Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Rocking Horse West: a Morality Tale of the New West
    Rocking Horse West: a Morality Tale of the New West
    Rocking Horse West: a Morality Tale of the New West
    Ebook58 pages57 minutes

    Rocking Horse West: a Morality Tale of the New West

    By Paul Dueweke

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Rocking Horse Ranch has been our family home for over a century. My rancher boy died, and my other boy is tied tight to his big city life. My wife, Betty, died 15 years ago. I made a promise to Betty a long time ago that I'd build her a real ranch house worthy of the finest rancher's wife in the Gila. We used to have picnics under that ponderosa over there across the meadow. Well, the tree fell over a couple years ago, but you can still see it. And that lump poking up is what's left of the table Betty built all by herself. Dad said town girls can't do ranch work, but he sure had to eat his words on that one.
    Betty died of cancer 15 years ago. And our rancher boy, Jess, died a couple years later. Aids is what they called it—some new thing I don't understand. Jess had to see what all the fuss was about in San Francisco. He promised to come back to work the ranch with me. But he didn't make it. Our older boy, Ral, lives in Dallas with his family. And he's made it pretty clear he's not ever coming back to live on Rocking Horse again.
    But I decided I had to build Betty's dream house anyhow. I started it right after she was gone. And using her own plans. It was guilt that pushed me. Guilt about how Betty died. And it's a good thing I had that house to hold on to when our Jess died. Our rancher Jess. I had all the ranch work to do alone, with the help of our great neighbors, of course. But without Betty's dream house to fill every minute of every day, I'd of just fallen apart—even more than I have.
    As it is, my arthritis and emphysema are making it tough to finish Rocking Horse West. That's the name Betty put on the house plans. But I'm real close to finishing it now. I'm going to get the last details of the stairway done by Christmas. If I can last that long with this angina that knocks me down all the time. But Christmas is the deadline. That's when I'm going to give West to Betty. That's another promise I made to her under that ponderosa. West would be a Christmas present to her. And I don't think I've got any more Christmases left in me.
    Here comes the most worthless cow pony there ever was. Hobbling like he's got four broken shoes. He's in worse shape than I am. And he never even smoked. "George, you knock me down again, and I'll take a rock to that sorry-ass head of yours." He just looks at me. I expect to see him go down any day now. George wasn't always worthless, but he's just skin and bones now. We did a lot of hard cow-boying—back when we could cowboy together.
    Got to get back to work on West. The clock is running.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPaul Dueweke
    Release dateDec 2, 2018
    ISBN9780463742082
    Rocking Horse West: a Morality Tale of the New West
    Author

    Paul Dueweke

    I was a research physicist long before I turned to writing. But I’ve written five novels and am presently working on numbers six through twenty-seven. My first was an autobiography, MY LIFE AS IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN — a memoir for readers who find memoirs disagreeable and reality tedious, inspired by my lifelong obsession with Don Quixote and his ingenious view of reality. It took first place in the 2002 Independent E-book Awards - Humor Division. THE MEDIA CANDIDATE is a near-future, speculative science-fiction thriller inspired by watching too much TV. PRIONA is a multi-cultural, multi-generational story of love, poetry, music, and the dividing waters of race, set in the Jemez Pueblo of northern New Mexico. LAMB OF GOD is a psychological drama of how a young boy, surrounded by the racial and commercial tensions of the Arsenal of Democracy, Detroit during World War II, deals with the guilt of being too weak to save his twin from tragedy. It won second place in the 2003 Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards in a field of 370 entries. Finally, HORSE CAMP WEST is a modern western drama set on a dying ranch in the highlands of southern New Mexico. It was a 2002 EPPIE Award finalist. These books should be available at Smashwords later in 2016, but for the time being, you can get a taste of them at my website fictionQ.com. If you would like me to notify you when my next books hit the ground at Smashwords, drop me a line at editor at fictionQ. I have spent forty years as a physicist in Ohio, New Mexico, and California. Some of those years I did basic physics research at The University of Dayton in the areas of ionizing radiation detectors, shock waves in solids, and infrared measurements. This stuff probably doesn’t excite very many of you, but it has been breathtaking for me. Call me a nerd, but I love science. I spent some years at a beltway bandit* doing a funny thing they called system studies. Then I evolved into a mid-level manager for a big defense hardware company. I learned pretty quickly that upper management is really, really hungry. That's why middle management has to run so fast. Now I have become an even higher lifeform. I work off and on for an itsy bitsy company right in the bosom of Silicon Valley. My business card has a blank under my name so I can be anything I want. And I haven't needed a security clearance for the last twenty years. I’m a firm believer in second careers. When I was doing physics research, I had to do mostly what other people wanted me to do. That was still great because it was such exciting stuff. But now I can write whatever I want to. Maybe that’s just as good, in a way. I think every writer should write as a second career, not as a first. It gives my writing roots and a unique point-of-view beyond writer. I married Marilyn where we met at the University of Dayton. We moved to Alburquerque** where our two daughters grew up; and now we all live in the San Francisco Bay Area. FOOTNOTES: * Beltway Bandit — For those not conversant in Government Speak, a Beltway Bandit is one of the companies clustered around the Washington, DC Beltway that sells “professional services,” which is stuff the Government could do itself if they had any idea what they wanted done or if they weren’t fighting among themselves about who should do it. ** Alburquerque — Most of you traditionally educated readers are probably under the mistaken opinion that the dusty little town in central New Mexico is Albuquerque, not Alburquerque. It was, however, named after Don Francisco Fernandez de la Cueva Enriquez, Duke of Alburquerque, Spain, and Viceroy of New Spain in 1706. About a hundred years later, it was misspelled to its present form. I, in the spirit of Don Quixote de la Mancha, have taken up the cause to redress the evil of misspelling the name of one so highly born.

