Texas Morning

Chapter 1: “At sunrise, the blue sky paints herself with gold colors and joyfully dances to the music of a morning breeze.” -Debasish Mridha

“Get up Thomas you’re missing the best part of the day.” 

Thomas’s eyes, groggy and full of sleep, wearily crack open in the darkness. The old man was accustomed to waking early, seeing how he has been doing it his whole life, only this morning he heard Marianne’s voice waking him. Swinging his long lanky legs over the edge of the bed, he rose, and stumbled his way into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. Starting the coffee brewing, he headed back to his bedroom and got dressed. He couldn’t help but smile remembering the first time Marianne tried a cup of his coffee. He warned her saying,

“Look ma’am, my cooking ain’t what some call edible, and I am afraid my coffee ain’t much better.”

Smiling, Marianne replied, “I’d still like a cup if you could spare it.”

“Yes ma’am of course, but I warn ya, it’ll make a horseshoe stand on edge.”

He could tell, by the uneasy look on her face, that she didn’t understand as she took a sip. Thomas had to control the urge to laugh, as her face turned every color of the rainbow before settling on green. For a moment, her face blended with the tall Johnson Grass swaying freely with the wind behind her.

“It’s delicious” was all she could muster to say.

His mind came back to him, as he ran back into the kitchen, when he realized that his coffee was overflowing the metal percolator in which he was brewing. Thomas filled his cup full of the dark, black liquid, shook out his boots and shoved them on. He grabbed his hat and walked outside. The sun would be coming up soon he told himself. He could feel the moisture in the air and could smell the dew that had settled on the grass around him. Walking down the familiarly warn path, on which his feet had trodden many times before, he settled in next to Marianne with his back against a giant pecan tree, and slowly sipped his coffee.

“You always liked Texas mornings didn’t you darling?”

As Thomas spoke, the sun snuck his head over the horizon behind a row of trees to the east. As if God himself was painting his masterpiece, the sky burned with vibrant colors turning the whole land shades of red, orange, and purple. The light crashing through the clouds and trees fell softly on the grass around the simple log cabin. With the light and wind, the fields seemed to dance with the coming of the day. As Thomas finished his coffee, he looked at Marianne and said,

“Well, I got to get to work,” Thomas smiled, “you are always the best part of the day.”

Putting his cowboy hat on his head, he slowly stood, staring at nature in all its glory, he took it all in one more time before he turned and headed for the barn. After saddling his horse, he looked back for one more moment. The sun shone through the giant pecan tree limbs, illuminating the name on the lone grave. 

“Marianne.”

Chapter 2: “You can spend your whole life traveling around the world searching for the Garden of Eden, or you can create it in your backyard.”  -Khang Kijarro Nguyen

40 years earlier:

Cold from the night air, Thomas woke to throw another log on the fire. Settling back down in the warmth under his horse blanket, his muscles were tired and sore. He hadn’t known how long he’d traveled nor the distance he’d covered the days and nights before. Thomas knew that soon he’d stop, and where he stopped would be where he’d start his life. Thomas was a dreamer, never really knowing what he was meant to do, he just… did. For as long as he could remember, he had been roaming this country, state to state, town to town, searching for the place he belonged. It seemed like the only time he ever put down roots was when he was broke. He’d hire out as a hand here and there, stay a week, no more than two at a time before his longing made him move on. Somewhere, out there in the darkness, was the start of his ranch, his little piece of heaven, his paradise. Now Thomas didn’t have anything to his name, except the clothes on his back, his horse, some salt tack, beans, and a small amount of coffee. Lying on his back, looking up as the stars meandered across the sky through the wind-swept limbs of the tree, Thomas knew that dawn was approaching. With sleep fleeting he decided to get up and put on the coffee. While roaming around gathering the needed items he noticed a lot of broken pecan shells around his camp. To make his meager amount of coffee last, he smashed some of the pecans into pieces and brewed them in his coffee. Much to his chagrin, he enjoyed the taste. With his body now fully awake and limber, he went about filling a gunny sack full of pecans. He, with a fresh cup, got comfortable leaning back against the tree facing east. When the sun broke the horizon, he got his first glimpse of God’s country. A thin low-lying fog blanketed the land as the golden rays of the sun visibly burned away the remnants of the night. The natural grasses, heavy with dew, rose as if stretching towards the warmth across the vast and ever-expanding rolling plains.  All around him, the world was coming alive, animals scurried, and birds sang their songs in groves of pine trees, the once silent creek now was ringing with the sounds of rushing water while the fish jumped about trying to catch an early morning meal. Everything around him lived free in a symbiotic relationship that either took no notice or welcomed him as one of their own. Thomas’s heart filled with so much joy as he breathed it all in deeply, being unable to contain it he audibly sighed. “Home”. He finally found where he belonged. He belonged to the land from which all life sprang and would give it everything he had to keep it. He could see the remuda of horses, and the herds of cattle grazing lazily in the fields. He could smell the garden of wildflowers out back and taste the fish in the stream. The laughter of his kids, playing and riding around the house, and his wife cooking in the kitchen. With every fiber of his being, he finally knew where he belonged. Now his life could begin.

Thomas looked more like a bullfrog walking on his hind legs than a man. His long legs slightly bowed from years on a horse, didn’t hinder his movements. At six foot in height, he was incredibly strong and nimble, built more like a gladiator that a cowhand. His aged felt hat hung low on his face to keep the sun out of his green eyes. Underneath his hat was a mane of thick brown hair with a hint of red, a color more prominent on three-month growth across his face. Around his hips hung a Colt Piece maker, though he was a decent draw and shot he much preferred the Winchester 45-70 leaning against his saddle. He could hit a running rabbit at 100 yards without half trying.

Looking across the land, he figured he would put the main house up on the hill, from which he could look out over the land. The slope of the hill, on the side with the creek bed, started steadily at first from the apex before flattening out in a slight flood plain. The creek was roughly 50 feet down the hill and, winding like a snake, flowed from west to east. It had a muddy bottom bed, due to the red dirt clay, that was roughly four feet wide and three-foot-deep at the narrowest and shallowest spot, but the water was cool and tasted good. A stone throws away, next to the pecan tree, the land toward the west was flat, with several acres of open pasture, surrounded on three sides with trees and the creek on the other. It was ideal for a large grazing pen next to the stables and corrals. From the trees, he’d have plenty of materials for the split log fence, and with the creek as a barrier, he would only have to worry about rising water during the wet seasons. Between the house and the stables, Thomas would build a wide bridge, wide enough so that a large wagon and several head of stock could cross. He knew he would soon need a mule and a few hands to help with the work ahead. Before heading into town, and while his supplies last, he figured he had better ride around the area to see what else his future had in store for him. Thomas packed up his supplies and stomped out the fire to make sure it was out before he walked over and gathered his horse. Seventeen and a half hands tall, the gray and white monochrome appaloosa studs’ withers stood only two inches shorter than Thomas himself. Once he saddled his horse and tied on the bedroll and saddle bags, he bound aboard. He had to lean down so not to hit his head on a tree limb as he rode away.

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These are the first two chapters of a novel or novella I'm working on, which I'm happy to say I have almost finished. As such, you are the first to read it in any sense of the word. It just so happens that these chapter deal with the prompt given. I'd appreciate any feed back that you might have and accept any constructive criticism that you might be able to give. I have changed the formatting in the hopes to make it easily readable on this platform.

Thank you in advance for your time and thoughts,

Carson Craig