by Logan Miller
“You see,” Jake said, “what we need is a big ass sign at the front of the driveway that says ‘FIREWOOD FOR SALE.’ That way people driving by will know that we’re here and selling.”
“But nobody ever drives by. We’re the only ones on the road.”
“You know what I mean. Down on the main road, pointing down our road. We gotta do something. The Internet thing that guy talked us into doing doesn’t seem to work around here. I mean we’ve got a couple of calls from Albuquerque, but that is way too far to make a run and make any profit. Gas alone will cost us damn near fifty or sixty. And posting up at the market has not paid off like I thought it would.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Caleb said. He sipped his beer and stared at the blazing skyline.
“And why don’t we have a goddamn dog around here?” Jake said.
“The last two ran off.”
“I know why.”
“Then why’d you ask?”
“It wasn’t a question searching for an answer.” Jake paced the dirt, animating with his left hand, his beer in the other. “You’re telling me you don’t want a dog?”
“I’d love to have a dog, I just ain’t thinking about getting one right now is all. It’s just another responsibility we don’t need.”
“Responsibility? Hell, dogs take care of themselves.”
“And that’s why the last two you brought home run off.”
“That wasn’t my fault,” Jake said. “They were the wrong breed.”
“And what kind of breed wouldn’t run off?”
“A pure breed.”
“Pure breed what?”
“Any of them.”
“That so?”
“Yep. Pure breeds make good dogs. That’s why they cost more.”
Caleb laughed and shook his head.
“Stop badgering me,” Jake said. “I know what the fuck I’m talking about.”
He unlaced his boots and sat on the tailgate beside his brother, the six-pack between them. “You meditating or something?” he asked.
“Just relaxing.”
“Why are your eyes closed?”
“It feels good.”
“Don’t go getting weird on me now, Caleb.”
The beer washed down their throats in calming waves and numbed the conversation for the time being. The land was quiet and they were quiet as they shared a deep appreciation for the light that was sinking behind the red-earth mesas and pine forests that shaped the horizon. The buzz from the beer was mixing with the buzz from the tobacco and they were flying westward into the dying embers of the day.
Jake hurled his empty bottle into the yard somewhere and opened another.
“Why don’t you just give Lelah our mom’s ring?” he asked.
“I thought about it.”
“It’s the only inheritance we got. You might as well put it to good use. Mom would want that.”
“But half of it is yours,” Caleb said.
“Well, when it’s my turn to settle down we’ll just have to saw the fucker in two.”
“That’ll work for now.”
“What time are you guys heading out in the morning?”
“Five,” Caleb said. “You’re welcome to come.”
“You think I wanna be there if he says no?”
“He ain’t gonna say no.”
“A man’s only daughter? Shit, he’s liable to shoot your dick off.”
4.
He was sober. Today.
Well, at least at the beginning of it. If you started at midnight and counted forward.
I can do this. One day at a time. One moment at a time, more like it. One fucking second at a time.
Gates the Sober Sheriff.
But it had started whispering to him, insistent, calling from the darkness or wherever it was it called from, that remote and nameless region, mounting with intensity until it was a full-blown feral scream. The urge, the gnawing, relentless and unremitting—but what was it? It wasn’t merely a voice, no, that was too simple. It was a force of excruciating power that compelled the entire spirit, the soul, every molecule and atom, wouldn’t let you rest, wouldn’t let you sleep—wouldn’t let you think—until it was gratified, satisfied, appeased.
And now it was.
The beast had stopped gnawing, bathing in the intoxicating broth of victory, a leisurely backstroke, spitting water out of its mouth like a gentle fountain and grinning with cunning satisfaction at its ability to prevail.
And it always fucking won didn’t it?!
Vicodin. Micodin. My whole wide world’s a Vicodin. He was doing the ditty thing again. Gates the Sober Sheriff. Gates the Noble Sheriff. Riding a Vicodin. On the goddamn Mic-again.
