by
Bobby Derie
In west Texas, ride on into the sunset. Off of the roads, towards the distant mountains. Through the broken fence and out onto the range, where rattlers sleep and do not break the silence. Out into the Starland.
Overhead, the heavens stand in dark blue-black, and the moon hides her face, but the stars look down and burn so bright that you can pick up the trail. So long as you hold your breath you can see the shadows move between the scrub oak, strange shapes half-familiar in the eternal night.
The air grows cool and still about you, as the air in your lungs burns for release. There are names for the shadows - Apache and Tonkawa, Kiowa and Caddo - and stranger folk, with their clubs and spears bladed with glass, looking south.
Their eyes are not for you, riding by. Though you brush against their buckskins and buffalo-hides, feel the feathers scrape against your arms. Always they look back, from whence they came, and where they go again.
The eyes grow dim, darkness creeping around the edges, but the horse knows the way. On through the Starland to yesterday.
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