The Chosen: Chapter 3 - Desert Rose

Rose walked along the long narrow dirt road that lead to her remote New Mexico ranch.  Her black and white border collie, Darwin, lagged behind slightly, checking out all of the different smells that he found along the dusty roadside.  Rose had called the ranch her home for almost ten years, and she had never been happier.  

 

Ten years ago Rose had left her husband of fifteen years after learning of his infidelity, and she had never looked back.  She had known since the day she had met him, that it would only be a matter of time before he would disappoint her.  She often wished that she had never married, and saved herself the inevitable heartache that followed.  Her father had taught her at an early age, that the one thing all men were destined to do was to disappoint.  But apparently she hadn't learned her lesson the first time.  

 

Following the divorce, Rose had left the city and found a home in the country.  She had never liked city life.  She had only lived there because her husband’s work was there, and the divorce had actually freed her to live the life she had always wanted.

Rose loved nature, animals, and most of all Art.  Now she had all three in her life, and it was a good life; a great life.  Her remote setting kept her in close proximity with nature and wildlife, and she had also acquired a small menagerie on her thirty acre ranch. She had horses, goats, chickens, dogs, cats and a stubborn old donkey named Eeyore. She loved them all.  They were her family now.  And most importantly, she had her Art.  She made sculptures and jewelry inspired by Native American art and culture.  She had become fairly successful, and her artwork and jewelry were featured in many of the tourist’s shops in the surrounding towns, and even in a few galleries in Albuquerque.  

Rose enjoyed her evening walks with Darwin.  He was the only dog that she could trust to walk with her without a leash.  He never ran off.  She knew that Darwin loved their walks too, because she always walked around eight o’clock, and somehow he knew what time it was every night.  At exactly eight p.m., he would pace impatiently in front of the door, or he would plop himself down near the door, and lay there with his muzzle between his paws, staring up at her pitifully.  As soon as she would finish lacing up her tennis shoes, he would be chomping at the bit and turning circles frantically at the front door.

It was a beautiful evening.  Rose always walked around sundown, for two reasons - it was a lot cooler than during the day, and the sunsets over the desert were stunning.  The evening’s sky was a brilliant red-orange, and cast an eerie glow over the desert landscape.  There was a chill in the air, as the sun was slowly slipping behind the distant mountains.  She pulled her unzipped sweatshirt closed and hugged her thin arms across her chest. A gentle breeze began to blow, causing her short brown hair to ruffle slightly.  On the breeze was the faint smell of desert lavender. 

 

What a perfect night. 

    

As Rose was nearing a bend in the dirt road, her ranch appeared in front of her. 

 

Home sweet Home.  

Darwin raced ahead of her towards the house, as he always did.  But then he did something he had never done before on any of their walks.  He stopped in his tracks, in the middle of the road, and stared intently towards the barn which stood solemnly next to the house.  His head aimed low, and his ears pulled back against his head.  His hackles bristled along his shoulders and hind quarters, and a deep growl issued from his throat.  

Rose immediately stopped walking, and looked curiously towards her dog.  He had never behaved like this before.

“Darwin, what’s up?”, Rose called to him.

Darwin looked back briefly at Rose over his shoulder, but then his gaze quickly returned to the barn.  The horses were out in the pasture, so there shouldn’t have been anything in the barn to draw his attention.

 

Why was he looking toward the barn?  And why had he growled?

 

Her other dogs would sometimes bark or growl at nothing more than a leaf blowing in the wind, but not Darwin.  Darwin was her sensible dog.  

 

But every dog has their off day, she thought.

   

“C’mon Darwin!”, Rose called to him again, as she started walking, “Let’s go get the horses!”

 

Darwin looked begrudgingly back over his shoulder at Rose, and then started walking again in the direction of the house.  It was going to get dark soon and she had to get the horses and Eeyore into the barn for the night.

  

Darwin knew the evening routine.  After returning home from their walks, they would go to the house where Rose would retrieve a large flashlight so that they could see if it started to get too dark while they rounded up the horses.

 

As Rose reached for the front door, she glanced down at her hand and noticed that her wrist was bare.  Her bracelet was gone.

  

It must have fallen off during the walk.

 

It had been on her wrist when she had checked her mailbox as they were leaving her property, but it was now gone.  Immediate disappointment hit her.

The bracelet was one of the first pieces of jewelry she had created, and it was made of silver with multiple charms of differently colored polished stone.  It was her favorite piece of jewelry because it had sentimental value.  It symbolized the beginning of her new life, and her venture into the world of art.  She would have to go back and look for it, but not now.  It was already getting too dark to see well, and she had to get the horses in for the night.

