Wraiths of the Broken Land

The difference between sixty dollars and bankruptcy is nigh negligible, and I agreed to join him. I made several silent promises to our Lord as I walked toward the table, and I hoped for divine aid.

In a very short while, I was penniless. I sat and stared forward like a dumb imbecile.

Gris erected a two hundred dollar pillar of blue poker chips and slid it across the table, until it stood directly in front of me. He said, “Buena suerte,” which means ‘good luck.’

I thanked him for his generous endowment, and in an impressive amount of time, lost this sum as well.

Resolved that I should return home and finally disclose everything to you, I rose from my chair, claimed my jacket and turned away from the poker table.

“Mr. Upfield.”

I faced my benefactor.

“Please await me at the location of our earlier repair. I shall join you presently.”

I had no choice but to agree, and so went to the indicated table and sat, envisioning the terrible look upon your face when I informed you of our financial ruin and my deplorable behavior. While I awaited Gris, another bourbon arrived, but I abstained from drinking any of it. I was through with pointless diversions and wanted to return home.

Presently, my benefactor arrived. “Mr. Upfield.” Gris sat in the chair opposite me and luxuriously reclined. “You face great difficulties.”

I did not disagree with him.

“How do you intend to repay my loan?”

I was surprised by his choice of words. “I was unaware that the money earlier proffered had been a loan,” said I.

“Do you commonly receive gifts of two hundred dollars from strangers?”

I had no ready answer.

“I leave San Francisco tomorrow morning,” Gris informed me, “and I must be repaid prior to my departure.” Shortly after he said this, a man with a rotten nose joined us at the table, as did a third individual who wore a beard and a dark cherry suit. Nobody was smiling.

From the inner pocket of his white linen jacket, Gris withdrew a deck of cards. “Would you care to win back your debt?” he enquired.

I shook my head—I did not think that I could win any amount of money from him.

“If you are not inclined toward more games,” Gris responded, “six men who work for me will follow you to your home and seize items of an equivalent or greater value.”

I agreed to play cards with him.

After twenty minutes of gaming, I owed Gris two thousand dollars. I wanted to die. The buck dancer returned, and I felt the tattoo of her wooden shoes upon my spine.

Gris remarked, “I fear that you cannot resolve your debt.”

“You are correct,” said I.

The buck dancer’s shoes impacted the floor like musical gunshots.

“I own an entertainment parlor for gentlemen,” Gris stated, “wherein each female employee earns approximately two thousand dollars per year.” Gris fixed his eye upon me. “Your wife shall render services and pay off your debt.”

My stomach lurched. I careered to the water closet and expelled goose and everything else that I had eaten. Presently, the man with the rotten nose escorted me back to the table and I sat. My suit, saturate with perspiration, squeaked upon the chair.

“I cannot allow my wife to work in such an establishment,” said I to Gris.

“You owe me two thousand dollars that you do not have. You are not empowered to allow or disallow anything.” Gris opened his ruined eye, and I saw that a gray rock was lodged deep within the socket. “Mrs. Upfield shall be taken to my establishment, treated fairly and returned to you whenever she has cancelled the family deficit. If you raise an alarm or in any way attempt to thwart me, you shall be murdered, and she shall be taken to the exact same place for the remainder of her life.”

I began to weep. I swallowed the glass of bourbon that I had previously neglected and pleaded, “Might I have one last chance to win back my debt?”

“With what collateral?”

“My wife’s sister is in town for the holidays.”

Horrified, Yvette turned to Dolores. “I—I…I can’t believe he…that he…I’m…I’m so, so sorry.”

“You have nothin’ to apologize for.”

“But my husband—”

“Finish the goddamn letter.”

“My wife’s sister is in town for the holidays. She is at our apartment.”*

“You are proposing a double or nothing wager?”

I nodded, but was unable to speak.

“If you lose,” Gris clarified, “both sisters shall work for me until they have earned a sum of four thousand dollars.”

I nodded.

“Is the sibling comparably attractive?”

I nodded and eventually found my voice. “She is a redheaded cancan dancer.”

“I accept,” replied Gris. “Which game would you like to play?”

I knew that the Spaniard’s gaming skills were superior to my own, and so I wanted to keep things simple and place the outcome directly into His hands. “I would like for us to draw cards.”

“Agreed.”

I selected a nine of clubs.

Gris withdrew a queen of diamonds.

I fainted.

Outdoors, I was roused by a slap across the face. Gloved hands pressed me against a wall of coarse brick. Six unfamiliar men, all dressed in dark overcoats, stood close around me, and cold wind whistled up the empty avenues, past their shoulders and pale ears. In the fists of five of these wraiths were clutched the handles of revolvers and knives.

The sixth man, a fellow with silver hair, withdrew his left hand from his coat pocket and displayed to me a small vial. “This is a sleeping draught,” said he.

I took the vial from the man and asked how I was to administer the sedative.

“If they are asleep, put a small amount directly into their mouths.”

I asked if a milligram would be a sufficient dosage.

“Yes. And if they are awake, install twice that amount into whatever fluids they are drinking.”

As I trod upon the drear gray avenue, assaulted by harsh winds and the hissing flames of gas lanterns, I contemplated engaging my adversaries as would a gunfighter, but these hideous men were all armed murderers, and I was an unarmed elixir salesman. My body fearfully continued along the familiar route toward our home, and I loathed myself.

I neared Deever’s Butcher Shoppe, which was closed like every other establishment at that late hour, and I smelled a powerfully pungent odor that I am unable to accurately describe. Suddenly and violently, I collapsed upon the avenue and became convulsive. The wraiths monitored my paroxysms from an alleyway and smoked cigars that smelled of anise.

Presently, I regained myself, continued my journey and unhappily arrived at the building on the corner of Clarkes and Hughley in which we lived. My prayer for it to be removed and shuttled to some safe place had gone unanswered.

I climbed the familiar stairwell, and it seemed to me as if an entire year had passed since I had descended the steps with David. I arrived at our apartment, shadowed by two of the six wraiths. “Do not lock the door,” one of them whispered, and his accomplice displayed his weapon to me in a threatening manner. I walked through the threshold, and the hideous pair remained in the hallway, while their peers monitored both the front and the rear of the building from outside.

You and Dolores were asleep.

Perhaps you will recall that the damp San Francisco winter had given your sister a modicum of nasal congestion, and that these clogged sinuses had caused her to sleep with her mouth agape, displaying her tonsils to the unfinished ceiling of the guest room.

I sneaked beside Dolores and drizzled a gram of the draught into her exposed throat.*

Unable to see through her tears, Yvette set down the letter, flung the segmented sticks that were her arms around Dolores and squeezed. “I…I can’t read anymore of this. I just can’t.”

“You need to finish it.”

Shaking her head, Yvette said, “It’s horrible.”

Dolores raised the remaining six pages and said, “I can read it out loud if you want.”

Yvette wiped tears from her eyes and reclaimed the odious confessional essay.

I crept into our room and saw you, asleep beneath the maroon wool blanket that your father’s house negro had given us, and I was forced to look away. Upon the nightstand beside you laid sheet music for choir hymns, marked by your late night marginalia, and I was compelled to turn the papers facedown. My rustling roused you.

“Samuel…?”

“Yes, my most beloved treasure?” said I, replacing the vial within my shirt pocket.

“Why were you gone for such a long time?” you enquired, as you may recall.

I had not planned to converse with you and was unable to extemporize anything particularly imaginative. “David is troubled,” said I.

“What happened to him?” you enquired.

“The poor fellow invested all of his savings in a prospecting venture that collapsed, suddenly and utterly. He is ruined and filled with despair.”

You sat up and drew the front of your nightgown close to your bosom. “Why didn’t he talk about this at dinner? We’re his closest friends in all of San Francisco.”

“I do not know why he remained silent,” said I.

“Why’re you crying?” you asked.

You may recall that I was unable to answer your enquiry.

“Should I go warm up some milk?” you offered.

“I shall do it,” said the vermin to whom you were married.

I retreated to the kitchen, put a saucer atop the stove and heated a small quantity of milk for the two of us. I returned to our room and gave you the glass into which I had poured the prescribed dosage of the sleeping draught.*

You drank the tarnished milk, and afterwards, yawned ponderously.

I said, “Lower the drapes.”

You shut your eyes and I kissed your splendid eyelids. You fell into a deep sleep.

The wraiths came inside our apartment and claimed both you and your sister.*

I collapsed and was unconscious for many hours. At dusk the following day, I awakened and drank the remainder of the sleeping draught, but I disgorged the serum, violently, and my suicidal endeavor proved to be no more successful than my business ventures and marriage.

The morning after my failed suicide attempt—this was two days before His birthday—an unexpected visitor knocked upon the door of our apartment. I ignored the individual’s solicitations, and he departed after a short while. I drank the champagne that you and I were to share with your sister when we celebrated the New Year, but was unable to do anything with the food in the icebox but watch it decompose.

At ten o’clock that same evening, the visitor returned and vigorously applied his fist to our front door. The Lauders were disturbed by the caller’s inexorable rapping, and emerged from their apartment to comment upon his clamor. He announced himself as Brent Plugford, the brother of the woman who dwelled within 3B, and our neighbors recalled him from his visit the previous winter.

“The Upfields have entrusted us with a spare key,” said Jill Lauder. “Allow me to fetch it.”

“Thank you very much ma’am,” said Brent.

At this point, I knew that I could either admit your brother into our apartment or defenestrate myself to the pavement below. I pulled a plaid robe over my disheveled garments and walked toward the front door, concocting lies that could explain your absence, your sister’s absence, my sorry condition and the dismal state of disrepair that had befallen our home.

I pulled the door wide. “Good evening, Mr. Plugford,” said I.

“It’s Brent.” Your brother surveyed me for a moment and enquired, “How come you didn’t answer?”

“I was asleep.”

Jill Lauder emerged from her apartment with our spare key, and I dismissed her.

“Please come in,” said I to Brent. Then I affected a terrible cough that did not seem to concern him whatsoever.

Brent entered our apartment and looked at the liquor bottles upon the floor, the stains upon the Oriental rug, and the sodden bedclothes that I had dragged to the couch because I was unable to sleep in our room. “What’s goin’ on here?” he asked. “And where’re the girls?”

“I contracted a dread malady, and so your sisters retreated to my Great Uncle’s home in the country, where—”

“When did you get sick?” Your brother did not say this as if he believed I was actually suffering from any illness.

“Insalubrious conditions began four days ago.”

“Why didn’t I hear ‘bout that in the telegram?”

“Of what telegram do you speak?” I anxiously enquired.

“The one Yvette sent me in Portland—three days ago—askin’ if I’d come down for the holidays.”

“Perhaps she had hoped that I would make a hasty recovery? She is an optimist.”

It was clear that Brent did not believe any of what I told him, and he marched directly into the guest room—where he had stayed during his previous visits—and presently returned with the lavender valise that belonged to Dolores. I stared at the luggage in his right hand for a long time.

“What’s the explanation for this bein’ here?” enquired Brent.

“Dolores forgot it.”

The hurled valise struck my face and knocked me over. I concussed the apartment floor so loudly that our downstairs neighbor thumped an angry complaint upon her ceiling with the handle of her broom.

More violence occurred.

I was too ashamed to confess aloud my vile deeds, and in my delirious state, I proffered weak and inconsistent tales of burglars and missionary work and European sojourns, and all of these preposterous fabrications earned me more beatings. I will not detail my agonies, because they are deserved and compared to whatever ordeals you have suffered, insignificant.*

Thereafter, I was enjoined by your brother to take up residence within the pantry.

I was removed at some later time—the day after Christmas, I believe—to greet the unpaid cowboys who had arrived from Montana to collect their due and dispatch hard fists. As a matter of coincidence, your brother knew two of them from previous cattle work, and dealt with them agreeably.

More violence occurred.

The cowboys left, taking several of my teeth and every item of value from our home, excepting the phonograph given to us by your father on our wedding day.

Shortly after the New Year had been celebrated by revelers above and below the pantry, your father arrived, accompanied by your younger brother and the house negro. Without delay, Brent sat me opposite them at the table where I devised my petty elixir recipes and worthless inventions.

“Samuel C. Upfield IV,” your father said, “I gave you my permission, before God, when you asked for Yvette’s hand. I walked her down the aisle and gave her over to you. Honor that trust and tell me what happened to her and Dolores, so we can find them quick.”

I confessed.

John Lawrence Plugford seized my neck, pulled me across the table and would have ripped my head from my shoulders had not Brent, Stevie and the negro interceded. They hastily returned me to the pantry, where I was hidden from your father, who had wholly transformed into an unrecognizable angel of wrath.

Later that night, or perhaps some other evening—it is not easy to mark time in the pantry—I awakened and heard your father, your brothers and the negro in conversation. Your father said, “Send a wire to Long Clay, and tell him to get Deep Lakes and meet us back in Shoulderstone. Let him know this is goin’ all the way dark.”

I was relocated to smaller accommodations and taken to Texas.

The terrifying individual named Long Clay informed your family that I might possess some value in a barter situation, and thus I have been kept alive as a corporeal bargaining chip. The hope that I might somehow assist or facilitate your rescue is why I have not again attempted suicide.

Your family searches the country for you and your sister, tirelessly, inexorably, with a loving devotion that shames me greatly.

Several times during the period of my captivity, I have had an unsettling dream that I believe to be a religious vision, and I wanted to share it with you, even though the Editors will likely draw a line through its description.

Upon my bent back and across a vast riven plain, I bear a large black trunk. Beneath a red sky that continuously rains ashes, I carry this heavy burden and inhale mephitic vapors. I wander for years and years, until I chance upon a tall and narrow man, dressed in a black robe, who has rocks instead of eyes. I ask him if he has seen Yvette Upfield, and he nods his head in affirmation. He withdraws the stones from his sockets and thrusts them deeply and violently into my face, bursting my eyeballs, and for a moment I am blind.

The stones grow warm and gradually I regain the power of sight. I find that I am on the cold gray avenue that is immediately outside our apartment in San Francisco.

I carry the trunk up the stairs and through the threshold and find you asleep in bed. The sheet music with your late night marginalia is facedown upon the nightstand, and when I reach out to turn it over, I see that I am a shadow, a wraith, and not of living flesh.

I drop my burden, and its concussion rouses you from your slumber. You descry the black trunk, raise its lid and see the man who lies within it. “Who are you?” you ask the battered body of Samuel C. Upfield IV. “Who are you?”

You do not recognize me, and I am thankful.

Undeserving of salvation or forgiveness,

The Man who was Samuel C. Upfield IV

Chapter VII

God Ain’t Here

Yvette Upfield set the letter down and raised her gaze. Standing before her were two solemn and silent men—Brent and Patch Up. She did not need to ask if they were the Editors of the essay.

An enormous unanswered question sucked the air from Yvette’s lungs and made her lightheaded. The walls of the fort throbbed, and the tubes within her ears popped, as if from a rapid change in atmospheric pressure.

“Is he alive?” The choirmaster was painfully aware that neither answer would bring her heart any joy.

Her brother nodded. “He’s alive.”

Nauseated, Yvette turned away from Brent, Patch Up and Dolores and crawled toward the far corner of her wooden bunk.

“Do you want to see him again?” the cowboy inquired.

Yvette did not know the answer to that question. The pious and pretty blonde prince, whom she had married before God and loved, had evaporated when faced with financial misfortune and become a drowning rat, desperate, shameless and immoral. Stunned, the choirmaster leaned her forehead to the chill stone bricks.

“Do you want to see him again?” repeated Brent.

Yvette wished that she could slip into the cracks and disappear.

From the edge of the bunk, Dolores said, “That man sold us to be fucked—and we were—and you’re a awful skeleton, and I’m a cripple, and our daddy is dead and we still ain’t home yet. Goddamn!” She slapped the palm of her hand against the wood. “Don’t you hate him?”

Yvette nodded her head and felt the stone rub against her skin. “Of course I do. And I pity him.”

“Ain’t nothin’ to pity.”

The choirmaster did not want to argue with her sister. “Please leave me alone.”

“I know you’re a forgivin’ Christian,” Dolores said, “but this ain’t the time for that.”

“Faith is what I have left,” replied Yvette.

“Well God ain’t here. And your husband is a thousand miles and a hundred years beyond forgivin’.”

Dolores’s condemnation and hypocrisy redirected Yvette’s thoughts. The choirmaster turned from the wall, sat up and faced her sister. “And how about Daddy?”

Brent and Patch Up were still.

“What’s he got to do with this?” asked Dolores.

Yvette looked at her sister’s confused face. “You love him don’t you?”

“Of course.” Dolores’s eyes flickered to the patriarch’s body.

“Even though he was an outlaw?”

“Yvette,” cautioned Brent.

“That ain’t got no connection to your Samuel C. Upfield the Fourth!” spat Dolores. “Daddy raised us proper, and he loved us. He was a good man.”

“How many innocent people do you think he hurt or killed when he was an outlaw with Long Clay?”

Dolores lunged across the bunk toward Yvette, but Brent restrained her. The circus dog barked at the redheaded woman and growled.

“Calm down,” Brent said to Dolores. “You can’t hurt her.”

“She’s comparin’ our daddy to that goddamn rat she married!”

“Daddy never betrayed us like Samuel did,” Yvette said, “but he killed plenty of strangers for money, which is just as bad.”

Dolores shouted something that was not a word and struggled to free herself from her brother’s arms.

“You can’t hit her no matter what she says,” stated Brent. “It’s only words and she’s weak.”

Dolores gazed balefully at Yvette. “You think you’re so goddamn superior to all of us, huh? Well go ahead and be a Upfield—the Plugfords don’t want you no more. Go back to San Francisco with that coward you married and stay there fixed permanent—until he goes and bets you for a cigar butt!” She shoved away her twin brother, reached for her wooden crutch, rose from the bunk and ambled toward the exit.

“Quieten the women,” Long Clay ordered from the darkness outside, “and get back to work,”

“Okay,” said Brent.

Dolores paused before the open door and looked over her shoulder. “Your important Jesus Christ didn’t do nothin’ while we was gettin’ raped for eight months. It was Daddy, the terrible sinner, who came down to Hell to save us.” She leaned upon the gunstock that was the top of her crutch and ambled into the night.

Without a word, Patch Up walked across the fort and departed.

Brent handed Yvette a canteen. “Drink some.”

The choirmaster drank, and the water soothed her raw throat. Around her head, walls wavered.

“You want to see Samuel?”

“No.” Yvette knew that she could not bear to look upon the quivering epilogue of her marriage.

“Ever?” Brent attempted to appear impartial, but it was obvious that he wanted to rid the world of Samuel C. Upfield IV.

“I…I don’t know.”

“I’ll leave him alone ‘til you decide. And you should lie back down—you’re pale and shakin’.”

Yvette lowered herself to the wood.

Brent pulled the yellow blanket over his sister’s bones. “Me and Patch Up and Stevie got a surprise for you—a good one—for when you’re feelin’ a little better.”

It was difficult for Yvette to feign any interest. “Thank you.”

“Get some sleep.” Brent kissed his sister’s forehead and walked through the black portal.

Yvette imagined the betrayer, Samuel C. Upfield IV, whispering the words, “Lower the drapes.” She shut her eyes, pressed her face into the cold coarse stone and asked, “How could you?”

Chapter VIII

Eyes of the Unguarded Interior

Brent Plugford walked into the dark outdoors, where the halved moon was shielded by a swath of pregnant gray cotton that would carry rain to some other part of the world. He surveyed the open terrain and saw Long Clay, Patch Up, Stevie and the dandy arrayed along the close side of the trench, digging holes for land torpedoes. The skin of every man was glazed with moonlight.

“Where’s Deep Lakes at?” asked Brent.

“On the perimeter,” answered Long Clay as he shoveled.

