The time was midnight according to the moon’s blazing sight right over head. Bending his knees at an angle, hovering over a pile of leaves, twigs, anything that’d be useful to start a fire Chris needed.
Beyond the town’s blazing candle lights sat his small shack in the hills, only him and his two horses, one that needed to be tamed and Chris would have no problem doing it tomorrow when he woke, but he’d have to fall asleep first and like most nights, he couldn’t. He needed the sleep, needed the caress of a pillow against his whiskery face. But he just couldn’t do it. He had too much on his mind. Too much to think and do before he could drown himself in restful sleep.
Most nights he’d just lie in his cot of a bed, finger length feather mattress, and wooden boards piercing his back. It was hard enough to roll on his side and try to find sleep that way, but it was useless like everything else he tried to accomplish now-a-days.
The town was booming. Making progress he recalled Mary telling him. Too much progress he remembered answering back and that too much ended up being not needed anymore. With enemies of all kind across the country from Mary’s fast spread newspaper, no man dared to step into the Four Corners territory unless they had the need to be killed. Pistol or not, it didn’t matter.
Mary was happy, he supposed. Chris didn’t know how happy since he hardly talked to her anymore. She was a busy woman, a special woman, and she did not have the time to talk personal business about their growing relationship. And as nice as that sounded, Chris was almost hopeful she would drop the paper for at least five minutes and talk to him about something, anything but news and the town.
Two years and counting being a resident in Four Corners, he gave up on Mary long after her newspaper made success in Dallas, Texas and she was promoted to senior editor down there but she refused to take the job as she wanted to stay close to her home, close to Judge Travis, and maybe stay close to him.
But like he’d been telling himself over and over, he didn’t need to care. Just protect.
The small camp fire stirred a spark and broke out in a quickening fire. Chris leaned off his knees to ease the sudden falling asleep tingle in his feet. He stood up and watched the fire ablaze higher, hotter.
In an open maroon shirt, baring his chest and in those fitted black pants, he took off his hat and it fell behind his back. He ran his hands through his hair to free his forehead from sweat after making the fire that freely burned.
And when he thought he was alone, he wasn’t. With his gun belt still buckled around his waist, in the dark in the distant he saw a figure, a wagon he foresaw riding up slowly. Instinctively, his hand whipped back to his gun and he knocked off the leather, safety strap and waited for the lone wagon with its owner to approach.
Coming closer in the darkness, when Chris thought they’d stop, they didn’t as the driver veered to a diagonal, probably figuring they were about to ride right into a fire and probably knew the horses wouldn’t like that on their hooves.
Making the turn, Chris eased the tension in his hand, his veins, and released his hold on the pistol. But he didn’t let his attention leave so delicately away from the passing traveler and their noisy wagon in the late night.
When he thought he would see a dirty, old man in the driver’s seat, he didn’t, he saw a woman.
Beautiful, frail, quiet, and content.
At least she looked beautiful to him in the midnight darkness. Maybe it’d be best to let up on the whiskey he thought. But he couldn’t take his eyes off that woman alone in the wagon, sitting alone in the leading.
What he saw of her in the pitch dark with little light shining from the fire, he couldn’t see much. Because the woman held a dark purple or black hood, Chris couldn’t tell, over her head. Covering her entire body in fact. What he did see was the shine of her brown locks, curving around her face, casting a shadow darker than he’d expect a woman would allow. Creepy.
Mysterious was the better word, but like everything else as soon as she disappeared from his sight and off his property, he disposed the thoughts.
Knowing Buck for fourteen years now, he must’ve rubbed off on him whenever he saw a lady. Senseless and untamed he’d described his friend.
Oh, that’s why he needed the sleep he remembered. A lady had finally tamed Buck Wilmington and he was getting married in three days time and preparation began the following dawn.
Watching the wagon disappear in the trees, Chris figured on its way to town. He turned his back on the fresh lit fire and poured a bucket of water on it, already having the need to end this night of misery now with nothing on his mind but sleep.