She scrambled up the stairs without a backward glance, eager to stake out a seat by the window. Squeezing down the narrow aisle with her purse and several canvas bags sprouting from her arms like crows on a power pole, a pair of vacant seats in the middle of the car beckoned. She released her burden on the aisle seat, a hopeful foil to company, and slid quickly into the window seat. Her parents, standing side by side on the platform, not quite touching, her mother’s body tilting slightly toward her cane, looked already lonely and bewildered. Dropping the window, she stuck her head out.
“…boooord!” bellowed the conductor, a final warning an instant before the door slammed shut and a violent hiss announced brakes releasing. The train jolted to life. She waved and blew kisses out the window.
“Write as soon as you get there, Patricia!” Her father’s voice was barely audible over the clanking of metal.
“I will! I promise. Bye Mother, Bye Papa!” Her parents lip read and shrank as the horizon widened to embrace New York City’s skyline. When they were too small to discern, she settled into her seat and began to pick through her flock of parcels, arranging and rearranging them. Satisfied that she hadn’t forgotten anything she sat back and let her head rest on the seat back. A deep breath, her eyes closed briefly and a smile playing at the corners of her mouth— Free! I’m free at last!
The dizzying pace of preparations had been exhausting. Papa’s suggestion that she live on a ranch in Wyoming for the summer had so shocked her that she had reined in her excitement, afraid some last-minute detail or change of heart by her father or by her hosts would upend the yearned-for fantasy. She’d tossed and turned throughout the night, repacking every item in her mind and occasionally dashing out of bed to double check that she had, in fact, tucked some little necessity into her suitcase.
The train gathered speed, carooming through soot-blackened brick tenements and industrial buildings. Smoothing her skirt across her knees, she pulled a magazine from one of her tote bags. Beginning on page one, she read every headline and every article in The Western Horseman, hoping to imprint every detail of the exotic foreign country into her being. She stared at the western tack that looks so different from the flat saddle and elegant bridles she knew. She whispered the truncated grammar of the articles and letters to the editor, trying to hone a dialect that was to always hover slightly out of reach. She stalled over the advertisements, gathering in details about western fashion.
The farther from home the train took her, the more often her eyes glanced up to inspect the passing scenery. For a while the train kept company with a river. Between the Catskills and Albany, the countryside was wild and lonely; the mists of dusk rose to shroud savage vegetation, painting it with a dreamlike unreality. With a thumb holding her place in the magazine and the gathering darkness obscuring the view, she blinked her eyes at a Mohican chief with shaved head and topknot of hair and feathers, naked to his loins, and hands gripping a bow and arrow. Her heart jolted, then she grinned at the tricks a tired brain plays.
Her mind went still. Looking across the aisle to the windows on the other side, the sun was a sinking lava-hot glow on the razor black line between land and twilight sky. When she turned back to her own window just seconds later the train had entered the surreal blackness of a storm. Lightening fractured the sky. Mist solidified into sheets slapping silently against the windows. Darkness swallowed all shape and form outside the window. Patricia’s head relaxed back into the seat cushion, her eyelids drooped and she succumbed to intermittent dozing like the other tired and bored passengers in the car.
Keith said:
Linda, I am excited for her. Is this your mother? Keith
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rangewriter said:
Well, that’s not my mother’s name…;-)
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wheremyfeetare said:
Love this, Linda. So well written and leaving me wanting more, more, more! 🙂
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rangewriter said:
Ok. That’s good, thanks. I’m testing the waters a bit. It’s a project I’ve been working on for a very long time. Have rewritten the entire thing several times. I need to move forward and this feels like a baby step. Thanks for the encouragement.
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wheremyfeetare said:
Test away; I’ll look forward to reading more about Patricia’s adventure. 🙂
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catterel said:
Oh yes, definitely more needed! 😀
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rangewriter said:
Thanks! I need some prodding. Someone out there have a cattle prod? 😉
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Robert Brownbridge Writes Stories and Poetry said:
What do I think? …….. I’ll tell you that I like it a whole lot–and that I am delighted to see you finally again on your own large writer’s journey of telling us about that
significant someone else’s journey from the East to the unknown West. Like wheremyfeetare wrote, I wanna see more ….and more of this very big and important journey.
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rangewriter said:
Ah thanks Bob, one of my most intrepid supporters. We’ll see. How many times can I write this? How many ways can I write this? 😉
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auntyuta said:
Thanks, Linda, for this introduction. I feel it could be the beginning of a movie! I am curious to know whether you have already written a bit more. Anyhow, I hope we can soon read all about Patricia’s life. I guess it is the story of a woman who was born in the early 1920s? Very interesting! 🙂
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rangewriter said:
Thanks Auntyuta! She was born a bit earlier, actually. Late bloomer…or perpetual dreamer. . .:-) Glad you enjoyed.
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reneejohnsonwrites said:
Love it! Thanks for sharing this portion with us, and like the others articulated before me; more, more, more!!
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rangewriter said:
I’ll try Renee. But I lack the motivation that spurs you to such glorious heights. Thanks and feel free to level some hard critique anytime.
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Kathy Childers said:
What’s going to happen next? Is this a book you’re writing? If yes, I want to read it! Kathy
Sent from my iPhone
>
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rangewriter said:
You’re so kind, Kathy. Maybe I’ll get it finished before I croak. But I move at a glacial pace. I’ll probably tease everyone now and again as I try to work out some difficulties in voice and perspective.
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Larry Mickelson said:
Linda, I am totally captivated by your writing style. Please tell me there’s more for this story. It shouldn’t take you long to get me hooked so now I demand satisfaction. What happens next? What sort of wild adventure did you tease us with. I truly hope there’s an entire book connected to this – maybe about 300 pages or so. Larry
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rangewriter said:
Only a book that’s been started 3 or 4 times and completed once. Now it’s back to the drawing board. Starting over yet again. So it tis. Thanks for the encouragement.
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Larry Mickelson said:
I will critique it .Send it over. We need to get this out there.
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rangewriter said:
Thanks, Larry. I’ll take you up on that when I get this draft finished. I’ve only just begun. I do well at the small stuff. I’m lousy at the big picture. And there have been family issues that lurked, but I think I’m ready to face those head on. We’ll see. Thanks immensely.
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Glenda said:
I think I knew this woman! Great beginning, keep going, I’m eager to get to Wyoming!!
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rangewriter said:
;-). I’ll try, Glenda.
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highland hind said:
This is great. Those start/stop/falter/try again/stop for ages symptoms are so uncomfortably familiar. But please keep going. There’s a good story here and you have a readership!
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rangewriter said:
Bless you Highland. I’ll try. Now I’ve raised the flag, so I’m sure my readership will slap me about if a lapse for too long.
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Bryan Hemming said:
Great stuff, Linda! You reveal yet another of your talents.
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rangewriter said:
Thanks, Bryan. Coming from a master, those are encouraging words.
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Janes Heartsong said:
Your writing has captured my interest-keep it up.
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rangewriter said:
Thanks. I’ll try. (Photography is easier.) 😮
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Cris Ruckman said:
Wonderful stuff, Linda; but the split infinitive always jars me. Cris in MT
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rangewriter said:
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Cris! That’s just the type of feedback I want to hear!
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Lynz Real Cooking said:
I really liked this and the beginning got me hooked to reading!
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rangewriter said:
Oh dear. That means you expect more…
My assignment looms…
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