Herschel Cozine

A blazing midday sun, its tentacles of fire reaching down to sear the scorching earth, raged in the cloudless sky. There was no breeze, and the wilted mesquite stood motionless along the desert trail. A cloak of silence was thrown over the terrain, eerie, surreal. Heat waves gave a life to the rocks and cactus; a slow steady shimmering like that of a ghost.

William S. Hubbartt

Donald Donovan woke with a start, with a vivid memory of the painful screams of his wife, Kathleen. He looked around, in a grey fog, again hearing high pitched screams. Up the hill he saw a ringtail, half out of its hole, squealing noisily. To his left, down the hill, he heard a rustling sound, a momentary flash of movement, showing reddish brown fur, which he recognized as a fox chasing another ringtail into the safety of its hole in the ground. That one got away, but the fox would find another.

J.J. Daniels

Rumors had circled for weeks predicting his arrival. Circled like buzzards gliding in a dead noon sky. They grew in number and ferocity as he drew near, sensational stories of cruelty and wonder that would soon be shaped into legend as time caressed them with sand and tongue. Door locks were reinforced, valuables stashed in dark places, and a watchful eye set on the horizon for the coming of Carter Gray.

Johnny Gunn

Few noticed when the tall, lanky man rode into town, after all, trail weary men find their way to Four Corners often, what with trails leading off to all the cardinal points, taking people, bringing people, giving the town its purpose in being.

William S. Hubbartt

“This is a hold-up! Everybody against the wall…over there…Now!” yelled Tawny.

Three customers at the teller windows turned quickly, backing away from the gruff looking dusty brute waving a colt. Gasps were heard, and one woman holding a parasol that matched her floor length royal blue taffeta dress let out a fearful shriek.

Kristen Lynch

It was the unexpected sight of that dead coyote that caused a great amount of shock, even to us, who lived out here in Wyoming and could proudly profess a rather impervious armor acquired by a lifetime of sandstorms, bitter snowdrifts and the constant threat of piercing arrowheads. But, for us to come across something so offensively dead or in this case, intentionally killed, produced a profound quandary among the eighteen of us students (make that seventeen, for we were short one student that day).

Dorman Nelson
  
The birds, overhead, were making no progress against the wind. It had been blowing cold, then colder all morning and now with the sun slanting down in the west through the trees the shadows were chilling fast. Felt like a frost coming on.
 

Warden Kriss

Wellington snorted as the boy entered the gray’s stall. The boy was small, fourteen, pale blue eyes with cottonish blond hair that curled a bit around his temples. He spoke to the ex-cavalry horse in gentle tones like Daddy had. Mommy should’ve never sold him to Mr. Pane. Daddy would have never wanted that big tombstone, anyway. Daddy never wanted anything besides Mommy and his liquor –it couldn’t even be said that he had much cared for Von or the newborn baby either.

Michael McGlade

Grady squeezed through the narrow alley between two wooden buildings. Best not to attract attention. Seven o’clock in the morning. The air thick with mesquite and dense as water. You didn’t walk somewhere, you waded. The blue sky was a lazy blue, like some artist had squirted it from a tube. The day already too hot for Grady to argue. In the sagebrush, among the yuccas, through the dirt streets in the frontier town of Red Oak, stillness. Even the birds had slept late.

Tim Tobin

As Noah Green galloped across the rain-swept Kansas plain, his slicker kept some of the rain off, but not much. He spurred his horse onward hoping to reach camp before the thunder and lightning started. The cowboy had no reason to suspect that his killer rode about a quarter mile behind him.

The shot hit Green in the middle of his back. He lurched forward and grabbed for the mane of his horse. He missed it and fell face down on the muddy prairie. The rear hooves of his horse trampled his legs as it sped by.