Ride the Shooting Star

Reaching the top of the hill, Matt reined in his Appaloosa. Angry thoughts and hard riding heated his body. With the sleeve of his dust-caked shirt, Matt wiped salty rivulets from his forehead. Removing his Stetson, his callused hand swept through the tangle of his long, shaggy brown hair. If he could have seen his appearance, he would have noticed the resemblance of his hair to the thick, almost wiry coats of the buffalo he came upon yesterday, down west of Fort Collins. As he replaced his hat, Matt stuck a finger beneath his collar, trying to pull the cloth from his body. He felt sticky and dirty. The luxury of a bath, he couldn't remember having in quite some time. Laughing ruefully, the cowboy thought, What does it matter?

Ahead lay his destiny. Icy blue eyes, cold and clear as a rushing mountain stream, gazed down at the town below. Matt nodded. Anticipation heightened his senses. In a loud voice, startling his mount, he shouted, "I've got you this time, Jack Coltrane. There's no way in hell you're leaving Cheyenne, Wyoming, alive!" Spurring his horse forward, the words gave power to his anger. A cloud of amber dust followed the horse as it carried his stormy rider down the trail.

For over a month Matt had hunted and tracked his quarry. Through towns littered across Colorado, Utah, and now, Wyoming. Houses and ranches, endless shapes of the same pattern, repeated again and again. Garbage scattered up and down back streets. Laundry staked out, dried equally by sun and wind -- a gritty wind that swept across the prairie burying shapes and forms it encountered in layer upon layer of dust. And beyond the towns lay the stark places, a void of darkness by night, a barren, lifeless inferno by day. To Matt, all gradually merged into a blur, little more than a mirage left behind along with footprints of his scarred boots.

These images confirmed in his mind his own state of despair. Foul odors, not the sweet scents of spring, filled his nostrils. Matt's bitterness blinded him to the life around him: the antelope and elk, the bald eagle gliding overhead, the greening willows whose wispy tendrils flirted with the breezes. Nor did his glance rise to the sparkling galaxy of the night sky, trailing across forever. Nor did he smell the leather of his saddle, a smell he once found comforting. Instead, a callousness grew through his body like a disease, numbing it to the man he once was. A man known for doting upon his horse; known also for his compassion. And always a natty dresser and unfailingly clean shaven. Now, however, the ragged beard on his face, the punishing pace he set for himself and his horse, and the animal's gaunt look were the measure of just how far Matthew Jared had fallen.

During the first week of his search, anguish and loneliness had crept upon him in the middle of the night, stealing his sleep. Then finally, one day, they visited no longer. Somewhere, during the month-long grueling hunt, a tide of vengeance crashed over him, blanketing his mind with its darkness. Revenge constantly stirred the embers of his heart, burning away the cloak of justice in volcanic ash. Justice, no longer a goal; anguish, no longer a motivation; Matthew Jared was a man whose soul was lost in blackness. If he could step outside of himself he might see what he had become -- a man swimming underwater with no light above to guide him, doomed to flounder for he cannot discern between up and down, cannot find the way leading to the surface.

A man who would no longer be satisfied until he pulled the trigger himself, emptying his gun into the body of Jack Coltrane.