“You sure crossed me good,” he shakes his head, almost as if he didn’t believe it. Almost. “What’s say we go double or nothing?”
A smoke-stained smile stretches across his face. All mouth, unburdened by the gleam of a soul.
The Short Go: A Future in Eight Seconds
Can y’all see? There’s quite the glare coming through the canopy, bright as all hell over the clearing. Here, I’ll shift over so y’all can grab yerselfs a patch of shade. Yeah, Pilchard always runs rodeos at high noon—the sun gets the wolves in the ring proper riled, while the heat lulls their packs to sleep in the forest. Don’t worry none about them though; the Minotaurs got the dens of them feral ones covered. Only wolves them big bastards let into town is the ones Pilchard orders caught for fine events such as this. And I’d warn y’all if we was about to come under attack—which, by the way, ain’t happened since I was knee-high to a grasshopper—I’d know it ’fore them night-loving beasts could skulk from the trees and take their first bite of human flesh. Trust me.
Now, where was I?
Y’all got here late, but there’s still a bit of time ’til Hésus Solares is ready to ride the short go. He’s doing good so far, real good—but it’s how he goes after today that’s important. Being champion of this here rodeo is only one step for Hésus Solares when it comes to winning Twyla Blue for his bride.
And he’ll do it—hell, he already has. He just don’t know it like I do.
Now’s yer chance, go’on: get the scoffing out of yer system. Most folk ’round here laugh when they hear tell of my knowings, so why should I expect less from strangers like yer kind selfs? A few chuckles won’t make a whit of difference, what with my ears ringing so’s I can hardly hear you.
Screaming at me as they do, quick and unexpected, true knowings have a way of leaving me ragged. Cyclones of words and pictures that rattle the silver in my teeth then lift me like tumbleweed, sending my mind skittering across time and space and all them flimsy barriers between actual reality and what regular folk take for granted as real. For a few seconds, no more, I float breathless, surfing zephyrs in the late summer sky, looking down on the forest, the clearing, the Minotaurs ringing our tree-shrouded town. I’m the soil gone to dust beyond the woods, the rough bench beneath my fingertips, the hot sun beating down on our deer-hunter skins. I’m all three hundred souls turned out for this here rodeo, the bettin’ money in their pockets, the moonshine in their bellies. I’m salt soaking through the judges’ Stetsons, blood pounding through competitors’ veins, cigarillo air meshing with lungs. I’m Hésus’s beating heart, yers, mine—everyone’s, except the Swangirls’, them whose tickers is made of memory and the thinnest wisps of their father-god’s breath.
Inside and out I’m everywhere when the spell’s on me, ’til I know the way of things to come, right down to their very guts.
Look: that’s Hésus over there. The scrawny kid with the thatch of black hair, waiting between the birch tree and the great sugar maple, wrapping and unwrapping that rope around his left hand. Nah, he don’t wear gloves like the rest of them riders. Says he likes to feel the cut of the hemp across his palm; the pain keeps him alert, slippery blood forces him to hold all the more tightly. Here we go: them Swangirls is called Hésus back to the gate—oh, don’t bother crossing yerself, boy. You of all folk should know Jesus ain’t got no say when it comes to cowboys and rodeos.
That’s right: Hésus ain’t learned that yet, ain’t aware of what he already done in the future. Alls I can say is I seen young Solares’s unfoldings clear as the view we got of Pilcher’s wolfring over there, loud as the Alabaskan cheers coming from these bleachers we’s setting on. Just like I know the Minotaurs won’t break the treaty our granddaddies dealed with them, unless we do so first—and we will, mind, but that’s a story for my daughter’s daughter to tell long after I’m dead and buried. And it’s the same way I know them Swangirls, beauties all, won’t never have wings strong enough to sustain flight. Sure, they look tough from here, herding wolves into separate bucking chutes, pairing riders with their allocated mounts; wending around tree trunks holding up these here bleachers, ducking and weaving through catcalls and good-natured jeers; all with their muscles cut and bulging inside chaps, white feathers bristling from graceful backs, torsos pale and bare as truth, tits displayed without shame to the crowd. But their wings is too small to lift human limbs, too delicate to be more than decoration. They’re light on their feet—see what I mean?—but they sure as hell can’t fly. You just keep an eye on them a while and then try to tell me I’m wrong about things I see.
