Chapter 1: Escape from Hell
He awoke with the sun glaring in his eyes, blinding him. He groaned and put his hand over his face, its shadow blanketing his eyes. As he came to, he saw a group of vultures circling overhead, preparing to swoop down and rip at his flesh, hoping for an easy meal. He sat up, he smelled dust, his eyes searched the land around him, met by a sandy expanse that was smothered by brush and prickly pear. About a mile off was the disfigured remains of a fence, barbed wire strewn across dry rotted wooden posts. Near the fence, two wild horses grazed on the land-consuming sea of brush, their tails swatting at the air and their long and tangled manes shining in the sun. Staying close to each other, they moved slowly through the brush, their hooves sinking into the sand while they brought their heads and gurthy necks down to tear at the brush with their teeth. One was brown and the other was white with black blotches splattered upon the white, both beautiful horses albeit their obvious lack of human grooming.
Wanting to get on his feet, he put his hand down at his side and pushing himself up, sunk it into the sand as he put his feet flat on the ground. He could feel sand slide its way down his boots as he arose, along with the sand that slid off his jeans and plaid shirt that had collected there as he slept. He had fallen to the ground after he could walk no more, his energy used from the long trek he had partaken in, to escape from the ones that hunted him like deerhounds, hot on his scent, in search for more than just his blood. The sand that had collected was a good sign at least, he had been there long enough to know the hounds had not found him yet.
As he stood tall he brushed the sand from his scalp with his fingers, and felt it fall onto his neck and into his shirt, along with the suns burning rays. He took another look around. Miles away loomed the imposing ice-blue mountains with ice-cold water running through out the vast drainages of the even vaster Sangre de Cristo, their snow caps snaking down from their bald peaks into the pine-feathered gorges and valleys formed between them. The mountain peaks rising and falling and sloping down to the desolate valley floor, the forests of pines ending with the mountains and turning into the brush-consumed desert.
He forced his hands into the pockets of his denim jeans, searching for his knife, and grasping its ivory handle while more sand slipped out of the cuffs of his plaid button-up. He tried to swallow but the sand coating his throat consumed the little spit he had to give. At the forefront of his mind now was water, some water would be his savior, but with the creeks of the mountains miles off in the distance. He would pass out from the dehydration and exhaustion if he tried to reach them, if only they ran farther than the mountains, although they did for a mile, the thirst of the desert drank it up before it could continue any farther.
He peered at the mountains again, in his mind he could make it there by the end of the day if he started now, with the sun just a bit above the mountains, he estimated it was around 10 A.M.. He started walking, walking in the direction of the mountains iin the distance, staying far to the left of the horses not to scare them. He stepped over the prickly-pear as he navigated around the thick stands of brush, listening to the grainy sound of sand squishing beneath his boots. He looked around the desert, looking for any signs of life.
The only sign that met his eyes were the horses and the ruined fence. He noticed now something swinging at the side of the horse, by the looks of it a saddle left by a tossed rider, one not strong enough to keep hold on the powerful horse. The saddle swayed back and forth as the horse moved forward, hanging off of one side as it had become partially unlatched by some force. If only he could catch and mount that beautiful beast. He would have all the power in his hands to escape his pursuers, aswell as the stinging thirst in his throat.
They were about a half mile off, eyeing him carefully. Their instincts telling them to kill or run from anything that moved that wasn't a horse. Something inside them dwelled silently though. Something missing that they had not felt in a long while. A purpose beyond living and the pleasure of requiring the necessities for living. A friend that walked on two legs, one that could not move much faster than the light breeze that swept the sand this way and that. But with the help of the powerful locomotion of their equine spirits, anything was possible. The steadfast determination of the strongest enemies could be broken with the swift charge of the horse, and a swipe of the steel blade of the human, empires could be built, toppled, and crossed in a matter of days as well. Together, man and horse are an inseparable combination that can make dreams a reality. But only with much pain and determination can one comfort the wild spirit of the horse to life among humans.
And something about this human called to the horse, his rugged determination to move, to keep going to god knows where through a wasteland that seems to hold no good destination no matter how far one traveled. Only their own god-given instincts to remain at their own wills and freedoms kept them from greeting this man. He gazed at them and they gazed back, a span of land between them. He wondered how he could cross this space without making them stray farther away from him. He would have to take drastic measures, the solutions in his mind was hiding himself and moving slowly towards them, or luring them to him in some way.
