𝙎𝙢𝙤𝙠𝙚 𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝙇𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 - 𝙔𝘼𝙉𝘿𝙀𝙍𝙀 𝘾𝙊𝙒𝘽𝙊𝙔 𝙓 𝙍𝙀𝘼𝘿𝙀𝙍

1.

━━━

Heat.

It swelters the air, forcing a seething layer of sweat across the townspeople who dare to exit the safety and shade of their homes.

The atmosphere almost seems to dance in a sizzle, as if the red dirt itself is rising to a boil. 

Nights are cooler. Calmer; bearable. 

This makes nights lively, at least, if you're not exhausted from the day earlier to swig down shots of alcohol at the saloon with you're co-workers after noon hours. 

The cloud's pattern the obnoxiously blue, clear scope of the horizon, light and scattered with no intrudance to the unbearable summers that seem to spread over every season.

Sandrange. 

Families weave themselves across the generations, unmoved from the town as their children become adults, having their own families, surely to never leave the town their generations beforehand were raised in. 

It was a form of both loyalty to the town, and the simple, undeniable fact that - train tickets were just too expensive. 

Leaving was too expensive. 

Everything was too expensive. 

Unless you were a farmer; owning cattle and crops made you decent money. 

Or,

if you were the Sheriff. 

The Sheriff. 

A household name, spoken highly of, and both respected and humoured by the singular idea of him. 

Everyone knew to find him either planted upon the shine-layered coat of his chocolate-brown horse, saddled, strapped and its reigns gripped, or to simply find one of the many saloons and explore the rowdy, alcohol-scented area until you recognised the sound of his southern-drawled voice among the many. 

Opinions varied, everyone held their own justifications as to why they found the Sheriff to be the most spoken-of man in town, some dabbling within the area of, lawmen, authority-based respect, some finding his sociable, charismatic charm to be so admirable, but many of the women held their hearts out towards him.

He wasn't an unflattering man, after all. 

But to be either courted or accompanied by a man with his status within the town was an honour in its own display. 

The display, to say, 

'August Callahan, the Sheriff, is a friend of mine.'

Now that, was a status-heightened term not many took lightly. 

You respect your lawmen.

Always.

Which also includes the people he surrounds himself with. 

Which to some certain townspeople, find this unspoken rule to be distasteful for the people they don't respect themselves.

━━━

By the clink of his golden spurs meeting the deep, brown oak of the table before him, even his uncomplicated actions oozed layers upon layers of yearly-earned self-respect and confidence.

He'd cross his ankles, his head gently tilted, craning back, arms loosely folded over his sweat-coated button up, with the thick scent of his burning quirly fluttering from his lips in which it'd sit in between.