Seen Near Loma
by Rebecca Lawton
I.
Thirty years ago:
Boyce and Sutton drop me at Loma General Store. Sorry, they say, but we’re driving east to Junction. I shoulder my gear to the edge of Colorado 139, under a yellow cottonwood. They cross the tracks in Boyce’s VW, over to Interstate 70
Beside me on the ground: guitar, waterproof box, river bag
The first car up the road is a blue Plymouth sedan. It stops, maybe my only chance all day, and I get in. Two ranchers wearing straw Bailey U-Roll-Its drive me past fields of alfalfa and oceans of unfenced grass (green with red and purple and yellow wildflowers), over Douglas Pass where the aspen and fir grow together and coyotes wail on the ridge
We ride together without speaking, all the way through the Rangely oilfields, where pumps bob like big-headed pteranodons sucking black oozes
II.
One week ago:
Driving north on 139, past the General Store, boarded up long ago Leaves shudder on the old cottonwood. A figure steps from the shade and moves, fast and smooth as a ghost, to the edge of the road
On the ground beside her: dusty saddle, saddlebags, old bedroll. A long cigarette dangles from her lips
This time I’m at the wheel. We can drive past fields of alfalfa and colored grasses mixed together like water in a lake, over the pass where coyotes howl, all the way into Rangely
But she’s dirty and hard and I don’t stop
(First published in Standing Wave. Prescott, AZ. 1997.)
