Redemption's Blood

by Chris G R Webb

  Sometimes Beau would wake at night, from a wretched slumber, dowsed in sweat. Not because of the rivers of crimson that flow from his hands, or the choir of wailing he has conducted, no. His horror was born of the fact; he is very much become like his father.

  After the war Colonel Beau Dunston made his way back to his town, whom he left in the custodianship of his friend Robert Devon. Devon was none too pleased to see The Colonel return. Their relationship deteriorated, bordering on feud, to the point Devon rarely leaves Keystone, his mining town, based a day’s hard riding South of Dunston.

  The Colonel, with a few of his former soldiers and Pinkertons, police the streets of Dunston, ensuring that only certain clientele remain: well to do, family orientated folk. These type of folk would help push the expansion of Dunston and attract the attention of the railroad. This includes ensuring the revelers, ruffians, and chainers from the mining town don’t cause trouble in Dunston.

  It’s a bustling afternoon in Dunston, women in elaborate European inspired draped overskirts, with heavily trimmed flounces and frills, armed with a parasol, a canopy from the sun’s glare. Accompanying them, gentlemen with short frock coats, vests, high-winged shirt collars, with neck tie and bowler hats.

  In Dunston, the ‘wild’ has left the Wild West.

  Against the backdrop of Dunston: the dapperly dressed men, and fine frocked women is a colourful carnival parading up the main street. People stand and watch, point, comment and some partake. The snake-oil salesman, stutters and stammers his sales pitch on his elixir that cures all known ailments. A strong man is lifting a passerby. On a throne, a dwarf, declaring himself the exiled king of Lilliput. The bearded lady; is a burly man in a dress. People wait to enter a wooden walled circus wagon, with a painting of an Indian Chief, who promise to seer what the future holds.

  Amongst all this finery, colour, slowly drifting through the scuttle rides, Jensen. As much as the caravan is viewed with joy, awe, and wonder, this vagrant dragging a dead pig through the streets is viewed as a pariah. An antique from a time civilization was trying to forget. Jensen kept his eyes to the fore. He knew he wasn’t welcome and had no intention of gussying up to please no one.

  As he dismounted, corralled his horse, and started to drag the pig carcass down the main street, he got to thinking.

  Heck, I can’t even please myself.

  4

  “That’s right Mrs. Mitchell." Henry Randall is always eager to please.

  “We use the same packing methodologies and particulars, that they do up in Chicago, in fact, my nephew worked at a pork packers in the city ‘imself, ain’t that the truth David?”

  David, who is laying out freshly cut meat, quietly nods to Mrs. Mitchell, a woman dressed as the other women from Dunston.

  Henry Randall was the proud owner of Randall's Butchers, the only one in Dunston. He has moved with the times; no longer do clientele want to come in and see the hanging carcasses of their dead food, no. They want to have their meat cut for them, parceled and unrecognizable from the beast that gave it. That sickly, deathly stench still lingered, yet somedays, when the blacksmith's forge was in its oxidizing blaze, the smell of burnt bee-sweetening would glove any other scent. Mrs. Mitchell chose 1kg of bacon for 33 cents, and Henry reminded her to cook it within five days, lest it turns. She departs the store.

  Slam - is the sound of a dead pig hitting wooden slat floorboards covered in floured timber. Henry stares at the dead pig that seems to have leaped into the middle of his store. Heavy footfalls approach, Jensen enters.

  Henry Randall is always eager to please, except for now, it seems.

  Henry races from behind his counter, fidgeting around the pig.

  “What in the eternal tarnation is this?”

  Jensen bends down to look at the carcass, watched by Henry, he stands up like a mountain range sprouting from God’s creation. Henry takes a step back, so as not impinge his neck.

  The moment between them takes a breath.

  Jensen cuts a wad of tobacco and jaws it.

  “Pig. It’s a pig.”

  Henry struck with disbelief stares at Jensen, he motions to speak, but just whimpers.

  “A dead pig.” Jensen elaborates.

  "Dead?" Henry tongue stumbles. …

  …“As a hitchin’ post.” Jensen continues.

