This is just a little walk around through Johnny’s head in the minutes before the opening scene of Catch A Wild Horse. 

Goddamn gloves. I go to wipe the sweat off my forehead and they brush against my nose. They’re thick and stiff and they make my fingers feel thick and stiff. The sweat never dries inside of them and the leather gets sticky and gummy. I hate wearing them. Putting them on makes me uneasy, jumpy, like I need to be looking around me all the time. If I ever have to get to my gun fast, these damn gloves’ll probably get me killed. But I have to wear them. Without gloves, this devil wire would tear up my hands. A gunfighter has to take care of his hands.

But I’m a rancher now, not a gunfighter. At least that’s what it says on that piece of paper we all signed. The old man got it down all nice and legal. I wonder if he’s happy about that. Sometimes I catch him watching me, and I can feel him wondering. That look of his beats down on me harder than the copper-colored sun up in the sky today.

Boston’s out doing some surveying. Funny how he doesn’t’ seem to dig as many postholes as I do. Seems like all I’m good for around here is stringing wire and fixin’ fences, rancher or not.

Right now ol’ Wes is here with me. The hotter it gets, the less he does. Today he’s useless as tits on a boar. His shirt is open but he hasn’t taken it off. No need to, I guess, all that draggin’ around in the shade and sittin’ on his ass probably hasn’t worked up a decent sweat. He’s startin’ to irritate me. If it weren’t for the fact that Murdoch wouldn’t ever let me forget it, I’d tell Wes to hit the road.

I stripped off my shirt an hour ago. I’ve been pushin’ hard and it was wet clean through, sticking to my back and my belly, making me even hotter. After I took it off I felt cooler for a bit. Once in a while we’ve had a little breeze come through, but it was just a tease. It didn’t deliver on its promise. Seems it was like a lot of things in life, just another puff of hot air that faded away to nothing. 

Like I said, I’ve been pushing hard today. Trying to finish early. I figure that if I get it all done and get it done early enough, I can go into town. Have a beer, put my arms around something that smells better than my horse, talk, laugh, get away from the cows, and the fence posts for a while. Do what I want to do and maybe forget that the old man’s watching. Always watching, and he never smiles.

I wipe another line of sweat out of my eyes. I’ve given up on trying to wipe it off my chest or arms. I’m so covered in dust and dirt that my hand just leaves lines of mud behind.

I feel like I’m drowning in sweat. Sweat and rules and deadlines, all of it pushin’ in on me, closing in over my head until I can’t hardly breathe. Until I just want to hit out at something, something other than this rock hard ground.

I look ahead. Another eight or ten postholes, just a little more wire to string and I can get away. Just for a little while. Just long enough.

Meanwhile, I sweat.