Fate’s Bounty (Grady)
Posted By J.C. Montgomery on February 23, 2009
Filed Under Excerpts, Westerns | 2 Comments
© J.C. Montgomery 2009. All Rights Reserved.
I stood there a starving man. I was hungry for food and even more for redemption. Looking into the faces of my family, I saw failure – my failure: as a father, a husband, a provider. Not that they would ever say this to my face, they didn’t have to. The words never spoken were all I seemed to hear.
I could see it in the expectant eyes that followed me when I’d come home after hunting and placed my rifle above the hearth. It’d be so quiet, I could hear their shallow breaths quickened by hope, then held as I laid the burlap sack on the table. Turning quickly, I’d head out the door and down to the creek to wash off the dust and disappointment of another fruitless day.
Sometimes I managed to bag a couple of jack rabbits, although they were usually so scrawny that I doubt put together they amounted to more than a mouthful of meat. My wife’s skill with stretching out what few resources we had was a godsend. I knew there wasn’t enough on those rabbits to feed a dog let alone a family. But somehow she’d manage to set a meal that was just enough to keep the knot of hunger at bay one more night.
That morning I headed into town, hoping to find work. I hadn’t made it farther than the Sherriff’s office when I spotted it. As most wanted posters go, this one had all the particulars just right. The bare bones information needed to ensure getting a man’s attention – namely those numbers following the dollar sign. Who cares what kind of outlaw you’d be facing? When all your family has eaten for the last month are beans, broth, and whatever scampers within range of your Winchester, you tend to barely notice the words right before money.
On this one, the dollar amount was one that temporarily numbs one’s good sense. It would explain what happened in the days that followed. That and the fact that necessity may be the mother of invention, but desperation is the bitch that nags you until you find yourself doing things that even a mad man wouldn’t consider.
Fall was fast approaching, winter right behind it. We’d gone through just about everything in the root cellar and the garden. This was the heartbreak that’s nearly done us in. It never recovered completely after being raided by a passing group of settlers that took advantage of my wife’s charity. Being told there were sick children that needed tending and not enough women folk to do the job, she gathered our own brood, grabbed her box of healing herbs, and rushed to their camp.
When she arrived, they appeared to have made a miraculous recovery. Not until she returned did she realize she’d been fooled. By the time I arrived at their camp, they had disappeared into the twilight. My wife was inconsolable for days knowing there wouldn’t be enough time to replant what we needed to see us through ‘til spring.
Our neighbors were sympathetic, but not much better off themselves. Many offered what they could, and if it weren’t for the children, I would’ve turned them down. It was this generosity that had kept us from giving up.
Taking my hat in my hand, I tore the poster from the wall and walked into the Sheriff’s office, wondering if the decision I was about to make would be the right one, and if it wasn’t – what did I have to lose?
As it turned out – everything.
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This is a grand start, Jo, and does grab attention faster with the moving around of paragraphs you’ve done.
Already worried about who’ll standing at the end.