Chapter 3
Betas Saddletramp and Nakoosay
Slim POV
My body feels frozen and I don't know what to do. I don't have the tools to bury him and I don't know if I can carry him as I try to find some sort of shelter before night fall. Dang it! I shake my head in frustration as I try to think of what to do. The only thing I can come up with and I'm still not quite sure about is to find some rocks and cover him that way. I'll make sure and mark the spot with something so if I survive, I can come back with the sheriff and we can bury him proper.
I look around trying to figure out where I am, but the wind is picking up again and my eyes are watering up so I can't really see much of anything. I sit down and stare at the body in front of me then my head jerks forward as I sneeze. - I look up at the sky and see that storm clouds are moving in fast. Whatever I am going to do, I have to make my mind up fast.
By how fast the dark and potentially snow threatening clouds are moving they will be upon me before I know it. I can't spend another night out in the open. If I do, I will freeze to death. My clothes have frozen more than dried and if I tried to peel the material off my body, I think my skin would come off with it. I get up slightly unsteadily and go over to the dead man. I crouch down and look with sorrow filled eyes at what the man had forced me to do.
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to shoot you but what was I supposed to do? You can't just kidnap someone and expect them not to fight for their life."
I grimace as I have made my mind up. It is the only decent thing to do even if I have to suffer the consequences. I look around but don't see anything that would be significant enough to remember this place from a million different exact same places. I didn't want to, but I decide that I will have to carry him after all until I reach someplace that I can recognize and come back to.
I heave him forward until his head is hanging above his knees and I hoist him over my shoulder. I put one hand on the boulder, which luckily had saved me from the dead man's bullets, and the other making sure he doesn't fall off and I push myself up. I look around one last time then start trudging slowly North; Or in my semi frozen condition, what I think is North. How I wish I had been able to get my horse when I broke free, but I had tripped on a branch and the noise had awakened the then alive and now dead man whom I carry wearily.
As I start to slowly walk with my heavy burden upon my cold and weary shoulders. My mind goes back once again to when the trouble started to crop up. Trouble that started with that black mustached man and him spreading rumors around town about Jess. Just thinking about what he said is starting to make my blood boil.
It had been a day after I had gotten back from town and from making sure the mustached stranger wasn't a wanted criminal when the morning stage rolled up outside. I opened the front door and waved hi to the driver before going to the corral and getting the horses for the stage. I was in the middle of changing the teams when Mose, the stagecoach driver and a very old friend, hopped down from the stage and stood silently while I finished harnessing the horses to the stagecoach.
I straightened up and saw Mose. Mose walked away from the stage and motioned for me to come with him. I was puzzled but silent and walked to the porch where Moe now stood. He was a slightly older man with short brown hair and just a tinge of gray seeping in. "Slim have you been in town recently?" Mose asked his voice urgent and his eyes kept darting back to the ready stage and the stirring people within it.
"I went yesterday why Mose?"
"There's a man in town spreading all sorts of awful stuff around about Jess."
"What kind of stuff Mose?"
Mose's eyes darted back to the stagecoach and he heaved a sigh before turning his sight back on me and saying "I can't tell you right now Slim. I got to get the stage rolling again because we're already running late but I would go into town and make sure that… that flimsy mustached hog faced liar of a man stops his spewing and shuts his mouth up real tight." Mose's voice sputtered with indignation as he recalled what the man had said about Jess. Mose had thrown me an apologetic look before heading back to the stagecoach and I had almost smiled at how bad Mose wanted to tell me everything.
I nodded alright and I called after Mose as he started towards the stage "What's his name?"
Mose climbed up on the stage taking his position and hollered back "His name is Mike. Mike Capstone and he's got a mustache- black I think- and real mean looking in his eyes."
With that Mose cracked the reins above the backs of the horses and the stage rolled away. I was left standing there for a minute before I decided to go into town after the last stage and see just what this black mustached Mike was saying about Jess.
My features contort as I sneeze again and again and again. I must find shelter fast or I might not make it through the freezing night.
TBC