  Before Henry can react a woman enters, she sees the pig on the floor, takes one look at Jensen, who’s greeting seems like a sneer, and she promptly leaves.

  "You can't leave this here Mister Hills; it has to go… immediately" Henry is adamant.

  “Betwixt this and that” Jensen points from the pig to the hanging meat… “is, you," points to Henry.

  “I can’t sell that.”

  “You’se already is.” Jensen points to the fresh cuts of meat. He toe-punts the pig. “This is what meat looks like. I reckon you’se don’t want your gussied up clientele afeared of the truth of things.”

  Henry glances Jensen top to toe, and width to width, it's a long journey for his eyeballs, a lot to take in. Jensen is a brute; he's bad for business.

  Jensen continues.

  “I could leave it here out the store front, albisself.”

  “I’ll give you five dollars” Henry’s reluctant retort

  “Or just leave where is.”

  "Seven dollars," Henry firmly expresses. "And that be my better-most offering.”

  Jensen traipses the boardwalk. He rubs a five-dollar bill and two eagles together and wonders how long it will stay in his possession.

  The raucous delight of the Carnaval has Jensen stare in wonder. The strong man's meaty sinew, white knuckles an iron bar, with a deep inhale he forcefully bends it, to the admiration of men and women alike.

  A dwarf regales unheard stories from his throne, where a few children seem caught in his drift net of raconteuring.

  The bearded-lady sits at her stall, and people throw her a bit to feel her facial whiskers.

  Jensen stares at the bearded-lady. He mumbles to himself and spits out brown juice from his piece of chew.

  “But, it a man.”

  Jensen pockets his money and prods his bicep, a sorry sack of nothing, while the strong man is of granite. Jensen then slaps his belly and tries sucking it in, just to see what it's like. The moment is snatched away.

  "Jensen Hills, how has this day met you?" A booming, authoritative voice.

  This is Colonel Dunston, handsome, a tall, together, Southerner. An impressive dueling scar, a feature that divides his face, he’s in fine fettle for a man in his fourth decade. Dunston swaggers as if he owned the place. He does.

  By Dunston’s side, his enforcer – Daniels: serious, sentinel-like, and though he trails Dunston by a decade, his face tells a different story.

  “My day just turned sour." Jensen's retort. Daniels sneers.

  Dunston ignores the goading. "Come now Mister Jensen; it's always a fairing day in Dunston. I recollect when we were to the brim with the un-Christian, the negro, savages, and drunks. Now look, it's civilised.”

  Dunston’s weighted gaze collides with Jensen’s. Jensen grunts at the word civilised.

  “Still some civilising to be done General Dunston, sir. We still have the yellow fever, them Chinese folk here” Daniels is met with Jensen’s stare of cold fury.

  Dunton is pragmatic.

  “No doubt, but they are cheap in labour, and there’s an endless supply of those yella fellows.”

  Daniels see Jensen has no guns. He wrestles with this farmer's dogged tenacity and decides he’s just a techy-ten-cent-man, who has a tile or two loose.

  Dunston blows cool on happenings; he pats Daniels' shoulder.

  "Come now Daniels, come now. Be pleasant to Mister Hills; he has an appreciation of the Celestial folk and their dream stick. Besides, Mister Jensen has been on the outskirts of Dunston, well before we boomed.” Dunston turns a friendly smile to Jensen and continues. "And while we are discoursing on such boundaries, I'm making you that final
offer on your parched grazing land. It’s forty acres of futility. Think of the whiskey you could be kept in.”

  Jensen is quiet as Dunston pushes on.

  “You know my cards Mister Hills, your land is ideal for laid track and the railr-“

  -Jensen motions to speak, it falls silent with expectation, in a fold of three, with just the noise of delight from the Caravan washing over them.

  Jensen smiles, he snatched the moment and wrangled it, to walk away in silent disdain.

  Daniels sprays in frustration

  “YOU DON’T WALK-” Dunston with a rodeo grip, clasps Daniel’s arm - Easy…

  He glances about, as he whispers.

