monday's excerpt

her portrait

mostly naked but wistfully draped

is twice as alluring revealing only half the prize

thirstday's excerpt

ironic, this journey’s purpose: to escape people, to evade

yet in its sweetest chapters i stood surrounded,

captivated by characters beyond imagination

monday's excerpt

And Carter would read to Gertie that night, words penned by another. His own were too young, provided inadequate comfort. But pages from a book... they were sufficiently mesmerizing. And she rested.

And at a chapter’s end, he would look to see if she wished for more. And her eyes would be on his face. Not meeting his glance, not on the lips. But deeper, seeing through him, at the spirit level.

thirstday's excerpt

And they watched him through the trees as he rode, frames of man and horse flickering, face becoming mosaic pieces, less and less apparent until he was but a blur, then shadow, then memory.

monday's excerpt

Smoke poured from the shuttered windows like black water through shark gills, hinting at the hell within. The same from under the eaves, noxious steam about to blow the lid off a kettle.

thirstday's excerpt

Carter leaned in and whispered, “I really like your hat.”

“You’ve seen this one.”

He looked again. “I know. But… I really like it today.”

monday's excerpt

He waited for them on the little steps. It got so close to the top of the hour that the music started inside. Madge.

And then he saw them—the buggy and the black horse, the regal sisters. One at the reins and one at the Remington.

thirstday's excerpt

They had reached a point—the apex of a relationship—where trust required no spoken affirmation. Trust was simply worn and shared, a blanket. And words—no matter how discreetly woven—had no place in the tapestry.

monday's excerpt

Carter led Tara the rest of the way back, not so much to give the horse a break as to simply let her look upon him for a spell.

She followed with head hung low, wanting to be on the man’s level, and at intervals, Carter stopped and turned and just loved her. It was a slow day, made for giving, and it felt as lovely as the getting.

thirstday's excerpt

and when i bow down e’er so low
it will be before a God
who’s ne’r insisted
i do so

monday's excerpt

She’d arrived during the night, while he slept in his new residence just two streets inland. Somehow, she’d slipped into her berth—bow out, ready for a new sortie—without waking him.

And steam came from the pier, shots of it intermittently escaping through relief valves. Cranes pivoted on her deck, men and ropes straining to get her cargo down onto solid ground. Whistles signaled once when a crate landed, twice when the ropes were free. And horses nodded in anticipation, exhaling steam of their own, glad to be part of this action.

thirstday's excerpt

'Tis near the bottom of my inkwell.

But please know that—after my feather fades and scratches dreamy-silent curves—I shall document in daydreams the moment you sat so near, when this hand knew the chiseled structure of your face, when this heart knew fullness...

monday's excerpt

“Oh, and,” Claire slowly let on, “it appears we may soon have house guests.”

“Really!” Mrs. Klingbeil inquired.

Claire sipped her tea, and slowly—to build the suspense. Then she reached for the sugar bowl and pretended to be deeply interested in its contents.

“Oh, do tell!” added Mrs. Farnham, growing impatient.

“Well, we had a letter this week from a cousin in Tennessee.” She sipped again. “It appears that a couple of handy men—who aided them in building a sunroom addition—may be traveling north, through our fair city.”

“Good heavens! Are they kin?”

When Claire hesitated, the two women looked to sister Kathryn, who shrugged, palms up. “Well, they’re someone’s kin!”

thirstday's excerpt

Sarah Jane married—against her father’s wishes—when she was fifteen. He was afraid for her, afraid for himself. Childbirth had robbed Sarah Jane of her mother, him of his wife.

“But, Daddy, Shane loves me!”

“Listen, there’s time for that! You're too young to understand what it means to be a wife!”

She stormed out, not in anger but frustration. How can he be so blind? She’d had Shane since she was twelve.

monday's excerpt

show me

but don’t tell

your words are too intense

put it down on paper

that I may experience

your inside pictures

thirstday's excerpt

He leaned on the life rail and felt dew penetrate his shirt, letting the night touch him intimately. Clouds hinted that they would soon reveal tonight’s half moon, in good faith showing just a glimpse—wisps of hair, some cleavage.

