Chapter Text
“How’re our supplies looking?” Virgil asks Micah, turning to face him.
“Fine, just enough to last the rest of the journey I reckon.” Micah shouts, his voice echoing around them.
The high cliffs of the canyon rivals the cliffside the group stayed by on their first morning together. They are at least thirty meters or a hundred feet tall. They’ve reached the ravine of the Dakota River, North of the town Valentine.
From a combination of geometry and viewing angle, no one could even see an indication of the topside of the cliffs. It’s a strange feeling, unable to determine what lies over the edge.
Little tufts of evergreens jut above the stony scarp’s heads. For all anyone knew, those evergreens were either miles tall, growing forever into the distance, or a few just a meters tall, growing very close to the edge. Without the indication of the cliff’s top, it was impossible to tell. They looked like giants whose heads were lost in the clouds. The only indication they had them was the tops of their hats.
Arthur steers Greyhound closer to Micah; the two horses gallop side by side. Bubbling white river water follows them as if part of their herd.
“It’s a good thing we went to Wallace… It's the only train station ‘round these parts with a general store. If Virgil pulled that stunt with our things, we’d go mad from hunger.” says Arthur.
Micah sneers. “It’s not like we’ve been eatin’ much- or sleeping much for that matter. You fellers would go mad from lack of the latter first.”
Arthur shakes his head- not too hard, as it’ll make him dizzy. He is just a few hours shy of regaining enough blood to stop his constant vertigo.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sleep…” Arthur frowns.
“It’s overrated.”
Virgil co*cks an eyebrow, giving a look at the greasy outlaw. “There ain’t a living thing on Earth that don’t need sleep.”
“I’m the first then.” Micah says, puffing his chest out. “Nothing can get the slip on me.”
Virgil snorts, eyes wrinkling at the sides. “You’ll be the first to go mad I think.”
Arthur barks out a laugh. The sound drives a railroad spike through the blond man's ego.
Micah jabs a finger at Virgil. “Doubt me… But if it weren’t for us, you’d be a lifeless cadaver right about now.”
The boy snickers. Virgil’s shoulders roll forward as he leans closer to Micah. His body bridges the gap between the two horses like a tree joining the two sides of the ravine they were traveling through together. “I know. But if it weren’t for me you’d be strung high on a branch by now.”
Micah glares at him. “If it weren’t for you then I’d be back home, several hundred dollars richer.”
“You ain’t that special… If it weren’t for my know how you'd be a corpse by now.” Virgil says matter of factly. He’s sure of it, dark eyes appearing darker. “The only real memory of you will be of your bounty poster” Virgil laughs cruelly.
Micah’s frown deepens, before he can wipe that look of his face, it melts away. The boy’s palms raise, as to surrender himself. He seemed to realize his insensitivity.
“I don't mean nothing by it.” Withdrawing, Virgil returns back to his and Arthur's side.
Micah pulls Baylock away from the other horse. He kicks Baylock’s belly, spurring him to run ahead of them. “That’s not funny.”
Virgil is sorry for his joke, but no matter how hard he tries to look remorseful, the smile on his lips stays. His sleeve covers his mouth, just in case Micah turns around.
The stallion dips toward the riverbank. Its white legs slosh through pristine white foaming rapids water. Every plunge of the hoof made the animal look like it was disappearing into glue.
Arthur snorts. Micah looks silly bouncing his disappearing horse. “Don't dish out what you can't take,” Arthur shouts over the river.
The chill of night comes creeping in, but the sun is still hours away from leaving. Because the river snakes Northward, the airborne venom of the arctic is more potent.
The weather is becoming a concern, so the riders stop to put on warmer clothes. They are standing a few meters away from the river, on an elevated slab of stone. It’s a pulpit for the dried grasses, which gather around them to watch their sermon. The day’s sermon is about charity.
Arthur lends the teenager an extra shirt to layer up with. SInce he’s smaller than Arthur, Virgil has to stick the ends of the black shirt in his pants. Left alone, they draped over his thighs like a dress.
In addition, Arthur ends up giving Virgil his brown duster jacket. He would have given him a warmer coat if he could. Unfortunately he only brought one winter coat, the one that he is wearing. The one that is currently brown with dirt and a liter (or a quart) of oxidized blood.
Slashes gouged the dense fleece, looking like a lamb hung upside down for butchery. The ragged puncture wounds were deposited from a dull blade and an unskilled hand. Where blood was meant to drain, none came out. There was a reversal of flow, the hole just encouraged the cold to come in. Arthur's life is constantly escaping out of his sleeve.
Arthur hopes those monster's sense of smell is just as bad as their sense of sight. He deduces that if they hunted by smell, then on the night one took his fingers the creature should have located him. He was dripping with blood and sweat, hard to miss. Thus, Arthur doesn’t forego his rotting jacket.
He shifts his weight. He is sitting on the rocky platform, which is hurting his ass.
Arthur’s opposite hand fiddles with his torn sleeve, pressing the shredded ends together. If only fabric could heal. He licks his fingers, and twists the shallowest rips together. The state of his coat is also hurting his ass.
Already changed, Micah is leaning against Baylock. He is wearing a deep brown, rusted, leather coat. The double breasts are already buttoned tight against his torso. Knee length flaps of the coat’s skirts sag toward the ground; the leather is heavy. His hands are bundled up in dark green gloves.
Smoking idly, Micah judges Arthur fretting like some prissy rich woman from Saint Denis. Micah clicks his tongue. “Didn’t bring a sewing kit, Morgan?” Micah asks, chewing on the butt of his cigarette.
“No… I should have” Arthur sighs.
“I’m surprised, you carry an entire apothecary, a weaponsmith, and a boutique with you wherever you go. Guess you shoulda’ been paying more attention to the ladies. Maybe shoulda’ picked up a few needles and things from the headmistress,” Micah chuckles.
Arthur groans. “You shut up… Ugh, what am I going to do…”
Virgil pipes up. “You could just tie something to plug the holes.”
“Not a bad idea. I thought about using socks but you two…” He says looking unimpressed. His spare socks are currently growing mold at the bottom of his bag.
Virgil tucks the hem of Arthur’s shirt tighter into his pants. “Well… You already gave me your shirt and coat…”
Arthur shakes his head. “Yeah, I sure did, didn't I?”
Micah’s weathered gloves touch his own stubbled neck. He removed his green neckerchief, as it choked him when he wore his heavy coat. Micah sighs and rolls his eyes.
Micah doesn’t want to volunteer, but he has not much of a choice. Ideally he would not do Arthur a second kind act in a day, but he needs both of Arthur’s arms to be functional. “Bah, I get it…” He says, waving Arthur off.
Micah spits his finished cigarette onto the ground, the taste leaching into his mouth. It is astringent, drying the skin on his taste buds. The back of his glove wipes away his crude saliva.
Reaching into his own saddlebag, he pulls out a wrinkled dark green neckerchief. Grunting, he hands it to Arthur. The bitter flavor of the ash makes this gesture look more forced than it needed to be.
