Bewilderness

He arrived in the town of Bewilderness on a weary, white mustang with bruised hooves. Dusty trousers, torn shirt, battered Stetson. Stubble that was more days old than he knew. Sunburnt face tired and drawn, throat coarse as gravel, bags under eyes from not sleeping. For many more days than he knew.

He’d travelled a great distance, through an endless expanse of sandy nothingness, his faithful steed carrying him on bent shoes. He didn’t know where he’d come from or where he’d return, he only knew he was here, now, in this washed-out town of rack and ruin. Recalled from the wilderness to assist a shirtless waif, who’d been left tied to the husk of a lightning-struck tree to bake in the sun. 

His wrists and ankles were manacled, an iron mask was padlocked to his head. His back was covered in welts where he’d been whipped, he sported black and blue bruises on his stomach and third degree burns on his side. Despite the brutalisation he’d suffered, he sat quietly at the base of the blackened trunk, legs crossed, hands in lap, curious, blue eyes watching the stranger approach through slots in the mask. 

“Boy,” the stranger said, reining the mustang to a halt, eyes peering from the shadows beneath his hat’s rim. “Who did this to you?”

“The brothers. Davis, Daryl and Doyle. Said I deserved it. They oughta know.”

“Why ought they?”

“They’re grown ups, Mister. They’ve been around, they know the rules.”

“What rules?”

“I don’t know ’em all, seems there’s a lot. I know one though, know it well after takin’ a beatin’. I’m not supposed to leave this town. This is as far as I go.”

“That a fact?”

“Stone cold. I got ideas above my station, they said, tried to move on and leave them behind. They weren’t happy, no sir. I learned my lesson.”

The stranger chewed on his cracked lower lip, turned his attention to the half dozen or so ramshackle buildings in the ‘town’ ahead, spread across the sand like rotting corpses.

“Well, I ain’t from ’round here but I think that lesson was harsh,” he said, swinging his leg over the mustang’s back and dropping to the ground. “Ain’t no call for roughin’ up a boy, ’specially if he committed no crime. Reckon I’ll have words with these brothers.”

He took a straight-edged knife from a sheath on his belt, grasped the rope that tethered the boy, sawed through it. He helped the waif, who didn’t gripe or grumble, to his feet, taking a moment to examine his mask and shackles. 

“Can’t release you without keys. The brothers have ’em, I’m guessin’.”

“That’s right. Three brothers, three keys, won’t let me free ’til they’re good n’ ready.”

“Well. Let’s go see if they are.” 

He wasn’t a muscular man and he hadn’t eaten in more days than he knew, but still he was able to lift the boy and place him sitting sideways on the mustang’s back. Hoisting himself up into the saddle, he tugged on the reins and the horse resumed trotting into town.

It didn’t take them long to reach the first structure, a weather-worn stable surrounded by a rickety fence from which the first signs of town-life could be heard. The rhythmic clang of metal. Strained grunts of exertion. Passing through a broken gate, the source of the noise was discovered next to a blazing forge, where a lanky, balding man with an unkempt beard and soot-covered face was raining a hammer down hard on an anvil. Boxes filled to the brim with steel horseshoes of various shapes and sizes littered the ground around where he worked, sweating as he fashioned another. 

In the process of preparing to swing the hammer again, the sweaty, grime-covered man noticed the horse and riders approaching, started in surprise and stumbled back.

“Hey, hey, who goes there?” he stuttered, dropping the hammer and scrabbling to snatch a revolver from a nearby bench. “State your business, stranger, we don’t welcome visitors so if you’re lookin’ for somethin’, you’ve come to the wrong…” He stopped when he noticed who he was riding with. “What ya doin’ with that boy?”

“You run a stable, don’tcha?” said the stranger, dismounting and striding towards the farrier. “You make shoes, don’tcha? What’s the good if you don’t have visitors? My Milly’s been walking on twisted steel for more days than I know. She’d appreciate a fittin’.”

In agreement, Milly pawed the earth and whinnied.

“Not from me, she wouldn’t,” said the blacksmith, pointing his revolver in a shaking hand supported by another. “Can’t you see I got no custom? Why you think that is? I wouldn’t trust me to shoe mah own horse. And stablin’? Ha. I’d forget to water 'em, or I’d feed 'em the wrong grain, or leave the door open and they’d escape. Don’t ya think that’s happened? Don’t ya think that’s why mah business failed?”

“I see. Are you Davis?”

“Daryl. Davis works the saloon. You lookin’ for Davis? Saloon’s over yonder. Sure, you mosey on over there, Davis will fix ya a drink or a snack, he can do stuff. He could prob'ly shoe your horse better’n me.”

“So you’re not good at your job, that’s what your sayin’?”

The stranger stopped by a box and extracted a misshapen horseshoe, more bent than the ones on Milly’s hooves. 

“I’m no good at nuthin’, no one knows better’n me, so git and leave me be. And leave the boy as well. He’s no good neither. Thinks he can ride, thinks he’s got what it takes to go be a wrangler or a cowboy. He needs to know his limitations, so put him down or I’ll…”

“Shoot? But Daryl…you just said you’re no good at nuthin’.” 

