Clockwork Cowboy

Chapter 8

Dust rose from Twilight's elaborate steel spats, as Nova cantered the mare from town toward the afternoon sun. Nova's bronzed cheeks damp with tears. Hair whipped free from a braid, and clung to her soaked cheeks.

Twilight appeared unaffected by her companion's anguish. The call of oats, and a lump of sugar upon their return had her legs speedily navigating the rough terrain.

"What am I going to do Twilight?" Nova whispered.

Twilight responded with an abrupt nod. The reins slackened in Nova's grasp.

The first time Nova had witnessed just how dire the Ranch's affairs were was on her father's death bed. For the ensuing years she had struggled to break even.  She'd just begun to see the light at the end of the tunnel and now she was losing it all.

She'd stood in the hot office, not a half hour earlier, watching blow flies buzz lethargically about the room.

The bank manager appeared unsympathetic, as he smoked a cigar lazily, explaining why her inheritance was about to be taken from her. She'd only called upon her bank to see about a loan to replace her winter feed, how had this conversation even come about?

Interest rates had risen higher still, he'd informed her. Glancing up from the sheet of paper where he had been scrawling numbers with his quill. And then he stated her new monthly repayments aloud. Nova had felt physically assaulted by those words. Like he'd reached across the desk and slapped her senseless with his big flabby hand. There was no way she could pay that. And then a far more outrageous sum if she even dared to get a loan for animal feed.

It didn't seem possible. The Ranch had been left to her, and now it was being taken? Swallowed up by the state, the bank manager told her matter-of-factly.  And to be sold for much less than it was worth to cover the Bank's debt.

She'd stood in helpless silence,  before asking when the interest rates would drop. But that wasn't important now - because she'd lost everything. She'd tried desperately to calm herself.

Nova had stared at the fat man in front of her, an angry ironic smile tugging across her lips. If she'd taken Jese Calhoun's cufflink the previous night she could have thrown the money into this man's smug, mottled face.

Where would she go?  What would happen to her? And how could she keep her mother alive? She was sure that her Mom wouldn't last a week out of doors.

And her workers? They'd turned up one by one over the years escaping injustice. While slavery had been abolished almost a decade before involuntary servitude still existed as punishment for crime. That clause was being used to the advantage of greedy and corrupt individuals. Nova had a lot of empathy for such individuals. Her family had escaped Southern corruption themselves.

"I'm very fond of you," her bank manager had told her.

She'd heard the tone in his voice, and knew that she ought to jump to her feet and run. But she was fatigued. "Oh."

"I could put a roof over your head."

She had stared at him in mistrust. The gold wedding band on his finger had glinted in the afternoon sun.

"My brother in law owns a few bordellos." He let the meaning sink in. "You could make a lot of money there..."

Nova had shot to her feet in moments, and marched to the door. "Good day, Sir."

That fierce anger which propelled her out of the building and onto the dusty street, had quickly abated at the sight of a few finely dressed ladies hustling into the dressmaker's. Their husbands were most likely buying up real estate on the cheap.

Those women were so blissfully ignorant of what it took to keep a business afloat. The only trouble that preoccupied their minds was of the latest French fashions, which were hustled out to that pioneertown a season too late. Such pretty dresses.  Had she nothing more to worry about than which dress to choose, Nova would have chosen the silk one.   Thick navy and white stripes, clinched by a leather corset. To smell the newly cut silk, to feel that soft fabric against her skin.  She'd forgotten that sensation.

Sometimes destiny was determined to set a person on a path regardless of how much one fought against it, Nova decided. It was her fate to lose Radcliffe Ranch.  How much further she was destined to fall, she did not know.

That thought triggered waterworks, which had continued unabated.  Twilight hadn't minded a bit.

Through the fog of tears, Nova saw a large cart approaching from the horizon. Even at that distance she could hear the steam powered engine nosily chugging toward her.

She wiped the tears from her cheek with the back of her arm and tightened the grip on her reins. Nova rued the decision to not wear denims.  Riding side saddle in a muted yellow dress which was snitched at the waist with a leather bustier may look glamorous, she decided. But highly impractical.

The vehicle approached rapidly. Pots and pans rattled noisily, and the scrawny miner holding the steering wheel touched his hat in greeting. He watched lecherously, as Nova galloped past. The racket had made Twilight detour to the point where Nova was worried they'd both end up in the ditch. Getting Twilight back on course, Nova felt the horse moving marginally to each side, her skittish nature begging to be frightened again.

"Come on girl, easy does it." It didn't help that Nova was feeling just as anxious as her mare. Breathing in, and letting her eyes wander across the calming Wyoming landscape, Nova felt her nerves unknot. Ever since she'd arrived in Little River she'd felt herself to have come home. Green grass stretched out for miles,  cut in half by the dusty track that her horse followed. Log cabins and sod cottages were dispersed across the landscape.

Nothing drew attention away from the majestic, snow topped, mountains in the distance. If she had to leave there her spirit would be broken.

Twilight was nearly back under control. Still defiantly snorting and flicking her head a couple of times to loosen the reins, but she'd slowed to a more amicable pace.

"That's the girl," Nova patted a hand on the horse's pitch black mane. Tangling her fingers in the coarse hair there she leant forward to drop a kiss on Twilight's neck. As she did so the reins slackened in her hands, and a mother duck (who'd been peaceful hiding in the river) took flight.  The duck struggled to get its plump body airborne, sailing over the road it just missed the mare's head.

Twilight lurched sideways.  Nova swayed wildly on her saddle, as she was about to right herself her steed jumped easily across the ditch.

Losing her grip on the saddle, Nova was thrown up into the air.

As she came crashing down darkness descended.