She rode like a demon on the wild black horse,
the devil in an ivory gown,
amidst a cloud of dust and thundering hooves
toward the inn at the edge of town.


She reigned in the Stallion near The Yellow Rose,
set him free, then she walked inside.
Her lips curved upward in a ghost of a smile
but the smile never reached her eyes.


She asked for the room on the second floor
with the window facing west.
She recalled the room from another time
and a pain shot through her breast.

In that same room they had lain in love,
stolen pleasure and borrowed time.
His good-bye kiss still clung to her lips
like the taste of rancid wine.

He had played her heart like a violin
now he thought to cast her aside.
He had turned away from her pleading words,
caring not that her heart had died.

By the light from the window her eyes shone red
with rage and hate and pain.
She had fallen for words from a lying tongue;
She had been but a pawn in a game.

Now she watched as the sun, like melting gold,
crept like a thief from sight.
Stars twinkled down from their velvet bed.
It was a lover's full-moon night.

Tonight they would play it one more time,
this game that he played so well.
She smiled as she fondled the cold blue steel;
in her heart burned the wrath of hell.

His footsteps tapped on the naked stairs,
his knock echoed through the door.
He was eager to leave though he had agreed
to meet her here once more.

She raised the gun with a deadly aim,
then she laughed and dropped her hand;
A quick departure for this king of hearts
was not what she had planned.

He took the gun from her trembling hand;
cold tears dripped down her face.
"Please hold me tightly this one last time"
she whispered as they embraced.

She lifted her lips to meet his kiss
as she wound her arms around him,
then she squeezed his hand that held the gun;
down the stairs the shot resounded.

They found her lying in a pool of blood
with a bullet through her breast,
his hand still holding the smoking gun,
her blood stains covering his chest.

They hanged him next day from a scaffold high;
he murdered his lover they said.
As the rope jerked taught and he fought for breath,
her laughter filled his head.

He had gambled his last in the game of hearts,
lost it all to the lady at best.
She played her Ace and won in the end
beside the window facing west.

Now the old-timers there still whisper the tale
of how the gambler shot his lover dead.
They swear that sometimes, on a full-moon night,
The Yellow Rose turns red.

And that out of the darkness, at the stroke of midnight,
upon the wind a sound comes wafting,
echoing like thunder round the red Yellow Rose,
...the chilling sound of a woman laughing...



copyright © Leeuna Foster
All rights reserved. May not be reprinted without the author's permission.