Thick mist crept to the sides of the clearing as figures, many of them, perched at his flanks. Dented tomahawks sagged by their sides. His arms hung lank, shrivelling in the rusted chains. He was naked, flesh blotched and sodden, glints of fire slithering in the mirror of his crying eyes. Agonisingly, he gazed forwards. Before him above a crowd, tied to an overhanging log, their bodies hung. One was big, the other awfully small. A silhouette of another, a great muscular adonis, clad in primordial prestige, staggered with stamina towards them. Arms that pierced up from the pulpy, sweaty mass of the crowd flailed and flailed from below at the dangling flesh. Slight groans and fidgets were all that was heard as the ropes ached. In a sudden flash a scatter of blood sliced along the rock, and the bodies instantly disembowelled, their contents dripping and oozing into a basket of bones, slopping and clattering for a short while until the occasional splatter of blood was all that was heard, the bone basket now charred red and black. His body sagged some more as his eyes widened and his mouth stretched out endlessly, but the noise did not come.
1865, Colorado. A Sioux War wages.
Some years later. His body sagged as his limp arm rested with a quill in it’s twitching hand. His eyes lingered on the empty paper. His mind stretched out endlessly, but the words did not come. As faint wisps of smoke crawled up the walls and liquor sloshed to his side, a voice came creeping in. From outside the frosted window two men sat atop mounts, gazing upward towards his door, squinting in the squalid sunlight. He pulled himself upright, skin still damp and sweating, and like a wretch barraged himself out through the rusting doorway.
“Sergeant Arthur Daniels? This is the Marshall, your talent is findin’ itself need of consumption.”
The sun glazed into his eyes as he frowned in reply, arm flopping over his brow as he assessed the two men below him.
“Wha’ss at stake?”
“Reconnaissance mission, could use a marksman as you’self.”
He grunted and spat.
“Prospect another yonder.”
“Caint, all been called out.”
“And not I?”
He leaned against a wooden beam, his clothes ragged and worn. Daylight etched itself into the crevices of skin, probing at deep wounds. The man down his garden slope was the Marshall, dressed up tightly, with blonde hair drooping to his cheeks, face freshly shaven, pistols sleeping in their holsters. Beside him was another, a dark-skinned Tracker clad in black, hazelnut eyes now peering out yonder some, salivating over the far-off hills longingly. His hands were gripped firm and his cheekbones sharp enough to slice through his endlessly dark matts of hair. The Marshall continued with a slanted stare and a youthful yet assertive voice.
“Not you sarge, but now ye are.”
“Wha’ss rewarded?”
“A few dollar some.”
He snorted and squinted off towards the open field. The pale grass danced in the new-born sunlight. His blank blue eyes enquired eagerly for guidance. He turned his head back.
They rode out that hour. The three men’s shadows dashed against the stained sands as the town behind them scuttled out of view. The sand was tinged red and dusty, flecks of grass twirled as flickers of sunlight darted through it, trees in the distance wavering and whispering to themselves. Squawks of far off birds echoed past as the wind whistled past his ears. Clouds combatted afar; storms could come soon but drought could come sooner. His rifle shook gently on his back as he now ventured out with a veil of composure, a black hat drooping over his brow, leather gloves scrunched, pointed boots dark and hard, holsters of pistols digging into his leather waistcoat. To his side the Marshall rode chin up and eyes afar with hands resting at his lap as the horse galloped and snorted and puffed. In front the Tracker kept his enigmatic eyes forwards with a rifle resting on his youthful spine.
“Adahy, how now we be headed?”
“The tracks still lead southward, Marshall sir” replied the tracker, his voice also young but accent heavy, words toneless.
“keep us at it then, Adahy, move us at haste, this here desert is a barren bitch.”
The Marshall spat and the Tracker kept on riding ahead. They had been riding now for nearly a day, aiming to scout a Sioux group that had been enacting ride-through assaults at the nearby garrison post. They had some days more out in the wilderness, but once located they would ride back and inform the Governor and the army of their proximity and likely direction. It was then assumed, as the Marshall clarified, that the “cavalry will arrive.” He kept his eyes focused, scanning the ridges and dips into the valleys, piercing through the tendrils of burning sunlight.
Soon the night came and with it came drink. A fire was set, and all now huddled around it like amber foetuses in a barren womb. He had previously shot down some wild elk, and now the three men gorged on it. The Tracker leaned to one side lavishing the edges of darkness, as the Marshall slopped and spat, occasionally glancing up at he, who chewed and gazed down into the stained sand.
“That was some impressive shooting out there Daniels, yessir. Damn shame your service is over some.”
He glared upward and snorted.
“Dogs have their day”
“Aye aye. Even so, some mighty fine work. What took ye out the business anyhow?”
“Injury.”
“What kind?”
“You observe my walkin’?”
“I do. How’d it come about? Tell, tell.”
“Caint.”
“How so?”
“Too long a tale.”
The Tracker glanced at him some before returning to his rumination. The Marshall grunted with a snigger, leaning back.
“Too long a night! …But, it sure is a damn shame. With the predicament as it is, they could use every trigger finger they can get... Alas, it aint your fight no more.”
“No no, it’s always my fight, always my fight…”
The grains of sand flickered like diamonds as he paused, hands still gripping the browned meat.
“Aye aye, always in us I suppose. Well I say, yer in it now. Is it only bounty work?”
“Carpentry.”
“Carpentry! Ye make good use of yer hands I’ll submit ye that. I always admired the craft, but duty calls first.”
The Tracker glanced back once more, the firelight shimmering on his jagged cheekbones. The Marshall now unscrewed a bottle and pulled out two tattered cups from his pack. He grinned with a wide mouth, flesh stretching severely at the side of his gaunt and youthful face.
“Medicine?”
“I don’t partake”
“Aye?”
“Aye.”
“Well that sure is a damn shame.”
The Marshall drank. Daniels paused, considering some.
“So… Marshall, what brought the likes of you out here anyhow?”
“Here, or” he gestured with his arm wide “here?”
“Both suffice.”
“Well this mission is a simple as requirement, I’m a Marshall but they needed any man they could to venture out, and well I found myself volunteerin’. As far as I ascertain, there’s another Marshall back home as we speak. Sheriff don’t need my presence anyhow, he’s a fully capable man of justice, found meself dawdlin’ thumbs back home, and the like… But out here? This… this land, this position, this disposition… There’s a way of things Daniels, father always told me that much. Now, my father was a great man, he was, travelled far and wide, served his time in years beyond both you and I. Perhaps I wish to justify my inheritance…”
The Marshall drank some more.
“…But mostly, as I see it, there’s duty. There’s an order to this world Daniels, yer a man as I, ye see it, ye fought out there, there’s real evil, and only men like us can keep it at bay.”
The Marshall was on his back now, guzzling. Daniels leaned forwards into the fire, gazing into the fondling flames. Ashes slithered upwards into the bleak blanket of endless darkness up above them, meshing into the stars. Out, far beyond in the faint abyss, howling echoed like thunder.
“Ye sure of it?”
The Marshall grunted.
“What’s to be sure of?”
“Is order inherent, I mean.”
“It’s the way of the world, it be so. God made it so.”
The Marshall stared down through his nose at him, chin tucked into his collar, drink in one hand, the other stuffed into the back of his blonde mess. Daniels frowned, his whole posture wrapping into the fire, as if to engulf it. The Tracker was now etching something into a thick branch, hunched forwards, shadows wrapping like starving arms around his sides, paying the two men no attention.
“Who’s to know the mind of God…”
“I see it as simple. Every man knows evil. It’s instinctive. Now God wants us to resist evil, does he not? So, so when man finds evil, he must make it perish. Now ye submit order is good?”
“It is so.”
“So therefore, ye submit that disorder must be evil?”
“It must be so.”
“So, so when a man sees disorder, what must he do? He must resist it; he must make it perish. Now what do ye see when ye observe the Sioux tribes? Nomadic chaos. Sporadic violence. Now I’ll grant ye good may not be inherent, but it is still engrained. It is engrained in such tribes as the Lakotas that they follow the path of disorder. They choose evil. We are men of good, are we not? We seek to preserve our families, our stability, it is order, does that not make us good? So, so, therefore, it is set, in scripture, that we must resist these tribes. It is the way of the world. Good men crush evil men. So that is why I am here, it is why ye ‘re here too, even though ye discharged. Good men find it their destiny to be submerged within the heart of conflict.”
