Hey, if you’re isolating like I am, get that trunk novel out and get to writing . . . and/or submitting the first chapter to the Flogometer to get free insights into how it’s working.
Submissions sought. Get fresh eyes on your opening page. Submission directions below.
The Flogometer challenge: can you craft a first page that compels me to turn to the next page? Caveat: Please keep in mind that this is entirely subjective.
Note: all the Flogometer posts are here.
What's a first page in publishingland? In a properly formatted novel manuscript (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type, etc.) there should be about 16 or 17 lines on the first page. Directions for submissions are below—they include a request to post the rest of the chapter, but that’s optional.
Before you rip into today’s submission, consider this checklist of first-page ingredients from my book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling.
Donald Maass,, literary agent and author of many books on writing, says, “Independent editor Ray Rhamey’s first-page checklist is an excellent yardstick for measuring what makes openings interesting.”
A First-page Checklist
- It begins to engage the reader with the character
- Something is wrong/goes wrong or challenges the character
- The character desires something.
- The character takes action. Can be internal or external action: thoughts, deeds, emotions. This does NOT include musing about whatever.
- There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
- It happens in the NOW of the story.
- Backstory? What backstory? We’re in the NOW of the story.
- Set-up? What set-up? We’re in the NOW of the story.
- The one thing it must do: raise a story question.
A reminder of what you’re after here. This blog is about crafting compelling openings. Not interesting, compelling. Why does it have to meet that hurdle? First, if your work is going to an agent, you’re competing with hundreds of submissions. You have to cut through that clutter and competition with powerful storytelling and strong writing. If it’s a reader browsing in a bookstore or online, the same goes—there are scores of published books competing with yours. Yeah, you need compelling.
Edward sends the first chapter from The Patch of Totality. The rest of the narrative is after the break.
Davey heard it first. Whatever “it” was. A snapped twig? A boot kicking over a stone? The declarative click of a gun’s hammer? Whatever it was, Davey came awake with a snap, jerking upright in his bedding, his duster sliding onto his lap.
I was a few feet to his left and opened my eyes to see him sitting upright, his mouth open, emitting a harsh whisper, “What’s that?”
There was no time to reply.
A light flashed among the trees to our right. I heard a terrific bang. Davey’s head jerked. I felt a spray of warm stickiness strike my face. Davey fell toward me. He hit the ground shoulder first, then his head smacked the hard earth of our campsite. He didn’t move.
Time seemed to stop while I stared at Davey lying on the ground. It had not. Flashes of light came from the trees, the noise grew louder, and the nervous whine of bullets cut through the night air. Brian, my younger brother, was on the other side of our almost burned down fire. I yelled, “Brian! Stay down!”
I rolled to the left, away from Davey, to the deadfall on the other side of our camp. Along the way, my arm hooked the Winchester I had left propped against a fallen tree branch. I hugged it to my chest as a drowning man might hug a piece of driftwood and rolled under the trunk of a fallen pine tree.
Nothing like a rip-snortin’ action scene to kick off a story. The scene is set in a not-obvious way; with twigs and boots and stones, we get that it’s outdoors. Otherwise, the action is clear and moves right along. I might make small editorial suggestions, but from a story point of view, this works. Your thoughts?
Ray
Submitting to the Flogometer:
Email the following in an attachment (.doc, .docx, or .rtf preferred, no PDFs):
- your title
- your complete 1st chapter or prologue plus 1st chapter
- Please include in your email permission to post it on FtQ. Note: I’m adding a copyright notice for the writer at the end of the post. I’ll use just the first name unless I’m told I can use the full name.
- Also, please tell me if it’s okay to post the rest of the chapter so people can turn the page.
- And, optionally, include your permission to use it as an example in a book on writing craft if that's okay.
- If you’re in a hurry, I’ve done “private floggings,” $50 for a first chapter.
- If you rewrite while you wait for your turn, it’s okay with me to update the submission.
Were I you, I'd examine my first page in the light of the first-page checklist before submitting to the Flogometer.
Flogging the Quill © 2019 Ray Rhamey, excerpt © 2020 by Edward.
My books. You can read sample chapters and learn more about the books here.
Writing Craft Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling
Mystery (coming of age) The Summer Boy
Science Fiction Gundown Free ebooks.