“Here.” Micah places the neckerchief into Arthur's hand.
Arthur accepts it. He rubs the fabric between his fingers. It’s rough, dirty with flecks of mud that come out onto his fingertips. Flipping it over Arthur sees one side is lighter than the other. The darker side was the side that hugged Micah’s skin.
Virgil steps up to Arthur’s side. Without instructions, he takes the strip of fabric to tie it on him. The cuffs of Virgil’s shirt rolls down to his forearms, reminding Arthur whose clothes he’s wearing.
Virgil tugs the ears of the knot. “That should do it.”
Arthur flexes his arm to test his range of motion. The band fits firmly, not too tight, around Arthur’s bicep.
He doesn’t know what to say. There’s an inexplicable emotion Arthur feels as he looks down at the band of green fabric. The dirty side faces outwards. “Thanks Virgil, thanks Micah.”
A small smile twitches against the corner of Arthur’s lips. It’s just barely visible under his short beard. Virgil smiles back, dimples puckering at the sides of his cheeks.
Meanwhile, Micah snatched his hat off the horn of his saddle. Unceremoniously, he flops it onto his head then very slightly, tips the brim to Arthur. He doesn’t even look him in the eye.
Arthur stands up, knees wobbling. “How courteous of you.”
“Shut up…” Micah says, foot already slipping into his stirrup. Baylock trudges through the dry grass, leaving the stony pulpit.
The sky discharges a few rays of dying light through the clouds. Reds and yellows, colors on the warm side of the spectrum are drained of their vibrancy. Old autumn leaves appear brown, black, slate gray.
Their journey away from the water because of a lack of footing. Erosion ate away the riverbank until it was no more. The riders trace along the edge of the canyon wall.
It’s a long way down. There is just enough room to scale to the wall in a single file line.
The river looks like a trail of spilled milk. They are so far from the crashing torrent, the sight is quaint, looking innocent. The thought of the water being dangerous is lost. With the wipe of the thumb, one of the riders could blot the river away as if it was dribbling down the chin of a toddler.
As they are nearing the top of the cliffside, the ground transforms from stone to mud; the ground gives way to a hill. The horses bury their hooves in the slippery earth. Short grasses slough under them, smearing like grainy oil paint. Last night’s rains had dislodged the plant’s roots.
When their heads poke over the apex of the hill, they are greeted by rusty brown train tracks. They lie in the dirt, pointing them Eastward. It’s the direction the riders are headed.
Greyhound is in the front of the line. With a wave of his hand, he beckons Micah to follow. They let the railroad take the lead.
It’s a dull ride from then on. It’s just dull gray trees and the strobing of brown railroad planks below their feet. The railway turns to the left and the riders follow suit.
Arthur points far into the distance. “Look”
To where he points a crown of gray slowly appears from behind the trees. As their horses near the formation, it becomes clearer.
Immutable right angles frame the sky like a picture frame. It’s a mountain with a perfect rectangular tunnel cored through.
The heavy stones, which rose from the depths of the sea, were placed here eons ago without any living intervention. It is a testament to natural, abiotic architecture.
The immaculate formation makes the sky behind it look like it belonged in a gallery. Arthur is in awe. If he could step through, he’d be in another sphere entirely.
Virgil stands up in the saddle’s stirrups to get a better view. Wind blows through the open mouth of the tunnel. A low bellow sounds from the orifice. He hums, Virgil’s disappointed tone mirrors the mountain’s. “I thought you saw something… good…”
Arthur looks down at the boy. “That is good, it’s Window Rock. It’s one of the many natural wonders of this side of the country.”
Virgil co*cks his head. “I’ve seen my daddy’s men carve stone statues before. How is this any different than that?”
Arthur is taken aback. How is this not fascinating? Also the boy’s father hired statue carvers?
Arthur continues, “no man had a hand in making that. It just got made like that from the Earth. Any man with enough power could pound their way through a mountain, but for the land to do that itself- to do this, this perfectly is no short of a miracle.”
Now Virgil and Micah both co*ck their heads, lolling like broken metrognomes. They don’t get it, they don’t get it at all.
It’s just a tunnel. Trains go through them all the time. In fact, just a few kilometers up from here there is one that carves itself through a mountain. They missed the part where Arthur emphasized the lack of human intervention.
For this formation to exist some kind of mineral had to have been deposited here thousands of years ago. Then over the course of those thousands of years, thousands of rivers worth of water flowed over. The minerals were chipped away and as Arthur put it, no short of a miracle later, a perfect tunnel was left behind.
He’s disappointed. Arthur should have expected this. He’s the only one in their crew who appreciates these kinds of things.
Micah is frowning beneath his cream colored hat. He just rolls his eyes. “Not everyone gets a hard on for nature, Morgan.”
Arthur shakes his head. “Just trying to… Lighten the mood.” Arthur physically reacts to what he just said. He repeated what Micah said to piss himself off several hours ago.
The way Virgil plops back onto the saddle tells Arthur how he feels about their stop.
“Nevermind” Arthur says, quickly taking his journal out, etching their location down on an empty page, and nudging his horse to walk faster.
As they pass the mountain, the slabs of rocks that held its negative shape slide out of alignment. It goes from a rectangle, to a rhomboid, then to nothing. There’s no evidence of the tunnel ever being there, just a flat face.
Arthur feels very off. No one, nobody could see the marvel in the formation?
He inhales deeply. His sleep deprived, bloodless brain stews in his cranium. The sight of this worldly wonder doesn’t bring him the kind of awe he expected.
Arthur thinks about the sight of the image coming apart. He is focused on the memory. The change in geometry, just a few paces East caused the image to disintegrate.
Inside Arthur’s head, he’s deallocated from his senses. He’s demoted to just a passenger, an observer looking out of the windows of his eyes. He solely focused on his thoughts.
The window doesn’t exist anymore. It’s gone, consumed in the fold of a different reality. If they came at it from a different direction or altitude would they have noticed it at all?
Arthur equates perception as the mode of something existing. No birds, no animals, if nothing is there to see this- or them, it might as well not exist.
Tired eyes gaze down at the wooden railroad panels. Greyhound scuffs his hoof against a plank.
Last night when they were at the station, it was strange that no one had come across the bodies before they did. It was strange that not a single person visited the station for at least a day.
If a train had stopped by the station then it was implausible for anyone not to notice the bodies. Workers would have to get off the train to refill the train’s water supply and talk to the station hand. Did the train not come that day?
When they were traveling during the night they weren’t too far from the tracks. They should have heard at least one train pass them.
When trains pull into stations and leave, they blow their whistles. The sound can be heard for miles. The distance they were between where the station and where they ended up should have been within hearing range- they definitely should have heard that!
What if the monsters managed to halt all train activity?
He flexes his stumps. If all his senses fail, and he’s left with nothing how will he know he’s dead? No vantage points, no confirmation of reality, no others to perceive: could that be what death is like? Window rock is dead, dead according to his logic.