  

I will go back and look for it in the morning, she thought.

  

Rose grabbed the flashlight from the table just inside her front door and returned outside. She followed Darwin’s lead towards the paddock. 

As Darwin passed the barn he slowed and glanced at the large open doorway, and then back at Rose.  She couldn’t help but wonder what he had become so interested in.  He usually paid little attention to the barn unless the horses were inside.  His herding instinct was strong, and he was naturally drawn to the horses.  But they were in the pasture now, not the barn.

If only he could tell her what was going on in that canine head of his.

It didn’t take Rose long to round up the horses and Eeyore and get them into the barn.  As usual  Darwin was a big help. He raced around the horses feet with his head held low, steering them in the right direction. 

 

As Rose was putting the horses in their stalls, she realized that Darwin hadn’t come into the barn with her.  She looked around, and noticed that he was sitting in the middle of the barn's large open doorway. Silhouetted by moonlight, he looked very small in the cavernous space that lead out into the night.  She looked at him curiously, as she shut and bolted the last stall door.  It was very unlike him to not be right by her side.

 

What was going on with him tonight?

They returned to the house, and Rose decided to make herself some tea.  She was placing the tea pot on the stove burner when she heard the wind chimes on her front porch.  Rose had made the wind chimes herself, and she loved the sounds they produced.  Their melodic chiming made her feel at home, and she loved breezy nights when they lulled her to sleep.

The breeze must have picked up. It was probably going to be a bit windy and chilly tonight. 

 

She was contemplating starting a small fire in the fireplace, when she heard the horses whinnying from the barn.  It wasn’t all that unusual for them to whinny at night, so she really didn’t pay much attention at first.  But then she heard Eeyore braying, and that caught her attention immediately. Eeyore rarely made a sound.  The horses began to whinny louder, and Eeyore's braying grew louder.  Something was obviously agitating them.

 

The Coyotes must be back.

 The only time she had ever heard Eeyore bray was when there had been coyotes on her property.

    

Rose put her mug down on the kitchen counter, and was headed towards the front window to look outside, when the wind chimes began to clink and jingle wildly on the front porch. 

Was it really that windy outside?

She continued to head for the front window and was reaching for the curtain to pull it back, when Darwin began to growl.  A deep grumbling slowly worked its way out of his throat, and he was fixated on the front door.  Her other two dogs began to bark and growl furiously in the room next door, and outside the horses’ whinnying and Eeyore’s braying grew more urgent.  

What was bothering them all?

 

A twinge of alarm coursed through her, and for the first time in almost ten years, Rose suddenly wished that her ranch wasn’t as remote as it was.

 

Rose began to feel fear twisting in her gut.  She tried to brush off the feeling and tell herself that it was just coyotes and the wind, but Darwin’s growling alarmed her.  He never growled in the house.  Not ever.  Even when the coyotes had been on her property.  He was her sensible dog and he was her smartest dog.  If he was growling there had to be a real reason and she was afraid of what that reason might be.

 

Suddenly Rose wished she had locked her doors, but she never did.  She didn’t have to worry about being robbed in the middle of nowhere.

   

Then as quickly as it had all started, it suddenly grew quiet again.  The horses and Eeyore stopped making noise, the wind chimes were still, and Darwin and her other dogs stopped barking and growling.

 

What had that been all about?  

            

Rose took a couple of hesitant steps towards the front door, and flipped the porch light on.  She drew back the curtains in the front window slightly, and peered out at the front porch, the barn, and the yard beyond.  Nothing looked out of place, and there were no signs of any coyotes.  The wind chimes were hanging perfectly still from the eve, as if they hadn't been moving at all a moment before.

 

Her eyes scanned the scene several times, and she was about to turn away from the window, when something caught her eye.  She squinted her eyes, and leaned in towards the glass to get a better look.  Her heart skipped a beat in her chest, and she reflexively jerked back from the window.

  

It couldn’t be.  It simply couldn’t be. 

        

Laying neatly on the porch’s wooden railing was a bracelet. 

 

It was silver with many charms, and she knew without stepping a foot onto the porch, that if she were to get a closer look at it that she would find that the charms were made of polished stone.

  

Even though she knew it wasn’t possible, she couldn’t deny what she saw on her front porch railing.  It was her bracelet; the bracelet she had lost on the road during her evening walk.  She was filled with a feeling of disbelief and wonder.