He was patient. He took the bait, would wait. And when she finally stepped out front, she cared not that she had an audience of but one, for she held that one and held him good.

monday's excerpt

And they walked under the pergola, where Kathryn whirled ‘round one of the uprights a couple times. Then they headed out to the road. And there it was, this thing suspended in the heavens, almost perfectly halved by darkness, tugging at them once again, pulling even the song from the crickets.

thirstday's excerpt

She’d been Flo’s for eight years, came when she was just eight, never knew a washcloth or shoes until Flo saw to it. Never had a dry bed until Flo believed she could. Never knew why a woman’s body did what it did until Flo explained it.

And maybe I taught her too much. Too well. She took it with her—everything I showed her, she took with her.

And as her lids grew heavy, she pulled her arms in tighter against her, imagining a daughter from that belly, pretending she had the power to see to this, too.

monday's excerpt

The horses were wheeled, and so eager that Kathryn was pinned against her seat back. Tahira held the hand strap to keep from coming out of hers.

At the safest opportunity, Kathryn invited her to come sit with her so she didn’t have to ride backward.

“That would make me positively nauseous!”

thirstday's excerpt

And they would return to their room and unbutton their outfits and laugh about the width of a fellow diner or the waiter’s haircut. And, again, it felt glorious to be out in the world and allowed to be silly.

And they would play cards. And Kathryn would voice the need for a cigar, and would threaten to go looking for one, and Tahira would find her—in Kathryn’s own words—positively naughty. And in three weeks, not once did they finish a card game. A hand here, a hand there, but never to completion. Yet Kathryn had never laughed so hard, not at any of the county tournaments she had entered over the years.

monday's excerpt

Only night sighs remained—the cyclical surrender to sleep. Then the start of dreams, when the shape of all things changed.

Kathryn was running, chased. And she would call out, softly at first, ”No… don’t take him. Just... please! God, let him stay with me. I promise… I promise.”

Then the whispering, the frantic negotiation with her captors, her private villains. And she would play all parts—the merciful and pitiless—every role in her concentric monologue.

thirstday's excerpt

Everything she owned fit in that bag—the one the family lent her, the “overnighter.“ A spare top that Miss Kathryn handed down. Two pairs of summer things, two pairs of warm things. Five socks. Various coins in a snap purse. A brush for her hair and salt rag for her teeth.

She’d been standing there—bag in hand—for close to half an hour, but in her glory.

At the sound of horse hooves, Kathryn emerged from the Kinsman residence. Her feet hit the bottom step precisely as the horses came to a halt.

monday's excerpt

The responsibility of reading page two sickened him. Peeling down a corner of Dottie’s letter was like lifting a sheet at the morgue—silent, surreal. Yeah. That’s him. Even the handwriting was dead, now. Only echoes remained.

thirstday's excerpt

Baako put the stopper back in the canteen and licked his lips. Carter looked up from the map. “How much of that do we have left?”

Baako pulled the stopper back out and closed one eye. “It’s pert near full.”

Carter returned to the map, measuring a day’s travel with thumb and finger. “It’s got to last us another day. Maybe two.”

Baako weighed the options. “Okay. So, we drink three quarters of it today and the other three quarters tomorrow.”

monday's excerpt

Dusty confessed that he was nervous about getting the windows and the glass sized. But Carter said he would take charge of that. “I think we can score it with a chisel—scratch against a straight edge, and then snap it over a board.”

“Is that how they do it?”

“Yeah, I saw a man do it in Georgia once. He was making a window out of stained glass. He would score it with a little scratchin’ tool, and then tap the glass until it cracked. It was incredible because it would break exactly on the line.”

“Okay, then. You’ll be our glass man!”

thirstday's excerpt

She was beautiful, a Palomino—tan, blonde. Time had kissed her with a perfect dusting of grey at her eyes, forelock, fetlocks. And Carter contemplated what kind of magnificence it took for one to be down, down for good now, and yet to retain such grace.

monday's excerpt

the pen and the ink

can ne’er say enough

can ne’er properly trace the heart on parchment

but it’s in the layer beneath the ink—in the simple, childlike trying—that we reveal our truest, sweetest intent

thirstday's excerpt

sometimes, places

the magic ones

should remain unnamed

too the people

the beautiful spirits across our path

for neither the hum of the hillside

nor the curve of her face requires it

and neither risks being forgotten

monday's excerpt

sad, this Kentucky
 road
prints that in the dust remain but a day

wind and rain swearing, declaring that we were never here

thirstday's excerpt

Rosetta got in and sat at the boat’s stern. Carter pushed off from shore, then leapt into the bow, falling not-so-gracefully into the craft. She laughed. She laughed a lot. He stepped over the front seat and sat in the middle one, facing aft, facing Rosetta. Then he paddled.

