The Fiddle is the Devils Instrument

by Brett J. Talley

  He grinned. Something about it I definitely didn’t like. I’d say I should have listened to my instincts, but fact is, I needed the money. Professional rodeo clowns aren’t exactly highly paid, and the benefits are for shit.

  “Alright,” I said. “I’m in.”

  “Think you can get a few of the boys to come along?”

  “Sure thing. As many as you need.”

  “Not too many. Just a couple. And another thing, this is sorta a Halloween-type event. So you think you can bloody it up a bit?”

  It was June. Strange, but people had asked for stranger.

  “Sure.”

  “Hell yeah,” he said, slapping me on the back. “We’ll pick you up tomorrow. This time. Right here.”

  The three men turned and walked off into the gathering dark, the thin one cackling all the way to the parking lot.

  It wasn’t hard to find volunteers. Two hundred bucks for a night’s work was unheard of. Sure, there was probably something else too it, but when the money’s good, who gives a rip?

  They returned the next night, just as they had promised, as our last show was coming to a close. They pulled up in a van; the muscular one was driving.

  “No bikes?”

  He scowled at me, and the look made me wonder if he’d ever killed a man. “What,” he said, “you wanna ride bitch?”

  I laughed. He did not. “Guess not,” I said. “What’s your name, anyway?”

  “Piston. And that’s all you need to know. Get in the back.”

  “Hey!” Tonto stuck his head out the window. “You’re supposed to be dressed up for Halloween.”

  I held up a plastic bag. “We’ll change in the back.”

  He grunted, which I took as a sign of approval. I climbed in the back of the van, and two of my buddies followed. They were young guys, not locals exactly but Californians who worked the season when the tour came through.

  There were no seats other than the two in the front, so we made ourselves as comfortable as possible and hoped that Piston was a more conscientious driver than might be expected. Hog was passed out in the bed of the van, fortunately out of our way.

  I emptied the contents of the bag on the floor—mostly fake blood and cheap bandages—and passed them around to Sam and Jake, the other two clowns that had joined me. I call them clowns, but they were of the new set that eschewed the classic getup in favor of a traditional cowboy look, so I was the only one wearing paint. I’d gone with the more John Wayne Gacy approach—white face, blue triangles over my eyes, red mouth painted to points. That’s the thing about Gacy; any clown could have told you he was a bad dude. Real clowns outline their paint in nice, gentle curves. It’s less aggressive, sends the signal that no, we are not actually going to kill you. Points are aggressive. Sharp angles, frightening. Should have known Gacy was a killer. He wore it right there on his face.

  Tonto leaned over the back of his seat and gawked at us. He watched us squirt fake blood and black paint into our hands and spread it across our clothes, our arms, our faces.

  “Whatcha doin?” Tonto said.

  “You wanted Halloween, right? We’re zombies.”

  Tonto giggled stupidly. “Zombie clowns.” He giggled some more. “Whatdaya think about that, Piston? They’re clown zombies.”

  Piston didn’t answer. He seemed to be a man of few words. Tonto turned back around, but every now and then I’d hear him giggle to himself again.

  The only windows in the van were in the back, so I leaned against the wheel-well and watched the place we’d just been slip into the past. The Alabama Hills rose around me, named by southern sympathizers for the mighty warship that was the pride of the Confederacy. I wondered about those people, southerners who’d come west in ’49 looking for their fortunes. By definition, then, they didn’t own slaves, couldn’t legally in the territory they were headed, even if they could have afforded them. Like so many their loyalty was to the southern earth, the states that had given them birth, the rivers that divided them. I wondered how they felt when the Alabama was sunk off the coast of France. Not everyone was disappointed. Just beyond the Alabama Hills lay the Kearsarge range, named after the ship that sent her to the bottom of the sea. What a country.

  “So where are we going?” I asked.

  “Mining town,” said Piston. “Up in the mountains.”

  “You guys go up there a lot?”

  “Yeah. We go up there a lot.”

