Beware the Moors

Written for the Writer's Cramp with a word limit of 1000.

The prompt is the moors and villages of Scottland written in the Western Genre.

Beware the Moors

“Ya, I know dat man,” said the old man before passing back the sketching and taking another long draw from his beer.

Garrett pushed the drawing back. He needed more than that. It was frustrating trying to get information from a Scot. He knew this amused them but he had little choice in the matter. He’d been chasing O’Donnell for the better part of two years and never had been this close.

He signaled for the barkeep to refill the redhead’s glass and then said, “I need more. Can you tell me where he went?”

The Scot nodded absently and then focused his attention on the newly refreshed glass of ale.

“Aye. I know exactly where he went.”

“And where would that be?”

“To the highlands he went. That’s right. He fled to the moors two days ride south of here."

Finally, something he could use. Garrett tossed the man a silver coin and headed towards the door. There was bounty to collect.

“Mister!”

Garrett spun around quickly, his gun already drawn. He was surprised to find the drunken Scot had rushed up so quickly behind him. However, now there was something different about the old man. Set between the red hair and bushy beard was a pair of eyes that could only be described as terrified.

“What is it old man?” Garrett asked impatiently.

“Beware the moors. They’ve taken your man and they will certainly take you as well. Beware the moors.”

Garrett smiled.

“I think the moors had better beware of me,” Garrett said as he turned and left the bar.

Outside, the sun was going down. That didn’t matter to the bounty hunter. He feared nothing; certainly not the dark.

Two days later, Garrett sat on his horse and looked out over a landscape like none he’d ever seen before.

The rain had started falling earlier in the day. Now, as he scanned the vanishing horizon, he could barely understand what he was seeing. Trees and shrubs blended together in a hodgepodge of seemingly impenetrable vegetation. A chill brushed across his face, even though there was no wind; not even a breeze.

“Beware the moors,” the old Scot had said.

Now Garrett understood why. Such an environment couldn’t help but foster rumors of black magic, monsters and other demons of the imagination.

With darkness closing in, Garrett bunked down for the night. In the morning’s light, things would certainly look more inviting.

But they didn’t.

The fog had reached out and pulled him in.

Garrett awoke lacking any sense of direction. This was a new sensation to a man accustomed to finding his way through unfamiliar surroundings on a moonless night.

Even his horse was unsettled; tugging at its tied reign as its spooked eyes flashed every which-way in search of a comforting escape from this place.

Garrett tried to shrug it off – that feeling of dread.

He’d faced many a man in gunfights and had never let fear enter his mind. Now it tugged at his very soul. Fear pulled at him as if to say, “Let him go. He’s a dead man anyway. This is no place for you. Just…let … him …go.”

With no outward sign of duress, Garrett checked his gun and then swung himself onto his horse. Then, choosing a direction at random, he started off in search of his man.

As he rode, the fog opened before him and then shut just as abruptly behind; as if closing the door to the only exit from this strangest of places.

With no trail to follow, he moved slowly. His other senses would have to make up for what his eyes couldn’t see.

A short while later, he heard it. Rather, he heard them.

It was the unmistakable sound of children playing and laughing.

No sooner did he dismiss this unlikely scenario when two young girls, probably no older than eight or nine, ran across his path; not more than fifteen feet in front of him. As the first one faded into the fog, the second one paused for only a moment. She looked right at Garrett, waved, and then ran off into the fog.

Garrett couldn’t be certain, but there was something very, old about that second girl. He was an expert observer; something that helped him to be very good at his craft. He let the memory of the girl take shape in his mind. Then he saw it. Her hand, the one she had waved with, was old. Not just old, but ancient – withered skin on a boney maw.

The coldness caressed his face again. And again…there was no breeze.

He altered his course towards the hole in the fog left by the passing of the girls. He didn’t try to explain what he’d seen for he understood that it would do no good. He just did what he’d always done. He let his intuition tell him where to go.

At least that’s what he told himself. The truth was that his intuition was screaming at him to run; to turn his horse around and head directly back in the direction he’d just come as fast as he could.

Garrett fought that truth. He was no coward.

Into the limbo of horizonless fog he rode.

When night began to fall, he made camp. Tonight’s fire was bigger than normal. He’d told himself it was to keep back the strange cold that weaved in and out of his awareness. The reality was there was comfort in the flame; comfort for his soul.

That night, O’Donnell came to visit him.

He walked out of the fog startling Garrett, whose gun had already been drawn.

“I’m taking you back, O’Donnell,” he said, hiding his surprise.

“I wish you could,” said O’Donnell. “I wish you could.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will,” said O’Donnell with a sad smile.

The cold had returned.

The sound of little girls playing grew louder as Garrett remembered the old man’s final words from two days ago.

Beware the moors…