A Short Story by Jack Mint
With his palms next to each other, he turned the scalded remnants to the sky.
“Please, mister. I’ll die out here otherwise.” The iron shackles clinked on each word pouring from the desert of his mouth. Cracked, waterless lips and dead gravel eyes pleaded again. I undid the strap on my canteen and tossed it from the back of my horse. The black and grey of his uniform was dark brown. I did not recognize that clay in the desert we stood upon. The fugitive thanked me with artless gratitude but began to ask me to free him from the cuffs on his wrists and ankles. I didn’t have anything to cut them with and I wanted my canteen back. The horse tried to step away when he returned the canteen and asked to go with me to the next town.
“Reckon it’s over twenty miles to the next town.” He looked pitifully at himself with a rueful smile. “I got a few more miles to go than I got days on this Earth, partner.”
I was about to kick my horse past him, but in a clinking sidestep, the fugitive begged again. I couldn’t leave a man’s death on my conscience, could I? Wouldn’t be nothing to let me ride on the back of your horse.
The law had already informed him, and I’m sure God had instilled in him from an early age that he was an outlaw and not to be trusted. I reiterated that as my horse pawed the ground with impatience.
“I swear upon all that’s holy that if you help me to the next town, I won’t do nothing to harm you. If you save my life, I owe you everything and will not break that trust.”
The desert observed and paid no mind to us. I gazed at the seemingly endless expanse of sand that somehow rose into purple mesa beyond the horizon. An eagle, or maybe a buzzard circled above the winding trail through the broomweeds.
From the back of my horse, he told stories upon stories. The places he’d been and the women he’d met seemed fantastical. No one could be that beautiful and nowhere had that much booze. But he insisted as we rode with his blistered, shackled feet to one side of the horse’s rear that indeed these things had happened to him and ill-luck with the law landed him in these dire straits. He thanked me profusely for the second chance at life. I thanked him for the entertaining company. The rides back from cattle drives were lonely ones, and it was nice to have someone along. The outlaw then praised the legends of people he thought were cowboys and the integrity of the cowboy code. Lauding on for disingenuous hours until it was time to setup camp.
I stepped off my horse and tied his halter to a tree as twilight laid her cool silk over the harshness of the desert. The outlaw jumped on me. He knocked my head with his cuffs and filched my knife from my pocket and stuck it between my ribs.
My shaking hands couldn’t hold my life back into my body. I asked him why he had done that, hadn’t he promised not to hurt me?
The fugitive outlaw jumped back on my horse and said, “I’m an outlaw in chains, mister. You should’ve known not to trust me.”
