Wraiths of the Broken Land

by S. Craig Zahler

  No matter what she decided, she would not have this conversation through an air hole, but when she finally saw her husband’s face.

  Although they were peppered with dust, the impossibly sweet and lush carrots that Yvette and Mr. Stromler devoured at twilight were the most delicious vegetables that she had ever eaten. (Eight months of wretched chicken soup certainly enhanced the flavor of all other comestibles.)

  As the night progressed, the pair enjoyed water with abandon, although Yvette thought it tasted a little bit like rifle.

  Cascading stones boomed and rumbled.

  Yvette opened her eyes and found that she was adrift within the absolute darkness of an incorporeal hour. Rubble clicked and skipped upon itself and was succeeded by a heavy silence. She wondered if her husband had been injured or buried alive and was ashamed that thoughts of his agony elicited no small amount of joy. To the Savior, Yvette quietly prayed.

  Presently, rocks shifted upon their siblings, and the sounds of Samuel C. Upfield IV’s excavation resumed.

  Illuminated by four circles of amber twilight, Yvette and Mr. Stromler unrolled the cylinders of bread that had passed through the air holes earlier that afternoon.

  Stones rumbled outside the cell. The sentry barked, put its left forepaw to the door and scratched.

  Yvette and Mr. Stromler observed the agitated dog.

  A fist knocked upon the door.

  The choirmaster started and dropped her cylinder of bread, as did the gentleman. Nearby, the canine proffered a delighted woof.

  “Please do come in!” Mr. Stromler rose to his feet.

  Yvette stood from her stone bed and pulled oily curls of blonde hair from her face.

  Henry gamboled in excited circles.

  A stone clanked against iron and startled all three of the cell’s inhabitants. The metallic concussion resounded a second time.

  “Perhaps the bolt is stuck?” suggested Mr. Stromler.

  Yvette nodded. Her mouth and throat were dry, and her heart tugged. All of her lengthy ruminations had been fruitless, and she still did not know what she was going to say to her husband when they were finally reunited.

  Stone clanked against metal.

  Yvette imagined embracing her husband, and she felt a warm light permeate her body. She envisioned pushing him from the edge of an impossibly tall cliff, and she felt a just satisfaction. Her passions were a seesaw.

  Henry snatched up, twice chewed and swallowed a cylinder of bread.

  The metal bolt clanked, whined, cracked and clinked upon the ground. Suddenly, the thick door retreated half of an inch.

  Yvette’s muscles tightened.

  The door was drawn open. Its bottom scraped across the stone floor, and its hinges creaked.

  Leaning against the doorframe and wearing a baggy gold-and-brown striped suit that had once belonged to Patch Up was a five-foot-four-inch blonde man, limned by twilight rays, which shone through the exploded fort walls. The fellow’s misshapen face was covered with dust, and his broken jaw was held in a silk sling that was stained with such an abundance of dried brown blood that it resembled a used diaper. Two blue marbles that were bleary eyes sparkled in the middle of the lumpy gray visage, and an embedded rock protruded from his forehead.

  Yvette was immobilized by the piteous sight of Samuel C. Upfield IV.

  Mr. Stromler cleared his throat. “I shall leave you two alone.” He passed beside the small man—who was ten inches his inferior—and exited the fort through the exploded south wall.

  No words came to Yvette. She stared at the miserable little betrayer who was her husband, and her internal war of hatred and sympathy did not abate. After a full minute of useless deliberation, the choirmaster regained the power of speech and announced, “I want to see Brent.”

  Samuel nodded his head, tightened the sash that fastened Patch Up’s trousers to his narrow waist, turned and limped away.

  Yvette walked through the door of the prisoners’ cell and into the blasted fort, a blackened and shapeless enclosure that was wholly unrecognizable as the place wherein she had read the confessional essay, argued with Dolores and later apologized. She navigated piles of rubble that were taller than her husband and turned west.

