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Chapter 1... An Old Fashioned Rider.
He wore a battered old hat which seemed to be part
of his weary spirit. It dipped, imitating the shape of
his pride. The sun had bleached his clothes
colourless, draining away the texture leaving it wrinkled
and croaking with dust coated crevices, whilst tanning
his skin almost to the shade of saddle leather.
There had been a plan. There was always a plan. But
it had splintered apart like the branches from the trunk
of the tree he sheltered under. This was an old fashioned
rider who now simply continued crawling toward a distant
horizon. Which never drew closer.
So many dreams. So many hopes of the impossible.
Things which now appeared to be, like the haze before
him, just a trick, just a mirage. He had always felt his
own destiny calling to him on the subtle breeze, which
came from beyond his fellow man’s conceited imagination.
Fate knew his weaknesses. Lured him on and on into the
unknown. Only his troubled awareness of the fact that he
was no longer as young as he had once been, etched lines
in his brow. Where his youth deserted him, his blind
faith in what waited for him out there, remained adamant.
Now every sinew in his tired body told him there was
little time left. A couple of years had seen the rider
cross many borders but none compared with the one which
he now faced. His eyes lingered along the unfamiliar
landscape.
It’s out there, he thought.
Out there.
Two years of miles, seeking. Long, hard trails
had delivered him upon this place for one final chance
for an answer. The rider looked out across the vast sun-
baked desert before him and tried to focus his tired
eyes. Whatever it was out there beyond the endless miles
of shimmering white sand, he could only guess at.
How far was it to the other side?
There was no certain way of judging the distance, but
this did not trouble the rider. All he knew for certain
was there was no turning back. What he desperately sought
was not behind him.
Sinking his hands into his cracked leather gloves,
the rider gritted his teeth and squared up to the strange
sight of a merciless land. He looked around at
the miles of tall trees through which he had journeyed
for over ten days and the pure clean water which flowed
in the narrow winding river behind him. He patted the
four full canteens which hung at either side of his
saddle horn. He was here. He was ready.
Nothing had fazed him during the endless days of his
quest, man, beast, or doubt. But the white featureless
plain which he faced made him uneasy. Would four canteens
be enough? They always had been, but he had never faced
anything so unpredictable before. So awesome in
it’s silent magnitude.
Whatever it was that danced like a flame in the
moving heat which taunted his worn out eyes, still
tormented the rider. It was a ghost mocking him.
Mocking him by it’s ability to escape his focus. To
escape beyond recognition. Beyond familiarity. Beyond his
grasp. Yet the rider refused to take his eyes from the
mirage. There is the answer. If anywhere. There.
Flicking the brow of his hat up, he tapped his
spurs into the sides of his faithful mount. Leaving the
safety of the shaded timberlands and began heading
down into the arid plains. The horse walked carefully
over the uneven ground as the rider leaned back in his
saddle.
The heat. Grew. Every stride, a notch of attrition.
The rider felt it bounce up off the ground and beat down
from above, punching every drop of sweat off his body.
His clothes burned against his flesh. He urged the animal
beneath him, yet all he could do was sit and allow the
horse to find it’s own rhythm. The dancing ghost remained
elusive to his eyes, which squinted against the blinding
reflected sunlight. With every beat of his heart the
rider’s conviction hardened. This was the trail. He was
finally on the verge.
The rider pulled up. Staring around, he felt alone
as he began to fully realise that nothing but sand filled
this vast place. No blades of grass, no tumbleweed or
sage lived here.
Only sand. White hot sand.
Chapter 2... Cast into Shadow.
‘Arch Stanton’ the dark wooden signpost read.
Written by thick, chubby fingers, washed in sand and
struck into the ground. It was timid compared
to the two scarecrows that flanked it. Dwarfed in their
presence and cast into shadow.
The old fashioned rider - half slumped in his saddle
- milled about next to the sign, his eyes were drawn to
the lurid scarecrows. But they stared back over his head
out across the vast arid plain, that he had first marched
then stumbled; then finally dragged himself through. To
Here, to the feet of the crucified scarecrows. Two days.
Gone. A grotesque reward for such toil. He squinted his
eyes as he looked around him, trying desperately to
focus. He grimaced as he leaned forward to spit. But
nothing but a quiet bleak sound came out. He leaned
forward a little more to see the ground, just to be sure.
And as he fell from his saddle he knew at least, that the
ground was dry.
He lay there on the floor with only his breathing making
his body move. And thoughts of the sea stirring his mind.
After awhile he rose up and climbed back onto his
chestnut brown horse and looked at the scarecrows once
again and realised that what was to come next he was in
no condition to face now. He straightened up, dusted
himself off and strode forward on his horse, looking
sternly ahead of him as he passed the scarecrow’s
gateway. And he was still staring as his horse collapsed
beneath him.
