Tara Road

As he rode into the town, the man noticed there was no one on the streets. Everything was closed down. Louis looked ahead, past the vacant buildings and small shrubs struggling to survive and saw an endless desert. He tied his horse to the post in front of the saloon and walked inside. What he found there didn’t surprise him. The cracked and dusty mirror behind the bar reflected several men laying dead on the floor next to an overturned poker table. There were broken bottles scattered around the room and he saw several bullet holes in the wall suggesting there had been a gunfight. He walked back toward the batwing doors, his boots clacking harshly on the wooden floor.

The heat of the day was oppressive. It struck Louis with full force as he stepped outside. He stood in the middle of the lonely street, beholding the other buildings in town with a careful eye. Out of the corner of his eye, Louis caught a shadow darting across a window above the saloon. He glanced up just in time to see a young woman watching him with frightened eyes. The people had not left their town as Louis had previously thought. They were now watching him, too afraid to come out of hiding. He saw that several windows in the bank and general store had been broken and it appeared as if there had been some sort of explosion at the jail. Louis decided to investigate. He untied his horse and walked him down the street. It was clear to Louis that the bank had been robbed. Louis could also see that supplies had been taken from the general store. As he neared the jail, Louis saw that the entire back half of the building was destroyed. It was as if something had made the back wall of the jail disintegrate. Louis had worked with dynamite in the past and suspected this was the cause. He walked closer and saw several dead deputies. They had all been shot and each had their gun drawn. However, he saw no other dead expect for the deputies. This observation struck a deep chord of anger in the man’s usually calm demeanor. The outlaw he had been chasing for some time now had just broken the rest of his gang out of prison. He led his horse to the well in the center of the town. The horse drank readily, and the man made sure that it did not drink too much too fast. After filling his canteens, Louis slowly got on his horse and followed the tracks out into the desert. The trail of hoof prints he was following was still clearly visible. This suggested that little time had passed since their making. He very quickly found himself in the midst of a vast desert. A high afternoon sun beat down on him unmercifully. As Louis rode on, he soon saw what remained of a small campfire. He sensed the outlaws he was following were not far away now. Louis traveled past the old campfire for a few more miles before he decided to make camp for the night. That night, Louis noticed his supply of food was getting low. He could easily hold his entire stock of jerky in both of his hands. As he ate, his eyes wandered to his horse. This horse had been with him for a long time and he felt very close to him. Since the time the two of them entered the desert, Louis noticed his horse was getting skinnier. It appeared that the amount of vegetation that his horse will eat was dwindling. Louis wasn’t sure of what to do if his horse became too weak to carry him and frankly he didn’t want to think about it. He knew that the desert was the last place you wanted to be caught on foot. Louis was exhausted. He had learned to sleep softly to prevent potential ambushes. This night, however, Louis slept heavily. He had been on the trail for months now and rarely got a good night’s sleep. He awoke the next morning with a sharp pain in his side. Louis opened in his eyes and saw three men standing over him. He squinted into the faces of the men and recognized them immediately. They were the outlaws he had been chasing. The leader, Red, was tall and very rough looking. Their guns glinted in the morning sunlight. Without warning, Red kicked him again in the side. “On your feet.” he said roughly to Louis.Louis’s hand drops instinctively to his gun but it is not there. He looked up at the outlaw, confused.

“Looking for this?” he said with a sly grin, holding up his gun belt. Louis had never lost his guns before and he intended to get them back.

“I wouldn’t get too comfortable with those,” Louis said through a clenched jaw. One of the outlaws snickered. Red also seemed to take pleasure in the man’s anger. “Without your guns you are nothing,” Red stated with force, “and you know it.” Louis, seeing three guns drawn on him, knew he was defeated. “After all this time, all these years of running, we meet like this.” said Red, “I always thought I’d be the one in your shoes right now.” The man’s face remained unchanged. “Why have you been chasing me so long?” Red asked, taking a step closer. “What are you after?” “The reward,” Louis stated bluntly. Red stared coldly at him, “Nah, I think you’re after something more than just that.” His jaw tightened and Red could see there was something more. “Three years ago, you and your gang robbed a train headed for Santa Fe, you remember that?” “Yeah, I remember that, sure lucky we got away wasn’t it boys?” At this the two other outlaws, Bill and James, gave a yell of agreement. “Seems that we ran into some trouble with some federal marshals.” “What kind of trouble?” Louis asked Red, his eyes fixed on him. “What’s it to you?” Red snapped back. “One of those marshals was my father.” Red took a step back when he heard this. “That’s it isn’t it?” “That’s why you’ve been chasing me. You looking for vengence boy?” Louis didn’t respond. He just stared at Red, a stare that seemed to go right through him. “You ain’t gonna find it here, not today,” Red replied, “Bill get him on his horse.” The outlaws forced him onto his horse and tied his hands to the horn on the saddle. He watched as the men mounted their own horses and began to ride. As they were riding, they formed a line, two riders in front of the man and one behind, in case Louis tried to escape on his horse. The sun seemed to grow larger with each passing hour. It’s heat was like a physical weight on all of them. Louis had been stripped of all of his supplies, including his canteen. His mouth and throat were on fire. “Gettin’ hot back there?” Red said, glancing over his shoulder with a laugh. The sun crept ever higher in the sky. Louis knew he needed water but was not about to beg for it. “I remember your father well,” Red remarked, “I remember how he died too.” Louis looked straight ahead, trying to conceal the rage that began to boil in him. “I never heard a man scream like that,” Red continued, “sounded just like gutted pig.” At this, Louis became enraged. He knew his father had died with honor and would not have given up without a fight. Red could see the emotion flair up in Louis from his taunting. “Your father chased me once, just as you did,” Red stated ominously, “and you’ll meet the same fate.” They continued on through the desert. At some point, Louis felt himself fading into blackness. He was jolted back, however, by a sudden pain in his chest. Their progression had stopped and apparently Red had thrown him a canteen. “Take a drink,” Red said, “we’re almost there.” Louis picked the canteen from where it had fallen in his lap. He grasped it as if it were made of precious metal. With a hand nearly shaking, Louis unscrewed the lid of the canteen. He took a drink and shuddered as the cool water hit his lips and throat. They started riding again and around evening, the procession arrived at a small town that has been deserted for some time. Louis looked at the buildings as he passed them on his horse. Each one showed major signs of disrepair. Nearly every window that had been in the buildings was gone, and the paint on the shops was peeling. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Louis wondered what could make people abandon a town such as this. Just as this thought crossed his mind, Red began to speak. “The well’s dried up,” Red stated, “We’ll have to find water somewhere else.” “Where?” Louis asked sarcastically. The group continued walking and stopped abruptly in front of the only stone building in the town. “End of the line,” the lead outlaw said with a laugh. “for you anyway.” Bill and James also let out a laugh. Louis began to feel a deep sense of dread in his stomach. He had been chasing Red for what seemed like years and the man knew what he planned to do with him. The outlaws dismounted and tied up their horses at the post. One of the outlaws untied his hands and forced him roughly from his horse. The four men made their way inside the jail, a pistol shoved in his back in case he tried anything funny. The bandits threw Louis into a dirty, barren cell. He lay crumpled on the dusty floor of the jail. Red stood at the entrance to the cell, towering over him. In his hand he held the half empty canteen which he tossed into the cell. “Adios” Red said, as the heavy barred door closed with a loud clang.Louis watched as the outlaw who his father and now himself had so desperately pursued left the jail.