  After six days of dark confinement, Yvette stepped outside. Unseen hands release her spine, and she knew His presence in the twilight rays that turned her skin into gold. Tears that had many meanings came to her eyes, and the impossibly beautiful panorama scintillated. To God, the choirmaster quietly said, “Thank you.”

  The heels of Samuel’s dilapidated loafers clicked upon a ramp that led down to the stable in which healthy horses stood amongst beasts that had starved to death. Yvette descended.

  Presently, the mute prince stopped behind the family wagon and pointed a purple fingernail.

  Yvette passed her husband, climbed into the canopy and walked over to Brent, who was bandaged and asleep inside a clean bedroll. She knelt beside an array of cups, which contained water, mashed carrots and wet bread, and touched her left wrist to her brother’s forehead. His temperature felt normal. “No fever.” The cowboy’s respirations were even and his skin was dry. “Seems like he’s doing okay.”

  A lumpy gray head tilted forward and back.

  Yvette seated herself upon the wagon bed, directly beside her older brother.

  The diminutive man turned away and walked south.

  “Samuel,” said Yvette.

  The departing figure stopped, but did not turn around.

  “I spent a lot of time thinking about what to tell you and how I feel,” Yvette said, “but I still haven’t figured it out.” She looked deep within herself and admitted, “I don’t know that I can ever look at you and see somebody other than the weak fool that got my family killed. The cringing coward that got me raped. A man who betrayed everything important.”

  The little man nodded his bandaged head.

  “Maybe there was nothing else you could do once you got in deep with Gris,” suggested Yvette. “If you went against him, you would’ve been killed by his gunmen like he said, and Dolores and I would still have been taken to Catacumbas.”

  Samuel’s hands were trembling.

  “Maybe that’s the case—once Gris had you hooked, you had to do what you did.” Yvette’s heart was pounding. “But I don’t believe that. Not right now and maybe…maybe not ever.”

  The little man nodded his bandaged head.

  “But I know that I want to believe it,” confessed Yvette. “I know that I want to believe you didn’t have a choice so that I can have you back in my life. I just don’t know that I can.”

  Samuel’s back and shoulders were shaking.

  “I want to sit here with my big brother.” Yvette took Brent’s left hand. “Alone.”

  Presently, the piteous man strode up the log ramp, reached the top and was struck by the horizontal rays of the setting sun. The southern sky was the exact same color as Samuel’s illuminated right half, and Yvette was only able to see his shadowed remainder.

  Chapter III

  The Benign Specter

  The man who could not remember his name saw a white pyramidal rock upon the ground, determined that he must reach that far-off destination, dug the fingers of his good hand into the sere dirt and pulled his agonized carcass forward. Across the dirt, three useless appendages draggled. Coarse grit abraded his skin, and the pyramidal rock moved one inch closer to his right eye.

  Upon the other side of the stone and covered with dirt was a dead cowboy who gripped his large intestine as if it were a line to a sunken anchor.

  The man who could not remember his name passed out and awakened in a dark place, lying upon his back. He knew that he must turn onto his stomach and continue toward his destination, the wagon, wherein sat the black trunk that contained his on
ly hope.

  “Are you awake?” asked somebody from somewhere.

  An arrow of yellow fire flashed, flared red, traveled into a hanging lantern and became a radiant orb that illuminated the wagon canopy. The dandy shook the match and gazed upon the recumbent cowboy.

  Brent Plugford croaked, “I believe it was…the other way ‘round…last time.”

  “I prefer this arrangement.”

  “Yank.”

  The bushy blonde mustache atop the dandy’s lips withdrew, revealing teeth. “How are you feeling?”

  “Deep pain all over, but no fever anymore. And I got a little strength.” Brent surveyed his surroundings. “Where’s Yvette?”

  The dandy’s face became grave. “She is inside the fort.”

  Alarmed, Brent asked, “What’s she doin’ in there? Ain’t no reason for her to go back inside that place.”

  “She is gathering together the remains of your family.”

