Sidewinder Rattler (Challenge Submission)

"At three in the morning, darkest hour… a doubt arises; and I have no power to quell the thought, rising cold and gray, that you have flown far away. Writhing... twisting in my head, phantom notions f..."

"Around the clock, there is no hour you are not here in dreamtime’s bower, in wistful thoughts and midnight scenes… I sense you here, in all my dreams. This is where I see your face, you smile at me…..."

"It was a flannel-wrapped southern night, and the Yankee man did not yet know how warm a honeyed drawl could drip into his ear, drowning out the rifle-cracking sound of ice storms splitting sap-frozen ..."

"spread before her like a rainbow, lay many colored beads... new sinew at the ready, bone needle used with ease; sharp knife to cut the pattern in the buckskin piece at hand, she's shaping her tomorrow..."

"The inn was filled with soldiers passing through this village fair. The tavern owner's daughters served up ale with practiced flair. But one had slipped away unseen, drawn by a young man's winning wa..."

"Bad news, breaking into the sphere of consciousness, heralds change. A weighty word that snares my spirit, sends it plunging like a stone to unfathomed depths. These are uncertain times, but I've w..."