Such a quiet night. Even the cattle silenced by the low clouds that hid the full moon.
Out by the hollow, a yip, then another, then a cacophony of coyotes running and fading. The ground vibrated as the herd churned, restless but not spooked.
On a silver night, she could see the black silhouette of the trees around the hollow. “A mile if it's an inch,” Pa would always say. She gripped the cool arms of his rocker … she stepped across the threshold to call him for supper and found him sitting there gone, gnarled fingers still holding his burning pipe, eyes staring across the prairie after his departed soul.
She stared into the dark in that direction. The lamp barely lit the dooryard to the twisted fence poles. Far in the black, a tiny orange light flickered. The cowboys' campfire.
Such an adventure. Driving a herd up from south Texas, picking up cows from ranches and outfits along the way. Thankfully the cowboys had bothered to collect her 10 head, Pa's dreams of becoming a cattle rancher, instead of just a sod-busting farmer.
The flicker of campfire went dark for a moment. Something had crossed over, a stray from the herd, a coyote, maybe even a wolf. The dark spot crossed back, then wavered back and forth in front of the campfire. Something was moving on a line between the fire and her dooryard.
Or more likely someone. Keeping her eyes on the prairie, she stood and stepped back into the doorway and reached over her head for the rifle. She sat back down, tucked the butt under her arm and the barrel down between her knees. She fluffed up her dress to hide the barrel in the folds.
“Protect your honor,” Pa would say when handing her the rifle. Leaving her alone with the wagon in town. Plowing the sod, together, but separated by the wide land … he bent to nail the last of three block steps to the door frame, then palmed her waist the first time she clambered up to reach the rifle.
The dark spot drifted back and forth before the campfire. Was it moving closer or farther away? The intervals between passes were growing longer. For a moment it blocked out the fire completely. From the surrounding night came the creak of saddle leather, the clink of spurs and reins. One of the cowboys, no doubt.
She felt along the trigger's cool edge. There was no reason for one of the cowboys to come to her door at that hour. She pulled the rifle from the folds of her dress into view. Should she extinguish the lamp? No, if it came to it, she wanted to see her target.
“If you can see it, you can hit it,” Pa would say. Some of the fence poles that formed the corral still bore the marks of her errant practicing. A few stood as replacements for the poles she had blasted to pieces … she cried as the pole toppled in the dust, taking half the fence with it. Because she had made more work for him. But he had insisted that she continue practicing until she could hit those soup cans, lining them on the ground amid the collapsed fence.
“I can replace a fence, Elizabeth, but I can't replace you.”
In the dark the tread of hooves halting, a blow of nostrils. Somewhere close the cowboy was watching her.
“I can hear you,” she called out.
Silence, except for the shuffle of hooves, the clink of tack.
She pointed the rifle above the restless horse.
**
Perhaps the coyotes woke him. He didn't know. One minute he was oblivious to the world; the next he was alert and staring at a black sky, which slid by as the clouds drifted.
And he had no choice but to move. Something had taken hold of his body; it commanded him like a ragdoll. He stood from his bedroll; he hunted for his hobbled horse in the dark beyond the chuck wagon; he saddled up and mounted.
Once he had mounted, the thing that had taken his body did not let go, but it waned. Perhaps it spread to his horse. Without his command the paint turned and walked. The reins hung loose, while his wrists were crossed and held to the pommel beneath a great weight.
Soon he could see the glow of a lamp. In the glow a woman with her hair down on her shoulders held a rifle across her knees.
She trained the rifle on him as his horse stopped walking. The thing waxed in him again; it tingled from the soles of his feet up through his groin to his chest. He dismounted in prairie grass and walked up and stood by a corral built of twisted deadwood.
His tongue tried to move. He found it parched, locked, swollen. The thing could not make him speak.
**
The cowboy walked out of the dark. He stood by the fence, his hands limp at his side, wearing no gun belt. She kept the rifle on her shoulder and sighted along the barrel into the middle of his chest.
“State your business, sir,” she said.