  “A time and a place, Daniels. A time and a place.”

  Colonel Dunston fades into a dreamy disturbance; his thoughts are snared and strive for freedom. The focus of his consternation a Native American woman. This beautiful, strong squaw, little more than score years in life, strides past Dunston. She conveys a stark chill of cold animosity, never breaking eye contact. The General’s deep blue eyes, latch to her strangely deep blue eyes.

  She passes, Daniels doesn’t notice his friend’s momentary imbalance.

  "That damn carnival brings all kinds of heathens with them." Daniel’s curses is directed at the squaw. Dunston glances to the squaw. Daniels continues.

  “Colonel Dunston, sir?”

  As if shocked back to reality, Dunston answers a question never asked.

  “Never better, Sergeant. Never better.”

  The swagger is back, as Dunston marches off.

  Jensen splashes his face from the cold horse drink in the corral. He cups handfuls of water and glides the wetness over his roan’s neck. She rocks her head in appreciation.

  “You’se liking that, eh?”

  She snorts, as water is stroked down her spine.

  Jensen gently runs his hands up and down her front and hind legs, to examine their health.

  “I apologise for my… weight”

  His thick palm slaps her meaty shoulders. Jensen in the same motion slaps his ampleness.

  “It can’t be easy being for you’se”

  Jensen then half-heartedly cradles his stomach, concern furrowed across him.

  Is there a whisper of pain?

  The embers of a searing?

  Jensen contemplates, his mind is feeling something, for one purpose only, his need. Either way, he can’t wager against the day being unhindered by the branding in his belly.

  And heck, he’s in town anyway.

  Jensen rifles his pocket and brings out a crumpled bill and two dollar bits. It's burning a hole in his britches, and he comes to an understanding on what to do about it.

  5

  THE LACE CLOUD from opium pipes drapes in clusters. Behind the smoke is a moreish sweet scent that nestles its floral flavor deep into the nostrils, causing one to breathe deep into the belly, as though emerging from a dunking. The aroma serves as a chaser to partaking of the pipe; it layers the ritual.

  Colonel Dunston tolerated the Opium den, as his township still needs the Chinese labor to push for expansion. This den is like any other, claustrophobic, with the low hanging smoke pressing down. Windows, curtained with soft lamp light battling the shadows. Most of the inhabitants are in their positions, reclined, in numbing comfort next to their dream sticks. The occasional half minded, half imagined, suck on the teat of illusion to slumber back into a pipe dream.

  Opium is the great equalizer of men, all creeds and cultures, as listless bodies stacked against each other, as if lumber in a wood yard. When a person starts on the opium road, they soon find a family in addiction. Dotted around the room are recliners and a pipe for those who prepared to part with more coin. Gliding around the bodies of furniture, as if born from the smoke herself is Chyou Chun. Dressed in traditional silk, gloved to her rail thin frame, she sees all and perhaps knows all within this den of dreams. A westerner, in working leathers and bowler, takes his chance and reaches from his reclined position to grab at Chyou. Chyou is steely, she slaps the hand away, and the man slumps back into the nothing.

  “Chyou Chun” by the door, a burly China man, catches Chyou’s attention. He gestures there’s somebody at the door.

  The light of the day tunnels through the open crevice, as Chyou opens the door to Jensen. For the first time today, he cracks a narrow smile. He’s pleased to see her. She stares at him.

  "Lotus," as she is known by. “Ya look good.”

  Without a word, she opens the door for Jensen to squeeze through.

  Stepping in from the bright clear day, open, expansive to the sultry press of the den, with its sweet punch of flavour, is like stepping into a dream, and not knowing you had ever been awake. Jensen's eyes are moments behind; they're still glassing for an open day, a long horizon. He's in the dark for the time being, as Lotus guides him to a reclined seat. Jensen's perception starts to see the etched detail in the furniture, the placid, docile looks on the faces of the opium puppets, of which he will soon become one.

  Jensen’s bulk creaks the wood of the recliner, Chyou sits by him. In a single movement, he hands her the five dollars, and she stuffs it into her dress. Chyou’s hands dance as she lays out a pipe, an opium box, and utensils. She sets the oil lamp’s wick alight; the burner. She slices and sprinkles some black shavings of opium resin into a pipe.

