Like other frontier folk, they were always on the move, relocating ever westward as settlements became too populous or their distinct brand of religion clashed with others, or for reasons known only to themselves. Sometimes the still, small voice of God called them forth and at others the land itself through earthquakes and … More Fateful journey into the wilderness for the Parker clan
I didn’t know what to expect, only that I’d dreaded the day for a decade or more, dreaded it with a passion that deepened with each heartbeat so that even as the minutes ran the clock and the dawn crept in no different than any other dawn in the last few millennia I … More Just another day on the outer rim of the galaxy
The sun teetered on the rim of the world before slipping beyond the curvature of the planet and still the big cow stood unmoving by the truck. Crouched several hundred yards away behind a clump of sumac I watched it and waited in the hopes that it would lose interest and move off, … More Home on the range
One a.m., my slumbering brain rousing itself in what was once considered merely a temporary interruption between the first sleep and the second (and summarily outmoded by modernity, clocks, industrialization and a work ethic that neatly compartmentalized our lives into cubbyholes), ears pricked to the sounds of a nocturnal house, Lori beside me … More Give me this night
Darkness does not descend but rises from the earth. Standing near the church stand wreathed within its mouthwatering bouquet of burgers and pies I watched it swallow the grass and lap up the sides of the carnival rides like coalblack floodwaters while all around ebbed and flowed families and children and roving packs … More Fair nights, carnival lights
It wasn’t a road as such, more a grass-choked two-track splitting off the cobbled dead-end street to rise onto what appeared to be a narrow levee separating the town from the railroad tracks. Beyond it an old unused grain elevator jutting into the view. “I wonder if it’ll take us there,” … More Downtown anytown
“How will we do this?” my wife asked. I looked out the window at the Cedar Point Mill and couldn’t help but imagine the entire structure crumbling into the river—with me inside. The cracks and seams spidering the limestone walls seemed wider and more pronounced than during my last visit two … More Time running out
Sometime in the night whether through a hard wind coming off the river, a minute shift in the mole-tunneled undersoil or the implacable pull of gravity, a small handhewn sliver of limestone that had been teetering nearly untethered for years beyond count wobbled free from the lower front wall and tumbled in a … More The house on the river
The cursor blinks with a cadence like an impatient tap of a foot. I’m waiting, it sneers. Would you speed it up a bit? I remind myself of the writer’s first rule: to bring order from chaos. Order. From. Chaos. It sounds so simple, so why … More Borderland vignettes
I saw my first roundabout several years ago when driving to the Topeka correctional facility to interview inmates who raise puppies for a local dog assistance program. First impressions linger longest, they say, certainly the case in point here. Rather than proceed blindly into the newfangled contraption, I pulled to the shoulder to … More Circular thinking
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