This logic of his is half baked. His thoughts run hot, but there’s barely enough blood left in him to bring him to temperature.
Arthur bites his bloodless lip. It turns whiter than it was before. Before he spirals any deeper, he asks himself, “am I the only one who notices these things?”
“Been thinking about something… Have any of you seen or heard a single living thing the last few days? Not counting flies or monsters.” Arthur asks, breaking the silence between him and the others.
Micah thinks back, while Virgil speaks. “Is this about what I asked you before?” He says quietly. Virgil feels the man nod behind him, the rustling of his coat and his body moving. “No,” he answers.
“No,” Micah follows, speaking curtly.
“What about trains? When I was out, did you hear any trains?” Arthur inquires. A nauseous quiver infects his voice. The vibration of his voice is enough to tip off a sense of unease to the other two.
“No,” the other two reply.
Impossibly Arthur’s thoughts are whipped into a further frenzy; why is he the only one out of all them to ask these kinds of questions?
“Where did everyone go? Are we… the only ones left? Until this ends we may not know.” He thinks.
Why is he the only one to notice the little absences in things?
“I might be the only one who can save us.”
Eight fingers grip their reigns tightly until they turn jaundice yellow then bone white. “I haven’t seen or heard anything either.” Arthur grits out. “When I left and met Virgil in the woods yesterday, I didn’t see a single person or rider through my binoculars.”
Micah gives him a long look, the gray light of the sun scooping around his eye sockets. A strand of hair sticks to his pale cheek, catching the light. Shaking his head, his long hair is a horse’s tail. The flies of madness aren’t able to reach his brain.
“Calm down, Morgan. It’s only been one day” Micah rolls his eyes. Micah refuses to even consider this to be a problem.
Baylock veers himself closer to Arthur. Micah’s face gets right in Arthur’s. “We was just talking about madness, don’t tell me your resolve is that weak!” Micah gibes.
Arthur's head retreats backwards, jaw rolled up into his neck. Micah’s insult causes enough offense that Arthur’s nervous train of thought stutters. He sticks his head back out. “I’m not weak…! I’m just-”
Arthur's hand lifts to cut the air, to assert his reasoning, but it is Micah's hand that carves the space first. Micah points his finger one shy bump of the road away from his face.
“Worried, hm? Have you considered those things scared everything away, that everyone is just hidin’?” The blade that was his hand sunders Arthur's pride.
The blow hits something vital. Arthur blinks, he is rendered speechless. He hadn’t considered that. Micah's proposition stuns him, forcing him to turn inwards. His mind mulls over the idea.
It's completely possible. Although, everything hiding is not a satisfying or conclusive answer. There's not enough evidence to support Micah's hypothesis, however…
“See? Don’t get us riled up for nothing.”
…There is not enough evidence to support what Arthur was implying. Their guesses are as farfetched and plausible as the other’s. There’s no answer as of right now for what happened to everyone.
Flustered, Arthur pulls his hat over his eyebrows. Hearing Micah relay his thoughts back to him makes him feel stupid. His spiral really didn’t let him consider that. Arthur shakes his head.
Micah sneers at this. Arthur’s body language is loud and clear. “See that’s the thing, I won’t go mad first ‘cus I know the tricks.”
On the same side- the same horse, Arthur and Virgil look at Micah, ushering him to go on. “What tricks?” Virgil asks, affected by Arthur’s paranoia.
“Yeah, tell us, cowpoke,” says Arthur, disbelieving him.
“You gotta think through the possibilities. Even when things’re going to sh*t, you gotta think of a way out -pick your best options and live!”
“Easier said than done,” Virgil comments flatly.
“Lemme put it this way, you have to be one step above your emotions. You got to have a plan for when your body doesn’t want to keep going… You have to focus on what matters. Focus on living, and focus on the living. The dead can’t do sh*t.”
“Is that what you’re peddling? I’m jealous of how simple minded you are. You almost never think. If you outlast us then that’s why, you don’t think. You can’t go mad if you're stupid and ignorant.”
“You’ll see! When I outlast this job, nothing will be able to stop me. I’ll have conquered life as an outlaw and outran death at the end.”
“You’re worse than the Boss.” Arthur grumbles.
Over the apex of the hill they can see far into the distance. The isolated rolling hills and tall blocks of granite expand to the edge of the universe. November winds distilled the fog, commanding them to rise before night.
The river remains faithful, small, twisted; it’s white like a serpent's skin preserved under museum glass.
Pink petals float in the milky river. Caught on rocks and chopped sheets of ice, they wait for the current to change, for a different tide. They wait for the ice to melt so they can dislodge and drift downstream, towards the sea.
A smell, sweeter than white jasmine and stronger than concentrated rose water scales the cliffside. Bright as the sun, it forced the riders attention.
The branches that connect them to their body flap in the torrent like the ribbon of a dancer. Bloodless, they appear a gentle satin color. Sometimes they break the surface, skimming it. From here they can see the build up of mountain sediment that’s dried on its dorsal plane. Cyanosed to a baby blue the skins flap like flags.
Out of season, these lugs flap faster than a hummingbird’s wings.
“f*ck…” Micah hisses. Facial hair bristling forward to guard his lips. Then, after a pause his lips curl back elevating into a fiendish grin. The bottom margins of his eyebags crinkle. “Oh look Morgan, people that ain’t monsters or flies.”
“f*ck off, Bell!” Arthur snaps, facial hair and eyes poised opposite to Micah’s.
With a very deep sigh. Arthur takes his binoculars out of his satchel. He focuses on the river, at the half a hundred half clothed men piled up on the rocks. They create a dam with their mass, water pouring around the sides, over the silver boulders guarding the riverbank. The bodies are so stable, having not moved for a considerable amount of time, that there are patches of skin and clothes that are bone dry.
The fatty petals of flesh whip wildly. From afar they seemed graceful, up close, awkward and disgusting. It feels wrong to see a deflated, drained spleen twirl like that.
There’s no blood left in their tissues. The water has fully exsanguinated them. The raw edge of a cardiac block is pale pink. It looks like white meat, that of a chicken.
Arthur takes the binoculars away from his eyes. The scene is hard to look at.
“Must have been a lot of those bastards. sh*t…!” Arthur presses his eyelids down with one hand. Arthur feels exhausted and dizzy from just looking at them.
Along their journey, the horrors seem to surmount one after the other. Every morbid display ups its spectacle.
“Um..” Virgil mumbles. Presenting an expectant hand to Arthur, he looked back at him with a shy expression.
Arthur returns his gaze. “What?”
“Can I use those?”
“Why? Why in the world would you want to look?” Arthur says with a confused, disapproving look.
“If the boy wants to traumatize himself, let him.” says Micah.
“You ain’t even seen the worst of it. It’s a whole train car’s worth of bodies down there…”
Arthur shuts his eyes tightly, trying to rid himself of the sight. While he does this, Virgil twists his back around like a weasel, nabbing the binoculars. The boy’s nails scratch against the leather binds.