The Marshall grunted and leaned back once more. Daniels finished his meat, and he too leaned backwards, dream quickly rushing over him. The Tracker still cradled the branch, some sign sawn into it, and a strange carving of a bird that beat it’s wings to thunder. His deep brown eyes lingered in the fire, glazing over, as if the Tracker too was caught in a dream.
In the swallowing darkness she came to him. He cradled up to the thin blankets as the fire dwindled slowly away. Her voice crawled out to him, her figure just out of vision, veiled within the black fog beyond the fire. He found himself gazing out to her, she had something in her arms.
“Arthur?”
He glared with his palm outstretched, trying to grip some invisible thing, and even in the waking world his eyes were now open, yet in his mind he continued to dream.
“Arthur, they’re coming!”
Without movement he murmured.
“Racheal… please…come to me…”
“Arthur we’re all alone out here…. Arthur.”
A tear began to form, and she moved slowly into the firelight.
“Arthur!” Her voice began to boil to a distorted shriek. He couldn’t move.
“Arthur they’re coming! Arthur!”
He could see her feet now… were they only in his mind, or really on the sand before him? They were deathly pale, sweating. His eyes widened but still he could not rip himself from the ground, could not move a single muscle, as she stepped forwards.
“Arthur, Arthur! Arthur you need to get up! Arthur?!”
He clenched himself, his palms now fists, sand grinding in-between his fingers. She was now in view, her hair dripping down over her, her hands now outstretched, the baby gone. He still couldn’t quite look up at her, see her in focus. She screamed.
“ARTHUR! ARTHUR, THEY HAVE HIM!”—
--She pummelled towards him, her arms covered in blood, deep gashes through her torso where the bone glimmered, her eyes a deep crimson red, her wails echoing sharply, and her mutilated body flailing through the heavy air. He bolted upwards, but chains now pulled him back, further and further into the fire as she shrieked, clambering in the sand to keep up with him. The sky was now crimson, ash twisting in the midnight wind. He felt a sharp hotness at his side as she stood now, ripping in half, intestines slathering over the ground in a slobber of deep black sticky blood, as he bellowed in horror at the ghastly sight, he tried to move his arms but –
- But the Tracker was holding them down. He found the deep brown eyes penetrating him, the face secretly puzzled, and he saw for the first time jagged black scars carved atop the youthful dark face of the Tracker.
“It is your watch now Sergeant sir.”
Daniels leapt up in a jerk, hand twitching towards his pistol. He paused for a moment, stammering. The Tracker merely disregarded his state without a word, yet the hazelnut eyes still fixated onto him. Daniels took his watch.
The next day they rode on. The red sands of home had changed now into a sickly white that sweltered beneath the unblinking sun. Daniels hung his head low. They were still trudging south. The Marshall would turn to him with ambitious eyes, his whole body twitching, fixing for conversation. He would merely grunt in reply.
Soon he could smell smoke. He gazed across the barren plain to see a small hill of blackness that wavered amongst the heat-rays of the horizon. Soon, before him there was a pile of corpses that lay charred and quietly burning, heaped up on the sand. They were still fresh, twelve of them.
“These… these are our people. Innocent people, God’s children…” whispered the Marshall in a cracking tongue.
Nearby a cart laid lopsided and shredded apart. The Marshall continued.
“These savages ventured through the main road… damn abominable… This is why we’re here Daniels!”
He lurched and pointed jaggedly at the decay, vibrating tears forming.
“Our children and the good will of nature will not live in peace and security until we fulfil our duty! Come now, let’s track these devils down! Adahy! Onwards!”
The Tracker obeyed the Marshalls bellows, and raised his pace without hesitation. Daniels gazed at the corpses, his eyes lingering on them, his face grimacing, fists tense as he began to sweat. Among them were three children, and an infant. Two men, one a driver, the other presumably a father, and another his wife. Two dogs, the other four horses. All faces scarred in permanent agony, skin peeled and black, limbs crumpled, and clothes turned to ash, all possessions plundered. He sensed the flash of spears, the cries of assailants, the pleas of the forlorn, the splashes of blood, the churning of hooves. A foul fog of thorns was spiralling in his mind. An entire family beset upon by the chaos of the land, slaughtered and left to rot in the barren hell, no one to note their absence, no one to remorse, other than the Marshall, who now as early as the noon unscrewed his drink. Daniels rode on, glaring back at the unholy signpost that he rode past into the heart of the wilderness, the thunderous howls far off yonder following in his wake.
Not long later they found themselves in a valley, rocks kissed with flowers, yet the stream which blessed them had all but evaporated. The three riders ventured slowly, their rifles awake, and their sharp eyes scanning the ridges and stinging in the sun that still crested above the crumbling ridges and danced atop the withering puddles of muddied water.
“This an awful risky route, Adahy, ain’t there no other route not so plagued with vulnerability?”
“No path faster Marshall sir”
The Marshall grunted. Up above the valley was a deep forest with dark and twisted branches that hung over them, with the evaporated stream leaving a crusted trail to a trickling river which struck through the very heart of the forest. On the embankment however was a scattering of dead fish, varying in shape and size, decorating the gravel like bunting.
“looks like God called down a blessing!” beamed the Marshall, still weary from drink.
“I wouldn’t be so quick Marshall, gaze yonder.”
Daniels pointed forth. On the other side of the river, emptied wooden buckets had within them some traces of dyed liquid substance, faint streams still dripping into the shallow water, seemingly having infected the fish to the point of eradication.
“Savages?” The Marshall pondered “Adahy, are we close?”
The Tracker on his horse galloped along through the shallow ripples to an abandoned campfire, dismounted and leaned down, feeling through the faint ash.
“Still two days ahead, Marshall sir. This is a shortcut. Lakota live in the plains.”
“Fucking animals! Two days behind! Adahy why caint ye be of use here, can’t ye see the vitality of our predicament! Now I ain’t sign up to be fannyin’ in this here desert playin’ wander-round with some damn native such as yerself! Now why on God’s earth are we still two days behind?!”
“We are on the fastest track, Marshall sir. Lakota gallop fast, fastest horses in the land. No hope for men like you if we do not sleep light.”
Daniels spat into the river, then glanced at the Marshall, still frozen on the embankment.
“And why should we hold stock in his regard?”
“Bugger’s me Daniels, Sheriff said this was the finest negro they had in supply.”
Daniels spat once more, squinting at the Tracker.
“I known me some native trickery in my time. They proclaim to be separated by tribe and by tribulation, but when it’s all in the workin’s of war, well they all serve the same side...”
Daniels eyed the Tracker in contempt, rifle still resting, as the Marshall called from across the river.
“Easy, ye hold it now Daniels! It’s a risky deed we submit to but Adahy knows these sands! I ain’t so pleased at his workin’s myself but let’s not jump to gun’s ablaze!”
Daniels spat once more and gazed back at the Tracker firmly.
“I know these sands. I lived and fought in these sands. I can track in these sands ‘cause I shed blood in these sands. Now tracker-boy, tell me somethin’ I cain’t ascertain.”
The Tracker didn’t flinch but responded calmly.
“Adahy was raised Lakota, Adahy can track Lakota.”
The Marshall now sprang across the river in-between the riders.
“You son of a what? Well I be double damned Daniels you may not be treadin’ on cold suspicion! What in the lord? You’re a fuckin’ Sioux negro?”
The Tracker did not turn.
“Adahy not Sioux. Adahy only raised Sioux. Adahy lost family to Lakota. Adahy no tribe, Adahy free man.”
“Well ain’t that fuckin’ cute!” Scoffed the Marshall “your degenerate ass ain’t free until we make it, so you Sioux swine, ye take us where we need be headed, or ye best know yer blood be spilled on these here sands!”
The Tracker turned slowly to the Marshall who was bloated red.
“Understood Marshall sir. We follow the river now, Lakota went river way.”
After the Marshall deflated, eyeing down their slave, and Daniels and the Marshall gazed one another over, all turned right and the two men followed the Tracker. Daniels glanced for a moment back to the poisoned fish. It was unclear to the purpose of it, but they all laid there half-baked and toxic in the now falling sun. He turned back, now side by side with the Marshall, who gave him a glance of assurance as the river lashed cruelly at the feet of their horses.
Now it was nearing dark, hazes of purple glittering in the horizon as birds fondled and flapped among the newly glistening stars as lightning etched itself through the thickening haze and thunder slowly rumbled forth to match it’s strike.The Marshall pulled out his bottle, examined the depleting quantity, sighed, and resorting to save it, tucked it back into his pack. He saw Daniels, watching his movements.
“You got real hot-headed back there Daniels, still some spirit in ye huh?”
