Wet Socks and Cold Beans

The mud was not merely earth and water; it was a hungry, suctioning entity that seemed to have developed a personal vendetta against Shawn’s boots. It was late October, the time of year when the High Country decided it had had quite enough of the warmth and began its slow, grey descent into the miserable freeze. The aspen trees, previously a riot of trembling gold, were now largely skeletal, their white bark peeling like sunburned skin, dropping wet, brown leaves that plastered themselves to the ground. The air smelled of wet decay, of fungus digesting the forest floor, and of the distinct, sharp scent of horse manure that never seemed to be more than three feet away.

Shawn sat on a log that was more moss than wood. The seat of his trousers was damp, a cold seep that had started an hour ago and had now reached a state of equilibrium with his body temperature. He knew he should stand up. The physical mechanics of the action were simple enough: engage the quadriceps, shift the centre of gravity forward, push off with the heels. He had done it thousands of times. Yet, sitting there with his elbows resting heavily on his knees, the concept of standing felt as impossible as flying to the moon on a steam engine. It wasn't that he couldn't; it was that the 'why' of it had evaporated, leaving behind a heavy, leaden residue in his chest.

The paralysis wasn't dramatic. It wasn't a weeping breakdown or a scream into the void. It was just... static. A heavy, grey static that filled his head and made his limbs feel like they were stuffed with wet sand. He stared at a singular, jagged rock half-buried in the trail. It had a streak of white quartz running through it. He had been staring at that streak for twenty minutes.

"We’re losing light, Si," Jory said. Jory was standing ten feet away, holding the reins of both horses. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet, a nervous tic that made Shawn want to throw something, if he could summon the energy to pick something up.

"Yeah," Shawn said. The word fell out of his mouth like a dropped stone.

"Like, actually losing it. The sun doesn't wait for us to contemplate the foliage." Jory adjusted his hat, pulling the brim down to shield his eyes from a glare that wasn't there. The sky was a uniform sheet of bruised purple and grey slate. "And looking at the sky won't help either. It's gonna rain. Or snow. Or rain sludge. It’s definitely gonna do something wet."

Shawn looked up, not at the sky, but at the frayed hem of Jory’s poncho. It was missing a tassel. "It does that," Shawn murmured.

"Does what?"

"The sky. It does things."

Jory sighed, a long, theatrical exhalation that rattled in his chest. He tied the reins to a sapling that looked barely strong enough to hold a determined squirrel, let alone two bored quarter horses. He walked over and stood in front of Shawn, blocking the view of the quartz rock. "Are you sick? Did you eat those berries? I told you, red means dead, blue means... well, usually diarrhea, but you survive."

"I didn't eat berries," Shawn said. He shifted, the dampness in his trousers feeling suddenly colder. "I'm just thinking."

"About what? The bounty? Because Old Man Miller isn't going to catch himself. He’s got a limp, Si. A limp. We are literally chasing a geriatric bank robber with a bad hip, and we are losing."

"He's not that slow," Shawn countered, though his heart wasn't in the argument. "He knows the passes."

"He's seventy. He stops for naps. We should have caught him three days ago." Jory kicked the dirt, sending a spray of pebbles skittering over Shawn’s boots. "Get up. Seriously. My horse is looking at me like I’m an idiot, and I don't like being judged by an animal that eats thistles."

A Study in Inertia

Shawn looked at the pebbles on his boots. He should brush them off. He didn't. The apathy was a warm blanket now, heavy and suffocating, but familiar. It was safer on the log. If he stood up, he had to be a bounty hunter. He had to be a man of the West. He had to be brave and quick and decisive. Sitting here, he was just a boy with a wet arse and a headache.

The absurdity of their situation wasn't lost on him; it just didn't seem funny. Two teenagers, lying about their age to a sheriff who was too drunk to care, riding out into the wilderness to catch a man who had stolen a bag of silver dollars and a decorative clock. A clock. Who steals a clock on horseback? The ticking must be maddening.

"What if we just... didn't?" Shawn asked. His voice sounded thin, swallowed by the vastness of the aspen grove.

Jory froze. He looked down at Shawn, his eyebrows knitting together in genuine confusion. "Didn't what?"

