by Stephen Cote
Blood of the Lamb
Copyright Stephen W. Cote 2004
About the Author
Hello and thank you for reading. My name is Stephen W. Cote. I am a Software Engineer and Consultant, a United States Marine, a martial artist, and an author. You can find more information about my early creative writing and ongoing open source projects on whitefrost.com. I enjoy writing hard and whimsical science fiction, adult fantasy, and poetry. As an early advocate of Creative Commons licensing, many of my short stories and poems have been available online since 1996.
If you would like to learn more about my writing, open source projects such as the Hemi JavaScript Framework, or inquire about unpublished manuscripts and shorts, please contact me at whitefrost.com.
Thank you for taking the time to read my work and I hope you enjoy it.
Part 1: Broken Wheel
The oldest dream always comes first: his brother attired in the turned-out cloak of an Arabian peasant, only his head and shoulders are visible. A scenic mountain vista halos his brother’s crown; hues of spring soften his complexion into alcohol-blurred gold. For a moment, unfiltered altruism pours through his brother’s eyes for the object of his attention. The halo darkens and a colorless mass blots out the visage of his brother’s head. This dream frequents his restless sleep.
And by Cain’s namesake he always arrived at the same meaning.
But the most recent dream he knew to be true. As John Hardin rose to prominence in Texas, he already had left his own legacy. No matter what fiction historians may concoct, Cain was the last traveler to visit settlements with the Ghost Town moniker. And his method was brutally simple: Kill every living creature.
Cain never remembered his brutality and only knew of his activities by the odd places he found himself. And, murderous dreams haunting his slumber. He never stole anything, priding himself in preserving one commandment. Unless murder qualified as the theft of life. Possessions, those he never stole. Not from the living.
Though he had no coherent memory of his past, he believed in the fragments and regularly slipped into daydream-dialogues that circuitously supported those beliefs. Riding across a wind-tilled field, his mind wandered with the rhythmic canter.
He was having a heart-to-heart talk with Hardin, as though the two had been tight.
Before words were exchanged, Hardin sauntered up to the bar while Cain drowned trail dust with whiskey; the trail was always dusty in spite of the weather. Hardin claimed to be able to put a shot through his head before Cain had time to draw. Cain finished his whiskey and begged Hardin to cast his eyes at his lap where his pistol, drawn and cocked, aimed at Hardin’s chin. Both men shared a hardy chuckle and Cain bought Hardin a drink. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, the two men discussed their preferred methods for plying their trade.
In an over-accentuated drawl, Cain said, “I’ve never had a showdown at high-noon, walked down the center of the town’s main street, waited to draw, walked ten paces, or exchanged pithy dialogue. For example,” he extrapolated, “I once poked my head inside a saloon and shot a bastard in his chair. Another time, I walked up and shot a cowpoke while he was chattering with his cowpoke crew.”
“And posses?” Hardin asked.
Cain smiled, bemused. “Ambush ‘em from behind and shoot anyone who looks like they might talk.” He flashed a broad smile, “Which, as it always turned out, tends to be everyone.”
While the two conversed, and the drinks flowed, Hardin grew drunk and Cain detailed one of his most cherished accomplishments. “In eighteen seventy-two, I was the number one cause for Ghost Towns. But, there ain’t nobody left to pin that particular medal.”
Hardin raised a toast to Cain’s accomplishments and bought another round.
In the depths of Cain’s fantasy, Hardin seemed close to passing out and pushed himself away from the bar. He swaggered upstairs and retired with Cookie Batter, or whatever the head-whore’s name was.
With Hardin out of earshot, Cain talked a little smack.
“The Earps are pansies, but I don’t reckon they aren’t able. Everyone thinks Hardin is the end-all-be-all bandit,” and he glanced up at the second floor. He fell silent and looked with a drunken gaze at the door Hardin had entered, belonging to Horse Radish Sue’s room or whatever her name was. “But that’s just it,” he continued explaining to a non-confrontational cowpoke and the bartender. “Hardin’s a bandit. A marauder. A punk. Yes, he is a crack-shot, but then, aren’t we all? At this level,” he gestured towards himself and also towards the door Hardin had entered, “It’s a matter of degree, too. I wouldn’t try to shoot the pistol out of your hand at thirty paces. No,” he leaned closer towards his audience, “I’d shoot at your knees, maybe, then walk up and shoot your hands, and maybe shoot you in a few other painful places. Then, when you were bloodied and writhing,” he envisioned several squirming gunfighters on the perennially dusty street, “I might even kill you.”
“Jesse James,” Cain said with a smile and smacked the ‘M’ in James. “Jesse got caught up in believing he was some kind of hero, but at first he admitted he was just a no-good thief and murderer. I suppose you could say I like the fellow for that honesty.”
“Who do you admire?” A card-shuffling shopkeeper or shifty-eyed squatter asked. He didn’t see which one talked. Normally, he would never admit it, but happened to be drunk enough at that moment. “There is one man I think identifies the era of history in which we live. And, that man is Jeremiah Johnson from Montana. Ol’ Liver-Eatin’ Johnson. A decent man, I suppose, until Indians up and killed his wife and daughter.” Cain leveled his eyes at a squatter who was listening intently. “Yes sir, Jeremiah knew how to exact revenge, and he knew how to exact it over and over. I like to think that I live my life the same way that Johnson lived his. Figure out what really gets to the heart of humanity, and keep it up. Genocide works for me.”
Cain drifted from the bar to the street where he encountered some young pup. He imparted his wisdom as though his audience begged for his words, flakes of heavenly manna, to fill their bellies.
A simple boy with saucer-wide eyes listened attentively. “I’ve never worn a cowpoke’s sombrero,” Cain said, flipping the brim of the boy’s oversized hat, “or any hat at all unless the weather is so foul that Noah starts building another big canoe. And, I immediately remove my spurs when I dismount because they make too much ruckus and slow me down. I don’t wear a pistol belt or stitch holsters to my clothes. Instead,” he patted his trousers, “I keep them here, against my thighs, or sometimes against my chest. Keeps them from freezing-up, and folks aren’t as jumpy if they don’t see a man walking around with pistols. And,” he said with a cautionary and booze-soaked tone, “I never drink whiskey, or smoke tobacco, or fornicate with prostitutes or women of lowly social status.” He smiled and his chest swelled. “Have pride in yourself, boy, because that may be all you’ll ever have in the world.”
The boy muttered something about the local prostitutes, and Cain remarked, “In the past I’ve taken women by force when the time and place were suitable to my inclination. But, there are so many virtues that it’s hard to remember all of them.” The boy smiled and Cain elaborated. “I’ve never robbed a train, a bank, a stage-coach, or a cashbox, but sometimes I’ll pick the pockets of someone I killed because it couldn’t be stealing if they were already dead, right?”
“But,” Cain warned, “if someone shoots at me, I’ll shoot anyone and everyone else after I’ve done in the shooter because, the way I figure it, they’ll might come for me next if they didn’t have the decency to warn me. And, if someone warns me, well, I have to shoot them on principle because they could have just sho
t whoever was aiming to shoot me in the first place.”
So went his fantasy. He couldn’t differentiate memory from dream, and didn’t remember doing any of it. Except one recent event.
Savannah Cline. Their love had been pure and complete. A love, she had said, whose bonds would only be broken in death. Cain had always assumed it would have been his death or hers, but apparently it applied to other deaths as well. All he knew was that at one point they had traveled to Little Rapids, Wyoming, and, one night as he slept, she left without a word. A year later, he returned to Little Rapids and found