“Sweet Iowa” is out in the brilliant 2020 summer issue of STORY Magazine. It’s kind of a windswept midwestern story with love and foolishness thrown in. If you love preview below, think about purchasing the entire issue. The stories of Cara Blue Adams, Chad Simpson, Ann Lightcap Bruno, and others fill the volume with amazing voices. And in the meantime, here are Howdy and Morgan:
The first time Howdy Miller saw Morgan Loving she was walking across the barroom, her legs like scissors cutting up the room, slicing through the stares that followed her. She had the kind of walk that would take her somewhere. Howdy didn’t wonder where she’d been, just where she was going, as if the future might lengthen her stride. Her blouse fit close to her waist and was detailed with some sort of blue flowers. Bachelor buttons? Prairie asters? She wore it tucked into her jeans. Dark, new, slightly stiff—they whispered when she walked.
The fellows at the pool table stopped their game, looking up to watch her, and then someone made a shot, the white cue ball cracking a bright red into the side pocket. Men’s laughter, a sportscast droning from the television above the bar, Merle Haggard singing from the jukebox. Here and around town, Howdy had heard Morgan Loving was a west Texas girl. Young, lean, strong, blown in from the mile-high desert between Marfa and Odessa.
Photo Credit: Sawyer Morris