Continued:
Coming up on the other side of the pine, I felt safe for a moment, the tree trunk between me and whoever was shooting at us. I wasn’t safe, of course, and neither was Brian lying flat on the ground between me and our hidden assailants. I scrambled to my knees and laid the rifle across the top of the dead tree. My heart was pounding. A tremor ran down the length of my frame. When that silent spasm passed through me I fired back into the trees on the opposite side of our camp.
I yelled to my brother, “Get behind a tree. Now!”
Brian got up on his hands and knees, kicking the fire as he did so, and then ran in a crouch to a thick pine off to my left. He had his rifle and I could have kissed him for thinking to take it along on his scramble to cover. Down a slight hill and deeper in the woods, I heard our horses making a fuss about the unexpected din.
Then Brian started firing at the muzzle flashes. I started up again too. Slower though; I was about to run out of bullets. Clouds of gray smoke hung in the still night air, and lit from behind by our attackers’ muzzle flashes, it looked as if a tiny thunderstorm had formed but feet above our campsite.
Brian fired twice more. A yelp echoed in the trees. A branch snapped, and someone yelled in dreadful pain. Brian and I both fired again. I jumped up and ran to his tree.
“Sweet Jesus, what’s happened?” Brian asked.
“We’re ambushed,” I said.
The cool mountain air made me struggle for a steady, even breath. I pulled my brother away from his protective tree and we backed deeper into the woods. We ducked behind a length of deadfall and Brian asked, “What about Davey? We left him….”
“He’s dead.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, damn it. I’m wearing his blood and brains.” I slapped at the sticky stuff on my face.
“What are we gonna do?” Brian strangled his rifle with both white-knuckled hands and looked around the darkness of the now silent woods.
“I think we hit one of them. At least the shooting has stopped. For now.”
“How many you think there are?” Brian asked.
“Two. Many three. Any more, they likely would have just rushed in on us.”
“Are they Indians?”
“No. We’d be dead in our beds.” I searched the pockets of my vest and found two more bullets. The rest of our guns and cartridges, including Davey’s, had been left behind.
“So now what? What’a we do?” Brian asked.
It was a good question. We were both bootless and probably outgunned. Everything we owned was back in the campsite. Our horses were behind us. Could we get to them and ride bareback through the night? But to where? And how far could we get in the dark?
I looked around at the quiet black woods, sniffed the drifting cordite and said, “We could move down and behind the horses. Sit it out. Wait for dawn. We don’t know who’s back there and they don’t know where we are. So, let’s move now and hope they don’t come looking for us.”
I pulled Brian up and together we padded in a clumsy bootless fashion down a slight grade to our four horses. One of them, Blue most likely—he was always a nervous creature around guns—snorted and shuffled about. Brian calmed him down and then the two of us settled down near a large rock, back to back, and waited for the creeping light of day.
It was my longest night. Fear kept me awake with the jangled, sweaty nervousness of someone with a fever. I could feel the same restlessness from my silent brother as he shifted on our rocky perch and exhaled whispered bursts of air. I thought of Davey, lying dead up there in the woods. Perhaps his killers were standing over his body, picking through our gear and wondering where we might be. So we waited. For them or the sudden appearance of a dozen lawmen or at least the dawn.
Nighttime in the Colorado foothills can be a noisy place what with the wind coming down off the Rockies, owls hunting and hooting, rodents shuffling here and there, and the occasional confident padding about of a bear or a cougar. We heard all of that nocturnal commotion. But slowly, the intimidating dark yielded to the reassuring light of a spring dawn. A bobcat stepped into the morning’s gray light, showed its teeth and faded back into the concealing trees. Squirrels moved about in the treetops. A pine cone dropped onto the needle-covered ground.
Brian stirred and said, “We should get to the horses. We could ride outta here.”
I stood up, stretched my hunched shoulders, and looked about the trees. “No. They might have heard the horses and decided to wait for us to try for them. I think we should swing around back to the camp. We need bullets and the rest of the guns. If they’re still there.”
“Davey….”
“He’s not going anywhere.” It was a heartless thing to say about him. But then I made it worse. “If we get a chance to get out of here, we may have to leave him.”
Brian stared off toward the horses and said, “Okay.”
