Southern Ouroboros

by Matt Kilby

Another meal came and went, her legs numb from staying in the same position so long. They wouldn’t do her much good if she did come up with a way out. She would stumble and fall, sealing her fate in the most absurd way possible. So she wiggled her toes and flexed her calves to keep the blood flowing. She might have lost track of time, but counting her meals, a full day had passed since he freed her legs. Vick had to know something was wrong. He had to be looking for her.

  Then she remembered where she sat. Off the highway and through the woods to a farmhouse, but not even there. In a pit or basement underneath. The chances of someone stumbling across her were slim. If they did, they had to be suspicious enough to bring a warrant, and that meant convincing a judge to be as suspicious. Unless these guys put a sculpture of bodies on their lawn, she didn’t see it happening. After all, she trusted the place enough to run to the front door without suspecting the man chasing her might get his mail there. So she had to save herself but was too tired to think. Her only chance was to shut her eyes and sleep, so she did.

  The big man nudged her awake with his foot when he brought more food. She wondered how long he watched her, knowing at least long enough to adjust his eyes. The fact he only stared made her wonder what they planned for her. If to kill her, why waste time feeding her? If to rape her, why wait? Maybe for torture, but there were more efficient ways. So they’d either never done this before or lost their nerve. That worked in her favor, but the window would close soon enough, so she needed to do something now. When he left her alone again, she bent a thumb as far as she could, but not far enough. She yanked, but not hard enough. She hated herself but refused to waste time on it. Breathing deep, she folded her thumbs and started to pull.

  The cuffs were so tight her hands felt like they separated from their wrists. Still, she pulled steady until the metal scraped skin from her knuckles and the bones of her hand conformed to a new, compact shape. They were more flexible than she expected, though the pain was tremendous. As more skin dragged off their backs, blood slickened the way until the cuffs found those large, impossible knuckles at the bottoms of her thumbs. She could still stop but doubted she would summon the nerve again so buried her face in her shoulder and gave a long, solid yank. Both hands provided the wet pop she predicted. She screamed into her shirt as they slid free. The handcuffs clanged loose against the bars. Soon after, the steps creaked with his weight. She breathed sharp and grabbed the cuffs, stifling another scream as her thumbs bumped inside them. She held still and pretended to be attached, hoping her captor didn’t adjust to the dark before coming in.

  She stifled another shout as he waved his hands, searching out the cell door. As he stepped through, she swore the breeze behind him didn’t smell of damp earth and old fish but cool and free, so she forgot how much smaller she was when he was halfway into the cell. She rushed him as if she had a chance of barreling him over or squeezing past his bulk. Instead of either, she collided with him and would have fell flat on her back if he didn’t put his arms around her. His hands found each other around her ribs and clasped tight, arms flexing like a boa constrictor. The pressure grew steady, and she questioned how much her ribs could take before they ended up like her thumbs. Spots floated in her eyes, and he grunted in her ear as if hurt too.

  He must have suffered a crisis of conscience, because his arms went slack and he let her breathe, her ribs sore as they expanded. He cradled her to his chest as if a child and with a step threw her hard. She hit the bars halfway to the top and bounced to the floor. She didn’t have time to get her hands up, so her forehead hit first and split her eyebrow. Every part of her hurt now, so her brain shut down. This time she let it. He promised she would die anyway, though instead he slammed the door and stomped up the stairs like a toddler in a tantrum.

  As the darkness rose for her, she thought she understood. He was her guard and the other the warden. For some reason, the man with the pig mask wanted her alive.

  6

  Carly woke the same as every morning for the two weeks they’d been at the rat-trap motel. The man who claimed to be John Valance stared out the peephole with his gun in hand and she debated asking again what bothered him so much, but he’d answer with the same noncommittal grunt and ask what she wanted for breakfast. Without a sound, she slipped from under the covers and crept down the bed to him. He didn’t flinch when her hand touched his shoulder.

  “You should be in bed,” he muttered.

  “I’m fine,” she said and meant it. No tremors twitched her legs or nausea twist in her stomach. She didn’t trust herself with a baggie of heroin in the room but otherwise declared herself sober.

  He didn’t say anything for long enough she almost repeated the words, but before she could, he gestured for her to look. She felt like a kid whose dad let her sit in his lap as he drove, “steering” though she always knew he kept his hand on the wheel so she wouldn’t drive them into a tree. She tried to hide her smile, but the victory seemed won instead of given, so she grinned and put her eye to the circle, squinting to focus on the view outside.

  She was deep in the sick when they checked in so didn’t notice how shabby the place looked. The grass grew through so many cracks the asphalt was halfway to a lawn, her car still where she parked. In the backseat, a woman leaned her head against one of the windows. She didn’t move for a minute, and Carly couldn’t tell if she was dead or sleeping or whether either option bothered her less. A man in a folding chair next to the woods had his hands on his knees as he threw up and sat back as if his shoes weren’t in a pool of vomit. A woman stood near the door to the front office in a short skirt and three-inch heels despite the fact it couldn’t be more than 30 degrees. She had to be a prostitute, and Carly realized she didn’t work alone when the back door of her car swung open and a man crawled out, pulling up his pants. The woman she’d thought dead came after him and wiped herself with a napkin.