Sit for a spell. I know Hésus Solares will wrangle three wild critters ’fore he makes Twyla Blue Pilcher a good husband. Them twister-visions I got said he’ll ride one beast to woo, rope another to wed, and lash a third to recover the love he thought lost. C’mon, now. Our rider’s mounting up; the courting’s about to begin. For eight seconds, Hésus will show his heart’s set on Twyla Blue. While he hangs tight, risking life and limb to prove he’s a fit mate for his gal, I’ll tell y’all how things will be after he’s won. Direct from my mind to yers, I’ll think the future to y’all, slow it down some else it passes by ’fore y’all can blink. How’s that sound?
Eight seconds, then, for him and me. For y’all, it’ll seem a sight longer.
There goes the bucking chute gate.
Start the clock.
Looks like he’s waving at her now, don’t it? With his right arm raised and flailing, left hand gripping the rope them Swangirls knotted ’round the wolf’s waist and balls, and Twyla Blue perched on the edge of her seat watching Hésus from the friends and family box. Such a pretty lass, not so thin as most girls ’round here, more blonde and round and fair, ’cept for them eyes of hers—long and black as a Minotaur’s snout, but twice as wet. She’s staring hard at young Hésus’s twisty-turning form, pinning him to his lupine seat with the weight of that dark gaze. Knuckles white in prayer, she’s hoping he’ll hold on—’cause if he don’t there ain’t no way they can make their courting official—and she’s memorising his moves so’s she can recreate them in the bedroom once they’re wed.
Seven seconds to go.
Believe you me, Hésus’ll feel that wolf’s fur bristling between his thighs, chafing through his jeans, as the beast works his muzzle into a lather trying to buck the boy into the dirt. It’s a nasty rash he’ll have come morning, but guaranteed Twyla Blue will be the first to visit him at sunup with a love-gift to pledge her troth: a jar of willow bark cream to soothe his skin, mayhap a pair of soft cotton drawers tailored to fit his narrow hips.
He’ll accept her offering. Ain’t no other reason he’s out here, riding beneath a blazing sky. I can’t tell you the number of times he’s dreamt of touching her, holding her, filling her up. Since they was both little, ’fore he even understood what that ache in his chest meant, ’fore that dull throbbing slipped below his belt and tormented him day and night, he’s imagined the two of them together.
He can’t wait to see her naked.
So he’ll take the cream, the unders, and whatever other trinkets Twyla Blue gives to show she also gots an interest in the goings-on in his pants. And soon as he does, Pilcher hisself will give Hésus a tiny metal key to unlock the silver chain looped ’round and ’round Twyla Blue’s hourglass waist, cinching her from navel to tits like a corset.
“You ready for this, son?” Old Pilcher will ask, speaking the same words in the same tone his father-in-law used on him so many years ago. “You got it in you to be a man to my girl?” And, just as quick as Old Pilcher did when folk still called him Young, Hésus will nod and put key to lock. The silver lasso Twyla Blue’s wore since she first got her bloods will slink to the ground with a metallic whisper. Her chemise will billow, concertinaed with fabric wrinkles, showing how much room there is for her belly to stretch. To grow a strong Minotaur baby.
Six seconds.
Poor
Twyla Blue. Such a lovely face to be creased with such worry. Darlin’, yer man’s nose is bleeding but it ain’t broke—that bronco’s rearing head sure cracked him a good one, ain’t it? Cartilage smashed against skull with a whack! right in the kisser. Makes my own honker twinge in sympathy.
Roping a bride’s Minotaur ain’t half as hard as riding a wolf for three go-rounds.
Armed with his fiancée’s lasso, face coloured in paint made from a paste of bone chalk, crab-apple pulp, and rich Alabaskan clay, Hésus will put on a good show of stalking a stud buck through the forest.
He won’t see most of the herd. They’ll be hidden behind sycamores and pines, thick arms covered in sap and soil and maple keys, camouflaged by nature and oncoming dusk. Downwind, Hésus will smell them, taste their musk on his tongue, inhale the earthy scent of their spoor. He’ll hear their snuffling, great gusts of air bursting from wide nostrils, giving away their positions. Near and far, they’ll remain out of sight. Hoof beats will resound as Minotaurs wrangle wolves to uphold their part of the bargain, clearing a safe path for Hésus to enact his hunt.
