Cowboy's Witch

It was late October and the sun had long since set. Gus looked up at the moonless sky. It was clear and crisp, a sure sign that winter wouldn't be long coming. He was looking forward to winter. Most of his time would be spent on the ranch. The bunkhouse would be warm, and the food good. All Hallow's Eve would soon be here. He tried to recall what that fire and brimstone preacher had said about it last year. Something about devils and witches. He shivered for a moment and added another piece of wood to the campfire.

Gus finished his cup of coffee and looked skyward as a shooting star passed overhead. It was unlike any other he had seen in his life. The glow was almost a bright pink.

"Did ya catch that, Pete? Did ya make a wish?" Gus chuckled as he addressed Pete.

Pete looked up at Gus and went back to grazing on the grass. The horse was used to the man and listened to the quiet, calm voice as he ate.

Gus laughed. "City folks might think I'm a bit queer for talking to horses. My answer to them is that horses never argue and never talk back."

He pulled his boots off and set them beside his bedroll. He unbuttoned his shirt and then removed his heavy work pants. He had already removed the thick leather chaps that protected his legs while riding.

The stars seemed brighter tonight. Gus felt like he was the luckiest man in the world. He drifted off to sleep as he gazed at the stars above.

It was a dream, it had to be. There was a woman wearing a pink dress that sparkled feeding Pete apples. A smile grew on his face as he drifted back to sleep. Pete had him a woman friend. "Pretty one, too. Lucky horse," he murmured to himself as his eyes closed.

The sky was gray, the sun hadn't peeked over the horizon when Gus awoke. He felt refreshed; the air had a sweet smell to it this morning. He couldn't immediately recognize the aroma. It was almost flowery. It reminded him of the description of exotic perfumes that he had read in the books that Nestor brought out with his monthly supplies.

It smelled of crisp sheets dried in the sunshine, honey and perfume. Flowery essence worn by the ladies in the penny dreadfuls Nestor carried along with the supplies when he stocked the line shack. The cook's helper scoffed at the idea of a cowboy reading, but Gus noticed that Nestor always managed to be within hearing range when he read the tales out loud to Pete.

Gus turned in the direction of the scent floating on the air. He stopped, dead still, unable to believe his eyes. There in the middle of the jimsonweed and sage brush was a brass bed, all curlicued and shiny in the early morning light. It was piled with white linen and pillows and in the middle of the bed, a woman was sleeping.

"What the hell is that?"

She yawned, stretched and sat up in bed. The snowy white sheets held tight against her body. "It's my bed. Don't you have beds here?"

Gus stood there clad in his red flannels, high cowboy boots and his hat. He quickly snatched his hat from his head and held it between his legs. His mouth reminded her of a fish gulping for air. It opened and closed many times before he spoke again.

"Of course I have a bed." He pointed to his bedroll that was still spread on the ground. "The question is where did you and your bed come from?"

Instantly he was suspicious. He looked at her with a wary eye. "Nestor didn't put you up to this, did he?"

He scanned the surrounding area. "Nestor! Are you out there? You son-of-a-bitch!"

She was a pretty little thing, not the sort of girl that Nestor would get hold of. The ladies in the rooms above the saloon were never as fresh-faced or as winsome as the one facing him on that bed.

Looking around in curiosity she asked, "What's a Nestor? A wizard? Do you have wizards here? Oh, good. I thought I was all alone, the only one."

"The only one what? And no, Nestor's not a wizard. He cheats at cards though; I know that for a fact. There's no such thing as wizards!"

She looked at him, astonished. "No such thing as wizards!" Now she was the one who was open-mouthed.

"No, ma'am. No such thing as wizards or ghosts," he continued, exasperated by the conversation he was having with this strange lady, "or mermaids or sprites or witches or ...." He was interrupted by peals of laughter coming from the girl on the bed.

"No such thing as witches!? But I'm a witch!"

Gus searched his memory for anything he had read of witches.

"Where's your black hat? And... and... and your broom?" One fact leapt from Gus's memory of witches. "And where's your black devil's cat, the kind them Mex cowboys call El Gato Diablo Negro?"

She smiled happily. "Oh, but I'm a good witch. I'm Aurora of the Green. All Greens are good witches," she said, as if that would explain everything and answer all his questions.

Gus couldn't believe this conversation. He was standing in his unmentionables, talking to a pretty girl who was sitting in the middle of a big brass bed practically on top of where he'd stretched out for the night. And she was claiming to be a witch. He wondered for a moment if he was still asleep.

"If you would excuse me for a few minutes, ma'am..." Gus began.

"Please call me Aurora. Your name is Gus. Pete told me last night," she interrupted.

Gus snuck a quick look at Pete who remained right where he'd left him the night before, placidly munching grass in the early morning light.

"Miss Aurora, ma'am. I need to get dressed. I apologize for my unseemly appearance."

Gus grabbed his pants and shirt and trotted down towards the stream. Tittering laughter, and a cool breeze blowing in, reminded him that one of the buttons on his drawers was missing. His face turned as red as his red flannels as he reached behind and held the flap in place as he walked. If only he hadn't have lost the damned button.

He heard her call out in that pretty little voice of hers. "I could fix that for you," followed by more of those giggles. They really did sound like bells, he thought. Gus had read that in his books but always thought the writers were making it up out of whole cloth until now.

