15 for 15 Contest --- Closed

6/8/2010 10:40am-10:55am


         Lawrence looked up as the sound of the riders rumbled the ground. The dust billowing up from the light brown wheat disguised them, but he sensed that there were two. Good news rarely traveled to him when he tended the flock. It would have waited until the end of the day when there was no more work to do.
         "Whoa," Richard Winston and his young son, Seth, both called out to their mounts. The horses whinnied in protest at the command and sudden yank of the reigns, but they obeyed and halted at Lawrence's feet.
         "Afternoon, Dick. Hello Seth," Lawrence greeted the pair. He chewed the end of a wheat stalk as if punishing it for a crime. The look in Dick's eyes did nothing to ease the tension he felt in every muscle of his sixty year old body.
         "Good day, Larry," Dick returned and tipped his hat. "I'm afraid I've come with dire news, old friend."
         "I assumed as much. Is it the blight?"
         "Yup. Looks like it is on the move again," Dick said. Larry glanced over at Seth who gazed into the distance with fear in his youthful eyes.
         "I didn't hear the town bell."
         "Larry, there wasn't time. It's moving faster than ever before," Dick answered.
         "All the more reason to make time to sound the alarm," Larry said, but a cold feeling was starting to creep into him.
         "That's why I have ridden out to warn you, Larry. The town has been enveloped. Everyone there is dead. You have to get on the move."
         The iciness ripped through Larry's whole being. He had many friends in town. He would never see them again. The blight was all-consuming. It moved through on a mist and left nothing alive in its wake. Even cockroaches were said to be found belly up on the ground after it passed. The land was no longer pliable once attacked.
         "A'right then. I'll go get my horse and ready the family. Bertha has been jarring vegetables and fruits all year just in case of this."
         Larry turned to leave, but something made him stop and look again at Dick. The man's brown eyes had a profound sadness in them and Larry dreaded his next words.
         "There's no need to go home," Dick said with a catch in his throat.
         "No, Dick. Say it ain't so," Larry wailed, looking into Dick's eyes and seeing the silent acknowledgement. He grabbed Dick by the lapels of his denim shirt and pulled him from his horse. "Tell me Bertha is okay."
         Dick allowed himself to be manhandled by the smaller, older man. He had not the heart to fight the man's grief. He pulled Larry close into a fierce embrace. Larry's tears were not the first to land on his back and, with the blight on the move again, they would not be the last.
         "Mr. Reynolds," the small voice brought the two men back to reality. They looked up at Seth. "Mindy and the children are safe. They are traveling with the Jenners. They said they would meet you at Runner's Mill."
         From the mouths of babes, Larry thought. His daughter and his grandchildren were alive and well. Larry felt invigorated by the news that gave him a reason to live.