As day dissolves into night, one bull will finally show his proud face.
Lord only knows how the herd decides who the lucky begger’ll be. Mourning doves and jaybirds will sing the chosen Minotaur toward the man wielding a love-spun lasso. There’ll be a scuffle as Hésus puts chase, his red and white mask catching the last glimmers of sunset, his boots loud as he tramps through the undergrowth.
Buoyed on the promise of winning, driven by the thrill of the hunt, exhilarated as hard-earned sweat trickles into his eyes and down his chest, Hésus will launch the rope at a creature more than twice his height. With his first throw, he’ll snag the Minotaur’s mighty horns, pull the noose—a short jerk and a flick of the wrist—and bring the beast low. Adrenaline will surge through his body as he plants a foot atop the bull’s prostrate form. He’ll laugh and bellow, in victory and relief.
As the sweat cools on his brow, as his breathing slows, he’ll see the future transformed, though not the same way I do. A man, he’ll think he’s become. A husband.
He’ll feel fit to burst—damned if he wouldn’t take Twyla Blue right then and there.
But he can’t, of course; a point he’ll remember as he reaches down to offer the Minotaur a hand up. The bull will take it and say, “Congratulations,” ’fore swinging Hésus over his shoulder, carrying him like a sack of wood shavings to hasten their run into town. “Where’s my cow?”
Ain’t sure if you ever noticed, but when it comes to Minotaurs it’s all balls the size of melons and thick cocks dangling for the world to see. Being a strictly male species, them hairy bastards is always ready to rut—they just ain’t got no women of their own to fuck, no she-Minotaurs to bring forth calves.
Five seconds—our boy’s hanging in there.
As he will be tomorrow, flopped over the broadest shoulders he’s ever touched. Hésus will first suffer vertigo, then bone-wracking chills as he looks at the longhorn he’s just roped. Gasping for breath, he’ll feel powerful muscles stretching and contracting beneath his ribcage as he directs the Minotaur past the bullring, down Trader’s Row, and up the hill to Pilchard’s house. Hésus understands the arrangement all Alabaskans have made, explicitly and as a matter of course. But hanging upside-down, clinging for dear life to the sweaty haunches of an eight-foot Minotaur, he’ll struggle to see its benefits.
A fair trade, they’d agreed, the settlers and the Minotaurs. A treaty on behalf of generations past, present and future. To live here in Alabaska, instead of ploughing fields drier than my dear Mamma’s ashes. Our town rich with oak for furniture and houses, water for fishing and brewing, enough deer and rabbit to feed a family of six like kings every day of the week. Better than fighting off packs of wolves every night, or spending daylight hours prying great bulls like this one off their screaming wives. The cost of staying, unmolested: first breeding rights for a community free of wolves. One night with the bride—they’s fertile beggers, them Minotaurs, one poke’s all they ever need—buys a town suited for bearing and raising all children. Them with bovine features, and them without.
Most would agree it’s still a good deal.
But tomorrow, spots will swim in front of Hésus’s eyes as envy chokes his heart. He’ll grip that bull’s headgear same way he’s clinging to the bucking wolf’s rope, down there in Pilcher’s rodeo ring. His face’ll scrunch as it is right now; cheeks flushed, expression stuck midway between determination and disgust that he’s going to hand-deliver the first partner ever to get between Twyla Blue’s thighs.
His girl—his wife—will be stretched all to hell on that monster’s pole, then torn to shreds as she births a bull-headed calf.
Damage done in no more than four seconds.
Twyla Blue’s firstborn will have her eyes.
See how she’s looking now, all teary and excited, hardly blinking for fear of missing a second? Craning her neck to see around the folk walking to and from the makeshift bar Jolly’s knocked up near the entrance? Every skerrick of her attention is riveted to Hésus, a mixture of love and pride and something darker, something of which she’s yet unaware. Hate, maybe. A shining instance of hate because he brung her to this point, he changed her life, he made it both sweet and unbearable.
Well, that’s how he’ll look, Twyla Blue’s cow-headed boy, soon as they swab the blood and placenta from his pelt, rub the mucus from his peepers. Delight and resentment articulated not in words but in the shady cast of his exaggerated features.
