Wraiths of the Broken Land

by S. Craig Zahler

  Trailing the Mexican vaquero, Brent departed.

  Nathaniel could not stop trembling.

  After an impossibly short period of time, Brent returned.

  Nathaniel dragged the man who exclaimed, “¡Triunfo!” to the façade, where hung three nude hostages, bloody and inverted. The gentleman climbed the ladder, received the upended limbs from Deep Lakes, slid the wire binding along an iron stake and shut his eyes when the captive’s weight pulled his ankles into the cold sharp barbs.

  After an upside-down human being made terrible animal sounds, the tall empty thing that looked like Nathaniel Stromler walked back into the fort.

  Deep Lakes shut the door.

  Long Clay looked at Brent and Nathaniel. “Get back to your slits.”

  “Okay.”

  After a tiny nod, the gentleman moved his legs.

  Long Clay strode toward the potbelly stove, from which sprouted the long ends of five iron stakes. “Ready the messenger.”

  Deep Lakes knelt beside the boyish Mexican, whose wrists were bound behind his back, and pulled a cord around his ankles.

  Standing at the west wall, Nathaniel looked outside, over the mute tombstones and at the dark, empty horizon. The boy from Michigan who had traveled to Europe with his family, stayed in luxurious hotels and adventured was gone, as were the teenager who vowed never to turn a gun on another person, and the twenty-two-year-old gentleman who had fallen in love with Kathleen O’Corley. This current incarnation of Nathaniel Stromler was an unscrupulous animal that would do anything to preserve its own life—even torture innocent people. He was a corporeal shell that lived in the present, divorced from his former identity, obeying the threats of an evil gunfighter.

  The gentleman from Michigan reviled what was left of himself—his spineless, quivering remainder.

  Outside the fort, inverted hostages gargled and moaned like rheumatic haunts.

  Nathaniel looked over his shoulder. In the southeast corner, Long Clay withdrew a stake from the molten potbelly stove. The luminous iron point traveled across the room like a fang pulled directly from the Devil’s mouth.

  The boyish Mexican pleaded.

  Although he doubted that the poor man’s words would change the gunfighter’s itinerary, Nathaniel translated. “He said that his name is Alberto Querrera and that—”

  “I’m not interested.”

  Deep Lakes tore open Alberto’s brown shirt. Catapulted buttons skittered across the stones, clicking.

  Long Clay stepped upon the captive’s bound ankles and looked at Nathaniel. “How do you say, ‘I work for Gris’ in Spanish?”

  “Yo trabajo para Gris,” replied the gentleman.

  “Spell it one word at a time.”

  “Y. O.”

  Long Clay pressed the luminous tip of the iron stake into the skin above Alberto’s left pectoral muscle. Flesh sizzled.

  The captive jerked and shrieked. “¡No! ¡Por favor! ¡No se nada!” Long Clay withdrew the iron stake. Upon Alberto’s chest sat a lone diagonal line, red and swollen.

  With a steady hand, the gunfighter reapplied the glowing metal, elicited a scream and added the mirror image of the first mark (to create a V) and a vertical scar that dropped down from the connection of its antecedents. Long Clay lifted the luminous point, set it down, summoned a groan and inscribed a sizzling circle next to the first symbol. Alberto squirmed like a live fish dropped into a frying pan, but the native and the gunfighter held him firmly in place.

  Upon the captive’s chest sat two bloody letters.

  Yo

  “Next word,” prompted Long Clay.

  Nathaniel turned away from the shuddering canvas. “T. R. A. B. A. J. O.” Behind his back, skin sizzled, and the metallic smells of blood, urine and heated iron permeated the air.

  “Por favor,” pleaded Alberto, “por favor…”

  Nathaniel’s hands squeezed the barrel of his repeater rifle, and his heart raced. The cemetery outside his slit became blurry.

  Alberto spoke of his crippled mother, Leticia, who was confined to her bed in Nueva Vida.