Arthur holds on tighter, feeling Virgil’s pull.
“Let me take a look, Arthur,” Virgil says, voice whiny and vehement.
The two of them just look at each other, asking themselves what’s wrong with the other one.
Arthur shakes his head. Oh whatever.
Arthur hands Virgil the binoculars. Since they’ve stopped here, he might as well take a moment to eat and drink. Arthur rummages through his satchel for his canteen and some food. He manages to wrestle his water as well as a wrapped strip of jerky out with a firm tug.
Virgil slings the leather wrist strap over his hand. The binoculars are heavier than he expected. Pulling them closer to his chest, he explains himself. “I want to see if there’s something in the pile that could give us a clue, anything at all that can tell us the nature of those creatures.”
Acting as if the binoculars will scald him, Virgil very slowly raises them to his eyes.
Arthur hums, mouth full of water. He brings his canteen down from his lips. “Are you afraid of looking?”
Virgil scoffs. “No, of course I’m not.” The binoculars are lowered to his stomach.
“Oh yeah, n’ I have the original constitution in my back pocket. Just hurry up ‘n look.”
Virgil nips off the chapped skin of his bottom lip. He forces the instrument against his face. The rims of the lens bite around the soft skin around his eyes.
Down below, the first thing he notices is that there are no animals in the dam. It’s only humans. “It’s only people in that pile and it looks like nothing’s touched them at all. I don’t see any fish in the river either. Nothing’s eating them.”
Virgil pulls away from the binoculars, scrunches his eyelids together, then dives back in. The figures are still clothed. “Looks like they all came from Fort Wallace, they’re all wearing the same dark blue uniforms, all men too. I can just make out their chevrons.”
Thick brown belts and bright yellow buckles, customary to their uniforms, shimmer under the water. The broken skin and innards underneath their shirts are held in place by them. In the strong current those with loose belts lose their guts first. On a heavy set individual, the belt squeezes the man’s waist like twine on a roast. Tufts of tissue bulge out from underneath the belt. The cavity left behind would be an excellent place to stuff spices. Nauseated, Virgil pulls back again.
Micah growls. “Didn’t know you needed to use binoculars as glasses to see the obvious. Give them up; I take it back, don’t traumatize yourself, you’re slowing us down.”
Virgil puffs out his chest. “I’ve seen so many bodies in the last day that it doesn't affect me as much.” Virgil lies, feeling the pressure of the two’s gazes.
What he said saddens Arthur. He should not be being desensitized by bodies at this age. He feels a twinge of pity for him.
Micah however does not feel anything but annoyance. The latter man just dramatically rolls his eyes, very unimpressed. Feeling the sting of Micah’s gaze, Virgil puts his eyes back in and relays everything he sees to them.
Further down the stream, the soldier’s weapons have been thrown into the bushes and scattered in the water. They form another dam in the stream.
None of the bodies are armed. It looks as if the whole squadron was instructed to discard their weapons or whatever gathered them here meticulously disarmed them.
Thinking about the men’s last moments, it causes Virgil to choke, letting out a whimper or a dry heave. The sound he makes is indiscernible from either.
Micah snatches the binoculars before Arthur can put the piece of jerky away. “Let me have a look.” He says, shoving his eyes against the apparatus.
Despite him judging Virgil’s squeamishness, Micah is also disturbed by the sight; however, he finds a silver lining in between the white water and the bodies. He finds these soldier’s deaths ratifying. “They don’t make men like they used to. Heh, wouldn’t surprise me that they went down without a fight.” Micah sneers.
Virgil is still recovering. Rubbing his eyes he says to Micah, “Again, I don’t know if I feel better or worse traveling with you two… The odds are against us”
“That’s what I was about to say, we made it this far haven’t we? We should celebrate that! Every dead feller we see is just another congrad-dyu-lations for us. Doesn’t that make you feel special?” Micah’s teeth glimmer fiendishly under the shadow of the binoculars. Mouth teetering between a sneer and a grimace. He’s trying to look confident in front of the other two.
Micah’s gaze fixates on the edges of the water. These soldiers must have been dumped here rather than been washed up.
There are no footprints that he can discern. The river is held together with chunks of gray bedrock on each side. It’s completely solid, no opportunity for footprints to be recorded.
Three meters back there are trees twisted out of shape. Micah and even the others could clearly see the exit strategy the beasts took last night. In line with the scale of the monster that grabbed Arthur, the breadth of the tunnel is large.
Micah lowers the binoculars from his eyes, copying the same motions as Virgil. He jabs the last knuckle of his finger into his eyes. Rough skin scratches the thin line between his eyelids. The flesh dam has the same effect on all three of them: eye irritation.
“Urg…” Crawling down from his finger, Micah rubs the rest of his face into his palm.
This is bad. Taking out a guarded stagecoach is one thing, but a whole military platoon is something else. It’s a difference between ten and fifty.
He recalls something he and his brother talked about a lifetime ago. While looking up at the stars, their father long passed out from a night of drinking, they would wonder about their lives. Fire burning bright, moon high in the sky, and the two brothers wide awake. They shared frequent bouts of insomnia, perhaps it was passed down to them genetically like a curse.
Micah doesn’t remember who asked first: were they alone in the universe? It was a common question they toyed with on many nights for hours on end. This particular night, as their conversation developed, his brother, Amos, came to his own ironically agnostic conclusion.
Frowning, Amos said, “it’s a good thing that we don’t know.” The moon light cradled his face, making it glow. “There wouldn’t be anything to compare ourselves to.”
Micah looks at the river again. The Amos in his mind whispered, “what if we find out we ain’t alone and how lucky we are. What if we find failures, countless of them. More failures than any man can count. Then we’ll see how f*cked we are.”
Micah wants to believe what he said earlier, that every dead person along the way is a sign of them beating the odds. He’s trying not to think about how it still means the odds are heavily stacked, building against them. His confidence chips away.
There are so many failures living on this earth. For there to be more is a terrifying thought. Life ain’t precious to Micah, but to see and acknowledge the odds is something else entirely.
Amos would denounce these thoughts when he joined the church. “There’s nothing out there amongst the stars except for the divine,” is what Amos would answer Micah. Rebirth stripped him of his wisdom.
If they are the ones to relay the torch, if they are truly lucky, if they are the last ones on Earth, then they must survive. This was Micah’s answer to Amos. If they are alone then they have to work harder to carry on.
Micah unhooks the strap from his hand, giving back the binoculars. He wonders if Amos has succumbed to similar fate as the others.
“You don’t look so good. Looks like you ain’t tougher than me or Virgil.” Arthur comments, gnawing on the last bit of meat in his teeth.
Micah doesn’t realize how serious his face looks. “Ah, shuddup Morgan… How can you eat at a time like this..!”
Arthur shrugs. He plucks his binoculars out of the other’s hand.
As the riders moved on, away from that foul exhibition, the trail became increasingly perilous. It nestles tighter and tighter against the side of the mountain.
