A man walked across a desert wash. His black boots hit dry ground. His hand didn't hover near his holster. He let it match his stride, let it swing in a carefree arc that spoke of contentment, of a man fully present in his body. The sagebrush rustled, almost bowed in pleasure as he passed. I could smell it, the delicate oils it rubbed into his black pants. I could smell it, the purple sage, the gnarled mesquite he leaned against as his steady eyes scanned the horizon. I could smell it though the sage swayed years before I was born. He knew the Bad Guy hid behind an outcropping of granite. He knew, yet his hand didn't meet the black strap of leather around his waist. The Bad Guy cocked his rifle. The man shook his head no. My son, age 12, flinched.

"Watch out!"

He yelled into the past, into the flicker of screen that channeled our consciousness, collected it, dumped it on the plains of San Augustin, 1960, 1860. He yelled at the man with the silver paladin on his hip, at the man who carried business cards etched with a challenge: Have Gun Will Travel. He yelled, but the man didn't hear him. He didn't need to hear a young boy's warning, a boy who thought of himself as a man, a man with a black holster, a silver gun. The man moved like water, like the rush of spring rains down his desert wash, body and mind a symphony of sage and intellectual desire. The Bad Guy laid in the dust, clutching his arm.

I know my boy thought of this as we strode through the local flea market. I watched him move his hips like a hired gun through sage. It didn't help that Have Gun Will Travel looked like our rural New Mexico landscape, didn't help that our neighbors wore Stetsons, wore black boots coated in dry clay. 12 wore his black cowboy hat, his best dirty jeans. I wore mine, too. My youngest son, 10, raced to the end of the unpaved lot. The tail of his coonskin cap stuck straight out in the twenty-mile-per-hour winds. He sat next to a box of ducklings, fifty-cents apiece, and pulled out his wallet, open its frayed plastic cover. Empty. He looked at me. I shook my head no.

12 stood at a card table covered in New Mexicana. A basket filled with dried red chile. A doll made of cornhusks and love sat on the corner. She watched over the table, one stitched eye larger than the other. She watched 12 pick up a black leather gun belt. I watched it, too, from the west, from my position twelve yards closer to the mountains, my position high and mighty, my feet closer to God. I saw him reach for his wallet, knew he had what it took, knew he never spent money unless he meant it. I shook my hear no. He didn't see me.

Two decades ago I shook my head no. The Bad Guy didn't care. He tore my clothes from my body. He held a knife. He held a knife curved like an angel's wing. He held a knife to my throat. He tore my clothes. He raped me. One decade later I fought back. It wasn't too late; my mind could still escape. I bought a gun, a handgun forged of steel and hunger, bought a gun made for a man.

"We have smaller models. Perhaps something like this?"

The shop keeper steered me toward a shelf sporting three tiny pistols. I stared at them, at the one with a pearlesque handle engraved with symmetrical curliques. I shook my head no. I bought the Glock, the heavy gun, the weapon that made me feel invincible, three-dimensional-sharp. I fired rounds at a plywood target painted with fear, shot it good, plenty, shot it every sunny Saturday for two years until I killed that Bad Guy dead. I locked the gun in a case and slipped it under my bed.

The winds whipped through the flea market. The box of ducks tipped, and 10 ran this way and that, plucking one duckling into his chest, then another. I stood, frozen, the voice of God in my ear closest to the mountains. He whispered something, but I didn't catch it. The wind drowned His wish. 12 handed twenty dollars over the table. The corn doll flinched.

It's just a fancy tooled belt.

Thou shalt not kill.

My mind played tricks on me. My hat blew into the dust, blew twelve yards east until it landed at 12's feet. He dropped his gun belt on the table, bent to grab my hat. He picked it up, brushed as much dirt as he could from the brim, then handed me both the hat and holster with both hands.

"Mom, I got this for you. You like Paladin so much, I thought you should look like him."

I turned toward the mountains, toward God, so 12 couldn't see my tears. I buckled the belt low and easy around my hips and plunked my hat down close to my ears. I turned, God turned, and the wind blew me into my boy's arms.

The next morning I slid the box from beneath my bed, the box that held my magic bullet, my returned life. I piled the boys into the car and we headed for the firing range. My gun belt pressed into the seat behind me. The winds slowed that morning, slowed to a crawl. I know God pushed them back, held them as I taught my boys the same lessons Paladin taught all of us.

Thou shalt not kill. But watch your back.

Birdie blogs at Beauty Dish, and lives in rural New Mexico where the world moves just a little slower.