"I would be more than happy to repair your drawers." Gus muttered to himself in a poor imitation of Aurora's voice. Her words only served to fuel his embarrassment more. He shook his head as he walked, trying to make sense of the morning.

Gus knelt at the creek and splashed the icy cold water on his face. It was bracing and served as a shock to his system. Just the kind of tonic he needed right now. He turned his gaze back in the direction of where he was camped. His head nodded slowly, and off came the drawers. As naked as the day he was born, Gus stood there for a few minutes as he eyed the creek.

"Ah, hell," he muttered. "In for a penny, in for a pound."

With those words, Gus jumped into the creek. As the frigid water hit his body, his eyes opened wide in shock. Gus couldn't remember the last time he moved so fast. With chattering teeth, he got dressed. He set off for his camp, feeling like a new man. A man who did not see witches, no matter how pretty they were.

"Vapors," Gus said to himself as he reached his camp. "Must have caught a case of the vapors."

A wide smile broke across his face when he saw that the bed and the girl had both disappeared. The world was right again.

"Pete, I tell ya," he turned to speak to his horse and his mouth dropped.

Aurora was feeding the horse shiny pink apples. She looked at Gus and smiled. "You were saying--"

Gus looked around for the bed; he removed his battered hat and scratched his head. He looked back at Aurora, "Y-y-you're still here."

"Of course I'm still here. Where would I go?" Aurora continued feeding Pete bits of apple.

"I dunno." Gus didn't have an answer, but he did have a question. "If you don't mind me askin', what happened to your bed?" He looked around but saw nothing but the jimsonweed he'd seen the night before, certainly no place where a bed, especially one that fancy, could be hidden.

"It's daytime and I'm not sleepy. When I need it, I'll just bring it back."

Gus heard the words but they didn't make sense. What he needed now was a cup of coffee. With a practiced hand he arranged the tinder and then the kindling. The match started the tufts of grass burning; careful blowing and shielding of the small flames soon got the fire blazing. He set the coffee pot on a flat rock in the corner of the fire.

He watched Aurora with Pete. A smile crossed his face. He had to admit, Pete had certainly taken a shine to the young woman. He had work to do. What was he going to do with her? There was no way that he could leave her here by herself.

"Miss Aurora. After I have my coffee, and you are most welcome to join me..."

Aurora smiled and walked over to the fire. "Thank you, Gus. I appreciate the offer, but I don't like coffee. I prefer my tea."

"I'm sorry, Miss Aurora. I don't have any tea with me."

"That's perfectly fine, Gus. I have my own."

Gus looked at and saw Aurora sipping tea from a fine china cup and saucer.

"What? Where did that come from?" Gus searched for a logical clue to where the cup had come from.

"I told you, I'm a witch, and witches can do things like that."

It didn't seem possible. Gus's world was a world of black and white. There was little in-between in his life. The sun rose in the morning, and you started to work. The sun went down in the evening, and you went to bed. There was no room for witches in his world.

Gus looked at the delicate china cup she held in her hand and at Pete, still chomping on the last bit of apple she'd fed him. He still wasn't sure how she'd done them things, but he knew there had to be a trick to it all. There was no such thing as magic, after all. Perhaps she had a box full of apples and tea cups and...

He wasn't exactly sure how that big brass bed fit in there, but he'd worry about that later.

"Ha! I've got it all figured out. I know how you did it." Gus exclaimed, advancing on the pretty little gal as she stood there, finishing the last of her tea.

"Did what? I didn't do anything," Aurora asked, looking around for a misplaced bit of magic.

"All them conjuring tricks! You've got a box of things hidden under that pink skirt of yours."

"I do not!" she said indignantly. "Look!"

Aurora raised her skirts and Gus watched in awe as a pair of glistening pink shoes appeared. Then a pair of trim ankles in stockings as lacy and delicate as a spider's web in the early morning light. The stockings were tied with pink silk garters just below her knees. Knees that Gus should not be seeing. He knew that and yet he looked for just a moment longer before whirling around to face away from the entrancing sight. "Miss Aurora! A lady does not show a strange man her ankles."

"I don't think you're that strange," Aurora giggled, "and I had to show you there was no box of tricks.

I'm a real witch. Now, do you believe me?"

Gus gulped. He wasn't sure what he believed, but the sight of Aurora's stockinged legs would stay with him for a long time. Tucked away with such wonders as -- Gus couldn't actually think of any wonders comparable to Aurora's dimpled knees tied with those silk ribbons but he was pretty sure there were some. Maybe.

He looked up from his contemplation and looked at Aurora. She was staring off across the valley floor. He hadn't realized how pretty she was. Gus felt his cheeks, and the five-day growth of stubble. Her dress sparkled. He had never seen fabric so fine. The sparkles reminded him of the stars in the night sky. The pink was the color of the sky just as the sun rose on a spring morning.

"I've never heard of a Green witch before." Gus thought he would humor her for a bit.

"You've never heard of any witch before," Aurora teased, her warm smile taking any sting out of the words. "I'm not surprised. We Greens don't spend much time around people. We are usually found at work in the forests. Have you ever walked through the deep woods and found a tree dropped across a creek just when you needed to cross?"

Gus nodded.

"Or came across a meadow filled with bluebells and butterflies, sweet water flowing through a stream and berries when you're hungry?" she continued. "That's what I do. Make those places for the enjoyment of all creatures in the land."

