Realistic or Modern 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐏𝐔𝐋𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐄 𝐌𝐄𝐍

[mother of sorrows]

a western tragedy

written by

sorrows and sear

coded by Stardust Galaxy

 

[mother of sorrows]

scroll

Walter Tobias

opportunity

Sear

; 3

Blue tinted mountains bowl the land in, enormous, terrifying in their primality. Old land, unforgiving land, a desert so lonely it kills you for company, plucking you raw with its fingers; the path west is littered with skin and bones, and broken clay posts, and corpses of mules, and the eviscerated skulls of wagons. If there is such a thing as God, then this land does yet not know it.

Perhaps He had abandoned it. Or worse, He is just as afraid of it as his creations, and he plunges it into darkness and boiling heat whenever he can.

And towns such as this, big enough to warrant an actual church, are His strongholds against the ancient evil spirit.

The train station bustles with a dozen bodies. The wooden platform creaks under their feet with a long hiss, like a pained snake, prints of mud and grease soaking into the panels. A line of young men stood along the terrace fence, hooting, their cheeks flush from excitement and seasoned worksmen unloaded stock from the howling train, their hands calloused and rough. The train tracks vibrate from the strong afternoon sun and the line of them stretches on, onwards into the yellow, dry horizon, disappearing into the distance like a thin finger bone.

Houses spill along the road. Small ones, big ones. Most of the people walking along it are easterners, loaded up with all their earthly belongings. The rest are locals, hardy and unimpressed by the ruckus, sitting in the shade of a great inn and splayed over the chairs with drinks in hand.

Walter Tobias, a man of roughly forty-five, does not belong to either.

There is a wide berth between them. He lingers on the side of the train station, packless, only his clothes on his back and a deerskin pouch to his side. He reeks of days old sweat and gun oil, and his leathers are covered in a fine layer of streaking dust. Playa-mud sticks to his legs in enormous crusts like blood sucking parasites. Grease cakes his hair down his scalp and black bruises line his eyes, sunken in from exhaustion so deep he no longer feels it.

This town feels like future. Civilisation.

It's more people than Walter has seen in weeks, coming here.

He does not talk to anyone. He's only got a pinch of tobacco left and he smokes it under the shadows, face devoured by darkness. His legs are throbbing, bad; it's all he can do to not sit all the time, so unbearably weary. A murky monotony has taken over his mind and he only watches, puffing gray clouds of smoke. A few of the finer folk walk further when they see him, but he's confident no one knows he is.

No one checks the posters, here.

A burst of horse neighing and wheels scurrying over packed dirt makes him look up. A family in a Conestoga pulls up, pulled by a quadruple of healthy brown horses, their coats shining like fractured gold. Their ribcages flex from exertion and the man steering them gives a low whistle, brushing the last one's flank. The man looks up and, on complete accident, meets Walter's eyes.

And Walter smiles.

His face is split by it, showing all his teeth.

The stranger watches him back, almost unsure. A portly woman appears out of the back, her face sweet and innocent like cabbage, and along on her arm a young woman. The two women talk amongs themselves, fetching hay for the horses from their wagon and thin desert sticks. The girl goes to fetch water.

Walter approaches their camp like a starveling dog, from the side. The woman stops her conversation with the man, both of them turning in Walter's direction to stare like hares.

"Good-day, sir.''

Walter tips his hat, the shadows of his face coming in and out of sight.

"Ma'am."

The strangers nod in greeting back. ''You too, sir.'' Goes the man, flashing a bright smile. ''Good day indeed, but hot like hell.''

"I'd say so. You just got here, did you?''

The woman nods at his question. ''We've been traveling for three weeks now, sir. The landscape is wild out here.''

Walter's smile grows.

"You from out east?''

''Originally.'' It's the man's turn to speak now. He runs two fingers over his mustache as he does so, like a grooming cat. ''But we've been in the north for some months now. A little town called Jump Creek, by the border.''

The girl returns with a bucket full of shining water and she startles at the sight of him, sending droplets into the thirsty ground. She almost stumbles, pausing by the horses.

Silence falls over. Though not really, with all the bustle and noise.

Walter leans closer, resting on the arch of the wagon.

"That's a long travel. You wouldn't happen to know the way to Opportunity, would you?''

The whole family smells like butter and perfume, too rich to notice how Walter's hand clings to the wooden beam. Must have paid a fortune to have their way cut out the desert. All they take in is the bone-deep filth of him, and it takes the man and his wife a knowing glance before they speak.

''If I'm not mistaken, sir, there's a train running every-day.''

The daughter gives him a wilting glare, rivulets of cold water sliding down her arms. Her hands are soft, white, round like cuts of dough. She puts a hand on the sleeve of her father's shirt and Walter steps away, still grinning. He glances at the ground when he turns, tipping his head.

