“You’re not the kinda’ person people stay in love with, huh?”

The cowboy tilted his head at the runaway of the mountains. The Fourth Docks were colder than normal, and meaner this time of year, but that didn’t seem to faze the weary, wary travelers.

They eyed each other with curiosity, or with suspicion, which have always been the same sort of thing. The cowboy offered a sip from his bottle, which the runaway refused.

“You pick up everyone with that line?” The runaway responded sardonically, his fingers curling in semi-conscious fists.

“Just the ones I get a feeling from.”
“What sort of feeling?”

The wind cut through the hills, whistling past chapped and deafened ears. The cowboy shrugged.

“Ah, like you camp in hell for sport.”

The runaway raised his eyebrows. “Perceptive, are you?”

The cowboy hesitated, then took his seat next to the scowling, bitter man he found on the outskirts of town. “Not powerfully.”

The paper freshly nailed out his door that morning, looking for a highly dangerous criminal, detailed a cunning, wry pot of evil. The sort of person who robbed and killed his way through the desert by choice. The worm of God’s creation, with spikes all through his back. The cowboy was skilled with folks like that.

But watching this creature loop yarn around two stubs of wood for hours, only occasionally stopping to stare at the sky, then lower his burned head, then repeat the motions by the hour, the cowboy had wondered if there was a mistake. When he finally rushed in, his gun drawn, his chest steeled, he was met with the exact face of the wanted man and the heart of a lost little boy.

For a moment both cowboy and runaway had faced each other, one with metal and the other with wood. Finally the latter, as with the sky, the hills, and the town, looked away. He returned to his knitting. Waiting for the cowboy to pull the trigger. Not an ounce of vitriol.

It was now evening, and neither man had moved, except to talk.

“Why don’t you just take me in?” The runaway suggested helpfully. “You’ve been tracking me for a while, haven’t you?”

“Just the day,” the cowboy muttered in response. “Bad weather to be out, isn’t it?”

He made light of the weather, but the runaway knew better. “So what’s stopping you?”

“I don’t know.” The cowboy raised his bottle, before letting it drop into the grimy sand under his feet. “Why don’t you just come home?”

The runaway chuckled bitterly. “Ah, same reason you’re not right now.”

“Is it true?”

“Of course. You saw a killer with wool and now you’re at his side.” The runaway waved one needle at his new companion. “And they say miracles are history.”

The cowboy looked into the distance, at the ramshackle town he escaped from under the guise of tracking down a wanted man.

“Well, maybe like attracts like.”

The runaway frowned. “Not you. You’re Saint Peter’s right hand.”

“Perhaps when he did the denying three times, sure.” The cowboy rubbed a dirty hand over tired eyes.

“And see, he was restored.” The runaway looked soft for a moment.

“But not so with you.”

“No,” The cowboy agreed.

“Mm.”

They sat side by side, watching the stars begin to fall. The cowboy exhaled harshly. The runaway finished a row. His question was gentle.

“So who did you leave for dead in the hills?” And, as if he knew him, the runaway added, “…me?”

And the cowboy began to weep.