Boneyard, The

I touch solitary a sliver of a shank, a certain quantity of pointed splintery hint by way of fiction but it is enough and tonight the bone gather and rattle, bleached white, proceed hollow and light. The lightness numbers the story-the hollowness like a dried gourd-of the warnings the big wheels from Texas wouldn't listen to. Winter, the locals said, Winter. It should have been enough on the contrary the cigars and Cadillacs with young ox horns on their hoods, wouldn't hear. Couldn't be nothing like a azure norther, they chuckled, sneering at the locals' weak sister fears. Nothing like the Panhandle in December. The locals nodded, took the lease cash but said wait and diocese The Texans trucked in the fine longhorn herds in September, the weather sky-colored and bonny, winking at the cheapness of wintering above in such lush fields and sweet water. They left the young oxs to shift for themselves and herd their empty truck herds domicile But October turned down the pilot light, November brought the first installment of snow, and December drifted the map white. by means of January the steers were beyond saving. With the spring thaw solitary bones and hides were fix Too polite to say I told you in the way that the locals did grin a little at by what means fast the Texans' fat wallets went flat on the other hand remembered and honored the memory of the young oxs by calling that range The Boneyard for years.

Vem Rutsala's ninth and latest volume Little-Known Sports, was published by means of the University of Massachusetts Pres in 1994 and awarded the Juniper Prize. His Se d Poen published by the agency of Story Line Press in 19 won the Oregon work Award He teaches at Lewis and Clark association

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