They said he lacked the tools, the means of expressing himself clearly and constructively, compassionately. They said he lacked empathy. You don’t understand me. That’s what his wife always said, his ex-wife, that is—and she always let me know it.
He’d tried going to therapy with her—actually his wife had insisted—in the death throes of their marriage, but it was bullshit. His wife, of course, hired the therapist, a woman, naturally. It was a total set-up.
A total goddamn set-up.
A fraud—like Obama and his birth certificate.
They always ganged up on me. Everything was always my fault. My fucking fault! How could it always be my fault! Those fucking cunts. If there’s anything women are good for—it’s men-bashing. They were fucking raised for it, bred for it, it drips from their hot fatty mother’s milk. It’s stuffed up their vaginas like evil. Maybe it was my wife’s fault. Maybe it was my wife who didn’t understand ME! But those two cunt bitches never thought about that, never even raised the question. Two college degrees, two sticks rubbing together, one in each pig head, and they never even suggested THAT.
THAT.
THAT.
THAT.
ALL FUCKIN’ RATS.
HIT THE BITCH WITH A BAT!
She tried to turn Lelah against me. Turn her against Daddy. But it didn’t work. No, no, no. Lelah had decided to stay and live with me. Not you. She’d decided to stay with her father. With Daddy. Haha. Who’s smiling now, you cunt?
That was all the proof he needed to know he was right…
Where are you?
You’re on an alien fucking landscape. There aren’t even humans here anymore. They’ve all been killed off. Removed. This is one big fucking turdhole. And you’re nothing but a turd floating around in it.
Darius Gates continued staring out the bug-splattered windshield into pure night and strolling the sordid corridors of his mind, kicking and knocking over things, his emotional circuitry on haywire and surging, the adrenal gland blowing high-octane inferno gas, bursting in a syrupy slather of neurotransmitters and infusing him with wild fantasies—a phantasmagoria of only the most inappropriate and lurid visions, visions of a fecal-sexual nature, an orgy of foul deeds, each one darker and more disturbing than the next—a novel of sadistic intrigue and blood-soaked retribution with dildos and sharp weapons, manacles and sweaty ropes, and two medieval bludgeoning instruments.
The radio could be heard again but he couldn’t understand what it was trying to communicate. The lyrics and the song were a primitive mystery in a world without music.
And then he had the thought, the thought that had haunted him ever since he was a confused boy, ever since puberty when the first hairs sprouted on his balls like fuzz on a peach—maybe I’m a space alien. A real-life Martian.
They landed here once. Maybe they left me behind.
None of it made any sense right now. None of it. None of the voices whoring around his drug-addled mind.
Man make mudcake with man.
He maketh cake.
He baketh cake.
Pattycake. Pattycake.
I am the Baker Man.
Why doesn’t my brain work right? Why-why-why? He begged. He pleaded. Why-why-why?
He screamed the final pronouncement between his lobes a
nd then started crying into the steering wheel as hysterical tears and strings of snot unspooled from his nose.
Pull yourself together. You’re going fucking hunting.
It was 4:00 a.m.
He pumped Visine into his eyes and the whites became clear again. He snorted a key-blaster of coke and his senses became terrifically alive. He pulled into the truck stop and filled his personal plastic coffee mug. It said DAD on the side.
The fresh coffee steamed in the cold before dawn as he stood against the patriotic cruiser and stared into the darkness that draped the desolate badlands. Not a house light anywhere on the western horizon. Only the unseen wilderness below a vault of stars.
ᴥ
Two hours later Caleb and Darius Gates cradled hunting rifles through the high country grassland. The bordering pine and aspen forest climbed the bowl of mountains around them and they searched where the grassland met the trees for a shadow or movement of any kind. Gates had slammed two 5 Hour Energy shots and a thirty-two ounce green Gatorade and he was starting to feel human again.
