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Empty River: A Western Chapter 3: High Noon Clinton woke up to the sound of a cock crowing. He was looking around to throw something at the bird when his brain remembered where he was. The sheets and comfy bed were almost familiar now, as was the empty space where Wyatt slept. He ran a black paw over the sheets, faintly warm and had a few of his cream strands of fur laid there. So he got up and out of bed, stretching to pop his muscles, and bathe his blue-grey fur in the morning sun. The horse moved to the trunk at the base of the bed and pulled out some clean clothes. The fennec fox had pulled it out of the basement for him, but he carried it up the stairs. That had been, a week ago? That felt like forever and the six weeks on the road felt like a blink of an eye. Odd. With his boots making the floor creak, he walked into the hallway and to the kitchen, drawn in by the scent of biscuits in the oven. Wyatt was staring out the window, his large ears forward and frozen and his bushy tail low and bristled out. “Wyatt? What’s wrong?” Clinton said. “...” One of those fennec ears flicked in his direction before swerving back to the window again. “That sheriff you told me about, black fur with a white mane?” “Yeah?” The horse walked up to the window and peeked out. A dark shadow in the morning sun walked down the road, white mane under a cowboy hat. “Oh no.” Clinton turned and ran down the hallway to get to his things, and the gun within. It felt like moments for Clinton to make it to his things and grab his gun, but the moment he did he heard a knock at the door. He snuck out into the hallway but did not make himself known, looking at the scene in the reflection of a window to the backyard. “Can I help you?” That was Wyatt’s voice. “I have a warrant for the arrest of Clinton Fields, give him to me.” That voice made the fur on the back of Clinton’s neck stand up, and made a chill run down his spine. “There is no one here by that name.” “Yeah right, you tell him to surrender himself to me in the town square by high noon or everyone in the west learns about this tailraising town and it burns.” He heard the click of a hammer cocking but the sheriff’s paws were still at his sides. “If I meet someone by that name, I’ll let them know. Good day.” Wyatt said as he shut the door in the sheriff’s face despite his ugly growling face. There was a tense moment before they heard the sheriff turn and walk away. Those boots thumping down the wooden stairs and crushing the gravel made both of them tense with each step before they faded. Clinton stepped into the room, careful to aim the revolver down and away. Wyatt turned and rushed to him, holding him in a hug. “I had hoped for more time,” Clinton said. “How serious is he?” Wyatt’s words were muffled by the horse’s shirt. “Very, he just followed me across the west for weeks because I am in love with his son. Even before, he was known as the kind of sheriff to make sure criminals met their end regardless of what the judge said.” Clinton said as he sat down at the table. “So he meant his threat.” Wyatt sat down opposite him. “Yeah, no more running, I have to face him.” Clinton groaned as he held his face in his paws. *** Clinton wore his leather vest over his button up shirt and the chaps over his blue jeans, his boots kicked up clouds of dust as he marched towards town. He would have thought that it was too quiet if he didn’t know what was waiting for him. Barely a breeze accosted him, let alone the song of birds or the hum of insects, and even then his mane wasn’t nearly long enough to whip about dramatically. The path next to the dry riverbed had only a few standing buildings blocking the sightline to town square. So why did the sound of his steps in the cracked dirt sound like a ticking clock? He held one paw over the gun in the holster on his belt as he walked. Wyatt had helped him remember how to fire it, but the sheriff knew revolvers inside and out. A novice with a hand-me-down pistol against a gun-nut with the latest model. He wouldn’t bet on those odds. It was all he could do to keep his paws steady. There he was, Sheriff Charles Reese, looking only more rough since last he saw him. His shirt was no longer neatly tucked and his white mane was as wild and tangled as an albino tumbleweed. His eyes glowed under the brim of his hat with yellow fire and an ugly snarl marred his face. His black fur and clothes were dusted orange from the road, and his paws were already hovering over his gun. The Sheriff just stared as he walked into town square, Clinton met his gaze because he was scared of what a single twitch from the goat’s paw meant. Clinton kept walking until he was just a hundred feet away and stopped. They were being watched by many eyes, Wyatt behind the corner of a building, Rufus between the slats in the saloon windows, and of course, the sun, whose gaze was at least as responsible for the sweat running down Clinton’s neck as the Sheriff was. “You finally done running, boy?” The Sheriff said. “Would you care if I was?” Clinton said. “I have been chasing you for seven weeks across this hellscape and all you have to say for yourself is that?!” The goat shouted and motioned to the ramshackle town. “Why are you throwing away everything for this?” “You can’t see