Timothy Jones - Tibtarnitallimardarian

When he didn’t get any answer to his fire he ordered the men to mount and rush the barnyard. Much to his chagrin they found their quarry had skipped.

"Damn. I knew he was slick but I didn’t think he could get out of there without us seeing him. Spread out and see if you can find his tracks." The Sheriff was really disgusted with himself for letting John pull one on him. He didn’t care much if John got away. It was just that he didn’t take kindly to being outsmarted.

The rain started and Bob was afraid they were too late to find any tracks but shortly there was a shout from one of his Deputies.

"Over here Sheriff. He went down this swale. Looks like he had time to get away."

The Sheriff rushed over and looked down the swale. Sure enough he could see John’s tracks in the dirt. It was lucky we found them when we did, he thought. In this rain a few more minutes and we wouldn’t have known where he went.

"All right. Let’s wrap it up and get back to town. No sense staying around here." The Sheriff sounded angry and no one really wanted to question his decision but they wondered why they weren’t going to follow.

"But Sheriff, aren’t we going after him? He can’t get very far in this rain." One of them got up enough nerve to ask.

"You don’t know this country, do you?" asked the Sheriff.

"No Sir, I don’t."

"Neither did John," sighed the Sheriff. "Too bad, too. He wasn’t really a bad man. Just a little too quick with a gun now and then. But it looks like he took his last ride. That swale leads into an arroyo that will be a torrent in the next ten minutes. It will sweep everything from here to the desert. Unfortunately for John there is no place for him to climb out once he drops over that rim down there."

Wheeling his horse around, he hollered above the rising wind, "Let’s go home."