Excerpt: Cowboy's Lament

I was standing on the corner waiting for the light to change when the Quarter Lady snuck up on me from behind.
I felt a tug on my shirt and turned around. Her face was a million years old, the color of the red dirt mesas that surround this town. Her wrinkles were as deep as the arroyos that cut through the pinon and just as dry. Most of her teeth were missing and the ones that were there were yellow and crooked. She was smiling with her hand held out. It was calloused and dirty. There was a scrape on her palm that looked infected and dried blood was flaking off her fingers.
“Quarter?” she asked.
Her eyes were black as well holes the water at the bottom sucked dry a long time ago. I reached in down into my jeans and pulled out two pennies, three nickels and a quarter. I dropped the change into her hand.
“Gracias,” she said but she wasn’t looking at me when she said it. I was already forgotten. She dropped the change into the pocket of her torn and filthy dress and shuffled by me. She wore one dark blue Converse laced all the way up and tied neatly at the top. The other foot was bare.