Blue Lonesome

14

The Subaru’s odometer had clicked off 5.9 miles from the southern outskirts of town when he saw the sign:

There was a third line of black lettering, but a strip of burlap sacking had been nailed over it. Some other attraction or service that Mackey no longer offered tourists and passing motorists.

Messenger turned on to another of the unpaved tracks that passed for roads out here. Ahead, a hundred yards or so from the highway, a cluster of weathered wooden structures squatted along the edge of a shallow cut-bank gully. A line of stunted, withered tamarisk trees grew in the gully, their branches turned a shiny liquid amber by the westering sun. The same hue softened the scrub-spotted plain beyond, except where rocky hillocks and yucca trees threw long, distorted shadows; the shadows were a deep indigo-black. The sky in that direction was just beginning to take on sunset colors above the distant mountains: burnt orange and cayenne red.

As he neared the buildings they separated into three: a mobile home with drawn muslin curtains, a twenty-foot-square box with what appeared to be a series of wooden trays built across the front, and an odd high-fenced enclosure, open to the sky, that had a low, roofed shed tacked on to the near wall. The box probably housed Mackey’s collection of rocks and minerals. Messenger had no idea what the fenced enclosure was.

He parked near the trailer. Utter silence greeted him as he left the car; the freaky wind of earlier in the day had died completely. He went up and knocked on the door. There was no response, no sound from within. He called out, “Mr. Mackey?” and knocked again. Same results.

The dirty white nose of a pickup poked out from behind the trailer. He walked around to it. The body and bed were even dirtier, and half of its radio antenna had been snapped off. The cab was empty, but engine heat radiated through the hood. Mackey must be around here somewhere.

He circled the trailer to the wooden box. The trays across its front were all empty. On the door was a pair of homemade signs, not as artfully lettered as the big one at the highway junction. One was a price list of the rocks and minerals Mackey had for sale: coarse gold, fool’s gold, garnets, agates, mica quartz. The other sign said CLOSED.

Messenger moved over to the fenced enclosure. It looked to be larger than the box, about thirty feet square; the walls rose ten feet high all the way around, the boards tightly fitted, without openings of any kind. But the shed was open, at least; as he neared it he saw that its door stood partially ajar. That must be where Herb Mackey was.

The shed door also bore a sign... no, half a sign. The upper section had been torn away. The remaining half read:

He peered through the doorway into a dust-hung gloom. “Mr. Mackey?” The sound of his voice echoed emptily back to him. He pushed the door all the way open and stepped inside.

On his left was a short, bare counter; the shed was otherwise empty. Two doors had been cut into the rear wall, one behind the counter and the other ten feet away on the right. The door in back of the counter, like the outer door, stood ajar. The other was shut tight. Frowning, Messenger circled the counter. That door’s hinges made a creaking sound as he nudged it wide. Beyond he saw that there were actually two fences: a short, tunnel-like passageway separated them. Yet another half-open door let him glimpse what lay past the inner wall — some kind of open space strewn with rocks. Fading sunlight stained the rocks, gave them an odd glowing quality as if they were radioactive.

“Mr. Mackey?”

And this time there was a response, words that seemed to come from a distance above his head. “In here. Come on through.”

Three strides brought him to the inside door. This one opened inward; he dragged it back past his body and then stopped short, staring. What the hell was this? He was standing on the edge of a shallow pit, the rocky ground sloping down from the base of the inner fence on all four sides to a huge heap of rocks at the bottom. The fall-aways were steep, but the angle wasn’t sharp enough to prevent anyone from walking up or down in an upright position. Above, the inner fence ended a few feet below the outer one, and between the two a narrow catwalk with a waist-high railing ran all the way around the enclosure. He noticed one other thing in that first sweeping glance — a woven quarter-inch wire mesh had been fastened to the board along the bottom of the inner fence, from ground level to a height of about two feet.

Movement distracted him then, on the catwalk directly over his head. Mackey. He leaned out, craning to look upward.