“Any burnin’ arrows from him?”

“No.”

The cowboy reclaimed his shovel, strode to the eastern side of the trench and applied himself vigorously. For twenty minutes, he plunged, jerked and heaved the iron head of his shovel; grit climbed to the stars and fell back to the earth.

“Stevie,” said Long Clay.

“Yessir.”

“Get the land torpedoes.”

“Yessir.”

Stevie stabbed his shovel into the ground, climbed from the earth and walked toward the rear of the fort, where the wagon had been parked inside the sunken stable.

“Brent.”

The cowboy looked across the dirt at the gunfighter’s torso. “Yeah?”

“Drive iron stakes into the façade.”

A chill descended Brent’s spine. He knew how these metal extrusions would be employed.

“Set them high,” Long Clay specified, “in-between the crenellations.”

“There’s a stepladder under the wagon,” added Patch Up.

After climbing out of his hole, the cowboy stabbed his shovel into the dirt and walked toward the rear of the fort. The dandy watched him go, but did not say anything.

Brent ascended the stepladder, put his index finger between two stone bricks, ran the digit east, found a tiny niche in the mortar, inserted the tip of a two-foot long iron stake, covered the blurred half-moon with his hammer and brought the heavy head down. Metals clanked, and three sparks shot west. The point pierced the wall. Down the wall, grit sizzled.

He covered the lunar segment and swung again. Metals clanked, and the iron stake penetrated deeper.

“You gotta eat,” said Dolores. “Please.”

Brent looked into the fort, through the nearest crenellation.

Dolores was seated at the edge of Yvette’s bunk, dipping bread into a bowl of stew. “Just take a little.”

The gaunt woman did not turn around from the stone wall.

“I’m sorry for what I said ‘bout Jesus.”

“You don’t need to apologize. You’ve got every right to feel how you do and say what you did. It was wrong for me to lecture you.”

Dolores placed her free hand upon her sister’s right shoulder and pulled her away from the wall. The skin upon Yvette’s face was red with scratches, abraded by the coarse stone against which she had pressed herself.

“Girl…please….take care of yourself,” said Dolores. “Eat some.” She placed a piece of the stew-soaked bread into her sister’s mouth. “Chew it. Please.”

Yvette’s jaw moved.

“Good.”

Brent knew that all of the Plugfords might perish in the very near future, and he swung his hammer at his fears. He pounded the iron stake ten inches deep, descended the stepladder, carried it in-between the two adjacent crenellations, climbed to the top, ran his finger along the mortar, found a crack and set the tip. Metals clanked, and sparks shot west. Iron pierced stone. Grit sizzled.

A distant hooting garnered the cowboy’s attention, and when he turned around he saw, silhouetted against effulgent clouds, a tiny speck that was an owl. Without warning, the creature plummeted from the sky.

Near the trench that laid one hundred and ten yards south of the fort, Stevie clapped. “I hope that owl had on his favorite sombrero!”

“We’re in the Territory,” Patch Up stated, “and that bird was an American.”

“According to what I’ve seen, this New Mex’co ain’t no better than the old one.”

Brent drove a seventh iron stake into the mortar, descended the ladder and positioned himself beside the last of the eight crenellations that were located upon the south façade.

“I need two hours,” said Deep Lakes.

“Fine,” said Long Clay.

Brent turned from the wall. The Indian, who was covered with dark dirt, approached the fort, clutching the talons of an upside-down great horned owl, which possessed giant yellow eyes.

Patch Up said, “I’ll get the perimeter,” and shouldered his repeater rifle.

“When you return,” Long Clay cautioned, “give this entire area a wide berth.” He gestured at the dark holes into which he had just deposited the land torpedoes. “Ride straight for the mountain wall and cut east through the cemetery.”

“I’ll do that.”

The youngest Plugford japed, “Wouldn’t want you gettin’ blowed up.”

Patch Up walked toward the stable. “If only one of us lives through this, I sure hope it’s Stevie.”

“Wear a tabard,” Long Clay called out, “and ride my mare—she’ll outrun any other.”

“Thanks.”

Ten yards from Brent, Deep Lakes entered the cemetery, pressed the heel of his left boot to a gravestone, shoved the marker over and set the owl upon the smooth rock, where the creature attempted to flap its broken wings to no avail. From his denim vest, the Indian withdrew two wooden blocks, each two inches tall, and set them upon either side of the bird’s head. A milky film diffused the creature’s big yellow eyes, as if it had contracted a sudden (and very visible) case of glaucoma.

Deep Lakes slammed a flat stone against the wooden blocks, the owl’s skull cracked like a walnut shell. The bird grasped at the air with its dying claws.

Astride the black mare and wearing an iron tabard, Patch Up rode out of the stable and waved at Brent. “Mr. Plugford.”

“You be careful,” cautioned the cowboy.

“I got the negro advantage—and a matching horse.” Patch Up dusted his gray hair and rode downhill, toward the dark woodlands that laid five miles south of the fort.

Brent waved, turned back to the façade, pounded his stake ten inches deep and descended the stepladder. Nearby, Deep Lakes scooped a pale morsel from the owl’s cracked head and placed it in his mouth.

“Do you feel it inside you?” asked the cowboy. “Its spirit?”

“There’s no immediate affect.”

Brent moved the stepladder, ascended its five rungs and placed the tip of an iron stake to the façade. “It takes a while? A hour?”

“I must be asleep to absorb an animal’s essence.”

The cowboy pounded the stake. “Why’s that?”

“The sleeping mind is unguarded and can receive a foreign presence.” The Indian swallowed another pale clump. “The waking mind is closed.”

“Do you dream you’re flying when you absorb a bird?” Brent hammered, and sparks flew. “Seein’ through its eyes way up?”

“The essence is not manifested that obviously.”

“I had some dreams like that—flying ones—after I broke off my engagement. Lots of them.”

The Indian ate another pale morsel.

“Does everyone in your tribe eat this way?” Brent regretted the question the moment it left his lips.

“My tribe cast me into the fire when I was a child—because I was a small and unhealthy.” Deep Lakes cracked open the owl’s head like a clamshell. “This ritual is my own and unrelated to any group.” The Indian’s face was inscrutable.

“I didn’t mean to give offense.”

“You didn’t give offense.” Deep Lakes prised loose a yellow eye, and its obsidian iris dilated.

“Brent.”

The cowboy looked over at Long Clay.

“Drive in one more and go rest.”

“I can still work some,” protested the cowboy.

“I need you hale for the engagement,” said Long Clay. “And that suture needs to mend.”

“Okay.”

Brent swung his hammer and pierced mortar.

Deep Lakes ate the owl’s eyes.

Brent walked past the latrine, the iron tabards that leaned against the molten stove, the sleeping women and the array of rifles and loaded magazines that covered the tables, toward the huge recumbent corpse. Although John Lawrence Plugford’s face had been cleaned and repaired (the gunshot wound atop his left eye was currently filled with clay), he looked thoroughly uncomfortable. The cowboy affectionately patted the dead man’s stacked hands, which were as chill as the room.

“We’ll fight hard to the end. I promise.”

“Mr. Stromler.”

Dripping with sweat, the dandy looked up from his hole in the ground.

Brent opened the wallet that he had just retrieved from the pocket of his father’s overalls and withdrew the monetary remainder. “Your due.” He proffered the legal tender.

Nathaniel looked at the bills as if they were hieroglyphics.

“I know that this pay is pitiful considerin’ all that’s gone on,” Brent admitted, “but I ain’t got nothin’ more to give, and you helped save my sisters and are owed this stipend.”

The dandy accepted the bills, folded them in half and slid them into the left pocket of his yellow riding pants.

“And I want to ‘pologize for all that’s happened,” added the cowboy. “I know that a apology is just words, but I felt I should say I’m sorry to you.”

“I heard you.” Nathaniel stabbed his shovel into the dirt and jerked.

Brent knew better than to endeavor any further conversation, and he turned away from the tall, embittered man and walked toward the fort.

“What did you think was going to happen,” the dandy inquired, “when you first hired me?”

The cowboy turned around. “Nothin’ like this. I thought we’d find a whorehouse—a nice one since we had to hire us a dandy—and get my sisters out and put down that Gris and maybe some others with him. Simple rescue with some justice.”

The dandy hefted his shovel. “I am digging a hole for a land torpedo.”

“I didn’t think we were gonna use all this crazy stuff Long Clay brung ‘long. Nobody did—includin’ him.”

The dandy flung dirt into the sky. “It is fortunate for all of us that he is such a conscientious man.”

“He’s prepared. Ain’t no way you can be no crim’nal for forty years without havin’ hard tactics.” In a quieter voice, Brent added, “But that don’t mean I like him none.”

The dandy stabbed his shovel into the earth. “How are your sisters doing?”

“They settled down and got to sleep.”

“I admire Yvette’s resolve. It is not easy to adhere to one’s beliefs…during a situation like this.” Nathaniel’s voice sounded very, very small.

“She’s steadfast,” remarked Brent.

The dandy heaved dirt at the stars.

Brent entered the fort, walked past his sleeping sisters and decided, for reasons that he could not fully explain, to sleep in the bunk directly above his father’s still body.

Long Clay’s distant and dry voice came through the openings. “Ladle the dirt slowly and mind the plungers.”

“I’ll be careful,” replied Stevie. “You don’t have to back away from me.”

“Don’t rush.”

Brent wondered if he would be awakened by the sound of his brother’s obliteration, and also if an instantaneous death was preferable to whatever awaited the other Plugfords. He dismissed these morbid images from his mind, rolled up his jacket and gently lowered the back of his skull to the ersatz pillow. The wound upon the side of his head throbbed, pulling at its stitches, but did not feel any worse after four hours of manual labor, which was a testament to the hardheadedness of every Plugford and also Patch Up’s prowess with a needle. Exhausted, the cowboy shut his eyes and heard the sounds of his sisters’ respirations.

Darkness expanded.

Water splashed.

“This pond’s cold as hell!”

“My nuts feel like acorns.”

“Mine feel like roulette balls—the metal kind.”

“I just killed some mighty handsome sperm.”

Sitting upon a twilit green hillock, Brent Plugford lowered the letter that he held in his hands and surveyed his cowboy outfit. Fat Jim (who was no longer heavy), Isaac Isaacs, Kenneth Wyler, Paul Caselli, Gramps Johnson, Otis Brown, Dummy II, Chester Bradington, Gregory Tappert, Derrick Selva and Dummy III stood within the shallows of a gully pond—a congregation of pale chests and tan appendages. The shivering men walked upon and sank into their own bright reflections.

Brent looked up at the grass plain that surrounded the dell and saw that the herded beeves were calmly grazing. Riding perimeter around the twelve hundred cattle were tiny dots that the foreman recognized as Apache, the Hall brothers, Orton Walderman, Little Brent, Leonard Cane and Kerry O’Boyle.

“Boss!” yelled Fat Jim.

Brent looked down at the pond. “Yeah?”

Fat Jim’s freckled head swiveled upon its mirror image, and his two mouths asked, “You gonna come in?”

“How’s the water?”

“Damp.”

“I was inquirin’ after the temperature,” said Brent. “The discussion seemed to indicate it was cold.”

Fat Jim’s mouths said, “You’ll shiver ten times and get used to it.”

“That sounds cold.”

“Better than twenty shivers.”

Isaac Isaacs declared, “It’s pleasant.” He rose from the water and the diagonal scars that the bear had given him last winter glowed red upon his chest. “Fat Jim thinks everything’s cold since he lost his blubber. Come on in.”

“I’ll join you after I’m done perusin’ my letter,” stated Brent. “I’ve gotta post it tomorrow in Kansas, and it’s gotta be written out proper correct.”

“Get a new author.”

Three cowboys splashed Isaac Isaacs.

“Who’s that letter to?” inquired Fat Jim.

“My sister.”

“The pretty cancan dancer who won’t go with no cowboys?”

“The other one,” responded Brent. “She went and got herself engaged.”

“Well tell her James M. Lyle said congratulations.” Embarrassed, Fat Jim covered up his bare nether region. “Don’t tell her I said it naked.”

“Put that in the appendix.”

Five cowboys splashed Isaac Isaacs.

“Leave me alone for a bit,” the foreman said, “the light’s startin’ to dwindle and I need to peruse.”

The wet men returned to their bathing and horseplay.

Brent scooted his buttocks across the hillock and stopped the moment that a beam of golden twilight illuminated the letter. His pupils narrowed, and he read.

Deer Yvette,

I hope youre happy out there in San Fransisco.

I was back home in Shoulderstone and got the news from Pa and Stevie and Patch Up that youre engaged to marry that Samuel C. Upfeeld the forth. I want to say write to you and give you and him my congrachulations. While me and him did not get along so good that one time I visted its clear to me that he treats you nice and loves you and is relijus which is important to you and speaks reel good English which is also important to you. It was good and proper that he asked Pa if he could propose to you and I think Pa does not hate him anymore likes him better now.

I offen think about us Plugfords and how we aynt like most familees. I aynt sure why this is so, but maybe if ma had lived after she birthed Stevie, we would all be married and have us big families by now. Or maybe its konnected to what Pa did long ago before he was a family man. But this is who we are. I like riding all over the grate lanscape free and unkonnected and Dolores says no to every man that likes her ever since her feeansay left her and Stevie is wayword and I hope is gonna get fixed better tho I don’t know. I think its very good that you found a man who loves you and that you wanna have a familee with because I don’t know who else is gonna do it.

I hope that I can ride down and vist with you two before the wedding and I can bring you a good heifer if you need one. I promiss that I will make every effert to get along better with Samuel C. Upfeeld the forth since he will be familee and the father of my nefews and neeses before long. I hope he can forgive the stuff I said about him being like a girl and I won’t hold it against him that he called me unejucated uneducated. Him and me are diffrent types, but we both care a lot about you and need to get along so that you can be all the way happy, one hundred persent.

I look foward to youre wedding.

Sinseerly,

Youre brother Brent Lawrence Plugford

P.S. The part about the heifer was a joke. I know you aynt got room for no cow in youre apartment.

Brent folded the paper, placed it within an envelope that Patch Up had addressed to Yvette and slid the missive inside his saddlebag.

“C’mon in!” coaxed Fat Jim.

Although Brent hated cold water, he knew that he needed to wash off his sour accumulations before he rode into Kansas City to drop off the letter. “I’m comin’ down.” He grabbed the heel of his left boot and pulled.

Darkness expanded.

The face of John Lawrence Plugford wailed and coughed up blood.

Darkness receded.

“Wake up!”

A hand shook Brent’s right shoulder.

The recumbent cowboy opened his eyes, but could not see anything. “What’s occurred?” The wound upon the right side of his head throbbed audibly.

Stevie gulped a breath of air. “It’s started!”

Part IV

The Tacticians

Chapter I

Alongside Corpses

Brent Plugford leaned forward and surveyed the enclosure. Diffuse moonlight crept through the vertical openings and shone upon the extinguished lantern, the weaponry, Stevie and the sleeping women.

Sitting upon the edge of his bunk, the cowboy asked, “Where’re the others?”

“Coverin’ over…the last…torpedoes,” Stevie replied in-between gasps.

“Is Patch Up back?”

“Not yet.” Stevie sounded worried. “We heard shots. Distant.”

Brent landed upon his feet, felt the impact pull at his stitches and walked toward his sisters. “Dolores.”

Beneath the yellow blanket, the redheaded woman stirred.

“You hear me?” inquired Brent.

“Yeah.”

“Sit up. I’ve gotta get at Yvette.”

“Okay.” Dolores sat forward and revealed the narrow blue line that was her younger sister.

Brent leaned over and banged his head upon the upper bunk. Fiery pain exploded across his skull, and he clenched his jaw to keep from crying out.

“You okay?” asked Dolores.

Brent grunted, bent his knees, leaned over, adjusted the blanket, scooped up the collection of interconnected bones that was Yvette and looked at Stevie. “Open up the pris’ners’ cell.”

Instantly, the young man hastened to the west side of the north wall and pulled open a thick door. The cowboy carried his sister through the portal into a windowless chamber and set her upon a stone bench, which was directly beside four whistling air holes.

Outside, a distant gunshot cracked. Yvette’s eyelashes fluttered like the wings of tired butterflies.

“I put some chow in the cubby for if you get hungry,” said Brent.

“Lower the drapes,” mumbled Yvette.

Brent reached into his pocket, withdrew two pieces of cotton, plugged up Yvette’s ear canals and withdrew from the prisoners’ cell. The circus dog ran into the room, and the cowboy shut the door.

Two tall shadows hastened into the fort.

“Grab a repeater rifle and get beside your crenellation,” ordered Long Clay.

“Somebody’s gotta bring me mine,” Dolores said as she hobbled toward the eastern opening, through which half of the stone well was visible.

“I got yours,” replied Stevie.

“And some spare magazines.” The redheaded woman sat upon Patch Up’s three-legged cooking stool.

“I got ‘em.” Stevie claimed two repeater rifles and twelve cylinders from the table and hastened toward Dolores.

A distant gunshot popped and was succeeded by two sharp reports.

Brent and Nathaniel reached the table upon which laid the firearms.

“You know how to shoot?” inquired the cowboy, feeling stupid that he had not earlier asked this question.

“I went hunting with my father when I was a child.”

“Good. This gun’s like a huntin’ rifle, but quicker to reload—just fling the trigger guard to throw a new bullet into the chamber, and after you send eight shots, change magazines.” Brent pointed to the pile of loaded cylinders that were resting within the munitions box. “Get some extra.”

Nathaniel claimed a repeater rifle and one additional magazine.

“Take more than that,”

The dandy acquired three additional magazines and walked toward the western slit, through which a sliver of the moonlit cemetery was apparent.

Stevie strode to the easternmost slit in the south face. Against the middle of the same wall, Long Clay leaned two weapons—a telescopic rifle and a repeater. Holding firearms, additional ammunition and a wooden spyglass, Brent walked to the other side of the gunfighter.

“Don’t fire until I give the word,” announced Long Clay.

“Yessir,” said Steve.

“There any chance a stray bullet can set off a land torpedo?” asked Brent.

“Almost none. The plungers must be pressed directly down, and gunshots fly horizontally, diagonally and in long arcs.”

“Okay.”

Brent raised his spyglass and peered through his opening, over dirt that was pregnant with land torpedoes, beyond the perimeter trench and down at the woodlands that laid five miles south of the fort. The vast forested region was opaque.

Two distant gunshots echoed and were succeeded by five reports. The sounds were tiny and distant, like rocks falling on the far side of a mountain.

“Can you discern anything?” Brent asked Long Clay. “Pa said you could identify guns by their sounds.”

“The first two shots were from Patch Up’s rifle, and the other five shots were from three different revolvers.”

“They won’t get him,” proclaimed Stevie. “He’s smarter than any of them Mex’cans and is skilled.”

“We’ll know if we hear him fire again,” stated Long Clay.

The silence that followed the gunfighter’s remark was long and heavy.

Brent felt a drop of blood trickle from his suture, past a torn stitch, beyond the edge of his bandage and down his cheek. The lateral wound burned as if it had been treated with hot coals.

“Goddamn!” exclaimed Stevie. “What’s that nigger doin’?”

“I’ve told you not to call him that,” complained Dolores. “It ain’t nice.”

“I’m just…I’m just worried is all.”

“Still.”

Brent surveyed the opaque woodlands with his spyglass. A volley of gunshots flashed amongst the black trees—a halo of white fire.

The Plugfords and the dandy looked at Long Clay.

“Patch Up fired the first, eleventh and twelfth shots. The others were revolvers and a shotgun.”

Stevie asked, “Why don’t he ride back?”

“He’s probably pinned.”

Brent monitored the woodlands with his spyglass, and saw five white bursts of gunfire along the northern edge. “The fray’s comin’ towards us.”

