Nancie Mccormish – Cold Road, Stan Rodgers

“Not stopping this time?”

“Nope.”

Sarge short steps on the slippery slope, weighing another winter sliding in.

“Cold hands, cold heart?”

“Lookin fer my gloves, nothin’ more.”

Cold sun pierces the fleeing storm, teasing its grey tail.

“Thought you was aiming to fix that cross fence this year?”

The little claybank mare leads, remembering, but pretending not to.

Feels the change approaching overhead.

“Nothin’ to keep away now. Thought you knew to mind yer own worries. Fresh hell…”

Wisps of wind gently ruffle tracks and tails.

“This ain’t just my worry. We’ll both be missing her, probly forever, right enough.”

“Cain’t miss what never belonged to ya, son. Grace wuz always just a gift.”

Soft swoosh of snow under hooves, muffled by a rising tailwind. Overhead a hungry hawk circles the horsemen, sizes them up, vanishes downwind.

Inspired by Cold Road by Stan Rogers

Nancie McCormish

Hidebound

“Yea? Well that gift graced me with life, or do you mean to misremember that, too?”

Both horses stall, breathing stilled.

The mare stares at pepperdot rabbit scat underfoot, expecting an explosion.

“I ain’t forgot, boy. Just wish-to, most days.”

The mare exhales a smallish, warm cloud, watches it follow the hawk.

“Then why’re you ridin’ her mare, and give me Sarge?”

The grey’s ears flip back, radaring the rising storm, but he doesn’t adjust course.

“Sarge will mind after you. He’s proved out. You ain’t.”

The horses eye each other sideways.

“Father, I’m grown! Look at me, willya?”

The old man turns away and spits, loading before firing again.

“No need. Face that launched a thousand buffalo chips, right? She learn you that from them damn books, too?”

Howl of tailwind cuts the space between them as a blue-sky eye clears the clouds for just a blink.

“It’s SHIPS dad. It’s about a Greek woman’s love story, not some handlebarred old heartsick cowboy!”

Both horses lift their heads, awaiting orders to flee: together or apart this time?

The old man spits again downwind, marks its force.

“Only Greeks I seen are sheepeaters. No selfrespecting stockman would live on an island.”

Never taking to bitter, the son samples it straight, changes tack.

Sarge squares himself under the saddle, steadies them both.

“Father, it’s history — thousands of years old. We learn it so’s not to make the same mistakes again.”

“No more mistakes? Like loosing as many sheep as stars in the sky in cow country? Or stealin’ an honest man’s betrothed wife and child? Sorriest old stories known to man-kind!”

Sarge swings his head and gently lips the mare’s cheek.

Both knew her tears, but Nature obliges horses to hold all human secrets silent.

“Father, she always loved you best, even you know that much.”

“Told ya before you’re on a cold trail, boy. She’s gone.”

The son hesitates, then casts a line.

“Her schoolhouse still stands right there! She said I was born there, or don’t you recollect? Just afore Christmas. She once’t said she never saw such smiles from you, even trapped in that storm and all, for days. Like Jesus in the manger, she said, only with a potbelly stove you kept a’fired. Let’s go inside. Like grown men. Pay our respects.”

The old man sniffs, eyes the empty belltower, strikes.

“I re-call more’n you’ll ever get a loop over! You… always wantin’ too close to a fire. Well I ain’t one for borryin’ troubles. Boy, here’s some true his-story for you: hot promises take ya down damn cold roads.”

While their scrap hangs fire a boldening breeze fingers the icy windowpanes, escapes with a rising, feminine-like lilt. All four face it, eyes upwards, breath stilled.

From long habit, the old man’s cold-numbed hand hovers atop his rifle, poised to pull it.

The unearthly sound wafts away, leaves him gutted, blinking away stillborn tears. He can’t face his son straight on but fires again.

“But I promised her…”

“You never did learn manners, damn if I know how she taught you enythin’. Blue Boy, I said I ain’t agoin’ in there. Meant it.”

This cruel slow twist – conjuring their favorite nursery song “Little Boy Blue” – centers and digs deep. The grown boy swallows, chokes.

From the schoolhouse window bursts a different song. Strident, longer, a downward plunging dirge-like wail, shedding unshakeable sadness.

“Fresh hell! What’s that?”

Both horses turn away silent downwind, grimlipped.

“Jest the winter wind, Father, wallowing down. Taste the bitter in it? Best get on out ahead of it.

I’ll follow you.” u