Author's Note: This story was inspired by a Country and Western song, High and Wild. The name was never given, but the story told there is the story I told here. A man who followed a woman, and the end it brought him to.
Disclaimer: Without A Trace is not mine, I own nothing, and I'm missing all claims. No one was lost during the writing of this fanfic that Martin Fitzgerald can't find.
High And Wild
Missing, a 56 year old man, originally from Texas, disappeared in New York one evening.
Kneeling beside the body Martin Fitzgerald had to fight the despair he felt. It was always hard when the one you were searching for was found dead, but sometimes were worse than others. Like when you found a 56 year old man frozen to death outside the gates of Coney Island. Clutched in his stiff fingers were just enough money for a ride on the mary-go-round, and though the gates had been closed for the winter some time now it was still where he had been found.
Piece by piece they had found out who he was when they searched for him. The call was placed by a business man who had noticed that the man didn't occupy his usual street corner for a few days. Surprising some would think that a man like that would care, but some people did care.
This one, Dan Henry had been from Texas originally, but had fallen in love with a woman. He had been a skilled rodeo rider they had found out, one of the best. Yet because of love he had sold his silver studded saddle, just so he could afford her time, and when she moved to New York he had followed. It was a man well and truly in love, but New York had been hard and cruel to him. He had found no love here and apparently his mind had slipped away little by little as he sought to drown his sorrows in whiskey.
Gone were the days when he was a rodeo star but the memory of it still remained and an old man who would tend to the mary-go-round had told them how he had used to come there all the time, to ride the wooden horses where for a moment he was a cowboy again.
He would shine shoes to earn the money, and then he'd get himself a drink and he was high and wild on the mary-go-round.
He could see it in front of him, how that weather bitten face would shine up in a smile. The drink he had bought would help him to go back in time for a moment and he would be like he was, before false love had caused him to go wrong. He'd be praying that the wooden pony never slowed down, for once more he was back in Texas, back in the clear open spaces and he was riding an outlaw, listening to the cheers of the crowd when he made it. He could see that silver studded saddle and the old man who was young then, how he lived for the rodeo and how nothing could keep him down for very long, and then with a woman it could all change.
Women were hard to understand, knowing what they wanted from you was all but impossible and they had driven many a man insane, he knew that, he had battled with them more than once. It was easy to go wrong when you tried to figure out where a woman wanted to take you.
This woman though had not wanted him at all, she only wanted money and nothing else and he found only a very small measure of comfort in knowing that her greed had finally backfired on him.
Strange that the only one who cared was a business man on his way up the corporate ladder who would stop to have his shoes shined every morning. Strange that a man like that should care so much about one who had fallen, but he had seen stranger things, and he knew that man would morn when he found out that Dan was dead. He had even known his name, they had spoken at times, about dreams, women and about riding horses.
Looking closer at the body he saw the tear drop frozen at the corner of his eye and he knew why it was there. Not for love gone wrong, but for the closed gate that wouldn't let him in to ride.
He had frozen to death because he had money for a ride on the mary-go-round but the gate was closed and he couldn't get in. He hadn't gone back, he hadn't been able to turn himself away because the only thing that allowed him to feel happy and free again was a drink and a ride on the wooden pony of the mary-go-round.
The body of Dan Henry was laid to rest one week later in the county cemetery. In attending was a young business man and an FBI agent, neither one spoke to each others as they stood there, listening to the sermon. When they walked away there were no flowers laid on the upturned dirt, but a few coins for a shoe shine, and a miniature mary-go-round toy for the cowboy who was led astray and lost outside the gates of Coney Island.
The End
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