The Last Cowboy

[BwareDWare94 723]

Here's the intro to my new fiction piece. I have no idea if it will remain the intro though. I should be able to play around with the structure of this piece. Please comment. It's short.

 

The Last Cowboy

 

If the rain would end, so could Jake’s harvest season.

 

But it wouldn’t. Over and over again, water would appear between his pinto bean rows. Over and over again, the river would rise and ravage the line fences of his pasture, where his cattle needed a month more to graze. The rain had also prevented him from hauling all his bales. They sat in highway ditches, alfalfa fields, and on the stubble of the wheat he’d managed to thrash. The workload piled up as water pooled up.

 

At the moment, Jake was fixing his chisel-plow. Each shank had to be rotated so he’d be able to tear up all the wheat stubble when the fields dried up. Arlen, his hired man, had put new shanks on three weeks ago. Each shank required two bolts and two nuts and Arlen had used bolts that were too long. Threads stuck out a half and inch past the nut and the rocky groud had stripped the threads on nearly every bolt. Jake had to use a hacksaw to remove nearly every bolt, turning a half hour job into three grueling hours. He was angry.

 

The rain didn’t help. The day had brought scattered showers, but the sky remained grey throughout. The sun had become an illusion.

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I like it; I think it's well written--but I'm not sure it's intriguing enough to open up a story. No offense, but if I opened a book in the store and read the first few paragraphs about the harvest season, I'd be turned off.

[BwareDWare94 723]

I like it; I think it's well written--but I'm not sure it's intriguing enough to open up a story. No offense, but if I opened a book in the store and read the first few paragraphs about the harvest season, I'd be turned off.

 

Understandable. I'm possibly going to put this near the end of the story. I'm going to try a structure I've pulled off once before. The end of the story first, then the beginning. It's an interesting format.