Sidewinder Read Free

boulders shifted and jostled against one another. The pebbles beneath him, caught by falling dirt and sand, slid down toward the depression in the earth. The first trickle became a torrent, and the boulders lost their footing and toppled. Gravity pulled at them, and they rumbled down, rolled and jumped like objects suddenly freed. The rocks crackled and boomed. A medium-sized boulder leaped into the air and came crashing down on Brad’s head.
    He felt the blow, the sharp sting as his scalp opened up, and then he saw an explosion of bright stars and the sunset smearing into a gaudy blur. He sank from consciousness like the very stone that struck him and descended into an obsidian abyss, a darkness so black it wrenched the stars from the sky and oblitered all light and color.
    Brad floated in that fathomless deep of sleep, sinking ever downward into a peaceful sea of oblivion while the boulders rumbled into the small gully and came to rest under mangled branches, releasing the fragrance of crushed leaves and dank soil as the sun slid behind a distant snowcapped peak and the shadow of dusk spread across the land.
    The brindle cow broke into a trot at the noise and stopped when it was over, panting, sides heaving, rubbery nose twitching. Alone in the spreading darkness, it lifted its head and bawled at the sky until nothing was left of its bellow but a low grunt of despair.
    The cow was alone, and its taste for grass left somewhere on the hillside, far from its home.

THREE

    Felicity Storm stood on the front porch of the log house, staring up at the hills, the lowering sun. She was a firm, wiry woman with raven hair and hazel eyes, a patrician nose, the sculpted features of a Grecian goddess. But, there was a worried shadow flickering in her eyes as she spotted Julio driving cattle down to the pasture already filled with the grazing herd standing like statues in an ocean of grama grass. She wondered why Brad wasn’t with Julio, and the worry lines around her eyes deepened as she squinted into the falling sun.
    She stooped over, her simple cotton dress flowing with the bending of her knees, clinging to her girlish form like running water. She picked up the wicker basket and tucked it under one arm, glided down the steps until her sandals touched ground. She walked to the side of the house where the clothesline danced with the dried parchments of her washing: sheets, underclothes, shirts and blouses, linens, all white, like unmarred documents. She kept her eyes on the hillside beyond the driven cattle, searching for Brad. She thought he might be chasing in a stray and would appear at any moment, framed against the pines and spruce like a conquering warrior returning from a long journey.
    Carlos Renaldo came around the side of the house lugging a burlap bag over one shoulder. He, too, was looking in Julio’s direction, a worried frown on his face. He passed close to Felicity and stopped.
    “I dug some potatoes for you,” he said. “I will put them in the house.”
    “Just set them on the porch, Carlos. Did you get some for yourself?”
    “Yes,” he said. “Where is Brad? He is not with Julio, and Julio has the cows that ran away.”
    “I don’t know,” she said, lifting a pair of long johns from the line, folding them before putting them in the basket. “Maybe . . .”
    She did not finish her thought because she saw the worry in Carlos’s face. He worshipped her husband, she knew, and his concern was genuine. She bit her lip and scrunched up her face, wondering if she even had an idea of where Brad could be. If one of the cows strayed, she thought that he would surely send Julio to chase it down. That should be Brad driving the cows back to pasture, not Julio.
    “I will take the potatoes,” Carlos said, and went on his way toward the front porch.
    Julio took off his hat and waved the cattle down into the pasture. The cows took off at a run and joined the grazing herd as if they were long-lost relatives returning to