Davy leans on the railing. He looks out to sea, ignoring the salt in the wind, the shingle sounding the push pull of the waves. Instead, the rolling swell is a prairie, a sea of spear grass, sage, sedges and saskatoon, the clouds as snow-capped ranges hiding cougar and grizzled black bears, the faint islands as sand hills, pocked with nesting crane birds, rattling with snakes.
Davy slings his reins and spits a globule of baccy. He shadows his face with his hat then laces his fingers through the silver long horns on his belt buckle and strides from the prairie sea, leading his walk with his hips, legs wide apart, balls heavy as slingshot.
He hears the clink of his spurs, the tumbleweed skitter. He feels the eyes of the town on his back, the prattle-chatter silenced by the question ‘Who is that man?’
With clenched buttocks he rolling parades towards the saloon. He’d like to push at swing doors, sound his boots on hard wooden floors, to spit again in the sawdust, and for Ethan the barman to be twitch-eyed, expectant of trouble, upturned tables, a brawling gun fight.
But the pub disappoints daily with its dragons and flags and beer-stinking carpet and the only bandits flash in the machine by the door to the gents.
“Haia Davy,” Ethan calls.
“Howdy,” Davy replies. He straddles a stool, lays his hat and his gun down on the bar.
Ethan pulls a pint and holds a glass under the optic for Davy’s first whiskey chaser.
Davy drinks in silence like he does every day. A lonesome rider missing his horse, a gunslinger missing his shootout, a cowboy in a Welsh seaside town, waiting for the nod, the tap on the shoulder and for his wild west adventures to begin.
Emily Macdonald is published online and in anthologies. She has been shortlisted for the Bath Short Story Award twice and was nominated for Best Microfiction 2024 and 2025 by Raw Lit. Her collection of driving related stories, Wheel Spin and Traction, was published in 2023.
So pleased to see Davy out in the world, Emily.
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