His best idea was to hide in the brush in the direction they were moving, and slowly creep towards the horses, hoping against all odds they would keep moving in that direction, and then when his moment came, he would spring out and use the dangling foothold of the old, worn saddle to launch himself onto the horses back. Then, holding on for his life, he would hopefully stay on long enough for the horse to relinquish its rebellious passion for freedom. He didnt like his chances, but otherwise he might pass out from exhaustion and die in this god forsaken desert. His skeleton left to be preserved by the dry air and rest in the sand for eternity.
The horses were moving northeast, away from him, if he got far enough north from them and then ran east, he could circumnavigate them and hide in the brush without them noticing. With no time to waste, he started jogging north, jumping over prickly pear and rabbitbrush and flinging sand up into the air, some landing in his boots. He peered back, the horses now were paying him no mind, still surveying their fortune of brush and gnawing at it hungrily while creeping northeastward. As long as he kept away they had nothing else to do. He jogged until he was far enough for the horses to not notice his presence anymore. And then ran easterly, keeping an eye on the horses to ensure their course wouldn't change.
Luckily the horses stayed the course. He was now at a spot where he was head on with the path of the brush-distracted horses. He found a dense bunch of brush and sunk his knees down into the sand, laying down on his chest and putting his face as close to the sand as possible without adding more to that already collected in his parched throat. The grains making way for the hot breath exiting his nostrils. His hands above his head and his hat pushed back and resting on his knotted brown hair, his hair just short enough to not bother his eyes.
His muscles ached from his run, with nothing to supply them with what they needed to heal, they would continue to. Again, on his mind, was water, and now, what he would need after water, what he needed now, food, anything to eat until he could find his way to a town or one of the forts that held the Union’s grip on the land. He didn't expect to find anything more than wild Raspberries or Strawberries, if he was lucky in a large patch, abundant enough to provide him with relief from the gnawing of hunger in his stomach. He could set a trap if he stayed the night, but if he managed to tame the horse he would have more reason to search the lands for human habitation.
A place with people may be an escape from the wild that consumed the land around him, but he may be walking right into his own doom. The question was posed before him: starve to death or hang? Which was better? If he had to pick, he’d like his chances better among people. Then he’d at least have more options than chewing on the precious edible inside layer of the Ponderosa pines that dotted the Pinyon forests of the Sangre de Cristos if all other options for procuring food failed. To hang for a crime he didn’t commit would certainly be a horrible way to die, and to leave behind the real criminals without serving them the punishment they deserved would be just as bad. At least if he did die God would have mercy on his soul and let it run free through the holy paradise of heaven. Although, if he did die by hanging while the ones with blood on their hands walked free he would have to assume there is no God, at least not the righteous one he would pray to and recite hymns to in the little church of the little town with the big rolling pastures he was from.
His peaceful home on the countryside, with pastures and farmland and twisted forests and open fields, fields emerald green and expanding so far you never could find the end of them, ones wild and overgrown with wildflowers that opened wide to greet the warm embrace of the shining sun, and grasses that swayed and shimmered in the wind, and when it was calm they stood straight or laid upon each other as if they were tired and sleeping. In the morning you were always greeted by the dewdrops on the grass on the side of the road or path through the town or through his family’s farm that danced as you passed them, and the eloquent and flowing songs of the birds that reared their young in the reaching arms of the trees. Oh, how could he have ended up in such a place as this, practically the opposite of his little Eden, hundreds and probably thousands of miles away from home?
The answer to that could be given in but one word: Gold. Gold and all the things that came with it. Money, power, influence, and most of all freedom. Freedom to live his life as he wished, for the rest of it, freedom to build a big house for the loving wife and big family he dreamed of having one day. A big house in his land of Eden, with a big farm with cows and pigs and chickens and many, many acres of food and happy children that played and teased and laughed with their many toys that the gold would bring. If he ever escaped this nightmare he would leave this desert valley and its mineral-rich mountains and find his fortune elsewhere. Then he could settle down and live the rest of his days in the way he’d always wanted to live, no one to tell him what to do. Only the love of his wife and the sounds of farm animals and the playful shouts and giggles of his children to interrupt the peace of the countryside.
