Yesterday, now this is yesterday mind you, I was driving my stagecoach across the mesa. Fifty to one hundred and twenty bees swarmed around me at any given time. Cattle and brush fires were sparse but tantalizing. Lush carpets of sand and cacti needles laid before my horse's hooves.
Towards midday I happened upon this little town built right atop a copper mine. Now the copper mine was abandoned, but people stuck it out there anyway. (Probably because of the great reserves of mined copper the town maintained). The sheriff was a lonely fat man adorned with badge and rumpled socks -- elastic was definitely not the fashion out there!
I paid my silver for coffee and some sloppy sandwich and moved on.
It was on the next open stretch of desert that I felt the stench of a rider approaching.
Sure enough we crossed paths. He hopped down and lavishly spread his arms:
"Woo wee! It is hot as a pig's rectum out here, ain't it?"
It was true, so I could do no more than agree.
"You see, I am the Sheriff of Gainstown, and I've been forewarned about you."
He pronounced warn like warren, but I pronounced, "Well, I'm sure you are indeed the sheriff, but what reason might you have to be cautious of me?"
"Lemme jes have a peek underneath your ridin' board."
"No."
"C'mon, please?"
"No."
"I'm gonna do it! Step on down here for a minute."
"Sure", I acquiesced. He may not have had an actual badge, but his gun looked real enough.
I stepped down and that bastard climbs up onto my stagecoach, shoots his horse in the neck, and rides off a-whipping and a-laughing.
So there I was, in the middle of the desert with only two bits to my name and a horse that had been reduced to a fountain of blood.
I walked back to the town with the copper mine, got a ride back to El Paso and took a plane back here -- just in time for work.
My boss didn't even notice I was doused in horse's blood so none of this was too concerning.
, .
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"Tssss. Tssss."