"Why are you here then?" Gus honestly wanted to hear her answer.

A puzzled look replaced the serene expression. "I don't know. I've been wondering that myself. I've never worked on the prairie before." Aurora looked at the prairie stretching out in all directions and the mountains rising in the distance. "It's very interesting," she said, "but it's not like home at all."

Gus finished his coffee and looked at the sun. "Pete and I need to get to work and the only thing is, there's no one to take care of you. You'll need to come with me today. You can ride..."

"I could ride my own horse." Aurora interrupted.

"Yes, ma'am. I'm sure you could, but right now I don't have an extra horse. It's just Pete and me. Maybe when Nestor comes back, he could..."

"No, I could ride my own horse." Aurora emphasized the last few words in the sentence.

"You just can't take away a man's horse. Pete's a working horse. I need him to do my job, Miss Aurora." Gus tried his best to make the young lady see reason.

"Not Pete. Her."

Standing beside Pete was a small white filly, almost glowing in the sunshine. Her mane flowed in long

waves from the curve of her neck. Her tail was festooned with garlands of flowers and pink ribbons.

"Miss Aurora," Gus began, walking over to take a closer look at the latest apparition. "A horse is a living, breathing creature. It's not an apple or a bed or a -- you can't just go whipping one up whenever you need one. It just ain't right."

"She's my horse. Her name is June."

"She has to go, ma'am. She's not a working horse. She's a-a-a fairy tale horse!"

"But Pete says he likes her."

Pete nudged Gus in the butt with his nose and nodded his head in agreement.

"Okay, the filly can stay, but can you at least take the ribbons out of her tail?"

"But why? Pete and I think she's pretty."

"'Cause she's a workin' horse now and workin' horses don't wear ribbons." Gus was so flustered now he could barely speak. "And she might spook the cattle."

"Oh. I suppose the wings are completely out of the question?"

"Wings!"

Gus carefully studied June; sure enough, white wings were attached at her shoulders. He stared at June, and then at Aurora and then back at June again.

Finally he found his voice. "Horses don't have wings," the cowboy pronounced.

"True," agreed Aurora, "but," she continued, "the Pegasi have wings and that's what June is, a Pegasi."

Gus walked over to June, and touched the wings. They were real enough. He shook his head and looked back at Aurora. "I don't know what to say other than I must be dreaming."

Aurora smiled at Gus. "No, you're wide awake. You mentioned work. What are you planning on doing today?"

"I'm working my way back to the line shack. I check on the cattle, keep a tally of them."

"Oh, you count the cows. That sounds easy." Aurora nodded her head in a knowing way. "I often have to count rabbits and squirrels."

Gus had finished packing his bedroll up and had made sure the fire was out. He was slipping into his chaps and laughed lightly when he thought of Aurora counting small forest creatures. "The counting is easy; it's finding them that can be tricky."

Aurora was already on June, sitting side saddle, looking very lady-like as Gus mounted Pete. She gave Gus a quizzical look. "Why not just ask them to line up for you? Wouldn't that be easier?"

"It certainly would be. Somehow I don't see cattle lining up and waiting for me to count them." He pointed in the direction that he wanted to go and followed Aurora and June.

He shook his head as Aurora rode ahead of him, gaily singing as June's brightly colored ribbons fluttered in the morning breeze.

"Miss Aurora, I realize that you need a hat to keep the sun off, but does it have to be pink?"

"Of course it doesn't have to be. But I like pink, so it's pink."

"Pink..." Gus sighed and shook his head.

"So, tell me, Miss Aurora, do you have any brothers or sisters?" Gus asked as they rode along the fence line.

"I have six older sisters. I'm the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. They tell me I'm destined for great things. I'm not sure about that."

"Well, I think you're pretty special," Gus wondered if he'd said that out loud. He shook his head, wondering where that thought had come from. He cleared his throat and began again. "So, Miss Aurora. What's it like where you're from?"

"I live in a beautiful city on a quiet street in a small ..."

Gus interrupted. "Don't tell me. A pretty pink house."

"No, it's emerald green. I'm not allowed to make it pink. I promised."

"Aurora," she began, her voice taking on the cadence and tone of a much older, more serious character, "your penchant for pink is charming, but it simply must be controlled. Things that are not intended to be pink must not be pink. You may make your kitten's collar pink, not your kitten. Your house must be green on the outside, but the rooms inside may be any color you wish, even pink. Do you understand? Do you promise?"

"And so I promised. I was just six years old, but I knew that a witch's promise is a sacred thing. I've kept that promise ever since."

"What in the world did you turn pink, if I might ask," Gus wondered.

"Well, it was the last day of the Games. People came from all over the kingdom and from across the seas. It was a week of feasting, a time to gather together and celebrate. There were games of skill and chance, archery exhibitions, and races of all sorts. The last day was the race between all the kings. Each kingdom had a stable of fine winged horses. The course was laid out and the race was set to begin. I just wanted his horses to be the prettiest so I..."

"Oh, Miss Aurora, you didn't. Tell me you didn't put pink ribbons on those horses."

"No. I didn't turn the ribbons pink. I turned the entire team of racing stallions pink."

Gus gaped at her in astonishment.

