Sculpture: Merri Roderick Photo: Denise Whittaker-Hoar
The Bunlet
She studied the old log cabin from the weedy drive. It stood alone in the forest, exactly as advertised in the back of the Field & Stream. She had found the magazine in the doctor’s office waiting room. Licking her fingertip and roughly flipping the pages, the bold print caption of the ad hooked her. “Mountain Solitude.” “Perfect for hunters, hippies and honeymooners,” the ad continued. She was none of those, just a woman of a certain age who looked better with the light behind her.
Wild Horses
The mustang writhed on the dirt floor of a stall no bigger than a prison cell. The mare bared yellow teeth and her eyes rolled white as she kicked at her own stomach. The dust rose fine as a prayer up to the barn roof and filtered out between the metal bars.
“She can’t be saved, Fielder. You’ve got to stand back and let me do this.” Crawford took a step toward the inmate. He held the revolver in his hand.
“How do you know that?” The young prisoner swung his head from mare to man. “We’ve got to wait for the vet. He can fix her.” Fielder swallowed hard and held his ground in front of the stall.
At the Edge of Fortune
But he was alone now with the news, and not a drink in sight. Only the mountains on either side kept him company. He got out of the cab of his truck and snugged the collar of his jacket tight to his neck and surveyed the high-plains. Nothing moved out in the fields except the wind making the tall grasses whisper and bend like old women in prayer. He hunched his shoulders to the cold. The wind stung his eyes, made them water. He wiped them uselessly with the back of his hand.
Lost
He told me a story. He’d been in the Territorials and his regiment had been on exercise in the Highlands. With his fingers he traced the landscape of it on my body. The hills, the valley between, the river of his kisses trickling down over my belly to the sea. The deep mists had come down over the troops. Fog lay thick over the mountains and swallowed up the hushed cough, the rocks kicked loose by their boots, the muted jangle of a metal strap on a pack. The men couldn’t see the man in front or to the side. “Those sounds could have gotten us killed,” he told me.
“But it was just an exercise,” I said.
“But what’s the point of believing that,” he said, “unless something bad happens when you fuck up to remind you why you’re training.”
“The winds shifted,” he said. “Just like that.” He jabbed my ribs. The funnels of air swirled around them as they huddled up together. Then the mist spiraled away. The men felt damp and foolish. The sergeant added them up, pointing a finger at each. He shook his head. Added again. “We’ve lost the Boy,” said the sergeant.