Hésus won’t notice the similarity: he won’t have looked close at Twyla Blue for months, much less her bastard son.
He’ll tell hisself it’s the work what’s keeping him distracted. Takes time, it does, building a cottage for two on the fringe of these here woods. It won’t be nothing fancy; rough-hewn logs, tar and shingle roof, foundations made of stone. It’ll be simple, but solid enough to support happiness and to fend off the fear of wolves. While Twyla Blue’s belly waxes huge, Hésus will mark out a small room for his own young’uns. He’ll erect a fireplace framed by a timber mantelpiece, and leave one nail jutting out, high and centred on the wall, upon which they’ll hang their wedding gift.
Horns pointed up to catch all the luck Twyla Blue deserves, a huge granddaddy skull, the Minotaur’s blessing, will overlook the Solares-Pilchard nuptials.
This is another thing Hésus will avoid looking at.
Twyla Blue will wear white on their wedding day, for it will hold true that she’s never yet lain with a man. With sprigs of holly in her hair, clutching a bouquet of sumac and lace, she’ll talk about young’uns, the ones she and Hésus will make. Doughy babies with fat thighs and rolls dimpling their knees, plump pink sausages to make old folks coo. She won’t talk about the calf, not ever, after the morning of the ceremony has passed. Two hours ’fore they say “I do,” Hésus will rearrange chairs in their home’s new front room, place tables against walls to clear up space for an aisle, and he’ll hear his bride tell her nameless kid that she’ll visit him one day in the forest. He’ll hear the clippity-clop of the young Minotaur’s hoofs on the kitchen’s wooden floorboards, and the squeak of the screen door as it opens.
“See you,” Twyla Blue will say as she sends the creature away.
Hésus’s stomach will churn, though he knows it’s not true, though he’s aware none of the mothers do visit.
But he’ll wonder if she might.
He’ll feign exhaustion on the night of their wedding.
“Such a busy day,” he’ll say as he rolls over and faces the wall. “And we have our whole lives ahead of us.”
Twyla Blue won’t change out of the special nightdress she bought, white like her wedding gown but spangled with tiny red hearts. She’ll leave it on in case he changes his mind. The flutter in her chest will slow to a molasses crawl. She’ll wait as the room is gilded in silver. To
pass the time, she’ll think about the need for curtains, the patterns she’ll stitch along their hems. Soon enough she’ll doze, her dreams catching on sharp needles, drowning in vinegar-brown eyes.
When her breathing evens out, Hésus will turn and watch his wife sleep. He’ll see moonlight striping her body, outlining her unique dips and curves, and the shimmering silver beams will remind him of spit. Fat cow tongue saliva, smearing wet the places he should’ve been first to lick. Twyla Blue will sigh and stir. Hésus’ll pull the sheet up to cover everything but her head. Hoping a thin veil of cotton might hide his changed desire.
Three seconds to go—and here come the Swangirls, right on cue. They ain’t no regular rodeo clowns, saving cowboys being trampled should they take a tumble. Nah, they’s supposed to run across the arena like that, flapping their feathers, hooting and hollering, egging the maddened wolf on. Little fates, folk sometimes calls them; if the girls’ shaking and shouting makes the wolf buck his rider, it’s a sign the love match weren’t meant to be.
Hésus the wolfrider is certain Twyla Blue is the gal for him.
But I been Hésus’s heart. I been inside his secrets, his inner workings. I knows the heft of his coming disappointment. Less than a week after he weds his missus, a time not so very far from today, he’ll feel stifled and restless. That old ache in his chest will be back—but where ’fore it was a balloon that made him soar through his days at the mill, floating on visions of Twyla Blue, now it will seem a burden too heavy to carry. A rancid weight beneath his ribs, squirming with maggots of doubt.
Fantasies will worm through his thoughts. He’ll imagine going to work in the morning and never returning. But he can’t leave, can he? Such a move is unheard of. What would a miller’s son do in treeless fields beyond the forest? His axe is useless for ploughing. Stalks of barley are much too slender for building cabin walls. And how will he fight wolves clustered in packs, roaming the edge of the woods? He hasn’t a Minotaur’s strength and, let’s face it, he hasn’t their balls.
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