Animal (Chapter 16 - Part 2

The stagecoach rumbles to a stop. Ben and his father exit the compartment. From atop the carriage a scraggly younger man leaps to the ground. He breaks into a smile that manages to show every inch of his teeth, including the two missing on the right side.
“Time to switch, Robert,” he says, patting his brother on the back.
“Already?”
“You know the deal, two hours each. Mine are up. Trust me, I’ve been counting.”
Ben runs up and hugs the man.
“Hey, Uncle Jesse! “
“Easy, kid, I’m not as young as you,” the man says. He pretends to gasp for breath.
“You ain’t exactly a prize winner when it comes to looks either,” Robert remarks.
“Funny. Now I have two hours to go over how great that joke was and you have two hours to come up with something better.”
“Sure,” Robert mutters as he mounts the ladder and takes his seat atop the carriage.
Jesse helps Ben up into the coach and closes the door. With the crack of whip, the carriage sets off. Ben sits with his arms dangling outside the window as he watches the road go by. Jesse chuckles and removes his hat, tossing it down.
“Am I really that bad of company that you already wish your pa was back here?”
“Of course not!” Ben shouts over the rumble of the carriage wheels.
Jesse tousles the boy’s hair.
“Just kidding with you. You know you should keep your hair like that, looks distinguished.”
“Distinguished?” Ben asks.
“Really important.”
The kid nods. Jesse sighs. He stares off into the passing plains.
“Learned a new word today, huh?”
“Yep.”
“You're almost nine now. Ten more days, right?”
“Nine.”
“Nine days,” Jesse corrects, “Wish your mother was here to see this.”
“Me too.”
Ben drops down from the window and takes the seat across from his uncle.
“You miss her?”
“Yeah.”
“So do I. She was a pretty neat lady, like the sister I never had."
Ben doesn’t reply. He sits with his head bowed. Jesse touches his shoulder.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” the boy says.
“You scared?”
“Yeah.”
Ben meets his uncle’s concerned gaze.
“Are you?” he asks.
“Am I what?”
“Are you scared?”
“Of course, you’d have to be crazy not to be.”
“Then my dad’s crazy.”
Jesse chuckles and shakes his head.
“No. He’s just a strong guy,” he says.
“Like you?”
“No, not like me, he’s a lot stronger.”
“He’s my dad,” Ben says. He beams with innocent pride.
“Yes he is.”
Ben stares at his uncle’s smile. Jesse notices the boy out of the corner of his eye.
“What?”
“How’d you lose those teeth?”
“What, these teeth?” Jesse asks, slipping his tongue between the hollow space.
“Yeah,” Ben replies.
“It’s a long story.”
“We got two hours.”
Jesse slaps his knee. “You got the humor from our side of the family, I’ll give you that.”
His nephew waits patiently, ignoring the joke.
“Oh right…the teeth thing. Well, I was about…I don’t know, sixteen? Anyways, I’d known this girl my whole life—” Jesse begins but his nephew interrupts.
“Was this girl Aunt Sarah?”
“You want me to tell the story or not?”
Ben’s cheeks flush red.
“Sorry.”
“No problem. Yes, it was Aunt Sarah. And as I was saying, before a little badger interrupted me, there was this girl. I’d know her many years, always loved her. Since, geez, since I was your age I knew I loved her. First time I saw her I poked your dad and said, ‘That’s the woman I’m going to marry.’ Course I was ten years old at the time so he just punched me in the shoulder and—”
“You’re talking too much, Uncle Jesse.”
Jesse shakes himself out of the nostalgia. It’s his turn to blush.
“Right. Sorry about that, you know how I get.”
“Yep.”
“Anyways, I’d always loved her, but I never got around telling her. Well when you’re sixteen you start courting girls you like.”
“Yuck.”
“You won’t think that way in seven years.”
“Seven years and nine days.”
“That’s right, now shut up. So I never got around to asking your Aunt Sarah if she liked me back. Almost lost her. She went with a fella by the name of Lloyd. Big fella. Twice my size. And he treated her like horse sh—poop. He went with another girl without even telling your aunt and that hurt her, made her cry. The man was so stupid that he didn’t realize what he was losing. So naturally, being a sixteen year old madly in love with a wronged woman, I challenged him to a fight.”
“Like a duel?” Ben asks with widened eyes.
“No, like a fight. With fists.”
“And what happened?”
Jessie clicks his tongue against his teeth and stares up at the ceiling.
“Well the guy was twice my size, so he pretty much beat the piss out of me,” he says, “by the way, don’t tell your pa I used that word.”
“What word?”
“Never mind. One of the punches he got in knocked my back teeth out. Found them later that day in a puddle. So he leaves me there a mess and your Aunt Sarah comes and holds me in her arms and being the bloodied, smitten teenager I was, I told her I loved her.”
His nephew giggles. “Really?”
“Really. Two years later we were married. Matter of fact I still have those two teeth, had them in two separate little boxes. We each kept one.”
“Gross.”
“Maybe, but we loved each other. People do weird things when they’re in love.”
“Like challenge giants to fights?” Ben asks.
“Like challenging giants to fights. You can make it through anything when you’re in love. And you never forget them,” Jessie whispers, poking his nephew’s chest with his finger, “so I’m telling you right now, don’t you ever forget your mom. Don’t ever stop loving her. If you love someone you never back down, because if you wait too long you’ll lose them.”
Ben smiles. “So do you still love Aunt Sarah?”
“Kid, I love her with all my heart. I just have to wait a while till I get to see her again. But I can handle that. I’m pretty sure she can too.”
Jessie and Ben sit in silence. Jessie reaches into his pocket and draws a deck of cards. He shuffles them in a whirlwind of black and red.
“Enough stories, why don’t we play some poker?”

