The horse topped the steep rise, but the mountains that hemmed in Wind River Valley rose even higher. A faint breeze lightened the intense heat. The rider halted the horse, wiped the sweat from his face with a stiff handkerchief, and scanned the surroundings. He found the shack above him,…
The man known as Luke lowered himself, groaning, into the chair they indicated. He blinked in the harsh, too-bright light of the single exposed bulb. A man in an officer’s uniform set a paper on the table and pressed it forward, setting a pen in front of Luke. “Sign it.”…
The world is asleep in its grave at two o’clock, and I’m still awake, unable to sleep, aware of every sound, aware of every second as it flashes out of existence like a burnt-out bulb. Two o’clock is 3600 endless moments of darkness, 3600 ghosts passing through my body, 3600…
Peter held the gun in a trembling hand. He had never before fired a gun. This one had sat by his bedside for the last month, new and unused. He sat in the balcony of the Embassy Theater, staring up at the domed ceiling. The stage lay empty below. He…
Sometimes, he recalled it during the day and mistook it for a misplaced memory. In it, he was at a city park. The grass shone with life. The blue ocean of the sky hung overhead. The sun suffused every detail. His daughter, Hope, lay on her stomach in the grass…
William paced slowly along the row of graves, reading the names inscribed in the cold headstones. The cool breeze of early spring that stirred the still dead grass slipped through his threadbare coat and made him shiver. At the end of the row, he sighed, looked up at the pale…