Traditional-style tattoo of a red anatomical heart pierced by arrows, with a banner reading WE ARE NOT OUR FAILURES, on the upper arm.

Heart with arrows and banner

Traditional · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A red anatomical heart with purple highlights is pierced by two arrows with striped green and grey fletching, and a black-outlined banner across its centre reads WE ARE NOT OUR FAILURES. A third banner sits below the heart and a small arrowhead tops the design. Bold black outlines, solid colour fills and a bright, sharp composition show a classic American traditional style.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The mule had the sense to stop at the cairn, which was more than I'd managed all winter. Below us the Halvard road dropped away in switchbacks, and the snow had come off the north face in the night, so the track was a grey tongue of slush with nothing to hold onto. Tomas Renner walked ahead with the lantern unlit, counting the iron posts that marked the edge, and I followed with the tin box of papers strapped against my chest where the damp couldn't reach it.

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The papers were the reason we were up there. In March a flatbed carrying the Ardmore girders had gone over at the second bend, and my name was on the manifest in my own square hand. The company wrote to say the loss was mine to answer for. The valley men took to calling me the surveyor who dropped the bridge. Only Tomas said nothing about it in the tavern. He bought me a whisky, set a stub of pencil on the table between us, and went back to his cards.

Halfway across, the ice under the mule's near hoof gave with a crack like a rifle. The animal went sideways, the rope snapped taut, and for a long moment the whole pass seemed to lean with us. Tomas didn't shout. He dug his heels into the crust, hauled, and I found my own feet and hauled too, and between us we brought the beast back onto the rock. We stood there breathing steam until the mule shook itself and started walking again.

At the far cairn I opened the tin and took out the company's letter. Tomas read it over my shoulder, then handed me the pencil. I wrote my reply on the back of the envelope, short and plain, and left the girders out of it altogether. We walked down into the valley with the sun coming up behind us, and the mule, for once, went first.

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