Sliding sound behind him in the passage. Instinctively he drew back, started to turn his head the other way. A man-shape appeared at the far corner of his eye — and then something struck him across the right temple, hard and vicious, like a hammer blow. Pain erupted; his vision slid out of focus. He felt his legs giving way, tried to grab the door or the wall. A second blow jolted him, this one a thrusting force just above his kidneys, and in the next instant he was off his feet and falling.

Impact with the ground, belly down and hard on the left side, drove all the air out of his lungs. He skidded downward, skin scraping from palms and forearms. A rock smacked his shoulder, changed and slowed the direction of his slide. When he finally came to rest amid a small avalanche of pebbles and dirt he lay there panting, disoriented, his thoughts mired in confusion. The only one of his senses that seemed to work was the aural. Clear and sharp he heard a door slam shut, steps running on wood. A voice shouted something, but the words ran together unintelligibly. More sounds followed, less distinct, jumbled. After that there was nothing but his own rasping breath.

He lay there for a little time and then he was up on his knees, with no sense of having risen. He opened his eyes, but his vision was still cockeyed; everything was shadows and wavery images, like objects viewed through murky water. He blinked and blinked, and the shadows merged and formed a wall of darkness. Panic gripped him. But the blindness lasted for only a few seconds. There was a kind of flash behind his eyes and suddenly he could see again, although now rocks and fence and catwalk seemed to have vague, fuzzy halos.

He lowered his gaze to the loose earth in which he knelt, trying to focus on small objects — pebbles, a piece of wood. They began to blur, and the panic nipped at him again until he realized that his eyes were tearing. He cleared the wetness away with the back of his hand. The pebbles and the wood still had their fuzzy halos, but the aureoles were dimmer now, fading.

All at once he was aware of pain. Pulsing on the right side of his head, above the ear. Stinging along his arms and palms. He held the hands out in front of him and focused on them. Abrasions, blood. He reached up to probe the pulpy spot over his ear, recoiled from his own touch, then looked at his fingers. More blood.

Hit and shoved from behind. Two men, one on the gallery and the other hiding outside. Trap.

Why?

Dry hissing sound.

His ears picked it up, faintly at first, then more clearly. It was alien to him. He peered around for the source, but he couldn’t seem to locate it. Close... why couldn’t he find it?

Something moved — a feathery slithering.

Something rattled.

As soon as he heard the rattle he knew what it was. The panic surged; he struggled to drag one foot under him, but then he didn’t have enough strength to lift himself. Sluggish, movements and thoughts both, like reaction to terror in a nightmare. He knelt there struggling for control of his motor responses, panting again, and all that would move was his head, his still-fuzzy gaze swiveling left, right, up, down. Where was it? Where—?

There. Close. On one of the rocks no more than three feet away.

Huge.

Jesus!

Thick body coiled, tail vibrating, head poised forward, blood-red tongue flicking the air. And the eyes...

He fought to get up, couldn’t get up. Paralyzed! The snake’s eyes were black evil, mesmerizing. The mottled hexagonal pattern on its body rippled and gleamed — death shining in the dying sun. He couldn’t look at the eyes any longer; he watched the scaly body moving sinuously, changing the shape of its coil, the neck twisting into a long S-wave, the head lifting higher, the lower sections forming a wide circle. Coiling to strike, it was going to strike!

Adrenaline rush. And a jarring sensation in his head; his vision came into sudden sharp focus. A second later, the paralysis left him. It was as if his body were like the snake’s: tight coiled and then releasing all at once. He lunged to his feet, staggering, flailing for balance.

His foot slipped and slid in the loose earth. Instead of twisting back away from the snake, he stumbled closer to it.

And it, too, released.

The lancelike drive of the head was a blur; he had no time even to brace himself. It was like being struck in the ankle with a thrown rock. The leg went out from under him; he sat down hard, staring in terror at the diamondback’s fangs embedded in the high top of his hiking boot, its thick coils writhing as it struggled to free itself.

