Redemption's Blood

by Chris G R Webb

  “My father, my real father, told me she had left her mark, she cut his face from right to left.”

  Sparrow traces the shotgun barrel across Dunston facial scar; it matches her words.

  "I'm sorry." Dunston understands this is more than just a vendetta.

  "She died in childbirth, and her half-breed daughter swore revenge, for the mother she never knew, on the father she never wanted."

  …This was fate, avenging the pain he left in his wake…

  First, it would tantalise him with the sweet glimmer of what could have been; Dunston, Keystone, the railway. To deliver a bitter dish of retribution, in the guise of his daughter. Perhaps if he had shown remorse, perhaps things would have been different… perhaps.

  “Her name was Ayvita.” Little Sparrow has finished.

  Dunston pleads. "I… I don't deserve this. I own a town; people need me. Look up to me. I have wealth, money, powe-“

  “-Things change.”

  Dunston’s journey ends here.

  …KA BOOM…

  50

  JENSEN HAS NEVER FELT SO OLD, chills crash through his body. He didn’t want to be an old croaker, but he knew that the end beckoned. He looks from Marujo’s body to the knife buried in his chest, a small slither of blood seeps through the jacket.

  Jensen plucks the blade out; he reaches into his pocket and tugs out William's Bible. It has a slit in its cover that goes all the way through. He peels back his jacket to see his undershirt is blood stained, the blade had found its home. Through the numbness of senses, Jensen hears a voice.

  “Bear. Bear.” Mazy crashes into Jensen and grabs hold of him.

  He puts an arm around her. She muses at his hooked hand.

  “The Bear has a claw.” He guides Mazy away from the mess, the bodies, towards Louis.

  He squats down to her level.

  “You okay?” She glances to the hole in the jacket; she seems confused on why he didn't meet his demise. Jensen hands her the bible, she flicks through, she sees the blade's mark all the way through, on the back of the bible is blood.

  She looks Jensen in the eyes.

  “I don’t know Bear... Is the world like this? Hate, killing? Are you done with it all?”

  Jensen touches the bible. "It's not all like that; this belonged to a friend of mine. In a sense, it was his love that saved me." He looks off into the cornfield where Tyler escaped and mumbles to himself about his purpose as of late. “Perhaps it is best the kid got away.”

  Maybe he can resolve himself to this; pain is slowly subduing him.

  Louis wrestles whether or not he should impart some information to Jensen. He decides to scatter his cards to fate.

  “Jensen, I heard someone alive in the corn. They seemed to be… crying.”

  Jensen has a hard time replying, he stands, pats Louis on the back as he makes his way to the cornfield. Mazy follows in tow, only to be stopped by her father.

  “Mazy, stay with me, he has to this on his own.” She looks to him. “Redemption is a road best travelled alone.”

  Jensen slowly walks through the cornfield; he’s following the gentle wining of someone in pain. He walks past bloody matter, spilled from the dead bodies he passes. There’s a strange sense of peace, a vividness to the world that bursts off the canvas of his awareness. Greens seem… Greener… The blue sky an unreal azure. The essence of life is slowly ebbing from him, as if the garment of his existence is being slowly unthreaded.

  Jensen chuckles, the world around him looks painted. He arrives at the source of the sound. Tyler has his foot gnawed in a critter trap, its bitten deep into his ankle, he’s gently groaning, unaware that Jensen is there.

  51

  LITTLE SPARROW, Louis, and Mazy had quickly and quietly brought order to the mess in the farmhouse. Sure, there were about a dozen dead bodies outside, but they could deal with that another tomorrow.

  A black kettle on a stove is just about reaching boiling, Sparrow wraps her hand in a damp cloth and grabs hold of its hot handle. She carries it over to the table and pours it into three waiting cups of various designs.

  She smiles softly at Mazy and Louis who are quietly waiting.

  “This will help you sleep.” She says. Mazy nods.

  “Thank you.” Says Louis.

  The three friends sit, taking comfort from each other's presence. They occasionally look at each other and smile, but it's not a smile brimming with joy, no. It's a smile that's laboured with the sadness and regret that the memories of the last 24 hours bring. Those memories will stay with them. In time they'll talk about it, in time, they'll laugh about the characters they knew. Now, is not that time.

