Really weird moment playing the cowboy game where my cowboy was wading up to his waist in mud and I had a momentary flash of deep worry that he'd get his phone wet
Further cowboy adventures: after stabbing a bear to ribbons, the cowboy became obsessed with selling its skin. He rode the land in an increasingly anxious search for a vendor, refusing to carry wounded people to safety as he did not value their lives as highly as that vile pelt
Eventually, he heard of a buyer in a distant metropolis. Desperate just to have shot of the skin, and increasingly regretful of having murdered its wearer in the first place, he spent the last of his grubby cowboy money on a train ticket to the Big City
On disembarking the train, the growling yokel whistled for his horse; it emerged whickering from the smog, the gruesome burrito of fur and rancid fat still strapped to its rump like a curse. He leapt on its back, before immediately and brutally trampling three stevedores
At this point, I should mention that the cowboy's horse is called 'Fantasy Boy'
Fantasy Boy panics and throws the cowboy; before he can even scramble up from the dockside filth, the stevedores are upon him, wheezing in rage where hooves have dented their sternums. The cowboy lays into them with his bricklike fists, out of his mind with adrenaline and fear
The cowboy loses himself in the carnival of fists. He never meant to trample these men, never wanted to come to this soot-caked slum. Never wanted to hurt that bear in the first place, really. But this train can't stop. He wipes stevedore blood from his eyes & beholds a cop's gun
Later, the cowboy sits in the silence of a jail cage, staring at his fight-swollen hands, wondering what the hell he'd even been doing when he agreed to that bastard hunt. He feels like a rat clutching a raft of debris, helpless as a storm-surge drags him out to sea.
Eventually he's released, and whistles for Fantasy Boy once more. The horse trots up, and the bear's face leers at him with empty eyes - but he'll be rid of it soon. He only needs to get to the market, and he can begin to make plans to return to his cowboy life.
But of course, it's not that simple. Fumbling in an attempt to greet a newspaper vendor, the cowboy draws his gun & shoots a tram in the face. The street shakes with the roaring of outraged cops & the cowboy, cheek-grime cut with tears of frustration, is on the run again.