With a flick of his wrist, the stranger flung the horseshoe at the Smithy, drawing his gun as the scruffy man ducked, blasting the revolver and two fingers clean off his hand.

With a cry Davis dropped to his knees, clutching his wounded hand while the stranger approached, taking a greasy rope from a nail on a beam. 

“Mah fingers! You shot off mah fingers!” 

“I’ll shoot more than that if you try to escape,” said the stranger, binding the farrier’s hands with one end of the rope, securing the other to the beam. He returned to the weeping mess when the task was complete, fished in his pockets ’til he found a key.

“Pleasure not doin’ business with you,” he said, returning to an unhappy mustang, who was snorting and tossing her mane. “Sorry Milly. We’ll find new shoes someplace else.”

Back in the saddle, he took a moment to try the key on the boy’s mask and manacles, finding it unlocked the ankle bracelets, removing them and tossing them to the ground.

“Thanks, Mister,” said the boy, repositioning himself to straddle the horse’s back. “But the brothers won’t be happy, that might earn me another hidin’.” 

“Then they’ll answer to me. Let’s see if Davis is any more amenable to company.”

Milly snorted and turned in response to a gentle prodding in her side, taking the stranger and boy out of the stable yard and across the weed-strewn dirt track towards another dilapidated structure. Cracked paint peeling from weather-beaten planks, the word SALOON visible in faded letters on a board that swayed and squealed on rusty hinges.

At the base of uneven steps leading up to the door, the stranger dismounted and tied the mustang to a hitching post, alongside a long-empty trough. Milly sniffed at it briefly then stomped in disgust.

“Sorry, Milly. We’ll find fresh water someplace else.”

Having helped the boy down, the two climbed the steps and pushed their way through a pair of louvred, batwing doors, which creaked loudly, announcing their arrival.

Like Daryl, Davis started when he saw them, hopping from a stool at the bottle-strewn bar and hurrying to a small, round table, which he wiped with a rag tugged from his apron.

“Goodness, pardon, I wasn’t expecting customers but I’ll have this clean in a jiffy.”

“Don’t trouble yourself. We’re not here to drink.”

Though he hadn’t had a drink in more days than he knew.

“No, no, can’t have customers entering a dirty saloon, Lordy, would you look at the state of the floor. I am so sorry, normally I keep things spick and span but we’ve been having a quiet spell in terms of activity and I have to admit, I’ve let things slide.”

Having finished running the cloth over the table and rearranging low stools around it, the stocky man, who also wore a stiff shirt buttoned to the neck, a pinstripe waistcoat and a black bow tie, darted back to the bar, took a broom and a pan from behind it and began anxiously sweeping the floor.

He moved like a jackrabbit, jittery and awkward, full of nervous energy, doing his best to avoid making eye contact with the newcomers, until he caught a glimpse of the one at the rear and stopped in his tracks.

“Boy? How..?” He straightened, turned his attention on the stranger, swallowed hard and backed up towards the bar, broom and dustpan held like sword and shield. 

“You untied him.”

“Rightly I did. And you whipped him. Or beat him. Or burnt him. I don’t know which. But whichever it was, I don’t accept it. What did he do to deserve that?”

“Thinking he can survive in the world on his lonesome, that’s what. Thinking he can get educated, earn a living, find a wife and start a family, just like that. He doesn’t know how difficult it is, how hard to make ends meet. Working, paying bills, raising kids, keeping a wife happy. It’s a never-ending slog. The boy is better off out of all that. I tried to tell him but he wouldn’t listen. So we had to take matters into our own hands. It’s for his own good. I’m just looking out for him. If he can’t trust kin, who can he trust?”

As he spoke, Davis shuffled towards the end of the bar, sweat glistening on his brow, intermittently making eye contact with the stranger then quickly averting his gaze. 

“He can trust me,” the stranger said, stepping towards him. “And so can you, when I say if you reach for a weapon you’ll regret it.”

The saloon keeper opted to regret it, casting broom and pan aside and reaching for a rifle behind the bar. It had barely come into view when the stranger fired, gun appearing in his calloused hand like magic, bullet thudding into Davis’ shoulder and taking him down.

Groaning on the floor as he clutched the wound, the second brother paid no heed to the stranger when he crouched down beside him, digging the second of three keys from his pocket. Once secured, he used his boot to lift a trap-door in the floor, dragged the bleeding man by his collar and dropped him without care into the cellar.

“Stay there if you know what’s good for you,” he said, letting the heavy door fall into place above the whimpering man. Returning to the boy, whose bright eyes sparkled with excitement, he tried the key on the wrist cuffs and they clicked open. 

“Thanks, Mister,” the boy said, as the manacles clattered to the floor. “Good guess.” 

“Had a feelin’,” the stranger replied, guiding him out of the saloon. “Now let’s go find Doyle and get that mask off.”

Their next stop, the boy informed, was further along the dry dirt road, past a general store with a false facade and an empty boarding house made of bricks. 

