A Hundred Degrees in the Shade

[The link at the end of this story is for "Trip Through Your Wires" by U2. I always said that if I ever made a Western, I'd use this song on the soundtrack during the opening credits.]

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The blistering sun cooked the man even as he rode. His reddened hands gripped the horn of his saddle, his grizzled chin drooped against his calico shift. The hooves of his paint clicked on the baked red clay, the hypnotic cadence broken only by the screech of a buzzard.

He was deep in an arroyo, petrified mud hills rising hundreds of feet on either side. He lifted his head, dark blue eyes surveying the horizon from under the brim of his hat. They had come out of the wash, the jagged hills tapering down to the plain, and an endless sea of sand opened before him. The cayuse had stopped to listlessly munch at some brittle-bush, and the man allowed one small swallow of hot water from his canteen to pass his parched lips. Only a few mouthfuls more to last for god knows how many evil miles. He untied his kerchief and slapped it against his chaps. He mopped his brow with the red bandanna and retied it around his sunburned neck.

He put his spurs to the sides of his horse and the thirsting animal plodded out onto the sand. They passed giant ocotillo cactuses whipping like neon-green octopi in the hot breath of the desert. They passed towering saguaros hundreds of years old, and agave plants that the Mexicans made tequila from. A pair of hooded orioles wheeled above their adobe nest set amongst the branches of a jumping cholla.

They were about ten miles out from the hills when the feared deathrattle of the desert sat the man bolt upright, his hand pulling the Colt Frontier double-action .45 from its holster by instinct. He pointed and fired, but not before the diamondback struck from behind a prickly pear where it had been shading, hollow fangs tearing the shin of the bewildered, fatigued mustang.

The man jerked his feet from the stirrups and leapt clear of the stricken animal as it collapsed to the ground. He stood and fired, hitting the rattler square in the head. He looked down at his glassy-eyed companion, cursed, and fired again, out of duty.

The man looked at the vista of disintegrated rock, figuring it to be thirty miles more to town. He stared at the dead horse, and suddenly yanked the tooled leather belt from his Levis. He raised the strap over his head and brought it down with a sharp crack against the carcass. He beat the lifeless creature several more times, until it occurred to him that there was no sense to this.

The man gathered what essential gear he could carry; his saddlebags, canteen, and Spenser carbine. He had covered maybe fifteen miles, traveling as best he could by night, when the water ran out. The moon was new and the way was treacherous. It was morning again and the only thing the man knew for sure was that the sun and the sand could outlast him. If he waited again for night, he could rest from the heat, but that meant fourteen hours without being one inch closer to water. He went on for a couple of miles, but when the pitiless sun reached its zenith, he had to stop and take what shelter he could in the lee of a tall Joshua tree.

He went on again that night but when dawn broke he could no longer spit the alkali from his mouth that choked his throat. When a posse came across him, he was feverish and kept muttering about beating a dead horse. The men of the posse tended him, and by dusk the man was recovered enough to tell his tale. They all reckoned the moral to be true, that there was no sense in beating a dead horse, but thought the man's ordeal a high price to pay for the knowledge. The posse rode with the man to town, and all agreed a drink was in order.

The man flung open the slatted doors of the saloon, and there on a bear skin rug, two large bull-mastiffs lay sleeping in front of the fireplace. Ignoring the ancient wisdom that it is best to let sleeping dogs lie, he stormed towards the animals, and said, “I'm gonna wake them sons-a-bitches right up!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKesAnqdq8w