* * *

Gabriel stands over Peter’s desk and stares down at the opened package. A strange force calls to him, egging him on, driving him to this letter. He glances around the room even though he knows he is alone. A voice inside his head urges him forward, daring him to question his morality. He reaches out and grabs the envelope.
“Can I help you with something?”
Peter stands in the doorway carefully flicking a coin over his knuckles in smooth rhythm. Gabriel fumbles the package.
“My word,” Gabriel gasps, clutching his pounding heart through his chest, “You startled me, Peter. I left my bible at home and I was wondering if I could see yours. I need a few psalms for my next sermon and you always underline the best passages.”
Peter continues to stare. The coin moves with blinding speed.
“Neat trick.”
“My father taught me it when I was a boy. They say that if a coin shines when the trick is done it means the performer holds a terrible secret in their heart.”
The quarter blazes.
“You have a secret?”
“Indeed I do, Gabriel.”
Gabriel stoops to pick up the envelope. Peter nails it down with his boot and the startled priest leaps back. Peter retrieves the envelope and slides it underneath the reading lamp’s light, studying the contents.
“Nothing’s moved.”
“Why would it have?” Gabriel asks.
“Yes…why would it?”
Gabriel shifts towards the desk.
“May I borrow one of your bibles, Peter?”
“By all means.”
Peter slithers around his desk and opens the drawer a crack. He chucks the envelope inside and reaches in. His hands close around the curved blade.
“Gabriel, did you open the envelope?”
“Of course not.”
“Gabriel…”
Peter withdraws the knife and slides it behind his back, hidden from view.
“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?” he asks.
“Never.”
Gabriel steps back. Peter watches him still. His eyes swirl in their darkened pools. A rumble rises from outside.
Gabriel turns towards the sound and Peter returns the weapon to the drawer. He approaches the window to his office and peers out through the glass. Down the road a stagecoach approaches.
Atop the carriage, guiding the working steeds to their standstill, sits the runaway.

