Jackero and the Mule

Aside

Been watching the Dollar Trilogy and listening to its music on repeat.

Wa wa waaaa

The sparse plaza was circled by a few squat white-washed buildings, Jackero, and the Mule. And of those, the men were the immovable ones. Across the hundred-mile gap between them, they were locked in each other’s steady focus. Discolored by the sun, Jackero’s leaden eyes tracked on the Mule’s outline, which shimmered falsely in the heat.

A wind swept across, a desiccating crest the width of the valley. The two of them leaned imperceptibly into the gale, while the  buildings just shrunk deeper into themselves. The hands of time suspended, and the thin shifting sand whispered across the open void. The desolation stung with the smell of heat.

The tempest wind tore at them, tried to grit their eyes out, but the two mountains did not yield. Over and over, guns would ring out in the stillness of their minds. Meanwhile, the crawling, crackling sand was the only one to interrupt the peace in the zocalo.