Tucked In: A Western Flash Fiction Story

Annie hated Dan Felton, God rest his soul.

It was the former sheriff of Applegrove, after all, who had insisted the town jail be built on top of the highest hill in the county.

“You all’ll thank me when Coyote Creek floods the valley and the prisoners are locked in safe and sound up here!” he’d bellow.

What a farce! Coyote Creek was more of a puppy trickle, and now Annie was stuck trudging the half-mile trek from the center of town whenever she wanted to visit her husband, Archie.

‘Course, Archie never would have made sheriff if Dan hadn’t collapse one morning walking up the hill to work. That made Annie smile a little as she huffed and puffed the last few steps into the front of the jail, lugging a picnic basket for supper with her husband.

“Oh boy!” Archie greeted her. “Let’s eat!”

No sooner had they sat down at Archie’s desk than a clap of thunder shook the whole building.

Ned Malloy clanked his metal water cup against the bars of his cell and called out in anguish.

“Sheriff, I’m scairt o’ the thunder. Can you send that pretty lady back here to rock me to sleep.”

The men in the other two cells snickered and joined in the catcalling. Annie’s face flushed, but Archie brushed passed her and swung open the front door.

She followed and gasped at what she saw.

Coyote Creek had jumped its banks and was already crawling into the buildings in the town below.

“Welp,” Archie said with a chuckle. “Looks like we’ll be spendin’ the night up here, Annie.”

The inmates howled from the back of the jail.

“Can the missus sleep with me t’night, Sheriff?” Ned taunted.

That sealed it.

Annie definitely hated Dan Felton.

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Know Your Terrain: A Western Flash Fiction Story

“So you say a band of river pirates ambushed you and took my gold?” Jack Brooks leaned back in his leather chair and puffed a thick cigar. The roaring fireplace cast his flickering shadow against the brick wall on the other side of the ornate parlor.

“That’s right, sir.” Larry Custis was nervous.

Brooks was the most infamous crook this side of the Rockies, but no one seemed much interested in putting an end to his enterprise. Either you were for him, or you were against him.

And no one double-crossed him. How did he and Hank ever think they’d be the ones to get over?

“And … they kidnapped Hank,” Larry sputtered. Then, with a bolt of inspiration, added, “Probably killed him!”

“Mmmmm,” Brooks grunted as he tapped ashes onto the floor. “And you say this happened at the fork of the river?”

Larry’s eyes shifted in gloom of the room, and he hoped the fat man wouldn’t notice. “Yes, sir. That’s right.”

“Uh-huh.”

Brooks sighed and leaned forward. He struck a match somewhere in the dark and used it to light a candle on the table between them.

As the flame whispered to life and cast its glow across Larry’s face, he heard the unmistakable click of a gun hammer locking into place, cocked and ready for action.

Brooks pulled his chair closer, and his broad, smiling face gleamed in the candlelight. He slid his right hand toward Larry to reveal the glinting barrel of his revolver.

“There’s just one problem with that story, son,” Brooks said. “Arrow River doesn’t have any forks. A straight shot between Logan and Nevada.”

Larry swallowed hard. Sweat glistened on his forehead.

“Now,” Brooks went on. “You sure there isn’t something else you want to tell me?”

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Run, Sally: A Western Flash Fiction Story

The prairie ground thundered like a thousand Navajo drums under Sally’s pounding feet. She breathed in the dry, cool autumn air, and her lungs burned with the fire of youth.

Through a stand of vibrant blue oaks she flew, exploding out the other side onto a carpet of golden rolling grass that swayed into the rocky ranges to the west. And there, shimmering in the morning sun like the spirit of another lifetime, stood her mother.

Tears flowed from Sally’s eyes as she pumped her legs even harder and sprinted toward the loving figure awaiting her in front of the distant foothills.

A sudden stinging pain on Sally’s backside stopped her in her tracks, and she craned her neck backward to find the source of her torment.

“C’mon, girl!” Jackson commanded as he pulled himself up into the saddle. “We gotta move on!”.

Sally winnied into the sky, weeping for her lost dream -- the same one that had visited her over and over these last few weeks.

She reared up, then tore off toward the horizon in a cloud of dust. One of the bags Jackson had loaded onto her back spilled into the dirt behind them, scattering its bounty on the desert floor.

Behind her, Sally could hear the whoops of angry men and she felt the wind of their bullets buzz past her ears.

Jackson guided her through a stand of dingy blue oaks, but the men’s cries grew closer.

When she was younger, Sally could have outrun anyone, anything.

But now her lungs were ablaze and, by the time a hot slug burrowed into her skull, her heart had already begun to sputter.

As Jackson tumbled under her faltering hooves, Sally steeled her gaze on the horizon, where her mother shimmered in front of the western foothills.

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Can't Always Wait: A Western Flash Fiction Story

A dozen dazzling orange-and-black butterflies flitted from behind a boulder a hundred feet in front of Vance. They were a welcome splash of color on the late-summer landscape covered in the dust of a months-long drought.

Wonder turned to horror when a small boy dashed from the brush in chase of the Monarchs. It was too late for Kayla to stop, so Vance tugged her reins to the right -- it was his only hope.

Kayla whinnied like a banshee but skittered to the rear of the unsuspecting child, then trotted to a stop. Vance hopped off the mare, boots clopping against the hard ground, heart pounding hard.

Before he could follow the boy, a woman called out behind him.

“Vance! Vance … where are you?”