“I ain’t got time for native trickery Marshall, it boils my blood.”
“Aye, it does. There ain’t no short price for dealin’ out justice. Rest assured justice will be dealt. Get’s ye wonderin’ though. That boy did say he ain’t no Sioux no more. Sheriff says he turned up alone one day, thirsty n’ starvin’, flesh all cut to pieces, beggin’ n’ offerin’ his services. Ye think it’s a rouse by the boy? Trickery to please our enquirin’ minds?”
Daniels grunted with an accompanying glare.
“Ye said it yerself. It’s embedded in ‘em, once a Sioux, always a Sioux.”
“Ain’t that the truth. Beasts o’ nature. Abominable… T’was a tricky task our fathers pledged, comin’ to this land. You think they knew the task?”
“I’m sure they felt it. Lays in every man.”
“Indeed indeed. The way of the world. Still, pretty old England ain’t feelin’ as cozy as right now.”
“You raised in England? Your tongue don’t match it.”
“Born and raised in the years that count, though father was born and raised an American. Truth be told, I come to America as a lad for glory, not for escape. What’s your marriage to England?”
“Only stories. This place only place I know, only soddin’ land I got me own.”
“Well ain’t that a sorry affair. How’d you make a home out here, you said you lived in these sands?”
Daniels said nothing.
“Anyhow, I am an Englishman in my heart as I am American in my manners, n’ an Englishman I will always be, maybe one day this damned dusted desert’ll be England too. Maybe--”
--The Tracker called out from yonder ahead.
“Camp! Camp!”
The Tracker was sitting on his horse atop a ridge gazing down, signalling the two men close.
“Sioux?!”
“No, Marshall sir! They are not Sioux!”
“What?!”
“They are Cheyenne sir, farmers!”
Daniels rode to the height of the ridge and glared down.
“Well that’s a sorry state of farmin’.”
The camp was a small village, flanked by rugged closures for buffalo, most of which now laid dead, the others wobbling and sick, groaning in pain. Where one would expect to see crop and harvest one instead saw nothing aside the occasional gaunt child, flopped dead on the toasted ground, stretched out like leather with bones poking through, starved to the core. The sickly white sand laced itself up wooden poles and pale tents, over bodies, those alive stumbled through the powdery stuff like water, as if ready to be submerged.
“There ain’t no salvation here” mumbled the Marshall. “Bigger fish to fry! On ahead, Adahy, river way, let us set up camp somewhere far yonder!”
And so, in accordance with the Marshall’s barks they did just that without a look of remorse aside a slight grimace from the young Tracker, all leaving the rotting families and their cadavers behind to slumber in the full moon.
The three figures huddled around a fire once more, the river cascading in a violent rage not far behind them, an open plain stretching endlessly to one side, wicked and thinning trees looming not far off on the other. The moon glowed ferociously, dominating the skylight as licks of fire crept upwards as if to caress the cracked surface. Thunder whispered far off in the blackened void as the first drop of rain splattered onto the cracked and crusted dirt. Once more, the Tracker squatted on his own, drawing into some bark. And once more, the Marshall rummaged for drink. Daniels squinted out into the forest.
“I’ll be damned, this here day got me thinkin’ funny...”
“How so Daniels?” The Marshall looked up from his pack, bottle now in hand.
“Nothin’ unusual. But it ain’t a pleasure to come across a dead family is all.”
“Now, that it ain’t! … Medicine?”
Both men drank that night as the moon watched them. Soon the Marshall was staggering, stumbling around as Daniels sat listening in. With the stars as his glimmering backdrop the Marshall lectured to the blackness.
“Now… where was I? … England! Homely old England… Now what makes England so special you ask? Well ain’t there nothin’ so fine as the king of England. A mighty monarch for a mighty country, a spiritual gift to the world! A man strong in nature but stronger in restraint, lord of the land but subservient to the Lord, tis, and I tell ye Daniels with a heavy conflict in my heart, ‘specially with the full-blooded hatred of the monarch and his ways that rests in the boyish men of this land, our greatest tradition at hand!”
The Marshall gulped and twisted in his stance, before gazing back to the Tracker, etching once more into the branch.
“Oi! Adahy!! This here bottle!... Look at it! Get us more liquid ye dog! Fetch some from the river yonder! Booze is all that’s left!”
The Marshall swivelled back to Daniels with a grin.
“Ah…. The River, nature’s blood, pumps life in the world it does, ‘course those damn savages disease it some. See I bet those darn savages ate those fish ‘emselves, damn poisoned ‘emselves! Hahahahaha, wouldn’t that be a fate, slaughtered by ye own design! Now hold that thought Daniels, I, uh, well I need a piss.”
The Marshall staggered off with now an empty bottle down a ridge out of sight, leaving Daniels alone by the fire. He considered not the Marshall’s words, but instead his own ruminations. He could not recollect in his years any kind of holy order of which the Marshall spoke, only a disordered will of the land itself. He grimaced as now with the rain and the wind picking up, howling through the trees out into the plain, a great icy cold crept over him.
He crumpled now like a coveting babe sparked up by the billowing fire, cradling memories as blackness curled around him. He gazed longingly into the night. He hoped to see someone out there, coming back to him. He wasn’t exactly sure who. But he looked for something among the empty plain. The echoes of valiant wolves answered his call, their voices rumbling quietly into the very chasms of the earth. He wondered if they were nearby. The wolves could eat him, tear him to shreds. But so could the world, the darkness could cave in on him and swallow him up and not one would be the wiser.
He recollected the sweeter times, blessed with colour, rich grass, her smile. The chirping of birds, the red velvet to his sides, some carriage trundling on the edge of some great abyss not yet visible to his mind. His leg was broken, his army suit now dusty with disregard. A child rocked in a cot in the carriage, the dear boy could near walk. He and his wife would lay together watching the trail of the carriage through the open rear door. Sometimes they would stop, and she would take Billy out and she would walk him by the riverside. He wished to have ran out with them, to have been able to. Such burning memories pierced his soul like firelight, but the ash of darkness crept in once more. Footsteps approached.
The Marshall swaggered in with a smile, his arms outstretched.
“Hello again!” he barked, words slurring.
Daniels gazed up slowly as the Marshall perched in front of him, to their right the fire crackling on, and the Marshall’s eyes glistening green in it’s glow.
“Tis an empty night” The Marshall growled. “Perhaps to be filled with more inquisitive talk?”
Daniels grunted.
“You take lead, and I’m done with drink.”
“As am I… Say, what do you feel to the nature of death?”
“…It is as life provides it”
“Is that so? Can it not be… manipulated?”
“…Don’t play me with primitive sorcery”
“I sense vulnerability!”
“Excuse me?”
Both men faced each other directly, leaning in to one another’s gaze, and the Marshall now engulfed in a gaunt grin.
“You’re unwilling to engage in such discussion?”
“It’s petty, to meddle with nature, best leave it be. Build your houses, build your cities, but keep away from yonder forest, is what I says.”
“But is that not why we are here, to meddle, and reap the rewards?”
“Well, fuck me Marshall I ain’t a prophet, as I say take lead.”
The Marshall leapt up again with a sniff and scratched himself.
“It seems self-evident to me that not all images and intents in this world are as they seem. Don’t you agree?”
“What incantations have come of ye since pissin’ out that drink?”
“I’m merely jousting sir, have some pleasure!”
Daniels leaned back onto one arm squinting.
“Joust me then.”
“Take death. Why would such occur? One takes it to be inherent that it is the process of life, but how is it so? In my view we must crave death in order to crave life. Death is the great release. For all that is pleasurable such as life does not supply itself endlessly, and so death lets it be such. Now you can tell a man by how they embrace death, I have learned this. How do you embrace death, do you shiver and cower in its great conquest, or do you present yourself to it with courageous embrace?”
Daniels remained silent.
“Or take the moon. God’s great adversary. He wishes to bring light to this world, but such an abyssal rock rises up, every night, to usurp God’s light. The paradox of the divine, even the most monumental power casts an even greater shadow for the wretched and wicked to wander.”
The Marshall strode the sand as if it were a dance, the firelight illuminating scars, not previously seen, his smirk wide and gluttonous, muscles tensing underneath his uniform which he now began to unravel.
“What do you think the moon tells us? Why does it orbit us as such? Moreover, why do we orbit the sun, if this earth is vested with such virtuous life then why do we follow in form with every other lifeless rock?”
“What do you mean, Marshall, ye losin’ me now…”
“Take Mars, for example.”
“Come again?”
