Unproud Warrior
Cass McCombs
Heartmind (2022)
She met Boss on the side of highway 28, just north of Gold River.
The news had scared her off hitchhikers of all sorts and there was something indiscernible in his brow, a deep furrow that stirred her sense of worry or pity, she was unable to tell. In the evening she folded the seats back with the windows wide to merciless mosquitos and eyed his pacing distance on the edge of pine trees. Imagined his turning doughnuts in a soft bed of needles. Paws the smell of loam and cornbread.
The next morning she tossed two soft boiled eggs against the pebbled beach and waited. Coffee’s brief heat took flight faster than she could finish her cup but in the clotting fog he came stretching into view, hind legs still cast in the shadow of the copse. The path to breakfast was nonchalant and he licked yoke off his jowls as tidily as if she’d handed him a napkin, then remained staring on the beach while she packed up her greasy pillow, butane, and soft granola bars. With the meagre camp squared away, she raised the back seat into position and stood at the open door, palms turned upward in the watery light. He jumped in, and they hit the road.