  Long Clay set the red stake inside the potbelly stove, withdrew a bright orange replacement and returned. “Next word.”

  “P. A. R. A.”

  Skin sizzled. In between sobs, Alberto explained that he had taken the job with Gris so that he could buy Leticia new bedclothes.

  The empty gentleman strangled his rifle.

  Long Clay inquired, “G. R. I. S?”

  Holding his breath, Nathaniel nodded.

  Skin sizzled, but the Mexican made no sound.

  “Did he pass out?” asked Brent.

  “Yes.”

  “Too bad,” remarked Stevie.

  “Stromler,” prompted Long Clay. “Look at this.”

  The gentleman turned around and looked down. Burned into the unconscious Mexican’s chest was the message.

  Yo trabajo

  para Gris

  The gunfighter inquired, “This reads, ‘I work for Gris?’”

  Unable to breath the tarnished air, Nathaniel nodded.

  Long Clay walked to the potbelly stove, inserted his writing implement and withdrew an iron stake that had a bright white tip. Around the luminous fang, the night air warped.

  Nathaniel’s pulse pounded violently within his temples. He momentarily forgot his fiancé’s name and the address of his mother’s empty candy store in Michigan and where his father was buried.

  The gunfighter strode across the room and extended the radiant point toward the captive’s blindfold. Dolores and Brent turned away from the grim tableau.

  “Please,” Nathaniel pleaded, “you do not have to—”

  Long Clay plunged the stake into Alberto’s left eye.

  The captive shrieked, but was held in place by the native.

  As the gunfighter lifted the stake, Alberto’s left eyelid stuck to the radiant metal, stretched and tore loose. Clear fluid bubbled within the ruined socket, and the blindfold sloughed to the ground. The captive was no longer conscious.

  “The man is a hired hand,” Nathaniel said, “you—”

  Long Clay positioned the smoking iron above the captive’s remaining eye.

  “Stop! You have done enough.” Nathaniel’s voice was strong and hard. “I will—”

  Long Clay thrust the stake.

  “No!”

  The gunfighter pulled the iron from the man’s hissing eye socket and looked at the native. “Pull down his trousers.”

  Nathaniel raised his rifle.

  A black circle appeared and flashed brilliantly. Nathaniel flew west and impacted the stone wall. Unused, the repeater rifle fell from the gentleman’s hands and clattered upon the ground. Across the left side of his chest, a sharp and burning pain flared.

  “You dumb idiot,” remarked Stevie.

  Long Clay claimed the fallen repeater rifle.

  Nathaniel felt warm fluid pour from the bullet hole and run down his abdomen. The walls of the fort elongated.

  Appalled and speechless, Dolores watched the gentleman sink.

  Nathaniel’s buttocks struck the floor. The world shook, and he keeled north. Suddenly, the back of his skull smacked against the stone, and he stared, glassy-eyed, at the ceiling.

  Throughout the gentleman’s collapsed body spread a blue chill.

  A silhouetted man appeared and knelt upon the stone. “I’m…I’m so, so sorry.” Nathaniel recognized the speaker as Brent. “You shouldn’t be here at all.” The cowboy pressed a cool cloth to the bullet hole.

  “I t-told you that I should not…use a f-f-firearm.”

  “You were right. One hundred percent.”

  The narrow black wraith slid across the room, expanded a
nd hissed.

  “I hope that…most of you…survive.” Nathaniel tasted blood in his throat.

  “Thanks.”

  Deep Lakes removed Alberto’s trousers and long johns. The glowing tip of the iron stake shone upon the dark curl that was the blinded Mexican’s exposed phallus.

  Blackness expanded before Nathaniel’s eyes.

  Skin sizzled and hissed.

  “Goddamn,” said Stevie. “Goddamn that’s terrible.”

  Chapter III

  The Torture Tactic

  The circus dog growled meritorious accusations at Brent Plugford and his brother as they set the unconscious dandy upon the floor of the prisoners’ cell, beside the collection of bones that was Yvette. Stevie mumbled ungraciously and left the dark room.