“None of those were from Patch Up,” stated Long Clay. “He’s on the run or they put him down.”

“No,” said Dolores.

“He’ll make it,” proclaimed Stevie. “He’ll make it.”

Brent’s heart pounded as he scanned the northern edge of the woodlands, hoping that he would witness Patch Up emerge atop the fast black mare, but the perimeter remained still and quiet.

The silence was suffocating.

Upon the side of Brent’s head, the laceration throbbed audibly. “Where’s Deep Lakes?”

“Getting into position.”

The cowboy scanned the terrain for the Indian, but did not see him. At the northern edge of the woods, seven gunshots flashed.

“Three revolvers and a pump action shotgun. Patch Up did not fire.”

“Well they’re still shootin’ at him,” Brent said, “so he’s still alive.”

Gunshots flashed across the woodland perimeter like a line of firecrackers.

“Two shotguns, seven revolvers and two rifles. Patch Up did not fire.”

Brent saw a lone black fleck emerge from the northern edge of the forest and careen directly toward the fort. Hope fluttered like a bird’s soft wings within his chest. “I think I see Patch Up.”

“That’s him,” confirmed the gunfighter, who observed the tableau through the telescopic sight of his long-range rifle.

At the edge of the woodlands, white fire crackled.

“Is he out of range?” asked Brent. It looked like the major part of a mile separated the negro and his western pursuers.

“He’s beyond accurate revolver rounds and buckshot.”

The dot that was Patch Up astride the black mare sped north on the grasslands, toward the fort.

“Is anybody giving chase?” asked the dandy.

Brent observed the area where he had last seen gunfire. “I can’t descry nobody.”

Patch Up neared the weedy terrain that laid in-between the grasslands and the sere rise upon which sat the fort. A constellation of gunfire sparkled at the edge of the woods.

Brent panned his spyglass to the illuminated area and watched tiny black dots drip onto the grass. “Hell. He’s got a train.”

“How many pursuers?” asked the dandy.

The cowboy studied the fleas. “Looks like…nine.”

“Goddamn!” exclaimed Stevie.

“Now eleven.”

“Even worse!”

Dolores swatted her younger brother’s back. “That ain’t helpin’.”

“Neither is hittin’ me.”

Brent divined Patch Up from the weedy terrain, exactly halfway in-between the forest and the fort. The pudgy negro clung to the black mare’s neck, and bouncing pell-mell at his side was his rifle. “I can’t tell if he’s been hit. Can you?”

“I can’t,” said Long Clay.

A crackling constellation glimmered southwest of Patch Up, and a star glimmered upon his tabard. The black mare shook its head and flashed its tail, but did not slacken its pace.

“Where’s that goddamn Indian?” complained Stevie. “How come he ain’t goin’ red savage out there?”

The black mare galloped toward the edge of the weedy terrain.

“He’s more than halfway here,” announced Brent. “And his train’s falling behind.” During the prolonged beeline, the incredible speed of the black mare transpired.

“He’s gonna make it,” stated Stevie. “I told you all. I told you.”

Presently, the cleft moon emerged from the clouds and washed over the landscape, and Brent saw that Patch Up’s gray hair was dark with blood. The cowboy felt punched in the stomach. “He’s…he’s been hit.”

“No,” said Dolores. “Not him too.”

“Goddamn them Mex’cans. Goddamn I hate ‘em!”

“How serious is the injury?” inquired the dandy.

“I can’t tell. He’s got blood on his head, but he’s holdin’ his horse like he’s conscious.” The distance between Patch Up and his eleven pursuers continued to widen. “And he’s only ‘bout four minutes out from the fort.”

Two miles south of the bleeding man, eleven riders poked twice as many bright white holes into the night. Shortly after the reports faded, the negro looked up from the mare’s neck and waved a gory hand at the inhabitants of the fort. There was no blood upon Patch Up’s head other than in his hair.

Brent’s dread abated. “Looks like they shot his hand. Maybe he got some blood in his hair on accident—scratching himself—but I don’t think they got his head.”

“Thank God,” said Dolores.

“I told you he’s comin out alive!” enthused Stevie.

Brent panned his spyglass east and observed the crew that pursued Patch Up. Mounted upon hale horses and wearing dark clothing were eleven armed men. “They’re never gonna catch up with—”

The foremost rider jerked back and spilled out of his saddle. Two men in brown suits guided their galloping mounts around the fallen individual, grabbed their necks, fell and slammed into the bucking heads of the two mustangs that were directly behind them. Concussed and overbalanced, the beasts tumbled forward and catapulted their riders into the air. The heads of three other men jerked back upon their necks, and moonlight glinted for half of a second upon the arrow shafts lodged in their nostrils.

Those who remained fired into the open terrain, reined their steeds in a tight circuit and rode back toward the woodlands. After emptying a revolver in all directions, the southernmost rider arched his back, fell from his saddle and rolled across the weeds. Arrows found the spines of the last two mounted men and knocked them down.

“Deep Lakes got ‘em,” announced Brent.

“Thank God.”

“I always liked the goddamn Indians.”

Hunching low in his saddle, Patch Up guided the black mare west, around the trench and toward the mountain wall.

Brent trained his spyglass upon the area in which the pursuers had fallen. One of the thrown riders, a pale fat man with a thick handlebar mustache and a dark green suit, stood up and reached for a gun no longer in his holster. Arrows pierced his right hand, left wrist and right kneecap. He shrieked and collapsed to the ground.

Fifty yards north of the injured and dead riders, Deep Lakes rose from a sinkhole and notched shafts.

“He’s gettin’ us a captive?” Brent asked Long Clay.

“Several.”

Beside the cowboy, the dandy shifted uncomfortably, but said nothing.

Patch Up hastened the black mare northwest, toward the mountain wall, and presently escaped Brent’s field of view.

“He rounded the edge of the trench,” the dandy announced, “and is now riding directly toward us.” The tattoo of the galloping hooves grew louder. “He is bleeding…rather significantly.”

“I’ll get him.” Brent pulled the strap of his gun over his shoulder, hastened to the western door, opened it wide and looked outside. The black mare cantered through the graveyard, toward the fort. Collapsed upon the beast’s back was Patch Up.

“No.”

Dolores asked, “Is he okay?”

“Patch Up!” Brent ran toward the black mare. “I’m comin’!” His vision blurred. “Hold on, hold on!”

“How is he?” Stevie shouted from within the fort.

As the cowboy reached the cantering horse, he felt an electric horror. The right side of the negro’s abdomen was covered with blood. For a moment, the world was still.

“Patch Up.” Brent gripped the injured man’s right shoulder. “I’m here. Wake up.”

“Get out of the open!” ordered Long Clay. “Now!”

Brent pulled the mare and its bleeding burden toward the sunken stable that was situated between the fort and the mountain wall.

Without raising his head from the neck of the black horse, the pudgy negro said, “There are at least sixty more…than what followed me out.”

“Okay.” Brent was unconcerned with the enemy right now. “How bad are y—”

“Put me alongside your father.” Patch Up wheezed.

“We’ll get you fixed.”

“You won’t. They shot me from the side…through the liver…and a kidney.” Patch Up gasped for air. “Put me…with your father. I want to be wherever he winds up.”

Brent cleared his throat. “We’ll put you two together.” It was hard to speak with a solid voice, but he knew that he could not break in front of the dying man. “I promise we will.”

“Thanks.” Patch Up grabbed Brent’s hand and squeezed it affectionately. “And tell Stevie that I intend to haunt him.”

“Okay.”

“Forever.”

“Okay.”

Presently, the cowboy pulled the mare down the log ramp that led into the stable. The beast’s hooves clopped loudly upon the wood, and the tattoo echoed up and down the mountain wall.

Brent asked, “Do you want me to put Plugford for your last name? On the tombstone?”

“I do.” Patch Up’s voice was almost inaudible. “Thanks.”

Brent tied the black horse beside the dandy’s tan mare, turned around and caught the falling man.

Patch Up was no longer breathing.

“Is he gonna make it?” Stevie asked from the fort. “He okay?”

Unable to speak, the cowboy laid down the negro’s body, removed the iron tabard and hurled it, angrily, as far as he could. The metal plates reflected moonlight, clanged to the ground and scraped across the stone. Startled horses whickered.

Brent hugged Patch Up to his chest.

“Is he okay?” Dolores’s question echoed across the mountain wall.

The cowboy put his arms underneath the dead man, raised him from the ground and walked up the log ramp, across grit, through the west door and into the fort. His siblings and the dandy turned their anxious faces toward him.

“He’s gone.”

“No!” Dolores yelled from her stool. “No!”

The dandy slapped his palm against the stone wall. “Damnation!”

Stevie discarded his rifle, ran across the enclosure and looked down at Patch Up. “I…I can’t believe it.” His eyes filled with moonlight. “I can’t believe it. I didn’t think…I didn’t think that he’d ever…ever…” He was unable to complete his sentence.

“Slide Pa over,” Brent said, “Patch Up wants to be next to him.”

Stevie nodded and went to the funereal bunk, where he was joined by Nathaniel. The two men slid the patriarch against the north wall, and Brent laid Patch Up beside the huge body. Without a word or a glance at anyone, the dandy walked away from the deceased.

Dolores gathered her crutches and hobbled beside her brothers.

To his siblings, Brent said, “He wants it to go Patch Up Plugford—on the tombstone.”

The redheaded woman patted the dead man’s hands. “It should.” Tears dripped from her chin. “That’s what he was.”

Stevie began to sob.

Brent hugged his little brother tightly to his chest. “He said he was gonna haunt you forever.”

“I hope...I hope he does it.” Stevie withdrew, grinned sadly, wiped his eyes, sniffed and walked back toward his slit.

The cowboy hugged his sister.

“Brent?” asked Dolores.

“Yeah?”

“We’re all gonna die out here, ain’t we?”

Before Brent was able to reply, Long Clay said, “Deep Lakes is bringing the hostages.”

“I’ll rip their hearts out!” proclaimed Stevie. “I’ll stomp their goddamn nuts and piss in—”

“You will listen to me,” the gunfighter warned, “or you’ll get another mark on your tally.”

Stevie grumbled.

Brent helped Dolores back to her stool and returned to his position on the south wall. “Patch Up saw sixty others—not even includin’ the ones we put down.”

Dolores and Stevie and the dandy were silent.

“Sixty men,” restated Long Clay.

“‘At least sixty’ were his words, exact precise,” clarified Brent.

Long Clay announced, “We need to go all the way mean.”

“Okay.”

“My pleasure!” proclaimed the youngest Plugford. “The meaner the better!”

“Stevie,” said Long Clay.

“Yessir.”

“Get a fire going in the potbelly stove.”

“Yessir.”

Stevie set his rifle upon its stock, leaned it to the wall and opened the tinderbox earlier placed beside the molten potbelly stove.

The dandy stared at the gunfighter.

“Mr. Stromler,” said Long Clay.

“Yes.” Nathaniel’s voice was hard with contempt.

“We’re outnumbered ten to one. Or perhaps the ratio is worse. We must be ruthless.”

“Do you intend to torture people?”

“If you can’t stomach mean business, you should leave. If you lodge one complaint, Stevie and Brent will throw you in the cell and lock the door until it’s all over. If you attempt to impede my tactics in any way, I will shoot you.”

“Long Clay’s got the reins,” affirmed Stevie. “He’s the tactician.”

The gunfighter eyed the dandy. “Will you follow my lead?”

“I will.” Nathaniel turned away and faced his slit.

“You’ve been warned.”

“I have.”

Long Clay looked meaningfully at Brent.

To the wraith that offered his dark services, the cowboy nodded.

The tall narrow man returned his gaze to his telescopic sight, and the moonlight captured within its lenses turned his right eye into an opalescent gem.

Chapter II

The End of Nathaniel Stromler

A match scratched and hissed. White light flared in the southeastern corner of the enclosure, turned orange, shrank and became an amber rectangle that was the opening of a potbelly stove. Wood shavings curled with serpentine life and crackled like a phonographic cylinder or a bowl of scorpions.

Nathaniel Stromler turned back to his west wall crenellation, looked outside and surveyed the cemetery in which tombstones and markers sprouted from the sere land like dull teeth. On the far side of the burial ground was the horse that carried the native, followed by a trio of steeds laden with blindfolded prisoners.

“Deep Lakes is thirty yards from the door,” announced the gentleman.

“Mind your words when the captives are in,” ordered Long Clay. “We don’t want them to know the size of our crew.”

“Understood,” said Nathaniel.

“Okay,” said the Plugfords.

Forty minutes before the first shot was fired, Nathaniel had crouched in the latrine and forced the last prickly scorpion through his bowels. Everything in his life, all of his relationships and hopes and ideals, had yielded to the agony of the bleeding orifice. He was a sweaty, unintelligent animal that was in intense pain, nothing more and he doubted it would be much easier for him to witness other people reduced to the same bestial state.

“Brent. Stromler,” said Long Clay. “Help Deep Lakes with the captives. Mind the blindfolds.”

“Okay,” said the cowboy.

The gentleman slung his weapon over his shoulder and found that his hands were shaking.

“Leave your rifle here,” said Brent. “Their hands’re tied, but you don’t wanna risk one of them grabbin’ no gun.”

Nathaniel set his rifle against the wall.

Brent pulled open the door and exited the fort.

The gentleman walked outside and felt the night—cool, vast and deadly—open up around his head. The halved moon was magnified by a thick gray cloudbank, upon which he saw an electric blue thread that was either distant lightning or a flaw in his retina.

Five yards away, Deep Lakes reined his purloined colt to a halt, leaped from the saddle, slung his strange bow and walked to the trio of horses that he had trailed. He grabbed the ankles of two captives and pulled. The men thudded against the ground and were dragged toward the fort like sacks of bad potatoes that were about to be turned into fertilizer.

Brent pointed to a redheaded man who wore a pinstriped brown suit and had arrows in his chest and right shoulder. “Grab that one.” Like all of the captives, the individual was blindfolded and had his wrists bound together.

Nathaniel slid his arms underneath the injured man’s back, heaved him from the horse and grunted.

“Draggin’ is easier,” remarked the cowboy.

While carrying the redheaded man toward the fort, the feathers of embedded arrows waggled in front of the gentleman man’s nose and elicited a sneeze.

Nathaniel entered the edifice and laid his burden upon the floor, beside a stout Mexican who had a boyish face and the triumphant individual who had exclaimed, “¡Triunfo!” in both Castillo Elegante and the crimson stagecoach. Brent indelicately dropped his captive, a heavy fellow with a dark green suit and a thick handlebar mustache, next to the redheaded man, and Deep Lakes dragged the last hombre, who wore a black vaquero outfit decorated with silver fringes, across the stone until he laid alongside his peers. The amber glow of the potbelly stove shone obliquely upon the five bound and blindfolded men, only two of whom appeared to be conscious.

It was clear to Nathaniel that he could not remain indoors while the torturous endeavors occurred. “I shall wait outside,” he said as he walked toward the west wall.

“Stay here,” ordered Long Clay. “I need you to translate.”

Nathaniel silently cursed.

Brent closed the west door.

To the brothers, the gunfighter said, “Watch the perimeters.”

“Okay.” Brent and Stevie returned to their slits.

Long Clay knelt beside the redheaded man and slapped his face.

“Don’t!” protested the bound and blindfolded captive.

“How many men are in your posse?”

“A…a lot. We’ve got a big crew.” The man’s accent indicated that he was from the Midwest.

Long Clay swatted the man’s throat. “Give me a number. If it doesn’t match what the other captives say, I’ll cut off your right hand.”

The Midwesterner paled. “Uh…um…ninety, I believe.”

A terrible dread flooded throughout Nathaniel’s body. For the second time in two days, he was hopeless.

“Goddamn,” muttered Stevie.

Dolores lowered her head, and Brent spat through his slit.

“Some horses got sick after we went through your campsite,” the Midwesterner added, “and a few men too.”

“Why’re you out here?” asked Long Clay.

“I’m friends with Diego and Rosalinda. Was.”

“Who’re they?”

“Gris’s son and daughter-in-law. Good, kind people that you folks murdered when you robbed Catacumbas.”

Irked, Brent spun around. “We didn’t rob that damn place or kill one woman.”

“The pregnant woman,” the Midwesterner said, “the one that the tall man shot in the hand, she went into shock and bled to death. And her little baby died too.”

Long Clay seemed unaffected by the news that he had killed a pregnant woman and her child. “Are you close with Gris’s family?”

“I…I know them.” The Midwesterner’s voice was weak.

The gunfighter looked at the cowboy. “This one goes on the wall.”

At that moment, Nathaniel knew that Long Clay was the most immoral man he had ever known, and the single most odious individual on either side of this battle, including Gris himself.

The gunfighter knelt beside the only other conscious man, the stout Mexican with the boyish face, and inquired, “Do you speak English?”

“No Ingles.” The fellow seemed very proud of this fact. “Soy Mejicano verdadero.”

Long Clay looked over at Nathaniel. “Ask him how he’s connected to Gris.”

The gentleman restated the inquiry in Spanish.

A moment later, the boyish Mexican replied.

Nathaniel said, “He was hired by a third party to join the posse and does not personally know Gris.”

“Perfect.” The gunfighter looked at the native. “Separate this one from the other four. He’s the messenger.”

Deep Lakes grabbed the boyish Mexican by the left ankle and dragged him toward the west door.

Long Clay looked at Stevie. “Put five iron stakes into the stove. Just the tips.”

“Gladly.”

Nathaniel’s skin tingled.

Stevie opened a green crate that was beside the table, grabbed five stakes, set their points into the luminous amber interior of the potbelly stove and returned his right eye to the telescopic sight above the gunfighter’s rifle.

Long Clay looked at Brent. “Strip these four naked.”

“Okay.”

Queasy, Nathaniel walked toward the door.

“The dandy will help you.”

A void opened up within the gentleman, and his vision narrowed.

“C’mon.” Brent clasped Nathaniel’s right elbow, pulled him to the bound quartet, opened the toolbox, withdrew two pairs of steel shears (one of which had a curl of sheep’s wool in-between its heavy blades), knelt beside the captive who had earlier exclaimed, “¡Triunfo!” and clipped the jutting arrows.

“Pull off his shoes and pants,” the cowboy said to his reluctant accomplice.

Nathaniel got on his knees, grabbed the captive’s left boot, wrested it loose, claimed its sibling, undid four suspender tabs, unbuttoned the fellow’s waist band, clutched both hems and pulled. A brass compass and a monocle clinked upon the stone, and burgundy underclothes were revealed.

Brent handed Nathaniel the second pair of shears. “Cut through his sleeves and then we can pull the whole thing off o’ him.” The men applied their flashing blades and rent three layers of clothing. “That’ll work.” The duo set down their shears and pulled the cleft jacket, shirt and union suit off of the unconscious Mexican. Emanating from the man’s naked body were the smells of blood and excrement.

Stevie and Dolores furtively observed Brent.

A spool of barbed wire dropped to the ground beside the captive’s feet. “Bind his ankles together,” ordered Long Clay.

Nathaniel tasted cold dread.

“Hold his head good and tight,” Brent said as he donned thick gloves, “so that he don’t break his skull.” The cowboy unwound two yards of wire and clipped it with his shears.

Nathaniel leaned forward and braced the triumphant man’s head against the floor.

Brent pulled the gleaming wire around the captive’s flush ankles, and four barbs pierced the skin. The triumphant man screamed. Throughout Nathaniel’s body, the sound of another man’s agony reverberated.

Hastily, the cowboy pulled the line through four more circuits, twisted its ends secure, released the bound limbs and withdrew. The captive’s toes clutched the air like the webbed extremities of an amphibian.

“Don’t kill me.” The Midwestern captive began to sob. “Please. I have two young daughters back—”

Long Clay inserted a plum into the man’s mouth. “I’ll cut off your right hand if you spit that out.”

