Page 13 of Dusty Spur Ranch Cowboys

By the time the sun starts dropping behind the mountains, I’m tired enough that I should be thinking about nothing except food and sleep.

Instead, I find myself sitting on the porch with a plate balanced on one knee, wondering what Arizona McCay is doing.

The realization irritates me.

I don’t know why I’m surprised. The woman has spent most of the day barging into my thoughts whether I invited her there or not.

Maybe she’s singing at The Silver Bit tonight. Or she’s planning her next stop. She’s probably forgotten I exist.

I stab a fork into my steak and stare out across the ranch.

The horses are settling in for the evening. A couple of ranch hands are finishing chores near the barn.

The place looks exactly the way it always does.

My brain, unfortunately, refuses to follow suit.

Before I realize what I’m doing, my hand slips into my pocket and comes back out with Granddad’s old Morgan dollar.

The edges have been worn smooth by decades of use. First his fingers. Then mine.

I roll it across my knuckles while I eat.

My sister used to laugh every time she caught me doing it. According to Laura, there were only two reasons the coin came out. Either I was worried about a problem, or I was pretending I wasn’t worried about a problem.

She claimed there wasn’t much difference.

At the time, I told her she was full of shit. Looking back, she may have had a point.

The coin flips once before I catch it and turn it over in my palm.

Arizona’s face appears in my head again. The way she looked at me across the bar like I wasn’t old enough to be making bad decisions.

I let out a long breath and shake my head. “You’re a damn fool, Bronson.”

The mountains offer no opinion on the matter. Probably because they already know I’m right.

I slip the coin back into my pocket and finish eating, determined to spend the rest of the evening thinking about literally anything else.

The problem is that every road my thoughts take somehow circles right back to her.

Sleep and I haven’t gotten along in a long time.

It didn’t matter much when I was younger. Back then, if I couldn’t sleep, I’d find another bar, another rodeo, another bad idea.

These days, my options are a little more limited, though according to Willy that’s mostly because the human body eventually files a formal complaint.

So around midnight, after spending an hour staring at my bedroom ceiling and accomplishing absolutely nothing, I give up and pull on my boots.

The town knows this routine almost as well as I do.

Most nights I end up walking through Colter Creek while everybody else is asleep. Maybe it’s habit. Maybe it’s stubbornness. Maybe I just hate feeling trapped inside four walls when my brain decides it’s done cooperating.

Whatever the reason, it works well enough.

The streets are mostly empty when I head down Main Street. Storefront windows reflect the streetlamps.

The bakery is dark until morning. The diner closed hours ago. Somewhere off in the distance a dog starts barking at absolutely nothing, which feels relatable.