Sleeping Dog
a short story by
Justin Other Smith
“My eyesight ain’t what it use’ta be,” the old man mused. He sat on a rock outcropping looking out over the desert below. The clear air made objects seem closer than they actually were so the speck that he saw from his high perch was a long way off. He wished he had a spyglass. He’d had one once, a long time ago, back in the Indian wars.
All the miseries of those days had vanished somehow, gone away somewhere in his brain. Someone had once told him that a person never really forgets anything he sees or hears or reads, or even I s’poze,, stuff that you just heard about. Not sure if I believe that or not.
He shook his head at the thoughts that seemed to come from nowhere, hang out in his brain for a moment, then fade away. ‘Such a long time ago,’ he thought. ‘All the killin’s that he’d seen ’n done too…wasn’t gonna shirk what he’d done himself. A man’s gotta own what he does, seemed like the right thing at the time. If he had it to do over, he wouldn’t do it, not that way. Wish now I’d just ridden away, come to this mountaintop when I was a young man.’ Course he’d been a lot of places, seen a lot of things. All such a long time ago.
“Seems like ever’thing for me was a long time ago,” he spoke aloud and was a little surprised at the sound of his voice. He often held conversations with himself but he’d fallen into the habit of hearing his thoughts rather than actually expressing them aloud.
He stood, wincing at the pain in his knees. ‘Too cold up here,’ he thought, ‘might be nice to spend a few hours on the desert floor. Maybe go down some morning, early mornings were best, before the sun got too high, the desert tended to get hot awfully fast this time of year.’
He stared again at the speck, knew it was moving though it didn’t seem to be. Knew also, that it was a man. Few things in nature moved so directly as a human. A human with purpose. ‘Wonder why,’ thought the old man, ‘why now.’
He turned, moving along the rocky path carefully, silently, though there was no one near to hear him.
‘Coffee’ he thought. ‘I need coffee.Sure wish I had some.’
~
The man on the horse in the desert below looked at the hazy mountains in the distance. Rocky, dry, arid as the rest of this damn country. He needed to rest the horse, rest himself. Too damn hot out here in the middle of the day. And no shade anywhere. He licked his lips, thought about the canteen swinging from his saddle horn. Too damn hot…
The cactus around him like a spiky forest, no leaves for shade, no water holes. How in the world had people survived this hellhole…
The horse stumbled a little as he plodded…’Gotta stop’ thought the man, ‘gotta rest the horse or I’ll never get out of here’.
From the corner of his eye he saw a cactus leaning against another. He got down from the horse slowly, feeling the weakness in his knees.
He licked his dry lips, “C’mon Horse” he said aloud. At least he thought he said it aloud Not sure about that. He led the horse to the leaning cactus, looked at it, uncinched the saddle and dropped it by the cactus. Shook out the saddle blanket, hooked it over the cactus. Stepped back to look at his handiwork…’Helluva tent pole’ he said to the horse.
The shade provided wasn’t much and it wasn’t any cooler that he could tell but it provided some relief from the glare of the sun. He hefted the canteen, hearing the water slosh. Poured some into the crown of his hat and held it for the horse to drink. The horse slurped it up instantly, nosing at the hat. He poured a little more water into the hat and gave it to the horse. Then he buried his face into the residual damp, smelling the water. He took a sip, a small one from the canteen. Then he took another one.
He sat on the saddle in the shade provided by the horse blanket and buried the canteen up to the neck in the sand. The horse was silent, unmoving except for the occasional involuntary twitch. ‘We’ll wait for awhile here, Horse;’ said the man. ‘Until evening anyway. It’ll be some cooler then and maybe we can reach those mountains tonight, maybe even find some water.’ The horse stood with drooping head and the man reached out a hand and rubbed his nose.
The horse, a dun gelding, blended into the colors of the landscape…the man, too, covered with the dust of the desert became almost colorless, just part of the landscape.
The man knew the effects of dehydration, knew that the sun ’n the heat will play tricks with a mans mind. The dust devils will take different shapes ’n a man will begin to see things that ain’t really there. If he goes long enough without water, his tongue will swell and his lips will crack and split. He’ll become dizzy and disoriented, apt to walk in circles until he collapses and dies and becomes one with the desert forever.
The man knew that but he also knew that he had enough water to take him and the dun to the foothills and that there was water to be had there. At least, he hoped there was. He didn’t mind traveling through the night. There was a moon and the north star. Any man in this country that couldn’t follow the north star…well, he just shouldn’t be in this country then.