"That's exactly how the king looked, especially since I couldn't turn them back and he had to enter pink horses in the race. Oh, Gus, you should have seen them." Aurora turned to look at him, a smile lighting up her face. "They were beautiful, the prettiest rosy pink with wings that shone like pearls in the bright sunshine as they flew around the course. I think they liked being pink. They won the race."

"Pink stallions. Flying ones." Gus chuckled to himself as they rode along. He began looking around, trying to spy any errant cattle in the brush.

"Whatcha doing?"

"I'm checking to make sure the entire herd's here."

"Oh, counting cows. If they all stand in rows, won't that be easier?" Aurora motioned toward the cattle and, one by one, the cattle, from the largest orneriest bull down to the smallest bawling calf began moving to an open clearing. As Gus watched in amazement, the cattle aligned themselves into neat rows of ten.

"I counted two hundred seventeen. Is that what you counted, Gus?" Aurora looked over to Gus.

"It's close enough," Gus muttered, his eyes still focused on the orderly array in front of him.

"I could ask if there's some missing," Aurora offered.

"Thank you, Miss Aurora, but there are some things that a simple cowboy is not meant to experience. I'm sure talking cattle is somewhere on that list. Now, could you please..." Gus waved his hand at the orderly display of cattle.

"But, they really didn't mind and it is much easier," Aurora protested. "We're finished. Thank you," she called as the animals began to disperse.

They rode along quietly for quite a while until Aurora broke the silence.

"What else is on that list?"

"What list?" Gus's thoughts were a million miles away. Well, not a million miles, he admitted to himself. They were focused on a certain self-proclaimed witch riding beside him.

"You said you had a list of things you weren't meant to experience. That list."

"Oh." Gus couldn't think of a single thing at the moment, but he knew there were some things.

"Am I on that list?" Aurora wondered.

"Up until this morning, I would have said 'yes', but now I'm not so sure," Gus answered. "Today has certainly been a day of surprises. Meeting a witch, though, is gonna be pretty hard to top."

"Oh! What's that?" Aurora pointed to a small building in the distance. "It looks like a little house. Is it yours?"

"In a way. It's the line shack. A place where the cowboys take shelter when it gets too cold to sleep out under the stars," Gus answered.

"Feels like we're gonna need that shelter tonight. Seems like the colder weather's finally here." Gus leaned over and opened up one of the saddlebags. "I have an extra jacket in here if you're cold." He turned to look at the woman riding beside him.

She was bundled up in a jacket of her own, a jacket glowing as white as June's feathery wings. "Thank you, Gus, but I feel fine. Nice and warm. You wear the jacket."

Gus smiled at the picture she made, wishing he dared to reach over and touch the jacket to see if it was as soft as it looked. Wishing he dared to touch her. Wondering if she was as soft as she looked.

"Oh, Gus! You have flowers everywhere!" Aurora swiveled her head from one direction to the other, making the pink ribbons on her hat float around her face as she looked at the last of autumn's wildflowers growing alongside the line shack. She slid off her horse and walked around the meadow, exclaiming with joy at each and every bloom.

'She looks just like a butterfly flitting from blossom to blossom,' Gus thought to himself and then shook his head at the fanciful notion. "They're just weeds," he said to her as he dismounted from Pete. "Pretty, but still just weeds."

"Oh, no, Gus," Aurora said as she began gathering wildflowers and dropping them carefully in her upturned hat at her feet. "Weeds grow where they're not wanted or needed. These are growing right where they need to be so they're definitely not weeds. They're flowers."

She quickly wove a garland of flowers and set it carefully on Rose's head. Pete chuffed and Aurora tucked a bright bloom into the horse's mane right above Pete's left ear.

"Miss Aurora, you can't go putting flowers on ol' Pete. It isn't dignified. Just look at him!" Gus reached over to pluck the flower but Pete sidestepped and evaded his touch.

"Oh, but he looks dashing and besides," she continued, "he likes it."

Gus hated to admit it but Pete did look as if he was pleased with himself. In fact, Gus could have sworn the horse was smiling. Gus turned away, shaking his head at the idea of ol' Pete smiling. Even as he thought to himself how silly Pete looked, Gus still carefully tied the reins to the post, doing his best not to disturb the flower. He reached into one of the saddlebags for a bit of dried apple to give the horses and found the missing button to his long-handles. He put the button in his pocket along with a small paper packet, a spool of thread and a worn leather case.

"If you'll excuse me, Miss Aurora," he said, looking up and seeing her sitting down on the doorstep of the shack, weaving another crown of flowers. "I have a bit of business to attend to. I trust you'll be okay by yourself for a minute or two."

Aurora responded with a murmur and Gus walked around the corner of the line shack. A thought occurred to him and he froze in his tracks, a look of alarm passing over his face. "Nothing's going to end up pink while I'm gone, is it?" he asked. He was relieved when she giggled and shook her head, crossing her heart for good measure.

Nonetheless, Gus wasted no time, quickly untying his chaps and stashing them away in his saddlebags. He walked around the back side of the shelter, stripped out of his work pants and shirt and took off the red long underwear. He put back on the pants and the shirt and was relieved to see Aurora still sitting where he'd left her, not a bit of pink in sight.

Ah, but that wasn't exactly true, Gus thought. Her cheeks were tinted a delicate shade of pink from the ride in the sunshine today and her mouth... Gus broke off the thought, not wanting to even think of her mouth, especially not while he was carrying his underwear in his hand.

