by Taylor Brown
“But can you save yourself?”
The boy heard the patchwork of colors strain against the stitches that bound them, begin to tear faintly but not to give.
“I saved her,” he said.
The butt of the horse-pistol came hard across his temple, his jaw, his nose. Bone and cartilage succumbing to harder matter. The Colonel dropped him brokenly to the ground.
“Get her then,” he said. “Go in and get her.”
Faintly the boy saw a hand against the sky, a finger pointed heavenward. Wayward from the house, the window. The boy could not see if the Colonel was wearing gloves or if his hand was just that darkened with gunpowder and soot.
“Go get her.”
The corners of the boy’s vision were closing when he first heard the shots. There were plenty after that, whoops and screams. Ambush. Then silence. Sometime later he found other men around him, strangers, these in uniform. Gray or blue, he could not tell. They asked him who he fought for and what company and what name. Their breath was rancid, their words quick. He could not answer them. They asked him how he came by such a horse and was it not stolen. They asked him whether he was a deserter or a bounty-jumper or a coward or a foreigner and he could not tell them. They told him the men they just killed had died killing him and they could only honor the dead by carrying out their final wishes.
They said they did not want to waste another bullet.
They rode him up onto the ridge where he’d first looked down upon this valley, this state. They slung a rope over a heavy limb and sat him on the horse he’d stolen and slid the noose over his bare neck. There were three of them. He did not fight.
Below him the forests glimmered fire-like in the last rays of sun, colors as brightly variegate as the coat he wore. He could hardly swallow for the snugness of the rope. He looked down at his Nancy, a white cutout in the black upper window, and he was sorry she would remember him this way. He looked down upon that whole country, so pretty in the fall, in the season of blood and gold, and he was no longer a stranger unto the land.
A man now wearing the Colonel’s slouch hat stepped forward to bind his hands, another kept a Winchester repeater leveled upon him. The boy put his good hand into his coat. Slowly, to provoke no alarm. They watched him. He pulled the pistol butt-first from where it hung hidden in the folds and offered the pearl grip of it to his captors, one finger on the trigger guard.
“She’s a firecracker,” he warned, his smile broken in the gathering dusk.
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
There are so many people I would like to thank. My parents, for starters. You guys have always been there, and I’m so grateful, there are no words. I’m not sure God makes better parents. I mean that.
I’d like to thank Kristen. We had some hard times, didn’t we? But you always believed, and I won’t forget it.
To a big brown wirehaired pointer named Waylon. My buddy. I miss you.
To Heather and Rick for taking a chance on an English major. I’ll always be grateful.
Thanks to all my buddies from home and school. You’ve always been my anchor. You know who you are.
To Dr. Hubert McAlexander, the greatest goddamn English professor who ever lived, or will.
Thanks to all my writing friends here in Wilmington: Lauren and Jason Frye for all the guidance and welcoming me into the “writing group,” Majsan Böstrom for all those nights front-porchin’ it, and all the guys at the office.
Lastly I’d like to thank Kevin Watson and Christine Norris of Press 53 for welcoming me into the family. I hope to do you proud.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TAYLOR BROWN was born on the Georgia coast. His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Guard, The Baltimore Review, CutBank, The Coachella Review, storySouth, CrimeSpree Magazine, the Press 53 Open Awards Anthology, and many others. He received the Montana Prize in Fiction for his story “Rider,” and he was a finalist for the 2012 Machigonne Fiction Prize. His work has been recognized as one of the “Other Distinguished Mystery Stories” in Best American Mystery Stories, and his story “Kingdom Come” won second prize in the 2010 Press 53 Open Awards for Short Story.
He lives in Wilmington, North Carolina, and his website is: www.taylorbrownfiction.com/.
ABOUT THE COVER ARTIST
Cover artist JORUNN SJOFN lives in Reykjavik, Iceland. She says about her work, “I have a great passion for photography and I love to capture many different things. Since I can remember, I have been interested in taking photos; when I was younger I used to frame everything I saw. I travelled around Iceland a lot with my parents when I was little and loved so many places. Icelandic nature is a big inspiration for me. The light and the unique landscape is phenomenal and creates endless opportunities. I simply love to capture what I see and share it with the world. I specialize in landscape and nature, but I also take macro pictures and do some artistic work with flowers and other things.”
Find more of Jorunn’s photography at:
www.flickr.com/photos/jorunns/
www.facebook.com/JorunnSjofnPhotography
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Rider
Kingdom Come
The Tattooist’s Daughter
Bone Valley
The Vizsla
Black Swan
Sin-Eaters
River of Fire
Whorehouse Piano
Home Guard
Covered Bridge
In the Season of Blood & Gold
A Note from the Author
About the Author
About the Cover Artist