He worked his head forward and side to side … a horse trying to grab the bit. What was wrong with him? Was he choking? He lifted his hands a little in the air and finally, a word: “Pipe,” he said.
Not a question or a request, a directive. Pa's pipe sat wrapped and tucked in the can on the mantle. Did she have any of his old pouch tobacco? But that was the one pleasure Pa had allowed himself. Why should this cowboy command it?
The rifle had wavered. She took aim again on his chest. “I'm fresh out of tobacco, sir.”
His eyes hidden even in the lamplight, just dark cavities in his pale face beneath the worn stetson. Something in his hat band reflected the light.
“Pipe,” he said. Then: “Lizzy.”
A cold fist around her heart. He said it like Pa. No one even called her Lizzie except Pa … a glimpse of white in the warm sun, hard packed dirt beneath her, a shadow and Pa came through the door to lift her in the air.
He would shout and toss her: “Lizzy!”
“My pipe, Lizzy,” the cowboy said.
She shivered and the rifle shook. She pointed it to the dirt.
**
The thing had learned to work his mouth. “Lizzy,” it wanted him to say, over and over, but he fought it and for a moment regained control and fell silent.
The thing wanted him to go to her. He fought this too; he tried to stay where he was next to the corral. But when she lowered the rifle the impulse surged up from his feet and into his chest; it burst from there like a river through an ice dam; it swept him forward on its flow.
**
The cowboy came into the dooryard on long, sure strides. He wore a beard, dark and scraggly. Pa had never worn a beard. He had packed his straight razor to the water every morning to shave. But what was she thinking?
“My pipe, Lizzy,” the cowboy had said, exactly like Pa.
The man stopped an arm's length from her. The lamplight still cast shadows on his eyes. She had the rifle pointed at his feet.
“What do you want?” she asked.
His mouth moved in the circle formed by his mustache and beard, his lips thick and chapped, his lips pressed together … his tongue struggling in his mouth. Then he said, “Come here, Lizzy.” In Pa's actual voice. She dropped the rifle and walked forward into his embrace, his chin cupping over the top of her head.
She was trembling. The stench of him oiled musk that filled her throat. Her arms went around his waist and she lifted her head back. Only for breath. The cowboy kissed her on the lips.
**
… the moon hidden, the crinkle of his straw tick, the shuffle of his feet nearing. Pain and bewilderment in the dark and Ma gone … the scent of her mule team in the glare, the single blade turning sod, the rifle on her back while Pa in silence worked his own team across the field.
Pa never kissed her. This cowboy did, his chapped lips moistening, his tongue warm and rough. He had said her name in Pa's voice. He lifted her and carried her toward the house, his eyes in the lamplight like Pa's death stare.
Inside he turned and found her bed in the dark. He needn't ask where because Pa knew. She hitched her dress to her waist. She wanted to grip him with her legs. She didn't want Pa to do it. Her arms embraced his shoulders and her fingers kneaded the hair at his neck. His beard scraped her cheek.
**
In the morning he had all his faculties again. He couldn't remember if he had slept, or when the thing had left him. She lay beside him on her back, her face turned to the wall beneath an open window that framed a blue dawn.
“I'm sorry.” He could think of nothing else.
She didn't reply. He rose and gathered himself together and looked down at her face. Impassive. Almost vacant.
A glint on the mantle drew him. It was a coffee can; inside he found a pipe wrapped in tissue paper and a pouch of tobacco. She still faced the wall. He unwrapped the pipe, then tucked it and the tobacco into his shirt pocket.
Outside the paint was grazing by the corner of the barn. He went to it, talking softly, noticing his tongue sore and bruised in his mouth. He tasted blood; he recalled her teeth around it, her legs gripping him while her vagina pushed against him rather than folding around to welcome him.
Across the shadowed prairie grass the cook rang the triangle for breakfast. His stomach growled.
A story with a paranormal tone, embellished with excellent narrative that immerses us in the plot. An excellent work that makes for a truly enjoyable read.
Thanks for sharing your story with us.
Excellent day.
Thank you for reading!
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