* * *

The Tall Man stands outside the rickety shack. Mottled wood hangs creaking from weak hinges as wind blows through the holes in the roof. Sunlight shines in as he forces the lock. He waits for signs of movement. None come. He enters.
Thick lines of dust and sand kick up beneath his feet to further pollute the stale air. Rotten oak lines the floors of the hallway as The Tall Man makes his way through the building, sweeping the rooms one by one, his drawn revolver glittering in the shallow light. He turns back to the hallway. A single door closes to the outside world.
Light spills from the bottom of the doorway and trickles out into the hall. Soft rays twinkle across the ground in kaleidoscopes of color. The Tall Man places his ear to the cold wood. No sound. He raises his free hand and lets it drift forward, hesitating for the briefest of moments, then turns the handle.
A flash of light dances across The Tall Man’s face. Beyond the doorway lies the bedroom, cramped and desolate. Tattered pictures line the room held up in filth covered frames. A bedside lamp sits dimly lit in the corner, a pile of used bulbs in a mildewed box beside the nightstand.
A crooked bed lies in the center of the room. From beneath the moth-eaten sheets rustles emerge. A ragged voice calls out.
"I can hear you breathing.”
The Tall Man remains silent, hidden by shadows that lie beyond the reach of the weak lamp. The voice continues.
“Whatever you’ve come to say or do, say or do it.”
The Tall Man emerges from the darkness to tower over the frail form. A shrunken, wrinkled man stares up at the Rider. He shifts under the covers and groans. He smacks his cracked lips. His jaw draws tight.
“You,” he says.
“Me.”
“I knew you’d come.”
“Of course you did.”
“You certainly took your time.”
The Tall Man chuckles. He removes a pair of poorly rolled cigarettes and a match box from his breast pocket. He strikes the head, briefly illuminating calloused hands as he lights his cigarette. The match dies with a plume of smoke that drifts toward the ceiling and vanishes into dark.
“Care for a smoke?” The Tall Man asks, holding the second stick out.
“You know I can’t.”
“I know.”
The man doesn’t shake or cower like others. He’s been on both ends of this before. He doesn’t waste his final act on pitiful sniveling.
“This your big moment, Varlyn, last piece of glory before you flush everything we ever were down the drain? Everything we ever stood for?”
“Nothing glorious about this, Dyer. Nothing at all.”
“I could always tell when you lied to me. You never changed.”
The old man lifts his head and raises his arms with sudden grace. His hands lock upon the side of the bed stand sending bottles of medicine and crusted over dishes tumbling to the floor. Wheezing breathes shudder forth as he struggles to stay up. The Tall Man watches this display of strength with quiet interest.
“You were my boy, my apprentice, Varlyn. You were my best, but you poisoned everything and everyone who ever came to your call. Charlie and Hank and Paul: all of them. You drove them all away when you realized they wouldn’t stay by your side forever. I hear Charlie was a preacher, turned to The Word just like I did. Hank raised a family, Paul had his girl, but you, you’re still doing the work of wicked, younger men.”
“I always repay a debt,” The Tall Man says, “when they shot me down, they gave me a bullet, and I owed them one in return.”
“Always a means to an end. You couldn’t just let us be. How much did they pay you to do me, the fancy men in suits who don’t get their hands dirty? It ain’t the way it was, kid, and it never will be again. You keep chasing your dream of the past, but meanwhile your future’s creeping up on you and with it comes the vengeance of all you’ve ever harmed.”
The man’s arms give way and he falls back, robbed of all his former glory. His ravaged laugh carries through the empty halls.
“The wicked are always punished.”
“Yet I’m still breathing.”
“Of course you are. God keeps the worst of his sinners from their fate the longest. It’s why you and I have so lived so very long.”
“There is no God,” The Tall Man replies.
“He will strike you down through another, through one of his servants. Hell, it’s why you’re here for me right now. Even us sinners are put to his will.”
The Tall Man shakes his head and removes the cigarette from his lips, letting it plummet to the ground. He snubs the butt out with the toe of his boot, grinding it into the wooden planks. He raises his hand from his lap, revolver clenched tight between his fingers. His voice rises with each word he speaks, spitting and scoffing at his old master’s final words.
“Enough with the holy talk. You’re not a damn saint and even if you left to the side of God, you think he’d let men like us into his kingdom? We’re the sinners of this world. Beasts wielding tools cast down to cut and tear and bludgeon one another. And you and I, we’re the worst of them all. We are the masters of those tools!”
Dyer just shakes his head.
“Everything I’ve ever wanted to say to you has already been said, Varlyn. Now go on then, kill me. Kill the last of us.”
“You’re not the last.”
Dyer raises his eyebrow.
“So there is another,” he says, “Charlie’s gone. It must be Hank.”
“Hank is dead.”
“Then it’s his boy. How fitting. Hank was always the strongest.”
“No, not the strongest.”
“His son will find you.”
“He’s nothing but a slimy bastard, the spawn of Hank’s whore.”
Dyer smiles. “You always loved her.”
The rider nods. “Always.”
“As you come for me, another will come for you. Just know that. It’s the cycle of our kind.”
Dyer nods towards the revolver The Tall Man handles.
“Put that away,” he coughs, “I won’t ask you to spare my life. You don’t owe me any favors. But when you end me, don’t you use that weapon. I left that behind long ago. You owe me that much.”
The Tall Man nods, returns the weapon to its holster, and removes the pillow from behind the frail man’s head.
“Thank you, for all that you gave me.”
The Tall Man shoves the cushion against Dyer’s face. His pray thrashes with the last of its strength, untrimmed nails scratching his face. The shudders come next, groans and gulps of desperate air that rise beneath the fabric. The man’s twitching hands fall to the side and come to a stop. Urine soaks the sheets, waste draining the last of his strength.
With that, The Tall Man’s master lies still.

* * *

John kneels in the middle of the road and shifts his hand through the dirt, tracing the imprints ground into the earth. The coach switched drivers here. Footsteps scatter in all direction. John stands and wipes the dirt from his hands. The tracks are only a few hours old.
He glances down the barren roadway, Garrison still nowhere in sight. By now the runaway and his son shall have reached its borders. The priest will see them, dispose of them according to his master’s wishes.
He’ll need to hurry. Another family will not be destroyed. Too many have died already. John mounts his horse and digs his spurs into its sides, following the runaway’s path. Their fate rests in his hands.
He must fly.