number three

this is another change of scene

enjoy or die.

Tall Mike

Two riders appeared on the pale horizon at the height of the afternoon sun. They were shabby, haggard men, sweaty and stinking from a hard day of riding, their skin burned red and purple like a beet, cracked and peeling under their heavy coats. They had ridden up the empty road that snaked its way through the desert, the dead mans path as it was known in The Last Stop, a terrible and dangerous road beset with highwaymen and bandit lords and the savage men who were taken by the curse. Men whose eyes had melted from their sockets and whose skin had burned and crackled into stone; whose minds had abandoned them years ago, and now they lived only for blood. It was seldom that any caravan were to come by that road, and riders even rarer, for the savage men ate man and horse alike, but there they were, plain as day. Two riders on the edge of the sun.

             They passed under the city gate, an old ruin of times past, brushed with rust and grime and age, and they saw the hanged men. Four of them, two men of middle age, one old, one a mere child, their eyes cold and dead, their tongues bulbous and purple, their entrails picked from their stomachs by the hungry crows. The old man’s entrails had been pulled from his body wrapped around his head in a crude sort of crown. King Thief was etched into his forehead, with a knife from the looks of it. The stench that rose from their corpses was nearly unbearable, and one of the riders had to cover his mouth and stifle his vomit. They witnessed the warning, and moved on.            

            They rode up the main drag, and the small people of The Last Stop descended into their holes and hovels. A rider was bad luck in town, two, double bad luck. They knew it, and paid them no mind. They tied their horses up in front of a rundown watering hole, cleverly called The Sink Hole, and the taller one went inside while the other stayed with the horses. Eyes were on them, the short man could feel it, cold, calculating eyes that watched his every move with careful derision. He clutched at his coat as the wind whipped the sand up around him. This was no place to be, this was a dark place with an evil heart. They had come up the dead mans path from Summerton, one hundred and fifty miles through the desert riding hard with the savage men at their back. They had only slept maybe a hour or two a day, even less when the heat went up. And while the days were hot and dry with sand whipping in their faces like tiny swirling knives, the nights were frozen cold to the point where they would wake with frost on their boots. The short man looked around at the shanty town they had come too, and for what he thought, certainly not the sink hole, and certainly not the women. They all had missing teeth and sunken eyes. This whole place was a sink hole, and the last one on earth, or so they said.

            They had left Summerton on a mission, but the short man found it had to believe they would find anything of value in The Last Stop. Only death, and possibly cholera or something worse lay in wait for them here. His companion would hear nothing of it. They pressed on, through the savage lands, their mission paramount. Boss had told them to go, he told them get to Last Stop and find Darius, whoever he was, and only his companion knew that. The short man was only his backup, the other man was the commander. The only thing he knew was Darius was of some great importance, else Boss wouldn’t have given them six horses for their journey. Only the two had made it, and the others had served as fare when they ran low on stock. The thought still turned his stomach, horse meat was thick and filled his belly, but it was tough and tasteless as well. He wondered what Boss would think of that, his horses eaten, he’d probably laugh and say, “I have many horses,” and that would be that.

            The tall man emerged from the sink hole after a short time, and the look on his face and furrowed brow said it all. He was deep in thought, brooding, it was not a good sign.

            “what of it then?” the short man asked.

            “that old man, on the gate…” the tall man began.

            “darius?”

            “his father, the old crow,” the tall man went on, “Darius is gone, fled from the town.”

            “to where?” the short man asked,

            “there.” He pointed all around him in a great circle.

            “so…who knows?”

            “gone into the desert, to the savage men, wherever. Hes gone.” The tall man began to bridle his mount, but the short man reached out and grabbed his arm.

            “so that’s it? We just go back? After all that, where just leave empty handed?” he was shaking with rage.

            “and what is your idea? Ride out into the wasteland? Find him? And how do you suppose we do that?” the short man scoffed.

            “we wont make it back anyway, the horses cant survive it.”

            “they’ll have to,” the tall man got up in his saddle, “come on Frank, get on your horse.”

            “fuck you,” said short Frank, “I’m not going anywhere.”

            “then you’ll stay here? In the sink hole? They want none of us,” the tall man searched the street, “they’ll put you up there with Darius’ father.”

            “better than to die of thirst and starvation in the desert,” short Frank tossed his hat violently on the dirt, “I’ve had enough of you, go back to Boss with your tail between your balls Mike!”

            “you know I cant do that,” short Frank heard the scraping of metal on leather, and the cock of a hammer, “Boss gave me orders.” Short Frank paused, his hand horvering above his own pistol still in its holster.