"Much obliged."

He gestures a gloved hand. A sharp, brutal wind blows, sending a wave of dust between them.

"Have a safe journey, folks."

Just before he weaves through carriages, singing church-goers, exhausted farmhands, traders, sherrif's men, workers, he hears the beginning of a whisper. The man speaks through the crowd, his voice now burning with genuine alarm.

''Sir? Do you mind turning around?''

The train hoots like a great, pained animal, its cry cutting the heavy summer heat. People tighten in, laughing and screaming and arguing.

''Sir? What's your name?''

And Walter, in between a dozen bodies, disappears.

● ●​

Opportunity stinks of rain.

Like a festering wound it reeks, even long after the brittle, cutting droplets have long disappeared into the horizon. The thin fragile ground lining has been soaked through and turned into the kind of mud that sticks to everything. Unhappy horses trudge through it, their ears swishing like miniatue blades, and wives curse in the morning dark as they hitch up their skirts, some carrying irate babes. Ranch workers stare out into the landscape with minor grief. The desert is unpredictable even to the eldest of the town, and every so often it takes childish joy in turning the town into a bog.

No one noticed a man step off the train in the morning mist. The town is big - big enough that travelers come and go, and that one tired looking fellow with a gun is just one of many.

And it is a town. The Rome of this wilderness. It's large enough to have streets and more than one store, a doctor's office with a whole surgery, a hotel. A sherrif. An actual schoolhouse with a fence, a church that can hold more than fifteen people. Some houses are grand enough to hold statues in front and the saloons have entire stretching lots dedicated to carriages. Trains bring lifeblood to towns like this and Opportunity seduces many hoping for gold or for freedom. The inn that Walter buys a room in is nicer than it truly should be.

In this room, as the world slowly wakes up and cleans up its eyes, Walter gets ready.

All the money he's had he paid for bed and board. Not much gunpowder left. Enough for this to work, but he'll have to grab some, too. A knife. His gun.

And the rest went along with the people he knew. Some hung in Los Angeles, some drowned off the Mexican coast, some having their brains shot out. And Walter...

He no longer does this for the thrill. He does it for survival.

He kills because he has to. He lives out in the cuts of desert, feeding dry brushery into small, hot fires and hopes no one notices them. Towns like this would have him quartered and hanged, and Walter bleeds them because they would bleed him first.

The general store he's been watching out the window is large; a front and a warehouse, a small farmstead behind it. Chickens scratch and poke in front of it and a few young horses mill at the sides, drinking; even in the early morning there are visitors of all kinds, women and men and children. The road is busy. Walter washes in his wait and snatches some hours of restless, dreamless sleep and by the time he wakes, the sun is crawling downwards to its doom. There is only a few passerbys on the streets now, all cast out to their chores and their families. Walter casts a sharp look through the town and when it finally feels empty enough, he ducks outside into the stale air.

Stale, and smelling gently of metal. The rain-room air soaks through his heavy clothing like being submerged in water and the unbearable temperatures that have been hounding him for weeks now have finally died. He pretends to search for a smoke as he drops into a walk, ducking in between beams and broken carriages; and by the time he reaches the wooden doors, his face is already covered.

He steps inside, and fights back a smirk to see it completely empty.

Lines of goods stand like offerings. Vegetables, eggs, guns, clothes from silk and linen alike; nice chairs have been dragged up for coffee and oil paintings of mountains sit on the walls, a flat resemblance to the ones outside. A pale boy, no more than sixteen or fifteen Walter would guess, is moving something up from the counter.

When he looks up at the sound of footsteps, he meets a gun in his face.

And -

"Don't worry, kid."

Walter half-whispers before the boy can scream, voice as soft as he can make it. The kid's expression goes slack like he's just been gutten, going from red to pale to white again, eyes wide in innocent horror. Walter inches it closer and the boy almost falls, barely taking hold of the counter.

"Listen to me."

He has precious seconds to do this, but his experience does most of the work.

"Give me the money you have in there and you'll be okay."

The boy nods furiously. Tiny droplets of sweat bead at the unlucky kid's forehead and he lurches for the money boy, unlocking it with shaking, unsure hands. One, two, three, four, five... Walter shifts, pushing down his own nerves, too used to this to fall to mindless panic. Six, seven, eight, nine... The money shines on the dark wood, flat on the surface, and the boy steps back, hands going up as if in a plea.

Walter wastes no time. He grabs it and shoves it into his pouch, the paper burning through his gloves;

and by the time he's stormed out the door, there is someone else there.

Walter, even sure as he is, knife-sharp, focused, has the one in a million misfortune to

run right into them.

♡coded by uxie♡