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Write a magical realism story that takes place in the Wild West.

Posted in Fantasy on Mar 1, 2021

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✍️ 51 stories

Westward Changeling

Submitted to Contest #24

Jeb sat on his horse, looking back over the covered wagon train. They had traveled many miles over the past months, and still had many to go, but spirits were good. Only a few members had been lost - some to sickness, one while fording a river, and one who was just plain old. They were still 200 people strong. So far they had managed to avoid running into natives, and he thought it safe to say they would make it before winter set in. Not his worst trip, not by far. Jeb was a known wagon master, paid by large groups to ensure safe route out W...

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Adziil Tse

Submitted to Contest #24

“Stay away from her, kid. She’s bad news,” a man said. “How come?” a boy asked. “You’re new here. You ‘aven’t saw what happens to people when they get involved with her.” “Like what?” The first replied, “They go missing, and no one can find them for months, until they show up out of nowhere, ravin’ mad. Can’t e’er get ‘em back to normal, neither. Never works. No matter what we do, they’re completely crazy. No one can reason with ‘em. Talking about anvil tea, the lot of them, and no one knows what they’re sayin’.” “What does she do to them?” ...

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Dressed for the Devil

Submitted to Contest #24

The wagon rumbled across the plain, the horses kicking up dirt. The wind tickled my bare feet, my boots sopping from the last river we crossed. I looked past the horizon, trying to think of my old home, a cozy cabin surrounded with long, swaying grasses and a small stream to the side. Horses passed by the house daily, every new rancher wanting to get a taste of my mother’s famous homemade dried bean chili. I sighed, hardly being able to picture my mother without sore thoughts.  She was the reason we were on the road right now, even thou...

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The Possum

Shortlisted for Contest #24 ⭐️

The whiskey stung going down. Sheriff Houghton coughed back the cheap swill and took in a deep breath through his nostrils, taking in the scents of Old Delilah’s saloon. That one sniff carried with it the musty memories of liquor, twice chewed tobacco, and the unmistakable truth that it had been weeks since the bartender before him had seen a bar of soap. He quickly rejected the breath, pushing it out from his mouth with great force and slamming his empty glass onto the table. “You’re doin’ nobody favors here, Kipp.” The words came out in a ...

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What We Run From

Submitted to Contest #24

Ghosts are like owls, white faced and and in love with the moon. Silent winged and black eyed. In fact, the two are often mistaken for each other as they glide through the empty space between the desert and the stars. You might go months without seeing them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t see you. Both are known to watch from the holes in cacti and the black windows of ghost towns. They seem interested in human affairs, so they watch. Maybe it reminds them of something. On occasion, ghosts or owls will even follow a person that they d...

11 likes 8 comments 8
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Tongue

Shortlisted for Contest #24 ⭐️

I had been walking in the desert for what seemed like days. I was thirsty. My radiator went kaput somewhere on I-10 last night. No cell reception out here. The desert night comforted me—beautiful stars and comet trails. But after the sun rose, the temperature shot up far too quickly. By the time the sun was directly overhead, my legs felt like rubber and my tongue was swollen. In the distance, what looked like a town from the Old West arose. One dirt road split two rows of shabby buildings. “Water,” I said out loud to myself. I blinked ...

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High Midnight

Submitted to Contest #24

Josiah stuck his spade upright into the pile of dirt he’d been moving and wiped his brow. It had been a hot day and, though the sun had set nearly four hours earlier, the effort of breaking through the sun-hardened ground had worked up quite a sweat. He tugged at his dirt-encrusted shirt a few times to fan the cool night air over his skin, then picked up his lantern from the cemetery grass and examined the hole he’d been digging. It was roughly seven feet long by three feet wide and a little over three feet deep. At that momen...

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The Girl who Defied Dotty Moon

Submitted to Contest #24

Nobody knew quite how or when it had started, apart from Dorothy herself, and sometimes even she wasn’t quite sure, but scores of people claimed they did. Doc Moon’s daughter Dorothy was a miracle worker, said the folk in Gifford’s Creek. Doc Moon’s daughter can make the blind see and can quite probably make the deaf hear and the lame run, and the mute talk the hind leg off a mule, and make the mayor have some common sense – no, that was probably expecting too much. Even of Dotty Moon.     Sh...

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Two Green Eyes Staring at Me

Submitted to Contest #24

Two Green Eyes Staring at Me                                                                            Suzanne Marsh           ...

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What Lies Behind the Stars

Submitted to Contest #24

Later, in years when the caravans came less frequently, and the last of the springs had dried to dust, men would still sit at the scuffed tables of the Lucky Prospector. Every Tuesday and Friday night, some unseen force would draw them out, to drink and sigh and tell stories to those who would listen, of the old days and the better days and even those days that no one could properly remember: legends as old as the sunset, and just as far away.Papa had always been a wonderful storyteller. Part of the reason why this was, was because he shared...

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For The Next Meal

Submitted to Contest #24

It’s a cool and quiet night. The only sounds accompanying Alder are the gentle breeze and his horse’s hooves against the hard, dry dirt. The sky is clear, with stars sparsely sprinkled across the dark. The moon is full and bright. The nearest town is miles away. He would know, he left there that evening with a job to do. A howl sounds, long and high pitched, ringing against the quiet. It’s distant, so much so that Alder barely hears it. It’s hard to place the exact direction it came from, but he’s able to discern a general location. He ...

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Finding Denton

Submitted to Contest #24

The oak doors swiveled on their hinges with a squeak and a grown that caused all eyes in the saloon to turn and look, and keep looking, at Petra Morlan.With her grey penetrating eyes ,and her lavender hair laying in a wave until just past her shoulders, and dressed in jeans, with knee high leather boots and a leather cloak that almost touched the floor, they all knew her, and those that knew her well, knew that gun strapped to her side was not one they wanted to see used.This saloon didn't attract most women, other than the poor gals that we...

9 likes 0 comments 0
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Doggone It

Submitted to Contest #24

I woke up and I was a dog. I was riding along my horse last night, but this morning, I went to bathe in the local pond and my reflection was clearly a dog. And not just any kind of dog, a Maltese. Great. I see my horse tied up to the porch post and wonder how to untie her (her name is Beau) and how I’m going to get all these here cattle to California in five month. Why a Maltese? At least if I was a Great Dane I might have a shot.   My clothes of course don’t fit. They’re still laying beside the lake s...

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Bank Job

Submitted to Contest #24

Wood splinters pepper my face as another chunk of the door frame is blown off by gunfire. We barely managed to drag Chubbs in when the shooting started. “Spider,” I shout over the storm of bullets “get him in the corner and put some pressure on that wound!” She hefts him into a nearby corner and begins inspecting the wound as I throw a table against the deteriorating bank door and take position at the nearest window. Glancing out, I see that Chubbs had dropped the money on the porch after he took that shot in the gut. Just in front of our ho...

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Gravedigger

Submitted to Contest #24

The sun fell over the wasteland with hardly a whimper, the last of its light extinguished by the barren wastes. Despite the darkness and fog and light drizzle that turned the dirt to mud, there remained two figures. One stood grim, cloaked in shadow, while the other worked tirelessly, digging his own grave. He had began at sunset and managed to dig through three feet before night came and the rains began. The other watched him wordlessly, only grunting when the mud slid down the grave’s borders, filling up another foot. Jedediah would sigh a...

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