I awoke with a scream loud enough to wake the dead. I started to leap from my bunk, but instead settled back down, shaking with fear and covered with sweat. The full moon sent its vivid light through the bunkhouse window and directly onto my bed, while a steady wind moaned through the pines. That wind had blown open the door and slammed it against the wall.
“What in blue blazes was that all about, Bob? You all right?” Thad Coburn, one of the other new men here at the Rafter K Ranch, called. I’d awakened everyone in the bunkhouse. They were staring at me questioningly.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Just had a real bad nightmare, that’s all,” I explained.
“You must’ve been dreamin’ that the devil himself was after you to let out a holler like that. Sent shivers up
my spine,” Jake Bennett, the Rafter K’s segundo, added. “Sure hope you don’t wake up like that again.”
“I won’t,” I promised him. I’d arrived at the Rafter K only a few days previously, and had talked them into taking a chance on this grubline-riding cowboy named Bob Lydell. I sure didn’t want to lose the job by scaring everyone out of their wits, ruining their sleep. And I liked what I’d seen of the place so far. The Rafter K was set high in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies, with fantastic scenery and crisp, clear air. The bunkhouse was sturdily built and cleaner than most, the other buildings in good repair, while the chuck was the best I’d had on any of the spreads where I’d worked. The cattle were all nice and fat from grazing on that thick Colorado grass. Best of all from a working cowboy’s standpoint, every horse in the string I’d been assigned was a superior mount. Each of them was a hardworking cowpony, trustworthy and true. I felt I had finally found a place where I could be content for the rest of my life, and perhaps drive the demons from my mind for good.
“Good. Then I’d recommend we all get back to our shut-eye. We’ve got an early start and a long day ahead of us,” Bennett ordered.
“As for me, if I’m gonna dream, it’s gonna be about Betsy, that cute blonde filly down at the Drover’s Bar,” Coburn commented.
“Dreamin’ about her’s about all you’ll do,” Hank Mayburn retorted. “That gal ain’t ever gonna give you the time of day.”
The others were soon back asleep, snoring softly under their blankets. However, I couldn’t shake the terrifying image of that nightmare from my mind.
I tossed and turned for a spell, then gave up trying to get back to sleep as a lost cause. I swung my legs over the edge of the mattress and sat up, then picked up my shirt and jeans from the floor alongside my bunk. I used the shirt to wipe the sweat from my face and chest, tossed it aside and pulled on the jeans. I reached for my vest, hanging from a peg over my bunk, and removed my matches, cigarette papers, and sack of Durham from the left breast pocket. Not wanting to again disturb my bunkmates, I didn’t pull on my boots, but quietly as possible padded barefoot to the door. My hands were shaking so violently it took me several tries to build a smoke. I spilled half my sack of tobacco before I managed to sprinkle enough on a paper to roll a quirly. When at last I succeeded, I scratched a lucifer to life on the wall, then touched it to the end of the cigarette.
Dark, puffy clouds were scudding across the sky, alternately obscuring then revealing the full late September harvest moon. The interplay of light and dark sent eerie shadows across the rolling foothills. The tall pines seemed to bend threateningly toward the bunkhouse with each fitful gust. Inside the stable the horses were restless,
nickering and stamping. And somewhere in the hills a wolf howled mournfully, its chilling call echoing off the hills and over the prairie. The animal’s high-pitched wail sent shudders up my spine.
That wind, the moon, the shadows, and the wolf’s cries brought back memories of another night a year ago. A night on the Wyoming high plains, much like this one. A night that, try as I might, I would never forget.