Light and Set
The pair had put in a long day of travel and sought a place to ‘light and set’ awhile before continuing on. A cup of hot coffee would do some good for the one, and a rubdown for the other, and perhaps to gather some news on the lay of the land.
The hair curling down from under Johnny Cotton’s Stetson spilled over his collar as snowy white as his name. Another fine bit of it tickled his upper lip, while still a tad more curled over his bronzed and angular chin, the patchwork amounts of them all told the tale on Johnny’s youthfulness.
The gelding was equally as tired and dusty as his rider. The only accoutrement on man or beast still holding it’s shine was the well-oiled Colt’s revolver on the man’s thigh, but the shimmering pistol still remained as dark and nondescript as were the horse, the man’s clothing, and the Stetson covering his head. An admitted vanity, his hair was the only thing showy about our boy Johnny. Well, that and the perpetually high arc of a single, dubious brow. Aside from the gelding there had been little in Johnny’s past to allow for trust, not in his fellow man… nor in women, either.
The house Johnny reined the gelding up in front of was little more than a one room shack sitting on the farthest outskirts of a far away one street town. Several things caught Johnny’s eye about the shack, to include a white-washed picket fence which corralled nothing in it’s front yard save several water deprived flowers planted in a neat row along the shack’s front, those and a dead and leafless shade sapling which clung to the sandy soil on the one side of a barely discernible dirt path which led up to the cabin’s warped door; doomed luxuries these, luxuries which few frontiersmen had leftover time to care for, what with the nonstop and mostly brutal industries required just for survival. A man would only supply such things if he truly loved his woman… or if he was pushed to procure them.
The woman, or girl rather, who emerged from the door did not look to be the frontier type, but then, Johnny supposed, who did? Pioneers tended to come from all sorts. She was young, probably not much older than Johnny was. The woman, or girl rather, had the expected youngster on her hip, and another, larger one clinging to her aprons. The tight bun on her head was dark, just as her eyes were, and her expression. She did not appear happy with her life situation, but then, other than dance hall girls Johnny had not known many women who were happy. Nor men either, for that matter. But those dance hall girls sure seemed happy, didn’t they? And why wouldn’t they be happy, doing what they did for a living? And the men with them seemed happy enough too, so long as they were with them, though Johnny had seen plenty who had soured on that opinion come the morning after.
”You want something?” The woman‘s directness was not off-putting.
Despite the appearance of past gentrification her tone had taken on the more casual ‘prairie speak’ Johnny was accustomed to; her “want” coming out sounding more like “won’t”, and the “g” in her “something” remaining silent. “Good,“ Johnny thought. He would not have to ‘put on airs’ either, as the saying went.
”Naw, It’s just your fence is falling down, and your tree is dead.”
”Humph. Ain’t you somethin’.” It had not come out like a question.
”Just sayin’, is all.”
”Man’s gone. You wanna climb down and fix it? I could use another around here.” The hopeful list in her voice was undeniable, but the invitation was not especially appealing, despite her obvious beauty. ”Ain’t my affair.”
”Then why’d you stop?”
”Curious, was all. Don’t normally see these sorts of frew-frews like you’ve got, not out here on the prairie, leastways. How long‘d you say your man has been gone?”
”Didn’t say, but awhile.” The woman, or rather the girl, switched the baby over to her other hip while Johnny adjusted to a more comfortable position in the saddle.
”How come?”
”Nosey, ain’t ya?” She’d gotten pretty good at prairie speak, though the Virginia gentry in her still shone through it.”
”Like I said, curious is all. Though I expect I already know the answer.”
”You just want to hear me say it? All right, then. He was lazy.”
”Figured as much. Lazy, huh? Fields are empty, what happened to the cows?”
”Sold ’em to eat.”
”Pens are empty. You sell the chickens too?”
”Weasels.”
”Pig slough needs tending to.”
”No point. The pigs ran off.”
”And all this happened since your man left?”
”Yep.”
”Hmmm. You are partly right, Mam. Your man might have been lazy, I can’t speak to that, but he sure wasn’t dumb.”
Neither was the gelding dumb. The gelding’s rider might be young, but the youngster had never done nothing to spoil the beast’s trust. The pair had put in the miles together, and sensing his rider’s mood and needing neither a kick nor a cluck to start him, the gelding picked up where he’d left off on the long walk towards town.
This would not be a place to rest.
“Too bad.” The smarter of the pair ruminated. “It might have been nice to light and set, if only for a short while.”