    Read more from Paul Dueweke

    Related to Rocking Horse West

    Related ebooks

    Western Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Let Me Do It

      Jun 1, 2023

      Let Me Do It
      6 min read

    • Article

      Lies I Tell My Father

      Feb 10, 2024

      “How’s your job at the newspaper?” my father asks me. He is sitting on a couch, a plush throw blanket spread across his legs. “The newspaper’s fine,” I lie. I lie because it is simple. I lie because it is quick. I lie because it is easier than trying

      10 min read

    • Article

      Animals And Origami

      Oct 10, 2021

      I miss the sea breeze mussing my hair and the feel of cold sand worming between my toes. Even now, in autumn, the shoreline has its charms, like the squeals of the oystercatchers and the rhythmic ebb and flow of the tide. My dreams are of swimming in

      11 min read

    • Article

      Choosing the Flowers

      Oct 10, 2022

      Choosing the Flowers
      10 min read

    • Article

      Six Stories

      Sep 8, 2020

      I’m on the train, traveling alone, with two seats to myself. I have to use the restroom. Without thinking about it carefully, I ask a couple across the aisle if they would please watch my things for me for a moment. Then I take a closer look at them

      8 min read

    • Article

      Now That I’ve Arrived

      Dec 30, 2020

      Now That I’ve Arrived
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Class ACT

      Dec 29, 2020

      A Class ACT
      6 min read

    • Article

      Cricket League

      Jan 1, 2021

      “Psst, I need to talk to you.” My best friend, looking super excited, is pulling me toward the nearest classroom. It’s empty, and she shuts the door. “This is really big. I made a time machine, and it can take our brains back in time if you know how

      7 min read

    • Article

      Shiloh

      Jun 20, 2023

      Shiloh
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Problem with My Dachshund

      Dec 11, 2019

      The Problem with My Dachshund
      10 min read

    • Article

      Chouette

      Nov 12, 2021

      Chouette
      16 min read

    • Article

      The Book

      Oct 30, 2019

      The Book
      20 min read

    • Article

      Class ACT

      Mar 18, 2020

      Class ACT
      6 min read

    • Article

      How to Buy a Used Car During a Wildfire

      Jan 14, 2019

      I do not laugh but the children do. “I hate these fucking places,” I think again, turning the radio back on. The post How to Buy a Used Car During a Wildfire appeared first on The Millions.

      12 min read

    • Article

      Swings And Roundabouts

      Dec 22, 2023

      Swings And Roundabouts
      7 min read

    • Article

      Kids & Angels

      Jun 25, 2019

      Kids & Angels
      4 min read

    • Article

      You Talkin' To Me?

      Jun 22, 2023

      You Talkin' To Me?
      3 min read

    • Article

      Life Beyond Zoom

      Dec 3, 2020

      Life Beyond Zoom
      7 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Nov 1, 2022

      Day after Thanksgiving. I give thanks for Eveto beat the rush of appreciating hernext year and let her sleep inuntil three hundred o’clock.Thank you light on the mountainfor being my star on cloudy nights.Thank you all the guns I’ve never ownedand ki

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Details Will Be Ours

      Jan 31, 2018

      The Details Will Be Ours
      21 min read

    • Article

      Out Of My TREE

      May 11, 2021

      Out Of My TREE
      3 min read

    • Article

      Class Act

      Oct 27, 2020

      Class Act
      6 min read

    • Article

      Where is THE LOVE?

