The Man With No Bedroom (Part 2)
In case you missed it, here is The Man With No Bedroom (Part 1).
This post is for the group story-mentor. It's also the next installment in "The Man With No Name” Saga.
@michelle.gent said:
Tell me something about where you sleep – you can’t get more personal than that.
I don’t mind if it’s fact, fiction or a mixture, tell me as much detail about your bed, bedroom, sleeping quarters as you possibly can.
Recap
The Man With No Name reached for the precious pistol under his shirt-pillow as he prepared to blow out the candle, but his hand returned empty. He searched around frantically, but couldn’t find his priceless treasure.
It was GONE!
Someone had been in his house!
Blondie
Blondie scrambled out of bed and grabbed one of his pistols off the table, knocking the table over in the process. The rest of the pistols crashed to the floor! He blew out the candle and crouched down to assess the situation. His mind was racing faster than a jackrabbit fleeing a pack of hungry coyotes. Many questions raced through his head.
“Who had been here?”
“How did they find me?”
“What did they want?”
“When did they leave?”
If he could figure those things out, it could give him some clue on their strategy, and might help him get out of this alive. However, there were no clues, no hints, and no time. What should he do next?
“The horse!” He had to get to his horse, or he would be stuck out here. First, he had to get out of the cave. Grabbing a key out of his vest pocket, he fumbled with the lock on his trunk and opened it. He felt around inside and pulled out a pack. Throwing it over his shoulder, he steeled himself for what was to come. With no idea how many people were outside, or who they might be, he quietly tiptoed to the entrance of his now-former home.
He peeked around the edge of the cave entrance and squinted, but he couldn’t see anything. All was dark. He could hear the horse chomping on grass nearby. At least his ride was still there. Crouching slightly, he started toward the horse. He had only gone a few steps when out of the dark, a small light appeared down below in the valley. It was coming toward him! It was an arrow... and it was on fire!
He couldn’t see exactly where the arrow had come from, but it was getting closer. He instinctively ducked as the arrow came in to land. It impaled a tree trunk near him with a “Thwak!”
“An arrow? Why a flaming arrow?” he thought. He didn’t see any more fiery bolts of death streaking toward him, so he started for the horse again, but this time, it wasn’t quite as dark.
“The light from the flames! They can see me!” The thought came to him like a thunderclap. It hit him by the shoulder on the left side of his chest and threw him to the ground. No, that wasn’t a thought; that was a bullet! The light from the arrow had given whomever was out there enough visibility to see the outline of his frame. He’d been shot!
Peering up from the ground he saw the horse was still there. Blondie had trained him well, and no small amount of shooting was going to spook this horse. Crawling along the ground Blondie heard more shots ring out and bullets whizzed over his head.
He grabbed a well-hidden rope that led to the edge of the slope. At the top of the hill, where the rope ended, were a few boards that held back a pile of firewood. One quick yank and the bottom board broke free, causing the other boards to shatter and the wood to burst out! The woodpile crashed down the side of the mountain leaving a wide swath of flattened hillside.
The disturbance also gave him a much-needed distraction, as the shooter (or shooters) would be in the path of that mess. The tumbling wood wouldn't be hard to evade, but it gave Blondie time to reach his steed.
He grabbed his pack from the ground and stumbled to the horse. Then, he threw the pack on the horse. Last, with no saddle, and a bullet wound to the shoulder, he painfully hauled himself onto the horse’s back. He hung onto the horse’s mane as his vision started to blur.
Then, it went dark...
Love it! I've missed a few I see so I'm catching myself up on all of them tonight.
I'm glad his horse wasn't shot. That always kills me (pardon the pun) in movies when I hear the horse shrieking after being hit.
Cant' write more here...gotta get to the next one...
@lynncoyle1, I wouldn't want to kill you. I can't say more now. I'm not sure where life will take us, but I'll take your words into consideration. The story sometimes has a mind of it's own, but so too, the author dost have a say.
Fair enough...your characters, your story.
...but please, don't kill the horse :)
I'll do my best. Maybe I can get him a bulletproof vest or Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility. :)
Either works for me...how about he catches a bullet in his big horse teeth?
I may have thought of a better idea for him. We'll see if it pans out, but I have a feeling you'll like it. :D
Maybe it's different in Canada (you're so friendly up there!), but in the USA if you say that someone's going to catch it in the teeth (or something like that) it means they're getting violence done to them. e.g. "catching a fist in the teeth" is getting punched. Funny how language works... well, not for the person getting punched. ;)
I'm looking forward to you're idea!!
And yes, it is different in the land of friendly :) That's sure not what I meant for my buddy, your horse haha
Well into this story man! Good stuff. Looking forward to round 3!
