Alton Davis hardly recognized the face staring back from the mirror.
Wrinkled and leathered, each line told a story in his life’s tale, each scar another role he played on the path toward destiny.
There was the knick on his chin he got on his 16th birthday when he and Daddy stopped a band of rustlers at the edge of their ranch.
He grew those freckles on his nose under summer skies spent in the saddle -- on farms, riding the range, searching for adventure.
Glaring white snow and relentless desert sun forced the squints that forged those crow’s feet.
His furrowed brow erupted from the smooth mantle of his forehead when Daddy fell ill and cracked down the middle when Mommy died a few years later.
The little dimples in the corners of his mouth that had advanced like a railroad into creases, dividing his upturned lips from the hard features around them and reflecting the smile in his eyes, and in his heart?
Well, he never had those at all until Betty showed up. The babies started coming a few years later and tattooed those laugh lines -- permanent reminders of love and joy.
When Alton was a boy, the old folks talked about Shapeshifters who roamed the edge of the frontier, warding off the death of the wilderness at the hands of “progress.”
He always thought the stories were just wives’ tales. Now, he knew better.
Hit bloodshot eyes, set deep in their sockets and purchased with his wife’s illness, told him as much.
Alton turned from his reflection and stepped toward the bed where Betty lay, pale and weak. He shifted into his final role, that of caregiver, and prepared for battle.
Her death would have to wait at least another day.
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