The Four Fingers of Death

by Rick Moody

  In fact, Vienna had just fucking called him, in that fucking ridiculously fucking sexy voice of hers that sounded like a ten-year-old on helium, and said that he had to drive over now, forget Iguana Juana’s, come right over because she had something really intense that she wanted to show him, and when she talked like that, you know, it always meant that her parents were out trying to convince the tent community inhabitants to agree to the union, and that she needed some kind of sexual fucking liaison to distract her, at least for a little bit, because she was alone.

  Bix Rafferty cradled his ArmaLite in his survivalist hands, out beyond the incorporated edge of Rio Blanco, where the fighter planes lifted off in formation from their heavily reinforced base for the sowing of freedom in the world. Bix Rafferty had no position on the sowing of freedom exactly, because he believed none of what he heard or saw or read from any news source, when he chanced on one. What he did believe in was the land, and this particular expanse of land south of Rio Blanco, owned by the federal government, as much of the state where he found himself was owned by those thieves, had been leased to him so that he might be able to find in the land a vein of most precious metals that would make him, Bix Rafferty, impervious to humiliation, just as lead was once transmuted into gold. The fact was that there was plenty of gold, silver, copper, and other metals here in the desert, this was well known, the problem being that there were cheaper ways to extract precious metals in China and India and Africa, and cheaper workforces to do the job, workers whose lives were expendable, as most lives were, according to Bix Rafferty. Bix Rafferty, having conceived of this mining claim that was officially entitled the Forsaken Mining Corp., believed that lives were on the whole more worthless than the four dollars and eleven cents’ worth of minerals included in them, that life was instead a system of mathematical reiterations, and that the ingestion of cough syrups and other alcoholic beverages purchased at the local cut-rate purveyor of health and beauty aids would sustain him in his search for precious metals at the Forsaken Mining Corp. However, what Bix Rafferty mainly did in that landscape of sage and desert poppy was try to drive away trespassers, who were not trespassers so much as they were hot-rodding, dirt-biking, internationalist youths bent on depleting the last of the desert of the likes of Bix Rafferty, settling it instead with golf courses and adobe spas that specialized in seaweed wraps, and he was certain of this, it was an article of conviction, even if the part of the desert where Bix was settled basically had nothing in it but some trailers, and a few trucking operations, and a general store or two.

  It paid to be vigilant, and in this regard he had purchased the ArmaLite and other weapons of gunmetal blue from a dealer who came by now and then and played Parcheesi with Rafferty, during which they discussed their mutual preference for the mule, as opposed to the horse, which had somehow gained an undeserved dominance among those who trafficked in cloven hooves. The mule was naturally smarter, and its ears were more attractive. Better situated for mountainous treks, for long voyages in the desert, noted Rafferty, as he cradled the ArmaLite.

  On this particular swing shift, let it be said, Rafferty did believe that he was seeing clouds of dust from the unpaved track that led in this direction. Clouds of dust kicked up into the afternoon sky. Red dust, red sky, elegiac crimson. Bix lived in one of the last beautiful places, but he did not traffic in beauty, because he believed beauty was not a manly pursuit, and that the ratio of incidences of humiliation to the perceptions of beauty was approximately seven to one, with seven being a prime. When he needed to overlook beauty, as a banker steps over the supine wino, he overlooked it, the better to see such signs of trouble as the dust in the road, the clouds of dust—some vehicle headed down through the wastes toward the Forsaken Mining Corp.

  Rafferty ticked off a list of possible human visitors: (1) Frank, the aforementioned gun dealer, (2) Sergeant Gerald Cross from the AFB nearby, who had come on occasion at the behest of the military brass to explain to him, Bix Rafferty, when it was important for him, a neighbor of the air force installation, to evacuate; when, for example, there were going to be military exercises that might alarm him if he didn’t know about them in advance, (3) his bookkeeper, an elderly lady with type 2 diabetes, (4) his cousin Wade, who dropped in from time to time but who was at the present moment doing a short stay in a county lockup for driving things across the border that should not have been. Rafferty concluded that none of these persons was likely to be coming at this time, and thus he made sure that the ArmaLite was loaded and that the safety was not sticky, and then he went from his post out into the desert, where the unrelenting sunshine was like a philosophical revelation, like a revealed apocalypse, and he pulled down the main gate and locked it with the padlock, and then he hustled up and over a small hillock, rushing to the best of his ability, which was not so good, because the years of poisoning and heavy metals and pulmonary compromise (from breathing in ground-up stone), these made haste difficult. Bix hoisted himself up through a copse of paloverde, and he betook himself to the very throne room of purgatorial suffering, namely a grove of cholla that had been successfully propagating itself on the hill despite the slag that he poured into the wash just beneath, and then he laid himself down on his belly, as though he were some sort of zoo seal flopping there. He awaited the vehicle and its intentions.