The boy, nearly out of Vance’s sight, stopped and turned toward the voice, even as Vance did likewise. Both of them answered at the same time.

“Yeah?” Vance said, confused.

“Over here, Ma,” the boy yelled.

Something rustled behind Vance.

A radiant blond woman stepped around the boulder and gasped when she spotted Vance.

Hilda.

The last time he saw her, she was sitting in a rickety chair at her mama’s kitchen table, and he was setting off to hunt for the outlaw Juan Jimenez. Vance knew when he chased Jimenez into Mexico five years ago he might never see Hilda again.

And he sure never expected to find her this far from Texas.

“Who’s this man, Ma?”

The boy stepped between Hilda and Vance, gazing at the stranger. His mouth was Hilda’s, but his eyes were even more familiar.

Hilda flushed. “Vance,” she said, touching the boy’s shoulder. “You go on back to the house. Daddy’s waiting for you.

“I just want to talk to this nice man for a minute.”

From Darkness, Hope: Western Flash Fiction

“I suggest you take the boy out and do something, just the two of you. While he can still walk.”

Ben Harper’s words fell like an anvil on Ed Shanly’s chest. Just a week before, Tommy had been fine, a healthy nine-year-old boy.

“Ain’t there nothin’ you can do, Doc?”

Harper shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ed. Tommy’s getting weaker by the day, but I just can’t find anything that could be causing it.”

Reverend Anson stepped out of the cabin’s back bedroom. “Tommy’s in good spirits. Wants to go fishin’.”

“Then we’ll go fishin’,” Ed said and shuffled past the preacher.

When he was gone, Anson addressed Harper. “May God help you see the way to help this child, Ben.”

“At this point, it would take a miracle, Reverend.”

“Well, then, that’s what we’ll pray for.”

And so they did.

--

“Maybe we can use that shiny bait again, Pa.”

Ed and Tommy were standing on the bank of Coon Creek, ready to wet their lines.

“Shiny bait?”

“Yep, them worms over in that holler.”

Ed followed Tommy’s pointing finger to an old oak with a deep, dark crevasse at its base. Ed walked to the tree and crouched down in front of it.  He called over his shoulder to Tommy.

“Is this where you got the worms you been usin’ to fish this week?”

“Yep! Careful, though, Pa. They’ll bite your fingers!”

Ed frowned in confusion, then turned back to the tree just in time to catch a sunbeam splash across the cleft. There in the breach, a dozen baby copperheads squirmed to get out of the light.

Behind them, the mama snake’s belly slithered by, and she hissed in the darkness.

“C’mon, Tommy!” Ed whooped. “We gotta go see Dr. Harper!”

Shooting Star: A Western Flash Fiction Story

There was little doubt Derek had shot the man lying dead on the dusty street.

For one thing, Derek’s six-shooter was still smoking.

For another, it was a gunshot that woke him from his slumber.

What wasn’t so clear was just where that left him with the mob of folks who had crowded around the scene. Derek’s sleepwalking had landed him in some precarious positions before, but this was the first time he was cut off from all hope of escape.

He scanned the throng of faces …

Some of the men looked angry.

Some looked happy, somehow. Almost giddy.

Most just seemed a strange combination of shocked and bored.

And the women … well, there were lots of flushed cheeks and fluttering eyelashes. That, Derek had seen before, and he’d have to deal with it by and by.

If he worked his way out his predicament, that was.

After he’d turned about the circle of onlookers a couple of times, a thought hit him …

Where in tarnation was the sheriff of this town?

“Ain’t you all got a sheriff?” Derek decided the best course of action was to push the issue. He wouldn’t have killed a man for no reason, and there were plenty of witnesses.

Why, this whole mess could probably be cleared up with just a few minutes of talking.

“Well?” he prodded.

Suddenly, no one would look him in the eye, but a few of the gawkers were goggling the dead man.

Derek followed their gazes to the center of the street, where his victim lie. It was then, for the first time, he noticed the sun glinting off something shiny on the man’s chest.

It was a sheriff’s star.

Fire Dancer: A Western Flash Fiction Story

You couldn’t really call her a girl. She was too short and too … well, too beautiful, in a weird sort of way.

But if she wasn’t a girl, what was she?

Jacob didn’t know, and he didn’t really care. All that mattered was that he knew where to find her at the end of a long week working on the railroad.

Right there, dancing in the campfire Yooko built for his family.

Heck, if it wasn’t for Yooko, Jacob wouldn’t have made it three days in Las Cruces, let alone met Chooni. Most of the other men on the line were just plain old white or black, but Jacob’s dark hair and olive skin made him different.

A half-breed, they called him.

He’d been sulking through the desert alone that first night when Yooko found him and took him home for supper. Even though the indians called him “gringo,” Jacob knew they liked him.

They even gave him some of their special tea and let him sit in while the elders told their stories. That’s where Jacob first heard about Chooni -- from Yooko’s grandfather.

Just sip your tea, the old man had said, and she’ll appear in the flames. She’ll dance for you.

And Hell if she didn’t!

Jacob wondered if she would also grant him a wish, just like Hamuli said she would. This might be the night Jacob asked, but first, he had to tell her how he felt.

“I love you, Chooni!” he whispered.

All around him, the family erupted in laughter, as they always did.

That didn’t matter to Jacob, though. Not as long as he had his peyote and his little fire dancer.

He took another sip and watched his girl sway in the night.