Cowboy: Part 3
Part 2 Part 4
“She’s a real dark brown, nearly black.”
Anne nodded, because the giant was looking down at her. That was one of those active listening things that felt polite to do. She was grateful for Boone’s love of his horse; she didn’t have to worry about talking to him as they walked.
“And she cost a pretty penny, but she’s worth double it, easy.”
The blurry patch of brown on the horizon was sharpening as they approached, becoming the absolute epitome of an old western town complete with dusty yellow buildings, dirt roads, a few horses, and people. It was far enough away that it just looked big, not gigantic, but they were getting closer. I hope I wake up before I have to deal with any other giants. I mean, Boone’s seems nice enough, but I’m betting the average rough-and-tumble cowboy-type isn’t quite as much of a softie. Or maybe they are, if I dreamed them all that way.
Anne looked up because he hadn’t said anything for a somewhat long pause. He looked away when she met his eyes, back to the road ahead of him.
“What is it?”
“Huh?” Boone stopped suddenly but Anne didn’t. The momentum sent her falling on her butt.
Anne pushed herself up again. “Is there was something wrong?”
“How do you mean?” His face was puzzled, but there was something a bit sheepish in his eyes.
“Well, you keep…looking at me.” He looked away briefly, and that was confirmation enough that Anne hadn’t been imagining it. All throughout his glowing review of Darling ( the horse) he’d been snatching glances at her when he’d thought she wasn’t looking.
“Oh, no, nothing wrong. I just…” He rubbed the back of his neck with his other hand. “Honestly, part of me cain’t shake the feeling you are a hallucination. I get ‘em regular when I’m soused, but they ain’t usually as pretty as you.” Anne smiled, and that got a chuckle out of him. “I just worry is all. I’m gonna look a right fool if I’m walking into town, talking to nobody.”
“Of the two of us, I’m pretty sure it’s you that’s imaginary.” Anne forced a confidence she didn’t quite feel. “After all, the last thing I remember is going to sleep in my bed; it only makes sense that I’d be dreaming this.” It sounded perfectly reasonable. But how can I be sure? “Oh!” Boone looked down at her. “Do you have a watch? Or anything with numbers on it?” He frowned, but reached his free hand into the pocket of his jeans, pulling out a circle of tarnished brass.
“Got an old pocketwatch belonged to a pal ‘a mine. It’s busted though.”
“Doesn’t matter.” She reached out as if to take it from him, before realizing her mistake. She let her arms fall back at her sides again, sheepishly hoping he hadn’t noticed, as his giant hand brought a clock face the size of a monster truck tire up in front of her.
“It’s just…” she said, taking a step toward the watch, placing her palm against the glass, still warm from Boone’s pocket. “Numbers don’t work right in dreams. I figured out I was dreaming a few times that way.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
This was utterly bizarre, but I think I’ll miss him when I wake up.
I II III IV…
Anne followed the silver numerals all the way around the circumference with both her eyes and an outstretched finger. They were all there in order, one to twelve. No incomprehensible squiggles, no switching places when she looked away and back again.
Anne snatched her hand back, as if the glass was burning hot. Why are all the numbers right?
“Well?”
She flinched at the sound, it seemed so much louder all of a sudden. She didn’t just hear it from above her head, it came from his chest too; a deep, resonant bass tone. And the surface beneath her seemed to vibrate with it. And even when he was silent, she could feel movement through her feet, a steady pulse beneath the skin. Skin. A hand. A giant.
“Miss Anne?” The pocket watch moved away and the hand moved upward. “You gone a bit pale, all of a sudden. You alright?” She was in front of Boone’s face now, his enormous face, easily three times as tall as she was. Two staring eyes, each bigger than her whole head.
“This…you are a dream, aren’t you?” His brows were furrowed, his mouth hung open slightly. Mouth. Big enough to swallow her whole. “I’m not…you’re not really…”
“Easy now, don’t get yourself all worked up.” The hand she was held in cupped slightly, and his other hand rose to make a wall around a portion of it. She backed away from the approaching hand, but quickly found herself at the edge of the mounds of skin facing a drop of twenty, thirty, maybe fifty feet to the sand below. “Whoah!”
Everything was dark and warm and close and she was on her back. “Jumpin’ Jehosaphat, you’re gonna give me heart palpitations.” The skin beneath her was creased and bunched up, it was a struggle to push herself upright. Even then, the prison of cupped hands was only barely tall enough for her to sit up in. “Now, look here.” Even at a whisper, his voice was loud enough to carry through the walls of flesh. “I’m gonna open my hands up again.” A crack of light appeared between two curves of flesh, partially obscured by a staring-grey blue eye. “I would see it as a kindness if you stayed put, ‘stead of running off the edge and fallin’ to yer death.”