It felt peculiar venturing forward in reverse, but he put his trust in her vision, content to be blind for a while.

monday's excerpt

the sun still makes me squint, react

but since you’ve sailed I can no longer feel it

on my cheek

thirstday's excerpt

Carter thought he caught a glimpse of a bird entering a birdhouse—one of the three that he built when the boys went off to war. He watched as he passed, but failed to detect movement. He craned his head as long as he could, then decided that he had seen but a shadow.

Hattie stood when she heard the hooves. Carter touched the brim of his hat, and she waved. One by one, the others stood to see the man returning on horseback, each waving.

And behind him, while his eyes were on the help, the house wren peeked from its new home—Tad’s house—then flew to catch another moth.

monday's excerpt

And she felt herself falling into that sweet, familiar unknown, where we close our eyes in order to be lost. And when he kissed her more deeply, she could taste the onion from this morning’s potatoes, and she loved it even more this time ‘round—the flavor and her newfound hunger.

thirstday's excerpt

only in the bricks and stones we lay

only in the paint, the shapes, and words

do we outlive our names

monday's excerpt

By suppertime, they had birthed the skeleton of a room, the bones and structure of a space. Dusty carved “1861” on a beam in a corner that only the most observant would find. And in carving, he became a ghost to future generations.

But someone from the waking world would lay their hand upon these beams, would trace the numbers, and—like joining ends of two morse cables—bridge the real and ethereal worlds.

An artist of the twenty-first century would defy all logic and purchase Home with Barn on 20 Acres—Seller Motivated sight unseen. On a whim, she would follow a calling and migrate a thousand miles to be there. Because.

thirstday's excerpt

Each morn after they broke camp, they ate an apple that Carter fetched from the food pack. And each morn, the apple would be progressively softer, having traveled across the state—aged, jostled, and bruised.

John bit. “Oh.” He showed the brown that his bite revealed.

Carter said nothing. He bit his own fruit, discovered the same, and went right on eating, smiling. He found it ironic that a slave balked at food that the master considered edible. But rather than feeling incredulous, he had fun with the situation.

“Sweet, huh? Yeah,” he said with a chuckle.

monday's excerpt

The two said good-night to their hosts and walked across the yard, the house light losing its grip, surrendering them to the dark.

In the barn, they spread their sleeping tarp and blankets, and sprawled out. Deep sighs, then silence sang in their ears. They felt their breaths returning home, owned again, warm in their chests.

It felt strange to have a ceiling—boards and beams and bales of straw above—and not a sea of stars.

It was damp tonight, and when they rolled over, lower backs and backsides paired up. By now, they thought nothing of proximity, the notion of men touching. Warmth was but an element of survival.

thirstday's excerpt

She would wonder where the hell he was. And she would pace, then stop and cross her arms. And the help would say “Excuse me, Ma’am,” and walk around her. And for his seven minutes of tranquility he would pay.

And when he arrived, sat, she would decide whether to command her eyes to bore through him or punish him with silence.

And he would chew very slowly, never faster than the tick of the mantle clock, as calm as its pendulum. And his eyes would go there to appreciate the perfection of the timepiece. And he would mix his peas with his mashed potatoes and smile, and they would become one.

monday's excerpt

Rosetta played.

She started on the lower, thicker strings, making the notes tip-toe—sneaky, light steps at a 1-2 count.

Carter immediately felt her aura, how the room became hers, resonated. He noticed her feet, her stance—like that of an archer. One foot on the target, the other angled for balance. He admired her strong foundation, but longed to know her higher levels, her femininity.

He met her sister's glance, and she closed her lips over her teeth—shy—yet her eyes were fearless and remained fixed on his.

thirstday's excerpt

Dad bartered his favorite horse for simple coffins. The woodworker was gracious—he helped Dad & Carter get the seven to the site, helped lower the souls, even stayed for the service. After, Tonga was tied to the man’s wagon and off they rode. Dad watched that stallion as long as he could, convinced that he was trying to look back over his shoulder, fighting the rope.

It took an hour to shovel, lay some stones, place the crosses.

When they got home, Dad sketched where the seven rested, printed their names and spoke each aloud. He dated the record and put it in the invoice drawer. Who is ever gonna see this? When he closed the thing it squeaked the length of the drawer, the bones of an old man, resisting closure. He leaned back, saw his steed still fighting that rope, and wept without making a sound.