Animal (Chapter 6 - Part 1)

(Part 1 of Chapter 6 Rewrite, Brand New Chapter)

The desert sun beats down upon John as he makes his way down the barren road, eyes latched on the line that carries The Black Rail. His eyes never cease their scan of the desert land, tracing the world for any sign of men sent to finish what The Tall Man started. He swallows the last of his water and lets his canteen drop. His supplies are empty, left to the orphaned boy in Fairfield. He lifts his hand to his forehead, protecting whatever he can from the sun’s rays and rubs a finger across cracked lips.
A cactus grows off to the side of the road, sprouting up from the dry earth. John sinks to his knees, removes his knife from its sheath, and drives the blade into the plant. A slow trickle of juice pours. John catches what he can in his hands and drinks. He finishes with a gasp, coughing and rubbing his blistered neck.
He resumes tracking the rail line towards Garrison. A shadow appears. A vulture circles. He lets out a pitiful chuckle of half desperation, half madness, and waves his hands through the air, frightening the beast away if only for a moment.
John stoops down and retrieves a smooth pebble from the ground, placing it under his tongue. His father once told him that sucking on a stone helps keep the mouth wet, that the saliva would keep flowing long enough for him to make it out of any situation. The rock is bitter, the taste of slate and sand, but he endures.
No wind blows in the vacant land, the time John needs it most. The road slopes upward. He reaches the top and peers across a valley of fire. The road stretches as far as the eye can see with no towns dotting its path. The sun continues to blaze overhead.
Nothing lies ahead. John sinks to his knees and drops to the middle of the road. He lays unmoving in the gravel and stares into the burning sun that taunts him from its zenith.
“I cannot die here, not like this.”
“John.”
A voice echoes from beyond the sand. John sits up, swaying from exhaustion as he threatens to tumble asunder. Rose stands before him.
“No. Not now. Please leave me,” he whispers, shaking his head and shielding his eyes.
“Today is not the end.”
John lets out a soft moan.
“But why? Why do I live?”
“It’s not your place to decide whether or not you die. I can do nothing.”
He reaches out and takes his love’s hands.
“I want you with me. I want you so badly.”
Rose smiles. Her body fades and John is left holding nothing but blowing sand. He beats his fists in the earth.
“What do you want? What do you want from me?”
As before, there is no reply. John closes his eyes and sits in the dirt, too tired to move; just waiting, waiting for anything. Anyone.
“Kill me.”
And then, in the distance, comes an answer. A beat. A soft beat. Another. Another. The sound of hoofs on road. The sound of horses and wagons and men.
John does not open his eyes, fearing yet another trick of the mind. The sound grows louder, closer. He can feel the soft vibrations of the beasts behind. The gasping of their powerful lungs. The laughter of children and the shouts of men. Many voices. Many tongues.
He rises on shaky legs and raises his crimson arms. His lips stick together the briefest of moments before they open wide. He can taste blood in the split cracks. His arms splay wide and he turns towards the approaching vision.
The first caravan passes him by without pause. John stumbles to the side and drops back into the road. All around him wagons pulled by muscular oxen and slick-coated horses pass with unknown symbols painted onto cloth flaps.
“What next?” John chuckles.
A massive carriage barrels forward. John lets his body go limp and tilts his head away from the approaching wheel.
“Just kill me.”
Instead, John feels a pair of rough hands latch around his shoulder and drag him off the road; thick, calloused hands with cut fingers and broken nails. Several men in padded overalls surround him, their voices lost in the rumble of hoof and wheel. Then comes the man, the impossibly large man. A torn suit, rolled at the wrist, clashes with the muddied pants that cover the tree trunks he stands on, similar only in the degree of dust and dirt that cakes them. His hands double those of the man who pulled John from the road.
John abandons any semblance of order in his mind. He shuts his eyes to the dream. As he fades, he feels himself being plucked from the earth, carried away to a hidden place, guided by spirits unknown.

* * *

Prince passes without ceremony beneath a town sign that deserves none. He makes his way to the supply store where a midnight horse waits. A young man exits the store and stands beside the animal. He dips his hand into the saddle bags as he works.
“Going on a trip?” Prince asks.
The man turns to address the stranger. A smile forms across his lips as he mounts his horse.
“Can’t afford the train.”
“What a coincidence, I actually missed my ride.”
The two share a polite chuckle. Prince reaches up and takes hold of the steed’s reins. A look of confusion, then concern, replaces the man’s smile. Prince draws his revolver.
“Get off.”

