Darrel Sparkman - After the Fall

The man’s voice was low and ponderous. “You didn’t have to kill him.”

The comment startled him. In his mind, there wasn’t a choice. “He started to draw his gun.” Even to him, it sounded lame and hollow. “He would have killed me if I hadn’t stopped him.”

“He’s just a kid, and you’re a soldier. You could have wounded him, if you wanted to.”

And there it was.

Standing there, watching the boy vainly rolling his stomach, drowning in his own blood as he tried to fill his lungs with air, Trent’s shoulders slumped. Could he have simply wounded the boy? The question kept rolling around in his head. he answer was no. But it had never occurred to him. Why?

The men in the saloon turned their backs on him and left him standing alone in the middle of the floor. Finally, he walked out to his horse, mounted up, and started a slow walk out of town. As he left, he heard a woman screaming. Loved one? Mother? He didn’t know.

Two weeks later… and he could still hear her screaming.

Trent shook his head, clearing out the cobwebs of past memories, and silently eased his tall frame to a more comfortable position in the saddle, looping one leg around the horn. He wore desert-style moccasins that covered his legs from foot to knee. Cut out from the neck of an old brindle bull, the soles were made of several layers of hide sewn together. The leggings covered him up to his knees, adding protection against the rigors of the trail, where it seemed every bush had a thorn on it, just waiting to tear up anything passing by.

He thoughtfully rubbed smooth a scratch on the leather, thinking of the bull. That old bull almost cost Trent his life. He came up on it in the close confines of a brush-lined trail, deep in the hills. The bull was a cross of Texas Longhorn, Brangus, and an unadulterated anger at the world. His six-foot spread of razor-sharp horns had been catching in the brush along the trail, the heel flies had found him about an hour back, and the mud hole he wanted to roll in to get rid of the flies, was full of wild pigs. Even a macho longhorn bull is too smart to mess with a bunch of razorbacks. The trail was such that there was no turning around for either man or beast, and the last bullet from Trent’s revolver had finally stopped the bull’s charge right in front of his horse’s nose. He skinned the animal and spent a few days curing some of the better portions of the meat. It was hard and stringy, not much better than the hide, but it was food.

Pushing his brown Bushman’s hat back on his head, Trent enjoyed the brief coolness as the sweat, trapped by his hatband, gave up its moisture to the breeze. A man of infinite patience, he slowly scanned the country, looking for signs of other men. For in this time and place, the most dangerous animal in the forest was man.

As he sat, resting his horse and enjoying the shade, his mind worked on two levels. His subconscious mind was busy with the minute-by-minute evaluation of possible danger. Having an acute sixth sense, he was barely aware on a surface level of all this. It was simply that, being raised in the forest, he was a part of the forest… its every sound and breath, and he was of the forest, as much as any animal that lived there. It was his home.

Movement across the valley caught his attention. His eyes narrowed as he sat motionless in the saddle, his gaze focusing in on a small area of the forest. Without taking his eyes from the place he had seen the movement, he reached back and took a small pair of binoculars from his pouch. They were a two-toned green in mottled design, and rubberized to keep the weather out. At least, that is what the instructions said. He wanted them because the rubber coating would keep the glasses from making noise in his pack.

All his equipment was like that. A clink, or rattle, at the wrong time could spell disaster on the trail.

Moving the small wheel between the barrels of the glass, he focused in on the spot of movement, seeing several buzzards wheeling in formation over something, coming lower with each circle. Something had scared them up, and now they were settling down again.

Returning the glasses to their pouch, he settled his hat, and clucked at the horse to get him moving. The roan gelding had been with him for several seasons, and seemed to know his every mood and whim. Tough and mean, the horse was a lot of trouble in the mornings, liking to buck and twist, trying to unseat his rider. The horse was a fighter and stayer though, which meant more to him than a few minor altercations every morning.

He knew he had to see what attracted the buzzard’s attention. There were too many birds for it to be a small animal. It could be something large, like a dead cow or horse, maybe a deer—or it could be like the army patrol he had found a few weeks before, shot to rag dolls and scattered along the trail like so much trash along the road.

He couldn’t see the buzzards. Didn’t need to. Deep in his belly, a cold knot had formed—that old oppressive feeling, like the low clouds of a summer storm gathering on the horizon. He didn’t know what he would find, but his gut told him it would be bad. Really bad.

Trent pulled up to give his horse and himself another breather. He stopped to rest every fifteen minutes because of the route he traveled. The mountainous terrain of southern Missouri did not lend itself to fast-paced travel, especially if you wandered off the main roads and trails—and he hardly ever traveled the main trails.

They’d just traversed the valley the hard way, picking their way in a zigzag pattern down the mountain, and up the side of the next, and finally came to the area where he saw the buzzards.

The air was hot and sticky, with hardly a breeze fanning the trees. The flies found his sweaty horse a few miles back, following in a swarm around horse and rider. Rippling its skin and swatting its tail, the gelding was skittish and irritable. The horse wanted nothing more than a good roll in the dust, but he held him in with a firm hand on the reins, patting his shoulders and making small sounds to comfort him.

When the gelding finally settled down, he returned his steady gaze to the open glade in the forest ahead. Starting to nudge the horse forward, he stopped abruptly.

He couldn’t explain it to anyone if he tried. Somewhere on a subconscious level, bells were ringing and clanging like dueling church bells on Sunday morning. There was something ahead. It was a tangible force, an unknown presence. He could feel it, nearly taste it, and because of it, every pore of his body screamed caution. He was not about to move. Not yet. Not until he knew.

As long as they didn’t move, he and his horse would be nearly invisible to anyone watching the area. That is, if his horse hadn’t already given them away by prancing around. A flurry of wings beating the ground, and a raucous squawking from the turkey buzzards brought a momentary scrutiny. Their sudden flight caused his hand to sweep toward the revolver at his hip, and as quickly come to rest on his thigh. The buzzards were skittish too. Restless. And even though they had to be the ugliest birds in creation, he still trusted their senses over his own.

Still and silent, the man and horse seemed to be made of stone. His eyes relentlessly searched the forest, all his senses keyed to the slightest thing out of the ordinary, like a sound or a shadow in the wrong place. Anything. Something to justify the feeling he had.

And it remained with him, covering him like a shroud over a casket. Making a small sound of exasperation, he scanned the clearing one more time. Nothing. It was just another bald spot in the forest. Time to move.

He sat at the edge of a small clearing, brush and small trees nearly obscuring his horse. Quietly, he dismounted, taking the rifle out on his way down, not liking even the small noise it made leaving the scabbard. There was a round in the chamber, but he didn’t want to risk cocking the hammer. Not yet. Noise carries well in the forest, especially sharp, metallic noises.