No more pleas emerged from the Midwesterner.

Brent pointed to the unconscious captive who had the handlebar mustache. “Let’s do him.”

Myopically focusing his thoughts on each assigned task, Nathaniel nodded his head. He knelt. The cowboy clipped arrows, and the gentleman removed the unconscious fellow’s shoes, green trousers and long john bottoms. Both men cut away the captive’s jacket and blood-stained white shirt.

“I know that one.” Dolores smoldered.

Brent’s face darkened.

Nathaniel leaned forward and braced the captive’s head.

“Hold it firm.”

The cowboy pulled barbed wire in a quick circuit, and the captive yelled. Nathaniel’s arms shook. Brent glanced at his sister and yanked the line. Barbs tore open the man’s shins and calves, and he shrieked.

“Go easy for now,” cautioned Long Clay.

Brent finished binding the man’s legs and dropped them to the floor, where they twitched and dripped blood. Nathaniel released the captive’s moaning head.

Dolores hobbled over and struck the captive’s face with her crutch. “Disgusting!”

Brent and Nathaniel stripped the bloody vaquero, who had been shot by four arrows. The man was dying and did not awaken when his feet were bound.

Presently, the duo knelt beside the redheaded Midwesterner. The man whimpered when his trousers were removed, fell unconscious when his arrows were clipped and reawakened when the remainder of his clothing was ripped from his body. Brent wrapped freckled ankles with barbed wire, and Nathaniel felt warm tears upon his palms.

“Is the horizon clear?” asked Long Clay.

“Yessir,” replied Stevie.

“It’s clear,” Deep Lakes said from outside.

Long Clay looked at Nathaniel and Brent. “Hang the captives from the stakes by their ankles.”

Nathaniel’s skin grew cold.

“Get ‘em by the feet and stay in front, so they can’t kick you,” Brent advised, as if he were discussing the best way to handle a roped steer. He grabbed the right big toe of the plump man with the handlebar mustache and dragged him across the floor, through the west door and out of view.

Nathaniel similarly trailed his burden, the Midwesterner. The nude captive’s back and buttocks sizzled across the ground.

“Wait until he comes back,” ordered Long Clay.

Nathaniel paused, watched Brent and Deep Lakes walk past the southern crenellations and heard the creak of the stepladder, followed by a couple of grunts and a gurgling yell.

Presently, the cowboy returned.

Clasping a freckled foot, Nathaniel walked outside. Deep Lakes accompanied the lumbering and draggling Midwesterners through the vast night to the front of the fort.

“Jesus Christ.” Nathaniel stared at previously hung captive, whose legs and inverted phallus were agleam with moonlit blood.

“Climb the stepladder,” Deep Lakes said to the glassy-eyed gentleman. “I’ll hand him up to you.”

Nathaniel narrowed his thoughts, ascended three rungs, received the legs of the Midwesterner and guided them toward the wall. An iron stake poked into the barbed wire, slid between the captive’s ankles and emerged on the near side of the metallic binding.

Deep Lakes released the man’s torso.

The inverted Midwesterner dropped. Wires snapped taut against the stake, and barbs revealed yellow tissue, pink muscle and white tendons. The captive shrieked, and the plum fell out of his mouth.

Nathaniel tumbled from the stepladder and onto the ground. With shaking hands, he picked up the fallen fruit and—to silence the terrible wailing—reinserted it inside the Midwesterner’s mouth. Covered with sweat and shaking, the gentleman hastened back inside the fort.

Trailing the Mexican vaquero, Brent departed.

Nathaniel could not stop trembling.

After an impossibly short period of time, Brent returned.

Nathaniel dragged the man who exclaimed, “¡Triunfo!” to the façade, where hung three nude hostages, bloody and inverted. The gentleman climbed the ladder, received the upended limbs from Deep Lakes, slid the wire binding along an iron stake and shut his eyes when the captive’s weight pulled his ankles into the cold sharp barbs.

After an upside-down human being made terrible animal sounds, the tall empty thing that looked like Nathaniel Stromler walked back into the fort.

Deep Lakes shut the door.

Long Clay looked at Brent and Nathaniel. “Get back to your slits.”

“Okay.”

After a tiny nod, the gentleman moved his legs.

Long Clay strode toward the potbelly stove, from which sprouted the long ends of five iron stakes. “Ready the messenger.”

Deep Lakes knelt beside the boyish Mexican, whose wrists were bound behind his back, and pulled a cord around his ankles.

Standing at the west wall, Nathaniel looked outside, over the mute tombstones and at the dark, empty horizon. The boy from Michigan who had traveled to Europe with his family, stayed in luxurious hotels and adventured was gone, as were the teenager who vowed never to turn a gun on another person, and the twenty-two-year-old gentleman who had fallen in love with Kathleen O’Corley. This current incarnation of Nathaniel Stromler was an unscrupulous animal that would do anything to preserve its own life—even torture innocent people. He was a corporeal shell that lived in the present, divorced from his former identity, obeying the threats of an evil gunfighter.

The gentleman from Michigan reviled what was left of himself—his spineless, quivering remainder.

Outside the fort, inverted hostages gargled and moaned like rheumatic haunts.

Nathaniel looked over his shoulder. In the southeast corner, Long Clay withdrew a stake from the molten potbelly stove. The luminous iron point traveled across the room like a fang pulled directly from the Devil’s mouth.

The boyish Mexican pleaded.

Although he doubted that the poor man’s words would change the gunfighter’s itinerary, Nathaniel translated. “He said that his name is Alberto Querrera and that—”

“I’m not interested.”

Deep Lakes tore open Alberto’s brown shirt. Catapulted buttons skittered across the stones, clicking.

Long Clay stepped upon the captive’s bound ankles and looked at Nathaniel. “How do you say, ‘I work for Gris’ in Spanish?”

“Yo trabajo para Gris,” replied the gentleman.

“Spell it one word at a time.”

“Y. O.”

Long Clay pressed the luminous tip of the iron stake into the skin above Alberto’s left pectoral muscle. Flesh sizzled.

The captive jerked and shrieked. “¡No! ¡Por favor! ¡No se nada!” Long Clay withdrew the iron stake. Upon Alberto’s chest sat a lone diagonal line, red and swollen.

With a steady hand, the gunfighter reapplied the glowing metal, elicited a scream and added the mirror image of the first mark (to create a V) and a vertical scar that dropped down from the connection of its antecedents. Long Clay lifted the luminous point, set it down, summoned a groan and inscribed a sizzling circle next to the first symbol. Alberto squirmed like a live fish dropped into a frying pan, but the native and the gunfighter held him firmly in place.

Upon the captive’s chest sat two bloody letters.

Yo

“Next word,” prompted Long Clay.

Nathaniel turned away from the shuddering canvas. “T. R. A. B. A. J. O.” Behind his back, skin sizzled, and the metallic smells of blood, urine and heated iron permeated the air.

“Por favor,” pleaded Alberto, “por favor…”

Nathaniel’s hands squeezed the barrel of his repeater rifle, and his heart raced. The cemetery outside his slit became blurry.

Alberto spoke of his crippled mother, Leticia, who was confined to her bed in Nueva Vida.

Long Clay set the red stake inside the potbelly stove, withdrew a bright orange replacement and returned. “Next word.”

“P. A. R. A.”

Skin sizzled. In between sobs, Alberto explained that he had taken the job with Gris so that he could buy Leticia new bedclothes.

The empty gentleman strangled his rifle.

Long Clay inquired, “G. R. I. S?”

Holding his breath, Nathaniel nodded.

Skin sizzled, but the Mexican made no sound.

“Did he pass out?” asked Brent.

“Yes.”

“Too bad,” remarked Stevie.

“Stromler,” prompted Long Clay. “Look at this.”

The gentleman turned around and looked down. Burned into the unconscious Mexican’s chest was the message.

Yo trabajo

para Gris

The gunfighter inquired, “This reads, ‘I work for Gris?’”

Unable to breath the tarnished air, Nathaniel nodded.

Long Clay walked to the potbelly stove, inserted his writing implement and withdrew an iron stake that had a bright white tip. Around the luminous fang, the night air warped.

Nathaniel’s pulse pounded violently within his temples. He momentarily forgot his fiancé’s name and the address of his mother’s empty candy store in Michigan and where his father was buried.

The gunfighter strode across the room and extended the radiant point toward the captive’s blindfold. Dolores and Brent turned away from the grim tableau.

“Please,” Nathaniel pleaded, “you do not have to—”

Long Clay plunged the stake into Alberto’s left eye.

The captive shrieked, but was held in place by the native.

As the gunfighter lifted the stake, Alberto’s left eyelid stuck to the radiant metal, stretched and tore loose. Clear fluid bubbled within the ruined socket, and the blindfold sloughed to the ground. The captive was no longer conscious.

“The man is a hired hand,” Nathaniel said, “you—”

Long Clay positioned the smoking iron above the captive’s remaining eye.

“Stop! You have done enough.” Nathaniel’s voice was strong and hard. “I will—”

Long Clay thrust the stake.

“No!”

The gunfighter pulled the iron from the man’s hissing eye socket and looked at the native. “Pull down his trousers.”

Nathaniel raised his rifle.

A black circle appeared and flashed brilliantly. Nathaniel flew west and impacted the stone wall. Unused, the repeater rifle fell from the gentleman’s hands and clattered upon the ground. Across the left side of his chest, a sharp and burning pain flared.

“You dumb idiot,” remarked Stevie.

Long Clay claimed the fallen repeater rifle.

Nathaniel felt warm fluid pour from the bullet hole and run down his abdomen. The walls of the fort elongated.

Appalled and speechless, Dolores watched the gentleman sink.

Nathaniel’s buttocks struck the floor. The world shook, and he keeled north. Suddenly, the back of his skull smacked against the stone, and he stared, glassy-eyed, at the ceiling.

Throughout the gentleman’s collapsed body spread a blue chill.

A silhouetted man appeared and knelt upon the stone. “I’m…I’m so, so sorry.” Nathaniel recognized the speaker as Brent. “You shouldn’t be here at all.” The cowboy pressed a cool cloth to the bullet hole.

“I t-told you that I should not…use a f-f-firearm.”

“You were right. One hundred percent.”

The narrow black wraith slid across the room, expanded and hissed.

“I hope that…most of you…survive.” Nathaniel tasted blood in his throat.

“Thanks.”

Deep Lakes removed Alberto’s trousers and long johns. The glowing tip of the iron stake shone upon the dark curl that was the blinded Mexican’s exposed phallus.

Blackness expanded before Nathaniel’s eyes.

Skin sizzled and hissed.

“Goddamn,” said Stevie. “Goddamn that’s terrible.”

Chapter III

The Torture Tactic

The circus dog growled meritorious accusations at Brent Plugford and his brother as they set the unconscious dandy upon the floor of the prisoners’ cell, beside the collection of bones that was Yvette. Stevie mumbled ungraciously and left the dark room.

“Say one for Mr. Stromler,” Brent whispered to his sleeping sister, “he don’t deserve any of this.” Troubled by guilt, the cowboy exited the dark, windowless chamber.

“Lock that door,” Long Clay ordered from his position along the south wall.

Brent slid the iron bolt and turned around. He glanced at the bunk upon which laid the inert bodies of Patch Up and John Lawrence Plugford and quickly looked away. Any ruminations upon these dead men—or the pregnant woman and unborn child Long Clay had murdered—grew the cowboy’s sadness and turned it into a debilitating, all-consuming despair. Now was not the time for self-recriminations or mourning.

“Hell.”

Deep Lakes dragged the blinded and inscribed messenger toward the west door. Brent felt a pang of nausea when he noticed the blackened nub between the Mexican’s legs.

“How’s Mr. Stromler?” asked Dolores.

“I stopped the bleeding, but…” Brent shook his head. “I don’t think he’s gonna make it.” He knew that Patch Up would have better tended the injury.

Dolores glared at Long Clay. “You shouldn’t’ve shot him.”

The remorseless gunfighter did not bother to defend himself.

Stevie said, “Who cares what happens to that dumb dandy.”

“You should,” barked Brent. “He helped us rescue our sisters and only got shot because he didn’t want to see no hired gun get mutilated.”

“He drew on Long Clay,” Stevie rebutted, “and deserves what he got.”

“I pray you ain’t as stupid as your mouth advertises.” The cowboy returned to the south wall, shouldered his repeater rifle and unscrewed his spyglass.

As if Long Clay were not in the room, the young man asked, “You wanted the dandy to win?”

The honest answer to that question was complicated. Brent knew that the gunfighter was the Plugfords’ only chance for survival, but on a personal level, the cowboy would have preferred to see the dandy win the exchange. “I wish it didn’t happen is all,” he stated, equitably.

“Stevie,” said the gunfighter.

“Yessir?”

“Take the position on the west wall.”

“Okay.”

The young man slung his rifle, gathered together his spare magazines and strode to the opening that had previously been monitored by the dandy.

Brent raised his spyglass and looked outside. The halved moon was sinking behind the southern mountains, and the landscape was darker than before.

“What time is it?” asked Stevie.

Skilled at divining the hour from heavenly bodies, Brent answered, “Half past four.”

“Feels like next year.”

“At least,” remarked Dolores from the far side of the fort.

Long Clay said “Brent.”

“Yeah?”

“Put two lanterns on the front wall so that the opposition can see our decorations whenever they charge.”

“Okay.”

Brent gathered two lanterns, went outside, hung them over the inverted men, lit the wicks and hastened indoors. Presently, he returned to his slit, picked up his spyglass and located Deep Lakes.

The Indian rode a purloined gray mustang and trailed a white colt, upon which laid the unconscious body of the inscribed, blinded and castrated messenger. For ten minutes, the cowboy watched the horses race south, toward the weedy terrain that laid in-between the woodlands and the sere incline.

The animals reached the halfway point and stopped. In the spyglass optics, the steeds were magnified to the size of mice. The Indian leaped from his horse, took the messenger from the second beast and stood him upright. Weak starlight glimmered upon the Mexican’s inscribed chest and the dark dots that had replaced his eyes and phallus.

Deep Lakes leaned over, removed the messenger’s fetters, turned him south and shoved him forward. The blind eunuch fell to his knees. Then, the Indian helped the man to his feet, slapped him twice, and shoved him south once more.

Toward the black forest, the mutilated man drifted.

“Brent. Stevie. Dolores.”

“Yeah?”

“Yessir?”

“What?”

Long Clay adjusted the telescopic sight of his rifle, and weak moonlight glowed within his right eye like a cataract. “You need to understand our tactic.”

“We trust you,” said Stevie.

“You need to know it fully,” the gunfighter replied, “in case I get put down.”

“Okay,” replied Stevie and Dolores.

“Go ‘head.” Brent was certain that he was about to hear the machinations of evil.

“On an instinctual level,” Long Clay said, “a man fears torture and disfigurement more than he fears death. He can imagine what it’s like to be branded, because he’s burned himself; he can imagine what’s its like to be blind, because he’s been in a dark room stumbling into furniture; and if he’s ever had any pain in his privates, he can imagine what being castrated might feel like.

“Death is very different to him, because it’s an unknown. The man might even believe it’s the beginning of some new type of existence—like those heaven fantasies your sister entertains.

“But the man doesn’t have any delusions about what kind of life awaits a mutilated, blind fellow whose penis has been removed.”

“A terrible one,” opined Stevie. “I’d kill myself.”

Brent tried not to picture Alberto’s future.

Long Clay resumed, “After Gris’s men see the messenger we sent over, the hired guns who’re not personally invested in this battle will either ask Gris for more money—a lot more—or they’ll leave no matter what wage is proffered. Nobody wants to be the next messenger.

“Gris will lose one quarter to one third of his crew as a result of this tactic. Maybe more.”

“Holy goddamn!” enthused Stevie. “They should’ve hired you for the Alamo.”

Through the wooden spyglass, Brent watched the blind specter drift.

“The remaining men in Gris’s crew will become angrier,” Long Clay stated, “which is also to our advantage. Angry men don’t think clearly and they make hasty decisions—like charging onto a field filled with land torpedoes.”

“I sure hope it goes like that.” Brent watched Deep Lakes hasten his gray mustang up the sere incline, toward the fort.

“If Gris’s posse staged a siege, they would win,” declared Long Clay. “They have superior numbers and could pin us, while accessing unlimited reinforcements and supplies. We need to hasten their attack, kill as many as we can, cow the rest and get Gris.”

“I get to kill him,” said Dolores. “And I want to make him suffer.”

“We’re not dragging things out for revenge,” stated the gunfighter.

“Gris deserves to die slow.”

Long Clay did not respond to Dolores’s remark.

Ink spilled from the northern edge of the forest, toward the drifting snowflake that was the messenger. The distant particles that comprised the emergence were the riders and horses of the opposition, but in the heavy darkness they appeared to be a single entity, the arm of some gigantic black bear.

Suddenly, the messenger was seized by the extrusion and pulled into the woodlands.

“They snatched him up,” Brent informed his siblings.

Long Clay said, “Dolores. Stevie.”

“What?”

“Yessir?”

“Get on the south wall and put your guns forward.”

Chapter IV

Blood Gathering

The high heels of two beige dress boots dangled an inch above the brown carpet that Daddy and Patch Up had installed throughout the house when Dolores Plugford and her twin brother were first learning to crawl. Sitting upon the edge of her bed, the twenty-seven-year-old woman stared at a dark blemish amongst the familiar fibers and recalled authoring the stain when she and Brent had inexpertly opened a purloined bottle of wine with a pocketknife.

The hallway floorboards creaked six times, and a huge fist gently knocked upon the closed bedroom door.

“Angel?”

“Yes Daddy?”

“Can I come in?”

“Okay.”

The bedroom door opened and revealed Dolores’s handsome, broad-shouldered father, who was dressed in a dark blue three-piece suit. His silver and brown hair was neatly combed, and his face, washed and shaved by the best barber in Shoulderstone, gleamed. “I know I said it at the church, but you look stunning pretty in that dress.”

“Thanks. You look real handsome in that suit.”

“Tell Patch Up—he picked it out for me.” John Lawrence Plugford walked beside the green desk that Dolores had once used for her grammar school assignments and placed his hand upon its matching chair. “Mind if I sit?”

“Go ‘head.”

The patriarch set the chair beside the bed, seated himself and interlaced his big fingers. “I can understand why you’re upset. Can’t be easy watchin’ your kid sister get married first.”

Dolores looked through the window and down at the twilit celebration that occurred upon the festooned porch of the Plugford ranch. Sixty guests attended the wedding celebration, including a score of folks who had traveled all the way from San Francisco to watch Yvette change her last name to Upfield. Patch Up, wearing a tuxedo and a top hat, and Stevie, wearing a gray suit that was a little too small for him, argued beside the new phonograph that was to depart with the newlyweds, but their words and the sounds of the gay throng were muted by the thick pane of glass.

John Lawrence Plugford took Dolores’s right hand. “You’re still young and beautiful, and you got spark like your mother. A lady like you don’t need to worry about findin’ a man—only which one’s good enough for her.”

The compliment only grew the cancan dancer’s melancholy. “I wanted to marry Aaron.”

John Lawrence Plugford shook his head. “You’ll find somebody better than him.”

“I ain’t so sure.”

“You will. I’ve got perspective, and I know it definite certain.” The patriarch kissed his daughter’s hand. “You’ll find yours. And he’ll be better than Aaron Alders.”

“I never told you the real reason why he ended it with me,” confessed Dolores. “It had nothin’ at all to do with me.”

John Lawrence Plugford’s face stiffened. “Who’d it have to do with?”

