Promises Kept

1,407 Words

He barely moved as he leaned against the muddy adobe hut in the heat of the bright late morning sun.  He didn't sweat.  He barely breathed.  The lone concession he gave to the dead weight of the dusty heat was the short piece of straw he worked back and forth between his lips.  Beneath brim of his ancient hat his calm blue eyes watched the dirty cantina across the worn out street. 

He wouldn’t have been standing at this lonely outpost for two hot, dusty hours if he hadn’t broken one promise.  He wouldn't break another.  Not again.  He was a patient man but now it was time.  Having waited this long, having planned this little trip for months, he knew that all his patience, all his practice, all his study and hard work, were about to pay off.

He worked the worn straw across his grizzly jaw and suddenly spit it out. He watched as the doors of the cantina snarled as the sheriff pushed his way out followed immediately by his lone deputy.  Within seconds both were dead.  Two shots each.  Two piercing stabs of light and sound for each.  Four staccato like drills.  The rhythm pleased him.  Heart, head, heart head.  Efficient and quick.  He smiled.

He hadn’t meant to break the promise.  But starting a new ranch miles and miles from any help was more than he could manage overnight.  She hadn’t like it either. He had to promise her that in two years he would make it a home.  She promised to stay.  He promised, she promised.  Neither kept their promise.  But he would keep this one.

The man walked calmly into the street watching as people came pouring out of the cantina.  And as they did, he repeated the staccato of his gun until all lay dead or had fled back inside.  The left end of his long thin lips lifted slightly as he smiled.  The street was silent -- just the way he liked it.  He walked over and unhitched the dead men’s horses.  They were exactly what he had promised they would be.  There were no groans from the bodies strewn in the street and on the boardwalk.  He calmly reloaded his gun -- just in case.  But with the sheriff and his deputy gone he figured few, if any who would dare follow.  But he was ready -- just in case.

He hadn’t been ready then.  He had come home late one day to two little girls sitting quietly on the porch.  “Mama’s gone,” the oldest one had announced.  He had been away for three days mending fences.  She never wanted him to leave.  They had lived in their ramshackle hut for nearly two years and she knew he couldn’t keep his promise. It would be the first and the only promise he ever broke.

He calmly pulled the saddles off the horses and dropped them to the ground.  He didn’t need them and they would just slow him down.  He mounted his horse and, leading the two other mounts, rode off.  He had gone perhaps a mile when he heard them coming.  He shook his head.  They had some backbone, he guessed, but it wouldn’t matter much.  They would come, he would kill a few more, the rest would either leave -- or die.  It made no difference to him. 

He rushed into the small one-room hut they called a home and looked around.  It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the dimness of the room.  She wasn’t here.  Turning he brushed past the porch, past the two young girls sitting quietly on the edge of the porch, and crossed the dusty open court of the yard to the only real building the family owned, the barn.  He threw open the doors, frightening the few animals tethered in their stalls.  Walking swiftly he crossed the barn searching for her.  She was not there.

The dust of the trail rose behind him, a great flag waving, telling his pursuers exactly where he was.  When he got to the edge of the hills he dismounted.  They were, he figured, about two minutes behind him.  He quickly and efficiently pulled his mounts behind some rocks and tied them securely to the scrub pine.  He grabbed his rifle and a lone saddle-bag and climbed up the rock covered slope until he came to large bolder.  He threw his himself behind the stone, drew out his two pistols, laid them beside himself – just in case – and sited down the barrel of his rifle to  where  his pursuers would most certainly first appear.  Then he waited.  He didn’t need to wait long.

He looked at the horses before he left the barn and found two of them dead. No water left them dehydrated to death.  He could scarcely believe she could do this.  He gave some water to the third animal and the two cows, all of which were in severe distress.  As he gave them the water his anger arose like vomit in his gut.

Within a few seconds’ six hard riding men rounded the bend.  The first two he shot out of their saddles before the others could even react.  The four remaining pursuers immediately pulled up hard and launched themselves off of their mounts.  One was dead before he hit the ground, another died a second later as he tried to scramble for cover.  The last two managed to reach the cover of a large bolder across the trail and perhaps twenty feet below him.

He left the barn and returned to the porch.  Looking down at his girls he suddenly felt a surge of sorrow and scooped them into his arms.  They buried their faces in the crook of his neck and quietly sobbed.  He tiredly lowered himself to the porch and sat there for a long time.  His girls sat with him, saying nothing, silently crying.

The man sighed.  Looking at the setting sun he calculated the time it would take him to reach home.  He couldn’t afford the delay.  He reached into his saddle bag and pulled out one stick of TNT.  He cut off a quarter stick with his pocket knife, pulled out a short length of fuse, attached it to the explosive, lit it and let it go.  Less than two seconds later the last two men were consumed in the blast. 

It was nearly dark when he rose with his children.  The youngest was asleep and the older was soon to follow.  He took them into the dark cabin and laid them on the single bed.  He would sleep outside tonight.  He would make thing right in the morning.  He promised. 

The man waited.  No noise or movement came from the rocky trail below. Satisfied that all was how it should be he rose, walked over the crest of the small hill and retrieved his animals.  As he left the dusty valley the heat of the day was fully upon him. He shook his head and pushed on.  He had some hard riding to do if he was to keep his promise before nightfall.

In the morning he found that she had left almost as soon as he had saddled up.  She had taken the roan, two bags, and ridden off.  The girls said they tried to make her stay but she wouldn’t.  She told them that if they wanted to stay they could but that she wasn’t about to waste her life with a man who didn’t keep his promises.

The night had just descended when he reached the cool valley of his ranch.  Dismounting he was met by two young girls rushing out of their newly built neat cabin.  As he dismounted they launched themselves into his arms.  In spite of his aching body he held them tight not wanting to let them go even for a moment.

The morning after he returned form mending fences he decided that he could do without her.  He figured the oldest girl could do the cooking and cleaning and he would take care of everything else, no matter what.  He called the girls.  He told them that they needed to work hard and that if they did so for the rest of the summer they would each have their own horse.  They solumnly swore to work as hard as they could.  At the end of the summer he had to admit they had kept their promises.  He would keep his too.

“Did you bring us some horses like you promised?”  The younger of the two begged him.  He turned and pointed to the two horses he had captured.  “Daddy always keeps his promises, doesn’t he?” The two girls laughed and hugged him tight and laughed in glee.