Splinters and Silt

The mule died and John Barris was alone. He tugged the rope. The beast didn’t stir from the baked dirt. It might have been sleeping if not for the silence. No more broken wheeze, no more ragged clop, no more irritated snap of the teeth. All John heard now was the wind whispering promises of another day in hell.

He dropped the rope, stretched, and then got to rummaging through the animal’s bags.

It wasn’t his mule. It was his by rights but he didn’t own it. But he was owed it. He was owed much, oh so much, but the men in this country were all cheats and liars and thieves. The women too.

The food, he took. The clothes, he left behind. Maybe he’d be back for them one day. He bundled them around the silverware. Figured he should bury them but the mere idea was tiring and he had no shovel. He left his pot but he took the small pan, and of course, he took the water skin. Lighter than expected.

And the rifle, he pondered. He looked back the way he’d come, back to the hole he’d called home for too many years. A place he’d left for good four nights ago. He couldn’t see it, of course. The dead brown dirt stretched farther than his sight, blending into the grey haze of the sky. Nothing broke the monotony except the odd jagged rock or withered plant. He’d even lost the mountains somewhere along the way.

But he knew they were coming.

Even though he couldn’t see them, he knew they were coming. Marcel Whitmore would see to that. He didn’t hide his hatred for John, and when a bandit like Marcel became the sheriff, well, that told you all you needed to know about the world.

John felt them coming. Felt a cold in his bones, a cold that offered no reprieve from the morning’s heat, and a cold unmoved by the blistering sun. They were watching him, he knew it. Or someone was, anyway. Only he couldn’t say who, as nothing stirred but the dust devils and even the bleary sky was void of birds.

They were coming but he couldn’t see them yet, and the rifle was dead weight. He let it drop. His revolver would do.

As it had done for Leo Abner.

John rose. He spared the mule a final glance, noting that there were already flies. Of course, when there was nothing else, you could always count on flies. He scanned the wares he was leaving behind, then turned around and never looked back again. He marched all through the dawn as he had marched while the mule still lived, though his burden was greater now. It pulled at him, dragged him towards the earth, towards a dusty tomb. Would the flies follow him, knowing he was next?

He clutched the ancient crucifix around his neck, the bleached thing that was his last link to a mother long dead.

John’d put his share of men into the ground but he’d bet good money they all ended up buried proper. If he fell here, like the mule, like some animal, what would happen to him? Would he ever be found? Would some vile thing eat him?

He clutched his crucifix tighter. Held it so hard it threatened to break. Only let go when he realized he’d been holding his breath and had to gasp.

John drank some of his water, steadied his nerves.

Leo Abner had it coming. He got between a man and his woman, damn fool. If John hadn’t stood up for himself he might have lost Caroline altogether. And so, as these things go, John was faster on the draw and splattered Leo’s brain against the stable walls. After that it was only fair that Leo’s estate paid for his misdeeds with the silverware. That’s how justice worked – the guilty paid a penalty to the aggrieved.

But the world wasn’t just, was it? Leo was a bosom friend of Sheriff Marcel’s, and when the shooting started in earnest John barely made it out of town.

Oh yes, they were coming. He couldn’t even properly say goodbye to Caroline. Just gave her something to remember him by and a promise he’d be back. She was ragged in tears.

John looked up at the sky and reckoned the sun hadn’t moved. He felt like he’d been marching for hours and he couldn’t remember the last time he slept. He drank more water and then suddenly there was none left. He tossed the skin aside, too tired to even rouse anger.

If they were coming they needn’t worry their guns. No water meant his trip was coming to an end. He hadn’t passed any since he left town: no streams, no wells, not so much as a puddle. Even the cactuses were shrivelled and grey.

John’s throat clenched hot. He thumbed the crucifix again and his mind mumbled through half-remembered prayers. Last time he sat on a pew was when his mother dragged him out on a cold April Sunday, for his twelfth birthday. But what good was it? The Lord ignored her wasting, and she drowned in her own blood anyway.

John scanned the horizon. It was bleak all around, still bathed in the ghoul-pink of the rising sun. Cracked earth beneath him, haze in the distance, and all of it swaddled in dust.

He stopped. A grey smear of haze everywhere, except directly ahead of him: a dark spot. A smudge of charcoal, the grime under a nail.

Something. Anything. Hope.

John trudged towards it as a moth to the fire. He didn’t dare look away, didn’t even dare to blink lest it vanished. The darkness loomed and spread, and when he drew near things emerged from the shimmering. A rooftop. A fence. A town.

John’s throat cracked with the strain of a laugh. His eyes burned for want of tears. The sight renewed his strength and he doubled his pace. He found himself standing before a wooden arch, marking the gateway to town. There hung a sign: “Welcome to Limbo. Settled 1684.”

It wasn’t a big town. A couple dusty streets lined with creaking buildings of wind-stripped wood. But it had a saloon, and that meant drink.

It reminded him of the place Ben Duffy ran back home. About a dozen small, round tables, a polished bar with brass decorations, a piano. Fond memories of cards and tobacco long into the night. And there was a staircase too, almost the same spot as back at Duffy’s. John remembered the first time he’d seen Caroline come down the steps, the first time their eyes met. The first time he paid for her.

She wasn’t like the other girls. He had a real connection with Caroline. He could talk and she would listen. She cared. She wouldn’t lie to him.

He remembered the last time he paid for her too. Leo Abner confused her, and she said she didn’t want any more of John’s money. Didn’t want John. He had to remind her who she was, who she belonged with. Belonged to.

He marked her. Staked his claim on her face with his knife.

He’d forgive her in time, and it would keep her out of other men’s arms until he returned.

