Immortal

24

The warbling of an old Kenny Rogers number strummed through the half-filled bar as Lee Carson swaggered somewhat unsteadily through the entrance and focused on his surroundings. He’d already downed half a dozen tequila shots after work with the guys, and it seemed to have affected him more than usual. Maybe he was losing his touch.

He looked at his reflection in the glass of the front door. His tasseled cowhide jacket, low-brimmed Stetson and leather ranch gloves were a little too much for him in the warm air, but they looked damned good and he knew it. No, he certainly wasn’t losing his touch.

He glanced in the mirror that ran behind the bar as he sauntered across to a vacant stool. The reflection showed his chiseled jaw, the wide sideburns he’d been cultivating for a few days and hazy blue-gray eyes staring back at him from beneath curls of jet-black hair as he removed his hat and set it down on the bar.

‘Afternoon, mister.’

Carson flashed a perfect white smile at the young girl approaching him from behind the bar. She looked early twenties, a blonde ponytail framing an angelic face above a cleavage barely contained by her tight white vest.

‘Well afternoon to you, ma’am.’ Carson grinned.

‘What’ll it be?’ she asked, leaning on the bar toward him.

‘A shot of your finest bourbon, and whatever you’re havin’, Miss…’

‘Eloise.’ She giggled, clearly enjoying the attention. ‘You got it.’

Carson watched her walk away down the bar toward the liquor rack, swinging her hips with more vigor than was strictly necessary. He glanced over his shoulder at the restaurant. Barely a dozen people, mostly eating at tables and booths. Perfect. He’d have the full and undivided attention of Eloise both now and during the later that he already knew would come.

Lee Carson was, by consensus, a very handsome man. He’d been blessed with genes from his parents that had given him a near classic-cowboy look, rugged and tough, a look that he’d only too happily cultivated by working as a ranch hand doing physical jobs that maintained his impressive physique. His shoulders were broad, his legs long, his chest that of five men, his belly flat and his waist slim. He looked at himself in the mirror again and couldn’t help but smile. He looked damn fine, for a man of one hundred sixty-eight years.

‘Straight bourbon,’ Eloise said, setting his tumbler down in front of him on the bar. ‘Mine’s a Coke.’

‘To y’health,’ Carson said, raising his glass and clinking it against hers.

He knew she was watching as he tilted his head back and downed the shot in one, closing his eyes as the bourbon seared the back of his throat and then sank warmly to the pit of his stomach. He exhaled the fumes noisily and set the glass down again.

‘Damned if I didn’t need that,’ he said.

‘Hard day at the ranch?’ Eloise inquired, leaning further forward on the bar and providing him with a vertiginous view of her creamy breasts.

‘Up an’ down all day,’ Carson replied. ‘I’ve done got me all beat out.’

Eloise chuckled.

‘I guess that means that you’re tired,’ she said. ‘Shame. Guy like you needs to keep your strength up.’

‘For what?’ Carson smiled.

‘You never know.’ Eloise shrugged. ‘Just got to be ready for anything.’

Carson leaned a little closer to her.

‘Y’mean I might be up an’ down all night too?’

Eloise threw a hand to her mouth and giggled as her eyes opened wide.

‘Damn you, mister, you don’t know nothing about manners.’

‘What’s them?’ Carson asked. ‘And it’s Lee, Lee Carson.’

Eloise extended her hand over the bar, and he shook it gently.

‘Pleasure to meet you, Lee Carson.’ She held on to his hand for a moment longer than was necessary. ‘Will you be staying a while?’

Carson nodded. ‘Just as long as you’re here, ma’am.’

‘You’ll be needing another drink then.’

Carson watched as Eloise made her jaunty way back down the bar, and then he slipped out of his tasseled jacket, hanging it carefully on one of the bar hooks beside him. Carson had, he knew with absolute confidence, slept with more women than any other man in the history of the human species. He possessed something of an unfair advantage of course, in the fact that he hadn’t aged a day since his twenty-seventh year. He thought for a moment. One hundred and forty-one years ago. Damn, it got harder with each passing decade to keep track of time and the things he’d seen over those years, those decades. He shook his head, smiling to himself again. The rest of them, damned fools, had lived their lives in seclusion, had chosen not to take advantage of what God, if He existed, had given them: a gift, a blessing. Or maybe just some damned fine luck. Lee Carson had grabbed that gift with both hands and made full use of it.

He had no need to work. Over time many of his belongings had become antiques, earning him cash whenever he needed it. His home of the last twenty or so years, a simple farmhouse out on the very edge of Santa Fe, had no outstanding mortgage. Carson simply traded up from time to time as the market favored him, and occasionally used his contacts to arrange the purchase of a property under an assumed name, the paperwork leaving the property to him in a ‘will’. As long as he left about fifty years between each will, nobody was around to remember the last one. He worked only to stay fit, occupied and healthy, and to avoid any awkward questions from the IRS or nosey locals.

He watched from the corner of his eye as Eloise poured his drink, and saw her surreptitiously looking at him from time to time. The expressions, the body language, the tone of voice: Carson had studied young women for over a century, and knew a sure thing when he saw it.

Tonight was going to be a good night.

Lee Carson once again thanked whatever lucky star he’d passed under all those many years ago and reached down, pulling off his gloves.

A lance of shock pierced the very depths of his stomach and he let out a loud yelp of alarm. As he yanked off the glove, thick chunks of skin spilled from within to sprinkle the surface of the bar. Carson gagged as he looked down at his hand, the stench of decaying flesh acrid in his nose. His skin was crumpled like canvas, pallid gray in color and sagging from the bones he could see within, like white poles propping up a limp tent.

‘Jesus!’

Carson stood abruptly, as though doing so could get him further away from his own disintegrating hand. He stared at it in alarm as Eloise returned, her face tight with concern as she looked at his hand.

‘What’s wrong?’

Carson slapped his good hand over the other and shot her an embarrassed look.

‘I… er… I’ve gotta go, ma’am. Real sorry, an emergency.’

Eloise looked crestfallen.

‘You’ll come back, right?’

Carson barely heard her as he grabbed his hat, gloves and jacket and rushed out of the bar into the cool evening air. He stood outside for a moment, taking in long deep breaths to steady himself.

‘Be cool, Lee,’ he whispered, and looked down at his hand again.

The gnarled, bony fingers were like those of an old crone, reminding him of his grandmother from a century and a half before. The muscles within his fingers had wasted and the tendons sagged uselessly. He tentatively wriggled his fingers and felt a dull ache throb through the joints as though he were…

Old.

A fresh wave of panic swept through him as he realized he was suddenly running out of the one thing he thought he’d never have to worry about again.

Time.