Dragged by a phantom inside their brains to the wrong side of the cliff, half of their minds are dedicated to ignoring this phenomena and the other to their conversation. It is all too tempting to look at the fall below them. All three men lean to the wall.
“I think they were moved here. I don’t think those men came here of their own doing. In them bushes there’s a hole you could drive a fleet of ships through. One of those things came through” Micah says, spurring Baylock closer behind Greyhound.
Virgil jerks his head to the other side, head narrowly dodging a low hanging branch. “Ah, Christ.. Yeah. And you saw what those things look like up close. Big, probably big enough to carry a dozen men- and they’ve got many arms.” Arms open in a far cry of an approximation of a creature’s wingspan. He flaps his arms, driving home the image of a monster barreling through the trees, herding or carrying limb-fulls of people to their doom.
Arthur hums, listening along; his body is feeling slightly better, less dizzy and a little less tired. He can move his head from side to side without feeling like he’ll fall off his horse.
He was chasing the last fiber of jerky, which was stuck in his teeth with a mouthful of water, before that small piece of relief he got was squandered. This monster talk has set him two steps back. He’s thinking about the texture of the thing’s flesh.
As if his knife was a part of him last night, he remembers the gristle and hard bone with clarity.
Arthur pokes his fingers into his temple, stabilizing his head. He sighs. “Just when I was startin’ to feel better… It’s odd though, just odd… Why would they put them in the river?”
“Why string people up in the trees?” Virgil adds.
“Food?” Suggests Micah.
“Yeah, it could be some kind of dinner ritual… Like a shrike, sticking bugs on thorns to eat later.” Arthur says thoughtfully.
Arthur nudges Greyhound to turn. The landscape is changing like the scales of an exotic chameleon, a creature Arthur read about in a book. The bumpy gray scales of the path transform into greenery.
They climb the back of the hill and surface on a sturdy plateau. From the left, railroad tracks appear out of the frosty grass. True to the nature of the chameleon, the green grass skin liquifies, changing to reveal the backbone of a giant dead snake. The horses kick their legs high to stamp over its black wooden vertebrae.
Arthur straightens his back, returning from his list. “Maybe they’re like racoons, washing their food before eating it. The water’s cold enough to freeze them. Oh, and hey, all the blood’s drained too. Maybe they taste better…” He morbidly comments.
“Ain’t you a barrel of laughs all of a sudden.” Micah says, overtaking Arthur’s position in the front. “Whatever it is, it ain't good.”
The land ahead funnels back down into a single line. The horse’s hooves change tune; they ring hollowly as they strike wood cut in a different width. Over a hundred feet above the ground, they cross the river and valley below over the railroad bridge.
Virgil pushes hair out of his eyes. It’s windier and colder; his eyes are watering from the dryness.
The view makes him feel like the king of the mountain. The massive scale of the cliff faces seem trivial now. He could hold a tree in his index finger and thumb, scoop all the water out of the lake and hold it in his palm. This is what the first European colonizers must have felt when they crawled their way up here. Perhaps the migrant Chinese workers who built this bridge felt this way too.
The grandeur illusion of scale makes him consider what the creatures saw in them. Virgil thinks about how it would feel to hold a person in his hand, to play with them like a porcelain doll.
“When night comes, what are we going to do?” Virgil asks.
The two outlaws grunt; they were thinking about this as well. For once neither of them clambered over the other for the lead in speaking first.
The conversation awkwardly fizzled out into a silence, so Arthur rekindled the flame. “They can’t see or smell, only hear and feel.” Arthur says, raising his voice so it could carry forward to Micah ahead of the wind. “I made those horse blinders, so the horses are a little better for handling.”
The blinders in question are still fastened snugly around the animal’s faces. The horses chuff as if knowing their masters are talking about them.
“Don’t suppose you wanna ride all through the night or face them head on again?” Virgil frowns.
“‘Course not!”
Virgil looks at the deep black shadows casted by the valley. “We should hide somewhere then, hide somewhere they won’t find us.”
Arthur agrees without saying anything.
Handing Virgil Greyhound’s reins, Arthur pulls his map out of his pocket. The boy grips onto them tightly, feeling nervous about steering.
Arthur uses Virgil’s back as a tabletop, flattening out the creases. “Somewhere that will be safe…”
It’s mountains and trees until they reach their destination. He’s stumped.
Virgil pops his head over Arthur’s shoulder. Like with the binoculars, he snatches the map, a corner of it, to take a look. Because Virgil is no longer acting as a table, the map flaps frantically in the wind.
With one hand, Arthur holds onto the reins now that Virgil is distracted. The two men share one horse, one hand each on the reins, and a hand on the map; they look like they belonged to a bad circus act. It’s all very awkward.
Virgil points to a spot on the map. “How about Baccus station? We’re not far from it at all.”
The two outlaws shift in their saddles.
“A train station? You ought to tell the folks back at Wallace station what your bright idea is.” Micah frowns; Arthur too, nodding in agreement.
“Baccus is a storehouse for lumber and military supplies. I remember- My daddy talked about how some of his clients were moving to Fort Wallace. He said the doors in that storehouse are strong enough to keep bears out.” Virgil points at the cursive writing on the paper. “We’re about to come upon it.”
Arthur fully takes back the map to read it; they untwist themselves from one another. Virgil resumes steering Greyhound.
Arthur is not fully convinced they will be safe there and neither is Micah, but the day is ending. They should be lighting their lanterns soon. Micah looks to Arthur, to which the other does the same, trying to read each other’s thoughts. There isn’t a better idea, so they agree to go Baccus.
Slumped against the dusty wall of the storehouse, his body turns itself inside out for him to sleep, but Arthur fights against it. He has to stay awake, he tells himself. His eyes close against his will.
Just when Arthur was starting to feel a little more energetic, the shroud of nightfall blankets him in fatigue. He is a bird in a cage, smothered with a black cloth over his coop. It is his body collapsing in on itself from the prolonged stress of two sleepless nights, riding, and recovery.
Behind Arthur’s back, beyond the wooden walls, and behind the clouds high in the sky, the stars pierce the night sky like nails in a coffin. The demented creatures roam about the land.
Virgil and Micah are sitting around their two lanterns placed in the center. The light burns low to save fuel. Beyond the cast shadow of the light there is nothing to see. Their backsides are dipped in black ink. No man gets too much light. The two of them watch the smooth skin of Arthur’s eyelids flux. They spasm as if wracked with a seizure.
They arrived at Baccus just before the last rays of sunlight died out. They were able to take in the inside of the storehouse before it went dark: a nearly hollow interior, low ceilings and less than a thousand square meters of space. The fort must not have had large shipments come by.
Micah and Arthur were visibly disappointed as this is not what Virgil had told them. If it wasn’t for the fact that they hadn’t lit their lanterns yet, Virgil would have noticed the outlaws' dour expressions.
Both horses were brought inside with them. There is just enough room inside for them to comfortably settle away from their owners.
