For our 50th Anniversary Short Fiction Contest, we asked you to send a 700-word, or less, story in which Montana Public Radio is mentioned in some way. We'll be accepting entries until March 15, 2015. Winners will be announced in April. This story is by Marged Bernstein.
It's barely 5 a.m. and Tess is outside talking to the moon backlighting the movie set that is rural Montana's Hi-Line.
“Damn cowboys,” she says, thinking about how Billy had dumped her.
“To hell with him,” she says to the moon. Speed on her motorcycle is what she needs.
She sips coffee and half listens to Morning Edition on Montana NPR as Reneé Montagne announces from Lexington, Kentucky, “I'm with Darcy Burbank, the owner of Chasing Happiness, the odds on favorite to win this week's Kentucky Derby. Local authorities announced that the horse has been kidnapped. They are seeking information about one of the grooms who went missing at the same time. They indicate he's from northeastern Montana, from an area the locals call the Hi-Line.” Burbank says, “Chasing Happiness is seventeen hands tall, all black except for a white spot on his front left fetlock. There is a reward for his return...”
Tess says, “I think I've seen that horse.”
She puts an apple in her pocket and guns the Harley.
About ten miles down the highway she pulls over, hides her bike in a thicket and walks toward a
ramshackle barn and corral nearly hidden in a coolie.
Riding her bike past this place in the twilight on her way to the dance Saturday night she'd seen
a horse so lovely it looked like a vision.
“Damn cowboys,” she says and slowly opens the barn door.
As her eyes adjust to the murky light she sees the horse, murmurs soft words and offers the apple. He stands trembling. Talking softly all the while she runs her hands down his left leg until she sees the white spot.
“Well, hello Happiness.”
She takes a rope from a peg and leads him out.
“Stop right there, Missy.” A man is pointing a pistol at her.
It happened so fast. Tess had vaulted onto the stallion's back by the time the man hit the ground
in a heap, unconscious, his wrist broken, after the stallion had reared and struck out at him.
Tess urges the stallion to run. He flies.
The man moans and sits up with a yelp of pain and dials his cellphone.
“The horse is gone. Some girl had him... Damn horse reared up and knocked me senseless. He
broke my damn wrist... You and Gene drive east. I'll drive west. If we don't keep him out of the Derby, there goes our three hundred thousand.”
The Truck Stop Cafe is about five miles up the road.
A few minutes ago, Edna, the morning shift waitress, blond and careworn pretty, had poured a coffee to go for a young man in jeans and a white linen jacket. He'd handed her a business card and said, “Name's Jack Diamond. I'm a private investigator from L.A. I'm here on a lead about a stolen thoroughbred black stallion. Please call me if you hear anything.”
He had one of those smiles. “Sure thing, Hon,” she'd said.
Frank and his buddy Bob, a huge Rottweiler, had been driving the rig all night, singing along
with Hank Williams.
They pull up to the Truck Stop Cafe and park in the dusty lot. Frank says, “Let's go see Edna,”
as they get out of the truck.
Jack Diamond stands next to his red Camaro watching a girl riding a black horse galloping hell
bent for leather toward them.
A black SUV with tinted windows pulls up.
Girl and horse slide to a stop.
Two men step out of the truck pointing guns at the girl. One of them says smoothly, “We'll take
our horse back, Ma'am, no questions asked. Just get down nice and easy.”
The stallion rears.
Behind them the Rottweiler stares at the men. Frank whispers, “Yes,” and the dog silently flies
onto the shoulders of one man taking him down. Frank body slams the other guy down.
Jack Diamond draws his weapon.
Tess slides off the stallion's back and grins at Jack Diamond. “His name's Chasing Happiness,”
she says. The horse nickers and lowers his head over Tess' shoulder.
Jack smiles, then slowly extends his hand toward Tess. The stallion snorts.
“Name's Jack Diamond. I sure like happy endings.”
------------------------------------------------------------
Enter your story in the MTPR 50th Anniversary Short Fiction Contest.
