Promise

I've haven't been writing much, not here on my blog, not even on my novel that is dying a slow death. I'm not giving up, but that is the truth of it. I used to blog almost every day, and the confidence it gave me was energizing. Without it, I'm losing my flare. The words that come to mind are empty, repetitive and boring. So I need to back in gear. It has been suggested to me in the past that if I put so much energy into my blog that I would burn out for the real thing. I think I might have bought into that in a small way.

Anyway, I happened upon a contest that one of my fellow bloggers is having, and in the absence of any motivation whatsoever to do work yesterday afternoon, I applied myself to submitting an entry.

I've always wanted to write a western. You may or may not know that my avatar is a picture of the great Wyatt Earp. I love country music, or at least I used to. It's changed, and that's just the way it goes. When my dad complained about it, I didn't listen, so I won't expect any sympathy. But it's not the same anymore. You may have read somewhere that my favorite team is the Cowboys. Coincidence? I think not.

I don't watch westerns and I don't read them, except for Lonesome Dove, which is a masterpiece of literature by Larry McMurtry. I make no lofty claims to be near as talented, but one has to start somewhere.

Here's hoping I don't fall off the wagon again. It's time to get back to the routine of writing every day, whether it is here or elsewhere.

So thanks Bernita for having this contest. And I hope to see that Jason has some more in the near future.

Here is my entry:

Promise

Bobby snatched his pistol from his right hip holster and started into his pivot—

Crunch, head jerked forward, ringing like a gong.

Dog tired.

"Whoa. It weren't that hard," a gruff voice said. A tug on his gun hand. "Now gimme that." The loss jarred Bobby awake. The Colt. His daddy's Colt.

"That there was a love tap t'get yer attention." Cole spiked the shovel into the dirt a hairs breadth from the tip of Bobby's boot. "Now dig."

"You gonna do for me like you did my daddy?" Bobby rubbed the back of his head. Bone dry.

"You ain't never had no sense, Bobby."

"So you sayin' it ain't so?"

"I said dig."

"No."

Cole trained the Colt on Bobby's forehead and thumbed back the hammer. "This thing loaded?"

Eyes locked on Cole's, Bobby snatched the shovel and heeled it into the soft earth. "Six feet I reckon?"

The sun turned orange and dipped over the horizon. Bobby looked up in the failing light, neck-deep now in the hole. Cole's face stared down, aglow from the tip of a cigarette.

"The Beaton boys hung your daddy from that branch right there." Cole pointed.

"That's a damned lie. It was you kilt him--for the stolen bank money! "

"No, but they did. Do I look like a rich man?"

Bobby's shovel bit into ground with a hollow thunk.

"He died so's when his boy become a man he'd have the chance his daddy never had."