The lights were low and the smoke was heavy. Bottles clinked and the jukebox was blaring Jerry Jeff Walker when she walked in. Most men looked and then looked away. A few mustered the courage to watch her walk across the floor. Could have been the jeans. Worn. A rip near the thigh, thin across her ass from days in the saddle. The way they frayed at back of her heel. Might have been the boots. Dirty. But cared for. Clicking on the concrete floor as she moved to the bar. She wore them like a million dollar model wore Louboutin.

A mystery to be unraveled indeed. She was a study in the dichotomy of beauty. One part refined and one part country girl. The eyes, the hair, the makeup was more 5th avenue than the back alley honky tonk she disrupted. The jeans, the boots, the loose fitting top that made the brave ones look closer and the weak ones avert their gaze.

You wondered more if she was likely to move with the folded blade in her pocket or the loaded piece tucked in her boot. She was 6ft and 200lbs of confidence in a 5’6 110 body. Leaning against the bar her top shifted, a peek of her navel, shoulders strong, cleavage enough to make a boy blush, but it was the tattoos that told her story.
She was a novel to be devoured. Every word deserving to not just be read, but to be consumed like a desert thirst to be quenched like a cold water spring. Shocking to the system and refreshing both at once. She was young in appearance but her soul was an old classic with deep secrets and hurt that shaped her story. Every touch of ink begged to be poured over in detail, like an old dog-eared copy of Hemingway or Thoreau, every time revealing more than the last read.

Edward Abbey once wrote: “Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread.” For one man, the one with a sense of adventure, the one that didn’t scare easy and carried a dose of humbleness and patience, that man, he would experience the wilderness she offered. Not a luxury, but an adventure that would change his soul.