FLASH FICTION

Here is a little flash fiction that I submitted over to Karen at Bibliophilic Blather.

A WESTERN MAN

His old Ford truck made a dull lull as he pulled into the gravel driveway.  The hard wood floor of the porch enhanced the steady rhythmic sound of his boots.  KNOCK, KNOCK. If she hadn’t known who it was already she could just by those two knocks, he had a certain way about them.

“Come in” she said.

He stepped in as he took the black Bailey hat off, the tall dark and handsome type he was, mixed with a little bit of mountain man.

“I heard what happened Tracy. He aint gona get away with it,” he said while pulling up a chair.

“It wasn’t that bad,” she said.

“Is that so?” he said as he pulled her hair away from her face revealing a bad bruise under her left eye that she had been hiding,  “Can’t just let people do this to ya.”

She looked into his eyes and wondered how big of a mistake she made leaving this man, and how good he was for still being here for her.

“What are you gona do Travis? Arrest him? He’ll be back on the streets in two days as usual,” She said.

“He split us up, tried runnin you off of your own ranch, and he beats you. He’ll be answering to more than just the law, he’ll be answering to me,” Travis said.

“Just like that, mister big lawmen is gona take matters into his own hands and avenge his love, I suppose you’ll be riding into the sunset after this one right?” Tracy was a spit fire of a woman, having successfully taken over her father’s ranch after his passing, She and Travis kept it going for a number of years. That was until she broke it off, she fell in love with a rancher, but was looking at marrying a sheriff, and she guesses it was too much of a change for her at the time.

“Well it would be really ‘cool’ if the sunset thing where to time just right, but it won’t be of any consequence.” Travis found his calling late in life, as good as he was with horses, he found himself to be a better sheriff. It was when that man Fuller came around that she started to doubt things about being the woman of a cop.

He got up from his chair, put his hat back on and she followed him out to the porch. He took off his duty revolver and his badge and left them with her saying, “I am not doin this as a lawman, I’m doin this as me.”

“So you’re commin back?” she said.

“Yes, and I aways will,” He said.

He stepped off that porch, started to truck and drove off, right into the sunset. She thought to herself, “well I’ll be damned, the cowboy rides into the sunset, but this time he’s commin back.”