“Rain”
Disclaimer: I don’t own Rawhide or any of the characters. Don’t sue
me; I am a waste of time and effort.
P.S. this one’s muy corto (very short) if that annoys you, go away
(just kidding). Read something else. I wrote this one when it was raining
pretty hard where I live. Doesn’t rain often in the southwest, but when it does
I get tired of it real fast.
It had been raining for almost a solid three days. The sun had not even been allowed to peer through the angry storm clouds for even a few moments. Darkness consumed the sky as the rain continued to pour.
Favor shifted his seat in his unpleasantly wet saddle. His clothing was drawn closely to his skin, his chaps and boots were all soaking wet. Rain funneled on the brim of his hat and ran down onto his horse’s shoulders, in a small uninvited waterfall. Soupy mud coated his stirrups and boots, causing them to feel weighted. His horse was ankle deep in the dark, uncaring mire. Favor frowned; this weather was beginning to annoy him in more ways than one.
The drovers were all showing signs of bitterness toward the weather. No one fancied a wet bedroll and therefore the drovers preferred to remain on horseback. Even the cattle seemed upset by the rain. It was as though they wanted to stop the drive altogether and stand in a group to mull in the bad weather.
Thankfully the storm had remained a voiceless one. A few weak tones of thunder rumbled and some faraway lightning, but nothing that would give the herd a reason to stampede.
Favor glared at the mud swallowing his horse and coating his forelegs, as if glaring at the mud would make it dry up faster. The mud was everywhere, as unavoidable as the rainwater and twice as nasty. Favor watched the drovers as they urged the cattle to keep moving forward in spite of the offensive weather. The ramrod galloped over to Favor unwittingly splashing mud about as he went. Rowdy halted his mount next to the other man.
“Something wrong Boss?” Rowdy asked as he briefly thought about adjusting his hat. Rowdy left the wet hat alone, it would have collapsed had he touched it.
“No, not a thing,” Favor’s tone was almost tinged with sarcasm. Favor’s gaze shifted and he seemed to brighten suddenly. “Sunlight.” Both drovers smiled, things were beginning to improve. With enough time everything would be better. Not that a little bit of sunlight was going to improve the squishy ground much before it was time to bed down. At least the rain was on it’s way out and the ground would take a while, but eventually it would dry up and then the drovers would be praying for water.
“We never let a little rain stop us before,” Rowdy stated as he regarded the vague outline of the sun shrouded by the dark clouds. Favor glanced at Rowdy and gave a slight nod of approval.
The end.