Tag: micro fiction

Corn Damage, 3 of 3

Suzanna looked doubtfully at the tall, thick-bodied tan dog facing her. The man at Mora had generously loaned Gerald one of his three English mastiffs to test the theory that it would keep the deer from her cornfield.

“His name is Duke,” Gerald said, stroking the black-muzzled head. The dog’s tail wagged slowly as it studied Suzanna with sleepy brown eyes.

“He seems very docile,” she said.

“They were bred to hunt and are said to be very protective.” Gerald shrugged. “I guess we’ll just have to see.”

She nodded and watched as Gerald and the dog headed toward the cornfield, their own two mixed-breed dogs romping alongside. The mastiff majestically ignored the other dogs and Suzanna’s lips twitched. Then she shook her head and went back inside.

The barking began at daylight the next morning: high yips from their own dogs and a deeper, more solid sound. Suzanna rose and went to the window. The mongrels were at the edge of the corn patch, dancing around each other. As she watched, Duke appeared at a steady trot, circling the field.

Suzanna grabbed her shawl and went out onto the cabin porch, where she could see the entire patch. There were no deer in the corn. Duke circled the field again, stopping occasionally to mark its boundary, lift his head toward the hills above, and bark menacingly. There were deer on the hillside, moving steadily upward.

Suzanna turned toward the house. Gerald was standing in the doorway, watching her.

“How long will it take a puppy to grow to Duke’s size?” she asked, and he chuckled triumphantly.

from Moreno Valley Sketches II

Corn Damage, 2 of 3

“The ears probably wouldn’t have ripened before the first snow, anyway,” Gerald said as he studied the deer-damaged cornfield. Beside him, the hired man Ramon nodded sympathetically.

Suzanna’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t know that,” she said. “And if some had, then I would have saved them to plant next spring.”

Gerald shook his head. “It’ll take years to get a strain that’ll grow at this high altitude.”

Her chin lifted. “Then it will take years. You want to stay in this God forsaken valley, don’t you?”

He continued to study the damage. “I just don’t think a fence is going to keep the deer out,” he said mildly. “They can jump pretty much anything you put in front of ’em.”

“Then what would you suggest? Those mongrel dogs of yours have proven themselves useless.”

Gerald shook his head without looking at her.

“There is a man at Mora who has dogs called masteef,” Ramon said. He held out a hand, waist high, palm down. “They are this big and used for hunting.”

Gerald turned his eyes from the corn. “Do you think he would sell?”

Ramon shrugged. “When we were there last month he showed me puppies.”

“Ramon, you are an angel,” Suzanna said.

“We don’t know that this will work,” Gerald warned.

“It’s certainly worth a try.” She gave Ramon a brilliant smile and he grinned back at her sympathetically.

from Moreno Valley Sketches II

Corn Damage, 1 of 3

Outside, the dogs were barking wildly. Indians? Suzanna twitched the window curtain just enough to peek out without being seen.

Then she saw the reason for the barking and sprang from the window to the door. She ran wildly across the yard toward the field of knee-high corn, pulling off her apron as she went. The deer were everywhere and she charged in among them, waving the apron, crying “Shoo! Shoo!”

Both the dogs plunged in after her, rampaging through the corn, and the deer fled. Chest heaving, Suzanna stood in the center of the field and surveyed the damage. Some of the plants were completely uprooted. She wasn’t sure if the deer or the dogs had wreaked the most havoc.

Suzanna lifted her hands to the sky helplessly, then looked down at the dogs, who were lying, panting, at her feet. “You weren’t much help,” she said irritably.

She looked around the field again and her jaw tightened. As soon as Gerald returned, they were building a fence.

from Moreno Valley Sketches II

That Wicked Town, circa 1940

“Don’t you stop in Eagle Nest,” Nelda said sharply. “You just keep right on going through that wicked town, Clifford Earl James.”

“Gotta stop and buy fuel,” Clifford said. “I didn’t fill the tank all the time we were in Red River.”

She frowned darkly.

“What’s wrong with Eagle’s Nest, Mama?”

“Never you mind, Henry,” his father said.

“Gambling and liquor and bad women,” Nelda said. “Sin and more sin. Temptation and evil.”

“Now Nelda,” Clifford said.

“It’s the truth!”

“They’re just people,” he said mildly. “Trying to survive.” He slowed the car at the edge of town and pulled into the first filling station they came to.

“What’s that?” Henry asked. He pointed to the building across the street.

