Before The Divide

by Mike Asmus

They drove the light clean out of the day.

Just as they had to Crowheart yesterday.

And to Washakie the day before.

At a good gallop once the sun touched a match to the eastern horizon.

A blink of a stop along a creek, a river, a stream at the sun s zeniths.

At a trot long after the sun slipped off the western edge of the world.

At twilight tonight, Tibo, where trail signs showed the gap between seekers and sought had narrowed to seven miles.

Maybe even less than seven.

Certainly no more.

At this pounding pace, the locus of engagement between trackers and tracked would be ahead of where the waters of the Rockies seek the Pacific over the Atlantic.

Those back east would be pleased.

Those out west would not.

A third rough camp made under the light of the moon.

Air tonight cooler, thinner, than last.

Riders stretched out by fire in final flame.

Heads leaned against saddles, eyes on stars.

Ridden hitched to fragments of a fallen fir.

Heads hung on swivels, eyes on men.

Urgency universally understood by stirred steeds and riled riders.

All sensed hints of the pursued carried by the night wind.

Cool crisp air flowing over & around & through them.

Breaths drawn deep and exhaled in vaporous clouds.

Sleep would visit some in fits and starts ~ some would not be visited at all.

No matter ~ all men & all horses again fast on the rising trail at the first whisper of dawn.

Men certain the gap would vanish by noon.

Horses uncertain of men.

Of what would remain come dusk, neither creature could be certain

━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
Mike Asmus rode a horse as a would-be cowpoke in summer camp. Within ten minutes of clip-clopping along, he was ablaze with allergy and at the end of the trail. Mike was not a rider in this story though he dreams he was. More stories & such HERE.