A Man Is Born, Part I

I. Luther Deits was a good friend of whiskey, not fond of cutting herds or pushing plows, a young buck full of juice, barely twenty, he lived only for the thrill of the now. His home, a town in the Texas panhandle, not that far away from his father’s spread, he’d left the ranch at sixteen, taken to riding with a crew that just might leave you dead. Though the sheriff hadn’t pinned crimes on them, all the town knew that they were no good, they often say Luther was bound for the rope, and wouldn’t stop himself even if he could. But Luther paid little mind to all that talk, he was a man bound to live his own life, even sweet-talked a pretty, Irish waitress into agreeing to become his wife. She was an orphan, hard up for cold cash, and Luther always seemed to have the gold, she stayed in his shack, raising their small boy, while out through the prairie Luther rode. Luther, of course, saw no problems in this, to him she was just a nice poke when home, not that he didn’t taste his share of whores, when he and the gang went out to roam. But all of this life came crashing on down on one cool, clear, late September day, at the saloon Luther laid with a girl, but in his drunkenness forgot to pay. When the owner cried out,”Hey, you damn fool! Get back in here and give me my cash!" Luther pulled his guns, shot up the windows, they shattered ’cross the floor with a crash. The sheriff ran over, saw the bad scene, said,”That’s destruction of property! And shooting off guns in a public place, you can bet that’s disturbing the peace!” Come trial day nobody stood for Luther, hiss ‘gang’ was absent, nowhere to be found, he was found guilyt, sentenced to four years of hard labor in hot, desert grounds. And while prison just hardens some criminals, on Luther it had the counter effect, he soon learned that the price of law-breaking was smashing rocks with hot sun on your neck. Of course the labor wasn’t the worst of it, that he saw in the inmate’s cold eyes, they were the type of men who’d kill you over a simple dispute playing dice. Surrounded by the worst in all of the west, Luther finally saw the hard truth of life: Better to toil and earn a fair coin, then have to watch your back every night. When his term ended, Luther was shocked Tt see his father waiting outside the jail, “We have to get going,”he said gruffly, motioning Luther to a mustang, pale... CONTINUES IN PART II