A high pitched noise in the distance interrupted his thoughts, the whine of a horse, and then another, slightly different sounding one, responding to the first. The two horses had gotten close enough that he could hear them, and they sounded to still be heading in his direction. It looked as if luck was on his side, for now at least, tempting his excitement and hope from within him and causing his already hunger-tangled stomach to squirm in anticipation and angst. This was his chance to save his life, without the horse he would have no other choice but to walk until he had become part of the desert, his skin latching to his bones and wrinkling like a dead cactus, and becoming pocked with sand and leathery. If he was lucky eventually to stumble into a town and collapse upon the hard-packed dry desert ground that most towns of the region were built upon. At least then he might be unrecognizable enough to not be compared to his bounty poster and hung.
He could hear the crunch of rabbitbrush splintering beneath the mighty horse’s hooves, as well as the grainy sound of sand making space for the awesome weight of the horse, all that weight channeling into the thick and muscular legs down to its hooves. Despite their fearsome mass, they stepped with a graceful elegance that most likely stemmed from the confidence held in their size as they would become aware once in a while when they came across the few creatures that made their homes in burrows such as the prairie dog’s underground villages of interconnected dungeons, or the lizards that scampered around their homes made of the rocks that were scattered here and there across the desert valley.
As logic brings it the size of the animal often reflects the size of its confidence in stride as well as the bloody fights brought to it by the coyote or wolf or mountain lion that held a place in the forests of the peculiar and desert-dwelling cousin of pines the Pinyon-Pine trees. A mountain lion would certainly bring an end to the horses, who would be awkward and lame in battle against the supernatural strength and speed of the mountain-lion, sharp claw and fang, the traits of a creature born of the fabric of a hunter so adept..
They were nearing closer and closer to him, drawn by the want to find something in a vast desert of virtually nothing. To dominate the restless boredom of an existence dominated by dry air, sand and brush. They wandered further, closer to where he hid, closer to the moment he would risk death either from a kick from behind as he dashed out from the brush, or thrown after he sticks his foot in the hanging stirrup of the saddle as he swung his leg around the large rump of the horse and onto its other side, to lock into the other stirrup while it and the rest of him grasps whatever of the horse it can to not get thrown when the horse has the realization of the human on its back and starts flailing its thickset boulder of a body dangerously. If he was kicked, his fragile body would be shattered instantly. If he was thrown he could break a limb and would have little hope of surviving.
There the horses marched into his vision, his whole life there before him, everything he is and ever will be, at stake in this moment. Close they marched to the thick stand of brush he was in, so close he could see their nostrils flaring wide and every strand of their hair bearing a coating of the desert’s dust, their massive heads turning and bowing down and up as they searched through the desert, and eyes staring white and bloodshot in the sunlight, watching the land around it. He prayed they move just a bit farther, past the brush and with their backs turned to him, so he may leap onto them with ease.
His gut bounced with anxiety, no room for that for his focus was of the highest value now.. He brought his mind at ease and imagined himself jamming his foot into the stirrup and leaping up onto the horse and wrapping his arms tightly around it’s thick neck. There that moment came, as they walked with a calm stride past where he lay, 10 feet away and separated from him by the brush he crept in, the horses walking side by side eachother with the saddled one slightly behind the other. He breathed fast, silently digging the toes of his boots into the sand as he splayed his fingers across it. His face screwed up into a determined concentration, he launched himself forward and covered the 10 or so feet between them in an instant and threw his right foot into the stirrup as the horse darted with a wild energy, him barely making a landing on the horse with a thud and a jolt of pain as his tailbone hit the horse’s backbone.
The horse went completely beserk, unable to decide whether to jump or run through the desert, it did both, dashing around and flailing itself this way and that. The man was floating in the air as the horse went up and down, barely holding his feet into the stirrups and gripping the horse’s neck with all his might, no other choice but to commit wholly to the mission he had set out to complete, refusing to be left behind and devoured by the morbid fate that would await a man stranded deep in an ocean of sand under any circumstance. There is no excuse that will save him from death if he is thrown, no pleading or cursing god will save him if he is thrown from the horse, the burning anxiety of slow death by thirst and hunger will consume him until he doesn't remember who he is anymore, a thought that brings a shocking stupor to most that think it, including himself.