SOUNDS OF DISTRESS

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I.

Tumbleweeds blew past rows of tall, prickly cacti blooming with pink flowers. The frozen cacti stood indifferently as a white horse and a young man rode past them, galloping through the arid prairie. Amber colored mountains framed the horizon while beneath the wide, blue sky, hooves crushed the dry, cracked dirt as the rider held his mailbag tightly. One step closer to Maplewood, the town that awaited them. The weight of the heavy leather mailbag bounced against the rider with each gallop but he did his best to ignore it.

The rider’s name was Brady Calhoun; a clean-shaven young man in a brown duster that matched the color of his sweaty hair along with a blue shirt and jeans that rode on top of a white horse with black spots.

It was hard to believe that it had already been several months since he had become the Mail Carrier, delivering letters and parcels between neighboring towns such as Bacon or Oatman and then back to his home town of Amber. It was a thankless job but it earned him a salary at the end of the week. It was like his Paw always taught him “You get an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work.

The dry, open desert was suddenly filled with the hoarse, blaring sound of a train’s engine. Pulling up his brown brimmed hat, he could see the rising black coal exhaust from the large black locomotive that was gliding through the train tracks in the distance. His horse, named Cloud on account of his white color, shuddered and grunted to the sound of locomotive’s booming engine.

“Don’t be nervous Cloud, it’s just a train. Choo! Choo!” Brady smiled patting the horse’s neck.

Eventually there would come a day when all this hard work would pay off. Working hard and doing the right thing led to good things. Simple as that. Perhaps it was a naive view of life but it satisfied Brady just fine. Working hard and being earnest would earn him a living to someday ride in a train just like the one off in the distance instead of riding ol’Cloud ragged out in the sweltering desert heat.

For now, this was his lot.

II.

The familiar sight of the oncoming train indicated that he wasn’t very far from town. Brady was relieved, it was already past lunch time. It wouldn’t be much longer now until the moment when he would finally drop off the mail in the Post Office, stop to feed Cloud and grab his second wind. The young mail carrier was enjoying a daydream about the ice cold bath he was going to take at the end of the day when he heard the screams.

“Help! Please, somebody! Help me!,” it sounded like a woman’s voice.

“Whoa!,” Brady pulled the reins back sharply on his horse.

Cloud neighed loudly as he halted his galloping while the young rider above him looked around in all directions confused. His searching eyes were greeted by the crisp sight of the sizzling desert. There was no one around; but, that couldn’t be right. He was certain that he had heard something. The woman’s cries for help had been as clear as day a moment ago. Now, there was nothing. He poked a finger in his right ear and rubbed. These early mornings were really starting get to him now he was hearing things.

“Help me! Please! I don’t want to die!” The woman’s voice cried out.

There is was again! There was no denying it now. The sound of the woman’s terrified voice made his heart race and his brow sweat harder than anything brought on by the desert’s heat. Frantic, he turned his head towards where he thought the cries were coming from. The sound seemed to travel down the prairie hill to his left where the black railroad stretched over the dry land.

Squinting into the distance, above the shimmering mirage of the desert’s surface, he could just make out the image of two figures. One appeared to be on the tracks, the other on a horse.

III.

Desperate to get a better look, Brady yanked his binoculars from his satchel and brought them to his eyes. The telescopic lens of his binoculars gave a much better view of the figures. The first one, a man with long dark hair, was sitting on a black stallion. The man himself matched his horse as he appeared to be clad in darkness. He worse a long black longboat, flapping in the wind. Easily his most distinguishable feature, however, was his long curving black mustache. He was leering feverishly, almost expectantly, at the second figure; the one tied to the railroad tracks screaming her head off.

Between his squinting eyes and the woman’s wriggling, Brady couldn’t get an especially clear look at her. From what he could see, she looked like a young woman, possibly in her twenties. She had long, flowing, dark hair that tossed back and forth as she yelled and screamed. Her beautiful dark eyes were wide with terror. Her smooth face and feet looked rosy and sunburnt. There was no telling how long she had been tied there. She looked to be wrapped in some kind of dark cloak beneath… wait, were those chains? Were ropes not strong or painful enough to keep her restrained?

Another thunderous roar of the approaching train’s engine jolted Brady out of his disbelief. He turned the binoculars up from where the woman was tied and followed them straight back to the heavy metal black locomotive that was chugging straight towards her. When the young mail carrier finally realized what he was looking at, he nearly fell off his horse. Panic shot through his body like he had been struck by a bolt of lightning.

“Jesus!” He exclaimed. “God All mighty!” He said to no one. “That bastard’s left that woman tied up on the tracks and now he’s waiting for eighteen wheels of coal-fueled metal to tear her to shreds!”

What kind of world were we living in where some dastardly fiend could just tie up a young woman and wait for her to die so terribly? Even pigs in the slaughterhouse got more mercy than this. What kind of a person would wish this kind of death on anyone? This wasn’t just wrong, this was wicked. Brady sure as hell wasn’t about to just stand by and let it happen.

The mail could wait. That woman needed his help.

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