Chapter 32 The boy and the man called Red and an Irishman and the old-ex-cave-dweller were the only others to escape the slaughter, dark figures anguished upon the sands. The ex-cave-dweller covered himself in mud and wrapped his head in sea-weed and made his way down the side of a stream and was unseen. The rest escaped into the desert on foot and the Yuma did not see. Red had two pistols and the Irishman had nothing and the boy had his small caliber six-gun with three charges remaining in the chambers. The Irishman lagged behind them, for he had gone to the water to shave that morning, and as he did so a long cane arrow passed through his throat and flew on and fell far out in the river and sank and blackened the water then backed to the surface again and began to turn and to drift downstream. The Irishman had wrapped his neck in a scarf and now he made his way on in his rags and his collar of blood and he hugged himself. The yonder sun beyond right reckoning was like the eye of God and so, too, shall all nations and tongues be dust. They stayed together and footed their way through the abyss of heat. Their munitions had dwindled. The sky was almost cloudless, without mercy, and God’s foundry hammered down. The landscape unforgiving. The boy felt that they would lose and that sunlight would win. But he kept pace. To their luck they saw a watering hole in the distance. All of them doubted their wits but they went toward it and indeed the water was there and clear and drinkable and fresh. They spaced out around the watering hole. Red dunked his entire head in and jerked it back out again and panted. “Whoo,” he said, “I thought we were done for.” The boy cupped his hands together and dipped them in the pool and brought the water to his lips and drank. The Irishman had ducked down and he lapped the water and took a breath and began again. The lad lay back and watched the few clouds. Vapors shapeless and on course. The winds made ripples on the water. He stood and walked around the rim of the pool. Clouds mirrored inverse thereon. Red suddenly stood and began to walk away. The Irishman screamed. The boy ran. “Come on back now, friend.” Red stopped and stared at the ground. Hartford had found them. This water the only water in the region. He approached. A being of a manner divergent to the world. His figure now fast with clarity and now fugitive in the alternation of that same light. His very omen rendered him equivocal. Like something so charged with meaning that its shape is blurred. *** He had cut apart clothes taken from a family in a wagon and he had ripped them apart then sown these fabrics to fit his massive frame. He had slung to his back three riffles and he had around his waist four revolvers. He had wrapped his head in hemp cut from the wagon-cover and he had cut himself bags for his feet with it, too, and he had with him food taken from the wagon and he came nearer, nearer, nearer. He was adorned in meat like some medieval falcon. Or like a lawyer that had gone into the wilderness to die. Something crazed by the country. *** “What do we do?” asked Red, stopping. But the boy had already begun to walk fast past him. The Irishman followed. Then Red resumed fleeing. Hartford yelled: “Give me the Irishman, boy! And all’s well!” The boy beckoned for the man to keep on. Then looked back. Hartford already had the stock of the rifle against his shoulder and the muzzle had flashed. A bullet tore through the leg of the Irishman and he screamed and fell. Another bullet tore through him and took with it flesh and blood and bone but not his life and then another hit and then another hit and another. He screamed. The boy stopped and turned around. Red kept on. The Irishman convulsed in the sun already caked in his blood and he looked at the lad pleadingly. What winds them shapes the whelk’s shell. And if the blackened husk of him is found among the sands by travelers yet to pass where there is no dog nor watchman who could tell the apparatus of his destruction? “Please don’t leave me to him!” he shrieked. The boy tried to reason. “Well if it is not my good friend McGraddy.” “Please, just finish me! Don’t let him get me! Please!” The kid took out his six-gun and looked into the chambers. Only three shots. “I cain’t waste the ammunition.” “Waste it? Oh curse yer black heart!” The boy walked fast away. The Irishman sobbed. Hartford laughed.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 09:12:56 +0000
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