  Brent leaned forward. Sharp blades skewered his wounds, and he collapsed. “Hell.”

  “Be mindful of your injuries.”

  “She shouldn’t be in there—doin’ that.”

  “I agree,” the dandy replied, “but when Mr. Upfield and I offered to help her, she forbade us.”

  “Sounds like she’s feeling better.”

  “She is unquestionably the halest member of our quartet.”

  “Yvette’s always healed up quick,” remarked Brent. “Like a lizard.”

  The cowboy and the dandy were quiet, and the scraping sounds that emanated from the fort unpleasantly filled the void. Although Brent could not offer his sister any physical assistance at this time, he desperately wanted to help her, and he ruminated on the matter while he drank water and ate mashed carrots.

  Presently, an idea occurred to him. “There was a surprise that we brought down for the girls. I think it could help Yvette while she’s doin’ what she’s doin’. Will you get it to her?”

  “Certainly.”

  A painful journey brought Brent across the wagon bed and to its edge, where he could see the new moon and old stars that hung in the vault. Inside the fort, metal scraped against stone. Something cracked, and the cowboy wondered if it was a burnt part of somebody that he loved.

  Nathaniel and Samuel carried the wooden box to the west wall and entered the blasted enclosure. Metal scraped against stone.

  “Leave me alone.” Yvette’s voice was ragged with fatigue and grief.

  “Brent asked us to bring this to you,” stated the dandy. “If you do not want to use it, we shall take it away.”

  “What is—” Yvette stopped herself. “They brought this?” She sounded surprised. “I…I can’t believe they brought it all the way here…from San Francisco.”

  “Brent thought it might make…your task…a little less dark.”

  “It might,” said Yvette. “Please take it out of the box.”

  The cowboy heard the squeaks of four tiny hinges and the insectile clicks that the handle made when it was wound clockwise.

  Yvette asked, “Did they bring, ‘His Waves Shall Carry Us Home?’”

  “Mr. Upfield has already readied that specific cylinder.”

  John Lawrence Plugford had planned to play music and dance with his daughters after they had been rescued, and although this was not to be, Brent hoped that the phonograph could at least give his sister some small comfort during her morbid endeavor.

  “I’d like to hear it,” said Yvette. “Please.”

  Henry barked.

  The waltz that Brent had not heard since his sister’s wedding celebration emanated from the lantern-illuminated openings of the fort. Like a benign specter, the music of strings, woodwinds and piano drifted across the riven land.

  Hard-soled shoes traversed the rubble, and Brent looked to the blasted east side of the edifice. Yvette emerged, covered with soot, but looking far healthier than when last he had seen her.

  “Thank you!” the choirmaster called down.

  “You’re welcome!” Although it hurt Brent to raise his voice, he added, “I’m sorry I ain’t fit to help!”

  “You just did!” Yvette reentered the fort and to the inhabitants said, “Please leave me alone.”

  Gentlemen, tall and short, emerged from the west wall.

  The fifth time Yvette listened to the song, she sang along with the melodies.

  “She has a beautiful voice,” the dandy remarked over a cup of steaming tea.

  “She does.” Brent laid down upon his bedroll. “She always could sing pretty.” He shut his eyes. “It’s a gift.”

  The sounds of Yvette’s sad labors were almost wholly obscured by the music, and on the eleventh repetition of the waltz, Brent Plugford fell asleep and had a dream in which his mother sang a beautiful lullaby about the expansive life of a cowboy who traveled the great landscape.

  Chapter IV

  The Embers of Nathaniel Stromler

  The fort shrank.

  On the left side of Nathaniel Stromler loomed the sheer mountain wall, the cyclopean barrier against which he had almost been crushed. Ahead of him was the eastern horizon, a black sky peppered with stars that he no longer recognized. He rode home, wounded, disenchanted and unsure.