  “This is what you’ve been watching this whole time?” she asked like he was either crazy or some kind of pervert. Maybe both. After all, he claimed his wife died a few years after the Civil War ended. Compared to that, watching addicts and whores for hours sounded normal.

  “There’s a pay phone in the back corner of the building.”

  “And?”

  He nodded to the peephole and she looked again, scanning the depressing version of “Where’s Waldo?” until she spotted the phone. She waited for something to explain his obsession but didn’t understand until she started to look away. As her attention drifted, she saw legs angled out within the dark, crossed at their ankles. A man stood there, but she couldn’t see enough of him to make guesses at why he mattered.

  “A guy,” she said and waited, though he didn’t move for two more minutes. Even then, it wasn’t much to get excited about. He uncrossed his ankles but then did something that sent a cold trail down her spine. He leaned forward and stared at their door before disappearing into the shadows.

  “He was in the parking lot when we got here,” she stepped back from the door, looking to where the cowboy stood beside the bed. As he nodded, she remembered the way the addict stared, his interest piqued when John flashed their money. Still lost, she shook her head in surrender.

  “I still don’t understand. You stand here and watch him like it matters.”

  “Because it does,” John nodded and sat in his chair, setting the revolver on the bed.

  “How do you know?”

  “This isn’t the first time this has happened.”

  “You said something like that at my house. You’ve been alive since the Civil War, right?”

  “Before.”

  “But now you’re saying you’ve seen this.”

  He nodded again.

  “Which makes you from the future?”

  “It does.”

  She shook her head. “If you wanted me to buy that, you should have sold it when I was at my worst.”

  “You’ll believe at your best.”

  “How is that possible? How do you know th
at guy is more than some junkie looking for easy cash?”

  “He’s important.”

  “But you won’t tell me how?”

  “You’ll worry, and that’s trouble you don’t need. It’s under control.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “No?”

  “No. If you had this under control, you would go down and talk to him, standing tall like you do. I know his type. He wants something easy, and the second he realizes we’re not, he’ll go away.”

  “It isn’t that simple.”

  “Why not?”

  “Before you met me, did you ever drive across the country?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Did you?”

  “Sure,” she sighed. “When I eloped with Snead, we drove from Pine Haven to Vegas.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “A numb ass and wondering if abandoning my daughter was the worst thing I’d ever do.”

  “That’s all?”

  She huffed and raised her hands, letting them fall to her legs. “What do you want me to say? I asked Snead to detour through St. Louis so I could see the arch.”

  “There.”

  “The St. Louis Arch?”

  “A landmark. Years later, you remember because it was important to you.”

  “It was big,” she shrugged.

  “Your memory has them too. You remember leaving your daughter the same way you remember a rainbow of steel. As long as I’ve lived, there are plenty of landmarks to follow. As I pass them, I see what’s coming as if marked on a calendar.”

  “Why not do that then?” Carly said. “It would save you time staring through a peephole.”

  “The dates aren’t fixed,” he shook his head, “but events are. This conversation could be a full week later than last time, but I know what his standing by the phone, gathering his nerve, means.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Nice try,” he said with a faint smile, “but I’m not telling you. Not yet.”

  She sat on the mattress, debating her next question and figuring no better way to get answers than to stick a finger in his sore spot.

  “Was your wife a landmark?”

  A scowl passed through his face, fast enough she might miss it if she blinked. After, he dropped his eyes.

  “She was where I started, before I became who I am.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Carly said.

  “It will, but first was Georgia. Do you want to know what happened there?”

  She smiled at the fact he even asked but nodded and watched his mouth as he continued.

  7

  John Valance rode south and stopped short of the Georgia border, setting up camp in a deserted patch of South Carolina flatland to prepare for the work ahead. He sat on a stump and took out the revolver Delmar gave him, feeling its weight and wondering how the hell he was supposed to heft it long enough to aim. It would take practice, but he had time.

  He looked for something to serve as a target and settled on a thick branch he found at the edge of some woods a half-mile away. He worked it into the ground and then stepped back as far as he thought he needed to kill a man. His best guess was twenty feet, so there he raised the revolver, gravity working against him as he tried to hold it steady. He pulled the trigger, and all that metal jerked his wrist back so he yelped and dropped the weapon. Rubbing the joint, he huffed and stared at the gun, debating leaving it to come up with a plan that let him use his rifle. But he had to consider the possibility he’d face all three brothers at once and would never load the rifle quick enough for a second shot when one had the same kind of gun lying at his feet. He picked it up to try again, managing to keep the gun in his hand after the next shot, though he didn’t come any closer to hitting the branch. After four more tries, he reloaded and told himself thirty bullets were enough to waste on his first day. When those went soaring off to God knew where, he cleaned the revolver, packing it in the saddle bag before he built his fire. Sitting beside it, his thoughts caught up, riding the cold wind from Pine Haven. Every one put Mary’s name on his lips, and he fell asleep weeping tears that only made him colder.