I tapped him on the shoulder and signaled him to follow me. We crept back, slipping among the dark trees, straddling the deadfall, avoiding loose rocks. It was like playing at soldiers again, but for the fact one of us was dead and the guns pointed our way were real. After a few minutes, we came up on the camp behind Davey’s body and my bedding. We crouched down and scanned the woods, listening for unnatural sounds. It was quiet. We stepped over to Davey. Brian glanced at him and gagged. I didn’t need another look at him.
“Later, Brian. Load your rifle and get your boots.” I pushed him in the direction of his gear. The fire had burned to fine ash.
Trying to ignore the body at my feet, I yanked open a saddlebag looking for a box of cartridges. I threw on my coat, stuffed the box in my coat pocket, forced my messy stocking feet into my boots, and scooped up my pistol belt. A quick glance at the trees. Nothing. I ran over to Brian, who was pushing cartridges into the gate of his rifle. His hands shook, and he dropped several shiny brass rounds.
“Where’s your Scofield?” I asked.
Still loading and glancing at the woods, he said, “Saddlebags. I hate this.”
I grabbed his saddlebags and kneeled down beside him to load my rifle. In a minute, we were rearmed and ready to fight. But we seemed to be alone.
“Now what?” Brian asked. He looked scared.
I wondered if I looked scared too. I was, in fact. But whatever my face was showing, I felt alert and ready to act. We had our boots on. We had loaded guns. The morning light was filtering down through the pines. We weren’t two boys lost in the dark woods anymore.
“They may be gone.” Glancing around the camp, I said, “Stay here. I’ll go over to where they were shooting from.” I stood up, rifle at the ready, and tip-toed toward last night’s gun flashes. In a low voice I said, “Brian, don’t shoot me in the back.” He seemed more skittish than me, so I thought it was a good idea to remind him.
Stepping between the trees, I came upon a wide spread of spent .44 Winchester shells. Farther back, I found a smaller pile of .44 Henry brass. So, perhaps three shooters; two with Winchesters, one with a Henry rifle? I’m no tracker, but deeper in that side of those gloomy woods I found a clear line of drag marks. One of them hit and dragged back to his horse? That seemed to be the case. I found where they’d tied their horses. Fresh manure spotted the ground and a barn-sized outcrop of lichen-covered rock appeared to have a smear of blood across its face.
I hurried back to my brother, calling out his name so he wouldn’t shoot me as I emerged from the shadowy trees.
“They’re gone.” I sat down on his saddle.
“You sure?” Still clutching his rifle, he glanced over at Davey.
“Yeah. Listen. We should saddle the horses, bring them up here and then take care of Davey. We can’t stay here. We need the sheriff…and the undertaker.”
If we pushed hard, we might make it back to Pueblo by nightfall. I wasn’t eager to spend another night out of doors. And we’d have Davey’s body for another night. Overnight with the dead held no appeal so I grabbed my saddle and blanket, and Brian and I walked down to the horses. We saddled our own horses and then led all of them back up to the campsite. I got Davey’s saddle and a set of panniers and then got the last two horses ready for the day’s ride. We’d been using a fourth horse as a spare ride and pack mule, but she didn’t like the random switching of riders, saddles and panniers.
We packed up our camp and got the horses ready to move. Then we stood over Davey dreading the next task and wondering how best to do it.
Brian looked pale. He turned away and said, “His head’s all wrecked. How we gonna move him?”
Davey—we’d known him since the neighborhood primary school back in Chicago—was getting stiff. There is, I think, a kind of primal reluctance most people have when it comes to handling the dead. I felt that reluctance now. Davey’s face was drained of its usual vibrant color. The left side of his head was black and blue and gaping wide from a bullet’s violent exit. I wanted to throw up, but then I’d had no food since last night. All I’d do is choke up a dribble of acid and bile. I moved away and opened one of Davey’s saddlebags and pulled out a clean shirt. Gently, I wrapped the shirt around his head and tied it in place with the sleeves. Now he appeared like a masked robber or a creature of Dr. Frankenstein awaiting reanimation and unwrapping by his creator. I would leave any future unwrapping for the undertaker.
“Empty his pockets,” said Brian. “His parents will want his watch and other effects.”
I stood up. Davey lay between us. “The undertaker can do it. Or the sheriff.”
“No, Nolan. I plan to take him back home. To Chicago.” Brian looked down at Davey and sniffled.
I was about to say…well, I don’t know what I was about to say. Brian beat me to it.
