Animal (Chapter 2)

(Chapter 2 - rewrite)

John wakes. Spirals of light flash and dance across his sight. His head spins and he shuts his eyes to keep the nausea at bay. His face, raw and tender, stings with pain, while blood mats his hair to a shade of dirty crimson. A bright bruise blossoms over his right eye. His gunshot wound throbs beneath the bandages that loop around his swollen calf. Red spots press against the tourniquet surface.
John struggles to move but his hands are cuffed together, chained to an iron side stove. Blood trickles down his wrists as he pulls against the restraints. Light spills in through a shattered window above. Refuse scatters across the floor.
A door swings open and two guards enter, taking their marks on either side of the doorway with hands crossed behind their backs. The Tall Man follows. Behind him, a short man inches his way inside. In one hand he grasps a polished camera held close to his chest like some precious keepsake, in the other an expensive camera stand. His hair drips with oil that gleams under the dusty glow. An expensive suit, spotless and compulsively maintained, presses tight against pale skin. Nothing hangs from his rawhide belt. A black bowler’s hat sits perched atop his head, resting at a slant. Fancy brass buttons dot his coat. He places the stand down and begins to assemble it, humming as he works.
“Meet my associate, Mr. Daniel Barrow,” The Tall Man says, waving a hand formally through the air.
John pulls at the ropes that cut into his ragged skin.
“Where am I?” he snarls.
The Tall Man shakes his head and kneels before John, straightening his Stetson. “My, the world simply has no manners these days.”
“Where am I?”
The Tall Man strikes him across the face. John slumps to the ground, hands burning as he’s held up by the cuffs. The metallic taste of blood fills his mouth. He spits into the dirt and stares back at The Tall Man, teeth stained red.
“It’s John, is it not? That’s what your brother was screaming. You have no respect, John. Not like your father. Your father was always courteous. A man with no respect is not a man.”
The Tall Man stands and navigates the room. His boots tap against the rotting wood in swift rhythm. Skeletons of long dead vermin crunch beneath his heels. He glances over at the photographer.
“How long?”
“Two minutes,” the man replies. He snaps the stand’s legs into place.
The Tall Man sighs and turns back to John, shrugging and gesturing broadly to himself.
“Take me, for instance. I’m a courteous man. I could have left you dying in the sand, let you lie there until you bled out like a pig. Now that's far more gesture than someone like you deserves, but I’m a courteous man. I treat my guests with respect.”
He lifts his foot and places it against John’s bandaged calf. John grits his teeth and braces himself for the pain he knows will soon follow.
“You have no respect, John.”
The Tall Man pushes the toe against John’s wound. Searing hot pain shoots up John’s leg. His muscle spasms beneath the pressure. He screams in agony and fury, jerking back and forth, spitting out a slew of curses.
“You have no honor,” The Tall Man says, speaking over the screams and grinding his dusty, spurred boot into John’s leg. Blood seeps up through the shredded bandages.
John closes his eyes to let the darkness swallow him. The Tall Man seizes a mound of his bloodstained hair and shakes him awake. The Tall Man’s body rocks with fury but his eyes remain as emotionless as ever.
“Don’t you fall asleep on me now, boy, don’t you pass out. I’m not done with you.”
“We’re ready,” Barrow says.
The Tall Man stands and faces the photographer. A grin stretches across his face to reveal teeth chipped from fights long past.
“I want the exact moment, the moment he becomes tainted with the sight.”
Barrow nods. He lifts the silk curtain and disappears behind the shade. He raises the flash bulb with his free hand. His voice trembles.
“Ready.”
The Tall Man turns to John and draws from his pocket a grainy, black and white photograph. He studies it a moment, turning it over in his hands and crumpling the cheap paper between his fingers, then stoops and lays it at John’s feet.
“Your love was a beautiful woman.”
Rose lies in the photograph spread across the earth. Her hair splays across her shoulders tangled and ruined. Seeps of gray blood stain her dress. She stares off into the void, life driven from her eyes.
Barrow clicks the trigger and a blaze of dazzling light fills the room as the bulb bursts. Sparks litter the ground and die slow. The Tall Man closes his eyes. Peaceful. Sublime.
John doesn’t know how long he sits there, screaming and spitting and fighting and bleeding, raw animal sounds emanating from his throat. Snot and tears spill to the filthy floor as he shakes with hopeless rage. He finally falls silent and sits shaking against the cold stove.
Barrow removes the unprocessed photo from the camera.
“I’ll take it to the dark room,” he whispers. His voice threatens to crack with ecstasy.
“Don’t bother, I know it’s beautiful.”
The Tall Man turns to leave, speaking as he goes. “You’re a broken man, John. You’re barren, barren as the whore who spit you out.”
John opens his eyes to watch The Tall Man leave. His thoughts twist around the words. He calls out to his tormentor.
“You cared for her, didn’t you?”
The Tall Man looks back and approaches his captive, kneeling before him. He lifts John’s head and stares into his eyes. Knives pierce the darkness. Screams fill caverns in John’s mind. The Tall Man’s eyes do not shine with glee or blaze with anger. They are empty. They are cold.
“I leave you with nothing and take from you everything. I have ruined you.”
He calls to the two guards that stand in the doorway and motions towards the pitiful man before him.
“Take him to the field.”

