Open Stories — Short Fiction by Hank Redding

A man returns to a river carrying sobriety, grief, and the weight of words spoken too late. What unfolds is not confession or redemption, but an act of staying—listening to what remains after loss, and asking permission to keep showing up.

In 1961, a veteran rodeo rider moves along a fading Southwestern circuit, carrying the weight of moments he could not change. Just Onward is a short story about continuation without closure, the limits of intervention, and what remains when the work goes on.

In late winter 1887, a former Confederate scout leaves a failing Wyoming ranch after receiving a letter from the daughter he abandoned decades earlier. His journey east is marked by belief, erosion, and the cost of arriving too late. The Last Letter Home is a restrained Western novella about consequence, distance, and what cannot be carried back.

During a winter storm, a mining town listens too closely to a telegraph wire that begins to answer out of turn. Last Message is a restrained Western about fear as civic action, authority exercised quietly, and how easily a town learns what it is willing to sacrifice.