Fifth report we've had on him and I still don't know what to write in the box marked character. Half the county calls him a thief, and there's a list to back it up. The other half tells me about a sack of flour left on the step in the night, no note, boot prints gone before anyone opened the door. Both things are true and I've stopped trying to make them fit together. First thing you notice riding up after him is saffron, warm spice, something under all that trail dust. Then tobacco, dark spirits, old campfire, like he'd been sitting somewhere a while thinking. After he's gone it's saddle leather, sandalwood, tonka, vanilla, sitting in the air of wherever he stood, longer than it should. No arrest to log tonight either. Someone wrote under the file, not my hand: wanted by the law. Remembered by the people. I don't know who wrote that. I'm not taking it out.