  The tan mare had not survived the engagement (the injured animal had died of thirst while tethered to a stable post), and so Nathaniel rode upon the spotted colt that had previously been owned by Stevie Plugford, whose incomplete remains were with those of his family inside the black trunk that Samuel C. Upfield IV had occupied for the major part of nineteen hundred-and-two.

  Ten yards south of the tall gentleman, the green Plugford wagon rolled a parallel easterly course. Yvette drove the four horses with Patch Up’s whip and Brent rested upon the bench directly beside her. Pressed to the cowboy’s left thigh was the sparkling and sweaty black nose of the slumbering circus dog. A substantial distance away from the vehicle and traveling in the same direction was the diminutive blonde man, atop a little brown palfrey that had once belonged to a member of the opposition.

  The unfamiliar celestial bodies dimmed, and, as the sky became royal blue, the land flattened. Nathaniel drank coffee from his flask and yawned the moment he was done.

  Directly ahead of the caravan, the hidden sun showed its brilliant scalp.

  “Mr. Stromler,” Yvette said from the driver’s bench.

  Nathaniel reined his colt beside the vehicle. “Yes?”

  The woman pointed her whip at the train of horses behind the family wagon, all of which had been owned by the opposition. “Brent and I would like to give you the extra animals.”

  “Thank you, but that is unnecessary.”

  “We don’t have any more money,” Yvette explained, “but we’d like to give you more than what was promised—especially considering all that happened to you.”

  Nathaniel could not accept any charity from the destroyed family.

  “Each should fetch you a hundred and forty dollars,” Yvette continued, “except that black mustang, who’s pretty old and not very valuable.”

  Shaking his head, the gentleman replied, “I am afraid that—”

  “Please take ‘em,” implored Brent. “Let my sister and me do one good thing for someone in all this horrible mess. Help you out with your hotel.”

  Nathaniel knew that he had no choice but to accept the gift. “Thank you.”

  Brent lifted the brim of his cowboy hat and looked at the gentleman. “If you ever need help—with anything—you get in touch with me. I’ll be at the Plugford ranch with my sister over in Shoulderstone for a good long while. Maybe permanent, dependin’ on how my injuries settle.”

  “Thank you for your offer.”

  “It’s genuine true.”

  “I know.”

/>   Leesville emerged from the eastern horizon at half past five. Riding the spotted colt and trailing six additional horses, Nathaniel shook hands with Brent and Yvette and waved at Mr. Upfield. The little blonde man did not lift his gaze from the dirt.

  The gentleman rode to the Sable ranch, which laid at the southwestern perimeter of town, and sold his motley train of steeds to the skinny, lavishly-bearded proprietor for eight hundred and fifty dollars, which was the very first offer. They spat in their hands, slapped palms together and shook thrice.

  Isaac Sable picked a piece of corn from the waterfall of gray curls that comprised his beard and remarked, “Some folks said you’d taken a permanent weekend.” He ate the kernel. “Glad to see you back in Leesville.”

  Although Nathaniel felt as if the major part of himself had not returned, he said, “Thank you.”

  The gentleman rode the spotted colt along the central avenue and passed by the blacksmith shop where he had met the Plugfords and first stared down the gunfighter who eventually shot him. Today the town seemed small and unreal—a child’s toy of civilization in a huge and barbarous world.

  Nathaniel guided his horse toward the southwestern part of Leesville, which was an area that he had avoided for many months. A few quizzical faces eyed his spotted colt, upon which there remained several brown bloodstains, and two customers from the cobbler shop called out to him, but he disregarded the citizens’ solicitations and stared straight ahead.

  The horse carried its introspective rider to the end of the avenue and was reined to a halt beside Stromler’s Very High Quality Hotel. Silent and still, the gentleman studied the exposed rooms and warped halls of the incomplete hotel, a place that had been accosted by sand, rain, wind, tumbleweeds, coyotes, vagrants and six seasons.

  Nathaniel Stromler looked at his destroyed dream, and he felt nothing.

  He tugged upon his reins and guided his horse away from the sundered edifice. The shadow that he trailed was long.