Tin

A short story

Ned squinted, taking in the horizon through the warped glass of the kitchen window. He lifted his favorite cup to his lips, sipping hot black coffee slowly; the battered tin was familiar on his lips, an old friend whose years of intimacy were bested only by his wife’s soft, wet press. He could hear Mattie in the room behind him, gathering the basin from the bedroom to empty it off the back porch.

His eyes traced a blotch of purple bruising on the sky. Storms were common here, high in the plains and mesas easing down off the peaks to the west; they jutted toward the sky, abrupt intrusions of dark rock, snow-capped and naked in their majestic beauty. It was the sort of thing that awed him still about his place here, with its vistas that reminded him how small he was.

Being awed meant a deep sense of respect, for not only the stunning sight that greeted him every day, but the knowledge that it would kill him if it could.

He glanced down at the plain dull silver of his cup, dented and marred through the years of prospecting and hard trail wear it had accompanied him through. His wiry, weathered frame gave witness to years of threadbare life, scratching out a meager existence on the advancing fringes of a society that only offered grinding poverty, or constant danger and struggle for life here, where opportunity meant no one intruding on your right to exist.

Wildflowers were scattered as far as his eyes could perceive: larkspurs and sugarbowls, pussytoes and orange paintbrush clustered with senecio among the sage, sand lilies and the tall spikes of penstemon, with rows of purple sidebells draped down one side. Yucca interrupted fields of purple lavender, as fragrant to his sight as to his nose. He wondered which he would pick today for Mattie. She favored the penstemon, but a splash of colors and shapes was in order, with a sprig or two of lavender to bind it all together.

“There’s no firewood getting cut staring out that window.” She briskly tied an apron around herself without once glancing at him, her thin lips turned down in a grimace. Her disapproval was a ritual.

“I reckon I ought to fix the fence around the goat pen,” Ned answered, a long slow slurp of his coffee announcing that he was in no particular rush. “Storm’s coming, too.”

Mattie came up beside him, her tall lithe frame equal to his shoulder. Notes of lavender and vanilla accompanied her. She looked out the window, the hard line of her mouth set in reproof. “Best get to it then, doing no good stood aroun’ here.”

Ned turned to face her. “Might pick some flowers for you.”

A smile flickered at the corners of her mouth, her eyes taking in his cup. “You need to melt that thing down into bullets and shoot them at the moon. It’s past due to move on, like its owner.”

Ned snorted a chuckle through his nose, a smile wrinkling his face. “It’s lucky. It’s kept me alive this long. I’ll bring you those flowers.” He set the empty cup down on the kitchen table as he turned towards the front door.

Mattie cleared her throat. “You’re taking your revolver?” There was a tinge of worry coloring her tone.

“ ‘spect I won’t be needing it. But I’ll take it.” He walked into the den, pulling his gun belt off the back of his chair, buckling it around his waist and checking to ensure that it was loaded. He stepped to Mattie, pressed a kiss on her, then moved to the door, walking outside and making his way to a dilapidated lean-to piled with cut and uncut wood. He glanced at the wood of the structure, then back at his home, his jaw clenching hard. The wood was crumbling under the hard weathering it had taken in this place; it seemed that no matter the effort he put in, it was never enough.

Time was winning, against him as well. His bones ached as much as the bones of their house did, the years reducing his efforts to ash by the moments, under his very gaze. He looked about, surveying the immediate environs. Everywhere his eyes went, the ravages of weather and time met them. He felt what a failure he must be: were his efforts not enough? When did he start losing in his struggle to keep up, to outpace nature in its incessant endeavor to batter him into submission? Was this what he had led Mattie to?

Grinding poverty here, or back in some rat-haunted hovel crowded cheek-by-jowl with hundreds of alien families, with their guttural tongues and bizarre customs, each as strange to him as he must be to them? The choice was a barren one. And what had he to account for near on 60 years of toil, beyond his aches, a sagging, beaten house sitting on dusty, weed-choked land, with a goat and a handful of chickens? Mattie, God bless her, her heart and love as fierce as her countenance was stern.

He put on his gloves, then pulled his hatchet from his belt, grabbing one of the lengths of wood he had shaped earlier and leaned it against a post, shaving the rough wood before dragging it towards the goat pen, and lifting it into place. He walked back to the lean-to, retrieving a few nails from a bucket and his hammer, then fixed the new rail in place. He repeated the process three more times, cutting and shaping wood before fixing it in place, finally satisfied that the fencing was repaired. The shelter was worn, but would hold another winter. Ned grabbed his axe and began splitting and stacking firewood.