He sat down on a length of pine log one of the cowboys had dragged up to the shack as a makeshift seat, looked up at the late afternoon sky and adjusted his position to take advantage of the waning sunlight. He shook out the red flannel underwear, looking for the place the missing button should be.

Aurora looked on with interest and came over to join him, sitting beside Gus. "What are you doing?"

"Fixing that danged button," Gus replied, holding up the button to show her.

"I could fix it for you," Aurora offered, taking the button from his fingers.

"You think it's so easy, missy? You just try it," Gus said. "And none of that fancy hocus-pocus, neither!"

Aurora sat cross-legged on the log and gathered Gus's drawers in her lap. "It's not hocus-pocus. It's magic. Witch magic." She held the underwear out to Gus. "See? It's easy."

Gus looked down at the red flannels, still missing the button. "Miss Aurora. There ain't no button here."

Aurora looked over to Gus and said patiently, "Of course there's a button there. It's magic. Magic always works. Always."

Gus showed her the underwear. "Not there. Unless it's one of them invisible buttons..."

"Not for your underwear. That would be silly." Aurora took the bundle from Gus and examined it closely. "I wonder what went wrong. I've never had that happen before."

"Couldn't you just sew it on? I have a needle and thread right here." He pointed down at her feet where the packet of needles and the button had fallen.

"Yes. I could do that." Aurora smiled brightly. "That's how you attach them here, right? No magic. Just a needle and thread."

"Yep," he said and unfolded the packet of needles with care and pulled the small wooden spool of thread from his pocket. Gus handed her the needle and held the garment for her as she poked at the holes in the button with it.

"Ouch! That's got a point on it," Aurora cried, popping her finger into her mouth.

"Of course it does. It's a needle. It's supposed to be sharp."

"I didn't know. I've never used one before. How does it work?" She turned the needle around in her hand, watching it glint in the sunlight. "It doesn't look very magical to me. And what does this part do?" asked Aurora, holding up the end of the thread, the spool unwinding and rolling down her dress.

"It's not magic at all. It's a simple needle and thread," Gus said. The cowboy leaned over and picked up the spool, wound the thread back up, measured and then bit off a length adequate for sewing on his button. "You put this through that little hole in the top of the needle and tie a knot in the end."

He squinted as he tried to thread the needle. "They make the holes in these smaller every day. I need my specs."

"Specs?" Aurora asked.

"Spectacles," Gus answered as he took out the leather case from his shirt pocket and carefully fitted the ear pieces of the gold-framed glasses over his ears.

"Oh, Gus! You have scrying lenses! You are a wizard!" Aurora exclaimed.

"Scrying lenses?" Gus snorted. "These are my glasses. I need them to thread this needle."

"Oh," she said, disappointment tingeing her voice, "Our soothsayers always wear their scrying lenses when they're foretelling the future."

"Well, I wear my spectacles," Gus emphasized the word, "when I'm trying to see." He carefully threaded the needle and tied a knot in the end. "And not into the future," he said, just in case there was any doubt in her mind. He handed the threaded needle back to Aurora.

"Ow!" Aurora popped the tip of her finger in her mouth once again. "I could do this so much faster with a little bit of magic."

"I'm not going to rely on your hocus pocus to hold up my drawers. This thread'll do me." Gus held out his hand for the needle which she gladly relinquished and he finished the task, tying one final knot before biting the end of the thread with his teeth. He carefully packed away the notions and tucked his glasses back into the case. Gus looked up, noticing for the first time the long shadows cast by the setting sun. He stood and stretched out a hand to help Aurora up from her seat on the fallen log. "Time to get settled in for the night."

He opened up the door to the line shack, gave a quick look around inside to make sure there were no surprises lurking inside and motioned for her to enter.

"I like this. It reminds me of a place back home," Aurora said, looking around her as she stepped inside the line shack.

"Your house looks like this?" Gus's tone was very skeptical as he looked around the cabin. There was a kerosene lantern on the rough table. Two rickety looking chairs sat around the table. There was a plank nailed to the wall serving as a shelf with a collection of necessary items such as a tin lard bucket of biscuit mixin's, a variety of canned food, mostly tomatoes and other vegetables, and a cast iron skillet hanging from a nail in the wall. There was a crate of books in the corner. The small bunk was bare, waiting for his bedroll.

"Not my house, but when I was a little girl, I made a fairy house in the woods."

"A fairy house?" Gus's tone expressed his doubt.

"You believe in witches, but you don't believe in fairies?" Aurora asked.

"Up until today, I really hadn't given the subject too much thought."

"And now?" she said.

"And now," Gus replied, "I'm gonna have to think about that." Gus lit the lamp, adjusted the wick and set it in the center of them table.

"Why don't you wear those boots? They're all shiny and new looking, not like the ones you have on." Aurora pointed to a pair of boots on a shelf next to the bunk.

"Oh, those are my dancin' boots." Gus's face shone with pride.

Aurora's face lit up. "You have boots that dance? How wonderful!" Aurora walked over to the shelf and touched the toe of a boot with the tip of her finger. "Are they magic?"

"No," Gus chuckled and shook his head. "They're not magic."

"Then how do they dance?" she asked him.

"The boots don't dance, Miss Aurora. I dance when I wear them." Gus tried to explain.

