Shepherd's Bend: A Short Story

Vern Mason arrived at Shepherd’s Bend at exactly two o’clock. He knew this because five minutes prior, he had fumbled in his coat pocket and inelegantly opened the stop-watch that belonged to his father, and his father before him. Edgily, he tapped his thumb on the dusty glass that protected the tiny hands ticking in his palm.
There was no shade in the rocky terrain that sat above the bend, and the Arizona sun hammered down on his back. What time the man would come, he didn’t quite know. He wished the boss had given him more specifics on the components of the job, but he would get it done anyhow. Vern scraped a boot in the dust, scratched at a spot on his new suit-coat, and looked uneasily down at the road below him. When he opened the watch once more, the long hand crawled to mark ten past two.
“Maybe he sent one of the boys to meet him before me,” he whispered to himself. Vern had taken to whispering rather than thinking in his head. His brother had got himself killed a few months before, and he didn’t have anybody to talk to except himself every once in a while. His brother had been a poor shot, but Vern knew he was the best …show more content…
The young man’s boots were shabby and discolored from use, and his shirt and pants were riddled with holes, even from the back of him. The gun belt he wore low on his hips was in fair condition, so Vern rolled it up and tucked it into one of his saddlebags before he reached down to sling the boy’s body over the rump of his horse. Lastly, he decided to take a look at the young fellow’s pistol. He had seen a good-looking rifle tucked into his saddle, but the horse had run off after it lost its rider. From where he was standing a few feet away, he could see how pristine the six-shooter was, all except for the marks the kid’s hand had left where he had gripped the gun many times before. Vern was sad to have had to shoot this