Hitch

“Yeeaahh”, dirt screamed into the wind as he galloped across the trail.

Finally, he thought, big money tonight.

Hitch, real name Henry, Jenkins came to El Paso ten years earlier to earn a living as a gambler. Countless spilled beers and whiskey stained the much too large poncho he wore.  The little children of the town called him, hombre Gordo con alas, or the fat man with wings. Adults of the border town started calling him Hitch because it had become great fun to tie him to the hitching posts whenever Henry passed out in the saloon. Hitch was a loser.

“Where am I”, Hitch asked the man sitting against the wall when he woke from his blackout.

“Jail” said the man pointing to the bars on the other side of Hitch.

“Oh shoulda known it, damn. Whiskey did it to me.”

Hitch now could see the tough skin and dark eyes of an Indian sitting across from him.

         “What are you here for?” asked Hitch.

         “They say I robbed the coach and killed two men for their gold,” answered the outlaw, “I hang tomorrow at noon.”

         “Did ya?” Hitch asked.

         Glaring at Hitch, he gave him a slight nod and dropped his eyelids.

         “You won’t need gold where you going, tell me where it’s hid.”

         “Its cursed money.”

         “Fair warning, don’t care.” Hitch said.

         “It is buried on the road to Mesilla, in a mason jar under a scrub oak. About two miles out of town next to the Las Cruces sign.”

         Hitch jumped from the horse and began digging. Within minutes, he unearthed the jar that held only three dead mice. Hitch smashed the jar, inadvertently releasing a deadly Hantavirus on the town.

         A defiant smiling Indian swung like a pendulum from the gallows back in El Paso.



298 words