a longish one (a tribble I believe it's called?
) from a prompt from the 8th
L
unchtime Sun was right overhead, wind had dropped down to almost nothing, and in the overall silence, small sounds grew clear and distinct – Chance's breaths, slow and relaxed, the creaks of the saddle as it shifted a little with each long stride, the buzz and whirring of the insects that had found them now and followed in the quiet air. He brushed at them with his free hand, decided he'd move away from the creek where he'd been looking for sign of the missing cattle. There was a bluff about half a mile ahead, rising up rough and broken out of the plain. There'd be shade there, on a shelf high enough up to scan some of the plain, place to sit and eat his lunch.
He tied the reins, loose, but out of the way, around the saddle horn, and left Chance to graze on the grass, still green here in early summer, but not for long, not with this sun bearing down. The sandstone crumbled a little under his hands and boots, as he stepped and scrambled his way up, enjoying the stretch and reach from one outcropping or crevice to another. Found his spot, kicked a few small rocks out of the way, they tumbled and clattered down to the plain below, knocking other pebbles loose as they fell.
He sat down, found a smooth enough place to lean back against, stretched his legs out, let the heat of the rock soak into him, the heat of the sun burn into him from above, the glare bright as firelight through his closed eyelids. There was an overhanging piece of rock he could've moved under, patch of shade beneath, but now he wanted the sun, needed it burning through his clothes, through his skin, as if it might, for a few minutes here at lunchtime, on June 24th, 1964, be enough to overwhelm the fire that never stopped burning inside him.