The riders needed a break from their steeds. They have just finished eating their dinner. No one wanted to smell more horse as they ate. Virgil particularly felt he smelled enough horse for one lifetime.
Their supper consisted of tinned beans, fish, and pemmican. None of them were keen on building a fire inside or outside. Thus, cold mushy canned food was their only option. Virgil was not happy to finally eat pemmican. It was as gross as he imagined.
Virgil suckles the last bean from the can in his hands and places it by his side. Micah then shoves it behind him, the darkness swallowing it up hungrily, waste out of sight and out of mind. Leaning back on his palms, he basks in the yellow gas light as if it was the sun. He sighs, closing his eyes.
The lot of them are too tired to talk to one another. In addition, there’s no need to talk as they all know what the others are feeling.
It’s just a waiting game now; they have to wait for the sun to rise again. They all want to sleep, but don’t want to be vulnerable. Even if they took watch shifts, losing consciousness at this time is frightening. What if they were to never wake up?
Micah looks at Virgil, arms wrapping around his dirty pants, knees hugging tight to his chest. For an adolescent, he acts younger than he looks. The boy’s eyes roll up to look above him, to the invisible ceiling.
Virgil is the only one of the three that is somewhat pleased with their hideout, but he knows it won’t hold the things back for long. By the way the door practically begged to fall off of its hinges as well as take the entire door frame with it when Micah kicked it, they were taking shelter in an opened walnut shell.
A few hours passed. Time felt slower for the three of them. Not much happened other than the occasional nearby howl or the splattering sound of a leaf hitting the walls. Every time either would happen the men would jolt.
Other than the false alarms, the howling and braying is constant. Constant as it always has been. Since nothing is changing, Arthur and Virgil decided to rest.
After Arthur changed his bandages, he nodded off to sleep, back against the same wall. To his side, Virgil is laying on the floor. He’s curled up inside Arthur’s brown coat like a bagworm in a cocoon.
Micah checks his pocket watch. It’s only ten o’clock; the sun won’t rise for another eight hours.
Micah wraps his arms around his legs like Virgil did. His eyes close; unlike the other’s there’s no tiredness in his face.
He feels like a bagworm in reverse, the way his arms guard his torso makes him feel small. Micah thinks about Amos again. The moth dissolves back into a cocoon. What he would give for someone to talk to right now.
As he settles into his thoughts, he’s snapped out of them. Something is stirring outside.
It sounds like scraping. He swears- Micah swears somewhere in the underlay of the wailing he just heard a moan. He shuffles his feet against the floor, raising himself up on his knees like a prairie dog.
Micah would welcome the sight of another human being right now. He won’t admit it, but Arthur’s words gnawed at him. Slowly over the course of the night he started to worry more and more. Seeing another human being would dispel that sect of paranoia.
He is filled with a twinge of expectancy, like a child waiting to be found in a game of hide and seek. If it’s a soldier finding them tresspassing, then Micah would also welcome a gunfight no matter how suicidal it would be right now.
Struck by lightning, the tension soars as the wooden door slams onto the ground. The horse’s hooves scrape as they stand up. It’s loud; however, other than that, the animals knowingly keep quiet. Micah and the horses can practically hear the sawdust in the air.
Arthur and Virgil shoot up from their resting spots. Before either of them can open their mouths to speak, Micah glares at them to shut up. The man has already got a hand on his gun. All eyes are wide, all their sleepiness chased away; they stare at the direction of the sound.
The circumference of their safety circle is too small to illuminate the far wall. Without acknowledging the riders, the figure crosses the precipice, entering inside. A footstep echoes, the sound of a hard sole on wood. Then another footstep.
They are five or six paces away from the riders, but following the adjacent wall. It sounds human, but it definitely isn’t one. Because of the darkness they don’t know what this thing looks like. What is confirmed is that it is small enough to fit inside and somehow able to wear shoes. The implications are not pleasant.
Micah recalls the weird feeling he had when they rode last night: perfectly illuminated, in a spotlight, but undetectable. A nervous itch crawls up his neck to his cheeks. The short ends of his stubble flaring with an uncomfortable sweat.
There’s a pause. Then step, step, step, pause; it’s a drunken gait.
Virgil waves his hand at the two outlaws, casting a long shadow on Virgil’s face. The whites of his eyes gleamed like pearls as he mouths “go.”
Arthur and Micah share a quick glance before setting to their assignments. No words needed to be exchanged.
Micah grabs a lantern and so does Virgil, the light dancing against the wall closest to Arthur. As expected the figure doesn’t notice. Arthur plants his feet firmly against the ground. He points his head to his left; it’s where the horses are.
The thing trips over its own feet then steadies itself. A deep sigh fills the room. From the sound of it, pain wracked its vocal cords. It sounds human; it is an approximation of a human.
Slowly, everyone stands. Micah and Arthur, with each move of a single foot, pinch their spurs in their fingers to prevent them from sounding. One step at a time they make it to the horses.
The moment the light hits the broadside of their coats, the horse’s eyes swivel in their heads to look directly at their masters. They don’t dare move a muscle even though their blinders make it difficult to completely see them.
The party stands by their respective horses. Quietly their lantern’s metal handles are slotted over the horns of their saddles. All hands are free.
From across the room, the figure trips over something. A resounding crack fills the room, causing the animals to flinch. From then on, the sound of the figure's gait suggests quadrupedalism.
The three of them look at the direction of the sound then back at one another. Like at a Mexican standoff, the men ready themselves to pounce, watching each other for a sign. They must all move all at once to not get singled out.
Micah bears his teeth like a mad dog. Once again his whiskers flare out; his lips and tongue clear to see. “ONE, TWO, THREE.”
The horses can’t catch a break, every time they must mount them they throw themselves onto them.
Screaming like banshees, the horses bolt. They head to the direction of where they heard the door break. Narrowly escaping being decollated, Micah ducks his whole body, pressing it against Baylock, under the doorway. A gust of cold air lifts his greasy hair from the change in pressure.
Arthur and Virgil didn’t notice the low door sill. They are hooked onto the horse like leeches devouring a trout. They left the storehouse so fast, they didn’t register they were outside until the sound of hooves on gravel repeatedly hit their eardrums.
Racing into the pitch black, the three of them swim through the sound of countless monsters war whooping. They reach a new pitch, sensing prey nearby. From beyond their line of sight the things dart to get them.
In the current of putrid stench, schools of flies wage upon the riders. It only takes a mouth full of flies for them all to shut their mouths and cover up. Because it’s not raining tonight, they know that flies are battering against their faces. There’s no rain to make those pattering sensations ambiguous.
Micah leads the way with Arthur and the boy behind him. The latter group follows Micah dutifully; however, he has no idea where he’s going. He instinctively follows the train tracks.
In the light, bubbled black shadows of bodies creep around the edges of their vision. In front, behind, and right next to them, those bastards are everywhere.
Out of nowhere, one throws itself at them, hiding below the curve of Greyhound’s abdomen.
