Ryder rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands in front of him, his gaze mostly avoiding Ellie's directly. He smiled meekly at her reference to Rose and noted how she stayed with her horse instead of joining him on the steps. It made sense to him. For him, horses were security and the greatest confidants that a man could ever have. Ellie must have found the same strenght in Cabello.
He wet his lips and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before he began. His voice was low and quiet, as if he was measuring every word, pacing himself to be able to say the things that were coming out of his mouth. "Thing were all right after you left, for a little while. I missed you like crazy..." He shook his head and tightened his jaw, "It was when I had to make the choice to kill Cayente that things got really bad." Cayente had been one of their older horses, and one of the few that remained when Ellie had left.
"There just wasn't any food and I couldn't kill Sparrow, or the cow until her milk ran out. The garden had died because I couldn't get enough water to it from the stream." Thinking about those awful days, the true end of the world when he was doing everything he could to just survive, was like watching a horror movie in his mind. He'd always told himself that he'd never kill a horse for anything, but he couldn't let his mother starve.
"I had to kill Cayente. I had her blood all over me, she made the...the worst sound I've ever heard."