  He loved and hated the excitement in equal measure. He reckoned that he had seen four or five men of a deceased persuasion who had no business being in this county, in this state, in this country, or who had gotten themselves deceased by persons unknown, and he had buried these men way down in the mine, and he felt certain that no one would ever find them or miss them, and that was just the way of things in this part of the world. There was no need to summon the authorities, the blatherskites, because the authorities ferried over these men from the other side in the first place, the Mexican side, because there were no authorities any longer, just men with nicer outfits. The responsibility of it, the responsibility of every man for himself, was more than Bix could tolerate without white flashes, and that was what accounted for the cough syrup, and the OxyPlus nasal inhalers that he sometimes bought from the gun dealer in exchange for the odd nugget of the gold stuff. There was the occasional nugget, after all, because there is something for every kook and nut to tide them over until more suffering can arrive. And, in down markets, the conservative money always returns to the safe haven of gold.

  It was an all-terrain vehicle of some kind, Rafferty reckoned, probably operated by the kind of person who lived in Rio Blanco, who, in general, were the kind of people who believed that there was never a time nor a season when you should be ashamed of short pants, particularly not short pants that had slogans that traversed the section behind. Rootless cosmopolitans, it seemed to Bix, though because of the heat he himself was wearing nothing but an overlarge T-shirt that he had sweated clean through, and a pair of torn-up sweatpants that he had gotten at a thrift store. These constituted his mining gear today, along with a hard hat and a tool belt.

  The all-terrain vehicle slowed to a stop, and a wake of dust overtook it. For a moment, in the light of late afternoon, he couldn’t see the driver or drivers of the trespassing vehicle. A gust of dry desert air blew through, however, from the west, and when it had done so, Bix Rafferty saw at last a young sunglasses-wearing American Indian man, with long black locks, combed back in a kind of stylized version of rockabilly idol, nattering like a madman into one of those things implanted into his wrist. What would bring that here? People came this way sometimes by accident, but the array of survivalist signage along the primitive road that led to the Forsaken Mining Corp. usually created in them the strong desire to reverse direction.

  Bix took a good long pull on some non-drowsy formula, and then he headed down the hillock and into the wash, jogging as best he could, with his thumb on the safety of his old-fashioned firearm. If the car stayed where it was, he would come out in the wash directly adjacent, by the gas tank, maybe, preserving the necessary element
of surprise. The all-terrain vehicle idled loudly. Its vulgarity would cloak him. It was a method of transport designed to show off, just before it flipped over and crushed you and your passengers. That’s why they didn’t make them anymore.

  With the heaving respirations of a man who would not be bothered with ventilation systems in his place of employment, Rafferty set upon the sunglasses-wearing American Indian man, shouting at him an inquiry into his purpose. Unfortunately, with the din of the vehicle, and his anxious intention to communicate his needs to a caller on his personal wrist assistant, the interloper didn’t hear the initial threatening articulations of Bix Rafferty, who therefore redoubled his efforts:

  “I’m intending to give you, young man, a brief lecture on the idea of possession, because what I am thinking is that you and I have different ideas of possession, and in particular, young man, what I want to tell you about is the idea of possession of the land, good land or fallow land, this is neither here nor there; what I want to say is that possession is central to what we have going on right here, in this region, good or ill, and possession confers certain kinds of rights and expectations upon him who is doing the possessing, because him who possesses nothing has no dignity and no livelihood, because when you come driving in here, like you are the gypsy, the tinker, the vagabond, who doesn’t understand one thing about how we have made this desert here into a land of possession, well, then that’s a conflict in need of resolution, because look at how things kind of got all used up when civilization wasn’t based on a possession type of a footing; there just weren’t any operating profits, and there was chaos, and the buffaloes all got made into tents and hamburgers, and water resources got all salinated. If you think about philosophy, you only have to read a little bit to see that what a man possesses is the very portrait of himself, and he has got to want to possess more to see the shadow of himself, and what you are doing, right now, young man, is you are coming here and throwing your shadow on what I possess, and what I possess, in case it wasn’t obvious with all the signs and whatnot, is the Forsaken Mining Corp., and in this operation there are no heirs and no signatories, just me here, and what I mean to do is wherever possible to assert my one and only claim to mine this land, as conferred on me by the federal government, and thereby to deplete this land of its gold, and to claim ownership of whatever I find, and I further assert my one and only right of quiet enjoyment of this land that I possess, in the absence of other persons—”

