Showdown at Buffalo Jump by Gary D. Svee

Author:Gary D. Svee
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781480487086
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media

10

Fall came without formal announcement. There was no storm to chase summer away, and trees had not yet written their leafy epitaph … but it was fall.

Max felt the change, seasons in Montana more sensible to feeling than to calendars. Days were wilting still in summer heat, but mornings came with an edge to them, bumping against him as he lay in his blankets on the prairie. And each evening, God painted the sky with such color that even He must weep with the joy of it.

Max had shared one of those evenings with Catherine. He had walked east with the horses that afternoon toward the dugout, watching the light play across the prairie ahead of him. Behind, the sky was practicing with subtle shades of pinks, purples, golds, and blues as an orchestra warms itself before a performance.

At the corral, Max had unharnessed the horses, giving them an extra ration of oats in celebration of having finished seeding the winter wheat. He left the gate of the corral open so they could leave to graze on the cool grass of the creek bottom, and then he hurried to the dugout, knocking before entering the door he had built a couple of weeks before.

Catherine was standing at the stove, putting the finishing touches on dinner. Max took her hand from the frying pan and placed it in his own. When she didn’t resist, he led her out of the dugout, helping her up the hill that marked the boundary of the creek.

When they reached the wagon, Max lifted Catherine to the seat and then leaned against the box, his eyes fixed on the western horizon.

Serenity eases night onto the prairie. The time between light and dark is a quiet celebration of the cycle of life, creatures of the day making way for creatures of the night. Already, bats—weaving their way among the shadows, suspected more than seen—had replaced the swallows.

The sky, a tease in the afternoon, is temptress at dusk. Pale colors richen and deepen until the horizon billows with beauty. Clouds sail through golden seas, and then turn to soar into the sun, mind sketchings on a magnificent canvas.

Men who tear at the earth during the day become one with her at dusk. The beauty of God’s creation pulls at their souls, as a child tugs a friend outside to play.

Catherine felt the tug and the release and the peace that comes from having seen the face of God. At the end, a shaft of light broke through the clouds and streamed to earth in benediction.

Neither Catherine nor Max moved, entranced until barking coyotes broke their reverie.

“Thank you,” she said as Max helped her off the wagon. “That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“If I could,” Max replied, “I would follow the sun around the earth, living always in sunsets.”

Catherine looked at him quizzically, and he felt a blush spreading from his collar as the color had spread that night from the horizon.

“We best go eat,” he said.

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