Angel from Montgomery: Part 1

A man looking for solitude doesn’t find it.

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Created by author with Midjourney

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The yellow light of the setting sun is slipping down behind the mountains like sand falling to the bottom of an hourglass. The chill that had been driven into the earth throughout the day by the sun’s golden rays now seeps out into the air as the light recedes. Every moment more indigo fills the sky.

Felix takes a deep breath and lifts a steaming mug to his lips, gently blowing across its surface to cool it. His pale blue eyes absorb the view before him with passive appreciation. He pushes his feet against the floor of his porch, sending his rocking chair backward, then forward, then backward.

“What an old man I am,” he chuckles ruefully to himself. On evenings such as these, rocking alone on his porch with his mug of chamomile tea, Felix imagines he must be the picture-perfect vision of an Old Man. His once-dark beard is now mostly grizzled gray, and Father Time has permanently etched laughter into the corners of his eyes, but Felix Finn is only forty-three.

From inside the tiny cabin croons the voice of John Prine, spun into existence by the vinyl disk turning on a shelf in the living room. Felix hums along, rocking.

“You forgive us and we’ll forgive you,” he sings to himself, taking another sip of chamomile tea. “and we’ll whistle and go fishin’ in heaven,” he sings softly. Tomorrow might be a good day for fishing, he thinks, then remembers the broken-down truck. The nearest stream is six miles away - not too far to walk, but Felix isn’t desperate for food. He shot a deer two weeks ago, and there is plenty of venison remaining. Guess I should fix that damn thing soon though, he thinks, and takes another sip of tea.

In the silence left by the needle’s search for the next song, Felix hears the night-birds waking up, trilling in their echoing soulful way. The bats are whirling above. Tiny paws scamper over the bed of pine needles covering the ground below. He wonders if any of the critters he hears are black-footed ferrets.

John Prine’s guitar resumes its twanging.

The light is fading fast now, leaving the legendary Wyoming sky to fill with stars. In his flannel shirt, cupping a mug of hot tea, Felix feels pleasantly buffered from the cool night. He smiles into the evening and rocks back in his chair.

“Make me an angel,” he sings softly, “that flies from Montgomery.”

The bats continue their swooping and careening. Felix tracks their darting movements with a soft smile. He has always had a soft spot for bats. He thinks of them as real-life dragons: not fierce guardians of piles of gold but furry freewheeling twilight sprites.

A disturbance at the treeline catches his eye, and he sits up and peers in its direction. A hunched human shape is materializing at the edge of the pines, moving toward him. Keeping his eyes fixed on the spot, Felix sets down his mug and feels behind him for his hunting rifle. His fingers brush against the stock of the gun, and he considers picking it up, but decides against it. It’s good to have at hand in a pinch, but he’d rather not escalate things unnecessarily.

A visitor at this hour, or any hour for that matter, is unheard of. The nearest neighbor is Phil Clapboard, four miles away on the edge of little Bondurant. I doubt anyone besides him even knows I’m here, Felix thinks, his curiosity and suspicion growing in equal measure. As the figure steps through a patch of fading light, Felix’s blue eyes widen in disbelief.

“Make me an angel,” John Prine croons.

What on earth…,Felix thinks, registering the details of the approaching figure. Slight, pale, dark-haired, with one arm hugging her chest and the other hand held over the fork of her legs: a woman, stark naked. For an absurd moment, Felix wonders if the combination of John Prine and his own loneliness has summoned an actual angel. But, unlike the woman approaching with hunched shoulders and walking briskly enough to be on the verge of scurrying, a real angel wouldn’t be ashamed of its nakedness, he reasons.

Her attempts to cover herself as she walks are ineffective, and every few steps Felix can make out a dark hint of pubic hair or what might be a nipple peeking out over her forearm. Heat floods his cheeks and he looks away quickly, but the erotic strangeness of the spectacle continues to draw his gaze. His fingers twist in the air as though around a lock of her dark hair.