  “Do people still live there?”

  “Nope. Abandoned.”

  That wasn’t a surprise. The Alabama Hills had once drawn men with little money and big dreams from every part of the country and even the world. Only one in a hundred made it. Ten times that ended up dead, while the rest were just broken. Then the big conglomerates came through and bought up the hills. That’s when the mines went deep and towns sprung up around them. I call them towns, but they were little more than camps for the men—a saloon, dry goods store, maybe a brothel if they were lucky.

  “This town got a name?” Piston caught my eye in the rearview. I couldn’t see his mouth, but I knew he was smiling.

  “Sure it does. They called it Sutter’s End.”

  Sutter’s End. So that was it. I began to wonder if I’d made a mistake. Easy money always comes with a price, and the old saw about something that seems too good to be true is more often than not on target.

  Sutter’s End had a nasty reputation. The mine had closed some fifty years before, and the town had died with it. The story that everyone knew was that the main shafts were running dry, but the bosses wanted to squeeze a few more million out of the hole. So they ordered the men to blast a new shaft down from the main one. Of course blasting when you were that deep already was nothing short of taking your life in your own hands, but back in those days that sort of thing went. Still does if we’re being honest with each other. So when the charges detonated, down came the supports—and the walls and ceilings with them.

  That was the official story at least. Tragedies like that always have another, one more shrouded in the twice-told and the unsupported. And Sutter’s End had a doozy. The story, as the folks who lived at the bottom of the Alabama Hills told it, was that the charges worked just fine. Better than fine, even. That when they went off, they opened something more than just a new shaft. Nobody was ever quite so certain or so specific as to what exactly that something more was. But whatever came out of there took the miners. The people of the town, the ones who made it out alive, fled. Left everything behind and just went. So it stayed for years, till time dimmed the fear enough that enterprising grave robbers stripped the town bare. But even now, whispers would sometimes float down from Sutter’s End, and no one dared to go up there at night to find out where they came from. No one, it seemed, but the Sons of Dagon.

  And us.

  The sun was setting by the time the town came into view. A thick cloud of dust rolled down the hill as we drove up, and when we pulled into what remained of the town, we saw why. It was chaos. When you’ve spent as much time clowning as I have, you’ve seen just about every type of man, and you learn quick not to judge them too much by what you see. But as I watched men bigger and meaner-looking than Piston spinning around the town square on giant bikes of shimmering chrome, metal bars shaped like bones, skulls with devil horns curving off of them between the handles, I was afraid. I glanced at Sam and Jake and saw the same look on their faces.

  The van came to a stop. Piston threw open the rear doors and we hopped out. It was a party alright. There were bikers everywhere, sporting the leather cuts that read Sons of Dagon across the back, with some sort of emblem beneath it that I didn’t recognize, like something out of one of those monster movies that comes on the television after midnight. I didn’t like to look at it, so I didn’t examine it for long. It was a face of sorts, one with evil eyes and what looked like tentacles that hung down where the mouth should be.

  There wasn’t much left of the town, and i
t didn’t seem like there had been that much there to begin with. One central street with buildings on either side. At the end they’d erected a stage where a band was playing, heavy on the metal guitar with drums that sounded like thunder. The arena was set up off on the other end, and I recognized a cowboy leaning up against a cattle carrier next to it.

  “Dan Travis,” I said, walking up and taking his hand with the one I hadn’t wrapped in bloody bandages.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Same thing as you, I guess.”

  “Part of this circus, too, huh?” He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one. I declined. “If I had it to do over, I might have passed.” The rumble of a bike and a hollered obscenity punctuated the thought. He looked at me and squinted. “You supposed to be dead or something?”

  “Something,” I said. “When’s this show getting started anyway?”

  “They said we was waiting on you. So I guess any time now. Suits me just fine. I’d like to get the hell clear of here before it gets too dark.”