“Ah, never mind. Not read? We, the Earth, and Mars, and many other planets, we are subservient to the sun, just as the moon is subservient to us in its orbit. We cannot conquer the light, but equally the moon cannot conquer us, yet it still feasts on us like a parasite in some great union with an unseen force. It is so much smaller, so much dimmer, yet still with the same power as the sun, to control, for half the day, every day, the spotlight over a great blanket of darkness that engulfs the land, on which all life suddenly strips it’s virtue and gorges on itself and the very barren land that birthed it.”
“What’s yer point, or is it merely the drink talkin’?”
“May I come close, tell you a story?”
The Marshall now faced away from the fire, into the darkness, leaning down towards Daniels, blocking him from the flames.
“I think I heard enough whack from your mouth for one night.”
The Marshall broke into a guttural breathy laugh, sniggering. He began to lean down further all the same. He was halted however, as a gunshot cascaded through the empty air. Smoke piled its way into the black sky, as the Marshall suddenly gazed upwards bloodied eyes ablaze and howled with sharpened teeth, spitting saliva and flakes of crimson. He staggered and turned, his shirt now ripped and bone-like claws exposed, and he staggered with great speed towards Adahy, who stood poised with a rifle, and who, without flinching fired another shot, now straight through the head. The Marshall swung back, fragments of skull splintering like glass, digging into the ground, as his limp body collapsed into the fire, quickly cooking. As the skin melted away it revealed a horrid set of fleshy scales underneath with the texture of mould, with occasional patches of pink where dense muscle burned. The claws were a thick yellowy black, sharp, long, and jagged, and the back was slightly hunched, the now exposed spine jutted outward, seeming broken, and with spikes of bone that stabbed through the scaly flesh that packed beneath it bulging muscle.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Daniels leapt up in a start, stumbling over himself as blood rushed to the head and his leg pulsed with pain, eyes wild gazing down at the incomprehensible corpse.
“WHAT IN GOD’S NATURE?!!”
Adahy strolled forth, looking into the fire.
“This way.”
Adahy marched the baffled Daniels tentatively over to the ridge, below which the Marshall had gone to urinate. Adahy lit a match from the pocket of the Marshall’s disregarded coat, which he now wore for warmth.
“Look here.”
What they saw was a wretched masterpiece of contortion. The body was stripped inside out, entrails scattered over the ground like deceased snakes, the inner body skinned alive completely, eyes left in there, bulging with intensity up at the glowing moon, the muscles sticky and blackened as the blood slowly dried in the heat as a pungent sickness slithered in the night air. The ribs had been twisted, stabbing through its lungs and out its back, its neck too twisted, having done a full rotation, mouth open and agape with the bottle lodged down its broken throat, exposed. The penis was clawed off, as was a hand, one testicle remaining gushing blood, the severed hand and remainder of the genitals laying in a patch nearby, rivers of blood lathering around it. The limbs laid out as if it were a starfish, the legs pulled so far apart that the anus had completely torn, and the skull sat broken, shards of it glinting next to the main bulk. Lastly, the heart rested above the chest, pierced through with a bone taken from the leg, standing proud atop the monstrous display.
Daniels stood, numb.
“… Tell me, Adahy… tell me what happened here…”
Adahy turned to him, sincerely.
“Some tribes of other lands call them Wendigos. Others call them Wechuge.”
Daniels did not reply.
“They very rare, not seen often, white man don’t acknowledge them, native’s scared of them. They sometime travel alone, hunters do, packs follow behind. They find man or animal alone, draw them from herd, they skin them, sometimes eat them, take their skin, live in them, trick the herd.”
Suddenly, howling crept in from afar, with it a cruel and cold wind that shook the firelight from Adahy’s candle.
“…I been hearin’ these damned howls all journey. Are those wolves… or Weydigos, Wachugas, what?”
“They wish to eat us, sergeant. They smell blood. They hungry creatures. Some say they hunger grow greater in war. Grow desperate. We are out in open, vulnerable. We must move now, before dawn.”
Adahy marched off to the camp. Daniels still fixated on the wretched corpse rotting before him.
“Hey! Get me that shovel, we need to dig this man a grave!”
Daniels began to choke up, staggering. He hit the floor and nearly slid into the ditch, coming close to vomit. He stood up once more.
“Adahy don’t ignore me dog! Help me dig the Marshall a resting place!”
“Dig it yourself!”
“What?!”
Adahy turned to him solemnly.
“If you dig his grave dig your own. Now come sergeant, we travel light, leave fire, leave Marshall’s horse, leave Marshall. Come now sergeant, be quick.”
Not minutes later they were back on the river trail, trekking out in the middle of the night, now side by side. Daniels glanced back to the slowly dying fire, as the howling continued, never quite being overtaken by the crashing of the river water.
The moonlight crept down through the thin branches of trees, only faint tendrils of light reaching through to the makeshift camp where Adahy and Daniels now sat, right in the heart of the forest. Chirping birds were absent, as was the buzz of insects. The sky was a hollow black, stars glistening, fainter than usual. The wind was soft, branches of trees hardly shaking. The world was in comatose, as if in shame after conceiting to sin.
“Do they trek out into these parts, thick woodland?”
“Cannot be sure.”
“Well ain’t that re-assurin’…”
Adahy glared sombrely at his fists, then sat, brow furrowed in an elusive anguish.
“Wanderers do not normally roam these parts…”
Daniels turned to him from where he lay, puzzled.
“Come again?”
“Wanderers - Adahy call them that. Name white man understand. Not one has been seen in some time.”
“They growin’ starvin’ huh?”
“…Something lured them out…”
“Lured ‘em out from what? These are animals!”
Adahy shook his head and stood once more.
“Wanderers, live off land. Farm like men, breed like men, talk like men… Some say they once men, lulled into damnation… there crafty spirits at work… They hunt like beast, feel like man. War make man hungry, make Wanderer hungry too.”
Daniels gazed down at himself, baffled.
“…I…. this cain’t be so. In all my years, I ain’t never… I… what the fuck did it do to the Marshall?”
“…”
“huh? I mean Christ, there’s feedin’ and then there’s…. That thing took glory in what it did!”
“do you not Sergeant?”
“What?”
“Adahy hear ways you and Marshall talked. Tracking natives sport to you. Perhaps tracking whites sport to them. Hunger more than food.”
Daniels leaned forward calling out to Adahy, ever perplexed. There was no fire in the camp, the men sat wrapped in blankets, saddle and guns by their sides, both clustered against trees.
“Whites? What do ye mean track whites, you mean they only hunt the English?”
“Natives tribes roamed land for many cycles of the sun. Know every rock, every tree, every whisper in the wind. Some tribes made alliance with wanderers.”
Daniels grew aggressive, face heating in confusion.
“Alliance? With those beasts? By God, burn ‘em all alive! What, what… what if a child was to fall victim to one of those damned monsters?!”
“Keep voice low… Nature let many things form.”
“…Sometimes, I question God’s will… I’ve seen a lot… Tried to hold onto faith, but I must confess… I cain’t see the meanin’ in it all.”
“You never understand. You never understand it, only feel it. Nature breathe through all. Man at once nothing, and world entire.”
“What happened to the Marshall… wasn’t natural. Damn abominable…”
“You begin to speak like Marshall.”
“Come again?”
“You know horror, real horror?”
Daniels glared up from the sheets he lay in, rifle cradled in his arms. He spoke with a growling sober bitterness, broken up with sudden gags as his blood began to rise to his head as engrained images surfaced once more.
“Horror? Let me tell ye about horror! You think you’re all high and mighty, just because you been here longer?! Think you have a right to something? You… your kind, you… you rid of me the two people in this world I loved. Before my eyes a… they… they cut them up… wife and…. …. Child… he was a boy, a little boy, a sweet boy… beginning to walk… they cut his feet off first, let the blood drain… out…. Your kind!…”
“My kind?”
“yer kind... We were innocent travellers. They… set themselves upon us. Their chains, they were old, stolen, rusty. My leg was broken… but I managed to pull my arms free. Rolled down a hill… Climbed on a horse saddled nearby… couldn’t look back… couldn’t weep… couldn’t bury them… couldn’t get revenge… My wife and son rot in hell… and I rot here, in these damned woods being chased by foul demons the likes of which I ain’t ever seen…”
Adahy remained unflinching.
“Do not expect justice. Such idea inventions made by man, man create order, create metal. Idea fuel of machines. No Idea in natural world.”
“If God intended there to be no ideals, why let man think ‘em up?”
“Why let beast skin man alive and brute a corpse?”