      May 12, 2019

      Where is THE LOVE?
      3 min read

    • Article

      Good Bones

      Mar 19, 2020

      Good Bones
      18 min read

    • Article

      Down Home On The Farm

      Oct 1, 2020

      How optimistically I envisioned that lockdown would be over last time I wrote Down Home. It is now September and those of us in Victoria have essentially been in lockdown for six months and counting. The novelty has definitely worn off, and at times

      6 min read

    • Article

      Soul On Sale

      Aug 10, 2022

      I was waiting for the call at the telephone booth. I’d been waiting for fourteen or seventeen minutes and finally, I decided to leave. It was pointless. I only had a 20-dollar bill on me and no coins for the slot. Hard rain was coming, some type of s

      9 min read

    • Article

      Counter Waves

      Oct 23, 2020

      Counter Waves
      8 min read

    • Article

      Little Gods

      Jan 8, 2020

      Little Gods
      8 min read

    • Article

      Blackberries

      Apr 5, 2023

      Blackberries
      24 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Rocking Horse West

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Rocking Horse West - Paul Dueweke

      ROCKING HORSE WEST

      a morality tale of the new west

      Paul Dueweke

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting my hard work.

      Copyright ©2018 by Paul Dueweke

      Electronically published by Smashwords

      ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

      ROCKING HORSE WEST

      Chapter 1

      I don’t get it, Dad. Why don’t you just move into the new house? You said the downstairs is done. And it’s right next-door. And besides, it’s sure better than the dump you’re in.

      Yeah. I nod and bite my lip. I guess. I look out the window toward the west. There’s Rocking Horse West, we call it. My great-grandfather called the old ranch house Rocking Horse when he built it. I guess it’s not much of a place. But it’s where I was born. Both my boys were born in hospitals. Maybe that’s the problem. I catch a glint of the early morning sun off an upstairs window I just installed in West last week. I want to finish the upstairs bathroom. You know how Jan said—

      Dad!

      Yeah, I know. But—

      How many times we have to go over this? Ral says. Jan and I can’t live there. It just takes too long to get to civilization. Even your mailbox is a hundred miles away.

      It’s only sixty-three miles.

      I’ve been gone from Rocking Horse for thirty years. I just can’t go back to that isolation.

      Maybe you’ll change your mind when the kids—

      Rose and Jay are in college. Why do you keep …

      A long pause follows. Then Ral continues.

      It’s just not in our plans, Dad, he says. None of ours. I know how you always dreamed of one of your boys taking over the ranch, but I stopped being a cowboy a long time back.

      That’s the whole thing, Ral. You don’t have to be a cowboy. Rocking Horse West is for you when you retire. You can live here for practically nothing and—

      Dad! Listen to me. Why do you keep this up?

      I stare at the giant ponderosa pine snag a quarter mile away, partway up Lee’s Hill. The picnic table I built for Betty is pretty well rotted now. And a couple of falling branches did it in a year ago. But we used to have our lunch under that tree so often and just look back at the ranch house and know that this piece of New Mexico was ours. And we were just a link in the chain of family that would go on forever at the Rocking Horse.

      You’re a three hour drive from Jack’s Mule’s Corner. And that’s not even a town. Milk and mail. That’s it. And what if …. Can you hold on a minute, Dad? I’ve got another call.

      I’m a good holder. My eyes shift to the floor, then to my cowboy boots. I usually have them on my feet by this time of the morning. This is the pair I bought for Ral when he graduated from high school. They’re better than any I ever got for myself. Still in good shape three heels later.

      I start coughing and manage to put the receiver back on the phone as I convulse through one of my coughing fits. As I lower the damp handkerchief from my mouth, those boots come back into focus. Then I look at my feet. Slippers. Fleece-lined slippers. What’s this ranch coming to when the rancher walks around in fleece-lined slippers?

      Ral won’t call back. I sit down on the arm of my chair and take deep breaths until I’m back to normal. Normal. The word just falls out of my mouth. Like these damn teeth sometimes do. Normal is pitiful.

      But Ral is right. He and Jan won’t ever live here. How about Rose or Jay? They like this place. Maybe after they finish college. Maybe. And Jan told me once she’d even consider retiring here. Even though Ral says no. I take a Marlboro flip-top box from my Levis jacket. It’s so hard to get my fingers to work right this early in the morning. Damn. A brand new box. My teeth get the cellophane started. I finally get a mangled cigarette out and cradle it between my teeth. The first bluetip lights easily, but the head breaks off. I stand up and stomp it out on the linoleum. At least as much as you can stomp with fleece-lined slippers. Then I strike another. That first puff feels good. Better than usual.

      I pull those

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1