the kind of respect that everyone should be due, just by default. That Wyatt, the one she’d laughed with, cried with, talked into the wee hours of the night with, surrounded by flickering fireflies, under full moons and galaxies of stars . . . the one she’d loved, he was still there. He would always be there.
She’d changed, too. She’d suffered a tragic loss, yes. She’d lived through the horror of watching her only sibling be trampled to death by an enraged bull whose back he’d been on moments before. Images and feelings that could never be erased. But even that didn’t touch on the horror that had been every single day of Wyatt’s life. His pain had been inflicted on him personally, directly, for years.
It wasn’t that she’d pretended not to know the truth back then, or shoved it aside, but Wyatt had always been able to step outside himself in that way. Not being the poor kid with the drunken, mean-as-a-snake father, but just a kid. With her, he had been exactly that. And that’s how she remembered him.
Hearing him now, though, she felt as if she’d done him an injustice. Because she didn’t think about him the way he clearly thought of himself.
She blinked at the sudden moisture that gathered at the corners of her eyes. “You know, what you’ve been able to do,” she said softly, hearing the raspy edge in her voice, “is nothing short of a miracle. Truly.” She blinked a few times, then looked at him and smiled. “You really were meant to do what you do. If there’s such a thing as a calling, that’s what it is, what you’ve found.”
“Thank you.” He ducked his chin. “It’s as good a word to describe it as any.” When he looked back up, his gaze searching hers, she was certain he was seeing all the things she was feeling for him.
“So, when the journalist thing didn’t pan out, did you ever think about running for public office somewhere? With your passion for illuminating the need for change, you could be on the ground floor of making it happen.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t stay in one place long enough for that. And I didn’t want to just try to help one place. I didn’t want to limit myself to that.” He grinned. “Which is the selfish part of it. Once I’d had a taste of feeling like I was on another planet, I wanted to visit the whole galaxy. Traveling suited both of those goals.”