A noise came out of his throat. He kicked wildly at the ugly flattened head, the wide-open mouth, again and again until the rattler pulled free or he drove it free. It flopped and slithered backward, already starting to squirm into a new series of tight loops. On all fours he scuttled frantically away from it along the slope, his feet kicking up a shower of rocks and dirt, images in his mind of the snake coming after him, chasing him with bared fangs dripping venom. He didn’t stop moving or expecting a second strike until he realized he was all the way over on the far side of the pit. And only then did he look back to see how close the snake was.

It wasn’t close. It was still down where he’d last seen it, coiled, hissing, rattling again.

Relief flooded him, but it lasted no more than two or three heartbeats. His ankle! He twisted over onto his left hip, dragged the right foot up so he could peer at the boot. Fang holes in the leather, a thick whitish dribble of venom. Penetrated deep enough to break the skin? He felt no pain... there’d be pain if he was bitten, wouldn’t there? The impulse was strong to tear off the boot and sock under it, examine the skin with eyes and fingers to make sure. Another fear and an even stronger desire kept him from doing it.

How many more snakes hidden in those rocks?

Get out of here!

He managed to stand upright. His head ached where he’d been clubbed, but he had his equilibrium again and all his senses seemed to be working more or less normally. Only his breathing was erratic, wheezy. He scanned the ground around him, the rocks, the rest of the enclosure, and the catwalk above. As far as he could tell he was alone except for the diamondback. A closed door — stairway up from the shed, he thought — gave access to the gallery. The only opening in the inner fence, down here, was the now closed door to the passageway, directly across from where he stood.

He knew what this place was, now. What it was and why he’d been lured out here and then thrust down into the pit. And under the layer of fear a thin, bitter rage began to simmer.

He looked again at the diamondback. It was still coiled, still hissing faintly and tasting the air with its black-tipped tongue, but it no longer seemed to be rattling. His chest felt hot, constricted; he drew several deep, shallow breaths to stave off hyperventilation. Then he climbed higher on the slope, almost to the wire mesh at the fence’s base, and began to make his way around toward the lower door.

The rocks littering the slope were smaller than those in the nest below. A few were clustered together; he avoided these. Something else lay on the earth twenty feet from the door, half hidden by dust and dirt — a long, light-metal rod, about the size and length of a fishing pole, with a wire slip noose at one end and a cord running from the wire loop to the butt. Snake catcher. He stepped over it, took two more strides before movement caught and held his eye, at the base of the fence just ahead.

He froze. Another snake lay in shadow between the mesh and a chunk of limestone that was the same blotched brown as its body — the reason he hadn’t seen it before. Different species: shorter, the body thinner and less clearly patterned, a projection above each eye like a budding horn. Sidewinder? Whatever kind it was, it looked just as deadly as the diamondback.

It was already moving, swelling and coiling. He heard the dry sound like escaping steam, then the buzz from its tail. His first thought was to detour downslope and then over and back up to the door. But to do that he would have to venture close to the diamondback again. Fear made him indecisive, held him rooted until he remembered the snake catcher.

He backed up a slow, careful step. The sidewinder was coiled now, its tongue licking out; its eyes had vertical pupils, malevolent black slits. He kept retreating until his heel struck the metal pole, rattled it. The dark jutting head shifted that way. Messenger bent, not taking his eyes off the snake, and caught up the pole and brought it around in front of him as he straightened.

The cord leading from the loop to the butt was frayed through. Didn’t matter; he had too little knowledge to try snaring a poisonous sidewinder. Fend it off — that was his idea. Try to ease around it, and if it struck make it strike at the wire slip noose instead of him.

