Sunset. The evening burned with shades of autumn skies, purple and orange, rose and red. Blue blackness began creeping in from the hillside behind a shimmering pick up truck, accompanied by the trickling of an overrun creek bed some thirty paces south. When he bought this land almost ten years ago, he was only looking for something to give him credit. Since then, it had made him more of a man. So much of his life was about fighting destruction; he needed a place where he could return something back to nature. To rebuild. He had an older sister who poured her husband's money into the pocketbooks of shrinks and specialists. This land was his therapy.
He was rugged in a manner men nowadays weren't accustomed to. That's what the girl with the golden ring loved about him. To her, he was macho and unforgiving in his dusty, worn blue jeans and a relaxed long sleeve shirt. He even wore one of those green aviator jackets with the orange lining. God, she loved him in that. He was what women loved about a man in uniform. She knew it the first time she saw him hosing down Engine 18 outside the local station house. Her uncle was a firefighter back in the day. He didn't look like this one, though. This one was like something out of an old western, redressed in firefighter blues and given broad shoulders with tattooed arms. How could someone so masculine be so beautiful?
Though she never slept as well as she did when he was beside her, the girl with the golden ring always knew that wherever he was, he was protecting her. That's what got her through stormy nights and lazy days. Neighborhood children ran after him, waving and wishing they could be him some day. Some days he would hoist a couple of them onto his back and advise them to be careful when they crossed the street on their way home. He didn't belong in this day and age. He was too much of an iconic American hero. More than once he risked his own safety to save the life of a friend and stranger.