  For now… They sit.

  “Sleep is good.” Comes Mazy’s belated reply.

  “We all need sleep.” Louis chimes in.

  “I’m worried about what I may dream, tonight.” Confesses the girl.

  Sparrow reaches over and strokes her hair.

  "Stay with me tonight; we can share dreams, go on a dream quest." Sparrow's words comfort Mazy.

  “I’m now a chief, and a chief needs someone they can trust. Can you be that for me?” Sparrow proposes to Mazy. Mazy smiles and nods… It’s agreed then.

  Mazy looks out the window, into the inky black of the night - there's a fire casting its defiantly orange flames to the blackness. Mazy speaks without taking her eyes off the hypnotic flames.

  “Can we dream of bears tonight… Chief Sparrow?”

  "Yes, of course, bears."

  “What do you think he’s doing?” Mazy enquires.

  Sparrow guides Mazy’s eyes away from the window.

  “He’s doing what’s in his nature.”

  52

  ECHOED IN JENSEN’S EYES are the entwining flames, the colour of pinkish coral. As a backdrop to the fire is the farmhouse; in the window, he can see Mazy, Louis, and Little Sparrow. Everything was beautiful; the peaceful indifference that bleeds through his body, the opium’s sticky sweet smell with floral undertones that occupies that space between thoughts. Pain of any kind is lifted from him, either by the tears of the poppy he was smoking; that nestled deep, or… He's just decided to let it go.

  Whatever, it felt good.

  There’s a gentle groaning, a whisper of disturbance to Jensen’s absence. The groaning becomes more persistent, louder. Until it reaches in and plucks Jensen back to a place, he knows he'll soon leave behind.

  The groaning belongs to Tyler Devon; he's sat next to Jensen at the camp fire. His foot a blooded mess, wrapped in a rudimentary bandage, no doubt Sparrow's doing. Jensen glances down to him, Tyler's eyes slowly peel open and look up to his captor.

  "Wondering when you'd be arriving," Jensen mumbles.

  Tyler looks to his mangled foot, as Jensen grabs a bottle of wine and knocks it back.

  He sees Tyler staring at his foot. Jensen waves his hook, occupying Tyler’s vision.

  “Don’t worry kid. Life’s all about losing. Bit by bit. Just eats its way from outside in, to inside out.”

  “Why you doing this?” Tyler enquires.

  Jensen draws upon the pipe; Tyler watches as he unloads another swig of booze, its red blood-like nature dribbles from the corner of Jensen’s mouth.

  The men look to each other, Jensen glances to Tyler’s foot and offers him the pipe.

  Tyler looks away, he refuses.

  “That’s the yellow man’s peril.”

  "Take it; your leg is gonna be screaming soon," Jensen advises.

  Tyler slowly sucks on the pipe, he lightly coughs.

  “Hold it in your lungs, like you were panning for nuggets.”

  Tyler sucks again. This time he’s ready, he draws deep and cups the smoke in his lungs. He feels the instant wash of numb, cascade over him. Jensen recognises the dropping of shoulders, the hanging of eyelids. He smiles.

  "See. Makes it better… Well not better, makes it, so you don't mind it's not better."

  "No, it makes it better," Tyler responds.

>   Jensen spurts wine across the fire; Tyler chuckles at Jensen's laugh.

  “Yeah, it makes it better.” Jensen agrees.

  They sit in silence for a while. There’s still a question shadowing Tyler’s thoughts, he’s detached from the last few days, yet he still remembers them, it’s like his emotions have been put in a safe-box, and he can’t find the key. His friends and father are dead. He glances to the large old-man sat next to him, wine spilling down his front, high from the seed of poppy. Tyler wonders how it ended like this.

  Jensen breaks Tyler’s train of contemplation.

  "When I was younger… I weren't a nice man… …Still, ain't." Jensen confesses. Memories flood, most of them end in bloodshed. "Did things, I regret some."