“This is ended. I’ve had enough. The cattle drive. The winter in Denver scrounging around. Now this. This isn’t some storybook adventure anymore. There’s no adventure. There’s just being dead in the cold hills. I’m going home, Nol. It’s over.”
I stared at Davey again and nodded. “Let’s get him ready. We can talk later.”
Brian lifted Davey’s bootless feet. I lifted him from under his arms, the back of his head resting against my chest. We struggled with his weight, half-dragging him to his horse, and then stood there staring at the height of the saddle. Davey was as tall as me, but somewhat more solid. He’d been tough to wrestle down as a kid.
“Let go of his feet,” I told Brian. “Grab an arm and we’ll lift him up.”
Brian eased his feet and then took hold of his left arm with me on Davey’s right arm. “We’ll push him up over the top of his saddle.” I got my arm under Davey’s cold, wet thigh and heaved him upward. The horse shied away, and we had to charge the animal with Davey clutched between us like a grotesque battering ram.
“Lift,” I yelled to Brian, and we draped him across the saddle in one clumsy push. Davey’s horse looked like he might bolt.
“He’s gonna slide off,” said Brian as he took hold of the horse’s bridle and looked away. “God, he’s dead.”
Brian dropped the bridle and brushed his hands along his pants as if he could wipe away death with a few frantic slaps on his corduroys.
I looked at our friend draped across the saddle like a shot antelope. That’s pretty much what he was—a carcass that needed tying down and hauling back to town. Brian got some rope from one of the panniers and we bound him hand to foot under his horse. I looped a length of rope around his waist and then around the horn of his saddle. Brian draped a blanket over him, and we tucked and tied it in place too. The result was our dead friend wrapped and tied to his horse like an unwieldy bit of baggage. That done, we burdened the fourth horse with the panniers and camp equipment.
We picked our way down out of the hills and woods. Brian led the packhorse, and I led the animal carrying Davey’s body. It was slow going. We switch-backed our way off the foothills and led the horses across half a dozen cold, fast-moving streams. We stopped here and there to look around for imagined pursuers. I carried my Winchester across the front of my saddle. But the land was empty and quiet, and we saw no one until we reached the road. A Pueblo stagecoach hurried by, heading south to Colorado City. The drivers did not see us in among the trees.
On the main road again, we headed north as fast as two riders could manage four unhappy horses. I dreaded another night out of doors as much as I dreaded the telegrams we would have to send home to Chicago. The familiarity of the Pueblo road and the full light of day must have encouraged Brian to start talking again. And he did; blaming me for Davey's death and for putting the three of us in Colorado in the first place. He could blame me for the latter, but not for former. Still, I let him vent his steam until he became repetitive.
I whirled my horse around at him. “Shut up. We’ve problems enough right now. You can bitch and whine all you want when we get to town.”
And like any younger brother, he said, “Yeah. I will.” He kicked his horse and galloped away with the supply horse in tow.
#
Pueblo was long past dark when we rode in. A few late-night residents paused at the sight of us riding up the street. A body laid across a horse was a common enough exhibit, but it still drew a curious glance or two. The sounds of a Mexican guitarrón spilled out of a bustling cantina as we rounded the corner and trotted up the lane to the sheriff’s office. Pale yellow light outlined a large front window. A deputy or two might be awake.
We stopped in front of the office. Brian leaned forward on his horse’s neck and arched his back. Otherwise, he said nothing. I was grateful for his silence. I climbed down off my mount, started to fall over, and then staggered about trying to get my legs working. Not bothering to tie the horses, I hobbled up the step, checked that my Colt was covered by my jacket, and knocked on the office door. I waited a second or two, then turned the worn brass knob and pushed the door open. The law doesn’t like people rushing in unannounced, so I took my time walking through the doorway, my hands visible.
The sheriff was in, seated at a battered partner's desk, and eating a late-night dinner of chicken and beer. Two wooden armchairs were angled in front of the desk. Between them was a patch of floorboard that must have been scarred by a steady supply of spur rowels. The sheriff looked up as I came through the doorway.
“I need to report a murder,” I said.
The sheriff laid down the two-tine fork he was holding, wiped his mouth, and sat back in his chair. “Well now, I’m guessing you’re not the victim or the murderer.” He glanced at the armchair beside the desk and I sat down.
“It’s our friend, David J. Tyler, from Chicago.” I pointed to the door. “He’s out front across a horse.”