Thank you! Glad you're enjoying the excitement. I'm already working on more installments, so it should go for at least a little while longer. As long as I keep getting inspiration, I'll keep writing.
You got me hooked! I’m in, want more!
I was planning on doing this and the last post all as one, but it got too long. As I started writing it, too much was happening, so I had to split it. I'm really excited for the next installment. I'm glad you liked it!
You could write a book, instead of a short story, but only if you have time and enough inspiration.
That's true. I've thought about trying to do that here, but I haven't written a book before, so it's easier to just write in installments. Also, my goal is to make one post every day, so that helps me accomplish it.
Maybe we can partner on a book. The Man With No Name's healthy diet book. Written by Hefziba and No Name. :)
wow this is exciting ...keep it coming I love it.
Thanks! It's been fun putting it all together. I've never written a story before, so I'm not sure where it's going in the end, but we're having fun on the adventure as we go. Thank you for your support!
I'm enjoying this story... but...
The guy is on a hillside, a flaming arrow is shot so the shooter can see his target, but the woodpile would inconvenience the shooter...
The logistics don't make sense. If the shooter is below the target, he can't see to shoot the target. If he's not below the target, he wouldn't be inconvenienced by the woodpile.
Your readers will pick up these small details and it will jolt them out of the story.
Sorry to point it out.
The story is good so far and I don't usually read 'cowboy' stories, so you're doing well to capture me like this.
Ha ha ha, you are correct! The way I had it in my head, it made sense. However, rethinking it, the situation only marginally makes sense.
I should have put the shooter to the side a bit so that he wasn't directly blocked by the wood. I also could have done a better job mapping out the whole area so I could "see" where everything was.
Thank you for pointing it out. I need to be able to think about these things so I can write a better story. I also need to be able to take correction if I mess up. Any writer will have someone edit. If things don't make sense... back to the writing board!
I think a map of the area would help you enormously. Good idea!
Also, thank you for being gracious when I picked fault :)
The next time I have a complicated scene like that, I'll try to sketch something out.
I really appreciate your feedback! It's not always going to be what I want to hear, especially if I make mistakes. I just laughed at myself, and then moved on. Hopefully next time I'll see the error first. :)
When I'm writing up a storm, I discuss the plot and characters (everything really) with my husband. He's a great sounding-board and throws up lots of difficult questions for me. If I can't answer his questions, I go away and work on the story.
Clever! The old firewood avalanche trick!
Okay, so we still don't know who this person/people are, but we do know:
a) They're pretty good at archery
b) They're pretty good with guns
c) They're prepared—I don't think you have a flaming arrow capable of staying lit without some forethought
Along with their numbers and identity(ies), what we don't know is:
a) What they want.
On the surface, they want ol' No Name dead, but if so, either they're not so great a shot (he wasn't exactly evading their first bullet after the arrow), or they just want him winged enough to lose consciousness.
Which is exactly what happened! So, that could mean that our antagonist(s) has other plans for No Name.
(Personally, I would have liked to see him ride off a little more before things got blurry, but for what you're trying to do, it still works great.)
Dude! I think you've got yourself lots of intrigue going on. It's amazing how a mystery can cross over any genre and still be really good.
(Polite but enthusiastic applause)
Thank you for the in-depth feedback. That helps me to prepare for the next steps. I've just been writing it as the story happens, but your questions help me think of the bigger picture a little more. I don't want to write myself into a corner.
I realized as I read your comment that I could have done a better job of describing the scene. In my mind, I pictured the archer as being lower than the cave, so he wouldn't have had a great angle to shoot at No Name after he fell to the ground. But what you said makes sense. Seriously, your comments help a lot!
I was going to have an ending that gave the reader a bit more detail, but I think the next installment will help with that. I didn't want it to get lost as this was already a fairly long post. Having it as a separate post will get it the attention I want it to have (for better or worse).
I appreciate your golf clap. If Blondie is still alive, we wouldn't want to wake him too soon. ;)
I don't know if authors are supposed to do this, but I'll give you a little extra insight: I was going to have it be a rock slide, but I really wanted a picture to illustrate the point and I couldn't find one! So when I kept seeing the pictures of woodpiles, I changed it. :)
I think it's fair game to tell your reasoning behind certain writing decisions. Especially here. In this case, I don't think it matters that much which way you went. There's been plenty of manmade rock slides in stories. The idea is, he was prepared to get out of a jam.
There's an idea. I could have him eat jam! Ha
Enjoying the story.
But but but
Horses like dogs would have instinctively picked up the movement of uninvited guests and warned their master. Not chomping on grass, instead neighing and stomping their hooves to draw attention towards something wrong.
Thanks for the feedback. Glad to hear you like the story. I hope you keep reading because things will make more sense later.
Remember, you get to meet the horse next time. I will be honest though, we don't get to be on a first name basis with him though. ;)