  Tyler hazily stares at him. "They say." He starts. "They say you're the Johnston City Butcher. That you been killing and killing till there was nothing left." The opium has allowed Tyler to let go of the fear that would inhibit his questions. "They say you killed your own wife, while she was carrying child."

  Jensen sinks into a solemn state.

  "As I said, there's things I regret and things that happened without me even knowing." Jensen sucks on his pipe before he continues. "Most folks I killed had it coming and the others, I probably stopped them before they gave me a reason to stop ‘em."

  Jensen contemplates on what he says; he nods in agreement with himself. In this state of numbness, words seem almost channelled, and one has to check on them after they are spoken.

  “What I regret, is not getting those before they hurt the folks that meant something to me. Killing the right folks is easy, son. It’s just killing ‘em at the right time, that’s hard.”

  Tyler understands this goes back to the boy, for Jensen this started long before this, but his predicament was incited by the young kid who ran out in front of him.

  Tyler almost feels Jensen’s sadness, the feelings that Jensen alchemises to embittered hate.

  “The boy, I didn’t… I didn’t mean to. I didn’t see him.” Tyler is not sure why he’s saying this, maybe he’s trying to right a wrong, or simply plead for his own life. "He just stepped out; I was scared, I kept riding." A tear pearls up, Tyler doesn't feel it, he only sees his vision bubble. He strikes a realisation. "Jesus Christ… I’m damned.” Tyler looks around the farm. “Y-you killed them all, didn’t you? My Pa, my friends, all for the boy-”

  “-Not for… because.” Jensen snaps, he doesn’t wish William to be tainted with his own nature.

  Jensen is in that dream state that he’s familiar too. He catches ghostly glimpses of William; some moments happy, others of his dying throes, each is crystallised into Jensen's mind, and can appear to him at any time. Jensen's dream state has become more of a nightmare of hurt.

  “Kid. How much is on my head?”

  Tyler takes a moment to think. "$5000… Dunston Bank and Keystone has deposited the reward with the sheriff's office." Tyler has an idea. "I can call it off, pay you more… Whatever you want. I can change Mister Hills; you became a pig farmer. You changed."

  “Naaa, I didn't, not really”

  Jensen uses the log behind him as leverage as he grunts to standing, he stretches he knows without the opium and liquor swilling in him, his body would refuse such an act.

  “See I believe you, son, I really do. I believe you believe that you will change. But, I just can’t take that chance.” Jensen ponders until he finds the right words, he’s come to a comprehension of himself and perhaps life itself.

  "You see, a man only ‘thinks’ he's changed, yet deep down inside, he's still that nasty son-of-a-bitch that gets a kick from all the blood and guts he gets to spill. I don't know if they were borns for killing, or they just learned it on the by. All I knows is some men don't go down that road, and other men, well they hasten down that path like they were on rails."

  Jensen reaches down to his Colt, his hand slowly kneads the smooth walnut wood grip. Jensen’s pistol’s iron skates across his oiled Cheyenne holster of worn sandalwood. The pistol seems to have a mind of its own. It drifts into place, aiming at Tyler.

  "Either way, for you, for me, it ends here… Well… for you."

  “No… please.”

  Tyler is between calm and panicked, as he starts into the blackness of the Colt’s barrel, a blackness that probably awaits him on the other side.

  “Please.”

  Jensen decides not answer, not to engage… This last ten days or more, he can't quite remember, has been for one reason, balancing out was done. He knows he can never make it right again, but he can make it less wrong.

  BLAM

  Jensen slumps down by the fire place, he still has half a bottle of wine to finish, and more tar to smoke. He stares at Tyler and the fleshy crater in the young man’s face. It seeps blood that chases itself to drip of the side of his chin. Jensen looks up to the celestial blanket that covers the sky, shattered crystals across untouchable obsidian. There was only one thing left to ensure. He didn’t measure how long he was there for. Once he ran out of drink and the last of his opium was consumed, he staggered to standing, like a bear coming out of hibernation, and ambled his way back to the farmhouse.

