________________________________the shadow man - by adire___

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1. Turning Times
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She had the body of an aged and sagging elephant, ponderous skin folds swaying, and the face of a cadaver with nostrils gaping, and she knew the old ways. No one had ever seen her leave the rocking chair on her front porch; her thick pachyderm legs could probably support the weight, had to, but still she never moved. People came to her.

The man sitting in the other chair, lean body kicked back and slouched, wasn't as old--but he wasn't young, either. Wasn't much of anything, really, something hard to put your finger on. He could have been twenty-six or he could have been sixty-two, it was hard to tell, but his lean, sharp face was still handsome and pretty, his angled black eyes were still alive with a lazy fire. He tipped the brim of his old, dusty cowboy hat up with a weathered brown hand, brushed equally dusty black hair from his eyes, squinted at the faded yellow sky.

He was the Shadow Man, and he was the heart of the world.

"Looks like it's getting' on that time again, Pearl, " he said.

The rocking chair creaked. "Looks about. What you gone do about it this time?"

"Same thing I do every time. Try to play the voice of reason an' get my silly ass spit on. When they ever gonna learn?"

"If they did, " Pearl creaked in time with her chair, "world might just stop turnin'."

"Might at that, " he agreed. "Might at that indeed."

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2. Harvest Moon
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When the crows fly south in Wyoming, that's when they say harvest-time's just about over. Spiteful people like to say it's cause crows are mean, mangy creatures that only stay around when there's food, but some of us know better. They leave 'cause that's when the killin'-times are comin'. They leave 'cause the cold's too big for them, and they're bigger than a lot of things out there.

He looks like a crow tonight, when he flaps away from my little old shack. A great black crow against the swollen yellow belly of a fat harvest moon. He can look like anything he wants, got about a million names. I call him the Shadow Man. To me, he's the last bit of magic left in the world.

Oh, there's other magics, all over the place. But they're different, shallow little bits and pieces of man's desires, without a soul, really. They weren't here from the first. Not like the Shadow Man. He's the last piece of the old things left, and I think if he was to up an' leave, there just wouldn't be no world no more. Guess that makes him pretty important. S'why it warms my heart that he still takes the time to stop and sit a spell with a tired old woman like me.

Not to say that those other little bits of magic ain't all that important. They're what makes things happen, see. Our Shadow Man, he just kinda hangs around, keeps things in balance. Doesn't step in and do nothin' drastic unless it's down to the last minute and all the bases are loaded. Them others, though....they always gotta be stirrin' up something. Always gotta be tryin' to change things, tryin' to make 'em just a little bit different. I don't know what makes 'em that way. Maybe the Shadow Man knows, maybe he don't. One day I think maybe he just might let 'em have their way.

Seems as though they always get that hankerin' around the same time, though. Get restless, after a while.

And when the crows fly south out here in dusty old Wyoming and the harvest moon's hanging high in the sky, that's when we always know.

The killin'-times are comin'.

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