This new saloon was less like Duffy’s the longer John examined it. For one, Duffy was mad about polishing, but the wood in this place was parched and cracked. It was dead quiet too.

John cleared his throat, tried to stammer out a greeting. Ended up banging on the bar.

Nobody came. Maybe it was too early in the morning. Maybe they’d understand a dying man’s plight. John stepped behind the bar and helped himself.

There were dozens of mismatched bottles on display, with green and brown and clear glass, all frosted over with dust. And worse, they were all empty. Every damn one.

With an animal growl John smashed them and started digging behind the bar. More bottles, more nothing. He’d kill for a whisky but he’d settle for one of Duffy’s watered down beers. Hell, water would be fine, even from a horse’s trough.

That gave him the idea. He rushed back into the street but the trough was filled with nothing but splinters and silt. He made fists and looked around for anyone to explain or to alleviate his frustrations, but the street was as deserted as the saloon. No matter. A town had to have a well or something. But before he could take a single step to search, a noise froze him in place.

The siren whistle of a locomotive, and the billowing hiss of steam.

Could a run-down little ghost village like this really have a train? He couldn’t deny the plume of smoke in the sky. He weaved between buildings following it, until he came to the edge of town. There was a platform, and the most stunning train John had ever seen.

The locomotive had clean black wheels and a vibrant crimson coat of paint. Gold highlights decorated the siding and the smokestack, and the whole thing was impossibly clean. It reflected the brilliant light of the sun, and there was not a mote of dust or grime to be found.

Behind it sat just two cars: a hopper loaded with coal, and a sleeper, both as immaculate as the locomotive. And behind them, the end of the line.

John shambled towards the sleeper, unsure if he was dreaming, if his desiccated mind had started falling apart. The car’s door opened and out stepped a man. He wore a coat as crimson as the train, likewise embroidered with gold, and on his head perched a black top hat. It matched his severe mustache, thin and curling up at the sides.

He leaned on the railing, checked a golden timepiece.

“Marvelous,” he said. “Impeccable timing, Mr. Barris.” The locomotive hissed again.

John approached, his hand hovering near his revolver. He’d never seen this man before, but if he was one of Marcel’s, he’d pay for it.

He had a pressing question but all he could do was croak and cough.

“You sound like you could use a drink,” the man in red said. He knocked on the sleeper’s door. A woman emerged, just her face, just enough to pass along a bottle and glass.

The man dropped to the ground and approached John. He didn’t pay any mind to the revolver floundering in his direction. Instead he pulled the bottle’s cork out with his pristine white teeth, and then poured a rich golden-brown glassful.

“Finest whisky you’re like to find in these parts.” He held the glass out and smiled a smile too wide for comfort.

John held his gun for a moment longer, but then dropped both it and his nerve. He grabbed the glass and downed it in one go. It was fire burning cool. What it tasted like, he couldn’t tell, and though he knew what he needed was water he also couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to. By the time he drained the glass a fit overtook him and he coughed up half of it.

“Whisky,” the man said, pouring a second glass. “The water of life.” He tossed the bottle onto the ground, and John drank more. It burned so hard he sputtered again, and with the glass drained he dropped to his hands and knees and drank right from the bottle. The liquid fire stole his breath.

The next fit wracked his whole body and he was left wheezing on the ground, grit sticking to the half-drunk liquor covering him.

The man in red loomed. “Burns, doesn’t it? Afraid everything does, out here.”

“Water,” John finally rasped.

“No time for that, alas.” He rummaged in his coat and pulled out a yellowed piece of paper with mauve ink, read it over. “One ticket for John Barris.” He tossed it at John. “We’ve a train to catch.” Without warning he dragged John to his feet and helped steady him.

“Who are you?” John hissed.

“Think of me as an old friend.” He guided John to the sleeper, and John found himself powerless to resist. Even if he hadn’t been so tired, there was an unexpected strength in the stranger’s hands.

“Where are we going?”

“Away.” They stopped before the sleeper, and the man faced him.

“And if I don’t want to?”

Again, that too-wide smile. “It is of course your life, John. How you spend it is your choice entirely. If you don’t want to ride with us…” He indicated the vast, desolate expanse. John observed it again, how it all blurred on the horizon, and he shivered. He didn’t ever want to cross that desert again.

“So you’ll join us?”

John nodded.

“Splendid. In that case, unburden yourself of your earthly belongings. You won’t need them anymore.”

John obeyed, starting to feel the comforting warmth of the whisky settling in his gut. He dropped his bags of food, his pan, his pouch. He didn’t object when the man flipped his hat off, and then John removed his cracked old vest and even his holster. It felt good to lose the weight.

“All set, sir. Can I board now?”

The smile crinkled into the faintest sneer, and the man in red slowly put on a pair of white gloves.

“Almost,” he said. “There’s just one more thing.”

John swallowed hard. His eyes followed the man’s gloved finger as it pointed to his chest. To the crucifix.

“Sir?” John wrapped his fingers around the old cross, felt the worn leather cord around his neck. “It’s my mother’s. Surely there’s no harm…”

The man opened his palm expectantly. “You won’t be needing it where we’re going.”

John took one final look over his shoulder, at the trackless waste he’d travelled. Then he lifted the cord over his neck and deposited the relic in the man’s palm.

“Well done, John.” The man’s too-long fingers closed on the crucifix, a spider’s legs. There was a crack, a grinding, and when he opened his fist again all that remained was ash, quickly devoured by the wind.

The man in red put his hand on John’s shoulder and they boarded the sleeper. The train’s whistle blew and it lurched into motion. And they rode off into the distance, on a track to nowhere.