* * *

The wheels of the carriage rock as it plows up the gravel trail. Chestnut horses strain against their reins as the stagecoach driver ushers them on, his whip cracking through the rumble. John rests against the coach’s rocking side with his hands cuffed behind his back. He grasps out blindly, fingers scraping the wood, searching for anything of use. The two guards sit across from him.
The first, a man even younger than John, sits on the left side. Short tufts of hair stick to his glistening brow. A foreigner, his olive skin shines in the light. The second guard, with muscled veins pulsing atop a head sloppily shaved, flashes John a slick grin filled with teeth black and rotten, stained from years of neglect. His hand disappears into his pocket and returns with a silver snuffbox. He retrieves a finger-full of dried tobacco and places it under his lip.
John’s hands brush against a jutting nail. The head wiggles beneath his open palm. His fingers close around its body.
“Got the time?” he asks.
The second guard smiles and snaps the snuffbox shut.
“What’s the matter, country boy can’t afford his own watch?”
“Just misplaced mine.”
The guard pulls out a dull, brass pocket watch tied to his belt by a length of gold chain and flips open the top.
“Almost noon.”
John looks through a gap in the wood that serves as his window to the world. Harsh wind sprays across his face. Outside, tumbleweeds drift by as lengths of wheat sway in silent form.
“Why do you do this?” John asks the younger guard.
“Do what?”
“Kill.”
“My father fought before me. He trained me to fight. To shoot. To die.”
“To die?”
“To not fear death.”
John scrapes at the rusty nail. The body shakes as it gradually loosens. Splinters bury into his skin. He glances between the two men, making sure not to arouse suspicions, his movements kept at a minimum.
“What do you fear?” he asks, eyes set upon the younger guard.
“I fear the darkness. The wrath of God and the hand of Death.”
“God and Death, you view them as the same?”
“How else does one view The Almighty?”
“With quiet eyes and a pure soul. With love.”
The young guard nods, accepting of the answer. He sits for some time before offering a reply.
“What do you fear?”
John answers without hesitation. “I fear being alone. I fear waking at night to find that my Rose has moved on without me. I fear being sent to fire for my sins. I fear being lost with no hand to guide me through the dark.”
The nail drops from the wood to John’s hand and rolls against his damp palm. The bald man shakes his head and chuckles. The young guard casts his gaze away from the prisoner. He speaks with steady voice.
“I’m sorry. Truly, I am.”