“It’s the devils work. Evil. Morals, ideals, they’re there to keep that evil at bay. That’s why we grow, expand, secure. We fight to put chaos at bay.”
“Yet fight create chaos. No freedom like war.”
“War? War is corruption, ain’t completion.”
Adahy sniggered and laughed at the proposition. He began to pace around the camp, energy rising. For the first time, true fire was in his eyes, sombre monotone replaced with a fierce conviction to match Daniels.
“War is nature. All man fight in war. White man, Sioux Man, Black man, Wanderer. At war with each other, at war with himself. White man say now us Sioux barbarians. Others say it of you. War is machine. In nature, no war. All suffering, all chaos, is peace. Only in tyranny of idea do war come. Man’s rage rise. Conflicting idea make war. Ground they tread with evil, with rot. Doom to do same steps, all part in your metal machine. Order create chaos. Only true order is chaos of nature. All else is lie. One day white land fall. You lose your land, to another tribe. Maybe wanderers gobble you up, and children. Maybe black man put you in chain this time. Maybe rock fall from sky and crush you all in your warm glass hut. Maybe fire rise and cover you and your wooden city. Maybe water rise and wash away your stone statues and your wretched roads. All kingdom fall. It is rogue left alive, man of no idea, no tribe, no land. We survive. We roam nature. We wander. You. I. I am not of tribe, of home. You not be either. You call wanderers abominable. Perhaps you abominable. Cannot fight with claw, teeth, cannot fend yourself outside. Rely on metal, rely on wool, rely on drink, poison your body to relax your mind. Cannot live with yourself, cannot free yourself. Wanderer free. Wanderer fight for itself, fend for itself, live for itself, by itself. You slave. Wanderer not leash to idea. You. You enslave yourself. You never free your country of war until free yourself of idea that create war… I not slave. My tribe fallen. My family. My family weak, like yours--”
Daniels furiously interjects in a stammer.
“--My family ain’t weak you black son of a bitch!”
“Could not fend for themselves, consumed by nature. They weak. As were mine. Too weak. Punished for it. Killed for it. I fled. I weaker still.”
“What kinda horrendous culture kills their own for havin’ weakness?!?”
“The kind willing to survive. The kind oppress by other idea. We both flee, you and I. Watch our family die. Did nothing. No end. No justice. We work in nature now. We embrace it now, fight with it, or get eat up by beast that hunt us…”
Daniels, refusing to retort, laid back down, deflating, shaking his head and gazing away. Adahy stared at him, contemplating, before returning to his own bed. The two horses grazed not far off. The moon was slithering slowly further and further into the horizon. Dawn was approaching. Adahy believed they would be safer if they slept during the early day, moved in the afternoon, and took position at night. The trees reached out far above them, from below it seemed the leaves wished to stroke the clouds. A hazy deep blue cloaked the two men in their cloth cocoons as they cuddled their rifles. The river churned and chuckled in the distance. Aside the horses and the water, only wolves could be heard, their songs thundering into every corner of the barren night. Daniels squirmed in the darkness.
“…will the traps work?”
“…Adahy not deep sleeper. If Adahy hear anything, you be woken. Now, sleep all you can.”
The trees were growing thicker, jagged and rough, around him. Soon he could not move his arms. His leg felt numb. A root slowly began to pierce into his side. He attempted to scream, to call out, but soon roots were growing over his mouth, down his throat, into his lungs. His eyes widened but they too were pierced by thickening roots that were laced with blood, the tree now glistening white, smooth as bone. He flailed and flailed, without vision, bleeding more and more profusely, unseen and unheard in the blanket of blackness. Scraping sounds could be heard far off. An infants cry. A discordant howl. He flailed more and more, the roots stretching through his entire body as if the tree itself had become his skeleton. Soil poured into every orifice. The infant’s cry was gone, there was now only the dripping of blood. Suddenly the roots released. He fell, down and dreadfully down, damp, wet, flooded, drowning. Fire lapped around him, as he saw an orange blaze licking up into the roots dangling from above like a horses tongue. The fire grew higher and higher, all around, scorching every wound, evaporating his blood. Chains still held him down. He could not speak, he could not see. He could hardly smell, his taste was gone. He could only step, step into the void. One foot after another, hands still chained, each step an agony as his leg seized up with ache. He spasmed, ferociously, like some unkempt cattle being prodded in the rear. There was a light at the end of the tunnel, out of the blackness, the fire. He ran towards it, vibrating, rupturing, all flesh and skin gone, a sprinting corpse, dashing for the exit, arms still held back, but feet galloping. Suddenly the light was gone. His eyes were open. Up above him, Adahy’s head blocked out the sunlight.
“Time to move.”
Daniels staggered to his feet.
“Where are we headin’?”
“Back to fort. We follow river, back other way.”
“And how ‘bout the Sioux?”
“If Wanderers loose, Sioux not come to your fort in any day near. Come.”
A vulgar storm brew on the horizon, and soon the gaunt figures sulked in a downpour of stinking rain as the branches battered and battled beside each other among the crashing daggers of foamy water lapping up near the horse’s heaving hooves. Both men leaned down, drenched, sombre and silent in the grey and dreary day, any tracks of those in front of them, any of their own, were now obscured by the torrent of water. Daniels gazed into the thick foggy forest to his side. He pondered at what the world once was, where it would take him now. All the while, among the slapping of rain on the brow of his hat and the slashes of river current against the embankment, his ears were ever tuned to the echo of far-off howls. Yet the cacophony of weather drowned out all opposing noise, it drowned out his thoughts as minute by minute his entire soul was soaked with the stench of summer rain, humid and rotten - sweat, water, mixing into a concoction, slithering down his clothes.
They rode further on, further through the storm as the daylight seemingly withheld its advance. Further still as their horses shook, neighed, wobbled, and twisted. Further still as lightning danced among the horizon, God’s fierce puppet-strings slashing and whipping among the muddy mixture of dirt and sand, blood and bone. Clouds loomed over them, and Daniels glared upwards, shaking his sweating head into the avalanche of rain, speculating into the clouds, wondering if God would lash down his sword of electricity onto his body and purge him of the burden of the journey ahead. He longed for drink. He longed for a bed. Back home, words had slurred in his mouth. Whenever he sat by paper, they evaporated, his fingers would not pivot. Only when he stood would they twitch, a confession tempted, but never indulged, haunting him, pulling him down, only to disintegrate at the last possible moment. All that remained inside him was the rainwater now seeping in, creeping through the cracks of skin, tearing open old wounds, stinging his eyes and stroking his cheeks. An endless barrage, bullets of the storm relentlessly piercing themselves into his very entity. He pondered further; if the devil were to drag him down into his damned fires in the land far below, would they ever dry these droplets out of him?
They rode on further. The clouds clashed and clashed, like ferocious giants, colliding with colossal thunder, their corpses drifting down and pulsating into a slushy suffocating mist that blanketed itself over the two riders, now silhouettes sneaking alongside the rupturing river side. Adahy gazed into the river, turning his head away from the rain. He saw corpse after corpse, pale sodden fish, seep down along the river. Other animals followed them, bear, elk, boar. Limbs, heads, even bones. It was as if the graveyard of the wilderness was being dug up and carried away in one fell swoop. Birds fell among the storm, great swarms of insects hovered in the trees soaking up the humidity. The sickly white sand opened up and gorged on the rotten rain. Among the torrent and newfound blindness, Adahy’s horse tripped on a rock, slipping, Daniels clutching Adahy’s arm at the last second, the Tracker grunting in pain as the horse slipped between his legs with one final bereaved cry and plummeted into the hungry waves and was hurled away among the dead. Adahy scampered away from the riverbank and up onto Daniels horse, sitting now behind him.
“This storm a devil!”
“Are we still on track?!”
“Keep forwards, Adahy has no vision, no clue!”
“Fuck this damned day! Onwards, horse, YAH!”
The horse lurched forwards as Adahy cried from behind him with his face battering against the rain.
“Keep us river way!”
“We’ll be drowned!”
“We be lost in desert, we starve, no tracks no more!”
“Were all the rations on your damned horse?!”
“Yes!”
“Gah! I hate this forsaken land!…YAH, horse, YAH!”
The horse veered forwards through the tendrils of fog, the two men now one drooping shadow in the early darkness. Hungry and haunted, the two riders clung to one another as the world itself seemed to rip apart, the dead being carried past them. They rode further on.
As the night crept up the rain began to fade away, leaving a foggy blankness where the two men gazed on alone. Their horse was buckling under the weight, with no food for it to replenish on, the steps it took were strained and slow.
