All Stories, General Fiction

An Overnight Train to Minnesota by A.R. Carrasco

The other week I encountered a most unusual sport. You may know him. Wilson Mizner is a Broadway playwright, fine art forger, fixer of boxing matches, California hotel manager, and above all a professional gambler in all games concerning chance. His God-given talent of seduction enticed me into one game of cards I will never forget. The evening prior, the quick-witted 47-year-old traded a pistol fired by Wyatt Earp at the O.K. Corral for a mint condition 1922 ‘green pea’ Aston Martin, which he swapped for a remote ice-fishing shack on Devil’s Lake. He bet the icehouse on a game of war.

 

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All Stories, Fantasy

The Wolf and the Lamb by João Cerqueira

Ruth is forty-six, of medium stature, with brown hair and blue eyes. She is a biologist specialising in wolf behaviour. A week ago, she received a scholarship from a private institution to write a book about these animals. Ruth maintains that by means of howling, communication can be established between our species and theirs. Wolves can pass on lessons of cooperation, solidarity and affection. The Secret of the Wolf is the title she intends to give the book. This is why she is living alone in a cabin in the woods. Having gone through two divorces, and having no children or close family, wolves became her only passion; she even confessed to a colleague that she prefers their company to that of humans – “wolves don’t lie,” she said.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Snow by Wilson Koewing 

They purchased the mountain house in the summer of their 39th years. The husband worked part-time at the brewery in Golden while the wife commuted to Denver to serve as a corporate accountant. A sizable inheritance from the wife’s parents made it unnecessary to work, but neither knew what to do with themselves if they didn’t. They held no artistic ambitions or hobbies they cared to explore. They had no interest in children. Two dogs, one large and one small, ran around the property left to their own devices. There was no cable, so they had a satellite dish installed. When the weather was poor, the television snowed. Animals wandered through the yard. Black bear, elk, mountain goats. Birds flew up from below to reach the house, appearing from under the cliff face that formed their property’s edge. The wife enjoyed witnessing this phenomenon far more than the husband. It had long been rumored gray wolves would be reintroduced in Colorado. Both waited eagerly for that.

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