At some point, Mattie came out to him bearing his battered cup. He took it, gulping down the water inside. As he drank, she glanced at the horizon behind him. “Storm’s closer, it’ll be here before much longer.” She paused, her shoulders tensing. Ned turned immediately, spotting what had caused her concern: five men sat on horses, ambling towards their house, maybe 300 yards away.

He handed her the cup blindly without turning, gaze fixed on the approaching men. They were already on his land. Who they were or what they wanted was irrelevant; they were here, and coming towards the house, and what was his to protect.

“Go back inside, Mattie. I’ll find out what they want.”

He heard her make her way inside. A stray breeze brought a whiff of lavender along with copper, like the first hints of rain. He took his gloves off and set them down near his axe, then stood watching the riders come nearer. As they closed, their features resolved. Ned squinted hard, his eyes not nearly what they had been. He saw enough to know those were hard, hungry faces. Even at this distance, he could discern intent in those eyes. Why him, why here? Could they not see he had nothing? What did it matter, when you had only what you could take from others. There was no avoiding what was coming.

He briefly considered setting himself up behind the lean-to; the wood piled in it, and the structure itself, would provide some cover and offer him an opportunity to even the odds a bit. He dismissed the notion altogether, watching the men. Details emerged: how gaunt their horses were, how worn their boots, how dirty their faces were. They were an indistinguishable mixture of desperate men, eyes ablaze with need and resolution. He waited, hand resting on the hilt of his revolver, loosening it in its holster.

At 30 yards, before he could call out, one raised his voice. “Hello there! We’re just headed south toward Pueblo. You have any feed for our horses we can buy off you? Food or beer?” They continued riding forward, spread in a line abreast, slowly bending the edges into a semicircle to surround him. They stopped at fifteen yards, close enough to smell them.

Ned’s face was a rock, as cold as the mountains it was carved from. “I got nothing here. Look around you, man, can you not see that for yourself? Best you boys keep heading south. There’s a trading post about fifteen miles that way.”

The one who had spoken glanced over at the goat pen, and the chicken coop nearby. “Would you sell us that goat? Maybe some chickens? Please sir, we’re hungry. We got money to pay.” He held his hand up, a small bag producing a jingle. The bag was flat, sagging as hard as his porch; it couldn’t have contained more than a few dollars, if that. The men squinted, some licking their lips, others looking around nervously.

“I can’t sell my goat, it’s all I have. And one of these chickens would cost you more money than you have in that bag. In Denver, or Colorado Springs, you can get one for fifty cents.”

The speaker’s face sagged. “We can’t go back there, sir. Please let us buy one of your chickens. I have a little over two dollars here.”

Ned watched each man in turn as he spoke, watched their hands tighten on reins, their eyes shift. A wind gust caressed his cheek. Mattie.

“I have four chickens. One would barely feed two of you, and leave me with less than I have. Best you ride on.”

An explosion of movement happened, guns being drawn, the man next to the speaker hopping down off his horse. Time slowed, details bleeding together. Pops and cracks sounded: dull, as if in the distance, while simultaneously echoing across the landscape. Ned’s revolver was already out, spitting lead at the speaker first; the bag tumbled from his hands, plugged coins spilling everywhere.

Ned pivoted left, a second rider pitching from his saddle as his pistol blazed again. A surreal sense of time crawling struck him then. The booming report of a shotgun sounded behind him, and the rider on the end to his right tumbled to the earth, crimson blossoming from his chest. Thoughts drifted through his mind, of Mattie. He had to protect her. But another thought occurred.

Why haven’t I been hit?

The rider that had been furthest to the left was on foot, skittering around his horse and the edge of the lean-to, moving toward the house. Their eyes met; the man had Ned dead to rights, and his pistol blossomed fire twice before Ned rounded on him and put two rounds into his chest. The final rider appeared to his right, emerging from between the horses, scarcely five feet from Ned. He fired three times straight at Ned before Mattie’s shotgun nearly tore him in two.

Ned glanced down at his own torso, holstering his pistol and patting himself all over in surprise. No blood, no holes. “Lucky.”

Mattie walked up beside him, shotgun in hand. “We best get inside before the storm arrives. Come on.”

“But the men, the horses—”

Mattie caressed his cheek with her free hand. “You never learn, do you?” She took his hand then, leading him inside. “That was a long time ago, Ned. And they’ll be back next year.”

They walked inside their humble frontier house, with its warped glass, sagging porch, and desiccated wood, worn by the years. Time was winning; it always did.

Behind them, the goat pen and chicken coop stood silent.