“We shall be faster on foot; horse make us easy target.”
“I caint leave this beast behind!”
“We must go, you stay with it here, you die with it here!”
“God damn it! Why’d I agree to this forsaken scouting venture! Shit-fire! I aint leavin’ my damned horse! Not another creature I leave behind!”
Daniels leapt from his horse, spitting in the air as he botched his landing as his crutch caught the saddle of the horse, and he was left rolling into the damp sand groaning in agony. Adahy stepped down after him, extending an arm.
“Come sergeant, keep your calm, only way out for us.”
“I cain’t take it no more! It’s all just goin’ round in circles! I… I saw that cart, those people, I been there, that was me years ago! I… I cain’t take it! God never lets up! Why won’t he hear my voice, answer my prayers! I want peace from this forsaken hole! This is my home! Only land I got me own! Give me peace, no more these damned storms, these foul savages of creed I ain’t ever seen and cain’t ever stomach! I Cannot take it!”
“Sergeant, why venture out?”
Daniels flopped back into the sand, caked with crusty dirt. His eyes glared up at the gathering stars.
“…I’m…tormented… There’s no glory for me… I’m a sorry soul… couldn’t even protect them, those I love… what is a man if he can’t stand up to evil?... look at me, I cain’t even stand at all… I want to serve, serve my land, but I don’t recognise it no more. I want to serve my son, make him proud. But my son’s dead and gone, sometimes I forget his name… I’m just walkin’ alone in the dark… Now spare me from pity dammit, I heard ye own tale… I… I cain’t seem to rest comfortably no matter where I lay…”
“you can shoot, Sergeant, can survive. We must continue sergeant, or death come to you, no glory in death, only suffer.”
“Ain’t no sufferin’ like livin’ alone.”
“You have memory, Adahy have none.”
“These memories are a spear in my gullet I tell ye!”
“Better have painful dream than none.”
“You say that like yer the cripple on the sand...”
“Adahy know, you know too.”
“You don’t know shit… you couldn’t track those Sioux better than any man, couldn’t get outta that storm, woulda drowned if it ain’t for me!”
“Come Sergeant, little time.”
Daniels pulled himself out of his catharsis, clutching his crutch and rifle and pushing himself upwards off the ground as the pain rattled his bones. In their talk, the horse too had laid down. Daniels gazed over at the thing and shook his head.
“Well I guess that fuckin’ settles it.”
He hobbles over to the broken horse, pulling out a dagger, and leans down, caresses it’s whimpering face, and slits it’s throat gently, the exhausted beast hardly even giving a fuss.
“Come now Sergeant, gun at ready. Some walk to go yet.”
“Walkin, huh, with my leg?”
“Adahy shall aid your way”
Daniels studied the tracker and shook his head. He limped forwards back to the riverbank, Adahy watched him.
“You not only man who walk alone. Adahy walk alone for entire life.”
“You said it, Adahy weak, weaker than his family!”
“I not sad cripple.”
“you ain’t shit!”
“I am not man who kill your family.”
“Shut your hole!”
Adahy walked up to Daniels, who kept on hobbling further ahead, not looking back. Adahy supported his shoulder and helped him walk, both men now entangled in the new-born night, shuffling step after step as the moon scuttled further up the sky, glistening, thunder still among the horizon, cackling in its glorious menace as the crimson sunset sank, dripping into the dunes far away. Daniels turned to the tracker at his side.
“Why you doin’ this for me…”
Adahy did not say a word. Daniels turned back forwards and thrusted himself with the native at his side in every step. Not far behind them, cloaked black demons swooped down, pecking at the fatigued horse, scraping their beaks into its flesh, soon mindless flapping the only sound beside the cadaverous thunder. Adahy looked back at the sight, the shadows of the bird illuminated by the rising moon as a demented silhouette puppet show, dancing amidst the darkness.
“This world eat itself…”
Daniels groaned, turning his head.
“What’s that now?”
“Adahy nothing to fight for. What do Sergeant Daniels fight for?”
“There’s a home waitin’ for us… Maybe here, maybe in a better place… I figure I gotta earn my keep… My family need me up there with them, I cain’t rot in hell miles below…”
“So Sergeant serve his family…”
“Don’t you serve yours?”
“...Cannot… remember them…”
“Well… that is a damned fate…”
“…What it like to raise child, Sergeant?”
“Christ, you’re carryin’ my broken ass, call me Arthur.”
“Arthur, how it feel to be father?”
“...I…I can’t tell you… Cain’t put it into words… It sure is humblin’… puts the fight back in ye too… It’s a real feelin’, strong one. Pierces into ye. Husband, father, bein’ part of a family, nothin’ can replace it, and when they’re gone, nothin’ can redeem it…”
“I wish to have been father… to serve.”
“You’re young yet, aye?”
“Would white woman breed with Adahy?”
“Well, shit, ain’t no tribe take you back?”
“You would shoot me, I bound to stay.”
“Shit, I don’t think I could shoot a barn in my state…”
“Then keep to walking Arthur, your strength return soon.”
There was a pause.
“…Do wanderers like the rain?”
“Adahy hope not.”
“Yeah, well Arthur sure hope not too.”
The two pitiful ghouls sniggered and grinned as they groaned and shuffled along the barren floor as a united vessel, the vultures now flying off far behind them, searching for another feast. In the starved world that sought to consume itself, two men strode on into the darkest shadows yet.
In the thick of dusk, they approached a settlement. Each swore it was an illusion, doubting the other’s sight. They stood, wavering, grunting, and spitting, swaying, nearly toppling, clinging on to one another. Figures approached. In a sudden movement Adahy shoved Arthur to the ground and pointed his rifle at the cripple who lay splayed out on the sand defenceless. Adahy called out to the figures, who clutched spears by their waists. He spoke in fluent Lakota, the shadowy figures responded with the same. Adahy spoke some more. The figures turned to one another. They lowered their spears. Adahy lowered his gun. He pulled Arthur up from the ground and pulled him forwards as the figures guided him into camp.
“Adahy?... what is this? Where are you takin’ me!”
“It ok Arthur, I explain if you threat I shoot you. They Sioux settlers, they trust me. I tell them I escaped Sioux prisoner of White man. You help my escape.”
“They bought that shit?”
“They say if you under guard it make no difference who you are. They say if I have rifle it no difference who I am.”
“They want yer rifle?”
“They want help.”
Arthur gazed around with wide eyes as he was brought in and sat. A huddle of wrinkled, shrouded, hunched over women in the camp stared at him, at his broken leg, at his ragged clothes and muddy face. They welcomed in Adahy, muttering and clutching his arms. He sat beside Arthur. The women began to chatter more, to Adahy, to one another, back to Adahy again, worried faces, manic gestures. Eventually a tall, wind-bitten, gaunt man with a crooked, frowning face, who seemed to be the Chief, hurried off with another woman to fetch something, at the other woman’s reluctance. Arthur turned to Adahy, whispering.
“What’s goin’ on?”
“They say they have little food. Crops destroy in storm, drought before gave little. They decide to give us soup still.”
The woman returned with hot wooden bowls and passed them to the two men. Within a hurried moment the bowls were empty. Arthur groaned. With a flurry the Chief barged into the hut. He spoke to Adahy firmly, ordered one of his men to stand in the hut, and took Adahy away, meanwhile the other man stood over Arthur. Adahy and the Chief marched off to the edge of the camp. Arthur turned to peek outside the hut. It was almost pitch black, no fires, and people huddled inside their huts, shivering, yet it was not cold. The only living souls outside of huts were the horses, dainty and dishevelled. There was a pile of corpses. The bodies were small. Arthur turned back to the inside of the hut. The women sat, watching him. Their faces were wizened and etched crudely by age, stoic and motionless, carved out like bark. Their limbs were dreadfully thin, veins poking through. Their hair was grey and dry, seemingly falling out. They ceased to blink, only sat, staring back at him as he stared back at them.
Some time later the Chief marched back in with a hobble and Arthur was picked up by the other man, and he lurched over to a hut on the outskirts of the settlement. The women watched sombrely from behind. Adahy stood, leaning with his rifle, a great pain seemingly stricken over his face. The Chief gestured to the hut. Arthur looked to Adahy, confused.
“Chief say take a look.”