  “Say one for Mr. Stromler,” Brent whispered to his sleeping sister, “he don’t deserve any of this.” Troubled by guilt, the cowboy exited the dark, windowless chamber.

  “Lock that door,” Long Clay ordered from his position along the south wall.

  Brent slid the iron bolt and turned around. He glanced at the bunk upon which laid the inert bodies of Patch Up and John Lawrence Plugford and quickly looked away. Any ruminations upon these dead men—or the pregnant woman and unborn child Long Clay had murdered—grew the cowboy’s sadness and turned it into a debilitating, all-consuming despair. Now was not the time for self-recriminations or mourning.

  “Hell.”

  Deep Lakes dragged the blinded and inscribed messenger toward the west door. Brent felt a pang of nausea when he noticed the blackened nub between the Mexican’s legs.

  “How’s Mr. Stromler?” asked Dolores.

  “I stopped the bleeding, but…” Brent shook his head. “I don’t think he’s gonna make it.” He knew that Patch Up would have better tended the injury.

  Dolores glared at Long Clay. “You shouldn’t’ve shot him.”

  The remorseless gunfighter did not bother to defend himself.

  Stevie said, “Who cares what happens to that dumb dandy.”

  “You should,” barked Brent. “He helped us rescue our sisters and only got shot because he didn’t want to see no hired gun get mutilated.”

  “He drew on Long Clay,” Stevie rebutted, “and deserves what he got.”

  “I pray you ain’t as stupid as your mouth advertises.” The cowboy returned to the south wall, shouldered his repeater rifle and unscrewed his spyglass.

  As if Long Clay were not in the room, the young man asked, “You wanted the dandy to win?”

  The honest answer to that question was complicated. Brent knew that the gunfighter was the Plugfords’ only chance for survival, but on a personal level, the cowboy would have preferred to see the dandy win the exchange. “I wish it didn’t happen is all,” he stated, equitably.

  “Stevie,” said the gunfighter.

  “Yessir?”

  “Take the position on the west wall.”

  “Okay.”

  The young man slung his rifle, gathered together his spare magazines and strode to the opening that had previously been monitored by the dandy.

  Brent raised his spyglass and looked outside. The halved moon was sinking behind the southern mountains, and the landscape was darker than before.

  “What time is it?” asked Stevie.

  Skilled at divining the hour from heavenly bodies, Brent answered, “Half past four.”

  “Feels like next year.”

  “At least,” remarked Dolores from the far side of the fort.

  Long Clay said “Brent.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Put two lanterns on the front wall so that the opposition can see our decorations whenever they charge.”

  “Okay.”

  Brent gathered two lanterns, went outside, hung them over the inverted men, lit the wicks and hastened indoors. Presently, he returned to his slit, picked up his spyglass and located Deep Lakes.

  The Indian rode a purloined gray mustang and trailed a white colt, upon which laid the unconscious body of the inscribed, blinded and castrated messenger. For ten minutes, the cowboy watched the horses race south, toward the weedy terrain that laid in-between the woodlands and the sere incline.

  The animals reached the halfway point and stopped. In the spyglass optics, the steeds were magnified to the size of mice. The Indian leaped from his horse, took the messenger from the second beast and stood him upright. Weak starlight glimmered upon the Mexican’s inscribed chest and the dark dots that had replaced his eyes and phallus.

  Deep Lakes leaned over, removed the messenger’s fetters, turned him south and shoved him forward. The blind eunuch fell to his knees. Then, the Indian helped the man to his feet, slapped him twice, and shoved him south once more.

  Toward the black forest, the mutilated man drifted.

  “Brent. Stevie. Dolores.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yessir?”

  “What?”

  Long Clay adjusted the telescopic sight of his rifle, and weak moonlight glowed within his right eye like a cataract. “You need to understand our tactic.”

  “We trust you,” said Stevie.

  “You need to know it fully,” the gunfighter replied, “in case I get put down.”

  “Okay,” replied Stevie and Dolores.

