Cowgirl

In Stetson and calico vest, spandex and Calvin jeans, she was the best at the bar. Does Gucci make range boots? Hers were snakeskin with heels like railroad spikes. The rest you could guess: eyes the blue of West Texas yonder, complexion like hot coffee with cream. All night I gave her slack but kept my dally-knot tight, hoping she’d like the stories I could tell—drunk Indian twins fighting with icepicks in Cheyenne, Carolina moonshine, deer breaking open watermelons out of crazy hunger. Regular as breath she’d say, “Damn!” or “Yes!” and stomp a heel through sawdust to the pine floor. I nearly had the rest of my life planned out, downing Coors and forking out for God-knows-whose, till a dude in a Brooks Brothers suit moved in, flashing a wad of Andrew Jacksons like cold cash grew on trees, and she said to me—she fairly spat it— “Get lost!” So I did, prostrate all night in a roadside hay field, watching the sky sleek as a coal-black stallion’s flank. Damn if every star wasn’t a spur burning its wheels into my foolish eyes.