Thinking fast, Arthur grabs hold of his repeater. The barrel glints like the claws of a diving falcon. Without warning anyone, the rifle thunders. The sound of water breaking from a womb: he and the others find themselves coated in black blood.
Micah is instantly thrown into a frenzy by the peal of the gun. The dinner bell is rung, his gun will feed. Wherever those things are he’ll get them.
He can hear them above all the screeching they are descending upon them from the downward slope of the mountain. A rock tumbles by Baylock’s feet. Before the beast can fully come into the light, Micah ends it. Cold blood soaks into his stallion’s coat.
Micah must hand it to Arthur. The horse blinders are helping. Baylock probably would have spooked at that.
He’s reminded of that afternoon’s conversation. Arthur sees him as an unruly animal. Arthur is probably thinking this again as Micah fires another shot. He won’t come undone now. This is his moment, he will be the one to save everyone.
Emboldened with the desire to prove himself, Micah thrusts himself into battle. The thrumming of his hot blood in his veins, the churning of his guts, all sing for him to charge.
As Virgil shouts at the outlaws his voice breaks “Hey! What are you doing! Don’t you remember what I told you!?”
“There’s too many of them! We’ve got no choice!” Arthur shouts back, swallowing some flies.
More shots pierce the air, sputters of gunpowder crackle like lightning. With the mechanized reload of the rifle, Arthur is incredibly fast on the draw. Rotten blood fills the air like a miasma; the air is thick with greasy storm clouds.
Angrily, a black body tackles Greyhound, he stumbles off the path of the train tracks. From the other side, another thing does the same to Baylock.
“Steady! Steady Greyhound!” Arthur shouts, letting the gun fall to dangle by its strap.
Like lambs, they are corralled and separated in the chase. Before the men can think about regrouping, the beasts stop. A long bony spine arches downward like a swan’s neck. The dry tight skin on its feet tear as it grinds itself down to the bone. Dust surrounds it, then the dark takes it.
Busy fighting, the outlaws forgot where they were, but the mountain they were on did not. Materialized from thin air, trees steer the horses to take a right turn. Foiled again by the terrain, they fall.
It turns out they were heading back the way they came, East. They’ve just fallen down the gully of the great bridge they crossed. The altitude they felt safe looking down at the world from betrayed them. Gravity demanded their humiliation.
The horse’s long powerful legs dig into the tumbling gravel. Sliding down in wide circles, Baylock nearly twists his wrist. Unhooking from the saddle’s horn, Micah’s lantern rolls down the decline ahead of them.
The light shines on rocks of all sorts of sizes. Some are skull crushing and others are puny. Micah and Baylock have less than a second to take in the incoming terrain. The two of them are not able to absorb anything. They hope they won’t suddenly fall from an unseen dip.
Somewhere in the dark, Baylock’s back hoof is caught in between two rocks. Horse and rider scream as they are sent backwards. Landing on his hip, Baylock tumbles, throwing Micah off. He narrowly misses getting crushed by him.
In pain, Micah’s joints lock and curl inwards like a dying co*ckroach. This form causes him to bounce off the hard ground and gain momentum. Since there’s no light, and because his eyes are closed, he’s lost his orientation. A stabbing jab in the stomach has come and gone. Before he can question if he landed on it or it fell on him, the offending rock is meters behind him and another stone bulgeons him.
He’s ahead of Baylock now. The stallion is dragging its knees and wrists down the bank.
It feels like they will all tumble forever, when their pace slows it picks back up.
At last to everyone’s relief the stretch of hill eventually stops. Elapsed, their fall lasted fifty seconds.
Micah’s brain churns inside of his cranium. The dim light of his lantern greets him at rock bottom, black flies buzzing around it. Pain too strong, he doesn’t feel the insects coming to land on him.
A harsh pelting of stones sprays across Micah’s face, it’s Baylock. Micah becomes aware that his mouth is open. When he closes it, he tastes blood.
Baylock coughs a horrible sound, then lays on his side. His status is unclear.
“f*ck…” Micah’s throat convulses out. On wet shredded fingers, he crawls to the light. Micah is a worm lizard, a type of reptile with one pair of legs, with the pink skin of his belly dragging through the mud.
Micah wraps his fingers around the cracked glass lantern. The reservoir of fuel had cracked open and spilt. Gas bleeds soundlessly. The outlaw shakily gets to his feet, quickly limping to his horse’s side.
Another cascade of rock sprays, this time Greyhound screams. The sound of his hide skinning against the sharp gravel is gruesome.
At the end of the decline, Greyhound’s legs failed. Arthur and Virgil were sent slamming onto the ground joining the horse; just like Micah.
Virgil is now screaming with Greyhound. His leg is pinned under the horse. Their collective sound is so loud that they don't hear the crack.
With a lost hiss, their vision fades. Their lantern is out.
Kicking his legs wildly, he plants his foot on the saddle. Mud splatters on the seat. His skin screams back at him as it's wretched free.
While Arthur frees his leg from under his saddle, Vigil clambers to the light of their last remaining lamp. Out of the muck, he scrambles to Micah’s side.
Virgil’s eyes shoot to Arthur’s last known location. “Arthur!”
“M’here..!” Arthur wheezes, he is dizzier than he thought could ever be possible. The very ground is undulating. “Hhhk..!” He dry heaves. A thin line of white, clear drool falls from his lips.
Very carefully, he turns his head to look at his steed. Greyhound lays on his belly like a sack of flour. He refuses to stand up. There’s no time to figure out what’s wrong, so he reluctantly leaves his side, abandoning him and his supplies to limp to Micah.
Micah touches Baylock’s neck. The stallion whines in agony, his black coat is hot, wet, and shiny with blood and sweat. His flesh quivers under his fingers. Micah shakes his head in disbelief. “No, no… Baylock…”
“Micah! We have to go!” Arthur urges.
Thinking fast, Arthur takes the lantern away from Micah. The flashing lights aggravate his stomach. He forces his body to behave as he bolts to the tree line.
Before Micah can react, Virgil has grabbed the back of his coat. The man has to be forced off of his injured companion.
The halo of the lantern’s light drifts off of Baylock’s body. Soundlessly, the ghost of the light leaves him. The porcelain eyes of the horse watches his master abandon him.
Micah’s feet decide to move on their own. “sh*t! Damn it all to Hell! I’m sorry boy!”
Hopefully Baylock and Greyhound will survive. A howl blows through the trees, bringing cold with it. The darkness swallows the two animals like the countless bodies and trash they’ve left behind.
Laying low, tangled in icy branches whose membranes cracked whenever one of them moved, the three riders nestled against each other shoulder to shoulder. They had their backs firmly pressed against the hollow of a large tree.
Frosty pine needles gathered under their wet legs. The first droplets of frost wicked up into their clothes. Here there are less flies, less howling, and less of a stench, thus the monsters must be a ways away.
