The horse ran, but Caleb’s dog was too loyal for its own good as the barn burned around them. Caleb absently petted Roscoe’s head.
Tag: arson
Fiction: Gunsmoke in Mesa View Gulch
The lean, scruffy outlaw had plenty of space at the bar, and the conversations swirling around him in the saloon carefully omitted any reference to him.
He heard a feminine voice behind him, and the voice was saying his name: “Barker Krebs.” He swiveled on his barstool and caught a small fist with his nose. He bellowed briefly and began bleeding into his bushy moustache. He stared hatefully in the direction from which the offending hand had come.
There he saw a woman. She was built along the lines an Amazon if the designer had been instructed to bring the project in under budget. That made her five feet tall, counting the boots and hat.
“Barker Krebs,” she said, “you killed my daddy, burned our home…”
“I’ve never seen you before, girl!”
“And had unnatural relations with what would have been a prize-winning watermelon.”
Krebs’s eyes went wide, and he brought his hand down from his bleeding nostrils. “Sarah Jane Buonarroti. I thought…”
Fiction: Neighborhood Meeting
Only Jerome was wavering.
“I dunno,” he said. “Y’know, that’s where all our children were conceived. Where they learned to walk. There are two hamsters buried in the back yard.”
“Jerome,” Andrew said, “we’ve all got memories like those. But the plain fact is, the memories are all we have left. It’s like when a person dies: the spirit lives on but the body is no good any more.”
“Well,” Jerome said, “we might be able to buy it back someday.”
“ ‘Might.’ ‘Someday.’” David shook his head. “That’s the same sinking boat we’re all in, Jerry.” He held up a placating hand. “Now, you don’t have to go in on this with us. No one says you have to. But it sure would be impressive. It sure would send a message to those heartless rich bastards.”