The Cowboy's Call

Chapter 10

If he was a smart man, Lance would not have followed the bright-eyed, wind-whipped girl after her desperate attempt to portray her harebrained scheme as anything other than ridiculous. Yet, his mind seemed to have forsaken him in his hour of need, as now he now found himself facing the spacious rump of her dull-eyed, lackluster steed. His own horse pushed feverishly against his bit, and darted madly from side to side, obviously nonplussed by his master's choice of riding companion.

Lance allowed him an inch of reign, which the stallion eagerly took. The horse, however, found himself once more frustrated as he was pulled back to the exasperatingly measured lope of the old gelding now lulling along beside him.

Lance darted a glance to the side. Gold cut a strange figure with her father's cotton shirt floating around her like an unruly cloud, and britches she had somehow convinced Lance to lend to her. With a few pins tucked here and there, it was no longer swallowing her whole figure. Her hair had been pulled hastily atop her head, and thrust into an old weather-beaten hat Lance had dug up from one of the cowhand's cast-offs. Gold's contribution to the look had been a liberal glob of mud applied directly to her face. Now, having dried to a crusty grey, besides the glittering blue eyes shining out from beneath the mask, she looked more of a dusty street urchin than a lady of society, if one could even call the tramp trotting gracelessly along beside him, a lady, in any real sense of the word.

Gold pivoted her head just in time to catch Lance's eyes brazenly drinking in her outlandish dress. Feeling like a schoolboy caught in the midst of cheating, Lance averted his eyes.

"Do you think it'll work?" Gold broke the silence they had held comfortably now for a few hours. Lance glanced at her, an uncertainty flickered into his eyes, then burnt out in a wave of confidence.

"Of course, it'll work," he shot back, confidently. "You look the spitting image of a..." He stopped. 'A vagrant?' he questioned himself. 'Or perhaps a strange paradox of incongruent threads sewn into an odd concoction of  womanly curves and a mismatched suit of lumpy and disconsolate materials hanging on her like an incongruous puzzle of men's clothing.' His doubts mounted.

"It'll work," he finished limply, setting his eyes fixedly forward.

Lance's eyes caught the quick flash of sunlight glitter off of the swaying grass. He felt his steed beneath him resign to the gentle lope set by the sturdy swayback. His body relaxed against the rhythmic rocking of the horse. This was his home, he reminisced. Here in the wild of the world, the untamed, fickle land that rose and fell at the command of its Creator. He sucked in the succulent, sweet wind of dew, freshly fallen, felt it swirl his thick locks through its unruly fingers, and watched it bend and bow the world to its willful commands. Closing his eyes, he heard the whisper of the song that this wild world danced to, as he felt his heart begin to beat to its timeless melody. It was out of this sweet surrender, he found a voice whispering through the fog.

"So... Where exactly do you come from?" Gold questioned, her eyes frankly studying his face.

Lance gaze flickered to Gold's questioning glance and felt the familiar ache grow in his chest. "Here and there," he offered, noncommittally.

"Where were you born?" she pushed, the stubborn tilt to her chin causing Lance to realize she wasn't giving up that easily.

"Ireland," he offered, begrudgingly. It was the first time he had shared that much information about his own past to anyone. Lance gazed into her steady, blue eyes and wondered at his own candor toward this strange girl, full of strange ideas, bedecked in strange garments, strangely drawing him into her strange mystique.

Gold's eyes gleamed with bright gold specks of sunlight as she studied him. Lance inwardly whispered a bitter reprimand against his own foolish imagination.