Random Act of Fiction
The other day, while cleaning out my husband’s office, I happened across a binder full of old stories that I wrote for a writing group that I used to be in. These stories have to be at least fifteen years old, maybe twenty.
It’s nice for me to see that, in those fifteen years, I’ve learned a few things about sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, passive voice, and pacing. A few parts of this one made me wince, but it is what it is.
I have no idea what the prompt was, but this is the story that emerged.
A New Day
The sun beat down on the barren landscape, baking the soil into cracked clay. A lone tumbleweed rolled down the quiet, dirt street, leaving tiny dead branches in its wake. There were a few people walking along the boardwalks, but they all studiously avoided each other’s eyes. No one paid Thaine any mind, which was probably a good idea.
Sitting on a bench, Thaine stared across the street, not really seeing anything. He felt the heat, he squinted against the glare of the noonday sun, and he absently stroked the handle of his gun, which was strapped to his thigh, but Thaine’s mind was somewhere else entirely. It was not until a shadow fell across his face and a pair of old boots with spurs on them came into view that Thaine blinked and looked up.
“Thaine Whetsone,” a voice from another life said, “I heard you were dead.”
Raising his eyes, Thaine found a familiar face staring down at him. The man was tall, taller than most, with weathered features, bleached blond hair topped with a cowboy hat, and blue eyes. Leather pants, a once white shirt, and a dark leather vest adorned the strong body, and a cigarette was hanging out of the corner of the man’s mouth. He too had a gun strapped to his thought, along with a formidable looking knife.
“This isn’t Hell?” Thaine asked, surprised first that a joke had come to his mind and second, that his voice had actually worked.
The other man laughed heartily, a sound that filled the street and threatened to shatter the fragile buildings. “You always could think of a quick one.” Without an invitation, the other man sat down on the bench next to Thaine. He offered Thaine a drag from his cigarette, and after a moment of hesitation, he took it.
“What are you doin’ here, Emory?” Thaine asked, passing the cigarette back. “I heard you went down south.”
“I did,” Emory said through the cigarette, “but there weren’t much there.
“Not much hear either.”
The two men sat on the bench, staring across the street for some time, the sun beating down on them mercilessly, before Emory spoke.
“How may times have we fought together?”
“More times than we fought each other.”
Emory snorted. “Remember that time in Dodge City?”
There weren’t many things that Thaine had nightmares about, but Dodge City was one of them. Trapped in a hovel with more than a dozen people, including women and children, against an entire band of mercenaries. Thaine, Emory, and one woman along with her two children were the only ones to survive. From either side. Screams from the dying and the blank stares from the dead still haunted Thaine’s dreams.
“Never was sure who the bad guys were in that one,” Emory mused.
“Doesn’t matter who’s right.” Thaine repeated his own adage. “When you’re dead, you’re dead.”
“True.”
Silence again.
Thaine’s mind wandered to another time he and Emory had stood back-to-back, shooting their way out of a saloon in some forsaken town in the Colorado mountains. How many fights had he shot his way out of? How many times had they both escaped death? Thaine had felt death come for him on more than one occasion, but he had always managed to dodge the bullet. He was a survivor.
“Sorry about the shot to your leg in New Mexico,” Emory said after a minute or two.
“Just a graze,” Thaine lied. He still limped in the cold from the shot, but there was no way he was going to let Emory know that. Besides, it wasn’t personal. The two of them had been recruited by opposing sides of a clan feud. Business, that was all. And Emory had probably owed Thaine for knocking him out with a club when went through Utah. The lump was still visible under Emory’s hair.
“So, what’s it gonna be today?” Emory asked, dropping the question as a knight would throw his gauntlet onto the ground.
Thaine swallowed, but found his throat dry. All of the moisture in his body seemed to be coming out in his palms, and he wiped them on his trousers, not caring if Emory saw.
“You really think you can do this?” Emory prodded.
It was a simple question, but one loaded with meaning.
Thaine never thought himself a bad man. He’d always tried to stay on the right side of the law, and he never killed unless someone else pulled the trigger first, but in this lawless country no one was perfect.
No one had to be.
There had been more towns, more gambling, more beer, and more women than Thaine could ever hope to remember. Life was simple. Thaine took care of himself and no one else. Even friends like Emory knew how things worked. The rules, as they were, were known.
But then things changed.
Emory didn’t ask again, and the silence was enough to make Thaine shift uncomfortably on the bench. Men with guns and fists did not frighten Thaine, nor did wild animals or the great western frontier. He had never thought to be afraid until recently.
He wasn’t afraid for himself, but he was afraid of what might happen to someone else.
The image of Edith’s smiling face, with her wispy brown hair and dark eyes, came to Thaine’s mind, and he couldn’t help but smile himself. Thaine had never known he could care so much about anyone or anything. After Edith had stolen his heart, he had decided that he would give up everything he had, or wanted, to spend the rest of his life with her. The resolve answered Emory’s question.
“Can’t be a gunslinger forever,” Thaine said with a grin, turning to meet Emory’s eyes.
Emory glanced down at the gun on Thaine’s leg with a frown.
“Well, she doesn’t mind the gun.” Thaine patted the gun affectionately. “As a matter of fact, it was her that gave me the new holster.”
Emory studied Thaine for a few seconds before grinning. “Then I’d say you found yourself a good woman.” Standing, he tipped his hat to Thaine. At the same time, music came from the church behind them, and the doors opened.
“Looks like it’s your turn,” Emory said.
“You should come to the party,” Thaine stood, trying to brush the dust from his best, and only, suit. “We’ll be at the saloon after the ceremony.”
“I might stop by.”
