This is a response to a #WordWeavers prompt.
2/11. Share a scene that gave you lots of joy to write.
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There's a lot of back-and-forth among writers and aspiring writers on our aspirations and struggles.
A hotel called “The Lodge” had several hitching posts. Because the women’s three animals had drunk their fill from the river, they merely sniffed the water in the trough and peered around, eyes wide.
Sister Geraldine stepped up onto The Lodge’s narrow porch.
A young man had been sitting on a chair near the doors. With a sudden motion, he stood, the heavy rifle at parade rest on the ground, left hand behind his back. “Ladies,” he said with a tone that sounded more like a warning than a greeting.
Sister Antonia peered through her green spectacles at the man. She glanced back at Geraldine and the horses for an instant, measuring.
“Ma’am”, he began. “I need to —”
“Don’t,” Antonia interrupted. “Wait a moment before you speak. You are —” she paused, looking through her green-tinted lenses. She slid her spectacles down her nose to look up at the man again. “You are troubled,” she said. “Yes, troubled.”
The man tried to shake his head, but couldn’t break off from her intense stare.
“You’ve done some things you regret. You were a — hired? — Not hired — no. Don’t tell me. Don’t. It’s all around you like hovering spirits. You were a soldier weren’t you? Not army. Chevalier? Cavalry — that’s the American word. Cavalry. A leader of men. An officer — no, no I’m wrong, I’m seeing the wrong thing — A brigadier — a sergeant. Yes. You were a sergeant.”
“Ma’am,” he said. “That’s — How do you —”
“Silence, please, don’t stir the air. This is hard sometimes.” She reset her spectacles, took a half-step back from him to look him up and down. “You were stationed not far from here. Perhaps a few days ride. Up in mountains, I think? Yes. Mountains. You liked it. Very peaceful. No. I’m wrong, I misread the spirits. You didn’t like it. Too quiet. Yes, that’s it, you had seen great action with General Taylor, but then, after, nothing. But now you’re here. And. Wait a moment. I see it now. I see something. There’s something you need to tell me, though, and it’s very important.”
From inside her short-waisted Spanish jacket, Antonia pulled out a packet of cards. The man gaped, too astonished to speak.
“Please. Take one and tell me what you see,” she said, her voice suddenly husky. “I’m not a true Gypsy, I don’t have The Sight, but I know a little about reading the signs. Take a card.”
The man cut the deck, and turned a card over.
“What do you see?”
“A man carrying swords?”
“From where?” Antonia breathed.
“There’s tents in the back. Like he’s stealing something,” the man replied, peering closely at the card.
“You carry a great message — like a bundle of sharp swords — a message that could cause great injury.”
“Injure me?”
“You harbor doubts. The woman may have been a nun, like me, but much taller. Perhaps as tall as you. Dark hair. She may have killed two men and beaten another man to death. But you never saw the bodies. And there’s the — the hole — the hole in the story. You see the two swords left behind? If she beat a man to death in the hotel in one town, why was the man’s body found in a different town weeks later?” The man took shaking steps backwards until his knees hit his chair, where they buckled. He sat down hard, gasping out a startled woof. “What the hell?” he breathed, staring up at Antonia.
Sister Antonia’s laugh was a sparkling bird-song of purest joy. “I’m so sorry, sometimes I see the strangest things. Perhaps we should talk later,” she said. She took two small steps to where Geraldine stood, transfixed. Antonia put her hand on Geraldine’s elbow.
“I have been praying they have a room,” Antonia said as they pushed through the doors into the crowded saloon. The man shook his head, trying to deny something he knew to be the truth.
“I still don’t see how you do that,” Geraldine said as the saloon’s noise enveloped them.
“He had that god-awful -- what’s the word — buckle on his pantaloons,” Antonia scoffed. “With the crossed cutlasses. The rest is guessing and watching.”
“That wasn’t Sergeant Duncan? The one Sister Diane pointed a gun at?”
“Please, sister,” Antonia said, stepping around a group of children in the saloon. “Don’t accuse me of having occult powers. Sister Diane’s letter named some Sergeant Hawkins, also. Big men with power they abuse. I can’t tell one from the other.”