Chaw Bufflen was an able bodied man’s man.  A rare breed of cowboy who knew both the rugged intricacies of a life lived on the open plains as well as the subtlest of plot twists in Shakespeare’s finest works.

Living in a bunkhouse several miles west of Fort Stockton, his needs were primal and few.  His favorite pastime was to saddle up Aphrodite, his coal-black mare and head towards the morning sunrise with his leather-bound copy of the Bard’s works in the back pocket of his worn Levis and a thermos full of scalding hot Folgers hanging from the horn of his saddle.

Beatrix Benito was a beautiful young woman attempting to adjust to the vastness of the Llano Estacado after having been raised in the confined quarters of Cuba, where her father had run a bevy of businesses involving the import and export of pleasures many thought sinful, but that made his family rich.  The rise of Castro in ’59 meant the fall of the Benito family fortunes and their hasty relocation to Bakersfield, due west of Fort Stockton on Highway 10.  Señor Benito’s Mercedes 300 SL roadster was loaded onto a steamer ship under the cover of darkness, the custom suitcases in the trunk stuffed with gold coins and cash as it headed west across the Gulf to Galveston.  He told his beautiful buxom daughter it would be a new adventure.

“Fate,” Seneca said, “leads the willing and drags along the reluctant.”  That might explain how Chaw and Beatrix would cross dusty paths on a remote deserted road between the towns in which they each resided.

Chaw had Aphrodite prancing the prairie at a comfortable gait, one eye ahead, the other on Act II of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ while sipping coffee from the Bakelite cup from atop the Thermos when a silver gleam on the horizon caught his eye.  What began as a spec soon became a glare as it headed towards him kicking up more dust in its wake than a herd of yearlings about to become geldings.

It was Beatrix behind the wheel heading east at full throttle, attempting to outrun her rebellious resentments regarding her recent relocation.

When the Mercedes was less than a mile away, Beatrix glanced away from the road trying to find a Spanish speaking station on the Becker Mexico radio.  She returned her gaze forward just in time to see a coyote straight ahead.  A hard swerve to the left enabled her to miss the mongrel but sent her right into a clump of tumbleweeds that wound up on the windscreen.

The resulting blindspot forced a sharp turn of the wheel to the right as she applied full pressure to the servo-assisted hydraulic brakes, sending her towards the bar ditch.  The sudden change in direction and windspeed caused the long scarlet scarf she’d wrapped around her ebony hair and neck to wrap around the two-eared knockoff of the right rear Rudge.

Witnessing the event unfold, Chaw dropped his coffee, tucked the Bard under his saddle and headed to the bar ditch at full gallop.  He met the roadster as it screeched to a stop.  Freeing the Bowie knife from his chaps, he sliced the scarf from the Rudge and quickly breathed life into Beatrix’s thickly glossed red lips.

Once she was breathing, Chaw took a step back and was in awe of the curves in front of him.  The sheer beauty of one of God’s creations the likes of which he’d never encountered before.  His mind tumbled into a fantasy of what it would be like to fully experience such a thing to the fullest.

Beatrix was lovely, too.