A cowboy considers his next move

He was in the boarding house. There were boots pacing the floorboards above him and boots with spurs pacing the floorboards next door. Eric felt the teeming of cowboy brains all around. He felt it through the walls and through the ceiling and the floor. And he thought he felt it coming up through the plug hole in the washbasin. ‘What is my next move?’ the cowboys were all thinking. And their boots paced the floorboards.

Eric had not yet considered his next move. But now he got into his boots and paced his own floorboards and thought.

Earlier he had been walking up the thoroughfare. He had seen a woman dressed in black, a widow. She was frowning at a barrel of apples. She looked down upon them dour and disgusted. Eric watched her pick up an apple, examine it, then put it back in the barrel. She appeared to be testing the apples for their individual spiritual qualities; and the spiritual qualities of the apples she tested did not appear to please her. They were dirty, godless apples. It was strange to see a widow doing that. Most of the widows Eric had known did not concern themselves with particulars such as these. They were simply consumed by their grief.

Then Eric took off his boots and went to bed. He still hadn’t considered his next move.

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