  I looked around at our surroundings. The town wasn’t on a hill, precisely. More like a high canyon with low craggily walls on the sides. All and all, that meant the sun seemed to set faster than it should, and the darkness was more complete when it did.

  “Yeah, I hear you. Any idea who’s in charge?”

  “That would be me.”

  I turned to see a man, older, but just as firmly built as Piston, standing behind me. He wore sunglasses, even though the day was long on gone, and his gray beard came to a point below his chin in a way that reminded me of the devil.

  “I’m Goat,” he said, offering his hand, and as I took it I thought that name worked with the beard too. “I run this show. Thank you boys for coming.”

  “Happy to be here,” I lied. “Where’d you guys find this place?”

  Goat snorted. “I own it. My granddaddy bought the land after the mine died. He needed a place for his family to have some privacy. As you can see, that family has grown.” He swept the area with his hand, as if asking us to take it all in. And we did. About that time, the band fired up again.

  “We take all kinds,” he said, looking over his shoulder as the drummer hammered away. “Me, I prefer what you boys do. So that’s why you’re here. We’ll get started in fifteen minutes. Be ready.”

  He started to walk off, but then he turned and pointed at my stump hand.

  “Love the zombie get-up.”

  Fifteen minutes later, we were in the ring, ready to go. And I can tell you this, I’ve never been more afraid.

  The band still played, but we were now the show, and most of the gang had made its way over to the makeshift corral. It was rotten wooden slates literally strung together with twine and bailing wire. A half-decent bull would have broke straight through and killed us all. But these bulls weren’t half-decent. They were, in fact, the saddest I had ever seen, ten years past their prime if they were a day.

  There were no riders, no real ones at least. The Sons of Dagon took turns. The crowd at the edge of the makeshift ring urged them on. Cursing, screaming, firing guns into the air. I doubted they had permits. I spent as much time dodging bottles as I did dodging bulls.

  The energy in the air was foul and full of bloodlust. The crowd pulsated, seeming to squeeze in on us. Their shouts rose from a din to a roar till they seemed to cover all. They were pagan, visceral, somehow harkening back to a time of man’s darkest age. One of the drunkest ones leapt the fence and ran toward a bull even as it struggled with its rider. The poor thing was terrified.

  Over and over they rode them, till I was doubled over, hands on my knees, exhausted. But still, they rode.

  It came to an end as suddenly as it had begun. Ten different guys had probably ridden that bull. The sweat was thick on its sides, its mouth foamed, and the sounds that came from its gullet no animal should make. Then it happened. The great beast gave one last massive thrust of its hind legs and then the rest of it tumbled over on its side. I knew then it was dead, probably dead before it hit the dirt. From somewhere deep below us, the earth rumbled.

  The night sorta sputtered out then. The mood had changed. The Sons drifted away, one by one. The band stopped playing, packed up its kit, took down the stage, and was gone. It was full dark then, and the stars shone cold light upon us. Goat walked up, oddly somber. He handed each man a hundred dollars more than we were promised.

  “You done good,” he said, glancing down at my stump hand. “Night went sour. Sorry about that.” He took a drag from his cigarette and coughed. “Piston and the boys’ll take you back. But they got clean up duty tonight, so it might be a while. No idea what they’ll do with that shit.” He nodded at the dead bull. Flies had begun to gather. “Burn it, I guess.” Then he too was gone.

  Before long, it was just us. Sam and Jake leaned against the rotted fence, kicking at the dirt, silent and sullen. I didn’t much feel like celebrating either, but there was no point in whining about it.

  “I’m going to find Piston,” I said.

  They just ignored me, and I didn’t bother trying to talk to them again. I headed out down what had been the main street. With the band and the bikes and the stage lights gone, it was dark in the way only the far wilderness can be dark, where not even the glow of distant city lights can ruin the night’s completeness. In other words, it was dark as all hell, and even when my eyes adjusted, I could only barely make out the outlines of buildings. Add the unnatural quiet, and I admit to being somewhat unnerved. More than somewhat.

