Carver

They say everyone’s got a bullet out there somewhere with their name on it. Which begs the question: who’s making ‘em?

When I was a little girl, my brother went out one day and never came back. He’d gone to town to trade milk for money but come sundown he weren’t nowhere to be seen.

Daddy found his body on the road the next day. Poor fool never even made it to town.

Daddy said my brother had been shot once through the heart. What little money he had on him was gone, so was anything else of value. They even took the damn milk.

Daddy called two people when he got back to town: the sheriff and the doctor. The priest wanted in on the whole affair, visited me and Mamma while Daddy took the doctor to the body.

“We don’t need you,” Mamma told him. “Not yet.”

Doc brought my brother back. Fished the bullet out of his chest. Daddy said he wanted to keep it. After all, it had my brother’s name on it.

He called the priest over, then. We had a little funeral. My brother’s just a stick in the dirt, now, and a bullet with his name on it.

Time goes on and my Mamma’s asking me when I’m gonna meet a nice fella and settle down. She wants me out of the house. Not that she don’t love me or anything, she just saw me wasting my life staying with her and Daddy.

Daddy had put my brother’s bullet on the mantle over our fireplace. One name looking down on everything we did. It didn’t have eyes, but it seemed to follow you around the room.

At the time, there was a boy who was sweet on me. He asked me to marry him. To settle down.

I told ‘im “No”:

“There’s a bullet out there with my name on it, and the way I see it, it’s a lot harder to hit a moving target.”

I was fortunate enough to have some money of my own. Not much, but enough. I packed a bag and stole one of Daddy’s guns, went off without telling no one where I was going. They never found the hooligans who killed my brother, so I figured it couldn’t be too hard to fade into the background. To live outside the law.

It’s a harsh life. But you spend one night out in the middle of the Arizona desert looking up at the sky and tell me it ain’t worth it.

Sure, it’s nice to be around other people. It’s nice to have a bed and a meal you didn’t have to cook yourself. But when that comes with a side of checking notice boards whenever you pop into town just in case there’s a wanted poster with your face on it, you learn to avoid civilisation.

Course, I wasn’t alone the entire time. I met a girl. Fell in love. She didn’t exactly live on the righteous side either. She ain’t my wife, not legally. But I like to think she is in the eyes of God. Never seemed right what the priest used to say about how I looked at his daughter. And how she looked back.

‘Course, one day I was working the highway and there was a casualty. Fool wouldn’t give up his money. Fell out his damn wagon. Cracked his head open on a rock. Didn’t even have a chance to pull his gun on me.

It was the same type as mine, the one I stole from my Daddy. Used the same ammo. And what do you know – I open it up and find two bullets in the barrel and one of them has my name on it. The other – well, the other one’s got my wife’s.

I’ve had them in my pocket ever since. But it did get me wonderin’.

Dolly knows all about what happened to my brother. About how they never found his killer. As it turns out, by that point that wasn’t quite true anymore. They knew who it was. They just hadn’t caught ‘im yet.

“We gotta go to town,” I told her, and we did. I bought myself a box of new ammo and sat in our room with a knife and that little casing of metal.

Took me damn near half the night, but I got that bastard’s name on there eventually.

And what do you know? Next morning, a cowboy turns up to the bar. A cowboy with the same name.

“We got some business to attend to,” I said, and I threw down my glove at his feet. He laughed.

I didn’t mind; I’d been laughed at before. I just pulled my gun and pointed it right between his eyes.

“Now, now, you take that outside,” says the barkeep. So we do.

He insists on going from draw, so I put my gun away. Still take the first shot. Still hit him square in the chest.

I only had one bullet in my gun that day. Funny how things work out, isn’t it?

But I’ve still got a bullet in my pocket with my name on it, and another one with my wife’s. What son of a bitch made those?

Took years, but I found a shack in the middle of nowhere. Whole place smelled of burnin’ metal and gunpowder. Inside was an old man and a lot of bullets. No guns, though.

“You weren’t supposed to find me,” he said, all scared like. “No one was supposed to find me.”

See, seemed everyone I spoke to had heard about these bullets. Some were scared at the very thought of them. No one knew where they came from.

Then I had a thought.

Names are tricky things. People don’t usually have just one. To my friends and my family, I’m Kate. To others, I’m That Damn Bitch. Some call me Katie. Some call me Miss Butterworth, or Dolly’s Girl.

So this bullet I’ve got in my pocket. This bullet that says ‘Kate B’. I can’t be the only Kate B out here. But this bullet winds up in the gun of someone I run into. Someone who only didn’t get a chance to fire it because he tripped and hit his head on a rock. Someone who also had a bullet with my wife’s name on it.

I might only have done it the once by this point, but I know how metal shaves off the casing of a bullet as you drag a sharp point across it. I know how difficult it is to wipe those shavings away. So I know my name ain’t been on the bullet in my pocket long when I find it in that barrel.

Seems a pretty good way to find someone, don’t ya think?

So I get a bullet. A blank bullet. And I sit and I carve and this one says ‘Engraver’.

And what do you know? The next day I stumble across a shack in the middle of nowhere. Whole place smelled of burnin’ metal and gunpowder. Inside was an old man and a lot of bullets. No guns, though.

“You weren’t supposed to find me,” he said, all scared like. “No one was supposed to find me.”

Famous last words if I ever heard ‘em.

I lit a fire in that building. Only thing inside a load of bullets and a man with a hole in his head. Got far enough away before the whole thing blew. That was damn near the prettiest sight I ever saw.

They say everyone’s got a bullet out there somewhere with their name on it. Which begs the question: who’s making ‘em?

No one, that’s who. Not anymore. You’re welcome.