Sun swept tall grass.

Thundering hooves. Wild neighs and whinnies.

All caught in the swan song of guitar strings and soft hums on a white post lined porch. A leather bound journal with pencil scratches and lines scribbled was resting in front of Tara as she sat with her back resting on the ranch house’s siding. One horse in particular, Widow’s Lantern, would make sure to make multiple passes, pushing the fence and bobbing his head with an attention seeking whinny. Kicking up dust as he runs off to the herd.

Softly humming as she strokes up chords from the wooden, worn acoustic guitar. Cedar and bourbon and the smell of leather with horsehide was thick in the air, all crisp and warmed with sunlight.

“A ghost in the stall / A light in the storm / He’s the beat of the hooves in the beat of my heart.”

Her soft voice sings softly, scribbling words on paper as she sings. ‘Widow’s Lantern’ bolded at the top of the page, a sketch of the Shire stallion on the corner.

“God ain’t in the steeple of the church / He’s in the sweat on the Shire’s neck / I hear him in every clink of ice in my bourbon glass.”

She murmurs further, dissolving into rhythmic mumbles as she works. The sounds of the ranch coming to life as she lifts her head. A bubble of creative musing popping, it was sudden, a reawakening to the world around her.

Her eyes glance up as tires can be heard roaring down the gravel drive, along the fence line as one of the horses starts to race the car. The dust cloud rolling behind ominously like soft storm cloud.