  The next day put him in better spirits as he rose with the sun to eat breakfast. He spent another twenty-five bullets to the horizon, but in his last five, the branch bucked twice and three inches fell to the ground. His victory shout echoed down the field as if he did more than kill an already dead limb. To him, it tasted like the first step toward revenge, even sweeter than the way Mary used to kiss the corner of his jaw when it set too hard.

  Though he wanted to keep at it, he decided to rest his sore arm, trading the revolver for his rifle to walk again to the woods to hunt supper. He missed a rabbit with his first shot, which threatened to overshadow his pride until he made up for it by dropping two squirrels from a tree. He had his eyes on the ground as he came out of the woods so didn’t notice the figure hunched over his campfire until halfway across the field. When he did, he realized he left the revolver, planning to clean it while his meat cooked. He couldn’t think of anything so stupid as he dropped the squirrels and loaded another shot into his rifle. With that done, he picked them back up and let them dangle from the rifle’s stock as he walked the rest of the way.

  Confirming the revolver was still on the stump, he called to the stranger.

  “Something I can help you with?”

  The shape didn’t move but answered fast enough. “Some fire and company, if you don’t mind.”

  “That I do,” he said and didn’t trust the man’s back so rounded the fire to face him. On the opposite side of the flames, he recognized the face from Riley’s bar the night his wife was murdered. He was the same old man who warned him about the brothers.

  “A shame,” the man shook his head. “I’ve seen bad times myself, and it always helped for someone to share the burden.”

  “What do you know about my bad times?” John asked and kept the rifle to his shoulder.

  “I know what a desperate man looks like digging in the moonlight.”

  “You been watching me?”

  “I just told you that,” the old man stared into the rifle’s bore.

  “You gonna tell me why?”

  “I want to help you,” the man said. “Where you’re going you’ll need all you can get.”

  “And where do you think I’m going?”

  The man laughed so hard he doubled over and patted the ground with the flat of one palm. “You think you’re sly? That barkeep told you where those brothers were from, and here you are riding south, practicing your shooting with a gun never meant for hunting.”

  “They killed my wife,” John said.

  “Did they?” the man traded his smile for a somber expression. “If so, I guess they do deserve to die.”

  “Still want to help?”

  “If you stop pointing that thing at me.”

  John decided the man was harmless but couldn’t figure out why. He told himself it was his age, but wrinkled fingers could shoot as sure as smooth ones. Maybe part of him understood the old codger was right. Killing three men would be hard alone, though he didn’t know how the stranger would help. Then again, he didn’t know him at all. He lowered the rifle all the same.

  “That’s better. Now we can get to our work.”

  “Our work,” John echoed. “I still don’t understand what you get out of this.”

  “Call me a fan of justice,” the man’s smile grew.

  “You got a real name?” John walked to the stump that still held his revolver and took it, leaning the rifle in its place.

  “Lester Johnson.”

  “Well, Lester, I’m John Valance,” he huffed on his way to his horse, pulling the gun’s holster out of a saddlebag and strapping it around his waist.

  “It’s a real pleasure, John,” Lester said and nodded at the revolver. “You’ll do better wearing that on your other side.”

  John looked down to where the gun
sat on his right hip, the handle swooping back.

  “I’m right handed.”

  “It’ll feel more natural drawing across yourself,” Lester shook his head. “Put it on your other hip with the handle forward to keep the barrel from catching.”

  “It’s fine like this,” John shook his head and went to sit at the fire.

  “Suit yourself,” Lester shrugged. “How’s your aim?”

  “Good enough,” John said.

  “I’m not buying that either,” Lester chuckled. “I counted sixty casings near the stump and doubt that limb started out as an oak. You can’t shoot for shit, can you?”

  “I can kill you from here,” John grumbled. “That’s good enough.”

  “Learn to shoot fast, the aim won’t matter,” Lester ignored the threat. “Spread out your shots and you’re bound to hit something. How about the rifle?”

  “How about it?”

  “Can you hit anything with that?”

  “You tell me,” he nodded to where he left the squirrels.

  “You gonna eat both?”

  “You offering to buy one?”

  “I’ll offer a trade,” Lester nodded. “Keep me fed, and I’ll see you get what you’re after.”

  “I might give you both if you stop talking,” John sighed.

  “That a deal?”

  “Hell,” he answered and took a moment to nod. “I might need someone to take a bullet meant for me when they start coming. Think you can handle that?”

  “I might,” the old man said with a sharper smile and a reflection of firelight in his eyes. He might be some coot with a mind on its way to quitting, but John figured any help offered gave him a better chance than he had that morning. Stubborn wouldn’t get him the retribution he promised Mary. If a stranger was willing to die for that, he wouldn’t stop him.

  In the meantime, it meant another pair of hands to help skin squirrels and break his target branch into roasting sticks. To his relief, Lester managed it without a word, intent on the work first and then the eating. Fed, he spread out his bedroll with a loud belch to lie down for an afternoon nap. With his hands over his stomach, he sighed.