Aaron Alders had an uncle in northern Florida who had heard some very disconcerting rumors about John Lawrence Plugford. These crumbs of information were conveyed to Dolores’s fiancé, and the oil man had inquired after their veracity. The cancan dancer was unable to lie to her betrothed, and he took the news very badly. “I still love you,” said Aaron, tears shining his eyes, “but I cannot—in good conscience—legally connect my family to yours.” After a long and heavy silence, the oil man added, “I know it’s not your fault…but it’s a fact and my uncle will raise an objection to my parents if I don’t break things off.” Too destroyed to get angry, Dolores nodded her head and asked the man to leave. She had never told anybody (excepting Brent) the real reason that the engagement had ended, and two years later she found that she still loved Aaron.

“Who’d it have to do with?” John Lawrence Plugford asked for the second time. The huge man looked intensely uncomfortable.

“Aaron found himself another woman. A secretary at one of his wells.” Although she was usually candid with her father, Dolores could not bear to tell him that he was the cause of her great disappointment.

John Lawrence Plugford looked relieved. “I know it hurts, but it’s better that you found out how he was before you two got married. You want your husband to be devoted steadfast. A man who thinks your smile is the most important thing in the world.” His eyes sparkled, and he squeezed his daughter’s hand.

The cancan dancer swung her boots back and forth. “Thanks.”

“Lets get down there and have us a waltz.” The huge man rose from his chair.

“I wanna be alone for a bit.”

“Nope.” John Lawrence Plugford leaned over and scooped his daughter up into his arms. “Moving and music will change your humors.”

The room spun around Dolores’s head, and a smile crept onto her face, despite herself. Once the revolutions stopped, she saw Brent, standing in her doorway. Presently, Patch Up appeared, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.

Brent looked at Dolores. “You okay?”

“I’m okay. Your tuxedo’s nice—I didn’t see it good at the church.”

“I borrowed it from Isaac Isaacs. And he should mind what he leaves in the pockets.” Her brother grimaced.

The patriarch announced, “We’re comin’ down to waltz.”

“I’ll warn people,” said Patch Up.

“I know two waltzes.”

“Gigantic and huger.”

“Daddy. Put me down—I can walk.”

The floor rose, and the soles of Dolores’s beige boots sank into the brown carpet. John Lawrence Plugford extended his right elbow.

Arm in arm, Father and daughter walked out of the room, across the second floor hallway, down the stairwell upon which Stevie had broken his right arm when he was seven, eight and twelve years old, through the oaken dining room wherein hung a portrait of the petite matriarch (rendered in the year eighteen seventy-five) and a singed painting of the Florida plantation, across the turquoise tiles of the kitchen, through the back entrance and onto the porch where the recently-married couple and their guests celebrated holy matrimony.

Dolores was cheered by the fresh air, the sounds of the throng and the music that emanated from the flower of the phonograph.

“Stevie!” shouted Patch Up.

“What?” The nineteen-year-old’s lips were stained purplish-red with wine.

“Put on a waltz!”

“Which one?”

“‘His Waves Shall Carry Us Home!’”

Stevie pulled the needle from the wax cylinder, and music was sucked from the air. The dancers awkwardly aborted their steps and threw unhappy looks at the youngest Plugford.

“Wait ‘til the song’s finished done,” said Brent.

The chastened young man returned the needle to the groove from which it had been taken, and the music resumed, abruptly alive like a sleeper startled awake. After a few lurching steps, the dancers reclaimed their pulse. The phonograph attendant raised his glass of wine and drank.

John Lawrence Plugford walked Dolores around the guests, toward the eastern veranda, where the newlyweds stood and conversed with an older couple from Wyoming. Yvette’s sky blue wedding gown modestly displayed her figure, which had become lush and womanly in recent years, and her blonde hair was arranged in an artful swirl that looked like liquid sunlight. Her face was joyful. Samuel C. Upfield IV’s opalescent tuxedo scintillated, and his twilit eyes glowed as if they were made of gold.

When the older couple from Wyoming noted the approaching relations, they excused themselves from the newlyweds with a kiss and a handshake.

John Lawrence Plugford ducked his head underneath a blue and white festoon. “Mr. and Mrs. Upfield.”

Samuel and Yvette turned into the sun and glowed.

“You look real good together.” Dolores had her reservations about Samuel C. Upfield IV, but she could not deny how much he adored Yvette. “A real pretty couple.”

Twilight coruscated within the bride’s smiling eyes. “Thank you.”

“That yellow dress and you have a wonderful partnership,” Samuel remarked to Dolores over a glass of twilit gin. “My friend David has twice complimented the synergy.”

The music reached its cadence and, before its final chord had naturally decayed, vanished.

“The man has an interest,” clarified Yvette.

Dolores did not find the fawning banker from San Francisco at all appealing and had openly avoided his solicitations. “I’ve been apprised.”

Concerned looks were exchanged between Yvette and Samuel.

“Today is ‘bout you two gettin’ together,” remarked Dolores. “And making real long speeches with lots of words that nobody knows.” This later remark was addressed to the groom.

“Sesquipedalians draw from the supernal lexicon.”

A slow waltz emerged from the flower of the phonograph.

John Lawrence Plugford’s shadow covered over his daughters. “Let’s have us a dance.”

“That is an exceedingly splendid idea.” Samuel set his drink upon the banister that was once favored by the rotund tabby cat Pineapple, took Yvette’s gloved hands and walked her toward the center of the porch. John Lawrence Plugford and Dolores followed after the newlyweds.

“Daddy,” said Yvette.

“Angel?”

“This one’s in a five-four time signature. It’s complicated.”

“J.L. practiced with the record,” Patch Up said as he escorted the mulatto seamstress Jessica Jones into the dance area.

Yvette was surprised. “Daddy practiced dance steps?”

“Once the phonograph stopped laughing.”

The patriarch frowned at his best friend.

Stevie pulled Rosemary Finley into the dance area, and Brent, holding the rugose right hand of the widow Mrs. Walters, followed after his younger brother. Overhead wheeled two birds that blazed with golden twilight.

John Lawrence Plugford took Dolores’s hands and positioned his feet as if a boxing match were about to begin. His lips silently counted, ‘one, two, three; one, two; one, two, three; one, two,’ and on the third downbeat, the house, porch, guests and twilit ranch scrolled across his huge shoulders.

Right hand upraised, Dolores matched her father’s deft footwork, twirling for three and two-beat durations. “You can do it good.”

“Thanks.” John Lawrence Plugford smiled. “And you’re a better dancer than Patch Up.”

“Bigot,” said the negro.

The patriarch alternated the direction in which he twirled his daughter and fluidly guided her alongside his sons and their partners.

Brent looked away from his widow and appraised his father’s footwork. “You’ve got it all the way correct.”

“This ain’t easy natural to a man like me,” John Lawrence Plugford remarked, “but I learned how, and take real pleasure in doin’ it proper.”

Dolores knew that this comment was about more than just dancing.

Darkness expanded.

“Doloressssss.”

Darkness thickened. The face of John Lawrence Plugford wailed and coughed up blood. Fluid dripped from his wrinkled eyes.

Darkness receded.

“Doloressssss.”

Sitting upon Patch Up’s stool with her face pressed to the wall, Dolores awakened. The molten potbelly stove was dark, and the fort was cold and dim. She lifted her head.

“They’re riding toward us,” said Long Clay. “Put your gun in the slit.”

“Okay.” The redheaded woman glanced at her father and Patch Up, both of whom had been alive in her dream only ten seconds earlier. They were still and filled with chill night.

“Let’s get this goddamn Gris for permanent,” Stevie remarked from the far side of the south wall.

Dolores raised her rifle, pointed the barrel outside and looked at the moonless night. “I can’t see hardly anything.”

Long Clay exhaled through his nose and aimed his telescopic rifle. “Neither can they.”

Chapter V

The New Constellations

Brent Plugford watched a broad shadow emerge from the southern woodlands. Even with the powerful magnification of his spyglass, it was impossible for him to discern how many riders comprised the opposition, although it was clear that they rode at a full gallop, directly toward the fort.

“You don’t like what we did to your amigo, do you?” taunted Stevie. “Don’t like what we done to his tamale.”

The dark mass poured across grasslands that were slick with dew.

Brent asked, “How does Deep Lakes fit into this plan?”

“He improvises.”

“Okay.”

Three stars that were muzzle flashes twinkled within the charging horde and shone light like a photographer’s powder flash. Brent saw approximately fifty riders as well as several horse-drawn vehicles.

“Looks like nearly three score men are comin’.”

The announcement poisoned the air.

“Goddamn.”

Dolores swiveled upon her stool. “Brent?”

“Yeah?”

“When…when I was a whore in Catacumbas, I thought about…about ending it every day. You’ve got no idea of how bad it really was—‘specially after I was crippled.” The redheaded woman turned back to her opening and gazed out at the dark world. “But I didn’t kill myself…‘cause…well…it ain’t easy, and ‘cause I thought maybe you all would rescue me someday like you did. But if Gris got me again…I wouldn’t even have that small hope.” She paused, and the silence that filled the fort was heavier than the world. “I can’t go back there. I can’t. Never.”

Unable to respond to his sister’s terrible request, Brent stared through his spyglass at the charging enemy, who were three-and-a-half miles distant.

“They won’t get you,” Stevie said, “I won’t let ‘em.”

“Brent,” Dolores prompted, “you know what I’m askin’ you to do.”

“I know and I’ll do it,” agreed the cowboy, shuddering.

“Thank you.”

Stevie looked over. “Brent?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry for sayin’ that stuff ‘bout you. Please don’t be angry with me.”

“It’s okay. This’s a hard time for every Plugford.”

The riders careered onto the pale weedy terrain and became sharp silhouettes. Galloping horses elongated and shortened twice per second, and vehicles vibrated upon invisible wooden wheels. The tattoo of hooves sounded like distant rain.

“If we survive,” Stevie asked, “could I maybe come cowboy with you in your outfit? I ain’t gonna run the ranch without Pa and Patch Up there with me.”

“We gotta make sure Dolores and Yvette are situated good.”

“After they’re settled, can I come?”

Brent did not believe he would live to see any of these imagined scenarios, but he did not want to diminish his brother’s hopes. “Okay. I’ll hire you.”

“Thanks. I’ll work hard and behave, and I promise I won’t drink.”

Less than two miles south of the fort, horses and wagons sped across the terrain.

“Okay.”

Long Clay squeezed his trigger, and light cracked. At the vanguard of the charging crew, a brown horse bucked. Even though the riders hunched forward in their saddles, their backs remained exposed because of the incline. The gunfighter flung his bolt, and a spinning shell clinked upon the stone.

“That’s still well over a mile,” remarked Stevie.

Long Clay adjusted his aim and fired. A man fell from a black colt to the ground, where his linear form was trampled until it became circular.

After a stentorian cry, the riders poked white holes into the night. Bullets hit the terrain far below the trench or climbed uselessly into the air.

Stevie fired.

“Save it,” Brent said, “they’re not in range of our guns yet.”

Long Clay fired his telescopic rifle. A sombrero took flight, and a hatless rider tumbled into the dirt. Again, the gunfighter fired. A man grabbed his neck, fell from his saddle and struck the ground, where his head was kicked, cracked and crushed by hooves.

The riders extended their hands and conjured crackling white constellations. Plumes of dirt blossomed at the foot of the incline, and wild bullets whistled toward the sky.

Long Clay fired. A red dot burst upon the white neck of a horse, and the beast veered wildly, spilling its rider. The gunfighter emptied the chamber, loaded a new round and fired. A fallen man was trampled by a brace of horses and had his legs shorn at the knees by wagon wheels.

The opposition extended elongated arms and conjured crackling constellations. Dirt blossomed and wild rounds whistled.

Long Clay pulled the cartridge from the bottom of his rifle, slotted a fully-loaded replacement, drew a bullet into the chamber and fired. A man’s hand turned into a red flower.

Half of a mile separated the charging crew from the fort.

“Start firing,” ordered the gunfighter.

Brent set down his spyglass, raised his rifle, monitored the galloping opposition, pointed his barrel at its center and squeezed his trigger. White fire flashed before his eyes. A fleck that was too small to be a person dropped from the equine tide. Presently, Stevie and Dolores sent rounds.

Across the vanguard of the advancing horde, gunfire flashed.

Brent leaned back from the opening. Bullets struck brick or whistled into the sky or clicked against the mountain wall. From the ceiling of the fort, old dust sifted down.

The cowboy flung his trigger guard forward, and the spent shell clinked against the wall and floor. He leaned to the slit, aimed at the vanguard, and fired. The round whistled. A rider yelled, tumbled from his horse and was dismembered by hooves.

Thirty guns flashed.

Brent put his back to the stone wall, as did his siblings and the gunfighter. Bullets hissed overhead and cracked against the facade.

One of the captives shrieked, “¡No dispares, no dispares!”

The inverted Midwesterner yelled out, “We’re still alive! Don’t shoot us!”

“¡Ayudame, por favor, ayudame!” pleaded another inverted hostage.

The distant riders yelled and cursed.

“¡Diablos!”

“¡Animales!”

“¡Bárbaros!”

Although he did not know Spanish, Brent felt that he fully comprehended these imprecations. Presently, he heard the sound of crackling tinder that was Long Clay’s ugly laugh.

Brent returned to the slit, aimed at the vanguard and fired. Atop the roof of a turquoise stagecoach, a rifle flashed. A bullet cracked into the stone directly beside the cowboy’s opening.

“Hell.” Brent leaned back from the opening and announced, “They’ve got a marksman.” His heart was pounding. “Atop the turquoise stagecoach.”

“I’ll get him.” Stevie pointed his rifle through the adjacent slit, fired, flung his trigger guard and aimed.

Brent slammed into his brother and knocked him west. A shot whistled through the slit and impacted the door of the prisoner’s cell. The siblings struck the west wall, and their rifles clattered upon the floor.

“Double goddamn!”

“You gotta shoot and hide while they got that sharpshooter,” Brent said as he retrieved their weapons.

On the far side of the fort, Dolores fired, leaned to the wall and flung her trigger guard. “Got somebody.”

“Which one’s the turquoise stagecoach?” asked Long Clay.

“The green-looking one,” said Stevie.

“Tell me its position,” clarified Long Clay, who was loath to admit that he could not see colors.

Brent surveyed the charging enemy, gleaned the turquoise stagecoach, fired his gun and hid. “On the right. The furthest on the right.”

Long Clay shot, stepped away from his opening, jettisoned the spent shell, filled the chamber, went to a different slit, aimed and fired. “The sharpshooter’s done.”

Dolores fired and leaned back to the wall. “Got another.”

“That’s a Plugford woman!” Stevie fired.

Outside, fleet hooves thundered.

Brent raised his gun, aimed at the egg yolk that was the top of a yellow hat, pulled his trigger, blinked, flung his lever, watched the shot rider tumble and reveal a blonde man who wore a beige suit, fired, blinked and witnessed a gory corsage burgeon upon the man’s left lapel.

Long Clay put down his telescopic weapon, raised his repeater rifle and sent bullets, alternately squeezing and fanning. Brent, Stevie and Dolores pulled magazines from their gunstocks, slotted replacements and sent three magazines at the enemy. Upon the stone floor, spent shells clinked like coins from a slot machine. Five members of the opposition tumbled to the sere terrain.

The siblings slotted new magazines.

“Hold fire,” said the gunfighter. “Let them come.”

All of the vehicles and five of the riders slowed their approach, but the remainder of the opposition, twenty-six horsemen who were hunched low in their saddles, hastened onward, toward the trench that laid one hundred and ten yards south of the fort.

The Plugfords and Long Clay watched.

Hiding behind the necks of their galloping steeds, the riders yelled obscenities at their enemies within the fort.

One of the inverted captives shouted, “¡Ayudame, por favor!”

“¡Nuestros amigos están aquí!” cried another hostage. “¡Triunfo, triunfo!”

The vanguard reached the line. Two hesitant animals tumbled into the trench and snapped their necks, but the majority of the horses hurdled the narrow gap. Hooves impacted the pregnant ground and the sun exploded from the earth. Steeds and men were hurled into the air, shrieking, atop a welter of white fire, shrapnel and dirt. Brent and his siblings were shoved from their slits by the blasts.

Myriad thunders echoed across the mountain wall.

“Go to Hell!” Dolores shouted from beside her toppled stool.

“They’re on their way!” enthused Stevie. “Barbecued!”

A small amount of hope entered Brent’s chest.

Beyond the cowboy’s slit, the blackened pieces of steeds and men rained to the ground. A writhing vaquero struck the dirt, detonated another land torpedo and was wholly consumed by a bright white flash.

Five riders emerged from the cloud of smoke and continued their charge. Seared, deaf and blinded by grit, they fired wildly to the north, west and east.

Brent aimed his rifle at the nearest rider, fired and saw the dusty hombre fall. Long Clay shot two fellows from their saddles and sent an additional bullet into each man’s skull when he landed. Stevie and Dolores fired upon and killed the remaining pair.

The cowboy surveyed the terrain that laid in-between the fort and the opaque curtain of smoke that hung seventy yards to the south. In that dark region, he saw no immediate threat.

“Guns forward,” Long Clay ordered, “but hold until you’ve got something to shoot at.”

Brent flung his trigger guard and snapped it back. In the eerie silence of the aftermath, the sound of the mechanism seemed especially loud and sharp. He looked at the sky and saw that the eastern horizon was a tiny bit brighter than the surrounding vault. Dawn approached.

Stevie and Dolores slotted new magazines.

One of the captives began to weep.

Brent raised his spyglass and inspected the terrain. The smoke dissipated, revealimg a score of jet-black craters that looked like holes in reality. Along the south side of the trench sat both stagecoaches and all three wagons. The vehicles were parked in a continuous line and had their sides forward.

“They made a wall with the wagons,” announced Brent.

“Stevie,” said Long Clay.

“Yessir?”

“Get to the west wall. Dolores.”

“What?”

“Get to the east wall.”

Stevie returned to the opening that overlooked the cemetery, and Dolores scooted her stool beside the slit that faced the well.

“Watch the ground,” Long Clay advised, “there are probably survivors. Playing possum. Hiding.”

“We will,” said Stevie.

Brent monitored the terrain. Two blind horses stumbled amidst craters and incomplete corpses. South of the carnage, the line of vehicles sat still and quiet like an abandoned locomotive.

Immediately outside the fort, somebody sneezed. Brent stiffened—although none of the captives had their hands free, the sound had been muffled. “Back away from your slits,” the cowboy whispered, “someone’s out there.”

The Plugfords and Long Clay leaned their backs to the wall. Silently, the gunfighter slung his rifle and drew a black revolver. The quartet waited, listening, for a very long minute.

Outside the fort, a pebble clicked.

Long Clay thrust his gun barrel through a slit and into an eyeball; he squeezed his trigger twice. The reports were dim, muted by the man’s brainpan. As the gunfighter withdrew from the wall, and the man with the seared mind thudded to the ground outside. “Watch for them.”

Brent returned to his opening and raised his spyglass. Through the lenses he saw the luminous dark blue teeth of a charred horse, the prostrated body of a dead man who had been pierced by shrapnel, a leg with no owner and the rim of the foremost crater.

Within the dark hole, something moved.

Brent adjusted his lenses and said, “I see—”

A muzzle flashed.

The cowboy flew backwards, and a gunshot resounded.

“Brent!” yelled Stevie.

“No, no, no!” shouted Dolores.

The floor slammed into Brent’s shoulders, spine and buttocks. Fire flared across his shot left arm. “In the crater!”

In one fluid motion, Long Clay leaned to an opening, trained his rifle, fired twice and retreated.

Stevie ran to Brent.

“Stay on the wall,” the cowboy said, “I ain’t that bad off.”

“No. You can’t lose no more blood.” Stevie knelt, withdrew a large handkerchief, folded it thrice and pulled it around his brother’s left forearm.

