In evening’s cool hush he reined his horse out of the cedars and rode her at a walk into a stand of white birches. The big bay mare shook her head, her hooves crunched into leaves and twigs as the saddle leather creaked. Autumn breezes soughed through the branches of the hardwoods. There was no trail.

He saw an outcrop of lichen-covered rock at the rim of a great distance and rode to it. Reining in the mare he pushed back his old hat then leaned forward to rest a forearm on the saddle horn. He slipped a hand under the horse's reddish-brown mane to massage her neck and the mare raised her head sideways and snorted and then grazed on the scrub grass.

Grey mountains on the horizon hemmed in the expanse of a faded green prairie, where a town, like a collection of tiny colored boxes, sat far out on the plain with a long thread of road through it. Resting his gaze on the distant town he imagined a woman's touch and whiskey and tobacco and card games. He thought about hot meals prepared and served with consideration. "There's a lot to be said about a town," he mused.

The evening sky closed to cobalt, opening into the indigo of a clear night as the earth turned into its shadow. A harvest moon hung brightly. Feeling the night chill he sat up to raise the collar of his long-coat and pull his hat low. The mare raised her head and waited while he compared the tiny specks of light in the far away town to the starlight, sparkling like silver dust thrown across the heavens. Then with a lazy motion of his arm he laid the reins along the mare’s neck. "Come on horse. We'll settle down too," he said and laughed a little. "Someday."