* * *

John opens his eyes to white: a wagon roof. Panic overtakes him. He tries to sit up but a soft hand presses against his chest.
“You must rest.”
A young woman sits beside John wetting a rag in a bowl of water. She carefully dabs his face with the damp cloth. Water spills down John’s bare chest. He touches his lips, still cracked and peeling but no longer stinging beneath his touch. The woman raises a cup.
“Drink."
John downs the liquid, coughing and sputtering in his haste.
“Careful,” she warns, “Not too much, too much is bad in your condition.”
John studies the woman. Her raven hair gleams in the light, sweeping down past her shoulders and swaying with her movements. She seems but a few years older than John himself yet her voice carries wisdom far beyond her years. Her skin shades dark, eyes piercing. He feels that they can see into his mind and soul, beyond his own sight, but they hold familiar warmth. She is thin but strong, body built from days of work. A dress of swirling blues and greens wrap her form. Strings of beads loop around both wrists. John reaches out and grabs her hands, rough to the touch but comforting.
“Who are you?” he asks.
“The name’s Selina.”
“Where am I?”
“Still along the same road we found you,” Selina replies, “Just a little father down it.”
John can’t help but smile at her words.
“By where am I, I mean ‘where’ am I? What is this place?”
Selina shakes her head as if remembering something important she’d forgotten.
“Of course, where are my manners? We’re in my wagon, my part of the caravan. It’s where we live; me and my husband, Alexander.”
“Where is he?”
“Out, at the moment, tending to his wears. I’m sure you’ll run into him soon enough. Now, to answer your previous question, you’re in our little carnival.”
John’s laugh is cut short when he sees that Selina’s face does not change.
“A carnival?”
“Surely you’ve been to one.”
“Only once,” John replies, “I went with Rose. She loved—”
He speaks no more. His mind replays the memory. Selina catches the look on his face and leans forward, her bright eyes locking them in her gaze.
“Old flame?” she asks.
“Only flame.”
“What happened to her?”
“She passed. Please don’t ask me about her.”
Selina nods. She points to a small, knee-high table in the corner of the wagon that sits atop a rug formed in a kaleidoscope of color.
“We’re a travelling carnival. And this…this is where I work.”
The table is empty save for a single unlit candle, its surface smooth and rounded, kept clean and beautiful for customers. A row of red curtains surround most of the table, nearly swallowing it from view.
“Helps set the mood,” Selina says, “But these—“
She holds up a fat deck of cards, back marked by symbols John has never seen nor can he hope to understand. Ends fray from use beyond use.
“—are my craft. I tell you your fortune, you drop your cash. That’s the way it works. I could give you a read sometime, just be sure to drop in more alive than dead.”
John lets out a chuckle that turns into a groan. He rolls on his side and eyes the large, swollen bruise that spreads all the way down his core. Selina returns the deck to the table, pulls the curtain all the way shut, then takes a seat back beside her patient.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that.”
She nods to his other side where his revolvers sit in a pile with his holsters, bullets and shirt.
“Been meaning to ask you about that too. You in some kind of trouble?”
“No. Not me,” John says, “Just the man I’m after.”
“And who are you after?”
“Name’s Varlyn.”
“Known a few Varlyn’s in my day,” Selina replies, “Lot of bad eggs there.”
“This one’s the worst.”
The fortuneteller nods again. She rewets the rag that she’s been holding on John’s lip and tosses it at him.
“You can probably do that yourself.”
“I probably can.”
“You know I never caught your name.”
“It’s John.”
“Hello John,” Selina says, taking John’s hand shaking it exaggeratedly, “nice to meet you. Wish it were under better circumstances, but you take what you can get on the road.”
“I’d imagine,” John says.
“Look like you been living off the road a while.”
“Just looks like that.”
Selina slaps him on the shoulder just a little too roughly. John winces with the sting of burned skin.
“Don’t thank me. Thank Boss, he’s the one who saved you. I just happened to have a spare bed. He said you were just lying there, waiting to be hit by the caravan wheel. What kind of man does that? A man like that, in that much pain, he doesn’t have a right to die. At this age in your life you conquer death, John, you don’t embrace it. What the hell made you want to throw this all away?”
“I’ve lost much.”
“Loss is just a part of life. And it’s not like those you lose ever truly leave you. They wait for you on the other side or whatever it is you want to call it. You just got to have faith. I’m sure Rose felt the same way. She’s probably waiting for you too.”
John sighs. His hand rubs the crucifix that hangs from his neck.
“Do you believe in God?” he asks.
“I’m not from this country, John, I don’t think my beliefs would match your own. But yes, I do.”
“There is no God.”
“You don’t really believe that. You’re filled with anger for your God. You may even hate him but you can’t deny that he’s still a part of you in a very big way.”
Selina rubs her hand across the fresh scar on John’s stomach.
“You got a lot of wounds, John, many are recent,” she says, poking her patient with the tip of her finger, “You still feel pain, right? You’re not dull yet.”
Selina smiles, brushing back her hair as she rises. She makes her way across the room but pauses at the entrance.
“God, whatever his plans may be, wants you alive right now. We made sure of that. You think he ain’t out there, what do you think the odds are of us finding you on the road right when you gave in? You just got to have a little faith, that’s all. Boss ought to send someone by pretty soon. Get some rest.”
Then she leaves. John turns his head and looks up through a hole torn in the fabric of the roof, watching as the clouds drift above and wondering if they watch him in turn.