No Mercy

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In the arid summer heat on prairie rangeland, a dead body doesn’t so much rot as it becomes petrified. The blazing sun and dry wind burn the most resilient flesh into dried meat.

What the sun hadn’t cooked the animals had feasted on. A sunken hollow where the stomach had been. Shriveled flaps of skin resembling jerky hung from the jaw and cheekbones. The eye sockets were empty holes. The final indignity? The crotch of the athletic shorts were ripped away to reach the soft meat of the sex organs.

Poor son of a bitch had been emasculated before he’d had a chance to become a man.

A hot breeze swirled chalky dust motes and scents of decay.

Black Air Jordan athletic shoes saved the boy’s toes the fate of his fingers: gnawed off clean down to the bone. Reddish-black hair floated loose around his skull, bits of leaves and insects trapped in the dulled strands. Without lips to hide behind, the crooked teeth stuck out like yellowed piano keys. The body hadn’t been exposed long enough to bleach the bones white, but it’d been out here long enough to disintegrate into just another forgotten animal carcass.

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