            “fuck you and your orders,” he said as he spun around, but tall Mike gave him no chance. The bullet pierced his right breast and short Frank fell in the dirt. Tall Mike turned his horse and spat.

            “coward,” came a voice, a deep heavy voice, “your old Boss teach you to shoot a man like that?” a small thin man emerged from the porch behind tall mike. He was an older man, with whispy graying hair and dry, patched skin. His teeth were black and crusted, many gone from his mouth, and when he smiled, Tall Mike could see his blood red gums. He wore a simple black coat and pants, and carried a weapon on his hip, and most hideous of all, his left eye had been removed from its socket and he wore his eyepatch on his forehead to show off the decaying wound to the world. Then Tall Mike saw the star on his chest, that was most hideous of all. This craven was sheriff.

            “he broke his word, his contract,” said Tall Mike, “this is of no concern to you.” The old man laughed.

            “this is my town boy,” he said, “fucking right it’s a concern of mine, its murder.” Men were coming out to the street now, men with guns. “only one person gets away with murder in this town,” he spat out a brown wad of tobacco, “and that’s me.” Tall Mike fingered at his pistol.

            “what do you want? Money? Booze? I got nothing,” Tall Mike said, “let me be on my way.” That was apparently quite the joke as it sent the sheriff into a fit of laughter.

            “well now, you’re gonna give me orders now boy?” he spat again, “I told you this is my town. I make the rules here, not you and not your boss. And if you’re after Darius, then you’re no friend of mine, so tell me then, why the fuck I shouldn’t put a rope around your neck and drag you behind my wagons to show the good folk of Last Stop what I do to murders.” Tall Mike shook his head.

            “this man was a traitor, a turncoat, and a pervert if you must know,” Tall Mike produced his weapon, “and he was my brother in the desert for the wretched weeks it took to make it to this hell hole. But we all have our orders, and no man walks away from the service of my employer. So I did as I was bid; I shot him.”

            “that’s not much of an explanation there outrider,” the sheriff motioned to one of his more monstrous looking men, some giant of lowbirth, taller than Tall Mike by a foot, and burned and grotesque with rotten teeth and sullen eyes, in his hand he carried some sort of crude metal axe, “I’ll have your hand for that.” Tall Mike exploded from the saddle guns blazing and it was enough to catch the monster off his guard. There was an immediate chaos that set in over the motley crowd that had by now surrounded him; he got the drop and that was all that mattered.

            He remembered little of what happened next, such was the way with battle. The moments flashed in his eyes, but their order, their explanation, even their intensity was lost in the fog of smoke and dust and blood. He saw a few men dropping, his aim true, first the monster with the axe, then the one with the repeating rifle, and the one with two revolvers, and then his memory became very unclear. The dirt and smoke fuzzed his vision, but the air was rank with death and gunpowder. Seconds felt like hours as the host dropped around him, twelve shots, twelve men down, how many dead or wounded he couldn’t tell and with that he made for the horse. He heard shouting as he rode, pressing his courser hard as shots flew all around him. One nearly took off his ear, biting hard on a tiny flap of skin and sending a splash of warm red down his cheek. Come on girl, he thought, I know you're tired, I know you want to stop, but we have to run now. He pushed his spurs in hard and felt the animal buck. Come on now, just a little farther. He felt a shot pierce his right arm, clean through, and he yelped with pain. Almost there girl, they don have any horses, they won't be able to catch us once we hit the open road, just a little more and we're safe. He felt the horses knee buckle, and heard her whelp, and then he was falling. No, he thought, don't fall girl, you have to keep going. The ground was hard against his shoulder, the right one, and he bit down hard on his lip as his body crashed to the earth with such force it sent his ears ringing. He spun and tumbled, and somehow kicked himself clear of the animal, but the horse was down and out. He pulled himself gingerly up behind her, and felt a splinter of pain shoot through his legs. Its broken, he though, I'm done for. When he put his fingers down and felt the back of his knee, it was blood and broken bone. No, he thought, not now, not in this fucking awful place. He knew if they found him, they’d hang him up on the gate with the others. A death not worthy of note.

             They were catching up to him, the sheriff’s motley horde of desert monsters wooed and yelped as they ran towards him, and he tried to get bullets into the chambers as fast as he could, but he was too slow. The first bandit leapt over his horses’ dying carcass and Tall Mike caught him in the chin with his long knife, piercing through his mouth and left poking through his teeth. The bandits’ corpse fell upon him, slumping to the side and landing square on his broken leg. Tall mike tried to kick him off, but the pain was so unbearable that he gave up. The others were fast approaching, and he fired his pistol, missing the first, but tagging the second with a shot to the head. The man fell like a stone. He emptied his chamber at the others, and they fell before him. A rider was bearing down on him now, his only chance.

