Author: Winter Contest

She who must be obeyed nagged him. Miss Martha, his health care nurse, looked at George with determination in her eyes. “You need the walk. Besides, Charlie would want you to,” she said.

“Now that is not fair,” George answered, “using Charlie like that.”

“If it keeps your butt moving, Charlie wouldn’t mind, and you know it.” Both of them looked at each other and chuckled.

“S’pose you’re right,” George agreed, plopped his cap on his head and opened the door.

“Don’t forget a jacket,” she nagged.

He grabbed the windbreaker from another hook by the door, shrugged into it, and then stepped outside.

We lie together on the bed and watch Mummy pack all the new clothes into the suitcase. I play with the little ladybirds at the bottom of Sarah’s plaits, making them crawl up her shoulder and neck. Mummy holds up the new yellow daisy dresses.

“Daisies for the Queen!” Sarah giggles.

“The Queen is too busy,” I tell her once again.

“Mummy!”

Mummy blinks and turns around to fold the dresses. “We can certainly ask her.”

Yellow, diffused street light filtered through floating dust motes as the dirty, pamphlet covered bar door swung open. A glimpse of a brown leather bomber jacket, worn jeans, and a grey cabbie hat appeared in the flash of light, but they were lost to the darkness when the door shut again. The man’s work boots announced his approach as the sticky bar floor tried to trap their soles.

He walked the full length of the bar and took the last seat, in the darkest corner. The red backlights of the mirrored liquor shelves and the tea lights vainly trying to shine through dusty, rust-colored votives did not reach him there. The sagging bartender set a chilled bottle of Macallan and a whiskey glass in front of the man. They were the only spotless items in the bar.

We are not women of the forest.

We do not speak Swahili, carry machetes, or dream of monkey stew. We do not love this crude wooden longhouse, which lacks essentials like heat and running water. So when the local rooster cocks us awake before daylight, we ignore him. We spool ourselves tighter in the bedding and close our eyes to the dark.

Outside, women of the village cook fried eggs and Nescafe over a campfire. The scent of food wafts through our open windows and lures us out the door to a soggy breakfast in the Virungas Mountains of Eastern Congo.

His guns glinted bright steel in the light of the day, and he squinted up at the sun sitting high and proud in the sky. Hell of a time for a shootout. Mason flipped out the cylinders of both his six-shooters and counted the bullets in each—three in the left and four in the right. Lucky me. Seven’s always been my number.

Bullets cracked and thudded into the brittle wood of the tree he took cover behind. He scrunched down even further, trying to make himself a smaller target. The shooting stopped for a moment.

“COME ON OUT, YOU VARMIT!” he heard from across the grove.