Tooth and Consequence

The morning started like any other—coffee thick as tar, dust in my teeth, and the same Mustang that had carried me across more miles than I cared to count. She was a fine little horse, as firm as a rancher’s handshake and twice as honest. Never spooked, never faltered, never let me down.

Then, in a heartbeat, she turned into a demon from some deep and unholy place. One second, I was in the saddle. The next, I saw sky, dirt, then sky again, my boots barely holding the line between me and a full-fledged obituary.

She bucked like she was trying to break every bone in my body, and it damn near succeeded—until she hit the ground, folding over backward with me under the pile, and didn’t get back up. The boys had themselves a hearty laugh—until they saw me pull a long tack from her hide right where the cinch cut tight.

The laughter died like a rattler under a bootheel. Someone had ‘burred’ my mount and done it with intent.

It took two days of quiet questions and hard stares before I got the truth. And when I did, I didn’t waste time with words.

Found that son of a bitch leaning against the corral, chewing his cud like he had no concept of justice or retribution. He smiled. I swung. His knees buckled before he even knew he was falling. Then I hit him again.

Teeth rained into the dust like chips off a busted beer bottle. The rest got swallowed—an unfortunate digestion problem, as unpleasant coming out as going down.

My Mustang got better with some doctoring. The bastard who’d put that tack under my saddle wasn’t so lucky. They hauled him off to the hospital, and by the time he returned, he was out of a job and out of the game.

They said he’d been kicked in the face by a horse. I never said otherwise.

Some things a man ought to know better than to do. And if he doesn’t? Well, life has a way of teaching lessons that last.