“Hell!” The pain that burst from the wound almost knocked Brent unconscious. “Hell.” His left hand twitched and clenched.

Stevie tightened the tourniquet and knotted its ends. “There.”

Brent could not feel his left hand, but the wound was stanched. “Thanks.”

“You’re we—”

“Get to your slit,” ordered Long Clay. “Now!”

“I’m goin.’” Stevie rose to his feet and glared at the gunfighter. “And you don’t have to talk to me that way, neither. You can break all my limbs if that’s real important to you, but if my brother or any of my kin get hurt, I’m helpin’ them out no matter what.”

A shadow covered the opening directly behind the young man.

Brent’s stomach sank. “Stevie! Drop!”

Outside the darkened slit, a gun flashed.

The front of Stevie’s forehead burst open.

Dolores shrieked.

“No!” yelled Brent.

The gun flashed a second time. Stevie lurched forward and dropped to his knees. Long Clay fired three shots through the slit, and the shadow outside screamed.

Stevie’s face impacted the stone floor.

“Stevie!” Brent crawled to his brother and turned him over. “Stevie.”

The young man’s eyes were wide with horror and confusion. Gore filled his mouth and drained from the back of his head.

“We’ll get you fixed,” Brent said, “it ain’t as bad as you think.”

The terrified animal that was Stevie Plugford nodded. He moved his mouth and tried to say something.

“And after, you can come with me on the cattle trail. Okay?”

The young man nodded, relaxed and stopped breathing.

Brent looked away from his brother’s piteous face.

“He’s gone.”

“No, no, no, no!” Dolores yelled from her stool. “None of this is fair—none of it is!” She looked up at the ceiling and yelled, “I hate you up there! Come on down so I can claw out your eyes and spit in the holes! I hate you all the way every bit!”

Long Clay looked at Brent. “We need you on the west wall.”

The cowboy rested his brother’s head upon the floor, concealed the young man’s confused eyes with a handkerchief, focused his thoughts upon his living sisters and walked to the assigned slit. He saw the corpse outside and recognized the dead fellow as Jose Pastillo, an affable and kind vaquero with whom he had ridden and played checkers.

“Hell.”

A wounded man who was covered so thoroughly with dirt that he looked wholly wrought from the substance crawled into the cemetery, dragging his detached right foot and long tubes that were his entrails. Brent aimed his gun and fired. The interior of the crawler’s head splashed upon a tombstone that was previously unmarked. Atop dirt that covered old corpses, the dying man collapsed.

The cowboy focused his thoughts upon his sisters and killing the enemy, because all other ruminations had an undertow of despair that would pull him under.

“Roast in Hell!” Dolores fired and flung her trigger guard. The spent shell clinked against the floor, and a man groaned.

Long Clay fired two bullets. A man wept.

Brent saw a dirt-covered vaquero stumble toward the west side of the fort. The earthen being had a lopsided head and clutched a warped revolver with his lone remaining hand.

The cowboy shot him in the skull.

“Hell, Hell, Hell.”

Chapter VI

We Ain’t the Heroes

Something rapped upon the slanted roof of perdition. Brent Plugford pointed his rifle at the ceiling and flung his trigger guard.

“Don’t fire,” said Long Clay. “That’s Deep Lakes.”

“Where the hell’s he been?” hissed Dolores.

“Guarding our back,” said Long Clay. “Both of you get on the south wall and check the landscape.”

Dolores scooted her stool across the floor.

“He’s safe up there?” asked Brent.

“The roof’s inclined away from the terrain so that defenders can go up top.”

Brent walked to a forward slit and surveyed the foggy blue tapestry of corpses and craters that laid in-between the fort and the wall of vehicles.

“It’s like the end of the world out there,” remarked Dolores.

“Seems clear,” said Brent. “And there can’t be more than twenty of ‘em left. Less, maybe.”

“You’re correct.”

“Us Plugfords ain’t easy huntin’,” commented Dolores.

After a moment of silent surveillance, the gunfighter looked at the cowboy. “Get a pen and something to write on.”

“Okay.”

Brent circumnavigated the puddle that surrounded Stevie, walked to the bunk wherein laid Patch Up and John Lawrence Plugford, leaned over to retrieve his father’s fountain pen and felt a painful burning in his head and left arm. Darkness expanded before his eyes, and in it he saw the wailing face of the patriarch, coughing up blood.

“Brent?” questioned Dolores. “You okay?”

The cowboy slammed his right palm to the north wall and regained his equilibrium. “Yeah.” After a dizzy breath, he extracted the fountain pen from his father’s pocket, grabbed a page of Samuel C. Upfield IV’s confessional essay and walked toward the munitions table.

Long Clay strode to an eastern crenellation upon the south wall. “Midwestern Man.”

There was no reply.

“Respond right now or the Indian will cut off one of your toes.”

“I hear you,” the Midwesterner replied from the façade.

Weak and dizzy, Brent reached the munitions table and leaned.

Long Clay asked the captive, “Do you speak Spanish?”

“Yes.” The inverted man coughed and momentarily choked.

“You’re going to translate a message for us to say to the opposition.”

“Most of them speak English.”

“I’d like for every single person to understand every single word.”

“I’ll translate your message.”

Brent uncovered the fountain pen and touched its dripping tip to the blank side of the paper.

Long Clay said, “First part. ‘Listen to me. You have lost.’”

“Escúchame. Usted ha perdido.”

Brent wrote.

Escoochamay. Oosted a perdeedo.

Long Clay said, “Next part. ‘Gris stole and raped my sisters. Gris is a bad man.’”

A heavy silence followed these declarations.

The Midwesterner said, “Gris wouldn’t do that to a woman. He’s—”

“It’s true you dumb fool!” shouted Dolores. “That’s what your amigo’s father done to me and my sister—that’s why all of this terrible stuff’s happenin’!”

“I didn’t know.” The Midwesterner coughed. “I swear I didn’t.” Brent believed that the man was telling the truth.

“Translate,” Long Clay said, “or the Indian will shove a stake through your scrotum.”

“Gris robaton y violaron mi hermanas. Gris es un hombre malo.”

“Again and slower.”

The Midwesterner repeated himself, and Brent wrote.

Gris robaton ee beeolaron me ermanas. Gris es un ombray maloh.

“Next part,” said Long Clay. “Give us Gris and we will let all of you live.”

“Nos dan Gris y vamos a dejar a todos ustedes en vivo.”

Brent wrote.

Nos don Gris ee bamos a dehar a todos oosteades en beebo.

“Last part. If you continue to fight, we will torture these men and kill all of you.”

There was a momentary pause.

The Midwesterner cleared his throat. “Si continúa la lucha, vamos a la tortura a estos hombres y matar a todos ustedes.”

See conteenewa la lewcha, bamos a la tortuda ah estos ombrays ee matar a todos oosteades.

Long Clay looked at Brent. “Say it back to the Midwestern Man so that he can correct your pronunciation.”

“Okay.” The cowboy walked over to the opening that was closest to the dangling Midwesterner and read the message aloud.

“Say, ‘tortura,’ with an ‘r’ sound at the end,” advised the captive. “What you said sounded like tortuga, which mean turtle.”

“Tortura,” repeated the cowboy.

“That’s right.”

tortuda

tortura

Long Clay raised his telescopic rifle and pointed it south. “Call that message through the slit as loud as you can.”

Brent put his left cheek to the stone bricks and yelled the message. ‘Listen to me! You have lost! Gris stole and raped my sisters! Gris is a bad man! Give us Gris and we will let all of you live! If you continue to fight, we will torture these men and kill all of you!’

Upon the façade, one of the inverted captives wailed, “¡Ayudame, por favor, ayudame!”

“Help us!” cried the Midwesterner. “Please, please help us!”

Brent peered through the slit. Outside, the ruined terrain was still, excepting two blind horses that struggled to escape from a deep crater into which they had fallen. The sounds of men engaged in a loud and hostile conversation emanated from behind the line of vehicles.

“Say again how he got me and Yvette,” suggested Dolores.

Brent yelled, “¡Gris beeolaron me ermanas!”

“He raped me!” cried his sister. “He raped me!”

The argument behind the vehicles grew louder, and the soft wings of hope fluttered within the cowboy’s chest.

Footsteps pounded south across the ceiling.

Long Clay looked at Brent. “Take his place on the roof. And bring a couple of iron stakes with you.”

“Okay.”

“Wear a tabard if you think you can manage the extra weight.”

“I can’t.”

“Get up there and stay low.” Long Clay eyed him sternly. “If they don’t yield, you’ll need to get mean.”

“I know we ain’t the heroes.”

The cowboy hung the wooden spyglass by its thong around his neck, slung his rifle over his good shoulder, slid magazines and two iron stakes into the sleeve of his left boot and walked toward the east door. His heart throbbed inside his chest, upon the side of his head and throughout his left arm.

“Brent!” shouted Dolores.

The cowboy looked over at his sister. “I’ll get back safe.”

“I’ve scolded you before ‘bout not givin’ a proper goodbye.”

“I’m hopin’ this ain’t goodbye.”

“Give me a goddamn hug!”

Brent walked to Dolores, leaned over and put his right arm around her shoulders. His gun swung forward and clacked against the stock of her weapon.

Into the cowboy’s blood-soaked shirt, the woman said, “If you get shot…I…I’ll…I’ll—”

“I won’t.” Brent kissed her cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Dolores hugged him fiercely. “You’re my favorite always.”

“You too.”

The cowboy withdrew from his sister and walked to the eastern door, through which the dandy, Stevie and Patch Up had recently carried supplies. Using the tip of his nickel-plated revolver, Brent slid the iron bolt north. He stepped aside, and a gentle wind pushed the door open. From the water well to the distant horizon, the azure terrain appeared tranquil.

Brent followed his outthrust pistol into the open world and hastened to the rear of the fort. No weapons were discharged during his beeline.

In the swath of dirt that laid in-between the edifice and the sunken stable stood Deep Lakes. The azure light of dawn shone eerily in his eyes. From the neck of his unique bow jutted the steel tips of five arrows and stuck into the ground around him like wooden topiary were one hundred more shafts.

Brent holstered his revolver, reached the iron ladder that led to the top of the fort, stepped onto the lowest rung and climbed, sliding his good hand along the outer bar. The north wall sank.

Pained and weak, the cowboy reached the inclined roof (the angle of which blocked his view of the opposition), clambered onto the desiccated wood and crawled. Sweat dripped from curls of his brown hair, and the spyglass that depended from his neck swung back and forth. Four yards from the southern edge, he lowered himself to his belly and slid, serpentine. Splinters pierced his chest and left cheek. “Hell.”

Brent peered over the edge of the roof and saw a blue photograph that was the strange, funereal terrain. Chill winds carried the smells of charcoal, gunpowder, metal and burnt flesh, as well as the sound of the distant argument in which men shouted words that the cowboy did not understand. He considered removing the splinters from his face and body, but decided that they were not worth the effort.

A gunstock knocked thrice upon the ceiling.

“Next time I signal,” Long Clay said from below, “shove a stake deep into a captive’s rectum and leave it in.”

“Not me!” shouted the inverted Midwesterner. “Please. I helped you and…and…I didn’t know what Gris did to your sisters, I swear to—”

“It ain’t gonna be you,” said the cowboy.

“Thank you. Thank you.”

Brent slid to the southwest corner of the roof and peered over the edge. Suspended from an iron stake were filthy feet, shredded ankles, a gory phallus and a pale belly that hid the inverted man’s top half. The cowboy poked the captive’s left heel with the tip of his revolver.

“¡No! ¡Por favor, no!”

The man jerked and twisted, and Brent glimpsed his very distinct handlebar mustache.

This creature had raped Dolores.

“I ain’t gonna hesitate with you.” The cowboy withdrew from the edge of the roof, prostrated himself behind the incline and arrayed his stakes, magazines, repeater rifle and spyglass. He knocked thrice upon the ceiling. “Ready.”

“¡Escúchame!” shouted Long Clay. “¡Danos Gris!”

On the far side of the battlefield, the bickering opposition quietened.

A man with a heavy accent said, “We want our mens first. Trade.”

“No,” replied Long Clay. “Give us Gris and go home. After you’re gone, we’ll send the men. There will be no trade.”

“Then no Gris.”

Three knocks sounded upon the ceiling.

Brent thought of Dolores’s agony, gripped the two-foot long iron stake, went to the edge of the roof, placed the narrow end in-between the captive’s pale buttocks, poked his hairy rectum and thrust through rubbery guts until the sharp tip clicked against a hip bone.

The man’s shriek was an inhuman skirl.

Repulsed, Brent released the rod, retreated to safety and prostrated himself upon the wood. His hands were shaking, and his heart was pounding. A moment later, the protruding half of the iron stake clanked against the stone façade, and the mortally-sodomized captive shrieked anew.

The opposition yelled across the nascent graveyard, “¡Diablo! ¡Eres el Diablo!”

“Barbarian!”

“Evil gringo!”

The captive’s vocal cords ruptured, and his voice cut out.

Guns exploded. Bullets whistled over Brent’s head and cracked into the mountain wall. He flung his trigger guard and inched forward on his belly. Invisible death whistled above his back, while below his chest, Long Clay and Dolores fired through their slits.

Brent reached the southern edge and looked for a clear shot.

The iron clanked against the façade, and the mute man hissed.

“I got one,” Dolores called up from below.

Five arrows plummeted from the sky, directly behind the line of vehicles. A man screamed. Underneath the wagons and between the stagecoaches, guns thundered a reverberant polyrhythm.

Long Clay and Dolores fired continually.

A gun flashed inside of the turquoise stagecoach, and Brent aimed at the open window. He squeezed, flung his trigger guard and sent a second bullet after the first. A long rifle fell from the vehicle into the trench and was followed by the shootist.

Behind the cowboy, Deep Lakes released another quintet of arrows. The shafts flew into the sky, arced downward and fell behind enemy lines. A man yelled, “¡Puta, puta, puta!”

The wagons and stagecoaches shimmied upon their wheels.

Brent turned back to the Indian and yelled, “They’ve hid for cover in the vehicles!”

Deep Lakes adjusted his aim, sent arrows into the sky, notched five more and released.

The cowboy flung his trigger guard. As the spent shell clinked to the roof and rolled past his elbow, waist and feet he surveyed the vehicles through his spyglass, looking for a solid shot. In the middle of the line, the crimson stagecoach sank and rocked ponderously on its wheels.

“Watch the red one, far left,” Brent shouted, “it’s full up and I’m gonna tip it!” He aimed at the vehicle’s large rear wheel, fired, expelled the used cartridge and sent a second shot. Wooden spokes shattered, and the hub cracked loose. The vehicle sagged, jerked like a living animal and tilted toward the trench.

The door swung open.

Into the gaping portal, Brent, Dolores and Long Clay sent a twenty shot barrage. Two men wearing dark cherry suits spilled outside and fell into the trench.

“¡Roberto!” cried a bereft man. “¡Francisco!”

“Those’re Gris’s sons,” remarked Dolores from below. “We’ll get your whole goddamn family!” she yelled across the terrain. “We’ll kill all of you!”

Two shafts plummeted into the trench, five thudded into stagecoach roofs and three pierced wagon canopies. A man stumbled out into the open, unable to yell past the feathers of the arrow that he had swallowed.

“Hold fire,” ordered Long Clay.

Brent flung his trigger guard. The ejected shell clinked to the roof and rolled north.

“¡Escúchame!” shouted Long Clay. “¡Danos Gris!” The demand echoed across the battlefield and smelled like gunpowder. “Give us Gris or we’ll massacre all of you!”

“I will be out presently,” said a man who spoke English as precisely as the dandy and Samuel C. Upfield IV.

“That’s his voice,” Dolores said through her opening. “That’s Gris.”

Chapter VII

The Deep Defeat

Dolores Plugford looked beyond the azure veil of gunpowder and at the crimson stagecoach that was parked one hundred and fifteen yards south of the fort. Inside that distant vehicle was the man who had defeated her.

Sitting at the far end of the oaken dining room table, the one-eyed Spaniard nodded his head in approbation. “Jorge Calao complimented your beauty and amenability. And Eduardo Ramirez, who described you as affectionate, prefers you over every other woman in Catacumbas.”

“There ain’t no pleasure in any of it. None at all—it’s just…” Dolores rubbed her palms along the armrests of the stone chair in which she was seated. “It’s just easier not to fight sometimes.”

“That is exactly what I said to you three months earlier, when you first arrived.”

“Roast in Hell.”

“I ask for you to accept the fact that you are now my employee. If you do embrace your vocation, you will be treated well and granted the same privileges that—”

“I ain’t no whore. Never.”

A plate of shrimp and rice was set before the Spaniard and each of the six wraiths that sat beside him. Luminous eyes alternately observed the redheaded gringa and the steaming food.

“You are fucked by strangers,” Gris said to Dolores. “You are from a lower class background and are poorly educated. Should I return you to society, no man would ever want to marry you, and cancan dancing will not provide you with very much income once you are middle-aged.” The Spaniard unfolded his silk napkin and set it upon his lap. “The only thing that separates you from the other whores who work for me is that you have no say regarding what happens to you.” He lifted a silver fork and speared a pink shrimp that looked like an embryo. “I would prefer to treat you well. But first, you must accept that you are my employee.”

Gris put the shellfish into his mouth, chewed and swallowed.

The silent men picked up their forks, and the light from the candelabra flashed across polished silver.

Although Dolores knew that the quality of her life would be improved if she accepted Gris’s offer, the thought of acquiescence filled her with shame.

A plate of real food landed on the table in front her, and the rich smells of butter, garlic, onions, peppers and shrimp caused her to salivate. Presently, a glass of aromatic red wine materialized. For three months Dolores had subsisted on sour chicken soup that was distributed by a pump through a pig’s intestine.

Gris thrust four tines into a large pink shrimp. “I am pleased to see that you are taking my offer seriously.”

Dolores ate the proffered meal and summarily accepted her forced vocation.

Three weeks later, she attacked one of her regular customers and had her foot shot off.

“You’ve got ten seconds!” warned Long Clay.

Dolores Plugford returned from her grim recollections and surveyed the world that opposed the barrel of her rifle. Horizontal rays of sunlight brightened the fog and turned charred corpses into obsidian abstractions. From the open portal of the crimson stagecoach emerged a man in a white suit that was spattered with blood.

“Go to the other animals!” yelled a man from within the turquoise stagecoach.

“Don’t fire,” Long Clay told the siblings. “We need to be sure.”

“Okay,” said Brent.

The gunfighter handed his telescopic sight to Dolores. “Identify him.”

Holding the optical device before her right eye, the redheaded woman looked across the battlefield. The white-haired, one-eyed Spaniard stood at the edge of the trench, looking down at his dead progeny. Hatred filled the woman’s belly. “That’s him.”

Dolores released the telescopic sight and grabbed her rifle.

Gris dropped into the trench, out of view.

Long Clay snatched the weapon from Dolores’s hands and cast it across the fort. “A bad shot or an injury will prolong the engagement.” He picked up his telescopic sight and reattached it to his long-range rifle. “Gris! Get out of the trench!”

“I want to shoot him,” said Dolores. “After…after what he made me—I get to do it myself.”

“Revenge isn’t a tactic.”

The crippled woman from Texas would not allow another man to take something from her ever again. With both hands, she seized the barrel of the telescopic rifle. “Give it over!”

The gunfighter grabbed the woman’s left wrist and twisted. “Let go.”

“Gris just bolted,” Brent remarked from the roof.

Long Clay slapped Dolores.

The woman capsized her stool and fell to the ground. “Bastard!” The fort wobbled before her eyes, and her left cheek stung.

“What the hell’s goin’ on down there?!?” shouted Brent.

Long Clay threw a cold look at Dolores. “Don’t make this worse.”