“Our friend?” the sheriff asked. “You and this Tyler weren’t alone?”
Brian walked in at that moment. He nodded to the sheriff, and then propped himself against the far wall.
“My brother.”
“Okay.”
I told the sheriff what happened in the foothills. How we had been fired on in the dead of night, scrambled for cover, fired back, then rode out of the woods in the early dawn with Davey in tow.
“Just started shooting at you, huh?” asked the sheriff. “Seems odd to start blasting away like that.”
I said, “They might have been trying to sneak into the camp, but Davey—David Tyler—heard something and sat up to look around. That’s when he got shot and all hell broke loose around us.”
The sheriff nodded as he opened a drawer and extracted a piece of yellow-tinted paper. He picked up the pen on his desktop and started writing. He looked up at Brian and me to ask about a particular detail or name spelling. The sound of the pen’s tip scratching across the rough paper almost lulled me to sleep. Finally, the sheriff stood up and opined we had had ourselves quite an exploit in the wilds of the Colorado hills.
The sheriff displayed a squirrelly gray mustache, a dignified paunch, and legs that had been re-shaped by years on a horse. He disappeared through a side door. Voices echoed, and then he and a sleepy deputy came back to the front office.
“That’s a fine detail, fellows. One of them gettin’ hit an’ all. We can telegraph about the counties asking the local docs if they’d occasion to patch up a rifle wound amongst two or three fellas,” said the sheriff. “Might get lucky trackin’ these sneakin’ cutthroats. Might have been Mexicans. Or miners lookin’ for gold in someone’s pockets instead of a mountain stream.”
He sat down at his desk again. The sheriff eyed the remains of his dinner and then said, “Deputy Franks, here, he’ll take you over to the Cranston Undertakers office. Mr. Cranston’ll take care of your friend.”
The sheriff picked up the sheet of paper on which he had been jotting notes from my recital of last night’s events.
I asked him if he wanted to see Davey.
“No. Seen enough gun-busted heads in my days. Undertaker can do the rest. You fellas need to sign your names to my notes here. I’ll date it and sign it for the record.” He looked up at me. “Any details need to change…well then, we’ll have us another talk and maybe sign another piece of paper.”
I stepped up to his desk, picked up his proffered pen, and said, “The details might get more specific if you find the guys who killed our friend.” I signed my name and Brian came off the back wall to sign too.
The sheriff scratched at his mustache like there might be something hiding in it, and said, “Nolan and Brian Carter. Carter? You fellas at the Front Range Freight company over to the railroad station?”
Brian said, “We’ve been working there for a while now.”
“Thought I’d caught the name around town. Well, Joshua here’ll take you over to the undertaker. I expect I’ll see you boys about before this matter is set to.”
“Thanks. That sounds promising: telegraph around the area about a wounded man. I hope it helps,” I said. I imagined two or three tough-looking riders hiding out in the hills, one of them bleeding to death in fear and pain.
The deputy opened the door to signal the end of the interview. Brian and I followed him outside to our horses and Davey’s body, which now was but a dark bundle on a dark street. We followed the deputy, pulling the four horses behind us. Two streets over from the sheriff’s office we found a sidewalk establishment with doublewide doors and prominent overhead signs advertising “Attractive Caskets” and “Scientific Embalming.” The building was dark.
Deputy Franks stepped back into the street, searched around for some pebbles, and tossed them one at a time at the upstairs windows. That had no effect so, he dug a large rock out of the hard-packed street and heaved it at one of the upstairs window shutters. The impact shook the front of the building. No one ever seemed to knock in Pueblo.
The rock was effective. A window opened and a heavy-set man in a nightshirt stuck his head out and yelled at the deputy.
Deputy Franks let him yell for a while and then identified himself and the nature of his late-night errand.
The man—presumably Mr. Cranston—turned away from the window, and a minute later a wavering light appeared at the front doors. He opened the doors and stepped onto the walkway, holding a tin lamp high enough to see about.
Deputy Franks said, “Got a body for you, Cranston.”
“It won’t wait ‘til morning?” the man asked. “Dead, ain’t he?”
“No. We can’t wait,” shouted Brian.
