Unkempt Fields

Through canyons and valleys, they traveled, man and horse, across a shallow river and beyond until their concerns of Alice had faded. Knuckles found the supplies he needed in a small town called Fudge; food, blankets, and other items. Shade is no pack mule, so Mother Nature would provide the rest.

Shade enjoyed berries and grass along the way, beyond new canyons and past the strange-looking shed that gave even Shade the creeps; the scarecrows that guarded its unkempt fields, and how one carried a large rusty pitchfork.

If they were only meant to repel crows, they would be a bit extravagant.

Knuckles noticed and then dismissed movement by one of them. “The heat must be getting to me,” he considered and then realized that mechanical devices were probably implanted into their limbs to scare off some of the more aggressive critters. Not those, however, whose clever minds gazed out through hungry eyes from the forest beyond the fields.

Their focus sat not on golden fields but on Shade’s muscular legs, flexing as she carried Knuckles down the narrow path that led into the dark forest.