Along the Lonesome Trail

Trace turned just in time to see something move away. Vines swayed along the brush in the wake of the unseen thing. He could smell it. It smelled like animal carcasses on a warm day and burning leather, overpowering the familiar scents of dry air and falling leaves. There was a howl, and Trace tightened his grip on his rifle.

“C’mon out you stinking bastard,” he said through clenched teeth.

Something stirred further in the brush. Leaves and pine needles rustled.

Trace pulled the rifle up and set his sights down the barrel. The full moon overhead glinted off the steel of his gun. He cocked with his thumb. He pressed against the trigger, ready to squeeze at the slightest provocation.

He looked up and down the trail. He found it empty. It was just him and Buttercup, an aged mare grown fat in pasture. Buttercup’s eyes were wide. Hot breath steamed out her nostrils as she shuffled her aged legs.

“Still, Buttercup. Still.” Trevor patted her greying coat. He walked down the trail and looked off into the brush.

Buttercup looked from side to side. She turned her head to regard the brush and screeched a pained neigh. Something large was atop her when Trevor turned around.

Trevor aimed his rifle and fired.

Something roared.

Trevor ran forward.

When the smoke cleared, Buttercup lay on the ground, a gaping hole bleeding from her side. Her hide was peeled back in three parallel shreds.

The leaves along the brush rustled and swayed, but the trail and clearing were empty.

“Damn!” Trevor reloaded his rifle. He stood over his horse and looked Buttercup in the eye. She stared back, her eyes moist and wide. She shuddered. He lifted the rifle to her head and fired. “Damn.” He didn’t look down at her again. There was no need.

“Come back here! Face me!” Trevor roared at the surrounding forest.

Somewhere in the distance there was a sound. Almost like a laugh, more like a bark.

Trevor looked up and down the trail. It remained empty. The dark mound that was once Buttercup lay lifeless and still. “That was my favorite horse, you monster. Now you’ve done it. It’s one thing to eat a man’s goats, but another thing altogether to eat his horse. I’d had her since I was just a boy. She was like a sister. Get out here!”

He stood silent and listened. There was no movement, no sound, just the wind.

Trevor turned around.

Something blocked the trail. As a shadow, it looked like a man – a very large man, but a man nonetheless – but Trevor knew it was something else, something equally as bad if not worse. And that was saying something considering Trevor’s opinion of humanity in general.

It stood still, blocking the trail ahead. The moon stood high above the form, making it a mere silhouette. Trevor pulled up his gun and fired.

Smoke rose into the sky. The bullet pinged as it ricocheted off a boulder somewhere in the distance. The thing was gone. It dissipated and came back together.

It laughed. The laugh turned into a howl.

Trevor quickly reloaded and fired. He reloaded and fired. He reloaded and fired. And then there were no bullets left.

“Die! C’mon. Die!” Trevor cocked his empty gun and fired off a click. He looked at his rifle. "Shit."

He looked ahead. There was a glint of sharp teeth raised into the facsimile of a smile inside a cloud of dark smoke.

Trevor took in a deep breath of air and raised his shoulders back. He tightened his grip on his rifle and prepared to swing.

The thing solidified and ran at him. The ground shook beneath Trevor’s feet.

Trevor reared back the rifle in his hands. As the form of the creature approached, he swung through the air, connecting with nothing.

There was a sharp pain in Trevor’s side. He dropped the gun, reached down with his hand, and pulled it away wet with blood. “That just ain’t fair!”

“Whoever the hell said life’s fair?”

Trevor fell to his knees.

“Pa?”

There was a laugh that turned into a roar and then the thing was upon him.

Trevor’s scream echoed along the lonesome trail.

That Cold, Dark Womb of Stars

Davis stared up at the sky. Lying on his back, his shadowed form resembled a pincushion in the gloom of twilight. The fading light from the disappearing day reflected off glassy eyes. He reached up a bloody hand – he wondered how much of that blood was his own and how much had once belonged to others?—and grasped the protruding shaft of an arrow. He grimaced as he pulled it free.

He pulled out arrow after arrow. The notched heads tugged and ripped at flesh and fiber. He ignored the pain. He held his breath as he yanked out each arrow, gasping with pain with each gush of fresh blood. He knew no sorrow. Each revealed seeping wound brought him one step closer to something resembling freedom.

