A Disappointment

I rolled into the town just before dusk, eyeing the shuttered windows and tumbleweed-laden earth.

Dry like a handful of raisins.

This was not what I had expected.

Meeting that prospector in the foothills of North Carolina had seemed an answer to all my prayers. It hadn't taken me more than a few minutes to pack up all my supplies.

I was always ready to move at a moment's notice, for the right price.

It wasn't every day I got news like this. It seemed heaven-sent.

I had been lost the last few years. Couldn't scrape together enough for even a mouthful of the stuff. And what was life without the stuff?

Sure, some might say I had a problem. What did they know?

Until they had experienced the sweet taste of freedom, the quiet release of abandon, the reckless wonder of living life on the edge, what could they possibly know about it?

As I looked around the abandoned town around me, I wondered if I had finally gone too far. If my quest for that rush, that little automatic click in my brain, had led me too far astray.

As I rode further down what must have been their main street once upon a time, I saw a small, scrappy boy, facing me in the distance. He did not seem to want to acknowledge my presence, but a hand rested threateningly on what could have been a revolver. Or something else.

"You best turn around now, stranger." He called to me, his voice cracking from apparent disuse. I knew the feeling. When I was hot on the trail, sometimes I could go days without speaking to a soul.

"I don't mean nobody no harm." I called back, but kept my eyes firmly on his hand. I saw his face try to work out the triple negative I had sent his way. That was usually a good trick to keep them distracted.

I smoothly hopped of my trusted horse, Carrots. He was brown, like pure molasses, but with an orange tint in his mane from a scrape at a leather treatment plant. I thought the name suited him.

The boy opposite me had a dark, stormy face. It would have been attractive, if not for the massive scar taking up most of the right side of his face. I had to wonder what could have caused something so destructive.

It looked like a burn. A painful one.

I self-consciously kept my own burnt palm out of view.

"Stay back!" He growled, fierce and feral in that moment. I shrugged, as if unbothered. But my eyes never stopped moving.

"I reckon this here find is not big enough to share." He called out. The hand on his pocket did not move. I swallowed.

"And what exactly have you found here, stranger?" I needed to know if what I was looking for was around or not. If it was, there was no way in hell I was going anywhere without my haul. And I sure as hell wasn't sharing it.

The boy scowled.

"I know what drew you here. It's the same hoard I heard whispered about all the way over in Missouri. There's only one reason anyone would be coming to Bourbon, Indiana." His eyes glinted with determination.

"And what's it to ya?" I challenged, taking a step forward.

"If this here place is what they say it is," He said, taking a matching step towards me, "I'm ready to fight for it." His eyes were dark and blue, like a berry left out for too long in the sun.

"Well, so am I."

We stood a meter apart. You could have popped corn with the heat of his stare, or sizzled beef with the power of my own.

We were both distracted by the loud sound of a gun-shot in the distance.

Turning as one, we faced a tall man, dressed in creased leather. He sat comfortably on his horse, a genial smile plastered on his face. Like the cat that ate the cream, his pistol was still smoking in his hand.

"Well, well. If it ain't you two, I shoulda known. How's things in your parts Larissa?" He called over to me.

I only shrugged. Tom could say nothing to interest me these days. Not since we split up. Not since he couldn't fix his own sticky fingers.

"And you, Wayne?" The boy only scowled harder.

"I ain't got time for this foolishness." I spat out, my patience finally having run out.

"Well that's great, why don't you just mosey on home then?" Tom's smile was immovable, but his charm wasn't enough to make me forget his backstabbing ways.

"I figure I'll stick around, see what's what." Wayne was looking between the two of us, as if trying to pull apart some particularly difficult taffy. I steadfastly ignored him.

The soft ache in my head was coming back. If I didn't get a fix soon, I would be pretty useless.

Choosing to ignore my company, I pulled out my emergency reserves of the good stuff. It was pure, if a little crude. I took out a small pinch of the powder, and rubbed it along my teeth.

I was almost out. I needed to find this haul before the other two did.

"Well this has been pleasant and all, but I've got places to be." I said, pulling myself up with the sudden burst of energy, swinging myself up on Carrots, and hoofing our way down the street.

I heard cursing behind me as the two of them took up the chase.

That prospector said there should be a sign somewhere in the town center. Something that told us we were in the right place.

It had been too long. I needed to find the promised treasure and quickly. Otherwise, I was gonna have to slink home in shame, and beg my mother for handouts.

I couldn't take the look of disappointment on her face again.

But there, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of something between two old broken down shacks.

There was an old man, in a rocking chair, sitting right next to a beaten down sign. He looked like he could have been dead to the world, despite the ruckus going on around him.

Glancing backwards, I could see Tom and Wayne were doing their own searching, and had not yet spotted the old man, or the sign.

I pulled Carrots to the side as surreptitiously as possible. I didn't want a scene yet.

Hopping off, I tried to slink my way over to the old man, still rocking back and forth. Back and forth.

"Psssst." I hissed, worried the other two would notice me soon. "Old-timer. Got any clues for someone looking to find this town's secrets?"

He lazily opened only one eye. He seemed totally disinterested in me, but he pointed a thumb at the sign to his right.

'Fine by me, stranger,' I thought. 'I'll find what I need my own way.'

I moved over to the old, weathered wooden sign at the side of the old shack that looked like it had once housed a saloon.

That was when I heard the two of those boys discover my position, both running as fast as they could to catch up to me. It was no matter, they were too late. I had beaten them both. I turned to the sign in triumph.

I was so close to getting that fix.

It was only later that Wayne told me what happened. After we decided to pool our resources and follow the next lead together.

It seems I feinted dead away the moment I ready that cursed sign.

"The secret of this Desert Town, is the trove of Bourbon beneath its Church's floorboards."

There was something else, something about the curse of the treasure and how it would haunt any who trespassed on this sacred ground for years to come. None of us had cared about any of that.

That didn't help us at all.

That damn prospector had one too many nuts loose, but it served me right for believing such a crazy tale.

I knew a Dessert Town was too good to be true.