Short Story: Old Bunty by 20Mensch

By a tightly woven rope

There wasn't much old Bunty couldn't fix with a length of tightly woven hemp rope. But the day he found himself hogtied to a railroad by the same high quality hemp rope, he was dry out of ideas as to the fix required by this predicament.

Tightly woven hemp rope had always been a good friend of his, and he used it for everything – he would tie his saddlebags, tents and 1-dollar whores with it, he would whip it at his horse to speed it up, or wave it around to keep the buzzing flies from her eyes on hot days. Rope had always been his thing. His tool. His friend.

Not that day though. He felt betrayed by the fact that his rope were now the culprit responsible for his inability to escape a very likely death by train.

His horse, Tallahassee, wouldn't be much help either. She had been a companion to him, like a sister is a companion to a brother. It filled him with a deep-seated sadness to see her lying there, about a yard from his own eyes were hers, filled with flies – if he could, he would wave the rope around to scare them off. She deserved better than this. Most horses would, but her especially.

Tallahassees head were cut from her body, just behind her ears. The lonesome head looked absurd and out-of-place lying there in the dust. Her tongue hanging out the side. "Horses have long tongues..." Bunty thought to himself. "But I guess I knew that".

Out here in the scorching desert, several days ride from any town or settlement, the train ran through about once a week. It had been 8 days since the last train passed by. Any minute now the train would send vibrations through the rails, before appearing in the horizon. Old Bunty knew how these scenarios usually played out. He had put quite a few of them in motion himself over the years. With a proper tied knot there were only one possible outcome. Well two – the train might come from the other direction. "That might be nicer" Bunty thought.

He had been lying there for a couple of days – the train being this late already excluded the possibility of Bunty dying from dehydration before it arrived. He was used to going days without food or water – most of the frontier veterans could live for days under conditions others would've died from. Likely not this current condition of being tied to a railroad – but many others.