* * *

John hits the dirt hard, the bone in his shoulder shifting as it breaks his fall. Fresh pain radiates through his body. He tightens his grip around the nail, keeping it buried in his palm. The bald man lifts John by the scruff of his shirt and drags him along the ground. John’s clothes tear and shred against the rubble. Blood trickles down his chest as rocks grind his naked skin. The young guard follows. The coach driver sits perched atop the wagon indifferent to the violence.
Shriveled plants smoke in charred remains. Wheat lies as ash upon the earth. Mounds of gray dust pile in heaps. Shivers of fire wither and die beyond the tall grass. All lies dead beneath their feet. Nothing breathes in the empty land. The bald man leads John to a clearing and lets him drop. John pulls himself up to his knees and surveys the carnage that surrounds them.
Charred bodies litter the land. Corpses burned beyond recognition scatter among ash, hands outstretched in pleading fashion, scabbed and molted, twisted towards the sky. Mouths hang open with final screams etched clearly among frozen faces. A young child lies mangled and broken in a briar of thorns. The two newest bodies rest bloated and pale in a half-filled hole, all alone with the smell of rotting flesh. One’s shirt is dyed red with the blood that spilled from its slashed throat. The other’s eyes, darkened maroon, bulge in silent wonder. A bullet hole pierces its skull. Dried gore sprays upon the earth behind. Excrement smudges torn pants.
John shifts the nail up into the keyhole of the cuff. The young guard stands at John’s side, head turned away, not wishing to view the prisoner’s death. The bald man approaches wearing a grin that showcases his tobacco-stained gums in their full glory. He draws his revolver.
“Where do you want it?” he asks as he spins the chamber.
“Nowhere.”
“That’s not an option, friend.”
The thin nail shakes inside the hole, cracking against the metal sides. The guard continues his advance.
“I’ll ask you one more time, where do you want it?”
“What do you fear?” John asks, ignoring the man’s taunts.
The bald man stops, struck dumb by John’s question. He grasps for an answer.
“I fear change," he says with voice uncertain. His eyes drift from his prisoner, lost in the memory of days long past.
“You can’t change what’s coming.”
“What’s coming?”
With a snap the handcuff on John’s left wrist swings open. He grasps the opened side with sharp end facing outward. Sunlight glitters upon cold steel.
“Death.”
John pushes himself up from the dirt, grabbing the young guard by the shoulder and holding the open cuff like a sickle to his throat.
“Drop the gun,” he commands. He shoves the boy forward as a shield.
The bald man cocks his head and keeps his weapon trained on his prisoner. He glances from the second guard’s wide eyes to John’s bloody face and slides his tongue across rotten teeth. A smile forms.
The rider pulls the trigger of his revolver three times. The impact of the shots rock the young guard’s body. John lets him fall and pushes hard off the ground towards his attacker. The bald man fires again. Wind rushes by as the bullet whizzes over John’s ear.
John reaches the bald man and strikes his arm with the jagged cuff leaving a thick gash in its wake. Blood spatters the ground. The revolver goes off in a haze of smoke, the bullet punching John’s body. Blood spills from his abdomen. He pushes the bald man’s head back and sinks the cuff’s edge into his neck. John jerks the weapon from the man’s throat. Thick ropes of blood gush from the wound. The bald man drops to his knees holding his hands to his neck and gasping for air. John pushes the man into the dirt and drags the cuff across his throat in one quick motion. Blood fountains down the bald man’s shirt as John releases him. He leaps across the ground and snatches up the guard's weapon, nearly fumbling it as he cocks the trigger. The bald man thrashes in death as John turns to face the coach driver with revolver raised.
A trail of dust fades as the carriage speeds off down the road. John lowers the revolver and removes the dead man’s boots, pulling them onto his bare feet and lacing them tight. He stands and approaches the young guard who lies motionless in a mountain of red sand. The fallen rider’s eyes follow John as he kneels beside him. John grunts and places his hand over the hole above his waist. Blood flows fresh beneath his fingers. The young guard coughs violently. Blood dribbles down his chin.
John stares across the barren land.
“Where am I?”
“The fields.”
“Where is my home?”
“East. Seven miles.”
“Where is he?”
The guard’s voice breaks, no stronger than that of a child. “Everywhere. He’s in the wind, in the dust.”
“Where is he?” John repeats.
“I’m no one. He tells me nothing.”
“Where is he?”
“Barrow. Find Barrow.”
John mulls over the name. The cameraman. The man who captured his pain, etched it forever in time.
“The photographer?”
The guard nods. His chest rises slowly to let out a shallow hiss of breath.
“How far?” John asks.
“Twenty miles…on a farm…Stanton.”
John pushes the chamber of the dead man’s revolver out. A single bullet remains. He snaps it shut. The young man stares up at him.
“My father taught me not to fear,” he whispers.
“He taught you well.”
The gunshot comes.

* * *

John has just begun to shake. His face is painted ghostly pale. Blood leaks from the makeshift tourniquet wrapped around his waist to the ground below. He stumbles through the tall grass and pushes on towards home. Up ahead a broken stream flows through dirty sand. Pebbles float along its surface. The water, clear as white crystal, shines with unnatural light, a source of life in a desert of ash.
John falls to his knees and dips his hands in the water. His lips, cracked and raw, embrace the flow. He drinks until his hands are empty and begins to sob. He fills his palm and runs the water across his skin, washing the sins from his body. He cries for the young man who lies unburied in the killing fields. He cries for what he has become. He turns his head to the sky. Above him clouds float by with slow contentment, watching his purification.
“Do you watch me, keep her from me? Am I destined to walk as an outcast, die like a dog, is that your will? Then damn you. Damn you and your mercy.”