“Doyle’s a hoarder,” the boy in the iron mask said, as Milly drew to a halt in front of a bank, which was made from green planks and sported iron bars across its windows. “Everything in the bank belongs to him and everything he owns is in the vault.”

“Then let’s make a withdrawal,” the stranger said. For the third and final time he helped the boy down from the horse, who twisted her head as he did, rubbing her muzzle against his arm and neighing softly.

“I know, Milly,” the stranger replied, patting her rump to acknowledge her restlessness. “We’ll be on our way soon someplace else.”

He stepped with the boy onto a rotting plank veranda attached to the bank and pushed open the door, which activated a bell on the inside, alerting the occupant to their arrival. 

“Closed for business!” came a voice from the rear of the rustic quarters. “No customers, no accounts, no gold, so if you’re lookin’ to get rich you can… Boy?”

Scuttling out from behind the teller’s booth, a weedy-looking man with a desperate combover and round, brass-framed spectacles came to a halt before them, allowing the leather whip he held to unravel and drop to the floor.

“What are you doing here? Didn’t we tell you to stay put?”

“Strange choice of paraphernalia for a bank clerk,” said the stranger, nodding first at the whip then the welts on his young companion’s back. “You responsible for that?”

“What if I am? Boy’s a fool. Trying to leave town with a purse full of hard-earned gold. I keep tellin’ him, the world is full of thieves just waitin’ to rob you, and more. You try tellin’ me everyone you meet wouldn’t gladly stick a knife in you to take your coin. It’s not safe nowhere. Best place for your belongin’s is in a vault, like the one I got right here. Ain’t nobody gettin’ into that to steal my stuff.”

As if to emphasise he meant business, the teller gave his whip a flick, cracking it quietly by his side. Which would have been impressive, had it not been accompanied by the loud gulping sound that came from swallowing a surfeit of saliva.

“Well, I can’t claim what you say ain’t true, there’s a lot of bad apples out there for sure. I’ve put my share in the ground. But I ain’t never stuck a knife in someone for coin. And I ain’t hankerin’ to start. And you ain’t brave enough to test me. I don’t want your gold. I just want the key to the mask. Boy’s suffered enough. I reckon if he wants to strike out on his own and see what it’s like out there firsthand, he has a right. Like you have a right to lock yourself up and hide away. So…how’s it goin’ to be?”

Doyle swallowed hard again, half-heartedly cracking the whip. He looked the stranger up and down, took in the holster on his belt, the pearl-handled revolver inside, the way his hand hovered and twitched. He looked past him to the boy, shook his head.

“Whatever you say, Mister..”

He retreated behind the counter to a safe in the wall, fiddled with clicking dials and swung it open. He tried to cover the opening with his body, to obscure what was within, a collection of artefacts and books, diaries and photos, memorabilia. A life. 

A nervous glance over his shoulder made him gasp when his eyes met the stranger’s, then he slammed the safe door shut and scurried back.

“Here, take it,” he said, shoving a key into his hand. “And get out! You can say you’re a good ’un but I don’t trust you. Don’t trust anyone. You remember that, boy. Remember what old Doyle tried to teach you. When the world chews you up and spits you out.”

But the duo had already left.

Out on the veranda, the stranger used the key to unlock the mask, carefully removing it from the boy’s head to reveal sandy blonde hair and clear complexion, a face that wasn’t sunburnt, tired or drawn. A vision of innocence and purity that emanated hope.

“Thanks Mister,” he said for the third time, rubbing his face and rolling his stubble-free jaw. “Now what?”

“Now you take your leave,” the stranger said, removing his Stetson and placing it on the boy’s head. “That’s what you wanted, right? To get outta here? To live your life, away from those holding you back?”

The boy said nothing, just nodded and allowed himself be lifted, this time into the snorting mustang’s saddle.

“You can ride. You can be a wrangler or a cowboy. You can survive in the world on your lonesome.” He put Milly’s reins in the boy’s hands. “You can trust people. You don’t have to hide in a vault.”

“What about you?” the boy asked, looking down from the mighty steed.

“Reckon I’ll set up there,” the stranger nodded at a jail house across the road, running fingers through dirty blond hair. “Seems like this place could use a Sheriff. Go on now. Ol’ Milly’ll take you where you need to go. And I’ll be here waitin’ when you need me.”

The stranger slapped the horse’s rump and with a whiny it took off at a canter, taking the shirtless waif with it out of town, yelling yeehaw and urging it on. 

The stranger crossed the dirt road to the jail. Made his way in and looked around. There was a broken mirror on the wall in one of the cells. He went to it, passing three posters on the wall, posters featuring the recognisable faces of three brothers, each beneath the word WANTED and above the words DOUBT, ANXIETY or FEAR.

In the cell, he looked in the mirror at a familiar reflection. A blue-eyed man in a luxurious bathroom, dressed in an expensive business suit, breathing deeply as he tried to calm his nerves.  

“You’ve got this,” the stranger said, in time with the face in the mirror. “You’re strong and you can make it through the day.”

In the luxurious bathroom, the familiar reflection took a final deep breath, nodded at the stranger and turned away, walking out of the room to face a Monday.