~
The American southwest was ever a hard country, unforgiving of man and beast, a country where even the slightest mis-step could have disastrous results. A man alone, on foot, could pass within yards of water and never know. Animals, thank God for them, have a much keener sense of smell. The man on the dun gelding knew this and he trusted the horses nose more than he did his eyesight. The horse led him to water, a small spring, a seep where brackish water pooled. Later in the summer, it would bake away but for now, now there was life-saving water available.
He wasn’t in any real hurry. The old outlaw on the mountain wasn’t going to go away. He’d wait as he had waited before. The men who had come before had not come back and the old man had become something of a legend with many people believing that he was, in fact, a figment of someone’s imagination.
The man on the dun gelding knew better. He knew that the old man was real, that those who had come before had perished, either at the hands of the old man or by the desert itself.
‘The damn desert’ he thought. He took off his hat and brushed at his hair, black and stiff from the dirt, cut short by himself with the Bowie knife on his belt. He rubbed his hand over the whiskers, he’d like a shave but not here, not now. The whiskers gave his face some protection from the sun. “If the girls could see me now” he mused, thinking back to the dancehalls of Santa Fe. Handsome, they’d called him. At least until his money ran low and he quit being so generous with the drinks. ‘If he hadn’t been such a fool, throwing his money away like that, if he’d only had sense enough….ah well, sour apples, old man. You knew what you were doing. Easy come, easy go.’
~
His share of the train robbery had been almost three hundred dollars, more’n a year’s pay. And then when young Jamison died, he’d taken his share also and ridden away. Six hundred dollars. He could have bought himself a small ranch, maybe married one of them saloon girls. They all claimed they wanted out of the profession that, for whatever reason, they found themselves in.
Six hundred dollars. More than two years pay. He blew it all in less than six months. And not even in a fancy town like St.Louis or San Francisco. Or Kansas City. Kansas City was a nice town. He’d liked it. He would have liked to stay there but he’d ridden out of there on another mans little black mare that rode sweet as a rocking chair.
And then there was the train, of course. He suspected that the authorities in Kansas were still looking for him. But, then they might not be. He hadn’t been the leader of the gang, had just fallen in with them one rainy night. He’d seen the campfire, smelled the coffee and, before he knew it, he was part of a gang. ‘Well,; he mused, ‘it was either that or maybe a bullet.’
Jamison was the youngest of the group, and had taken a bullet leaving the train but he held it together until he had his share. “Gonna take it home,” he’d said. ‘Good intentions’ thought the old man.
The gang had split, going every which way. The man didn’t care where they went, he knew where he was headed. He’d been in a hurry but Jamison asked for his help so they had holed up in a cave along the river. Jamison never got to take his stolen money home. He died in that cave and the man had pried some rocks loose and closed that hole in the wall forever.
~
Santa Fe had been a pretty good place to blow his money. He’d passed through there before and hopefully, would visit there again some day. He knew about the old outlaw on the mountain, knew that the paper on him was still valid. Knew that the old man was worth five hundred dollars. Almost two years pay, almost as much as he’d got from the train robbery and if he got the old man, the law wouldn’t come looking for him and he could maybe buy that little ranch. Maybe…
~
He had fled into the desert, the posse not far behind. They smelled blood and pushed their horses hard. It wasn’t long before the desert stopped them, sent them struggling back to town. It was more of a village than a town, a store of sorts, a saloon, a livery stable, a blacksmith…a few houses. All huddled around the spring.
The old man had lived awhile but he didn’t remember the man who found the spring, the one who built the well. Jacob’s Wells, they called the place. The last place to water before entering the hell-hole of the desert. You could stand in the middle of the street in Jacob’s Wells and on a clear day, you could see the mountains huddled in the west.
Had to be gold in those mountains, they thought. Or silver. Or something. Men ventured into the desert. The old man didn’t know if they had all died but most of them didn’t come back. Some did but, mostly not. Some of them must have made the mountains. The old man grimaced at the memory. He’d made it, surely some of them had also. Died here or maybe gone on west. Seems like everyone out here had some kind of something eating at them, driving them into the west, following the sun. He’d thought often of heading on himself, wondering what he’d find if he just started walking.
~
The man below stared up at the jumbled rocks of the mountain. Five hundred dollars, he mused. Or…To the south, he’d heard, there was a pass and there was water and green valleys. Something in the Bible, he thought, about green valleys and still waters…He looked up at the mountain, ‘Old man’ he thought, ‘you’re too much trouble for me.’ He patted the dun on the neck, ‘Let’s go find those green valleys’ he said to the horse.
~
And, on the mountain, the old man waited, dozing in the sun, dreaming of hot coffee, black and sweet with sugar….