If she told Brent what had happened, he would climb down from the roof, race into the fort and confront a man who could easily kill him. “Nothin’.” This was not the first time she had lied for the benefit of a Plugford man.

“You sure?” asked Brent.

“I’m sure.”

Long Clay pointed his gun through the crenellation. “Brent. Where is he?”

“He jumped into a crater.”

“Which one?”

“On the west. I’m not sure which exactly—he moved fast.”

Deep Lakes appeared in the east entrance, entered the fort, closed the door, slid the iron bolt north, strode beside Dolores and helped her onto her stool. His dark eyes noted the scarlet mark upon her left cheek, and his face grew grave. “Long Clay.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t ever hit J.L.’s daughter.”

“I had a reason.”

“No you didn’t. Strike her again and our partnership will end.”

“Fine. Take a look outside.”

The Indian kissed the woman’s stinging cheek, stood up and walked to the far side of the south wall.

Dolores looked though her slit. Pulled by hasty horses, the wagons and the turquoise stagecoach rolled downhill toward the woodlands. “They’re leavin’,” remarked the redheaded woman, perplexed. The significance of the opposition’s descent struck her a moment later. “Brent!” A tingling hope electrified her nerves. “They’re leavin’—they’re runnin’ off!”

“I see ‘em!” her brother enthused from the roof. “Now it’s only Gris we gotta get.”

Hundreds of yards south of the fort, hooves thundered and wooden wheels spun. The opposing force retreated, careening.

“I don’t like this,” Long Clay said to the Indian.

“Nor do I.” Deep Lakes fitted three arrows to his bow.

“But we won,” opined Dolores, confused by the duo’s concerns. “It’s only Gris out there.”

The triangular stock of a repeater rifle appeared before her face.

“Take it,” said Long Clay.

Dolores reclaimed the weapon.

“Shoot him if you see him,” the gunfighter announced, “it no longer matters if it’s clean or in pieces.”

“Okay,” replied the siblings.

Dolores extracted the rifle’s depleted magazine, dropped it to the ground, slotted a replacement, flung the trigger guard and pointed the barrel south. The retreating force was more than a mile away, and on the near side of the trench, the riven land was still. Three black cruciforms that were vultures wheeled in the dark blue sky.

Brent inquired, “Should we go out and hunt for—”

Two black lines shot up from a southern crater. The oblongs, each orbited by circle of white fire, spun end-over-end, landed fifty yards south of the fort, rolled two feet and exploded. Dolores squinted and was pushed back from her slit. Dawn sunlight turned the cloud of dust into a brilliant flower that obscured half of the horizon.

“Hell,” remarked Brent from above.

Long Clay did not fire, nor did Deep Lakes release.

“Brent,” the gunfighter asked, “can you see past that?”

“No.”

Somewhere behind the brilliant flower, a gun resounded.

Deep Lakes stumbled back from his slit and clutched his gory throat. Three shafts thudded into the ceiling, and the Indian fell to the ground, gurgling.

“Oh God.”

Dolores pointed her rifle in the general direction of the unseen report, fired, expelled the spent shell and sent another bullet. Four red oblongs flew from the opposite side of the brilliant white flower and landed less than ten yards from the fort.

“No,” muttered Dolores.

The dynamite exploded. White fire and dirt flew through the slit, splashed Dolores’s face and knocked her from her stool. The floor slammed into her back and concussed her head. Along the façade, the captives shrieked. Gunshots rang out.

Unable to see, Dolores discarded her rifle. She spat out a paste of gore and sand, scooped detritus from her tingling face and tugged upon a cord that was anchored to the back of her left eye socket.

“No.”

Guns exploded pell-mell in the world of men.

“Your entire family shall perish!” The voice belonged to Gris.

Footsteps pounded across the fort. A hissing stick smacked Dolores Plugford’s nose, bounced to the floor and rolled.

“Whore.”

Chapter VIII

The Application of Hooked Beaks

Prone atop the southwest corner of the roof, Brent Plugford wiped grit from his face and ripped a splinter lose. “Hell.” The brilliant limbo of sunlit dust enveloped him like heaven collapsed, and he could not see anything but light.

“Brent!” Dolores shouted from the opposite side of the fort. “Don’t get killed! I love y—”

Thunder boomed. The eastern half of the roof erupted, and mortar, wood and bricks flew into the air. Brent was hurled from the west side into a bright white purgatory. Behind him, the fort shrank. The sere ground slammed into his left shoulder, and his right knee popped.

Brent lost consciousness and awakened a moment later, ears ringing and pains singing. On the far side of the blasted fort, stones and wood thudded against the ground. He prayed that Dolores had somehow survived the explosion. “Please,” he said to the dirt.

The badly injured man knew that he would be physically incapable of chasing after Gris, and so he devised a simple tactic that he hoped would conclude the internecine engagement. He rolled onto his stomach and crawled, agonizingly, toward the body of Jose Pastillo, the vaquero who had killed Stevie. Brent surmised that the fellow (like the Midwesterner and others) had joined Gris’s crew without knowing the real reason why the battle had first begun and what was at stake. “It’s like a war,” mumbled the cowboy as he reached the corpse.

Brent put his good hand underneath Jose Pastillo’s nape, sat him upright and covered his gory head with a hat. “There.” Presently, the cowboy claimed the fallen revolver, crawled into the graveyard, hid behind an unmarked stone, set the purloined weapon down and withdrew his own nickel-plated pistol. Twenty feet southwest of his position in the cemetery sat the corpse, hunched forward and ready to play checkers.

Shaking and dizzy, Brent monitored the riven land that laid south of the body. Nothing moved, excepting brilliant celestial smoke and vultures.

“¡Ayudame!” cried the cowboy.

An unseen man said, “¿Quién es ese?”

Brent waited in silence. He did not repeat his cry for help, which likely had some flaw in terms of enunciation, despite how many times he had heard the captives wail it from the façade.

Vultures applied their sharp beaks to obsidian corpses. Throughout the tableau, the hooked chisels of scavengers echoed.

A narrow shadow spilled from the southwest corner of the fort and inquired “¿Quién es ese?” Footsteps ground grit slowly, like the jaw of an old man eating peanuts.

Brent raised his nickel-plated pistol and aimed it at the elongate black stain, which was sixty feet away.

“I admit,” the unseen man said from behind the fort, “that I imprisoned two women and forced them to work as whores so that they could pay off your family’s debt. That was my crime.” Hard shoes ground grit, and the shadow lengthened. “You killed and tortured innocent men. You murdered three of my sons. You murdered a pregnant woman, who was my daughter-in-law, and you murdered her baby, who was a beautiful girl. You murdered a baby girl!” The footsteps and the shadow stopped. “Face me with dignity if you have any, you vile, myopic and uneducated American!”

The cowboy could not contain his anger. “You stole and raped my sisters, you dumb hypocrite!” Vulture beaks chipped crystalline corpses. “You don’t deserve no goddamn dign—”

Gris flung his left arm around the corner of the fort and fired twice.

Jose Pastillo’s body fell over.

Brent squeezed rapidly. Two bullets cracked against the fort wall. The third shot impacted Gris’s exposed forearm and knocked his gun into the air. When the cowboy’s hammer clicked upon empty shells, he dropped his weapon.

Gris drew a second pistol.

Brent reached for Jose Pastillo’s revolver.

A gunshot flashed within the west crenellation. The bullet cracked against the rock in Gris’s face and sent it deep into his brain. His remaining eye bulged and gore squirted from his nose. The Spaniard stumbled forward, dropped to his knees and slammed to the ground. Three more bullets cracked his spinal column.

“Dolores?” Hope fluttered within Brent’s chest. “That you?”

Trailing dark gray smoke and covered with black soot, Long Clay emerged from the fort. The overall shape of his body was somehow different, and he lacked his right hand.

Although the cowboy already knew the answer to his question, he asked, “Is Dolores okay?”

“She’s dead.”

Emptiness filled Brent.

Coughing up blood and dark bits, the misshapen gunfighter hobbled toward the sunken stable.

“Is Yvette okay?”

Long Clay slid into the ground.

“I need to check on Yvette,” Brent said to himself. “See if she’s still…see if she’s okay.” He clutched the top of a tombstone with his good arm and pulled himself to his feet. “I’m com—” His right knee buckled, and a grave marker struck the side of his head.

Lying upon the cemetery ground, Brent Plugford stared up at the blue sky, where not one cloud trespassed. “We didn’t deserve none of this.” He looked away from the empty vault. “We didn’t.” The hooked beaks of vultures clicked against crystalline corpses and unearthed red crystals.

Darkness consumed everything.

Part V

The Buried Phonographs

Chapter I

Their Small Purgatory

The four air holes on the west wall glowed with the golden light of sunset.

Yvette Upfield wiped flecks of dirt and dried blood from Mr. Stromler’s blonde mustache, placed her fingertips upon his mouth, parted the two desiccated worms that were his lips, brought the nozzle of her canteen to the opening and watched the gentleman unconsciously swallow the water that she slowly poured into him.

Envious and with an idea, Henry stalked across the small chamber, sat beside the recumbent recipient of fluid, unfurled its long pink tongue and panted. The canine agendum was clear.

Yvette ignored the animal’s request and poured a second tablespoon of water into Mr. Stromler’s mouth. His fuzzy throat pulsated.

Frustrated, the beast reclaimed its tongue and whimpered. The immediate acoustics of the prisoners’ cell turned the complaint into a sharp metallic sound.

“Silencio,” commanded Yvette.

Henry eyed the woman, glanced at the canteen and tilted its head, perplexed.

“We’re running out.” The choirmaster liked dogs—and had a strong affinity for this particular creature—but she could not prioritize the life of an animal over the life of a man.

Yvette poured more water into Mr. Stromler’s mouth. A long pink tongue lashed at the fluid, and the blonde woman laughed for the first time since she had heard the explosions. “You sneak.”

Feigning innocence, the animal raised its left paw and unfurled its tongue.

“You’ve convinced me.” Yvette took the lid from the top of the stew pot, set it upon the ground and poured out two tablespoons of water.

Henry walked directly across the gentleman—upon his head, chest and stomach—and lapped lustily.

Mr. Stromler opened his eyes and surveyed the dark enclosure. Upon his face was a look of utter bewilderment.

Yvette sat beside the man. “How are you feeling?”

“Why am—” The gentleman coughed and winced. “Why am I here? This is…the prisoners’ cell, correct?” His voice creaked like dry wood.

“That’s right. After you were shot, they brought you in here.” Yvette hesitated for a moment. “We’re locked in.”

“Locked in?” the gentleman repeated with disbelief.

“Yes.”

Mr. Stromler leaned forward, grimaced in pain and laid himself back down. “Damnation does my shoulder hurt.” He placed his right palm to the bullet wound and grunted. “Is the bullet still inside?”

“It was removed before you were brought in. And the injury’s healing up fine—doesn’t seem to be infected.”

“Thank you for tending to it.”

“You’re welcome.” During the ministrations, Yvette had used only eleven tablespoons of water.

“How long have we been confined…here?”

“Three days.”

“Jesus Christ.” After a long silence, Mr. Stromler inquired, “What happened outside—with the engagement?”

“I don’t know. I heard some gunfire and…and some explosions.” Yvette had also heard Dolores scream out what were presumably her last words, but this was nothing that she could calmly discuss. “I don’t know what happened.”

“Nobody has come for us?”

“Not yet.”

“Then your family must have been…” Mr. Stromler did not complete his awful surmise.

“That seems likely.” As each day passed, Yvette’s ability to believe that any of her family had survived was weakened by logic. What could possibly explain their absence, other than death or captivity? She stuffed away her morbid ruminations and raised the canteen to the gentleman’s lips. “Drink some more.”

“Why?” Mr. Stromler’s question conveyed an immense despair.

“Because you should.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Yvette replied, “if you don’t keep going through the bad times, things will never get better.”

Tears leaked from the corners of Mr. Stromler’s eyes, ran down his temples and disappeared within his blonde hair.

“Don’t waste water.” The choirmaster wiped the gentleman’s face. “We’re low.”

Mr. Stromler nodded his head. “I am sorry.”

“Drink some more.” Yvette raised the canteen nozzle and saw Henry advance. “What’s the Spanish for sit down? I forgot.”

“Sientate.”

The dog placed its rump upon the stone.

“I have an adversary,” remarked Mr. Stromler.

“Henry won’t hurt you.”

The choirmaster drizzled two tablespoons of water into the gentleman’s mouth, and he swallowed. “That’s all I want to give you right now.”

“Thank you.”

Yvette placed a stopper into the nozzle, rose to her feet and set the vessel deep within the highest cubby, far beyond Henry’s reach.

Mr. Stromler remarked, “You are looking far, far healthier than when last I saw you.”

“Thank you. I’ve just been resting and eating—Patch Up’s stew was real good, before it went sour.” When Yvette said the negro’s name, the gentleman’s eyes sparkled. She could not yet bear to ask what had happened.

A moment of uncomfortable silence passed.

“Is there a place that I may…” inquired Mr. Stromler, sheepishly.

“To make water? There’s hole over there.” Yvette pointed to the northeast corner of the cell. “I won’t look.”

“Mrs. Upfield?”

Yvette opened her eyes and saw less. The chamber was black. In this drear perdition, she was a bodiless phantom, and her hideous memories were unconquerable.

“Are you awake?” inquired Mr. Stromler.

“Yes.” The choirmaster was a blind and shivering wraith.

“There is somebody outside.” The gentleman’s voice had a hysterical edge.

“Might’ve been vultures or coyotes—they fooled me at first.”

“I heard footsteps, a person walking, and also—”

Something rustled beyond the air holes. After a moment of quietude, metal scraped against stone.

A chill tingled Yvette’s nape.

“Who’s there?” inquired Mr. Stromler.

The coarse scraping grew louder and abruptly stopped.

Something clicked upon the stone bed, rolled and settled against Yvette’s right shin. The woman reached down and felt a small hollow cylinder. “It’s paper.”

“A note?” inquired Mr. Stromler.

“Maybe.” Through the air holes, Yvette said, “We don’t got no—we don’t have any light in here.”

A guttural grunt was succeeded by the sound of metal scraping against stone.

Yvette cupped her hands near the air holes, and a sharp point pricked her left palm. “Ouch!” She withdrew her hands. “You poked me.”

In the darkness outside, a muted vocalization that contained the letter ‘s’ occurred. A crunching noise followed, which Yvette soon recognized as the sound of footsteps.

“He’s leaving.”

“See what he pushed through,” suggested Mr. Stromler.

Yvette patted the area below the air holes until the tip of her right pinky landed upon an anomaly. She picked up the folded item and fingered its ribbed contents. “It’s a matchbook—half of one.”

“Good.”

“Take them.” The choirmaster pressed the matches into the gentleman’s hands. “You light one when I say to.”

“I shall.”

Yvette rubbed her palm, unrolled the small scroll and pinched its top and bottom. “Okay.”

A bright yellow arrow hissed beside the blue skirt that covered her legs, flared red and settled upon orange. Yvette squinted and looked directly at the bottom of the letter.

Sincerely,

Samuel C. Upfield IV

“Oh Lord Jesus.” A wide array of conflicting emotions surged through Yvette and electrified her blood. “It’s from my husband.”

Mr. Stromler’s face brightened.

Holding the curved letter in her tingling hands, Yvette read.

16, 17 or perhaps 18 August, 1902

Dear Yvette,

I will be brief.

My jaw was shattered, and thus I must communicate to you through the written word. I have very much work to do, and so I will only compose this letter during the brief respites that I am required—by my weakened condition—to take from my physical labors. (I do regret that I have not the time to write this communication in the calligraphic style that you so admire.)

I am currently excavating the rubble that blocks the door to the prison cell tenanted by you and Nathaniel Stromler.

As you must realize by now, most of your family has perished, including your father’s house negro and the native. Although the current location of the evil gunfighter is unknown, I was told that he was badly wounded in the engagement—physically altered in a manner that is difficult to credit. Brent survived, but is currently incapacitated and in my care. After a period of

Darkness crowded the flame, and the match tip became a tiny red coal.

“Can you light another?” asked Yvette. “I didn’t finish.”

A flaming bug leapt across the darkness and became a glowing amber teardrop.

After a period of unconsciousness that lasted for one or two days, your brother crawled toward my residence, which was a trunk within the family wagon. He freed me and collapsed.

I had not eaten in several days (my cache of walnuts and raisins had dwindled two days earlier) and was too weak to walk uphill to the fortress, much less perform the menial labors that were required. After a necessary respite, I regained some strength and commenced the excavation.

I hope to reach you and Mr. Stromler in two days, but I dare not risk overexerting myself, since three lives now depend upon my efforts.

Although I occasionally suffer from hallucinations, I am fully aware that my current efforts will not balance out my odious crimes. You may dismiss me the very moment I am no longer of use to you, or you may have me jailed or hanged. I do not expect you to accept me back into your life, but I am grateful that I have an opportunity to aid you and your family in some way.

Sincerely,

Samuel C. Upfield IV

“Brent’s still alive,” said Yvette. “I didn’t think that any of them—” She lost her words.

The flame neared Mr. Stromler’s pinched fingers. “We are going to be rescued.” A smile appeared beneath his thick mustache. “We are going to live.”

Eyes stinging with joyful tears, Yvette nodded her head. “We’re going to.”

“And your husband is still alive.”

Yvette nodded, but did not feign any joy.

The flame exhaled a plume of smoke and died. Against the outside of the cell door, the rubble shifted.

“That’s my husband.” Yvette was glad that the darkness hid her face from Mr. Stromler.

Chapter II

The Man Who is Samuel C. Upfield IV

When she opened her eyes, Yvette Upfield saw the four blue dots that declared dawn to the inhabitants of the prisoners’ cell. Outside the door, the stones rumbled like a slow avalanche, although she felt more than heard their deep concussions. The dog sat before the sealed exit as if it expected a widely-heralded theater event.

Yvette raised her head and looked down her body. Upon her pelvis laid a tiny white tube. She seized the little scroll, sat upright and opened the communication. Wind blew through the luminous air holes, and the paper trembled.

Dear Yvette and Mr. Stromler,

I briefly interrupted the excavation so that I might raise a bucket of water from the well. I shall insert the muzzle of a rifle into an air hole and pour the gathered fluid into the weapon’s open (and of course empty) chamber to facilitate its distribution.

Please call out to me whenever you are ready to receive a fresh supply of water.

In the near future, I shall be able to provide you with carrots, but currently their diameters are too large to transcend the air holes. I shall endeavor the auxiliary task of whittling roots during those regrettable moments that I am forced to recuperate from my exertions.

Sincerely,

Samuel C. Upfield IV

Yvette looked down at her slumbering cellmate, the mending gentleman, and decided not to call out for water until after he had awakened. Eight months of suffering in Catacumbas had taught her the value of sleep and dreams.

She rose to her feet, stretched, claimed the canteen from the cubby and poured water into the inverted pot lid. Henry’s attention was diverted from the spectacle of the closed door.

The twenty-six-year-old woman who had been born in Shoulderstone, Texas and lived for seven years as a choirmaster in San Francisco summed and divided hundreds of beautiful and terrible memories in an attempt to determine what role Samuel C. Upfield IV would have in her future. As the dog lashed the water Yvette envied the simplicity of its existence.

No matter what she decided, she would not have this conversation through an air hole, but when she finally saw her husband’s face.

Although they were peppered with dust, the impossibly sweet and lush carrots that Yvette and Mr. Stromler devoured at twilight were the most delicious vegetables that she had ever eaten. (Eight months of wretched chicken soup certainly enhanced the flavor of all other comestibles.)

As the night progressed, the pair enjoyed water with abandon, although Yvette thought it tasted a little bit like rifle.

Cascading stones boomed and rumbled.