The shrill noises of it’s death stabbed his
ears. He tried to roll away but his left leg was trapped
beneath the weight of the dying animal. Nostrils flared
as wide as his eyes were in terror. He scratched at the
sandy ground trying to release himself. He horse thrashed
around, arched and reared into the blue sky, his hoofs
barely missing the rider, he finally hauled himself away
and sat watching the writhing animal thrashing around,
losing it’s will to live with every movement like a
spluttering dying fire.
‘I told you if you kept sucking that horses dick something bad was going to happen, didn’t I?
And that, that’s bad.’ Said the rider’s navy colt.
Propped up on the ground the rider stared and lit a
cigar.
Chapter 3... Misfire.
The colt model 1851 navy revolver. 36 calibre. Six shot
cylinder. 7-½” octagonal barrel. 2 ½ pounds in weight. 12
inches in total length. The grip was made of a teak
coloured wood and on the cylinder the scene of a navel
battle was engraved. It was loaded with loose black
powder and a bare bullet, referred to as "cap and ball,"
or with paper cartridges. Loading a cap and ball revolver
was from the front of the cylinder. It was fired with
percussions caps. But there was a misfire problem. The
misfire problem was well enough known to be commented on
when it didn't happen after unusual circumstances.
The rider’s colt didn’t misfire. It chatted back.
The old fashioned rider scarped his way through the thick
dusty air. He had retrieved his hat and made his way
towards Arch Stanton with a judgemental sun overhead. His
paced picked up as he travelled down a sandy hillside,
here and there tufts of grass began to sprout out of the
ground. Long strands of green tongues floated around in
the dying embers of a wind that didn’t deliver. Dead,
purposeless trees gave morose stature to the landscape.
The rider stopped dead and tried to maintain a level of
composure as a short round man stepped out from behind a
tree. And spoke.
“Salutations stranger.” His voice meandered through the air.
His dirty yellow shirt reached down to his toes.
“I am Billy Bob Joe, I see you’re on your way to Arch Stanton, so you’ll have need, to know of, religious sacrilege.
It is the imitation of devotion - of kneeling - clasped hands. The outward instigation of the act. One commits sacrilege for oneself, in the eyes of others it is nothing but conformity, in another way merely getting up God’s nose. But we’re there too soon, too soon!”
His chubby hands waved around ecstatically.
“If pure sacrilege involves faith that which it defies, how can it be sacrilege?”
The straw in his mouth bobbed up and down as he spoke.
“The sacrilege that is truly sacrilegious is unseflessly unconscious and ambiguous like beauty. But more amusing.
You need to know this stranger. You need to be aware.”
The rider blinks.
‘If we kill him. He’d be a lot better off. Trust me. That man is to humankind what his shirt is to laundry: a disgrace’.
“Be aware”.
Then Billy ran off toward the town.
As Billy’s smell slowly disappeared. The rider rested
against a tree and gave the town a searching look.
Arch Stanton didn’t look as it were hated, just never
loved. Once it had been tended to by frequent visitors.
But they hadn’t been back in awhile.
A main street split the town in two. Either side
rough brown hues obscured by the dust shaped themselves
into buildings. An outpost town for the local ranchers to
trade. But the trade had dried up as the desert has
slowly enveloped the place.
Chapter 4... Dust and Flies.
Up close, the town was just dust and flies. Night had
began to fall, the sun had taken it’s chance to escape
and left a bruised sky overhead, as the rider slunk off
to the side, walking down the street keeping close to the
buildings. He spotted a dark patch on the ground. Crept
closer, his feet feeling his way across the ground, the
skin around his neck tightened as his movements became
more precise. As he got closer the dark patch became a
stain. Engulfed in shadow, he tried to twist around
suddenly but was stopped by a inescapable weight. He was
throw back as he squeezed the colt's trigger. A huge hole
was left in the stomach of the creature. Entrails loosely
handing out and dripping to the floor. Bits of it already
rotting scattered around the place.
Loose skin flapping against itself. It hummed. The sound
was like the desert were inside of it - trying to escape.
The rider pointed the gun at it and fired once. It’s head
split open between its short stub like horns that jutted
out either side of it’s forehead. Then whatever fell out
hit the floor, just before the creature joined it.
Slapped against the ground, trying to raise itself up on
it’s arms as it’s pinkish blue tinged brains were
drooling out of the gaping hole in it‘s head. The rider
carelessly began to shoot out the creatures elbows. It
slumped forward and never moved.
That’s almost as ugly as your mother.
The rider ran.
Chapter 5...Leaving Splinters.
Billy clung to the huge doors. He pressed himself up
against it as if it were his last hope. His nails scraped
down the wood leaving splinters pushing into his fleshy
fingers. His fingers caressed the grain of the wood.
It was an old church. Older than the town.
Billy howled.
“He’s here. He has arrived for her. He has come and
brought sacrilege with him!”
[not the end] |
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