They wore bright orange vests and camouflage pants. It was an interesting contradiction in clothing, thought Caleb. The visible invisible.
“As you know, supporting a family ain’t easy around here,” Gates said. “I know I’m stating the obvious, but as Lelah’s father, I feel the need to bring up certain issues.”
“I’ve been giving that a lot of thought lately, Mr. Gates. Well, for one thing, me and my brother are looking to grow our business. We’ve got a bank loan pending, which would allow us to invest in larger equipment and hire a few employees.”
“Look, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m going to tell you anyway. Your brother is a fuckup. Always has been. Mark my words, he’ll be making the same amount of money at fifty as he is now.”
The candid assessment of his brother stung but Caleb limped alongside Gates and listened without making objection.
“Life doesn’t get easier for guys like Jake,” said Gates. “It only gets harder. It squeezes and squeezes them. And men like Jake get desperate. And they do desperate things. And when that happens, you don’t want to be anywhere near him. My advice to you is get away from your brother and do your own thing.”
Caleb bowed his head and watched his pant legs swish through the high grass.
“My brother has made some mistakes, that’s for certain. All of us have. But he works damn hard.”
“I’m not saying that he don’t. It’s just I know the type. I see it every day. Economic pressures will bury a man quicker than the undertaker.”
“I respect your opinion, Mr. Gates, and I’ll give it some thought.”
“You would’ve made a hell of a lawman, Caleb. It’s a shame I can’t pull any strings for you. If you had lost your leg on the job as a sheriff, you’d be set for the rest of your life.”
“Bad timing, I guess.”
“No. Wrong fight.”
“Yeah… I had it all figured out. Join the military after high school. See the world and then come back home and get a job in law enforcement. I had never heard of an IED.”
“How much they give you for your leg?”
“A thousand a month.”
“That’s criminal.”
“I try not to dwell on it too much. I don’t regret my time in the Marine Corps.”
“The poor fight the wars for the rich. It’s always been that way.”
They crested a slight rise in the meadow and Gates paused and turned to Caleb.
“Make sure you and my daughter tell your kids that.” Gates extended his right hand to shake. “I’d be honored to call you my son. But you gotta make me one promise first.”
Caleb nodded vaguely and shrugged.
“Shave your face and get a goddamned haircut before the wedding.”
Caleb grinned. “I’ll think about it.”
There was a sudden crashing and snapping of branches and a bull elk charged out of the forest some two hundred yards in front of them and across the meadow as if he’d been flushed or spooked by another predator. Or perhaps he had heard their human voices and was deceived by the direction. Neither Gates nor Caleb questioned the nature of their good fortune. They merely raised their rifles and pressed them tight into the grooves of their shoulders.
Gates fired first—and missed. The shot sailed wide and buried itself into an outcropping a thousand yards distant.
Caleb tracked the bull in the crosshairs of his riflescope. Its powerful haunches ripped up tufts of sod with each muscular stride as instinct propelled it toward some unknown haven on the other side of the divide. Steam burst in brief clouds from its nostrils and clashed with the chill air. Its healthy coat of fur held a tawny-brown shimmer in the mountain sunlight and showcased the full-rutting force of its virility, the months of feeding off the nutrient-rich grass, a crown of endless points.
Caleb could take its life in the next moment. But as he was about to squeeze the trigger he deliberately pulled the rifle a bit, ever so subtle, not enough for Gates to perceive, but enough to miss his prey. The shot rang across the valley and by the time the echo came back to the hunters the forest had swallowed the elk on the other side.
He had hunted men before, and after that, he had never wanted to hunt anything again.
“I thought you were a crack shot,” Gates said.
“Used to be.”
“It’s different when guys are shooting at you, isn’t it?”
“Sure is.”
5.
He thought the sonic trick was pretty clever.
