[ WP ] He had four day 's of stubble , an old shotgun , and a promise to break .

People get confused, sometimes, about the killing of men. About its significance. They think the act itself & mdash; whether by gun, or knife, or a hangman's rope & mdash; is most important. In Micah's experience, however, it was the will behind the killing that mattered. And will was mostly a function of patience and conviction. 
 
 Micah sat in the corner of an old shed, his gun belt splayed on the table beside him and his old over-under across his knees. He wiped the wooden stock of the shotgun with an oily rag. His hands moved smoothly across the wood, over and over, as he stared out the single broken-glass window of the shed. He watched as a dust devil tore across the desert scrub. Patience and conviction. With his horse exhausted, Micah had plenty of both. 
 
 Four days of hard riding had left Micah little time for basic human maintenance. He leaned the shotgun against the wall and opened a saddle bag that lay on the dirt floor beside him. Carrying a small toiletry kit, he crossed the shed's only room and stood at a metal basin standing in the corner. A long-dead hornet lay in the middle of the dry metal bowl. Micah swept it aside with his hand and poured out a measure of water from a water-skin hanging on the wall. 
 
 He rinsed his face, the stubble on his chin and cheeks prickly against his palms, and eyed the folded razor in his kit. He removed a ragged toothbrush and a small, mostly empty tube of toothpaste. He left the razor where it was. If everything went south later, the undertaker could shave him. His teeth, however, were his responsibility. Micah's dentist father had impressed the importance of good teeth on young Micah and the lesson had stuck. A bad tooth could kill a man just as sure as a bullet, but the man who dies by his teeth has no one to blame but himself and his own sloth. 
 
 Micah rinsed his brush and bared his teeth, turning his head this way and that, inspecting himself. His hair was a tangle of brown locks and he was hardly clean-cut, but his teeth were good. He zipped up his kit and dropped it back in the saddlebag by the table. Outside, his horse whinnied. 
 
 Micah buckled on his gun belt and grabbed a bucket on his way out the door. He squinted into the dry desert wind. The shed had been built in a small fold in the hillside with an old rainwater cistern behind. Micah lowered the bucket on a rope into the cistern, grunting when he heard a faint splash. The bucket came back full, the water mostly clear and clean-looking. Micah trudged over to his horse and dumped the water in a trough. The animal bent its neck and drank greedily as Micah patted its shoulder. 
 
 The wind had died down when Micah returned to the front of the shed, but there was movement on the plain below. He stood at the door watching a thin plume of dust wind its way towards the shed. His jaw clenched. Four days of hard riding & mdash; it had n't been enough. 
 
 Inside the shed, Micah fed two shells into his shotgun and checked the rounds chambered in his revolver. More shells went into the pockets of his riding jacket and pants. A knife hung on his belt opposite the revolver. He slipped outside. 
 
 The dust plume had resolved into a trio of riders, moving fast among the low-lying desert bushes. Micah cursed. He had laid awake on a blanket outside the shed, under a cloudless night sky filled with stars, and prayed for no more than two. While boiling the water for his morning coffee, he had pondered the possibility of three. Micah wished, not for the first time, that he'd brought a rifle instead of a shotgun. 
 
 Back inside the shed, Micah considered and discarded the idea of barricading himself inside the flimsy wood-and-tin structure. They'd burn him out for sure. Or poison the cistern, kill his horse, and leave him to starve to death. He looked around the room. His eyes caught on a tangle of old trapping gear. Pawing through the pile of metal, Micah found a couple small game traps in serviceable condition. They would have to do. 
 
 Micah felt a twinge of shame as he hid the traps in the pathway leading up the hill. Voices of old allies, men long dead, men who fought alongside Micah in a time when honor and fairness were meaningful restraints on the brutality of combat, they shouted at him in his head. Targeting a man's horse felt wrong. Shooting a man who'd been thrown from his horse... Micah's mouth twisted. Still, there were three. 
 
 One rider would have meant revenge or retribution & mdash; a man driven by red anger in his eyes and pain in his heart. A brother, a cousin maybe, of the evil man that Micah had put down just four days before. The same poisonous fruit off the same twisted tree. Micah had expected such a man, welcomed him. 
 
 Two riders would have meant the same, but with an added dose of caution. Perhaps the word of an older uncle or grandfather had urged others towards caution against a man such as Micah. Micah could handle one man and this much was known. Two riders, then, sent to take him down. 
 
 Three riders were something else entirely. Three riders meant the law. A law that shifted in its contours and features just like the thin cloud of dust stirred up by those three men coming to apprehend him. A law that protected evil men and cast down those, like Micah, who stood up to them. 
 
 More voices echoed from Micah's past, reminding him of oaths taken and values held dear. Micah shook his head and retreated to the shed. Inside, he lit the wood-stove and fed it with the remainder of his good firewood. He added bits of leaves and other things to make it smoke, then left again. With luck, they'd think he was inside. 
 
 Scrubby plants and stout cacti covered the hillside overlooking the shed. He arranged bits of shrubs and leaves around him, breaking up the line of the hill, then laid down in the dust. He drew his pistol and laid it carefully to one side. The shotgun was heavy and he balanced the barrel on a flat rock, sighting down at the path. 
 
 The riders drew closer. Three for sure. Lawmen. Micah swallowed and wished he had brought slugs instead of shot for the long gun. Slugs could kill better at this distance. In the back of his head, a voice reminded him of a promise he'd made long ago. He'd broken many promises, violated many oaths, in the years since. But he'd never shot a lawman. Was he prepared to cross that line? 
 
 Micah could see the men's faces, their hats, and sheriff stars. 
 
 The barrel of his shotgun wavered. 
 
 ***** 
 More stories at /r/hpcisco7965. 
 

