It was late at night and Lorna was packing up her stockings and cotton candy petticoats. It had been a long night of dancing and dealing with drunk cowboys’ cow pie slinging. This was her night time gig, and during the day she ran a small barbar and shave salon next door to the tavern. She said goodnight to the other girls who were also making their way home, most who lived in town with their families who ran different shops on high street. She walked out to her faithful horse tied up at the backdoor delivery alley behind the Post Office. Lorna had leanred to keep her horse on the other end of high street, away from the tavern. “You just can’t trust those wild cowboys and their wild horses.” She had a small blade in her hand as she walked quietly along the dusty road that winded betweem the wooden buildings and corrugated roofs. The town had seen a lot of heartbreak, but they were a strong community and managed to keep eachother strong. Through the quieting street, a bright full moon and shimmering milky way were her guiding lights. Once she got to her horse, she clsoed the blade and slid it in to her back pocket. A small bouquet of wildflowers was tied with twine to the harness. Smiling, she untied them and placed them gently in her rucksack, thinking to herself, “That granary master’s son Billy is going to make one little Sheila very lucky.” Billy, who couldn’t have been more than 8, had fallen in love with the can-can girls after the day he had come with his Dad to make a flour delivery to the tavern during show practice. They hadn’t even been in their full tutu get up, but he was smitten nonetheless. While the rucksack was open she pulled out some unsold carrots the cook at the tavern had given her and held them up to Queen Mary’s nose and in a second they were gone. Lorna and Queen Mary were lucky to have eachother. As QM finished chewing Lorna untied the reins from the wooden post, hoisted her bag over QM’s heidquarters, lifted her dusty but well taken care of bludstones into the hand-me-down stirrup and threw her other leg over the saddle. Once elevated and situated, Lorna always felt on top of the world. She was proud of where she had gotten to in life and proud of her life. With a little click and tap they were off on their ride home to her family’s cabin a little further up the Snowy Mountain ridge line. Her Mum and Dad had a small sheep farm that they had kept going even though they were pushing 60. They usually were asleep when Lorna would get home, but tonight we could see from down the hill that a candle on the porch was lit. She hoped that meant there would be a pot of tea and lazy conversation waiting for her on the porch.