Alonzo's Bosque

Alonzo’s Bosque

            Alonzo surveyed his cabin, worried about the impending impression it would make on his returning family. He cursed, because he hated “putting on a dog and pony show” or bribing his kids and ex-wife to visit the farm. At the same time, he wouldn’t stoop to accepting pity just because he was dying. People should take him for what he was, even his long missing children.

            Yet—maybe he could sacrifice this once… He intended to convince someone to stay here in New Mexico on his bosque homestead. He didn’t have long to convince them either, because doctor Mills had only given him a couple of months. Oh, they’d put him on the heart donor list, but he wasn’t stupid. He’d never get one in time. 

            Inside his cabin, he had washed the hills of dishes, the mountain of clothes and carefully swept the faded linoleum floor of the accumulated dust.

            He nodded. Best foot forward. That was simple enough. 

               

Excerpt from a short story included in a book of short stories about the oil field and the southwest that I hope to publish in the coming year.