"Didn't go. Didn't catch him. Just... went back."

"And do what?" Jory laughed, a sharp, incredulous bark. "Go back to the orphanage? Tell Sister Margaret that the big bad world was too scary? She’d beat us with a wooden spoon and make us scrub the latrines until we’re thirty."

"Latrines are dry," Shawn pointed out. "Usually."

"You have no soul," Jory muttered. He paced a small circle in the mud. Squish, suck, squish, suck. The rhythm was annoying. "Look, I get it. You're tired. It's cold. But we need that money. We need to buy... stuff. Guns. Better horses. A house that doesn't smell like boiled cabbage."

Shawn closed his eyes. The darkness behind his lids was a relief. "I don't think I can move, Jory. I think my legs have decided to retire. They’ve unionised. They’re on strike."

"Don't use big words when you're being stupid. It confuses me." Jory crouched down, trying to catch Shawn’s eye. "Is it the depression thing? The big sad?"

"It's not..." Shawn trailed off. How could he explain that it wasn't sadness? Sadness was sharp. Sadness had a shape. This was just an absence. A void where his motivation used to be. It was the feeling of looking at a mountain you had to climb and realizing you'd rather just lie down at the bottom and let the moss grow over you. "It's just... heavy. Everything is heavy. The air. The coat. Even you. You're very heavy, Jory."

"I haven't gained weight! I've been eating hardtack and dried beef for a week!" Jory looked offended, checking his own waistline. "I'm svelte. I'm a svelte hawk of the plains."

"Metaphorically heavy," Shawn clarified, though the effort of explaining exhausted him further. "You're loud."

Jory stood up, brushing his hands on his trousers. "Okay. Fine. You sit there. I'm going to make coffee. Maybe caffeine will jumpstart your brain. Or your heart. Whichever one has stopped working."

Shawn listened to the sounds of Jory rummaging through the saddlebags. The clank of tin against tin. The muttering. The curse as something inevitably spilled. It was a symphony of incompetence. They were terrible at this. They weren't cowboys; they were children playing dress-up in a world that wanted to kill them with exposure and dysentery.

A cold wind pushed through the trees, rattling the dry branches. A single yellow leaf detached itself from a high branch and drifted down, spiralling slowly, until it landed squarely on the brim of Shawn’s hat. He could feel the negligible weight of it. It felt like an anchor.

"Beans," Jory announced. "We're having cold beans because I can't find the dry wood and I'm not fighting a beaver for a stick."

"Okay," Shawn said.

Jory walked back and thrust a tin can at Shawn. The label was peeled off, the metal dented. "Here. Eat. Fuel the machine."

Shawn took the can. It was cold and slimy in his hand. He looked into the open top. The beans were congealed in a reddish-brown sauce that looked disturbingly like the mud at his feet. A spoon was stuck upright in the centre, like a monument to culinary despair.

"Eat," Jory commanded, taking a mouthful from his own can and grimacing. "It's... textured."

Shawn lifted the spoon. His hand shook slightly. Not from fear, but from a lack of will. Why lift the spoon? Then he would have to chew. Then swallow. Then digest. It was an endless cycle of maintenance for a body he didn't particularly want to inhabit right now.

"You're staring at the beans like they insulted your mother," Jory observed, chewing loudly. "Just put it in your mouth."

"I'm not hungry."

"You are. Your stomach has been growling for an hour. It sounds like a dying badger."

Shawn sighed and lowered the spoon. The motion was too jerky. The spoon slipped from his numb fingers, hit the rim of the can, and catapulted a glob of cold bean sauce directly onto his cheek. It slid down slowly, leaving a sticky, cold trail before dripping onto his collar.

He froze. The sensation was revolting. Cold, slimy, tomato-based humiliation.

Jory stopped chewing. He looked at the bean stain on Shawn’s face. He looked at Shawn’s dead eyes. And then he started to laugh. It wasn't a mean laugh, but a helpless, hysterical giggle that bubbled up from the sheer stupidity of the moment.

"You... you got..." Jory wheezed, pointing.

Shawn didn't wipe it off. He just sat there, the bean sauce congealing on his jaw. This was it. This was rock bottom. Covered in condiments in a freezing forest, sitting on a rotting log, while his best friend laughed at him.

