The Chamber Four Fiction Anthology by Chamber Four

Author:Chamber Four
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: anthology, literary, magazines, online, short stories
Publisher: Chamber Four

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Along Wyatt’s route, the broken towns linger in their dreary infirmity, each with its unkempt wooden churches, erector-set water towers and long-abandoned five-and-dimes. When he reaches Crane Prairie he turns at its single traffic light and idles into the crumbling downtown. All but a few of the quaint brick buildings are boarded up, the commerce moving south long ago with the coming of the Interstate. Pickups fill the spaces around Swede’s Steakhouse. Inside, a menagerie of mounted beasts, all horns and fangs, peers down from the walls. A mountain goat sports Ray-Bans, a cigarette tucked in its hardened lips. The bartender draws Wyatt a foamy beer.

Hours later, Simms enters with a flourish, tossing back the hood of a fur-trimmed parka, stamping snow from his boots. “Damn! The stuff you see when ya ain’t got a gun,” he yells. Farmhands and implement peddlers and big-haired women look toward Wyatt, who feels a sudden chill, imagines himself in their cross-hairs. Simms throws an arm around Wyatt, introduces Darla, tall and square-shouldered, her Nordic presence magnified by a red down duster and riding boots. Wyatt needs a long glance to take her all in.

Simms grins. “Where’s the little woman?” he asks.

“Home with the kid. Just passing through. Wondering what you were up to these days.”

The three take a booth, where a robust barmaid deposits a pitcher and frosted mugs. Simms pours a round, his eyes swimming as if he’s already had a few, and starts telling stories. Darla hangs her coat and scarf on the rack of an elk, drapes a thick blond braid alongside dramatic cleavage.

“I got pissed off this morning and decided to get the hell out,” Wyatt says. “I don’t know what’s going to hit me when I get home.”

Simms laughs and slaps the table. Darla eyes him sideways, runs a finger around the rim of her glass. “This fool could have had all the chicks,” Simms tells her. “Look at him. Had to fall for the first one I fixed him up with.”

They finish one pitcher, then another. Cold creeps in the doorway as the place fills up. Darla feeds the jukebox and pulls Simms to his feet to shuffle with her around the hardwood floor, lifting his hand from her ass when he starts clowning. Wyatt backs against the wall, stretches a leg across the seat, his appetite gone. He notices a woman, thin and wiry, wearing a leather jacket and sweatpants. She stands with her back to the glowing woodstove, wine glass in hand. Her raven hair is thick and bunched, her dark, narrow face obscured by owlish glasses. Darla steps out of Simms’s grasp and leans toward her to whisper. When the song ends, they bring her to the table. “Wyatt,” says Simms with a wink, “this here’s Mel.”

Wyatt, revived, hears himself introduced as Simms’s lifelong buddy, a big-shot contractor. He banters with Mel and buys tequilas all around, and when Simms and Darla rise to dance again he nudges her from the booth.

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