  

How was this possible?  She knew that she had it on when she had left her property and that it was gone when she had returned.  Therefore,  it had to have fallen off somewhere along the dusty roadside.  But there it sat on the wooden porch rail.

 

As Rose gaped in bewilderment at the small charm bracelet, she caught movement in the moonlight out of the corner of her eye.  A form moved swiftly through the darkness around the corner of the barn and quickly disappeared behind it like an apparition.  Covering her mouth with her hand to stifle a scream of surprise, she stepped back from the window so quickly she nearly tripped over Darwin. Her eyes widened with fear and she could feel her own quickening pulse as adrenaline coursed through her veins. Darwin began growling fiercely at the front door, a threatening low rumbling sound, and bared his teeth; something he rarely did.

 

Rose's heart launched itself into her throat.  Her brain desperately attempted to make sense of what she had just seen in the darkness outside her window.  She had only seen the form for a brief moment as it moved rapidly through the deep shadows cast by the barn, so she had been unable to make out any details.  But the moonlight had provided enough illumination to reveal that something about the form didn't quite sit right. The thing that had moved through the night seemed wrong.  It wasn't human, and it definitely had not been a coyote.

Rose made a futile attempt to match the form and movement of the thing she had seen with known local wildlife, but she came up completely empty. 

Part of Rose's brain was telling her that it had to have been a deer or a large stray dog that she had seen, and that it had just been too dark for her to positively identify it.  This part was telling her that the shadows and darkness had just been playing tricks on her, and that there was nothing to be afraid of.  But the other part of her brain, the part that she would gladly have had surgically removed, was screaming at her, telling her something different.  The other part was trying to tell her that there was something to be afraid of, something much worse than anything she could imagine.  It warned her of a deeper fear, like a fear from long ago when she was a child - a fear of a monster in the closet, a monster under the bed, something unimaginable waiting for her in the darkness.                                     

Rose quickly stepped towards the front door and reached out with a shaking hand to turn the deadbolt.  There was an audible clank as the heavy bolt slid into place. She then turned and headed frantically to the rear of the house to lock the back door as well, her hands shaking uncontrollably and her heart pounding wildly against her rib cage.

 

It was the first time in ten years that Rose had locked her doors. But it wouldn’t be the last time in the days to come.

Author's Note

Please comment and provide feedback!!! I will add Chapters as they are written, so stay tuned...

Reviews

[Stacy Purvis]

Eerie...Had me on the edge of my seat. I could picture this in my mind! So crazy. More!!!
Thank you for sharing. xxx

[matrixmark]

I can't tell you how excited I was to return to this piece. You opened up with a cute image of which I am sure many will agree. I really like how you are laying the chapters out - going from one person to another, from one chapter to the next - Good character build up and this is how it's meant to be done.You painted such a good picture of how Roses life is now andeven though their was only a snippet of information of her past, the information which followed was good to see that she had settled and found her own 'ideal little wordl' to now settle down in. Cute images of Darwin waiting for Rose to take her for a walk at 8. Its so true though - animals somehow do recognise the time. Again,with this bit, to add in that Darwin ran around in circles, that was another good touch (little details really do seem to be a very strong point of yours)
The descriptives were brief but yet strong with the describing the evening air. You painted good images of what Rose would have been looking at.
So the attention spike came with Darwin. I really was you were going to do something like what you did with the dog and you did. The ears back and growling - little touches again, which really made the foundation a lot stronger as the piece flows on. Good solid structure with regarding this because you have built up Darwin and used him appropriately instead of using Rose - Nice switch with Darwing noticing the danger instead of Rose.A lot would have used Rose, so I am impressed you chose the other route.
LOVED THE IMAGE OF DARWIN AT IN BETWEEN THE BARN DOORS. THOSE IMAGES ARE ALWAYS SO EYECATCHING (For me at least) - What a brilliant thing to put in. I really liked the tense atmosphere towards the end with the animals go wild and the wind chimes starting up. This was so Awesome!!!
And then just to crank it up even more - Roses bracelet.

Such a cool way to end it.
Mark my words,I am coming back for more of this story.
Eeyore - Love it.

The part where she had the thought process of thinking about the bracelt, I would take out the third sentence as I feel it will have more of an impact having the first couple of sentences there instead of the 3rd sentence added on - Its only my opinion, but it really does strike a chord neverthe less.
What you added on was perfect. I liked how you talked about Rose wanting to remove the part of her brain which had registered all what she had just seen. It was also good that you added depth into Roses thinking. It was clear to understand that she was drawing on some childhood experience which had stayed with her for years.

I liked the additions, well worth them being there.

Mark.