  Laughter from one of the buildings. A beam of light and someone spilling out behind it into the street. I guess they saw me or heard me or something, because the next moment, the beam was shining in my direction. Then a giggle.

  Tonto.

  “Clown,” he slurred, drunk or high or both. “Zombie clown. I like you.”

  A larger darkness stumbled out behind him—Piston. I expected Hog to follow. I did not expect him to be carrying someone else with him when he did. The two of them joined Tonto. I stopped dead in my tracks, suddenly quite aware of how bad things had just gotten for me. Tonto said something I couldn’t hear. All three of them looked at me. A woman screamed. Hog slapped her hard across the face and told her to shut up. I almost thought I could see blood dripping from her nose.

  “You coming, clown?” Piston slurred.

  “Where you going?” I said, as natural as I could. I took a few steps toward them.

  Piston raised an arm and pointed out down the road, to the rock face of the cliff that backed up to the town, at a patch of black night a little bit darker than the rest. It had been obscured by the stage before, but now it was clear. They started toward what could only be the opening of the mine, the one that had given birth to the town and then killed it. I said the first thing that came to my mind.

  “Well fuck.”

  Every man—every woman too for that matter—has a moment where they have to decide who they are and who they will be. To decide whether to take a stand so they can stand themselves. This was my moment. The three men and one struggling woman disappeared into the darkness of the shaft. I knew what was next. They’d rape her, multiple times most likely. Then they’d kill her. And that would be it. No one would ever find the body, not down in that mine shaft. And just in case you think I was being all heroic, I also figured they’d kill me when they were done with her, the price of seeing something I wasn’t supposed to see. So I made the only decision I could make. I followed them down into the mine.

  I’m hadn’t exactly formulated a plan, but one thing was immediately apparent—I couldn’t see for shit. Fortunately, the three jackasses in front of me were as prepared as they were drunk, and I could follow the light of their bobbing flashlights. I stumbled after them, hoping to find a pickax or a shovel or just a damn big rock to use as a weapon. Otherwise, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I caught up to them. When
that actually happened—and without said pickax, shovel, or damn big rock—I basically made small talk.

  “So,” I said, in the hopes of announcing my presence without startling them and getting shot or stabbed, “what are we doing here, guys?”

  Piston turned to me, and for the first time I saw the girl’s face. She’d been crying, which was no surprise. But I wasn’t prepared for the pain in those tear-filled eyes, or the look of absolute desperate hope that fell completely on me.

  “You a believer?” Piston asked, in the strangest non sequitur of my life. Of all the things that had happened that night, it was his question that shocked me the most.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess so.”

  “You guess.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, we’ll see if we can’t make a believer out of you. And when you see what we got to show you, you won’t need faith.” He pointed to the wall of the mine. “You see that?”

  And I did see it. A ragged opening, big enough for a man to enter through, but not comfortably. Obviously not a shaft running off the main or an opening made on purpose, either. If I had to guess, they’d been blasting when it broke through on its own. When something broke through. I thought back to the stories I had heard, about what had happened here, and I wondered just how much truth there was to the old local legends.

  “Come on,” Piston said. “We got something to show you.”

  “Yeah,” Tonto said. “Something to show you.” Then he laughed that big, stupid laugh as he disappeared behind Hog and the girl. Piston just kept on looking at me, and even through the gloom of the cave I could read his eyes. He was drunk, but he was sober enough to consider whether or not it was a good idea to have me along. Maybe he thought about killing me right then and there, I don’t know. But he turned and slipped through the opening, and so did I.

  Through the crack in the wall I saw something I could never have dreamed of, not in my wildest youth, not at my drunkest. This was no new mine shaft, no undiscovered cavern or cave. This was a room, a great, giant chamber with vaulted ceilings and massive columns. Something made by man. I hoped man had made it at least. I’d never seen the like. It put the great Temple of Karnak at Luxor to shame, made a mockery of the most extravagant constructions of the Greeks or the Romans.