* * *

John steps through a field of white orchids. Petals float upward, taken by the arms of the wind, and drift slowly back to the ground. His shirt is clean, his wounds healed. Leaves brush against his skin and tickle his arms. A drop of dew falls from the trees above and splashes against his bare feet. The sun shines bright upon him. The rich smell of earth rises from the soil.
Clothes of white, gentleman’s clothes, cover John’s skin. The fabric bristles beneath his touch. His mind is clear, clearer than ever before. He sees the world. The crunch of dry grass comes from behind. He turns.
Rose stands before him donning a gown of white silk that spills from her shoulders. She smiles at him. No words rise from her lips. John’s throat tightens and he tries to speak. Rose glances down at the bundle of cloth she holds as her love approaches.
John’s child lies in Rose’s arms close to her chest. He watches the babe sleep. It rests against her breast wrapped in a blanket of white, only its head visible. Wispy scraps of blond hair cover its skin. John begins to shake.
Rose raises her hand and places it across his cheek. John breathes clear again. He stares at the ground.
“Must I leave?” he asks.
Rose nods.
“I don’t want to.”
Rose smiles and lifts John’s head with her hand. Her deep blue eyes warm his soul. Her lips never move. Her eyes speak for her.
“I’m sorry.”
“I want to stay here with you,” John whispers, taking hold of her hand.
“This is only a dream, John.”
“How long must I wait?”
Rose kisses his lips.
“You must wake.”
“I love you so much.”
“You must wake.”
John nods. He feels himself grow cold. The field turns to ash and the sun burns dark. Light blazes from Rose’s gown to shield them from the encroaching black. From the bundle the infant’s tiny hand appears. It grasps its father’s finger. John closes his eyes and wakes.

* * *

John stumbles through a patch of trees. A clearing lies ahead. His body trembles. He feels that every step he takes will crush him. Bracing himself against a leafless tree’s trunk, he gasps for breath in pained shudders. Sweat pours as a river. He leans forward and lets the salty drops fall from his brow.
He stays there for some time, willing himself to trudge on. The silence of the world, broken only by the occasional flap of wings as a bird dives overhead, surrounds him. He pushes himself up and enters the clearing.
The bald man’s boots crush dead leaves beneath his feet. The sound of movement through grass rises ahead. John draws the empty revolver and struggles to steady his aim. The handle shakes in his grasp. The rustling intensifies.
A gray wolf emerges from the brush, halting at the sight of the wounded man. The hair upon its back stands on end in oval pattern. It eyes John with caution, yellow eyes twinkling in their pools. A low growl rises in its throat. John’s legs threaten to buckle but he holds his ground.
A curved scar runs through the animal’s left eye and down its snout. Matted blood stains its hind leg. A chunk of the beast’s front paw has parted with the rest of its form. The wolf struggles to stand but carries itself with quiet grace. The two stare each other down. The creature’s growls cease.
John stumbles by as the wolf continues on watching him still, but the look has changed. Its eyes no longer echo caution but rather a subtle understanding, almost respect. The creature disappears among the leaves. The wet scent of its fur remains. High above the treetops the sun begins to set.

* * *

The fields are stained black, burned under the western sky. John makes his way through the charred corn. The farm ahead stands untouched by the searing flames that ravaged the land. John reaches the tipped wagon. He coughs into his hands which come away wet with blood and phlegm. He stumbles to the ground and lands on his side, hands scraping against the jagged earth. His father and Samuel lie dead in the dirt. A dustbowl spreads sand across their bodies. John drags himself up. Out beside the cornstalks lies Rose.
John takes off at sprint, sputtering and gasping for air. Blood spills down his fist as he buries it in his gut. The wound throbs beneath his touch. The tourniquet soaks crimson.
Rose lies with her eyes turned to the sky. Bullet holes shred her clothes. Dried blood cakes her belly. Her blouse bunches up around her waist. John pulls it down, rubbing the soft fabric between his fingers. He kisses her cheek. Tears stream from his eyes.
John raises his head to the clouds and shrieks, asking why and pleading for death. His throat burns and still he screams. He draws the revolver and shoves it in his mouth pulling the trigger again and again. Dry clicks issue from the barrel. He hurls the pistol across the field.
John places his face in his hands and sways with exhaustion. A jingle of spurs issues ahead. A voice rises with them.
“She’s dead, son. I’m sorry.”
The fading sun hides the man’s haggard face. A worn vest latches around his form. He flexes and loosens his hands, veins constricting across the skin. A pair of shining silver pistols hangs from his belt, their handles engraved with the sign of the wolf.
“Pa?” John asks, blinking against the glare.
Exhaustion overtakes him. He lets himself fall, his limbs weak, body pale and shaking. The man’s spurs shimmer in the breaking light. John closes his eyes.