"It's not funny," Shawn said, but his voice lacked conviction.

"It is," Jory gasped, wiping a tear from his eye. "It really, really is. You look like you lost a fight with a pantry."

The Inertia Breaks

Something in Shawn snapped. Not a big snap, like a bone breaking, but a small one, like a dry twig under a boot. The sheer indignity of the bean sauce was the catalyst. He could sit here and rot, becoming one with the moss and the mud, a monument to teenage angst, or he could wipe his face.

He raised his hand and wiped the sauce away, smearing it onto his already filthy sleeve. The friction felt real. The cold slime felt real. The anger—a tiny, flickering spark of it—felt real.

"I hate beans," Shawn muttered.

"I know," Jory said, recovering his breath. "You complain about them every night. But it's all we have until we catch Miller and get the reward."

Shawn looked at the can in his hand. He tilted it, watching the sludge move. "If we catch him," Shawn said, "I'm buying a steak. A cow. I'm going to eat a whole cow. Cooked. Warm."

"That's the spirit," Jory encouraged, sensing the shift. "Cannibalism of the bovine kind. I like it."

Shawn put the can down on the log. He took a breath. The air was cold, stinging his lungs. He placed his hands on his knees. He looked at his boots. The mud was still there. The gravity was still there. The depression was still there, a heavy coat he couldn't take off. But the bean sauce was annoying him.

He pushed. His muscles protested, stiff from the cold and the inactivity. His knees popped audibly, a sound like a pistol shot in the quiet grove. He rose, unfolding slowly, swaying slightly as his blood pressure tried to catch up with his altitude.

Jory watched him, spoon suspended halfway to his mouth. He didn't say anything, as if speaking might spook Shawn back into a seated position.

Shawn stood. He felt lightheaded. The world tilted slightly to the left, then corrected. He looked down at the log. It was just a piece of wood. It held no power over him. It was just a place he had been, and now he wasn't.

"Okay," Shawn said. He adjusted his hat. "Okay."

"Okay?" Jory asked tentatively.

"We go. But if I see another can of beans, I'm shooting it. I don't care if it's our last food source. I will execute the legumes."

"Deal," Jory grinned, tossing his empty can into the brush. "Miller is probably holed up in the ravine near Black Creek. It’s downhill. Downhill is good. Gravity does the work."

Shawn took a step. His boot squelched loudly, pulling free from the mud with a wet pop. It was an ugly sound, but it was a sound of movement. He walked over to his horse, a roan mare named Bucket who looked at him with mild disinterest. She chewed on a bit of dry grass, blinking slowly.

"Hey, Bucket," Shawn whispered, stroking her nose. "Sorry I'm a mess."

Bucket snorted and nudged his pocket, looking for sugar he didn't have.

"She forgives you," Jory said, untying the reins. "She has low standards. That's why she likes us."

Shawn mounted up. The saddle was cold and hard, and his back ached, and his head felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool. The heavy grey static was still there, buzzing at the base of his skull. He didn't feel happy. He didn't feel brave. He just felt vertical.

"Which way?" Shawn asked.

Jory pulled out a crumpled piece of paper that looked more like a grease stain than a map. He squinted at it, turning it sideways. "Uh... left? Yeah. Left feels right. Towards the big pointy rock."

"They're all pointy rocks, Jory."

"The pointiest one. Let's go."

Shawn nudged Bucket forward. The horse groaned, a sound that perfectly articulated Shawn’s own internal monologue, but she moved. One hoof in front of the other. Clop, squish, clop, squish. They moved out of the aspen grove, leaving the rotting log behind in the gloom.

The wind picked up, biting at Shawn’s exposed ears. It was going to be a miserable ride. Cold, wet, and likely fruitless. But as the first drops of freezing rain began to fall, tapping against the brim of his hat, Shawn found a strange, grim satisfaction in the discomfort. At least the rain was new. The log was old news.

"Hey Si?" Jory called out from ahead.

"Yeah?"

"You've still got a little bean sauce. On your ear."

Shawn wiped his ear. He didn't stop. He just kept riding into the grey, the rhythm of the horse's gait slowly shaking the static loose, one jolt at a time.