Yvette opened her eyes and found that she was adrift within the absolute darkness of an incorporeal hour. Rubble clicked and skipped upon itself and was succeeded by a heavy silence. She wondered if her husband had been injured or buried alive and was ashamed that thoughts of his agony elicited no small amount of joy. To the Savior, Yvette quietly prayed.

Presently, rocks shifted upon their siblings, and the sounds of Samuel C. Upfield IV’s excavation resumed.

Illuminated by four circles of amber twilight, Yvette and Mr. Stromler unrolled the cylinders of bread that had passed through the air holes earlier that afternoon.

Stones rumbled outside the cell. The sentry barked, put its left forepaw to the door and scratched.

Yvette and Mr. Stromler observed the agitated dog.

A fist knocked upon the door.

The choirmaster started and dropped her cylinder of bread, as did the gentleman. Nearby, the canine proffered a delighted woof.

“Please do come in!” Mr. Stromler rose to his feet.

Yvette stood from her stone bed and pulled oily curls of blonde hair from her face.

Henry gamboled in excited circles.

A stone clanked against iron and startled all three of the cell’s inhabitants. The metallic concussion resounded a second time.

“Perhaps the bolt is stuck?” suggested Mr. Stromler.

Yvette nodded. Her mouth and throat were dry, and her heart tugged. All of her lengthy ruminations had been fruitless, and she still did not know what she was going to say to her husband when they were finally reunited.

Stone clanked against metal.

Yvette imagined embracing her husband, and she felt a warm light permeate her body. She envisioned pushing him from the edge of an impossibly tall cliff, and she felt a just satisfaction. Her passions were a seesaw.

Henry snatched up, twice chewed and swallowed a cylinder of bread.

The metal bolt clanked, whined, cracked and clinked upon the ground. Suddenly, the thick door retreated half of an inch.

Yvette’s muscles tightened.

The door was drawn open. Its bottom scraped across the stone floor, and its hinges creaked.

Leaning against the doorframe and wearing a baggy gold-and-brown striped suit that had once belonged to Patch Up was a five-foot-four-inch blonde man, limned by twilight rays, which shone through the exploded fort walls. The fellow’s misshapen face was covered with dust, and his broken jaw was held in a silk sling that was stained with such an abundance of dried brown blood that it resembled a used diaper. Two blue marbles that were bleary eyes sparkled in the middle of the lumpy gray visage, and an embedded rock protruded from his forehead.

Yvette was immobilized by the piteous sight of Samuel C. Upfield IV.

Mr. Stromler cleared his throat. “I shall leave you two alone.” He passed beside the small man—who was ten inches his inferior—and exited the fort through the exploded south wall.

No words came to Yvette. She stared at the miserable little betrayer who was her husband, and her internal war of hatred and sympathy did not abate. After a full minute of useless deliberation, the choirmaster regained the power of speech and announced, “I want to see Brent.”

Samuel nodded his head, tightened the sash that fastened Patch Up’s trousers to his narrow waist, turned and limped away.

Yvette walked through the door of the prisoners’ cell and into the blasted fort, a blackened and shapeless enclosure that was wholly unrecognizable as the place wherein she had read the confessional essay, argued with Dolores and later apologized. She navigated piles of rubble that were taller than her husband and turned west.

After six days of dark confinement, Yvette stepped outside. Unseen hands release her spine, and she knew His presence in the twilight rays that turned her skin into gold. Tears that had many meanings came to her eyes, and the impossibly beautiful panorama scintillated. To God, the choirmaster quietly said, “Thank you.”

The heels of Samuel’s dilapidated loafers clicked upon a ramp that led down to the stable in which healthy horses stood amongst beasts that had starved to death. Yvette descended.

Presently, the mute prince stopped behind the family wagon and pointed a purple fingernail.

Yvette passed her husband, climbed into the canopy and walked over to Brent, who was bandaged and asleep inside a clean bedroll. She knelt beside an array of cups, which contained water, mashed carrots and wet bread, and touched her left wrist to her brother’s forehead. His temperature felt normal. “No fever.” The cowboy’s respirations were even and his skin was dry. “Seems like he’s doing okay.”

A lumpy gray head tilted forward and back.

Yvette seated herself upon the wagon bed, directly beside her older brother.

The diminutive man turned away and walked south.

“Samuel,” said Yvette.

The departing figure stopped, but did not turn around.

“I spent a lot of time thinking about what to tell you and how I feel,” Yvette said, “but I still haven’t figured it out.” She looked deep within herself and admitted, “I don’t know that I can ever look at you and see somebody other than the weak fool that got my family killed. The cringing coward that got me raped. A man who betrayed everything important.”

The little man nodded his bandaged head.

“Maybe there was nothing else you could do once you got in deep with Gris,” suggested Yvette. “If you went against him, you would’ve been killed by his gunmen like he said, and Dolores and I would still have been taken to Catacumbas.”

Samuel’s hands were trembling.

“Maybe that’s the case—once Gris had you hooked, you had to do what you did.” Yvette’s heart was pounding. “But I don’t believe that. Not right now and maybe…maybe not ever.”

The little man nodded his bandaged head.

“But I know that I want to believe it,” confessed Yvette. “I know that I want to believe you didn’t have a choice so that I can have you back in my life. I just don’t know that I can.”

Samuel’s back and shoulders were shaking.

“I want to sit here with my big brother.” Yvette took Brent’s left hand. “Alone.”

Presently, the piteous man strode up the log ramp, reached the top and was struck by the horizontal rays of the setting sun. The southern sky was the exact same color as Samuel’s illuminated right half, and Yvette was only able to see his shadowed remainder.

Chapter III

The Benign Specter

The man who could not remember his name saw a white pyramidal rock upon the ground, determined that he must reach that far-off destination, dug the fingers of his good hand into the sere dirt and pulled his agonized carcass forward. Across the dirt, three useless appendages draggled. Coarse grit abraded his skin, and the pyramidal rock moved one inch closer to his right eye.

Upon the other side of the stone and covered with dirt was a dead cowboy who gripped his large intestine as if it were a line to a sunken anchor.

The man who could not remember his name passed out and awakened in a dark place, lying upon his back. He knew that he must turn onto his stomach and continue toward his destination, the wagon, wherein sat the black trunk that contained his only hope.

“Are you awake?” asked somebody from somewhere.

An arrow of yellow fire flashed, flared red, traveled into a hanging lantern and became a radiant orb that illuminated the wagon canopy. The dandy shook the match and gazed upon the recumbent cowboy.

Brent Plugford croaked, “I believe it was…the other way ‘round…last time.”

“I prefer this arrangement.”

“Yank.”

The bushy blonde mustache atop the dandy’s lips withdrew, revealing teeth. “How are you feeling?”

“Deep pain all over, but no fever anymore. And I got a little strength.” Brent surveyed his surroundings. “Where’s Yvette?”

The dandy’s face became grave. “She is inside the fort.”

Alarmed, Brent asked, “What’s she doin’ in there? Ain’t no reason for her to go back inside that place.”

“She is gathering together the remains of your family.”

Brent leaned forward. Sharp blades skewered his wounds, and he collapsed. “Hell.”

“Be mindful of your injuries.”

“She shouldn’t be in there—doin’ that.”

“I agree,” the dandy replied, “but when Mr. Upfield and I offered to help her, she forbade us.”

“Sounds like she’s feeling better.”

“She is unquestionably the halest member of our quartet.”

“Yvette’s always healed up quick,” remarked Brent. “Like a lizard.”

The cowboy and the dandy were quiet, and the scraping sounds that emanated from the fort unpleasantly filled the void. Although Brent could not offer his sister any physical assistance at this time, he desperately wanted to help her, and he ruminated on the matter while he drank water and ate mashed carrots.

Presently, an idea occurred to him. “There was a surprise that we brought down for the girls. I think it could help Yvette while she’s doin’ what she’s doin’. Will you get it to her?”

“Certainly.”

A painful journey brought Brent across the wagon bed and to its edge, where he could see the new moon and old stars that hung in the vault. Inside the fort, metal scraped against stone. Something cracked, and the cowboy wondered if it was a burnt part of somebody that he loved.

Nathaniel and Samuel carried the wooden box to the west wall and entered the blasted enclosure. Metal scraped against stone.

“Leave me alone.” Yvette’s voice was ragged with fatigue and grief.

“Brent asked us to bring this to you,” stated the dandy. “If you do not want to use it, we shall take it away.”

“What is—” Yvette stopped herself. “They brought this?” She sounded surprised. “I…I can’t believe they brought it all the way here…from San Francisco.”

“Brent thought it might make…your task…a little less dark.”

“It might,” said Yvette. “Please take it out of the box.”

The cowboy heard the squeaks of four tiny hinges and the insectile clicks that the handle made when it was wound clockwise.

Yvette asked, “Did they bring, ‘His Waves Shall Carry Us Home?’”

“Mr. Upfield has already readied that specific cylinder.”

John Lawrence Plugford had planned to play music and dance with his daughters after they had been rescued, and although this was not to be, Brent hoped that the phonograph could at least give his sister some small comfort during her morbid endeavor.

“I’d like to hear it,” said Yvette. “Please.”

Henry barked.

The waltz that Brent had not heard since his sister’s wedding celebration emanated from the lantern-illuminated openings of the fort. Like a benign specter, the music of strings, woodwinds and piano drifted across the riven land.

Hard-soled shoes traversed the rubble, and Brent looked to the blasted east side of the edifice. Yvette emerged, covered with soot, but looking far healthier than when last he had seen her.

“Thank you!” the choirmaster called down.

“You’re welcome!” Although it hurt Brent to raise his voice, he added, “I’m sorry I ain’t fit to help!”

“You just did!” Yvette reentered the fort and to the inhabitants said, “Please leave me alone.”

Gentlemen, tall and short, emerged from the west wall.

The fifth time Yvette listened to the song, she sang along with the melodies.

“She has a beautiful voice,” the dandy remarked over a cup of steaming tea.

“She does.” Brent laid down upon his bedroll. “She always could sing pretty.” He shut his eyes. “It’s a gift.”

The sounds of Yvette’s sad labors were almost wholly obscured by the music, and on the eleventh repetition of the waltz, Brent Plugford fell asleep and had a dream in which his mother sang a beautiful lullaby about the expansive life of a cowboy who traveled the great landscape.

Chapter IV

The Embers of Nathaniel Stromler

The fort shrank.

On the left side of Nathaniel Stromler loomed the sheer mountain wall, the cyclopean barrier against which he had almost been crushed. Ahead of him was the eastern horizon, a black sky peppered with stars that he no longer recognized. He rode home, wounded, disenchanted and unsure.

The tan mare had not survived the engagement (the injured animal had died of thirst while tethered to a stable post), and so Nathaniel rode upon the spotted colt that had previously been owned by Stevie Plugford, whose incomplete remains were with those of his family inside the black trunk that Samuel C. Upfield IV had occupied for the major part of nineteen hundred-and-two.

Ten yards south of the tall gentleman, the green Plugford wagon rolled a parallel easterly course. Yvette drove the four horses with Patch Up’s whip and Brent rested upon the bench directly beside her. Pressed to the cowboy’s left thigh was the sparkling and sweaty black nose of the slumbering circus dog. A substantial distance away from the vehicle and traveling in the same direction was the diminutive blonde man, atop a little brown palfrey that had once belonged to a member of the opposition.

The unfamiliar celestial bodies dimmed, and, as the sky became royal blue, the land flattened. Nathaniel drank coffee from his flask and yawned the moment he was done.

Directly ahead of the caravan, the hidden sun showed its brilliant scalp.

“Mr. Stromler,” Yvette said from the driver’s bench.

Nathaniel reined his colt beside the vehicle. “Yes?”

The woman pointed her whip at the train of horses behind the family wagon, all of which had been owned by the opposition. “Brent and I would like to give you the extra animals.”

“Thank you, but that is unnecessary.”

“We don’t have any more money,” Yvette explained, “but we’d like to give you more than what was promised—especially considering all that happened to you.”

Nathaniel could not accept any charity from the destroyed family.

“Each should fetch you a hundred and forty dollars,” Yvette continued, “except that black mustang, who’s pretty old and not very valuable.”

Shaking his head, the gentleman replied, “I am afraid that—”

“Please take ‘em,” implored Brent. “Let my sister and me do one good thing for someone in all this horrible mess. Help you out with your hotel.”

Nathaniel knew that he had no choice but to accept the gift. “Thank you.”

Brent lifted the brim of his cowboy hat and looked at the gentleman. “If you ever need help—with anything—you get in touch with me. I’ll be at the Plugford ranch with my sister over in Shoulderstone for a good long while. Maybe permanent, dependin’ on how my injuries settle.”

“Thank you for your offer.”

“It’s genuine true.”

“I know.”

Leesville emerged from the eastern horizon at half past five. Riding the spotted colt and trailing six additional horses, Nathaniel shook hands with Brent and Yvette and waved at Mr. Upfield. The little blonde man did not lift his gaze from the dirt.

The gentleman rode to the Sable ranch, which laid at the southwestern perimeter of town, and sold his motley train of steeds to the skinny, lavishly-bearded proprietor for eight hundred and fifty dollars, which was the very first offer. They spat in their hands, slapped palms together and shook thrice.

Isaac Sable picked a piece of corn from the waterfall of gray curls that comprised his beard and remarked, “Some folks said you’d taken a permanent weekend.” He ate the kernel. “Glad to see you back in Leesville.”

Although Nathaniel felt as if the major part of himself had not returned, he said, “Thank you.”

The gentleman rode the spotted colt along the central avenue and passed by the blacksmith shop where he had met the Plugfords and first stared down the gunfighter who eventually shot him. Today the town seemed small and unreal—a child’s toy of civilization in a huge and barbarous world.

Nathaniel guided his horse toward the southwestern part of Leesville, which was an area that he had avoided for many months. A few quizzical faces eyed his spotted colt, upon which there remained several brown bloodstains, and two customers from the cobbler shop called out to him, but he disregarded the citizens’ solicitations and stared straight ahead.

The horse carried its introspective rider to the end of the avenue and was reined to a halt beside Stromler’s Very High Quality Hotel. Silent and still, the gentleman studied the exposed rooms and warped halls of the incomplete hotel, a place that had been accosted by sand, rain, wind, tumbleweeds, coyotes, vagrants and six seasons.

Nathaniel Stromler looked at his destroyed dream, and he felt nothing.

He tugged upon his reins and guided his horse away from the sundered edifice. The shadow that he trailed was long.

Nathaniel hoped that the woman whom he had loved not so very long ago would better affect his dim embers. Directly at the setting sun, he hastened his tired animal.

The spotted colt appraised its whickering neighbors as it walked into the stall that the tan mare had previously tenanted. Nathaniel shut the beast inside, stepped back and wiped dust from his blue suit, which still smelled like horse and perspiration (and horse perspiration), but at least was not brown with blood, as was his yellow riding outfit, or saturated with noisome scorpion-wrought excreta, as was his black tuxedo. He shattered the wan visage that was reflected in the trough and splashed water upon his dry, dusty skin. Wiping his hands upon his trousers, he walked toward the door.

Nathaniel emerged from the stable and strode up the pebble pathway, toward the dark square that was the Footman’s house. A silhouetted man whom he recognized as the yard negro, Sir, turned away from him without a salutation.

A distant voice boomed, “How many days go into a week?”

Nathaniel surveyed the façade and saw, upon the west porch, the telltale glow of Ezekiel’s pipe.

“So that’s the problem, eh? You don’t know how many days go into a week?” The cattle rancher rocked in his chain-suspended bench, and the pipe bowl became an arc of red light. “I’ve overrated schools back east.”

Nathaniel had no interest in squabbling with Ezekiel and thus ignored the jibe.

“The answer’s seven,” the cattle rancher stated, “not ten.” The pipe bowl brightened and illuminated two angry eyebrows.

“Good evening, Mr. Footman,” replied Nathaniel.

“Harriet!” cried Ezekiel.

“Yes?” the woman replied through the kitchen window.

“I think Mr. Stromler forgot something. A valuable pen or some gold cufflinks. Maybe an apple that’s only been half-eaten.”

“Why do you say that?”

The pipe glowed and darkened. “He’s back.”

Uninterested in defending himself, Nathaniel ascended two steps and landed upon the porch.

The cattle rancher’s furry head sprouted from the southwest corner of the house and appraised his tenant. “You don’t look too spectacular.”

Nathaniel reached for the screen door.

“Kathleen’s in the baby’s room.” Ezekiel’s voice was gentle.

“Thank you.”

“She started packing up this morning.”

Although this news should have troubled him greatly, Nathaniel felt little more than a detached sense of concern. He nodded politely, opened the screen door, entered the Footman’s wooden home (which smelled like savory pies), strode across the checkered rug, climbed the stairwell to the second floor, traversed the spotted carpet and in four more strides arrived at the closed door of the baby’s room. His bullet wound throbbed, and he waited a moment for the pain to subside.

A door creaked behind Nathaniel, and he turned around. Orton, the pubescent son of Ezekiel and Harriet, poked his head from his room.

Nathaniel strode toward the youth and said, “Do not spy upon my fiancé ever again.” He clenched his fists.

“I just—”

“Ever!”

The boy retreated into his room, slammed the door and turned the key. Nathaniel’s pulse pounded in his shoulder and in his chest, as if he had two separate hearts. He was angry with Orton, but more upset by the terrible things that men did to women, and the fact that he was about to strike a thirteen-year-old boy. The gentleman shook his weary head and turned around. Standing in the open doorway of the baby’s room and clothed in a green silk robe was his raven-haired fiancé, Kathleen O’Corley.

“Nathan?”

“I…I am sorry that I was delayed.”

The stunned woman stared at the returned wraith to whom she was engaged, and he mirrored her gaze. Although Nathaniel no longer felt the warm light of love, he knew that he wanted to protect his fiancé from the mean world, and that desire was a tether that tied him to her.

“Let’s talk in private,” suggested Kathleen.

After following his fiancé into the baby’s room, the gentleman shut the door to the world and turned the key until the lock clicked. The betrothed pair hugged. Silently, Nathaniel endured the pains that their embrace elicited.

“I’m so glad that you’ve returned,” Kathleen said, “but I cannot believe that you are wearing a gun.”

No words came to Nathaniel Stromler. He looked over his fiancé’s shoulder and at the small warped window that sat upon the west wall of the baby’s room. Superimposed on the dark gray landscape was the reflection of a translucent stranger.

About the Author

Florida-born New Yorker S. Craig Zahler worked for many years as a cinematographer and a catering chef, while playing heavy metal and creating some strange theater pieces. His debut western novel, A Congregation of Jackals was nominated for both the Peacemaker and the Spur awards, and his western screenplay, The Brigands of Rattleborge, garnered him a three-picture deal at Warner Brothers, topped the prestigious Black List and is now moving forward with Park Chan Wook (Old Boy) attached to direct, while Michael Mann (Heat & Collateral) develops his nasty crime script, The Big Stone Grid at Sony Pictures. In 2011, a horror movie that he wrote in college called, Asylum Blackout (aka The Incident) was made and picked up by IFC Films after a couple of people fainted at its Toronto premiere.

A drummer, lyricist and songwriter, Zahler continues to make music, and is now finishing his third album of doomy epic metal with his band Realmbuilder, which signed to I Hate Records of Sweden, after his foray in black metal with the project Charnel Valley (whose two albums were released by Paragon Records). He is also navigating preproduction on his directorial debut—a horror western that he wrote called, Bone Tomahawk, which will star Kurt Russell, Peter Sarsgaard, Jennifer Carpenter, Richard Jenkins and Timothy Olyphant.

Zahler studies kung-fu and is a longtime fan of animation (hand drawn and stop-motion), heavy metal (all types), soul music, genre books (especially, horror, crime and hard sci-fi), old movies, obese cats and asymmetrical robots.