            Somehow, he pushed the dead bandit’s heavy frame off his leg and moved into a very uncomfortable kneeling position, firing wildly at the oncoming rider. You have to calm down, he thought as his shots rang around the man with no effect, you have to be calm, you don’t have much time left, you don’t have many more shots, make them count. He crouched as the rider slowed to return fire, as far as he could tell this was the only man other then the sheriff left with a firearm, and checked the chamber of his revolver. Two shots, use them well, he thought.

            The first shot went wild, but the second hit the riders chest with a flourish, and the man went ass over head off the back end of his horse, landing facefirst on his neck with a deafening crack. Tall Mike grabbed at the courser as it ran past and felt the reigns slip through his outstretched fingers. He held fast, and the leather straps ripped through his dry, cracked palms pulling the skin clean off in a rain of blood and skin that splashed across his eyes and blinded him. But he held, and his luck was good, the horse slowed, then stopped. He, with a deep wince of pain, pulled himself into the saddle, and turned toward the road. Have to move, have to get over into the hills, he thought, then I can bandage this up and take the last of the morphine. I can make it, he thought, I just need to keep going.

            He finally slowed the horse when Last Stop was just a speck on the horizon and the sheriff had seemed to give up chase. He scanned the northern sightline with his blurred eyes and saw no shadows moving. Have to keep on, he reminded himself, have to fix my leg, it’ll be night soon, and the cold is unforgiving in the desert when the sun has gone. This night will be the hardest of my life, he knew that he probably wouldn’t even make it. And when the morning came, what then. It was still over a hundred miles back to Summerton, and he had no food, little water, and only enough ammunition to fill one cylinder in his revolver. I’m done for, he thought, if the wolves don’t get me, the savage men will. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, he thought, at least it was the said the savage men lived forever, albeit in their damaged state. I could ride straight to them, he thought, take away their thrill of hunting his bloody hulk as he traipsed across the sea of sand with no direction in particular. Short Frank was the lucky one, he died with his pistol in hand, like a man should. Tall Mike would die a broken man, with a lame leg and full of holes, would they even take him back in Summerton? Would the Boss just strike off his head to make an example to the men, this is what happens when you fail me. Tall Mike spit, and his mouth was full of blood. A bad death, he thought, a very bad, cowardly death, under the baking sun or the frozen moon, it was no longer creeping in the back of his mind. He knew it now, as he may have well known for many a day now, he was going to die upon this road they called the dead mans path. A fitting name for a vile stretch of road that had driven men to madness for many a year, a road that was the stuff of nightmare, and led you straight into the heart of nowhere.

            Yes he knew now; he was destined to become a savage man, there was no going around it now. His blood would boil, his eyes would melt, his mind would leave him, and he would be accepted into their brood. It was the only way he could see, the path of the undying. In the distance he could hear them wail, their cries breaking the still of the falling sun, empty of humanity and full of ravenous hunger. They called it the Song of the Savage, but music it was not. He rode toward the screams, his ears bane to hear them, his heart full of fear, but his mind made up. Perhaps this is the beginning, of going mad that is, he thought. The acceptance of my madness, Etan would have called it. He wondered what Etan would think about him now, crippled and broken, riding to meet his eternal nightmare. Would he call it honorable, or would he think it folly? It did not matter anymore, this was the only path set before him and he had to ride it. The wails were getting closer, he saw their shapes moving up ahead, he would be among them soon. He closed his eyes, it is time, he thought.

            The last thing Tall Mike could remember was falling from the saddle, but not hard to the ground like before, this time there were hands upon him. Hands that were cold and built like stone, pulling at him, ripping his clothes from off his body, their clawed fingers slicing through flesh and bone, and their teeth, black and dead in their wailing open mouths, bit into him and pulled off chunks ripe with sinew and rich with his dripping blood. It didn’t even hurt after a few agonizing moments, he could feel the man inside him begin to disappear, and the animal, the savage beast that was his essence, emerge. Tall Mike ceased to exist, and a new creature was born. The wailing began to fade, and in the last light of the day, the desert was stained red in the dying sun. The savage men clambered back to their cliff side caverns one stronger, their wails receding into the cold silence of the dark night.

            The One Eyed Sheriff turned from the gate, and tossed his telescope to the nearest lackey. He let out a low coughing laugh, and spat on the ground. He pulled the patch back over his dead eye.

            “He’s decided to join the savage men, the stupid bastard,” the sheriff mounted his warg, a great black wolf-like creature, and began to trot back into town, “better to hang on the gate then to go with them, but he made his choice,” his men followed, “we’ll put the short one up there though, wouldn’t want to let him spoil right there in front of the tavern.”