The sun shone brighter than it had the day before. The boy was thankful for the wide brim of the hat. His father had always cautioned him to be prepared for whatever may come. The dust swirled up in the vortex of the wind and he reached for the canteen, dry fingers cracking at the knuckles. He was thankful for the extra water he had grabbed. Always be prepared, his father had said, for anything could happen. The boy looked from behind his cover and could see the man still lying in the shade beneath the tree, his horse still tied to the tree. The boy had tracked him since the day before, lost the trail in the night, and only rediscovered it that morning. He continued to trail him, maintaining his distance, growing more cautious as the other grew less so, until this moment. The boy had dismounted and been creeping closer amongst the underbrush and rocks that provided ample cover. A breeze blew from up ahead, carrying the scent of the horse and the sounds of movement. The man was moving, the horse was already untied. The boy didn’t hesitate to think, for he was prepared. The rifle was already in his hands as he took a knee and steadied his elbow on the stone. The other began riding slowly, barely swaying, barely bouncing. Steady ride. Steady aim. The boy squeezed the trigger.
———-
It had been his father who was unprepared. Now the boy was paying for that mistake and making the other pay for his transgression. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since this man had shot his father over a disagreement that the boy hadn’t heard a word of. His father had sent him back into the field as the man approached their land, now a clear sign that he had expected violence. Even still, he hadn’t been ready, hadn’t been prepared, not well enough. Nobody saw exactly what happened but he, his mother, his younger brother, and his sister had each heard the two shots that felled their father. Each had come running but another two shots in their collective direction had stopped their forward progress. The boy was the only one who didn’t stand in shock and tears as the man fired once more towards the house as he took off on his horse after kneeling before the crumpled body. No, the boy had gone through the back door of their small house and gathered a rifle, two pistols, the two canteens, a knife, the pair of binoculars, and the wide-brimmed hat. Preparation measured against speed; there was no time to gather any food, this would either be dealt with quickly or it wouldn’t be dealt with at all.
Once he heard the pounding of hooves leaving the property, the boy yelled for this brother to ready a horse for the chase. He paused while still within the walls that had protected him and his family for so many years. He drank a small bit of water, knowing that to save his reserves was crucial to his survival. The world around him was changing, it had been for the past year; he had seen it in the way people interacted, heard it in the way they spoke, felt it in the newfound tension that permeated their trips into town or someone else’s visit to the property. His father never told him what it was all about – and now he never would – but the boy knew that he was aware of it, that he felt it too, that it concerned him, and that it led to more admonitions to be prepared for anything. The world had grown vicious around them, faster than they could keep up their defenses. This may have been the first murder on their land but it wasn’t the first killing to have drifted onto their property by way of rumor and neighborly talk. Something dark was encroaching with time, changing people, the way they acted, the way they were. Nobody quite understood what it was but they knew that the future would only bring more of it, that there would be no turning back of the dark cloud.
The boy’s brother brought the horse around to the front of the house, thin trails of tears having begun to dry once given a task to focus on. The boy took the reigns from his hand and sent him to comfort their mother, bent over the lifeless form on the ground, his sister beside her. The children were all still children and though the boy was the oldest of the three, he understood neither consolation nor emotion. Tasks, chores, responsibilities; these were the things that he had been raised and prepared to handle. So as his mother bent at the knees and lay across her husband’s chest, the blood soaking her own clothes, as her tears hit the ground and sowed a thousand vengeful acts, the boy mounted the horse, checked his weapons and water, and rode in search of the first act.
———-
Striding forward, dirt kicking up around each falling boot heel, the boy approached the man, his hand firm upon the pistol. The horse had run off, spooked by the shot, but not before bucking and throwing his rider. He was on the ground, writhing from the pain of the broken ankle and feeling around for the gun that had come loose in the fall. It was a few feet away, the boy could see it as he approached. Always be prepared. The boy cautioned himself that there could be another gun concealed on the other’s frame, that he was mock-searching, waiting for the boy to approach for in the tremors that shook his broken body, poor aim had certainly been birthed. The man’s eyes finally landed on the boy and his gyrations ceased. He looked upon his face, he looked upon his gun, and back to the face. The face of a child forced into adulthood not by this moment but by years spent working as hard as the father before him, harder sometimes, for while a boy could work the field and mind the cattle and break his back and leather his skin and shave years from an already short lifespan, only a man could conduct business and be respected in town. Adulthood, manhood, boyhood; all words without meaning until reality and physicality came to bear.
The boy stepped heavily but quickly and was upon the man a few seconds later. Rifle slung across his back, pistol in his hand. Still, the hand of the other moved across the dirt even as his eyes locked onto the boy. The boy raised his gun and fired into the dirt near that roaming hand. He screamed in fear and imaginary pain; the boy’s aim had been true and the goal achieved, for the hand hand stopped roaming and was instead being clutched by the other, feeling around for a hole, blood, burnt flesh. Nothing there.
“You’re Jodie’s boy, huh? Think you’re doin’ the right thing? Well you-” His words were cut short by the five bullets that slammed into his chest and face, obliterating any signs of life or recognizable facial features. The horse that was barely visible in the distance picked up speed as it continued to run. No shot had gone errant, neither his steady hand nor his steady conviction had wavered.
The pulp that had been the other’s face glistened in the steady sun. The boy kicked the body over so that the detritus of the earth could enter it and begin the remove all traces of this human stain from the land, even if it could never be erased from his mind. As expected, the movement of the body revealed the second weapon. The boy checked it; six rounds. A cursory check of the body revealed nothing more than a few spare bullets, a knife, and some coins. He left the coins and took the rest for that wasn’t what this about. With the knife, he cut the leather cord from around the neck of the dead body and took in his hand the pewter cross that his father had worn until the day before when he was killed and this trinket taken from him. It was not the boy’s place to decide on the importance and meaning of belief. His father had believed and his father couldn’t be buried without this talisman, this trinket, this symbol of his faith, this entry fee past the gates of Heaven where he was certainly waiting for the boy to finish his work and get home, to get on with the burial, get on with the maintenance of the land, the animals, the family. His father and the rest of his living family were surely waiting for him so that he could get on with something he had never been prepared for.