Back in the Saddle! (His horse is dead.)
The dust whipped around his ankles. His spurs clanked, and he walked to the edge of the canyon with death in his fingers, and his mind filled with the spinning torn-up pictures of old places and old friends. The memories burned. Cigarettes.
He squatted on the canyon rim and stared into the split, at the river below and the cactus and burrito trees, and he smiled and took a breath, and the smell of rain went in with the dust and air. He scrunched his nose. Wrinkles. The sun was bright, and his horse was lying dead some six miles back, buried under branches, it's flanks torn where the raptor's claws had grasped and pulled. Guts.
Old Bear, they called him, and he was the best of them all. Better at drinking and shooting and punching. He could ride like a thunderstorm and swear like someone who was good at taking oaths, and he took a lot of oaths, written in blood, signed in ink, and weighted against his immortal soul. He hunted bounties. It was slow work, and it was the only thing in his rusty desert world he enjoyed. Barbarians paid well, so he worked for barbarians. Spacemen paid better, so he worked for spacemen. Pirates were traitorous and tried to pay in wenches. And alcohol. He didn't work for pirates much, but it happened on occasion and once had led him to a tropical paradise where he had met a fine lady with a cloak and a taste for aged whiskey.
It hadn't gone anywhere. The marriage fell apart and his daughter is dead. But his moustache is in fine form. Luxuriant enough to suggest a man of culture, ragged enough to suggest a man of substance. But he was neither.
Old Bear was a man of dirt and action. A man of trials and tribulations and duels and mistakes. And he would have his vengeance on the dirtworld that had shoved and battered him into his new life. A life of violence and short-tempers, and uneasy alliances with crooked characters as shady as they were varied. It was not time for rest or sleep. It was not time for coffee. And it was not time for forgiveness. His horse was dead and his left eye was a hollow slash in his wooden face. (He looked a bit like a rock with a scowl and a hat.)
He stood at the edge, and he waited. And soon the convoy emerged from the mine entrance. The carriages were hanging with pots and blankets. Dusty from the tunnels. The driver blinked in the sunlight and scanned the clifftop uneasily, but it was a blur, and bright, and he didn't see Old Bear slip away from the edge, and back out into the desert.
Old Bear tightened his belt with a flick of his wrist, and started off towards Dorgtown.
(I needed to write something cheerful and light.)
He squatted on the canyon rim and stared into the split, at the river below and the cactus and burrito trees, and he smiled and took a breath, and the smell of rain went in with the dust and air. He scrunched his nose. Wrinkles. The sun was bright, and his horse was lying dead some six miles back, buried under branches, it's flanks torn where the raptor's claws had grasped and pulled. Guts.
Old Bear, they called him, and he was the best of them all. Better at drinking and shooting and punching. He could ride like a thunderstorm and swear like someone who was good at taking oaths, and he took a lot of oaths, written in blood, signed in ink, and weighted against his immortal soul. He hunted bounties. It was slow work, and it was the only thing in his rusty desert world he enjoyed. Barbarians paid well, so he worked for barbarians. Spacemen paid better, so he worked for spacemen. Pirates were traitorous and tried to pay in wenches. And alcohol. He didn't work for pirates much, but it happened on occasion and once had led him to a tropical paradise where he had met a fine lady with a cloak and a taste for aged whiskey.
It hadn't gone anywhere. The marriage fell apart and his daughter is dead. But his moustache is in fine form. Luxuriant enough to suggest a man of culture, ragged enough to suggest a man of substance. But he was neither.
Old Bear was a man of dirt and action. A man of trials and tribulations and duels and mistakes. And he would have his vengeance on the dirtworld that had shoved and battered him into his new life. A life of violence and short-tempers, and uneasy alliances with crooked characters as shady as they were varied. It was not time for rest or sleep. It was not time for coffee. And it was not time for forgiveness. His horse was dead and his left eye was a hollow slash in his wooden face. (He looked a bit like a rock with a scowl and a hat.)
He stood at the edge, and he waited. And soon the convoy emerged from the mine entrance. The carriages were hanging with pots and blankets. Dusty from the tunnels. The driver blinked in the sunlight and scanned the clifftop uneasily, but it was a blur, and bright, and he didn't see Old Bear slip away from the edge, and back out into the desert.
Old Bear tightened his belt with a flick of his wrist, and started off towards Dorgtown.
(I needed to write something cheerful and light.)
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