Anne nodded in case he was waiting for confirmation. Light returned as he lifted one hand away leaving her sitting it just one cupped hand with a wall of fingers behind her. In front of her was the face of the giant cowboy, looking at her with worried brows.
“You alright?”
“I guess I…” Anne shook her head. “I thought that might wake me up. I-I thought I could wake up.” She put her head in her hands “Everything is so big…or I guess I’m just tiny.” She looked back up and flinched. Boone’s head was even closer now, probably leaning in to hear her. Her hands shook as she rested them against the skin of his palm. “I-If this…isn’t a dream…” Even saying it made her feel sickish, not least of all because each time she did, it sounded more and more true. “What’s gonna happen to me?”
“Not a damn thing.” Anne must have had a puzzled expression because Boone continued with mock indignation. “What, did you think I was gonna wish you luck and leave by the side of the road?”
Anne shrugged. She hadn’t really thought that far ahead; it was hard enough just dealing with everything as it happened.
“Look, maybe you’re dreaming.” He tilted his head. “After all, if I was a dream, how the heck would I know?” He chuckled. “Or mebbe I’m dreaming. Don’t see as it makes much of a difference either way. The way I figure it, you…you ain’t exactly in a position to go about town all by your lonesome.”
Anne shook her head. Just the thought of trying to navigate football-field wide streets of dirt and gravel and the stomping of giant boots and horseshoes made her queasy.
“If it suits you, Miss Anne, I’d be delighted to escort you wherever it is you’d like to go.”
Anne laughed, although she felt a bit like crying. “I don’t have anywhere to go. I-I don’t know how I got here, or how to get back home. I’m scared.”
Boone’s wide smile faltered. He spoke in a hesitant whisper.
“You, you ain’t afraid of me, are you?”
There was a lump in Anne’s throat. Everything about Boone was larger than life. Whenever he took a breath, she heard the whooshing of it above her, and every time his boot hit the dirt it sent a jolt through her body. Even his smile, warm and genuine as it was, was a reminder that he had teeth bigger than her head. Am I afraid of him? She was afraid, but it was of the bigness of the world, of how small and helpless she was in it. She was afraid of the faceless giants that filled the streets of the strange town ahead of them, their inscrutable motives and every thoughtless motion they made that could wound or kill her.
But Boone? Boo-Hoo Boone, with his soft heart and his careful hand and the hurt plain on his face at the mere thought that he might have frightened her?
“No.” Anne put a shaking hand on the tip of his thumb, curled in toward her slightly. Then she giggled with the nervous energy that that seemed a new permanent fixture in her body. “Just the town full of giants we’re heading to.”
Boone’s smile was so big it broke through the anxious fog, like a blade of sunnlight slicing through cloud cover.
“Well, don’t you fret about a ’town fulla giants.” he chuckled, and patted his chest with his other hand. “Just the one.” He raised his eyebrows and smiled wide. “And this giant’s got a Number 3 Smith Wesson that says nobodies gonna lay a hand on you if I have anything to say about it.”
Heat rose in Anne’s cheeks. “Thank you, Boone.”
“For such a little thing, you sure got a three-by-nine smile.” She could feel the blush in her cheeks, and she looked back down at the hand below her so she wouldn’t have to look at his face. “So,” he cleared his throat and spoke a bit louder, less…intimate. “How we getting you in town with no one else being the wiser? You’re an awf’ly small thing, I don’t think folk’ll notice. But better safe than sorry.”
“Yes, safe.” Anne nodded vigorously. “Safe is good.”
“I’ve got…an idea. Not sure its the most…proper.”
“Boone?” He was blushing.
“Uh.” He lifted his other hand to his shirt and unbuttoned the breast pocket (the one without a snotty handkerchief in it). “I reckon nobody would see you if you was…er…there.” Anne smiled. Cowboy era; that’s late 1800’s, isn’t it? Just coming out of the Victorian era. To be fair to Boone, there was something intimate about the idea of being in a shirt pocket. But it would be nice and hidden.
“Sounds good.”
He didn’t say anything, he just lifted the hand she was in so that it was right up against his chest. Before she could take a step toward the edge, the hand tilted beneath her and she fell back against his palm and tumbled down into cloth. The warmth, the the throb of a heartbeat against her back, the scent of sweat and man; they were immediate and overwhelming.
“You alright in there?”
Anne grabbed a handful of rough cotton and pulled herself mostly upright, but standing was impossible. She let herself fall so she was sat along the bottom seam, cradling her like a hammock. She looked up; Boones fingers were curled over the lip of the pocket, holding it open, and above them his bright eyes focused on her.
“Y-yeah!” She lifted a wobbly hand with her thumb up.
“Wonderful.” The fingers slid away amd the opening above collapsed to a thin line of light and air. The heart pounded at her back, a little faster than before.
A/N: Dropping that 2k update out of nowhere. ENJOY IT Y’ALL. @a-black-pegasus @questionable-breads