  53

  MAZY, LOUIS, SPARROW had drunk their tea, it was meant to help them to slumber, but they were all a bit too edgy to sleep. The gunfire, the screaming, the blood and guts still played a chord in consciousness. When they looked across the table, and there was no Lynn, Joseph Joseph, or Cloud, it left them empty. The kind of empty that some attempt to fill with gambling, killing, addiction, or God. Right now, they sit with that raw feeling.

  Jensen barges through the door, smashing the silence. The three look over to him, Jensen isn't sure of their thoughts on him, maybe they see him for what he is… A butcher of men. Mazy smiles, it's not a happy one, more of a hello. Jensen smiles back; his is from a place of happiness. He ambles over to the table.

  “It’s all over now, isn’t it Bear?” Mazy asks.

  “Nearly” coughs Jensen.

  “Sit. Please.” Sparrow gestures with her hand.

  “I can’t refuse a chief’s hospitality.”

  “I’ll serve some food.”

  Corn and some hard bread, are readily devoured. Jensen rests his eyes on each person, in turn, Louis, Sparrow, and Mazy. He's happy here. Maybe more than he would be anywhere else.

  "This is a beautiful piece of land; you'll do well here, engineer…” Jensen says to Louis.

  “I know, I know, we could settle, grow crops.” Louis raises a cup to Jensen.

  Little Sparrow raises a cup also.

  “I can be of assistance.”

  Louis ponders his cousins. “But… when Isaac and Frances come back."

  "They'll be happy you've kept the place running; this land is big enough for two families," Jensen reassures Louis.

  “I can help you too.” Sparrow reaches out and touches Jensen’s hand.

  He’s very matter of fact.

  “It’s too late for help.”.

  This comes as no surprise to anyone at the table; they didn't think Jensen would make it through the day, with so many men gunning for him.

  "There's one last thing I need you to do." Louis, Mazy, and Sparrow give him their full attention. Jensen gives them instructions.

  Jensen's mass is pressed against the straw and sprung mattress; his vision is fading, awareness sinking into the distance, he decides it’s not unpleasant; the letting go. He curiously rubs the viscous membrane painted across his stump. He holds it up, to see it in the moonlight that’s breaking through the window and chasing the shadows across the room.

  The door opens, Mazy's small figure leans against the door frame, as light floods in.

  “I don’t want you going Bear.”

  “Kiddo, I can feel it, it’s coming for me. An’ you know what?... It’s okay.”

  Mazy comes into the room; she plonks herself on his bed.

  “There’s something I want you to hear.” Jensen places a ha
nd on her shoulder. “Listen.”

  “It’s not fair.” She falls on him; she’s too upset to listen.

  "I can make it fair," Jensen tells her as he reaches into his pocket. He plucks out Lotus's jade necklace. He hands it to Mazy; she has her head on his chest listening to his fading breath and feeling his voice reverberate through him.

  "Whenever you look at this necklace, no matter where you are or what you're doing. I want you to know things. You're brave and beautiful, and there's nothing you can’t do.” It’s a struggle for Jensen to get the words out. “Understand?” he asks her, she timidly nods… yes.

  There's silence; he's slipping, Mazy holds onto the Jade necklace.

  Jensen ebbs back.

  “…Tell me…”

  “…I’m brave, beautiful… and there’s…. there’s nothing I can’t do.” Mazy replies in between breaths of hurt.

  “Good girl, live by it.”

  She snuggles closer and begins to accept the inevitable.

  She sniffs his odour, “You smell Bear.”

  It's not a pleasant smell, but each time those wafts fill her sense, pleasant memories will flood back to her, till she has long left her youth behind. Jensen is quiet, motionless; she lifts her head to look at him… Was there a sign of movement? She wondered but never really pondered upon it; her Bear was gone… And she would stay here till the morning Sun crashed through the windows, and demanded her attention.

  Epilogue

  Born of the Dead

  JOHNSTON CITY’S main street was a beehive of activity, there was a cold snap to the bright morning, and the gatherings billowing breath steamed in defiance to it. As the moments accumulate, the buzzing energy of the crowd dissipates to a uniformed stillness. Just staring faces of men, women, and children of Johnston City. The same thread of expectation entwining them.