The Accident
Copyright© 2016 by Old Man with a Pen
Chapter 15
What is it about the New Guy that every kid and layabout just feels it’s their duty to try him on? Hmmm?
I wasn’t looking for trouble ... well ... I was ... just not here. I needed a horse and the livery was just at the head of the street. The clothing ... leather and fur ... from the bank box probably had something to do with it.
I don’t know where my bank box goes when it gets shut. But ... where ever that is ... they don’t like the smell. They do something about it.
My leathers were patch free and clean. Even better ... the sheaths, knife and sword, sparkled. I looked like money. Smelled like money. You could hear the pinches and quads chink together in the belt pouch. I hadn’t stepped in shit ... yet ... so my boots were clean.
And I’m just a kid.
Eighteen ... and alone.
Now ... I’m the first to admit ... I ain’t pretty. Kinda craggy and unfinished and my outfit was mostly loose so there wasn’t anything to give away the body that lurked beneath. But ... most of the outlaws and ne’er-do-wells and their ilk and minions had been born here and they were used to the place. Swinging an eight pound smith made sword or even a good club helped supply a certain definition to the man ... and damn few of them were kids. They didn’t get to be the bad guys of the neighborhood by accident. They made a living by taking and I looked worth taking.
Paint a bullseye on my back and call me target.
I didn’t think anybody noticed. That’ll see what you get for thinking. I hit the first cross-street and two elderly gentlemen stepped outta the shadows ... elderly ... as in 25 or 6 and pretty well set up.
I was looking where I was stepping ... although I don’t know why ... the crossing was shit from kerb ... if there had been a kerb ... to kerb. I could see sharp edged cow tracks in the cow shit slowly filling with cow piss. Slimy, slippery, smelly and fresh. Just ahead on Bank Street was a small herd of sorry looking cows being driven from somewhere to somewhere else.
“We’ll take that there belt pouch and them boots and you can be on your way,” the smallest of the pair said. He had that look that small folks get when they have the advantage ... and a big buddy.
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