The Last Blue

by Isla Morley

There is only one life-form lower than a prospector, and that’s a reporter.

They step off the train and pass through the shabby wood and brick station onto Main Street, Chance, Massey striding with confidence, Havens with the leaden gait of a man walking to a duel with an unreliable pistol.

“There are but three things over which a poor soul has no control: his birth, his death, and who he’ll love, and anyone who tells you an orderly tale about love has surely never encountered the real thing.”

“There’s no such thing as being safe when it comes to love. Give your heart away and there’s no predicting what’ll happen.”

Dancing in Socall’s front room must be what heaven is like—just plain forgetting a person’s worries.

prejudice left unchecked always ends in foul play.

“There’re two sets of law books in this country. One set for those with money and influence and the right color skin, and another for everyone else.”

“You tell me where a man can go in this world and not find people hating other people. If skin ain’t the reason, it’ll be what God they pray to or what side of the river is best to build a house.”

“Dirt will about break a man’s back and it won’t ever let you forget where you’re ultimately headed, but it also feeds you and humbles you, and from just the right spot, it’ll reward you with a glimpse of heaven.”

Mr. Havens has made a story of her world, one picture like the first page of a novel, another like the next-to-last page where the reader longs to know how it all ends.

she’s betting on the come.”

She’s tempted to tell him her nighttime thoughts, how she’s going to be an old woman one day and the moths will have eaten away her memory so she won’t perhaps remember the names of people she knows or how the birds used to eat from her hand, but this man will be safe from time because she will have tucked him beneath memory, stored him in that place where blood takes its orders to flow and lungs to fill and eyes to empty themselves of tears.

“Don’t you go mistaking that man’s attention for affection, Jubilee Buford.” Mama says the word “affection” as though it were a rusty nail Jubilee’s foot was about to come down on.

people seldom know what’s in their best interest. They keep putting themselves in harm’s way and somehow think they’re playing it safe, until one day”—Massey punches his fist against his palm—“bam! Game over.”

it’s the youngsters who get riled up. Having an enemy can give a young man a purpose, twisted though it may be.”

Whether or not the intruder intends harm, if it goes to a place it has no business going, the resident is threatened. All along, Jubilee knew what he did not want to admit to himself—starlings and bluebirds cannot build nests in the same tree.

It’s not how they say, that a person quits praying. It’s the other way around. The prayer quits the person.

“When life bucks you out of the saddle, you just have to get back on up.”

“Everyone says time heals, but I don’t think so. I think time just keeps robbing a person.”

When Jubilee consented to marry him all those years ago, she raised the question of whether love is ever on the level, and what marriage has taught them both is that love’s incline changes depending on who needs the flow of affection most.