Some may consider a desert a graveyard in itself but standing in a graveyard in the desert the difference is clear. Moon shines full on the plump Broc flowers and Joshua could swear they smell like death, like they know the dirt they grow in is so good to them ‘for the bodies layin’ in it.
Joshua should know too, seein’ as how’s he was one.
He ain’t now and his momma raised him to keep movin’ on, keep towards that horizon boy, but just for a second. Just one moonlit moment. Would it be so bad to wonder how he got here?
That’s what the Doc asked him this afternoon when he woke up, fresh bullet scar not quite between his eyes and ain’t that lucky, what’s he done to wind up in a shallow grave. Well, Joshua’s mind’s never been the quickest but his mouth more than makes up for it and he spins his yarn for the Doc just right enough to not be a lie. Missin’ enough for it to not be the truth.
When he was younger, young, he’d’ve got in trouble for that, real trouble. Never did wanna lie but he knew his way around the truth well enough to make his momma’s head spin and make his daddy's laugh ring right across the ranch.
Not his Father though.
No, not his Father.
His Father would smirk, secret around a cigarette, a priest with a pretty mouth and Joshua was older for a choir boy but he was damn near the only boy in town free enough to help and he was good with his hands. Repairing, sewing, fixin’ up those little things on the Church grounds, he was older for a choir boy but not old enough. Not yet.
Cigarette smoke burns on its way down. Joshua knows his lungs are black as graveyard dirt with it, even if he ain’t smoked since.
Smoke burns but sometimes, just sometimes, fingers don’t.
His Father was a careful man, his burns never scar'd where anyone would find. Not unless they were tryin’ to leave the same kind.
Lungs full of the scent of Broc flowers, thick with nectar drained from the dead.
Just because the Church taught him to use his hands as well as his mouth don’t mean he can still keep them steady enough to smoke. Nah, Joshua stuffs a wad of tobacco under his tongue, tastes the nicotine bloom.
But this time he spits instead of swallows.
Leave those memories in the mud.
Good with his hands, good with his mouth, his momma raised him well enough to know the difference. Joshua grown’d into a fine young man, she told him so often enough he’d even believed her, and keeping his hands busy on a ranch is easy business. There’s always a fence to mend.
Cattle tend to be just as easy. Driving them across the Mojave with the ranch hands his daddy hired Joshua finds the desert alive. A campfire means a full belly after careful hands have tended to it, cooked on it, put a handful of chicory and coyote chew into the beat up coffee pot and let them simmer into something warm on a cold night. After a hot day.
It’s good work, honest work. A fine young man with a silver tongue and heart of gold could hardly do better. Even if his hands are rough to the touch, rumor has it they’re gentle too.
Some of those ranch hands, when their hands are wrapped around a coffee mug and they’re sitting, nearly touching, next to Joshua on a spread out Brahmin hide, ask him if those rumors are true.
If his hands are as gentle as his mouth.
Under that bright desert moon Joshua is kind enough to tell just enough of the truth for it to not feel like a lie.
He’s got good working hands, ranching hands, quick on the draw hands, and a mouth that knows how to be quiet when it needs to be too.
Only the lingerin’ streaks on gun powder on a ranch hand’s skin, his kindness without regret, Joshua wishes he could pull a steady man as well as he can a trigger.
Because Joshua he’s a crack shot, deadeye aim and quick, but he can’t sweet talk a coyote out of eating cattle and he can’t pull the trigger on a man who don’t deserve it. His momma raised him right, raised him good, and don’t you ever think you’re the one who can make those kinds of decisions, boy, only one man can decide who lives and dies.
And standing by his open grave in the desert, Joshua has a bible in one back pocket, and a black handkerchief in the other.
Wonderin' in the moonlight how'd he got there, and where he's goin' next.