  “Go ‘head.” Brent was certain that he was about to hear the machinations of evil.

  “On an instinctual level,” Long Clay said, “a man fears torture and disfigurement more than he fears death. He can imagine what it’s like to be branded, because he’s burned himself; he can imagine what’s its like to be blind, because he’s been in a dark room stumbling into furniture; and if he’s ever had any pain in his privates, he can imagine what being castrated might feel like.

  “Death is very different to him, because it’s an unknown. The man might even believe it’s the beginning of some new type of existence—like those heaven fantasies your sister entertains.

  “But the man doesn’t have any delusions about what kind of life awaits a mutilated, blind fellow whose penis has been removed.”

  “A terrible one,” opined Stevie. “I’d kill myself.”

  Brent tried not to picture Alberto’s future.

  Long Clay resumed, “After Gris’s men see the messenger we sent over, the hired guns who’re not personally invested in this battle will either ask Gris for more money—a lot more—or they’ll leave no matter what wage is proffered. Nobody wants to be the next messenger.

  “Gris will lose one quarter to one third of his crew as a result of this tactic. Maybe more.”

  “Holy goddamn!” enthused Stevie. “They should’ve hired you for the Alamo.”

  Through the wooden spyglass, Brent watched the blind specter drift.

  “The remaining men in Gris’s crew will become angrier,” Long Clay stated, “which is also to our advantage. Angry men don’t think clearly and they make hasty decisions—like charging onto a field filled with land torpedoes.”

  “I sure hope it goes like that.” Brent watched Deep Lakes hasten his gray mustang up the sere incline, toward the fort.

  “If Gris’s posse staged a siege, they would win,” declared Long Clay. “They have superior numbers and could pin us, while accessing unlimited reinforcements and supplies. We need to hasten their attack, kill as many as we can, cow the rest and get Gris.”

  “I get to kill him,” said Dolores. “And I want to make him suffer.”

  “We’re not dragging things out for revenge,” stated the gunfighter.

  “Gris deserves to die slow.”

  Long Clay did not respond to Dolores’s remark.

  Ink spilled from the northern edge of the forest, toward the drifting snowflake that was the messenger. The distant particles that com
prised the emergence were the riders and horses of the opposition, but in the heavy darkness they appeared to be a single entity, the arm of some gigantic black bear.

  Suddenly, the messenger was seized by the extrusion and pulled into the woodlands.

  “They snatched him up,” Brent informed his siblings.

  Long Clay said, “Dolores. Stevie.”

  “What?”

  “Yessir?”

  “Get on the south wall and put your guns forward.”

  Chapter IV

  Blood Gathering

  The high heels of two beige dress boots dangled an inch above the brown carpet that Daddy and Patch Up had installed throughout the house when Dolores Plugford and her twin brother were first learning to crawl. Sitting upon the edge of her bed, the twenty-seven-year-old woman stared at a dark blemish amongst the familiar fibers and recalled authoring the stain when she and Brent had inexpertly opened a purloined bottle of wine with a pocketknife.

  The hallway floorboards creaked six times, and a huge fist gently knocked upon the closed bedroom door.

  “Angel?”

  “Yes Daddy?”

  “Can I come in?”

  “Okay.”

  The bedroom door opened and revealed Dolores’s handsome, broad-shouldered father, who was dressed in a dark blue three-piece suit. His silver and brown hair was neatly combed, and his face, washed and shaved by the best barber in Shoulderstone, gleamed. “I know I said it at the church, but you look stunning pretty in that dress.”

  “Thanks. You look real handsome in that suit.”

  “Tell Patch Up—he picked it out for me.” John Lawrence Plugford walked beside the green desk that Dolores had once used for her grammar school assignments and placed his hand upon its matching chair. “Mind if I sit?”

  “Go ‘head.”

  The patriarch set the chair beside the bed, seated himself and interlaced his big fingers. “I can understand why you’re upset. Can’t be easy watchin’ your kid sister get married first.”