The tequila was taking its confident hold when Caleb stepped to the edge of the promontory and started arguing with his echo. The canyon plunged below him to the sandy arroyo and rose hundreds of feet vertically to monoliths of Jupiter-swirled stone on the other side. Tequila, badland cliffs, a hazardous combination on most nights, but the amphitheatre was bathed in surreal sunset hues and it emboldened him to the precipice for the prelude of the evening’s show.
“I love her!”
His declaration flew across the canyon and then reverberated back to him from the wall on the other side.
I LOVE HER… LOVE Her… love her…
“No, I love her!” Caleb shouted in response.
The invisible responded: NO, I LOVE HER… No, I love her…
“I’m going to marry her!” he shouted again.
The canyon replied: I’M GOING TO MARRY HER…
Caleb turned around and smiled down at Lelah, sprawled on a Navajo blanket with a bottle of Cuervo and the picked bones of a rotisserie chicken.
“Who’s it gonna be, babe?” he said. “Me or that asshole on the other side?”
“Whoever asks first.”
“I think I can beat him to it.”
Caleb limped across the sandstone and rummaged through the picnic basket.
Lelah gazed across the canyon and continued the charade.
“Better hurry,” she said. “Here he comes. Boy, is he cute. And he’s got a real nice car. And he’s rich. And he wears a suit and tie to work and golfs all the time with his buddies at the country club. And he was in the best fraternity in college—the very, very best one, Phi Beta Phucko. Wow, he’s a real asshole.”
Caleb finally produced a black velvet ring box from the picnic basket and kneeled before her. He looked into her green eyes at the sunset reflected within them. He wanted to stay there, but everything inside him told him to look away. For some reason, the sheer acknowledgement that he was supposed to stare into her eyes, a physical act performed thousands of times over the years of their relationship, made him self-conscious and he started to blush.
She knew what was coming and she could not keep from smiling. It all felt terribly cheesy and at the same time terribly right. They were teenagers again on the first date seconds before the first kiss and she nearly started giggling.
“You don’t mind parking in the handicap spot, do you?” he asked.
“Nope. It’s always
up front.”
“For the rest of your life?”
“That sounds awfully long,” she said.
“But the man always dies first. So you’ll be able to get married again.”
“I’ll be a prune by then.”
“Fine. We’ll do a five-year trial phase.”
“Five years, that’s it? I’m only worth five years?”
“Goddamnit Lelah, will you be my wife?”
“Can we get married on a Friday? It usually takes me at least two days to get rid of a hangover.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes—Yes—Yes. Till death do us part.”
“I think I like the five year idea better.”
Lelah whacked him on the shoulder.
“Till death do us part,” he said.
She wrapped her arms around him and nuzzled into his neck and kissed his warm skin. The tang of his salt excited her tongue. Even after working all day in the forest he tasted sensual to her. On nights when they were apart she slept in her bed with shirts that he had worn.
Caleb removed the antique diamond ring from the box and slid it onto her finger.
“It was my mother’s,” he said.
“I remember.”
“I’ll get you a proper ring when we get married.”
“As long as I got you, this is all the ring I need.”
“How did I get so lucky?” he asked.
“Small town. I didn’t really have a lot to choose from.”
“That’s what I figured.”
Caleb poured them each a shot of Cuervo.
“To our lives together,” he said.
“And the assholes on the other side.”
They chinked shot glasses and downed the Mexican heat. He pulled her tight and hummed in her ear and they swayed in the dance of their song together and he smiled and kissed her on the forehead and then her lips. He caressed her back in slow circles and she caressed him and she rounded her hands over the muscular strips of his lower back running down his spine.
The sun had vanished in the west and taken with it the painted shadows that now ran away to a cold blue without fire and the darkness came with the first stars. The air was slack and warm around them in the pocket of the canyon. They were happy and their lives together stretched out before them and the memories to be made and cherished and they held each other in the grandeur of nature complete. Afterward they made love atop the sandstone cliff and needed a flashlight to hike down to his truck on the dirt road below.