The undertaker stepped into the street wearing his nightshirt, loosely buttoned pants and worn carpet slippers. He reeked of cheap tobacco and sulfur matches. Easing around the horse carrying Davey, the undertaker pulled the blanket up from around Davey’s head and saw the stained shirt wrapped around his head.
The undertaker looked to me and asked, “Head-shot, is he? Well, bring him in. I’ll clean him up and box him up in the morning. Too late and too dark to do much now.”
His duties apparently limited to throwing rocks at windows, Deputy Franks now disappeared down the street. Brian and I were left to untie Davey’s body while Cranston held his lamp aloft and offered various opinions on the best way to remove a corpse from a tired horse. His knowledge of this task seemed to be theoretical as he offered no actual assistance in retrieving Davey in a gentle, dignified fashion.
We slid him off the saddle. I caught him under the arms and Brian took up his feet again. Cranston led the way to the front of the building, and I was thankful there were no steps to negotiate. We passed through a front room that smelled of wax and sawdust and varnish, and into a back room, which stank of a tangy ripeness and a harsh chemical. Brian and I wrestled Davey—one last time—onto a wooden table in the middle of the back room. Mr. Cranston drew a canvas tarp over his body and said, “He’ll keep to the morning, fellas.”
We followed him back through the front room, and I glimpsed the shadowy shapes of coffins set against the right wall and a small desk off to the left. Cranston saw us to the street and then closed his flimsy front doors. I watched the lamp light fade from view as the undertaker returned to his second-story lair.
Brian looked up at the night sky. He stared for so long I thought he might be looking for something specific, but all he said after his silent survey of the stars was, “The boardinghouse will be shut tight at this hour; best not wake Mrs. Sullivan. And the freight office too.”
“The rail station is open. We’ll sleep there. We’ll let the horses in the livery. Leave the saddles and such on the corral posts. They’ll be all right.”
So, we headed up the empty street, to the corral and then to makeshift beds under cover of the station platform canopy. We were both too tired now, and still too shocked by the ambush, to argue or speculate about the what and why of the day’s events. So, the well-schooled, well-bred sons of Jonathan and Mary Louise Carter settled down on the station platform like two penniless drifters to spend a fitful night on the edge of town.
#
Two days later, Brian and I watched the rail porters slide Davey’s rough-cut coffin into a baggage car for the trip back to Chicago. Most of the passengers’ valises and travel trunks were of a fancier make than Cranston’s oblong box—as if shirts and socks and knickknacks were more precious than what lay in that crude container. The shoddy casket would outrage his parents. Yesterday’s telegram telling them their son was dead by an unknown hand must have devastated them. Now they would have grief and outrage, and no good way to vent either pain.
Brian had most of Davey’s possessions buckled up in his saddlebags along with his own clothes and gear. In his pockets he carried Davey’s watch and money and the photograph of his family. He also had a bill from the undertaker. But for the coffin, he was traveling light. I looked at his tired face and wondered again if I might find the courage to go with him, to face Davey’s distraught family and their grief, and the not so thinly disguised accusations of our own parents.
I did not.
The steam whistle blew once. People milling about now began last minute goodbyes and determined marches to the passenger cars or back into town.
Brian looked over and said, “Last chance.”
“Any idea what you’re going to do when you get back?”
“Mr. Price said there’d be a place for me at Ward’s. They always need illustrators.”
“Drawing top hats and ladies’ shoes?”
Brian came alive again. “Well, at least no one will be shooting at me. It’s a respectable job and good pay. You, you can keep the cold, the rain, the dust, the cows, the lousy food. Keep the whole damn West. Maybe you’ll get lucky and get scalped. Write home about that.”
He picked up his bags and hurried to the steps of the nearest first-class railcar.
I was right behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. He turned around, and I hugged him. I stepped back and said, “I’ll write.”
Brian nodded, almost to himself, moved away, and climbed the steps. As he stepped into the car, he said, “Don’t get scalped, Nol.”
The steam whistle blew again. Brian appeared in an open window halfway up the car. He leaned out and shouted, “You know what you’re doing out here?”
“Looking for something,” I shouted back.
Brian slumped back in his seat and gave me a look of exasperation he must have learned from our father. Before I could throw back some clever quip, the engine engaged, and the train pulled away.
I stood against the porch post and watched the train shrink into the distance. Long after the last traces of its coal smoke dissipated in the warm morning air, I was still leaning on the post and staring off into the vastness of the Colorado prairie.