  Jensen feels the involuntary craving kick; he swallows his salivation as he looks to Chyou.

  “Ya look, real good.”

  She softens. “Thank you Mister Jensen, but I know you’re not here to see me.”

  The pipe rests on her delicate painted lips. She sucks on the pipe, to invite the flame to heat the resin.

  “Has the pain returned?” She rests her elegant, long nailed, opium stained hand on his belly. “Or the need?”

  Jensen places his large hand over hers, engulfing and cradling in the same motion. Both their hands rest on his belly.

  "It's a little of each," coy in his response.

  With a softness between them, she passes Jensen the pipe, sensually sharing a precious moment, their mutual addiction connecting them on a level few could understand.

  Jensen never breaks eye contact, with an undercurrent of desire between them, he lightly sups upon the pipe, visibly relaxes as his large frame unhinges the tension it may have held.

  She takes joy from his slip into oblivion, her accompanying smile is tinged from a lifetime of opium necessity. In that moment, they mingle into oneness, listless of thought, inert of deed, without a history of regret and the pain of a future’s promised sorrows.

  A neighbouring old Chinaman, who witnessed the passing of the last century, lays horizontal submitted to gravities weight, mumbles to Chyou, Jensen knows it is a question about him.

  Jensen quietly looks from the old man to Chyou. She answers the unasked.

  “Feng wants to know, why a cowboy would have no guns?”

  Feng continues as Jensen in monumental effort looks to his side, of course, he has no pistols.

  Chyou continues.

  "He say, you're like a … snake, with no… Fangs, yes?"

  Words leave Jensen's mouth before he can engage in thought.

  "The troubling is when this snake had teeth… he'd bite."

  Jensen feels the tendrils of oblivion, embracing him as Chyou translates. Feng laughs and spouts a few choice words before slumping back himself. She draws on the pipe, as does Jensen. She dabs his sweating face, her words ring of a universal truth.

  “He say … A man can only deny his nature for so long.”

  Opium visions engulf Jensen, his ears lay deaf to all.

  “You look real good, Lotus.”

  "I know you're not looking, sweet dreams my dear Mister Jensen."

  Jensen’s consciousness is scrambling on the shores of reality.

  “Dreams… In my dreams I see a dark, creeping cloud, black as a starless sky, it feels like the breath of death.”

  Jensen's eyes close, he
submits into the ocean as his mind washes from the shores of sensibility.

  At his finals words Lotus’s smile evaporates, she gently strokes Jensen’s face.

  6

  DREAMY WISPS of smoke spirals, twist, drift and intertwine to lace sheets.

  White upon white, the smooth sweep of feminine lines emerge.

  The lines unfurl, as the delicate curves dance.

  An echo of yesterday whispers as a distant bubbling brook.

  Time and space become aware; it knows it is watched, it collapses in on itself, drawing the sound ever closer.

  Voices of song, laughter, music, became the throbbing heart, that rumbles closer. For a lingering moment, it is the breath of joy… Till…

  BOOM – A throaty thunder-crack of gunshot report, the female in the mist spews forth a red plume of funneled smoke.

  Joy becomes terror.

  The dance becomes a massacre.

  All the while an undercurrent of black billows crash forth. A black that drinks in all light and brings all down with its chilled tendrils.

  The red, the white, the heartbeat… Soften to dullness.

  The black keeps coming.

  Consuming.

  And all that is left…

  …is the black.

  7

  THERE IS NO ESCAPING, the afternoon's swelter; it pervades as a sticky undergarment. The hours of heated preparation on all surfaces retorts in a wave of temperate distortion.

  Jensen's sprung gait bounces him down the sidewalk. There's a numb haze, the final frill from his opium induced stupor, which still lingers on the fringes of each moment. His joints no longer pain, his head only throbs of shifting perceptions. Jensen looks to the sun; its glory rests on his face. He stumbles into the shadows, as pedestrians move out of his way.