"If they're not magic, how do they make you dance then?" Aurora asked, skepticism showing on her face.

"No, Miss Aurora. I just wear them when I go to a dance."

"Oh. They're not magic at all?"

"You don't need magic to dance. You just need music and a pretty girl."

Gus bent down and began spreading out his bedroll on the narrow bunk.

A quiet voice broke the stillness. "Gus?"

"Yes, Aurora?" Gus answered absently, his mind on his chore.

"Am I pretty?"

Gus turned and looked at her for a long moment before he said, "Miss Aurora, you are without a doubt the prettiest thing I've ever seen."

"Then," she said in a quiet voice, "could you dance with me?"

Gus took so long to say anything that Aurora wasn't sure he'd heard her. "That is not a very good idea," Gus said.

"Please."

Gus walked over to the boots, took them down from the shelf and carried them to the door of the line shack. He stepped outside, turned them upside down and shook them before he returned to the table. He sat down in the chair and pulled off his battered work boots.

"You have to shake them to make them work?" Aurora asked with an air of both wonder and puzzlement on her face.

"No. I have to shake them to make sure no critters have been making themselves to home in them while I've been gone," Gus replied, shining the boots with the bandana he tugged from his pocket before he put them on.

Gus picked up the small table and chair and moved them out of the center of the room. He took a step towards Aurora and stretched out a calloused hand. Aurora put her hand in his and Gus marveled at how soft and delicate it was. He held her gingerly and began softly humming a waltz.

"What's that song, Gus?" Aurora asked, looking up at him. "It's pretty."

"Springtime in the Rockies."

"Gus," Aurora said quietly. "What kind of a dance is this?"

"It's a waltz, Aurora."

"Gus," Aurora said in the same quiet voice.

"Yes?" Gus said, still humming, his hand at her small waist.

"I don't know how to waltz."

Gus looked down at her and said with a smile, "I'll teach you. Don't worry. It's easy."

He began counting the steps as he led her in a waltz around the small room. His "one, two, three, one, two, three" gradually faded back to the song he'd been humming. He looked down at her. She looked up at him. Their eyes met and Aurora's mouth was so inviting, Gus had a hard time not bending down to kiss her.

"I need to -- um-" Gus's mind raced as he tried to think of a reason why he couldn't keep dancing, or to stop dancing and start kissing her, "tend to the horses."

"Just a little more, please?" Aurora pleaded.

Gus looked at her and nodded. "Miss Aurora, I've never seen anyone who took to dancing like you have. Why, you're as light as a feather. It's like dancing on a cloud."

Aurora giggled and looked down at the floor. Gus followed her gaze and saw they had levitated a few inches from the floor. Gus stopped dancing, the last note of his humming still hanging in the air and stumbled a bit as he dropped back to the ground.

"Miss Aurora, you just can't do that to a fella. Not while he's dancing! It's just not right!"

"Why not? You make me feel like floating. I just wanted to share that feeling with you."

"Because you make a fella feel--things," the cowboy answered.

"What kind of things, Gus?"

There was a long silence, broken only by Gus's gulp before he said, "Just things, Miss Aurora. If you'll excuse me, I have a pair of horses to attend to." He crossed the small room and paused at the door, picking up the now-mended long johns. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Witches and now fairies," Gus muttered to himself as he walked to the two. "Nestor is never goin' believe this." Gus shook his head. No, he wouldn't be telling Nestor anything about this day. He knew he'd never be believed anyway.

Gus finished feeding and brushing the horses down for the night. He quickly stripped down and put on the newly-mended red flannel underwear, pants and shirt. He gathered up the things they'd need for the night and headed back to the line shack.

There was an odd greenish glow in the sky. Northern Lights, he wondered, but he'd never seen them coming from that direction before and so low to the ground. Gus could swear he smelled peaches, too.

Clouds of fireflies hovered over a large wooden tub, their tiny bodies pulsing, the green light he had seen. The tub was filled with a froth of bubbles, scented sweeter than the pink flowers that had bloomed all around the bathtub, a bathtub that had not been there when he'd walked around the back to check on Pete and Rose. In the middle of all that lather and soap suds, her skin a glistening pearl, frosted with foam, was the witch. His witch.

She held out her hand and a peach, rosy and redolent of summer, appeared on her palm. She brought the fruit to her mouth and inhaled the aroma. She bit and he could see the juice run down her chin. Another bite and the rivulets of juice trickled down her neck and disappeared into the bubbles. The witch continued to eat the peach as he approached. A peach he could see in her hand, gleaming with juices in the fireflies' blinking glow. A peach he could smell on her skin, blending with the scent he was beginning to recognize as hers. A peach that could not be there, but was.

He blinked and dropped the gear he was carrying. Tantalizing glimpses of Aurora's skin could be seen

peeking out from all those bubbles. She was reading one of Nestor's penny dreadfuls and eating a peach. Her mouth glistened with the sweet juices.

She held out the peach to him as he neared the tub. "Bite?"

Aurora was as tempting as Eve with her apple. Gus felt himself waver and he finally gave in, succumbing to the temptation of the winsome witch. Gus knew it was just the wind blowing through the grass making that rustling noise, but he wouldn't have been a bit surprised to see a serpent in the form of a diamondback curled up at his feet.

