Viviane had one of the better views in the facility, so she saw Death coming from a long way off. Just like the Good Book said, the horseman was dressed in clothes as pale as bone and cold as the moon shining overhead. The hat atop his head had a wide brim that had been more popular in an older time, so she had to wait till she had gone outside and he was right up on her to see his face. The Good Book hadn’t said anywhere that he was handsome.

Death’s horse came to an absolute still without him ever tugging on the reins. With his boots a foot from her face and his fingers on that wide brim, he said, “Ma’am.”

It was a kind voice, so Viviane decided to respond in kind. “How are you doing tonight?”

“Well as can be. Thank you,” he replied.

“Figure I know what it is you’re here for. Guess I ought to say ‘who’ you’re here for. Twenty folks living here, any given time, and that ain’t counting the staff watching after all of us.” She gestured with her head at the plantation home behind her wrapped in a curtain of East Texas pines. “Lord knows I’ve seen plenty go over the years, but this being the first time I’ve seen you, that’s got to mean something.”

As she reached out to stroke the thick muscles of his horse’s neck, Death said, “You don’t seem all that afraid.”

“I’ve seen just about everything there is to see around this town and in this life. A whole bunch of it, folks said I ain’t seen, but I did. Said I’ve seen too much, but I got to say …” Viviane, despite all the decades of small movements weighing her down, grabbed the saddle horn and pulled herself up in front of the rider. “… I’ve got plenty more I want to see.”

Death, his eyes as pale and milky as everything else about him, replied, “I can understand that.”

And without a click of his cheek or a movement of his hands, the horse turned in a circle and carried them back down the road to somewhere new.

x

Year 10, Day 317

February 11, 2024

Prompt: Use the title of a previous story.

Viviane Pollard is a crucial character in the version of the Arthur mythos that I set in twentieth-century West Texas. So is the Pale Rider. Here are a couple of stories that involve one or the other.

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Thus Unseasoned

The Peal family cooked like no one White had ever seen. And he had poked his head in more than his fair share of windows. Perhaps it was that Campbell County had few Black families. He had heard that of some Black ranchers on the northern end of the territory, but White had never seen them. Perhaps it was that the County had never boasted an overly religious population. But these people’s swirling interactions sang with more than just the fever of fervor. They were cheerful and loving in a comfortable, uncareful way. White doubted he would see the like again.

“Can I help?” he asked Viviane over the hoots of long-running jokes and the clatter of platters.

“What can you cook?” she replied, fighting to keep the pot in her hands from her mother.

White shrugged. “Rabbit.”

“We don’t have any rabbit,” she giggled.

“Do you want some?”

“How do you propose to get us rabbit?” the reverend asked, more curious than accusatory.

“If you have a gun,” White began.

“No guns here, son,” Rev. Peal said, his tone this time unmistakably warning.

White looked at all the faces looking at him now. “Laying snares would take too long, so I guess I’d have to catch some barehanded.”

After a pause wherein the Peal family was probably evaluating how serious he was, the Rev. Silas Peal announced, “Now that’s a man! Catch a rabbit barehanded. Junior, can you do that?”

“Daddy, I can tie more knots than there are logs in this house, and I can recite verses from every book of the Bible,” the young man answered as everyone returned to raucous preparations. “But if I spent the rest of my life trying, I couldn’t shoot like this man or catch a rabbit barehanded.”

“Probably not even a chicken,” one of the younger girls giggled.

“So,” White said, leaning conspiratorially toward the eldest girl, “you don’t need rabbit, then.”

“What I need is water from the pump,” Viviane smiled. “And you can use this pot. You don’t have to carry it back barehanded.”

White was followed outside by the howls of the little girls. It was a sound that made him smile.

x

Year 5, Day 59

June 1, 2018

Prompt: The Arthur Legend in West Texas

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Thus The Pale Rider Approaches

“Where’s Motter?” White Hawk said, because he wasn’t particularly eager to talk about any other subject, but they had passed the excuse of the rain and the night, so he knew Bell wouldn’t let them ride in silence for long.

“Left him in Houston. Told him to keep his ears out for any talk of the Colonel. Moving, gunning up, hell, farting too loud,” Bell answered. “Told him to ride hard this-a-way if he hears anything.”

As if on cue, a rider appeared on the horizon, heading north on their southerly road. Though it was still early in the day, he shone brightly, and though it was sufficiently light out, he seemed an indistinct shape. He was a shining shadow, and his presence eased neither of the men’s minds. “Let’s get off the road,” White Hawk said, though they were both nosing their horses toward the treeline before he spoke.

Pushing far enough into the greenery that their horses were hidden from the road, they slipped back through the brush to decent vantage points without saying a word. Behind thick-bodied trees, they waited, listening to the careful, rhythmic clop of horse hooves drawing closer. Whoever he was, the rider wasn’t in any hurry. And then he stopped. Just where they were.

The only sense of him they got was the impatient whicker and stamping of a horse reined in. Bell pulled back the hammer on a pistol, but White Hawk held out a hand. Then the horse hooves moved down the road. Again he was in no hurry, and they were unwilling to move until he was well out of earshot. And when they were good and sure he was, they hurried to their horses and galloped south.

“You see him?” Bell shouted, looking backwards.

“Dressed all in white,” White Hawk affirmed.

“You know him?”

White Hawk shook his head.

“Just don’t make no sense,” Bell said. “How’s he keep it clean?”

White Hawk squinted. “Is that what occurred to you?”

“Yeah, what’d you?”

“Where is he going? What is he doing when he gets there?”

“That ain’t none of our business,” Bell laughed. It was the laugh of a man terrified.

x

Year 5, Day 64

June 6, 2018

Prompt: The Arthur Legend in West Texas