  At some point the fellow with the all-terrain vehicle, who was probably, it seemed to Rafferty, just a small-business owner from Rio Blanco, an importer and exporter, who was going to meet a friend in one of the washes, where they would in concert attempt to break some kind of land-speed record, this fellow turned and saw that there was, in fact, a firearm directed at him. Now, he immediately, as if he knew of these things only from popular entertainments, raised up his hands, and a whole history of legal interactions between persons was summoned in this performance of meanings. Because he was too stunned and surprised to remain completely silent, the fellow in the automobile pleaded, “Can you please not point that at me? I’m happy to turn my car around right now and go back the way I came, honest to God.”

  To which Rafferty said, “You certainly can. You certainly can go back the way you came, back through the twists and turns that brought you to this place, and you can make sure that you never fall into this particular rut of bad ideas ever again. What did you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t say. You’re going to forget I was ever here. I promise.”

  “I certainly am, but before I do I was going to do you the favor of employing your name when I explained to you that I was about to fire from this foreign-made and damned reliable firearm over the hood of your vehicle a symbolic shot, a shot designed to avoid going through any kind of soft tissue, so that you would know that the law permits me to fire upon persons who I believe are a threat to my property. However, I’d be just as happy to omit your name if that’s your wish.”

  Whereupon Bix Rafferty, who was not a tremendously good shot, assumed a stance that he had been told to use by the uncle who raised him up and kicked his ass from one desert town to the next during a period of high interest rates and joblessness. This stance did not ennoble Bix Rafferty, but it did help him remain calm as he pushed the safety into the off position, squeezed the trigger, heard the satisfying report, and felt the kick at virtually the same instant. He watched a pair of hawks startle from the cacti, and then he reached into his pocket for another pull on the phial of non-drowsy formula. The taillights of the all-terrain vehicle followed the hawks out. All in all, it was not a profitable day, really, but it was a good day.

  Vienna Roberts had obtained the Pulverizer in the course of her first big modeling job. She’d failed to consult her parents about the job, as she failed to consult them about many other things, though this was perhaps less from a feeling that they would not have consented than it was from a feeling that her parents were not to be disturbed because they were changing the world. Changing the world was more difficult even than assembling, for example, one of those inexpensive home media cabinets with the dowels and special little screwdriver thingies. The specifics of her modeling assignment, which she failed to disclose, were also a tiny bit embarrassing. Well, the sponsor of the photo shoot was the Navajo Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Indigenous Ventures, LLC, and in the photo shoot she was to flirt up another girl while rolling some dice on a felted table. They wore whiteface, they were wanton, young, especially pale, and given to reckless wagers, the better to suggest that going to indigenously owned gambling casinos led to casual sex with underage girls who had been vaccinated for human papillomavirus and other venereal contagions.

  Vienna, as in all modeling narratives, had been discovered at a mostly deserted leather goods store down by the bus station. Across the street from the guitar store. Her parents did know this: she was working at the leather goods store, part-time after school. She didn’t know how many guys had come into the store saying, “Would you consider letting me take your picture?” It seemed to Vienna that in some dialect, the dialect of vulgarians, these words must have meant: “Pleased to make your acquaintance.” Most of these countless guys had flecks of saliva at the corners of their mouths, or they smelled like the interior of a pizzeria. In times of worldwide sexual slavery, you could make big money exploiting yourself with these types of men. You could also wind up hacked to pieces live on the web.

  “Jeez,” she said to one alleged photographer, whose card, with a little icon of an old large-format camera like you might see in a museum, offered the name Mark Schott, “haven’t heard that one.”

  Schott said, “I’m prepared to offer foolproof testamentary material to prove that I am who I say I am. I’m an industry professional with more clients than I can handle. You will know me by the clouds of acclaim that billow about me. I am also—because I need to be in my line of work—a patient man.”

  Vienna Roberts, however, was not particularly patient. She went directly home that night, and instead of doing calculus, she checked up on the Mark Schott web gallery, which numbered in the hundreds upon hundreds of images, and which included some major accounts in the Rio Blanco area, Iguana Juana’s, e.g., which employed her flaky boyfriend, Jean-Paul Koo; the Sonoran International Light Rail Corporation; the Air Force of the United States of America. Vienna, after perusing these photographs, which were often salacious, obvious, even shameless, but not quite sexually explicit, was inclined to favor Mark Schott’s attentions. For the money. She told him as much when he again came looking for her down near the bus station.