it, can you? It’s better here than it was in the city, I’m free.” Clinton said. “Free!? This is a half-rotten town with a dry river and tailraisers as far as the eye can see, you had a future in the city!” The Sheriff drew his pistol. “But you chose death.” Clinton dove to the ground as a bullet struck the dirt behind him and fired his gun as he fell, and it flew wide. “I chose Cliff!” Clinton bolted for cover as another of the Sheriff’s bullets whizzed past. “I was going to ask him to marry me!” He ducked behind a barrel right before he heard a thunk before hearing water slap the parched earth. “I was saving to buy a house with him before you ruined it!” “I was wondering what kind of monster would choose to target my son.” The Sheriff snarled and walked around to get a better angle of Clinton behind the barrel. “But you’re as lost in the lie as Cliff was. So come out and let me cure you.” The moment the goat came into view Clinton fired at him, and missed by a wide margin again. He ducked further behind it and stumbled to the nearest building. He heard the Sheriff’s bullet whizz past his ear as he started yelling. “Fucking coward! In a duel you stand there and take it! You! Have! No! Honor!” The goat yelled and Clinton heard the barrel he hid behind break against the corner he’d just ducked behind. “Why should you get to decide what I should do?! You’re the least honorable person here!” Clinton yelled back before starting to sneak around the building. “Fuck you, I am the law! I am the last line of defence between civilization and people like you who’d tear it down!” The goat yelled as he jumped a corner and fired at empty space before growling and running to the next corner. Clinton was waiting past the next corner and held his revolver out while aiming where he guessed the goat would pop out. He saw the goat step around the corner and fired, his shot struck the sheriff’s paw and knocked the gun out of it. He fired twice more, striking the goat in the stomach. The sheriff fell to his knees and held his paws to the bullet holes in his belly, then fell to the ground. Clinton walked over, holding the revolver steady with his finger on the trigger. “So, now you’ve killed off the Reese line. Congradu-fucking-lations.” The sheriff spat blood at the horse. “What?” Clinton felt his chest grow cold and lowered his gun. “You killed Cliff?” “No.” The goat tried to growl but coughed up blood onto the orange soil. “I tried to save him. I gave him a dozen chances to confess that you had tricked him, but he was defiant to the end.” Clinton’s eyes grew blurry and the black fur on his cheeks grew even darker streaks, but he couldn’t breathe. “So I foiled your plans after all, the city won’t be overrun with your kind.” “I LOVED HIM!” Clinton shouted, finally getting air into his lungs that emptied just as fast. Like they had bullet holes in them. “Why lie, even now?” The goat’s voice was even weaker now. “Oh, this was your plan. Trick my son into thinking he could love you so we’d hang him and I’d chase after you.” The goat coughed up even more blood. “Fucking… tailraiser.” Clinton just screamed at the goat, a raw pouring of his real feelings that the corpse couldn’t hear any better than the Sheriff ever did. He couldn’t feel anything but the swirling of grief and pain, the world blurred out and muffled by his crying. There were paws lifting him up and guiding him, a cream blob saying something. He was sat down in the shade, a porch he was pretty sure. There were others about, blobs of colors and shapes making noises. None of them were what he wanted. He needed Cliff back, to hold the blonde goat in his arms and hear him say that his father was lying. He needed something to stop his chest from feeling like it had been blasted open. He needed Time to just turn around, go back so he could stop them from being found out by the sheriff. It could have been okay, if he’d just heard the steps when he was in Cliff’s room and hid. It was darker when someone put a bottle in his paw. He drank it without looking, without tasting. They put something in the other paw, it smelled like food but it tasted like nothing. They pulled him to his footpaws and he walked over to a black and blue-grey blob. He put his paw on it and the short fur felt familiar, like his own. Shadow. He blinked and his vision cleared or focused, maybe both. That long feral face was staring at his, waiting. He smiled and reached out, petting the other horse’s nose when he saw Wyatt out of the corner of his eye. The fennec looked worried, and for some reason that felt funny. Shadow and Wyatt were worried about him? If the pain in his chest was anything to go by, he was still alive. He hopped up, throwing a leg around the feral horse and pulled himself into the saddle. He then reached down a paw for the cream and orange fox who took it, and he pulled him into the saddle behind him. The small feral fennec fox took the opportunity to hop on top of shadow’s head, earning a whinny from the horse. “Okay Shadow, just take us where we need to go.” Clinton said as he rubbed the feral horse’s neck. Shadow just snorted and started trotting down the road. It took a few moments for Clinton to realise where they were heading, the road was running parallel to the dry river bed, in the direction of Wyatt’s farm. He smiled again.