His open wounds bloomed upwards into roses of red. They unfurled above him and rained down blood-soaked tears. Their scent reminded him of love, of something not quite but almost forgotten: another time, another place, a much more comfortable bed, soft skin like rose petals.

He gasped and felt his heart shudder. It shook like a frightened bird unable to extend her wings because the cage was much too small. Those unfurled wings ached and grew stiff from lack of use until the bird found itself paralyzed. He sucked in a draught of air and tasted the roses blooming above him in the sky. Unlike the wings of the bird in his chest, the roses growing from his seeping red wounds could unfurl. There was no cage up in the sky above him. It was wide open.

The night grew dark and stars emerged. He watched the stars dance across the horizon and tried to remember the names of forgotten constellations and saw revelations: glimpses and hints of the now lost stories the images in the sky above him represented once upon a time for another race of man. He smiled and listened to the stars sing a song that only the dying get to hear – a small consolation to offset the fear.

The sky tugged him upwards, and he felt free. The sky was open. There were no cages, but there was a chill. Stars shined, increased in size, and then receded.

Davis blinked, found himself back in his body, and tears rolled down his cheek. His breathing resumed. A sudden awareness of pain shook him to his core, and he cried out. He prayed he might soon return to that cold, dark womb of stars. The shell of his body seemed much too constricting. His roses withered and joined the dust of the desert surrounding him. The wings of his heart cracked as they were bent back and broken. A medic called out his name.

Perseids: 1861

The sun set long ago, yet the heat of the day lingered and radiated upwards from parched rocky soil. My bare feet were burned and blistered and open sores wept. I did not feel any of this. I did not feel anything beyond an inner emptiness and a tinge of loneliness. A harsh dusty wind moaned as it picked up sand from the desert floor, and my dry eyes burned. A dull ache throbbed in my head; I touched it with my hand, and my fingers came away wet with blood.

In front of me, the moon glowed large and looming on the horizon. A Joshua tree stood before me casting long, dark shadows.

Bats fluttered overhead, and, above them, an occasional star fell and trailed lines of color and light. The falling stars increased in number, and it seemed as if the sky itself might fall down.

I grew dizzy and faint and sat on the ground. I pulled my pistol from my holster and touched the steel barrel to my neck. It felt cool and refreshing in the hot night.

A scorpion crawled on a rock in front of me. I took aim and fired. Faster than the eye could register, the scorpion was gone. Smoke drifted up from my gun. The barrel was hot to the touch now.

Life one moment, gone the next.

It all seemed so fleeting, so meaningless. I thought about my girl. I had wanted to marry that girl. I thought about the burning farms. I thought about the flying arrows and bullets and screaming and blood – so much blood. The ground was muddy with blood once it was all done and over, and what had any of it accomplished? What was the point? After all, it was only land, and there was so much of it. Why couldn’t it be shared?

So many lives were lost in the confusion. A panicked horse trampled a toddler – she was my neighbor’s kid – but I had been helpless to stop it. Soon afterwards, that same horse bucked and kicked me to the ground. I lay unconscious and bleeding in my cotton long johns beneath some scrub. Once I awoke, the massacre was over.

I looked, but there seemed to be no survivors, just bodies and blood and acrid smoke. This morning, the sun rose, and birds sang just like any other day. By midday, the life I knew was gone forever.

In the present, a coyote howled in the distance.

I looked towards the horizon behind me. Beyond the ridge – where the land was moistened by a cool mountain stream, and the soil was fertile – thin lines of smoke snaked upwards into the empty night while vultures circled. My cheeks were suddenly hot and wet with tears.

I lay back down and looked back up to the sky and watched stars fall. They burned up before ever touching this cursed land, and I envied them.

All at once, everything grew fluid around me. The land beneath me encircled me as it became a canoe, and I felt myself float downstream. The falling stars became floating candles. They flashed by as the currents grew stronger, carrying me down into a widening and endless waterway. The mouth of the darkest ocean opened up and devoured all I ever was or would be.

Then I became aware – at the final moment before this world faded into the next – that the stars continued to fall, and I knew they would always fall, year after year, oblivious of us all.