He moved forward again with the pole out at arm’s length, the blood-pound in his ears so loud he could no longer hear the rasp of his breathing. Sidesteps, baby steps. The snake watched him or the loop, he couldn’t tell which. Sweat hazed his eyes; he blinked rapidly, keeping both hands on the rod so it would remain steady. Just a little farther—

His sliding foot dislodged a rock, sent it clattering downslope. His nerves were as frayed as the cord on the snake catcher; his hands jerked involuntarily, thrusting the wire loop six inches closer to the sidewinder — close enough to provoke it into action.

The ugly horned head glanced off the loop and off the metal end, almost ripping the rod from Messenger’s grasp. The snake flopped down, squirmed, started to recoil. Frantically he jabbed at it with the pole, missed, jabbed again, and succeeded in snagging the lower section of the body and flipping it a short distance downhill. The sidewinder recovered, hissing, and seemed in Messenger’s overwrought state to turn toward him as if it were about to launch an attack. He threw the rod at it, lurched around and uphill for the door.

There was no knob or latch on this side. He flung himself against the heavy wood, felt the shock all the way through his upper body when the door failed to yield. He lunged at it again. It wouldn’t give an inch. Bastards had barred it somehow on the inside...

He twisted his head. The sidewinder appeared to be closer than it had been, tight-coiled now, head lifted high; in the fading sunlight the knobby horns gave it a Satanic look. He backed away from it in the shadows along the fence.

The gallery, he thought, the other door up there.

He pushed away from the fence, back into pale sunlight. The upper door was directly above where the sidewinder waited, but in line with where he stood was one of the vertical supports for the catwalk railing. It and the board floor were no more than a foot above his head. He shifted his gaze to the mesh at the base of the wall, shifted it upward again; then he stepped back into shadow, set himself, and made his jump.

He managed to lock both hands around the support. It gave a little — old, dry wood, rusty nails — but held his weight as his boots scrabbled against the mesh for a toehold. He found one, started to pull himself up... and his foot slipped and he lost his grip at the same time and dropped, skidding to one knee in the loose earth. He was up instantly, not looking anywhere but at the support, focused only on escape.

Again he jumped, again he locked hands around the beam. His toehold this time was firmer; he dug his boot hard into the mesh, lifting with arms and shoulders, pain in the straining muscles, pain a roaring stroke in his head. He got one knee over the lip, slipped, held on, and heaved upward — and he was onto the gallery, crawling under the railing and then lying flat on the rough boards.

He lay there for seconds or minutes, until his pulse rate slowed. The fear-drain left him with leaden limbs and dulled thoughts. He shoved onto all fours, got to his feet with the aid of the railing. Standing, he could see over the top of the outer wall. On the highway a tractor-trailer rig rumbled by, heading toward Beulah. Beyond the highway, dusk crawled in plum-colored shadows across the desert flats, lay ink-black in the creases and notches of the hills. Time distortion: It seemed that he must have been in the pit for an hour or more, when in fact it hadn’t been much more than ten minutes.

He moved closer to the fence, to look down into Herb Mackey’s yard. His Subaru was parked where he’d left it; from here it appeared untouched. The dirty white pickup was long gone from behind the house trailer.

Wobbly-legged, using the railing, he made his way to the gallery door. It was neither locked nor barred. A short flight of steps took him down into the shed. When he reached the car he opened the driver’s door and sat on the edge of the seat without getting in. His fingers were clumsy as he unlaced his right boot, took it off. Small spot of sticky venom on his sock; he dragged the sock off. Just below his ankle bone were a pair of faint reddish marks that were tender to the touch. He held his breath while he probed them, then let it out in a thin sigh. The skin was unbroken.

He leaned in to adjust the mirror so he could examine the right side of his head. The skin had been broken there, but the gash was neither long nor deep. The blood on the wound and on the hair around it was dirt-flecked and coagulating. Not much physical damage, really. Most of his anguish had been mental.

Another test passed, barely. The edge this time had been needle-sharp, as sharp as the diamondback’s fangs.

The sun was gone now, darkness closing in. He sat slumped, elbows resting on his thighs — waiting until he felt strong enough to put his sock and boot back on and then to drive.