Red Sunset
By diedre
Red Sunset
On any given evening they’d bid each other good-night soon after sundown and retire to their beds; his on the veranda from early spring till fall, hers in the master bedroom. They’d enjoyed yet another in decades of endless good days when chores were done, dogs and livestock tended and dishes from a companionable supper were washed and put away before time to bed down at Needmore Ranch. Their mornings began each day before sunrise.
But they’d had a visitor on this particular evening, the very same neighbor who’d not been invited over for years. The Cowboy’s amazement grew when he learned that the Redhead had not only permitted, but had in fact invited the visitor! She then proceeded to present her guest with precious pieces of her Silver and Turquoise jewelry. When the woman gasped in disbelief, the Redhead explained with an old familiar spunk the Cowboy hadn’t seen in far too long.
“So you don’t have to steal it when I’m dead, honey.”
“Why, that’s not. You shouldn’t…” The stunned woman stammered as she hastily stuffed the jewelry in her bag.
The sun had just begun to drop behind the rugged mountain peaks as the neighbor hurried home, but instead of struggling to stand on painfully swollen ankles, the Redhead settled into the cushioned patio chair with a soft sigh.
“Let’s have another, Papa.” She smiled at her Cowboy as he obligingly took two beers from a nearby cooler.
“Boat’s loaded.” The Cowboy leaned back in his chair and took a swig.
The Redhead nodded. “Saw that. There’s hardboiled eggs in the icebox. Is Duke going with you?”
The Cowboy nodded in the rose-tinged light of evening. Shadows appeared as ink spots that swiftly spread across the vibrant rolling hills as the fireball completed its western descent. Coyotes howled in the distance as she laid her head back and smiled with contentment.
When the last of magnificent crimson had faded to twilight gray, the Cowboy carried his Redhead to her bed. And as he side-stepped down the narrow hall with the seemingly weightless body of his wife of sixty years, she asked her Cowboy for a favor.
“Yes?”
“Lay with me tonight?”
“Yes.”
Soon after the elderly couple drifted off into the peaceful, deep slumber of hard-working people, the Redhead passed away.
During the fleeting transition between night and day before Coyotes repose or Roosters crow, a heralding blanket of warmth embraced the lingering chill and beads of perspiration appeared on his forehead and vanished in the flick of a lizard’s tongue as the Cowboy dreamed of angel kisses.
He knew by the sweet, yet utter stillness of her face that the fire in her startling blue eyes had forever gone out. Stepping into his boots he cast one last glance at his Redhead in the pre-dawn dim and went out to make coffee on the patio.
At daybreak he dutifully dialed a number the Redhead had told him to call and by the time Duke’s old ford rattled up the dusty road, they had taken her body away in a jet black hearse with gleaming silver trim. The Cowboy went about loading up Duke’s fishing gear, having sent Duke in to get the hardboiled eggs from the kitchen. Her kitchen. A place the Cowboy might just as well avoid for a while.
Duke squeezed his large frame into the passenger seat and popped a top. With a gap-toothed grin he offered one to the Cowboy
“Man that was some red sunset last night, wasn’t it?”
The Cowboy let out the clutch and the old pick-up began to roll before he answered.
“Yes.”