[ TT ] Write a Wild West adaption of a Greek myth . ( Inspired by the original cowboy , the minotaur . )

Jim looked back on his life fondly. Although perhaps he shouldn ’ t have. It was his own indiscretions that lead him to his current predicament after all. You could chalk it up to mindlessness I suppose. Unregulated nostalgia. His arms were covered in blisters, the sun ’ s merciless rays seemingly everlasting. The desire for shade such an unrealistic endeavor that it never even crossed his mind. Feet chained to the ground, a dull axe and a shadowless tree. A key sat dormant in its core. His savior unobtainable. Mind somewhere else, Jim took one more pitiful hack at the tree. Never even a dent. 
 
 It seems like the archetypal necessity dictates that Jim should have been a sheriff. But he wasn ’ t. Had travelled west driven by Manifest Destiny, by American Exceptionalism. Or so he liked to say. He was a failed haberdasher in St. Louis, and instead of letting his family starve was one of the many people to take advantage of the Homestead Act. Arrived to a five-acre patch of dirt. No better off than before. But at least he had an ideology now. Had something to call his own, a path forward. 
 
 The land took to corn better than he had imagined. Within a few years able to transition from a subsistence farmer to turning a meager profit. Such an ideal poster of westward expansion. Overcoming nature, overcoming whatever savagery laid before it. And Jim realized for the first time in his life that he might actually be good at something. Might actually be able to lift his family up by their bootstraps. To turn his fortunes around once and for all. Besides this surprising knack for farming, Jim had relied on another trick up his sleeve, an instinctual ability to deceive. 
 
 Jim arrived in St. Louis with his father and the coffin of his mother, who had a few weeks before succumbed to consumption. He was 13 when his father left to go work in a lumber field up in Canada. Jim took up the odd job here and there. Met his wife and had a few kids, but he never really amounted to much. Opened up a shoe repair stand, would cater to the obviously road beaten, wealthy traveler. Would sweet talk them into a shoe repair, sell them to the highest bidder and constantly delay delivery of the repaired shoe until the traveler would have to move on. 
 
 Jim would look at these people with such disdain. The wagon trails full of bright eyed families. Some more wealthy than others. Most were poor families looking to for a plot of land to make their own. Others were headed to the coast with hopes for gold, only to find the boom had died. Others were rich barons looking to play god for a while. To scalp some indians and shoot some buffalo. Every one of them looking for something intangible. At least at the time they arrived at Jim ’ s shop. Looking for the elusive “ something else ”. 
 
 After a few years of swindling people of their shoes Jim found himself in legitimate danger for the first time. Had underestimated the craziness of a man aptly named Crazy Bill. Managed to make it out of the city relatively unscathed. Well minus a few toes. Balance askew, land deed in hand, headed out west like one of those bright-eyed optimists he had so loathed. Had taken advantage of for so long. Jim ’ s family skeptical but without other options, watched as he prescribed to a vision uniquely American. Watched Jim slowly consumed by a desire for “ anything else ”. 
 
 By the end of the first summer in their new home Jim had grown enough corn to sustain them through the winter. Had time to make his way into town every evening to drink and gamble. To exaggerate to the other patrons about his life accomplishments. Trading stories about each other ’ s misdeeds. The innate abilities of just about every one of his neighbors. The ability to swindle the rich. A trait that delegated their downfall. A trait no longer necessary in the west. A trait that they all slowly began to miss. As if they were all suppressing their very nature. 
 
 [ Part 2 below ]
