Creation Ranch 18

Chapter 18: Lora begins with Eric coming out of it, and Lora replacing him in my world, but you should see how the stubborn thing ends.

Chapter 18: Lora

When I got back into the story a day had passed for me, only moments for the folks before the fort in Creation Ranch, and there the shot everyone heard must have struck Eric Havoll who had fallen back down into the wagon and into the waiting arms of his beloved Lora, who whimpered and placing her hand over the blood looked up at the sun or me; her eyes full of tears, and screaming grabbed Eric’s revolver and stood up in the wagon fanning shots at the Ghalbans, but hitting no one she instead took one in the chest herself, falling beside her loved one who stirred in the wagon as if it even brought him back to his severely injured body.

He groaned and wrapped his arm around her before he passed out again.

And . . . there was a knock at my door so I rose to answer it; I was writing at my table in the front room. As the knock sounded again I raised the calendar without looking at it and peeped out into the hall; a girl in western garb stood there with a confused look on her face. And, for some reason Lora Havoll came to mind.

I opened the door and looked at my visitor.

“This may sound strange but I believe you know me?” the cowgirl said.

“I am sorry that I don’t,” I said, taking in her obvious beauty.

She giggled ever so lightly and charmingly added, “You at least know my name,” as she entered upon my stepping aside so that she could. “I am normally not this forward, but this is not normal circumstances.”

I was puzzled though yet distracted by her beauty and the feeling I knew her but couldn’t place her didn’t help me pay attention to what she was saying either.

“Well, I guess I’ll just come right out and tell you who I am and why I am here?” she said.

I was all for it.

“You really don’t know me?”

I shook my head and added, “I don’t seem to be able to place you, but you look like I imagine one of my characters in my latest novel in progress, Creation Ranch; a stupid name I know but for some reason I just haven’t really discovered how yet it seems germane.”

She was looking me in the eye as if she had no concept at all of what I was talking about.

I was the first to break eye contact, and when I looked at her again she was staring at my not so clean carpet; it hasn’t been cleaned in years.

“My name is Lora Havoll?” she said raising her eyes intentionally to see my reaction.

‘Not again!’ I thought in my disgust and felt ashamed that I felt that way at the same time. I suspect I was just learning I didn’t mind writing so long as my characters stayed between the lines and did not actually come knocking on my door; getting into a story was one thing, to have characters in a story get involved in one’s life was another.

So I must have displayed my frustration for she said, “I am sorry, but this is the only place I know of to go. I have no money. I have no place to stay? I feel like I don’t belong here anywhere,” she whimpered and allowed me to hug her in sympathy.

“It will be okay,” I said remembering how I had seemed to get rid of Eric so easily by adding only a few phrases to my novel that locked him back in his world, and maybe brought him back to life there in front of the fort.

“You promise?” she asked as she pulled away from me for a moment.

I must be sick for I was considering impure thoughts about my own creation and almost acted on them to the point of trying to kiss her after I assured her I knew how to get her back in the story. She looked at me surprised by my inability to disguise my attraction to her, then she hugged me even tighter and said, “I was so concerned there in the Inn when you . . .”

I understood fully and broke off what had become our embrace remembering the pain of that situation and solemnly turned toward my laptop there on the table.

I walked toward it and wrote this in addition to what I had already written:

The touch of Lora’s beloved’s hand on her wound stirred things in the young woman she could not have ever known as she stirred under his touch and cried out in pain shortly before falling silent again, as the hopeful couple lay as if deceased in the wagon there on the field in front of Creation Ranch where even the mule collapsed, apparently wounded or dead because of a stray bullet.

Upon finishing keyboarding it in the story as you can see, I looked for Lora to see whether it had worked and though surprised by the bray of a mule in the yard outside I smiled to think she was not only back in the story but still alive.

Then I walked to the window and sure enough the mule that was dead there near Dacica was out in the apartment building’s well mown lawn. I chose to ignore it, knowing that such a thing would not go unreported by others in the building and was surprised that a cop already approached the animal and was greeted gladly by the seemingly stray mule I decided to leave in our world just to see what they might do with such a beast.

Then I changed my mind and wrote this to the story above after several minutes when I saw the mule begin to elude capture and run behind the library down the street and turn to run into the yard of the church on the corner where upon entry it disappeared.

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