Arthur, nervous, looked around, then limped forwards. The hut was barricaded by a makeshift wooden door, with an eyehole. Inside there was a racket, shaking chains. Scratching sounds, sniffing. Arthur put his eye up to the hole. Inside he saw a grey cadaver, rotten, swollen, bloated, with gaping wounds and snapped bones. It was animated. It crawled around, groaning, it had pulsating red eyes and teeth that cut into the flesh so fiercely that the lips had been all but cut away. The flesh was merely a grey mouldy coating, and the shrivelled breasts were sagging weakly and the hair clung to the mauled back of the thing, scribbled with claw marks and old stains of blood. Beneath the skin bulged inhuman muscles that twitched and fidgeted. Bones laid scattered around it. The thing gnawed at the chains relentlessly, shaking them about in its mouth. It was a Wanderer, trapped inside the carcass of a long dead woman, who knew how long it had been held in there for. Arthur stepped back, shivering. Adahy stepped up to his side.
“They keep it here. It knows Lakota, they question it, they feed it.”
“Feed it what?”
The chief pulled both men back as if on cue, and Arthur stumbled aghast as he saw two women carrying one of the bodies from the pile of corpses, a gangly young boy, blotched and purple with warts and blisters littered over his rotten skin. The Chief and the other man rapidly swung the door open and the two women, solemn as ever, chucked the dead boy in, then stepped back as the two men swung the door shut. Bone was cracked and flesh was torn, scraping against the dirt as the thing slurped and spat and snorted and sniffed and proceeded to, as far as Arthur could hear, gobble the corpse up limb by limb, so starved the thing was that it gagged and vomited but then proceeded to eat all the same. The thing then shrieked and railed against the chains once more. Arthur leaned onto his crutch, defeated. The two men watched him as did Adahy. The desert surrounding them was pitch black, and beside the creature inside the hut, only the faint crashing of the river could be heard somewhere away from the settlement. Adahy pulled him onto his feet, and the men walked him back to the main hut.
In the hut, one of the men held out Arthur’s rifle. Adahy turned to him.
“Chief say guard with us in nights to come, and you be mended, and free to leave when nights over.”
“ How many nights?”
“One night. Maybe more. Cannot be many. There are horses to ride you home. Travel river way, I guide you back.”
“Then what?”
“You go home, I go home.”
“You go home?”
“Adahy serve village now.”
“I see…”
The Chief called to them both. The man handed Arthur his rifle and watched him closely as Arthur took it and hobbled alongside Adahy to a makeshift guard post. They were set to guard the river. On the way there, Adahy stopped, and ran to a child, who fell over on his way to one of the huts. He picked the boy up with a mighty groan and carried him with a weary walk to the woman waiting at the door, who had been calling for the boy to come in. Adahy carried the child with great care and seemed almost reluctant to leave the doorway, but then stumbled back to the post where Arthur now stood watching. Arthur said not a word. Adahy turned to him, his young eyes glimmering in the dark.
“Curfew for women and children, men guard.”
“Are we expecting anything?”
“Adahy hope not.”
“Arthur hope not too.”
“Adahy not surprised.”
“No shit?”
Both the men smiled again as they gazed out at the river, ever slithering past.
“…Arthur, who did the Marshall serve? Or he rogue too?”
“Nah he was servin’ himself. Trekkin’ out for glory when he had no need. Stable position he had, but it weren’t enough for him. He was an English fella, lived in a comfortable land, cosy home. Couldn’t help hi’sself but to drag hi’sself here. Perhaps he served the Lord, but the Lord ain’t be handin’ out praises.”
“Why would man drag himself here?”
“I been askin’ meself that for the last thirty-three fuckin’ years since me mother conceived me here. Mystery, I suppose. Adventure. Rebellion. Man’s at odds with himself, ye see, when he got comfort. Ye don’t know comfort I suppose, I did. Makes ye lose touch, go soft. Willin’ to throw yeself into the bullets just to have an excuse to run from something.”
“Comfort is death of duty.”
“Comfort is death of man. Comfort is the biggest ideal of all. Comfort, free from mortality, free from pain. All pursue it, some think they get it. It’s a sorry state, pitiful. See even when ye comfortable, ye ain’t, ‘cause the very state of comfort is uncomfortable for the mind. Ideas are pretty, but no man can live off one idea for all his life.”
“So, what do you want?”
“I want a code, a community. Ideas be as they may, but I want a place. I wanna people to live by, a land, a law, a flag to fly above me, a kingdom for me to protect, for that is real, eternal comfort, the comfort of code, of creed, of community. Without it, man perishes. No rogue raises an army, builds a castle. Only a community with a shared code can muster this.”
“Adahy’s code is to never flee again.”
“Aye… But I must confess, I got no code of me own…”
“You shall find a home like I have here.”
“…What that Chief say to you?”
“He show me suffering. He show me death, famine, disease. He warned of war. A storm is brewing. But he also showed me honour, unity, hope. People look up to him, and he hold them close. He show me, no matter the fate, none is worse than to walk the earth alone.”
“Huh…I don’t know what I’m runnin’ back to… I don’t know what I’m servin’ ‘cause I don’t trust it no more. What do I do? I came out here… I wanted the money, money to buy drink…maybe I’d drink myself to death, think of the pain no more… But The Lord won’t let me be…”
Adahy turned to him.
“Arthur—”
In a horrific cacophony screams bellowed up from the opposite side of camp. The Chief bellowed orders, more screams ensued, bodies burst from the huts fleeing, falling, tumbling onto the ground as large dark shapes leapt up with ferocious claws. All were shadows in the dark, dancing together as one mutating mass, all voices indistinguishable and meshing as one pulsating shriek. Arthur gazed on in shock and edged away. All ranks had broken, and blood was painting itself on the sand with a giddy smile. The raft was sitting by, tied up in the embankment. Women and children were fleeing into the forest, and seeing no hope, Arthur hobbled and slipped onto the raft, his rifle plummeting into the river.
“ADAHY! COME ON! WE NEED TO GO, NOW!”
Adahy turned to him, without a flinch, he picked up his rifle.
“ADAHY, GET YE ASS OVER HERE!”
“Adahy swore never to flee again.”
“EVERYONE ELSE IS FLEEING, THERE’S NO CHANCE!”
“Wanderers only hunt in threes! Adahy have six rounds, Adahy slaughter them!”
“THREE?! THIS IS A WAR ZONE, CAIN’T YOU SEE?! COME ON!”
“Follow the river way, Arthur! Adahy track you down, fear not!
“YOU’LL BE DEAD SOON IF YOU DON’T GET YOUR BLACK ASS ONTO THIS RAFT!”
But it was too late. The boy swung his black locks and crouched down, loading the rifle, then pounced into the town with the last remnant of his youthful stamina, sneaking into the carnage, letting loose a furious crackle from his metal snout, and soon he was submerged within the darkness, leaving Arthur alone on the raft. He untied and let go of the rope, and soon he was drifting away further into the forest. Screams echoed throughout. A thick dark figure was tearing its way through the woods to his left. He reached for his rifle but found only his crutch. Cursing, he paddled the raft as far as he could away from the forest, but the creature soon had leapt into the river beside him, red claws slashing at the wood of his raft, teeth dripping with blood and flakes of skin. Arthur kicked with his good leg, clinging to the raft and his clutch, but the beast swam under the raft pushing it up and over, until Arthur was now submerged. As he swam to the surface he felt the river pull him further and further backwards, smashing into jagged rocks as he went, struggling to breathe and keep his head above the surface, and all he could see was the foam of the water. He could only flail, and at any moment the monster’s vicious bulging arms could clutch his limbs and tear them free. Amidst the water the colossus emerged in its glory, drenched brown and pink fur, four jagged claws a hand, each the size of a butter knife, its anatomy almost human, if not for having no nose, only two holes for nostrils, and no ears. Its bones creaked and twitched beneath the fur, its fierce red eyes set upon him, entirely red, crimson, bulging, and it grinned with pale wide lips as sharp as daggers as it stretched out its humungous scarred muscles that almost burst out of the flesh covering them. It leapt forwards in the river, but Arthur found the raft with his leg and kicked it in between the foul thing and his body, and the raft became lodged in between two rocks as Arthur sailed past, holding the creature back for one moment as it now stood atop the raft, smirking and panting with a queer excitement. It opened its elongated jaw and howled with a gruff and croaky, discordant vomit of a voice that echoed in Arthur’s ears as he gazed on in horror.
“PALE APE! You think you can toy with ME!”