Gus leaned over and gingerly took the peach from her hand. He looked it over carefully. It looked like a peach. Gus held it to his nose. It smelled like a peach. He brought it to his lips and took a small nibble. It certainly tasted like a peach, sweet and succulent, perfectly ripe and delicious. It wasn't the season for peaches, it had passed a few months ago and yet he was eating one. 'Maybe there really was such a thing as magic,' he thought.

"You could join me. There's plenty of room."

"I don't think that's a good idea, Miss Aurora. Joining you in that bath will definitely lead to other things."

"Oh, but I want those other things, Gus."

Maybe she really was a witch, he thought. She certainly was a temptress. A siren singing to him as surely as if he were sailing with Odysseus. Almost against his will, Gus began unbuttoning his shirt.

When he was clad only in his red flannels, Aurora stood up. She looked like the goddess Aphrodite rising from the sea foam as she beckoned to him. He finished shrugging out of the long underwear, but kept them bunched against his belly and stepped up to the edge of the wooden tub.

"Gus," the witch asked, "would you kiss me?"

The cowboy opened his mouth to give her one of a thousand reasons why this was not a good idea, but as soon as he looked at those pretty pink lips, all those reasons flew right out of his head. He kissed her. 'One kiss', he thought, but at the first touch of his lips on hers, he knew right then he wouldn't be satisfied with just one kiss. Not with a dozen, not with a hundred kisses. The cowboy kissed the witch, savoring the taste of honey on her lips and ambrosia on her skin.

"You taste good," he told her.

"Did you think I was going to taste like soap?" she teased.

"Well, Miss Aurora," Gus answered, "a man can never be too sure about anything. You do have a way of surprising me."

"Oh, good! I love surprises!"

"I kinda thought you might," he said.

Gus kissed her again and then stepped back to look at Aurora. She stood trembling in the cool green glow of the fireflies. Cold or scared, Gus wasn't sure which, although the look in her eyes didn't seem to be fear.

"Cold?" he asked. He was hoping she was merely cold because he didn't want to even consider the possibility she was scared, especially of him.

"A little," she admitted. "I could make it warmer," she offered, her arm sweeping in a graceful arc and taking in the darkness surrounding them. The cowboy's face must have shown his alarm at the thought of the witch conjuring up some sort of magical tropical weather because she dropped her arm and continued, "Or you can join me in the bubbles." She sank to her knees and held her hands out to the cowboy once more.

Gus took one last look at the witch's face and then gave into her. 'I might as well try to stop breathing', he thought.

Preparing himself as if he was plunging into a frozen lake rather than a tub filled with bubbles and flower petals, Gus climbed into the bath water. He lowered his body into the water, keeping the red flannels carefully positioned until he was covered by a layer of foam, and then he dropped them over the side of the tub.

The cowboy carefully stretched out in the hot water, careful to keep a few inches of bubbles as a barrier between him and the witch. Although the thought of her even that close made him hard, he was a gentleman and wouldn't force his advances on a lady. He was fully prepared to grit his teeth and stay just like this until the sun rose the next morning.

What Gus was not prepared for was the mischievous look on the witch's face as she gathered up a mound of bubbles on her palm and blew across it, sending bubbles floating through the air. The bubbles tickled his nose and caught in his beard. The cowboy scraped his hand along his jaw. "I should have shaved," he murmured.

"Oh," said Aurora, "I could do that for you." The frisson of horror Gus felt at the thought of Aurora and a straight razor anywhere near his throat must have shown on his face because she said, "I like the whiskers, Gus."

"And the hat," the witch continued.

Gus's hand rose to the top of his head where, sure enough, he felt the brim of his battered old Stetson, still on his head. "For Pete's sake," he said and took off the hat and placed it brim side up on the pile of his clothes.

"What does Pete have to do with your hat?" Aurora asked.

Gus looked at her dumbfounded for a minute, trying to think of a way he could explain his words. He was sure his mouth was gaping like a hooked trout before the witch's giggle interrupted his thoughts and brought him back to real life.

'No,' Gus thought, 'this isn't real life. Real life is riding the fence line, checking on cattle and spending a cold night or two sleeping in the line shack until Nestor came up to replace him. Real life was not sharing a bubble bath with a witch.'

"You've beguiled me, haven't you?" he asked. His tone was one of resignation almost, a man resigned to his fate. A man throwing caution to the wind as he crossed those last few inches of water and took the witch in his arms.

"Witches don't beguile. We enchant," Aurora said softly as she wrapped her arms around him and raised her face for his kiss. Not even Odysseus could resist this Circe, he thought, and threw caution to the winds and kissed her. Kisses tasting of peaches and flowers. Kisses so delicious that Gus knew in that moment what ambrosia, the food of the gods, tasted like. It tasted like her.

Gus steeled himself for what he knew he'd have to do next, what he should have done all along. He pulled away from Aurora, taking her face in his hands for one last kiss before he spoke.

"No, Miss Aurora, I have been beguiled. Beguiled just as surely as if Macbeth's three witches were dancing around a big black cauldron tossing bits of frogs and other critters into their brew. Beguiled by you and your magic."

Aurora began to speak but Gus stilled her words with a finger to her mouth.

"Aurora, you are a temptation. I have always considered myself to be a strong man but right now I feel as if I'm sailing between Scylla and Charybdis. If I do not step out of this tub right now, things will happen. Things both of us will regret come morning."

