Summary: To fall meant capture. Capture meant death. And I wasn’t ready to die; not yet, not when my life had barely begun. Joe’s thoughts as he flees from the Lassiters in Five Sundowns to Sunup. The first part to a two part micro series.

Rating: K

Word Count: 563

Fifth Series:

The Fifth Sunup
Just One More Day

 

 

The stars were fading in a moonless sky as I stumbled through the woods. Hidden tree roots and thick brambles caught at my legs, tripping me up, but I dared not fall. To fall meant capture. Capture meant death. And I wasn’t ready to die; not yet, not when my life had barely begun.

 

Neither is Merrick or Judge Simpson or Reverend Holmes, the awful thought wormed its way to the front of my mind followed by a stab of guilt that struck more painfully than the stitch in my side.

 

I could have freed the others too…. No. It would have been useless. Where one man might avoid being recaptured, four going in the same direction would not, and the preacher and the judge were not young men. They weren’t cut out for a mad dash in the dark. And Merrick? Well, he had sided with the Lassiters when he tried to rat on me. No. Escaping by myself had been my only option, the only way that I might have a chance to save the others. If I could reach help, maybe all four of us would live to see another day.

 

If. A lot was riding on that tiny, two-letter word.

 

My breath came in tearing gasps as I forced my legs to keep moving. Muscles burned, screaming at me to stop for just a moment. But I ignored them. The pain in my side ratcheted up a notch;I pushed through it.

 

Suddenly I realized that I could see. No longer was I fumbling in the dark. The sky was steadily growing lighter. Black faded to grey. Grey to blue.

 

Dread pooled in my stomach. Dawn was breaking and I was still out in the open. There was no hollow log, no cabin, no cave, no waterfall I could hide behind; not one single place of concealment was in sight. There was also no sign of the posse that had been looking for the Lassiters’ hideout for the past few days.

 

I was a sitting duck.

 

“Here’s Cartwright’s trail!” the faint voice of Carver Lassiter reached my ears and my heart lodged in my throat. “He can’t be far away.”

 

Suddenly my foot snagged on something and I was falling, the world spun around me in sickening circles as I tumbled downhill. A dull pain blossomed in my skull as it made sharp contact with the bole of a ponderosa pine, stopping my fall. The knock greyed my vision, and threatened to suck me into the blackness of oblivion.

 

Don’t you dare pass out now, boy, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Hoss’ flitted through my head, pulling me back from the brink of unconsciousness and my eyes fluttered open even though I had no recollection of closing them. Rolling over slowly, I glanced up to get my bearings just in time to see blinding, bright rays of sunlight slide over the horizon, filling the sky with a riot of colors: red, orange, and pink. “Here comes the sun,” I murmured, but there was no joy in the sight.

 

Morning had broken and I couldn’t escape. Death was coming for me, but I wouldn’t give up. Dragging myself to my feet, I pressed on. If they were going to kill me just because Harry Lassiter was going to hang, I’d make them work for it.

 

Just keep going!

 

~ Finis