It's Friday - A Tale of Workaday Witchery by M. K. Dreysen

You remember spontaneous vacations, don't you? Call up your best friend, throw a bag in the car, head off up the road to whatever hides in the sunset? Carefree time, irresponsible weekend. Margaritas, pretty boys.

The spirit of the desert tangling his claws into your mind.

Oh, about that. For this week's free story, reader, I give you a tale of two friends, a rented convertible, cold drinks and cool shadows away from the Texas heat.

And a demand from the great spirit. This story's a tale of Workaday Witchery, of a road trip that turns of necessity into a working vacation. I call this one It's Friday.

It's Friday - A Tale of Workaday Witchery by M. K. Dreysen

"I'm in love," Ula said. While gazing with, if not longing, then a certain amount of simmering heat, at the dude filling his bike at the next pump over.

"Of course you are, dear," Morgan replied. And she did have to agree.

Said dude was very pretty.

But the highway called. "San Antonio's calling our name."

Ula sighed. However pretty the young man had been, top down on the rented BMW and eighty miles an hour west down I-10 had its subtle magic. The kind that erased mundane thoughts and images from your mind.

Ula viewed wide open October sky, so blue it hurt to look at, while Morgan let the road talk to her through the sports car's willing framework.

If only it hadn't been so hot. August hot; October should have been the weather no Houstonian, no Texan, admits to in mixed company. Bring folks into town in July, August, hear the "Wow, Texas am I right?" refrain.

Smile, nod. "Oy, Texas."

Don't talk about October. Nor April and May. Shh.

Only, here they were, moving on through Seguin into what should have been glory, and that old furnace blast from across the Chihahuan desert held grip like it had come ready to fight Fall and take the game to extra innings.

The winds come always with scent. Off the Gulf and Morgan knew of sea birds and salt, brine and shrimp and muddy brown sand between her toes. A good north wind always carried hints of frost that almost made it this far south; pine trees too, if the cold wind had that eastern twist to it.

The southwest winds smelled of heat. Sun, bitter resinous wine to go with scrub cypress and mesquite.

That wind should have been gone by now. Should have curled in on itself, should have been washed back into its sandy basin together with the monsoon season in New Mexico.

"It's talking to you, isn't it?" Ula asked.

"Not yet," Morgan answered.

She pulled the convertible into the downtown hotel garage, and forgot about the southwest wind for a night and a day. Fajitas and margaritas awaited; followed by a recovery morning in robes so soft and steam just right.

The riverwalk sat beneath all the world, and the river's spirit sang her quiet refrain to Morgan and Ula. "She has adapted so well," Morgan whispered.

Saturday evening called for walking. Through the mall itself, taking in the rush of teenagers and exasperated parents, money and music flowing through the speakers and then, down to the river.

Where the friends could listen most closely to spirit of the place, humming contentedly. "How long have we been coming here, and you're still surprised?" Ula said.

"Not surprised." Morgan walked another turn or two along the river, past a restaurant patio, then waited for the thumping bass and trumpet wail of a river barge full of mariachi and partiers to go by. "You like checking in on her just as much as I do," Morgan finally responded.

Ula nodded. She pointed to the bridge to the other side of the river, and the pub at its end. "Time for beer and a hamburger."

The river's spirit, as it did for all its other visitors, enfolded the two with soothing nonsense. Somnolent water and the voices around them made whatever world waited above take its place in the queue.

Morgan shook the river's dreams away late that night. She lay in her hotel room bed for a while, staring at the darkness, then got up and drew back the drapes. All beneath and away, San Antonio's lights stretched and glimmered and tried to speak to Morgan of the city and its dreamers.

At her face, though, the southwest wind pressed at the glass. It did not yet admit of a story. So Morgan stood at the window, listening to the desert wind haunting itself until the hour pressed down.

She left the drapes open, and neither the wind nor the city disturbed her sleep.

When Morgan climbed out of bed, the wind still had not yet decided to tell her its story, if it had one.

But it had carried along something new to play with. Dust swirled in the air; a brown haze had crept in. Below, it blocked her view of the street. Above, brown rimmed the blue October sky in every direction. There'd be no top-down ride home today.

Ula took the wheel and pointed the car out to the interstate while Morgan brooded in the passenger seat. When they got to the highway split, left for Houston and home, Morgan pointed to the right. South, toward Corpus Christi.

Ula nodded and rolled the wheel that way. She had heard no more of the wind's story than had Morgan, but the point seemed obvious. "So much for a quiet vacation," she muttered.

Morgan shrugged. "Too bad we can't deduct it on our taxes." Hazards of the twilight job. All expenses came strictly out of pocket.

The wind built now as they rolled south. Yesterday, the desert's blessing had hidden itself away. Friday, it had been content to be, and to press heat on their noses.

Here on Sunday morning, the wind grew itself. Ula fought the wheel, the gusts tore at it and threatened her control.

Morgan watched this out of the corner of her eye, tweaking radio and air conditioning as necessary to keep the driver in focus and dust free.

She pointed south again when they came to the turn for Victoria. "Nope, Corpus still."

Ula nodded, her smile long since gone, and re-gripped the steering wheel. The gusts dominated now. The dust had come on so thick that she could barely see past the end of the hood.

She almost missed the turnoff when Morgan waved and pointed at the break area. "Here, take this one."

Ula grunted, kept a wary eye on the rearview mirrors, threaded the car through the rest stop.

Past the half dozen or so trucks pulled over to wait out the dust storm, and all the way to the end of the long runout before Morgan nodded and said, "Here, pull over."

Ula put it in park, then reached out and grabbed Morgan's shoulder as she made ready to step out of the car. "Are you sure?"

The wind shook the car in its grip, and the dust swirled now so thick that neither could see the hood. Just the windshield wipers, and the brown grit building on top of them. "No, not really," Morgan said.

And then she disappeared into the desert's blessing. The door thudded shut with a vast heavy thump that shuddered the car with the wind's force and focus.

"Shit," Ula muttered. There was nothing to do but wait.

Morgan navigated blind into the southwest wind's embrace. Where the river's spirit had whispered and cajoled, the desert's howled.

She walked to the end of the road, stood there where nothing but a few mesquite trees marked the boundary. And there in that place where the great plain stretched away north into the continent and the ocean whispered of old conquests to the south, Morgan listened to the southwest wind's story.

When it howled its last, Morgan made her way back to the car. She had to fight to get the car door open; the wind may have told its story. But it hadn't yet quit its play.

She fell into the seat and let the car door slam.

"I wondered whether I'd be able to find you out there," Ula said, staring out into the dust cloud.

"I don't think the wind had that kind of trouble in mind," Morgan replied.

But she wasn't very sure of that. Not sure at all. Morgan shuddered; the wind's story had burned its way into her memory in dust and heat. The power of it... and the implicit threat. "Let's take 77, what do you think?"

"Ok," Ula answered. She fired the engine and rolled the car back onto the interstate.

Morgan picked sand out of her eyelashes and from her ears. "I'll be days getting clean," she muttered.

"Yeah, about the cleaning fee," Ula pointed out.

The friends laughed. Some days were like that. You kept an eye out for strays and orphans. Headed off trouble where you could. Listened to the great spirits when they came calling.

And sometimes you and your best friend stopped at a coin operated car wash, once the dust had settled and the southwest wind had relented its last summer grip, to wash away the dust, vacuum it out of the seat cushions.

And stand beneath a water hose's fitful spray, trying to get the sand out of places you never really want it to go.