The Boy who Tampered with Saddles

Every town in the Squinty-eyed West had at least one scruffy-haired boy who liked to tamper with saddles. They were the hackers of their time, gifted yet bored, and could no sooner quit saddle-tampering than fly. You double-checked your straps in those days or risked a face full of mud.

And of all the boys to ever tamper with a saddle, Claudio was the boldest.

Claudio was the sort of lad who in broad daylight would swap the metal cinch rings to which the girth strap fastened, with loops of licorice painted gold. It would hold for a moment, just long enough for a cowboy to forget there was mischief in the world. Then as his right leg swung across, all his weight in the left stirrup and a center of gravity still perilous at best, the licorice loops would separate with a mushy sigh and the cowboy would get to learn how gravel tastes.

Most men chuckled and dusted themselves off, dismissing it as just scruffy-haired boys being scruffy-haired boys. But Snarlin' Ben McClintock wasn't most men.

Snarlin' Ben McClintock stood six foot five and must have weighed upwards of three hundred pounds. He crushed puppies beneath his boot heels for sport and bathed with sand and turpentine, when he bathed at all.

Snarlin' Ben let it be known around town that he'd eyebrow-scalp any scruffy-haired boy who even so much as glanced at his saddle. And then he proved it twice the very next day. (And the second boy was blind from birth and didn't even know where he was glancing.)

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Two towns over, young Claudio heard the news. Chills raced up his spine and tingled the roots of his scruffy hair. He stood and set aside his work. (A saddle horn he was rigging with springs to fly up and bonk noses in a trot.) Claudio took a deep breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them they flashed with the steely glint of fatal resolve. He strode off to fetch his pony, and by the time he reached the barn, every other child in town walked with him--lock step, faces down--grim as a funeral dirge.

"So you'll be goin' off to tamper with Snarlin' Ben's saddle then?" Whispered one of the Allen Twins--the one who didn't walk with a limp.
"I reckon so." Claudio replied.
The other Allen Twin limped up to Claudio.
"Watch out for his knife hand." He said, placing a trembling hand on Claudio's shoulder. "He holds his knife in that hand."
"Thanks, I will." Claudio replied with a solemn nod.

Without a word Claudio turned and kissed Sally Ann on the cheek. She couldn't have been more astonished if he'd sprouted wings and bayed at the moon. In all the years she'd been tagging along, he'd done little more than throw dirt clods and call her things like "Squishy Face".

Claudio leapt up on his pony's bare back and gave them all a little wave.
"Don't go Claudio." Sally Ann cried, finding her voice only now at the end. "I don't want you to be eyebrow-scalped."

Claudio flashed her a crooked smile that turned sad even as it began.
"Sweet Sally Ann. That's what he does to boys who just glance at his saddle. I plan to do so much more."
Then he nudged his pony and was gone.

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Claudio was buried the next day, two towns over and without a name. The head stone read:

Here lies a boy who tampered with saddles.

One week later, in a child-like scrawl, this postscript appeared at the base of the stone:

He was beautiful and he was our friend.