Gus stood up and climbed over the side of the tub. He put his hat on his head, grabbed what gear he could carry and gingerly walked the few yards to the door of the line shack. He didn't look back. He flinched a little as he stepped on a rock or maybe it was at the rumble of thunder that suddenly rolled across the wide expanse of night sky.

He dried off as best he could with his long johns, spread them out over the chair to dry and crawled into the narrow bunk. He laid in the darkness, watching the pale green glow from the window fade away as he closed his eyes. The cowboy was still for some time before he sighed and threw the blanket aside. He couldn't just leave her out there like that.

Gus opened the door and stepped out into the cool night. The wooden tub was gone along with the cloud of fireflies and the sweet aroma of peaches and flowers. There was no shiny brass bed standing at the edge of the clearing. There was no witch. There was nothing.

'Good,' Gus thought, although he knew he was lying to himself. 'Things can get back to normal around here. Nestor will be here in the morning and I'll be taking a ride back into town. Some time in a saloon with a gal for company and I'll forget all about this day.'

Gus ran the few steps to the shack, shivering as the wind picked up and the rain began. He latched the door and walked over to the narrow bunk. His bunk. The bunk where he could just make out a small figure sitting in the corner.

"I am a simple man. I need real things," Gus said to Aurora, trying once more to explain. "None of this has been real, is real."

"I'm real, Gus," Aurora said. "Yes, it's true, I am a witch, but I am also a woman full-grown. I know what is real, and you and I, Gus, we are real." She opened the blanket and beckoned for Gus to join her. "No hocus-pocus, Gus, no magic. Just us, a cowboy and his witch."

Gus joined her in his small bed and, in the light of the moon and the stars reflected in the open window, covered her body with his. Their soft cries of pleasure and murmurs as they learned each other's bodies were the only sound in the room. The moon was still high in the sky when Aurora whispered, "I have to go in the morning, Gus."

All was silent for a few minutes and then Aurora said, "You could come with me."

"No, Miss Aurora, I don't think that would be a good idea," his voice quiet and rumbling in the dark.

"Oh, but Gus," the witch whispered, "I could show you my little house and the palace and the stable of flying horses and --"

"I have responsibilities here, Miss Aurora. I can't just go off gallivanting from pillar to post."

"The cows will be safe. You said Nestor would be here soon and he could watch over the cows"

The tone in the cowboy's voice was final as he gathered Aurora into his arms and closed his eyes. "No. I cannot go."

Gus drifted off to sleep, his body pressed close to hers, inhaling the scent of her hair, her skin, her, into his lungs and into his very being. The last thing he heard was the susurration of Aurora's barely audible "please".

Clouds covered the moon and blocked all the light from the little window leaving the room in total darkness. Gus rolled over in the bunk, his body aware of a deepening chill in the room. The cowboy curled up into a tight ball and pulled the covers tighter around him.

Pink racing stallions. Taking a bubble bath with an angel. No, she insisted she was a witch. A witch who fed him a peach dripping with juice as sweet and as intoxicating as her kisses. Gus wondered what Nestor would think of his dream. It sure beat any tall tale he'd ever heard -- not that he'd be telling Nestor about all of it.

Some things, even dreams of things, needed to be kept to a man's self. 'But that's all it was,' Gus thought, 'just a dream, because witches weren't real and they certainly didn't look like the one in his dream.'

The witch who still haunted him as he stretched and dressed for the day. Outside the line shack, sheltered from the wind, Pete watched the glimmer of lights in the northern sky. The bright reds and greens and violets flickered and danced and beckoned to him. The horse nickered softly and walked to the line shack just as Gus opened the door.

"Good morning, Pete!" He greeted his old friend. "Just look at those lights! Ain't never seen them so bright. They look almost magical, don't they?" Pete whinnied his agreement and nudged Gus with his nose.

Gus reached up to scratch ol' Pete between the ears but his fingers were tangled in something. Not his mane but a slightly bedraggled bit of pink prairie rose. A pink wildflower that he remembered Aurora, the witch, no, his witch, tucking onto Pete's mane as she giggled and then kissed the horse's velvety nose.

"It wasn't a dream, was it, Pete?" Gus said in a low tone to his horse. "It wasn't a dream and I was a goldurned fool."

Pete nudged him more forcefully this time, almost shoving him towards the light show in the sky.

"I shoulda went with her last night, ol' man, and now it's too late." Gus's tone was melancholy and full of regret for lost opportunities as he watched the bright colors fade to a soft pink glow that lingered across the horizon.

"Pete, I swear to the almighty that I would go to her if I could."

Pete nodded his head forcefully as if he understood. He nickered encouragement and urged Gus once more to the northern sky.

"Looks magical, don't it, Pete, just like her," Gus murmured. "I wonder if there's any magic left for the two of us." Gus went back into the little shack and grabbed his dancing boots from the shelf and tucked them under one arm and grabbed his saddle with the other.

Let's find out, Pete," he said as he saddled Pete and latched the door to the shack. Gus swung into the saddle and clicked his tongue at Pete.

The horse walked slowly across the prairie, picking up speed as the lights wove their magic around the pair. Pete's hooves brushed the tops of the tall grasses and then rose a few inches above, then galloping across the sky as Pete and Gus followed the pink light, Aurora's enchantment, as it beckoned them to her.

The end.