“A saloon,” Nelda said, giving it a hard look. “An awful, evil, dangerous place.”

Henry examined it carefully. Two men came out. They looked pretty normal to him.

from Moreno Valley Sketches II

Decision Point

Three years after the Great Rebellion, Henry still drifted. There was nothing behind him in Georgia and nothing further west than San Francisco. Not that he wanted to go there. The California gold fields were played out.

But he needed to get out of Denver. A man could stand town life only so long and he’d been here three months. The Colorado gold fields were collapsing, anyway. Played out before he even got here.

“Been too late since the day I was born,” he muttered, putting his whisky glass on the long wooden bar.

“I hear tell there’s gold in Elizabethtown,” the bartender said. He reached for Henry’s glass and began wiping it out. He knew Henry’s pockets were empty.

“Where’s Elizabethtown?”

“New Mexico Territory. Near Taos somewheres.”

Henry nodded and pushed himself away from the bar. “Elizabethtown,” he repeated as he hitched up his trousers. “Now there’s an idea.”

 from Moreno Valley Sketches

Reprieve

“Please don’t shoot him, Papa.”

Gerald lowered the gun and looked down at the boy. “Coyote’ve been nipping at the elk all spring and they left tracks by that half-eaten calf up the hill.”

Andrew shook his head. “He didn’t kill that calf, Papa.”

Gerald frowned. “You know that for a fact?”

Andrew hesitated, then nodded. “I’ve been watching him. He lets me get mighty close. He’s not as skittish as the others.”

“You’ve been following that coyote around?”

The boy scuffed the muddy ground with his boot. “I was curious.” He lifted his head. “The calf was dead when he ate off it.”

Gerald shook his head. “You are something else,” he said. He scanned the valley. The coyote was still visible. It trotted purposefully across the far side of the grassy slope beyond the meandering creek. “We’d best head back,” he said. “They’ll be waiting dinner on us.”

from Moreno Valley Sketches

A Half-Broke Chestnut

Jerry was sitting on the top rail of the corral fence, twirling his lariat thoughtfully and studying the horses, when Betty came out of the house.

She scattered the grain to the chickens and crossed the yard to the corral.

“I don’t suppose you’d want a half-broke gelding for a birthday present,” he said, nodding at a chestnut-colored pony.

Betty chuckled. “Not ’til you break him.”

“He’s right pretty.”

“He is. And half-broke.”

He grinned. “You chicken?”

“Just smart. Married you, didn’t I?”

He smiled down at her as he unbuttoned his right shirt pocket with his left hand.

“How ’bout this instead?” He handed her a small plush-covered box.

“Oh Jerry,” she said. She opened the box. Two small diamond chips on a heart-shaped locket gleamed up at her in the sunlight.

“Oh Jerry,” she said again as he slipped down to give her a kiss.

from Moreno Valley Sketches II

Misnomer

“Who you callin’ squirt?” The tall young man with the long sun bleached hair moved toward him down the bar, broad shoulders tense under his heavy flannel shirt.

“I didn’t mean anything,” the man said apologetically. The premature wrinkles in his face were creased with dirt.  Clearly a local pit miner. He gestured toward the tables. “I heard them callin’ you that. Thought it was your name.”

“Only my oldest friends call me that,” the young man said.

“Sorry ’bout that,” the other man said. He stuck out his hand. “Name’s Pete. They call me Gold Dust Pete, ’cuz that’s all I’ve come up with so far.”

They shook. “I’m Alfred,” the younger man said. “My grandfather called me Squirt. It kinda got passed down as a joke when I started getting my growth on.”

Pete chuckled. “I can see why it was funny,” he agreed. “Have a drink?”

from Moreno Valley Sketches

ONE-EYED PETE

“They call me One-Eyed Pete,” he told the girl. “Can you guess why?”

She examined his face. “’Cuz of what the bear did?”

He ran a gnarled finger over the left side of his face. “Nah, that’s just a scratch.” When he grinned, the scar twisted his smile into a grimace, but his right eye sparkled with mischief. “There’s more than one way of seein’.”

She gave him a puzzled frown.

“They also call me One Mind Pete.”

“We all have only one mind.”

“Most of us have half a dozen minds,” he told her. “Can’t decide which one to listen to at any one time.”

She giggled. “That’s true.”

“I’m pretty single-minded,” he said. “Makes me kinda stubborn.”

“But then you don’t have to decide,” the child pointed out. “You just know.”

“You sure are one smart cookie,” he said.

 from Moreno Valley Sketches