They stumbled blindly through the dark for what felt like an entire winter season. To prevent each other from getting lost, Arthur’s lasso was unwound; each person held onto the rope and walked. With slow blind footsteps they walked until they found this spot.
To save what little lantern fuel they had left, they let the light shine at its lowest setting. A fingernail sized flame, blue like it came from a deadman dredged up from the bottom of a lake, shivered in Micah’s hand.
With a click, the lamp turns off. Micah rests the lamp down in the needles. A steady stream of icy air swirls around their nook. Not that the lamp offered much warmth, but the absence of light let the cold seep in faster.
Arthur’s hand shakes violently; his body is coming apart, unable to keep up with this much action. “Cup your hands around mine” Arthur whispers to everyone.
No one can see, so Arthur positions their hands for them. A muffled snap crackles through their frozen fingers.
The gasping, spasming light of a single match envelopes the three of them. Just like that, everyone felt warmer as soon as they could see again.
That brief moment of darkness acted as a refresher for their eyesight. The riders inspect one another as if seeing them for the first time. The two outlaw’s faces are carved deeply with wrinkles. These lines, caked with black blood, makes their fearful wrinkles sink deep.
Micah looks like he did on their first morning, messy hair and covered in mud and Arthur mirrors him. His hair is askew, clinging to his wet forehead. All of them have cuts littering all over their faces.
With their palms facing the flame, the people adjacent to them are first to see the state of their hands. The owner would have to wait several hours until morning to check them themselves.
The bandage on Arthur’s hand is soaked with mud. He’ll need to deal with it soon lest he gets an infection.
Arthur hands over the match to the boy and unfolds his map. It’s wilderness for miles, as they already know. Their situation looks worse laid out like this. Silently their eyes devour the map; every blot of ink is examined, hoping one of them would lead them somewhere nice.
Micah sighs heavily; the flame flickers. Anger and desperation fight inside him. Every pass of his eyes on the map reveals nothing. His head hangs low. Ashamed, he looks to Arthur.
He's biting his lip hard. Where the scar on his stubbled chin runs down under his jaw, a nick of blood, wicked by his sweat, follows it. Without Baylock, barred from shooting his way out of things, and trapped in the woods he's useless.
Virgil relays what he’s feeling aloud, “we might as well give in, just get it over with!” The canter of his voice is drenched thoroughly in hopelessness.
“Settle down, boy..!” Micah hisses. When Virgil looks at him, the look in Micah’s eyes doesn't inspire confidence. There’s no spark. He’s just as helpless as he is.
As the flame of the match ate its way down its stalk, the light in their eyes continuously fades. Before the last ember fizzles out, a fly lands on the map.
Everyone swallows their hearts down in their throats to stop them from being scared out of their bodies. Everyone holds their breath, as if they were walking through a graveyard.
The wait is impossibly long for Arthur to light another match. Everyone inhales sharply through their noses. Ten flies greet them, scuttling on the page. Their little black feet patter across the mountains.
Arthur swats the pests away. “Dammit..!”
“They are coming…!” Virgil trembles. “Arthur… You’re the only one who can help us.”
The shock Arthur received is enough to make his head spin. “What? I’m looking at the same map as you..! Micah, do you know anything?”
Micah hangs his head lower. He shakes his head.
“Come on, you’ve got to know something ‘bout this area. It’s like riding around your little camp; the same terrain.”
Micah gets defensive; he jerks his head up to look at Arthur. Micah is aghast at how camping in the woods for a few weeks holds a candle to Arthur’s nack for living off the land. In addition, they were two states away now.
Micah opens his mouth to speak, but closes it. He can’t beg for Arthur’s help again, not two nights in a row. The man grinds his teeth together and just glares at Arthur.
Arthur doesn’t need long to decipher his expression. He knows what Micah is getting at. The look in his eyes is so pathetic. Clenched, Micah’s face tries to hide his pleading through sheer strength, but those eyes make it obvious.
The flame turns orange near the bottom of the stick. It imbibes the blue out of Micah’s eyes. His gray pupils vibrate in place, staring at the growing mass of insects on the map. Like a stormcloud, there’s enough to blackout the entirety of the West countryside where they came.
Now Arthur hangs his head low. At the end of the swing, his inner ear bounces, bobbing like a fishing bobber hitting water, more nausea. His dirty brown hair falls over his eyes. He can see his companions stare at him through the strands. Arthur hates this.
The fear he felt earlier is confirmed. Their survival hinges on Arthur, but he has no idea what to do next. “No… You two, I don’t got all the answers.”
The other two silently urge him on with their gazes.
He feels his heart trip over itself, exhausted. Arthur is a quarter blind from the exhaustion, the strain they just went through. Whatever tactical information Arthur may have is sequestered away in his brain.
Micah shakes his head, shooing a fly that landed on his cheek. “It’s not like I want to put this all on you..! I’m still trying, but… It’s not looking good. I, I don’t know..!”
The two outlaws are isolated in their emotions; one feeling wholly responsible, the other feeling utterly useless. Both of them ailed with the wages, the payout of their prideful wishes. Time slips through the slender throat of an hourglass like a noose. What time they have left is tight.
An awkward trembling hand, afraid of leaving its boundary, sticks onto Arthur’s knee. The muscles of Micah’s belly strain as he stiltedly touches him. Arthur can feel his shaking invade his body, causing his leg to shake with him. Micah pleads, “please Morgan…”
Arthur is alone. He’s alone in this as he’s alone in his own head. He wishes anyone could help. He swallows dryly. The last glimmers of the matchstick fluxing in his eyes. Arthur meekly turns his attention back to the map.
The lines seem to blur together and the words and the pictures lose their meanings. Thirty flies infest their cavern, buzzing in and out to drink the sweat on their brows.
It’s then when it hits him.
“Donner Falls!” The flies on the map shoot away. A muddy finger repeatedly stamps down on the page; four wide fingerprints stain the page. “Trust me- It’s”
Instantly the other two follow his command, jumping to their feet like at the storehorse. Virgil helps Arthur to his feet.
Digging through his pocket, Micah procures a small brass compass. Micah takes the map and orients himself Northwards. In the little hollow, he points his finger out its mouth.
Arthur has the lantern hooked on his gunbelt and Virgil has his box of matches. They only have a half a box left and less than two hours of fuel left. They are going to have to use every source of light extremely sparingly.
Like newborn lambs, the men gently step into the grass. The entirety of their bodies shake as soon as they cross the boundary of their hiding spot. Arthur uncoils his lariat rope and everyone takes hold.
It is a difficult decision to make, but Arthur will be in the front, Virgil in the middle, and Micah in the back. Arthur can defend the front, having the best chance of perceiving danger despite his condition. Micah, who is in the best condition, will defend their backs.
The rope pulls tight in Virgil’s muddy hands. The rough material chewing his pale skin.
To reach Donner Falls, first they must scale the drop they fell from. Arthur touches the icy rocks in front of him. They fumble through the dark like infants learning to walk. Sanctuary is just out of reach, at the top of the climb out of Hell.