The disgusting terror then released another piercing, bubbling howl and spun into the river once more. Arthur held out his crutch and within a sudden splash the thing was now towering over him. Claws sank into his leg as it pulled on the limb, tearing off his boot and ripping away clothes and skin. It frowned however as Arthur felt nothing, instead whacking the creature in its face, splintering the edge of the crutch. He then plunged it into the thing’s deep red eye and it howled and leaned backwards, but then proceeded to engulf Arthur, dragging him underwater, its tenebrous claws sinking into his side as he screamed but his mouth was overwhelmed with bubbling water mixing with his own blood. He placed his hand in between the things teeth as it tried to bite down, his leather glove providing resistance but not for long as it bit down with an abominable strength and as Arthur pulled away his hand the jaw snapped shut and he felt with an immense adrenaline the loss of sense in two of his fingers and now the water was dyed red and swirling around his eyes but again he stabbed the jagged crutch into the monster’s side. The thing would not let go however and it bent its head back to sink its teeth in again but Arthur pushed the crutch into the back of its lips and so could not easily snap the thing apart. Arthur tried to kick it back with his good leg, the surging adrenaline vibrating in his veins, allowing him to power through the immense agony, but he only met massive resistance. Suddenly however, he felt water rushing below him, and his hat flew away. He found himself dangling on the edge of a waterfall, the thing’s claws scraping against his leg, but as it swam after him, the crutch lodged itself in between two rocks and the creature found itself stuck, unable to bite into Arthur, but it clawed relentlessly at his leg until it was a mangled stump. Arthur found himself going numb, but he pulled his arm around and pinched into the creature’s eye wound and squeezed as it shrieked, flailing and unable to get its mouth free as the teeth blocked the crutch from coming out, a sharp array certainly, fiercely huge, but enough space in between each pair of teeth to fit such a stick. Soon his leg was free, and Arthur fell into the pit of water below.
Arthur felt the stinging sensation as he plummeted through the water, but as his hand rested at the bottom, he also felt the familiar grip of his rifle. Not long after he resurfaced, bleeding out, clutching his gun, the monster too catapulted as a great heap roared into the water. It rose, grinning once more, licking its lip in delight. Shuddering and delirious, Arthur responded by swinging his rifle around and planting a shot straight into the thing’s jaw, wiping the smile clean off. It shrieked and groaned and splashed about in the water as Arthur crawled ashore. He unloaded some of the charge and spread it about his wounds. He fired one more shot into the nearby grass, using up the rest of his charge, and he crawled over, each second an agonizing eternity, and took the flaming bush to the charge in his wounds and lit them to alight, leading to several moments of searing burning agony as he screamed and clawed his fingers into the dirt but did it again with each wound until he was bleeding no more. He sprawled onto his back, about to put his head down, but the adrenaline was still kicking inside him, and he gazed up to see the ungodly beast standing above him once more, growling. It was clutching its broken face, blood oozing all over itself. Arthur studied the thing as it slowly paced closer, shaking his head. Such a demented creature, as if it had been tossed into hell only to be spat out back into the outer earth, as if the Devil himself could not even handle the deranged might of such a sickening creature. What was worse was that, even as it stumbled and bled out, its jaw hanging off the side of its face, it still seemed to laugh. It hissed, unable to speak properly, but it persisted nonetheless, flicking its tongue on the upper lip and salivating as it gurgled.
“I ahhm you, puu I ahhm free… I Wass you onchee, you whill pe mhe…”
It stumbled and fell beside Arthur, collapsed. Its bloodied arm reached up and stroked his face with its unholy claws. Arthur, still shuddering as the pain came creeping in more and more, lifted his arm in an immense strain, and proceeded to bash the beast’s head in with the butt of his gun until it stopped gurgling. Blood lapped up by Arthur’s feet as he sweated and spat and stared up to the stars, the demonic ogre slumped dead beside him, its skull smashed like shards of damp, blood-stained porcelain.
The next day, after laying awake in spasmodic bouts of uncontrollable pain as dawn came and went, Arthur mustered the strength to lift himself up and hobbled through the woods, now finding, unintentional or not, a short cut down the valley and closer to home. Delirious, half mad, soaked through and through, stained with blood, his eyes lingered forward towards homew. His rifle as a crutch, his clothes stained brown and red, hat missing, leg mauled, fingers bitten off, he looked less a cowboy and more a nightmarish apparition, one that rattled in the minds of traumatised soldiers. His mind twisted as he trekked home. The thing’s unholy crimson eyes still pierced his brain, he sensed them watching him at every angle. Its ferocious claws caressed him in areas he could no longer sense. Its voice echoed out to him in the wind, the same ghastly words whispering in his throbbing ears. Over and over.
Howls still cackled far off yonder as he rediscovered the main road back to the town. The same cart and corpses still perched clotted and rotten, disregarded by all. He leaned on his rifle and gazed at the sight of it. He became puzzled. When the savages attacked his cart, it was plundered, not burned. His wife and child were taken, they were hung, cut up, fed to the tribespeople like dessert as he was chained up and watched on in horror. Presumably, he would have been next, but the savages seemingly had not mastered the art of chains and rope. And so, with a broken leg and a cowardly heart, he slipped away. But none of that had any chance of happening here. Had the savages changed their tactics, their practises? Arthur shook his head and kept on trudging back along the road.
It was dark again and he had resorted to crawling. He stared down at the hot red sand as the hours had crept by, finding it easier not to crane his head upward. He simply kept on crawling, over and over, hands bruised and burned, feet searing with pain. He was rotten and rank and baked in the sun, clothes ragged and all but fallen off him, fat decaying from his flesh. He was a gaunt shell, a husk, a soulless entity slithering along the sand. Vultures were flapping behind him.
He grunted and groaned and spat at them as the dark crept up more and more and the red flash of sunset smirked across the horizon. He began to smell smoke. He kept on crawling, refusing at first to process what his senses alerted him to. Then he began to feel hotter. He pushed himself up and then immediately recoiled in horror.
The entire town remained as burning rubble. He crawled through it shaking, corpses lay charred and bloodied, shot through by rifles and pistols. Wooden beams were alight and vicious tongues of fire licked up into the night sky as tunnels of smoke wisped past his face and he continued still to crawl. The heat and smell became intoxicating, soon he turned onto his back. He could not find the wreckage of his own home in his current state. Instead he stared up at the gleeful moon, shining as ever down on him, winking. He panted and sweated in the heat, only to among the billowing flames hear the trotting of horse hooves. A heavy panting sound approached, and boots clunked against the sand. He watched the horse’s legs edge closer as he turned his head on the ground, it was panting in the heat, sniffing and snivelling. He shifted upwards to see the half-dead, limping figure of Adahy standing in front of him amidst the wreckage, who froze as he clutched at his rifle, before speaking in a wheezing but calm, concerned voice.
“Sir?”
Arthur said nothing, only stared back at him.
“I found you. It is ok, come with me.”
Arthur stared at him. The native was cloaked in ripped black robes, and his curled black locks blew in the smog-clogged wind, his sharp cheekbones glistening with flakes of blood, his rifle sleeping on his back, and he extended his gloved hand. Smoke was blowing between them as Arthur looked up. The figure stood before him; bloodied leather outstretched.
“Are you ok?”
Arthur said nothing, instead glared at the arm, glanced at the horse, and then back at the scarred, darkened face. He gazed long into the eyes of the Tracker, as the Tracker said not a word, but stood still with the arm still outstretched. Arthur looked into the visage of the native, whose face was veiled by a thin shroud of smoke. Arthur leaned onto his side, and stood up heaving, pushing against the rifle, and then whilst balancing on one twitching leg, swung the rifle around and flung it at the Tracker’s unblinking face, knocking the young native off his feet. He leapt forwards with lighting pace and pulled Athe rifle away from the scampering figure, and loaded the charge as the native rolled on the floor, yelping in pain, blood pouring from the temple. Arthur rolled back, sat up, and as the native stood once more, staggering and panting, he fired straight into it’s dark, youthful, unknowable face. The boy’s body plummeted backwards like a puppet, folding into the hungry flames.
Arthur sat with the gun poised, and then, after a moment let it rest at his legs. He stared at the burning corpse for a while, eyes motionless, watching the smoke swirl up into the night sky as the moon flickered above him, ever a witness. He heaved himself up once more with hardly a grunt or moment of afterthought, and he set after after the horse which had galloped away, frightened.
Arthur limped past the burning body of Adahy, caring not to give it a look. He limped, on and on. Vultures were flapping behind him, looking for a place to perch amidst the flames. He turned to them and spat. He limped on.
And so it was, neither Marshall nor Tracker, neither child nor lover at his side, only he, alone again, walking away from the remnants of the only kingdom he had known. He the great wanderer marched on alone, the thunderous howls of wolves echoing in his wake…
.
.
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~END~