by Guy Adams
I guess I could understand why someone might wonder with regard to my trek across the country in the name of a bank job. Surely there were easier stations in life? Certainly there were closer ones. Still, the opportunity was there and I took it. My conviction wavered en route, but the idea of a long journey across land I had never seen to a home I could barely imagine seemed like a worthwhile idea. I guess it was an adventure, though I don’t believe I ever viewed it in such terms. It was simply something to do that I had never done. Sometimes that’s reason enough.
Maybe that was why my nameless friend had his heart set on Wormwood? Because it was there?
Even knowing nothing about him, I soon decided that wasn’t the truth of it. He was not a man to do things on a whim. Whatever lay at Wormwood (and I never really imagined I’d find out, sure that I’d leave him to it after a couple of days together on the road), it was important as all hell.
WE SETTLED FOR the evening at a sheltered spot behind a rocky outcrop. I guess a practical man might guess this was to cut down on the wind, but I know he was thinking about whoever was behind us on the trail.
He sent me to look for firewood, which I did, only too happy to appear to be of some use. It also kept the two of us apart for a little longer, the unnatural lack of conversation getting more awkward with every moment in the man’s company.
By the time I returned, he seemed to have mellowed a little.
“Not much for conversation,” he admitted as I built the fire. “Too long on my own, I guess.”
I shrugged, pretending not to have given it mind. “It gets lonely on the trail,” I said, “once you’re off the beaten track, anyways.”
He nodded. “I don’t mind that. Travel is a time for thought.”
“I guess, though I think I’d managed to do plenty of that by the time I got as far as Kentucky. Now I just want to get where I’m heading and get on with my life.”
“What’s the rush?”
“I don’t know how long they’ll keep the job open, for one thing,” I said. “But it ain’t just that. I don’t mind travelling, I’ve enjoyed some of it for sure, but I guess I’m impatient to start afresh.”
“You did that the day you left home.”
“I guess I did. Still, until I get myself behind that desk, find a roof for my head, it feels like everything’s up in the air. Is that what I’m going to be? A teller in a bank? What will my home be like? Who will be my new friends? It’s all just life waiting to happen.”
“You might not even get there. Which means you’ll have spent all this time waiting, when you could have been living.”
“There’s a cheerful thought.”
“Maybe it is. It all depends on your perspective.”
“So you’re not impatient to get where you’re going? Whatever lies in Wormwood doesn’t pull you along the trail?”
He paused at that, no doubt wondering how much he should say. “That it does. Though it’s an unusual situation. The thing I’m riding towards won’t be there forever. If I’m slow, I’ll miss it. But I’ve lived most of my life just travelling, and there ain’t nothing wrong with it. Happiness ain’t at the end of the road; happiness is the road...”
“Said like a poet.”
“It’s a profession I’ve had in my time. Along with many others.”
“And what are you now?”
“Hungry. Let’s get that fire lit.”
THE COMPANY HE had been expecting arrived just as the pan of beans began to bubble.
He heard them long before me, my attention fixed as it was on that popping, spitting stew. After days on the road with only my own cooking skills to count on (of which I had none), the idea of a stew that might not need to be snapped into bite-sized pieces was appealing.
“They’re here,” he said, standing bolt upright and moving out of the light of the fire with a speed that didn’t match his years.
Night had fallen, and he vanished a couple of feet from our camp. I pictured him taking up a position in the shadows, watching as they drew closer, maybe fixing them in his sights.
Which made me the lure, of course, and sat there in the fire’s glow I found myself working up a sweat that was nothing to do with how close I’d gotten to the flames. Might they shoot me from a distance? Gun me down, meaning to steal our horses (well, his horse; they surely wouldn’t even consider my mule worthy for meat, let alone riding). My only hope was that they must know I hadn’t been riding alone, and you wouldn’t shoot until you had both targets in sight. Would you?
“Hello, there!” came a shout from a short way off. “Would you have room for a couple more around that fire? We’ve a little food and whisky to share, if you’re willing.”
The voice had a slight Irish tinge to it which put me in mind of a man I’d known back home. A mindless ass by the name of Duggan who had offered shoe shine outside the prayer house on a Sunday. Of course, he’d turned out not to be so mindless after all, when he made off with the contents of the Eastern Savings bank. According to the papers afterwards, he hadn’t been Irish, either. You never can take a fellow on trust.
“Come on over,” I said, knowing that my companion wouldn’t want the company, but unable to think of a polite way of saying so. I guessed if he was that opposed to breaking bread with fellow travellers, he could shoot them dead or stay out there in the dark until morning.
“Much obliged,” the Irishman said. “We’ve been on our own for near a week and if I have to listen to Willie’s conversation one more night, I’m likely to cut his throat with my pocket knife.”
They appeared within the light of the fire and I relaxed a little. They were not a threatening pair.
“The name’s Thomas,” said the Irishman, holding out a fat hand for shaking. He was a big man, but in all the wrong ways. His gut shook along with our hands, pressed against the cotton of a light blue shirt that had seen almost as many hot meals as its owner. He was balding, but for a pair of light grey wisps that rose, like cattle horns, towards the night sky.
Willie was a black man, long grey beard and a tailcoat that made him look like he was from the circus.
“You’ll have guessed I go by Willie,” he said, shaking my hand.
“Elwyn,” I replied, “travelling to California.”
“On your own?” Thomas asked, noticing the two animals we had tied up.
“No,” said the old man, looming into the light of the fire, “but I wanted to keep an eye on you for a little while, make sure you weren’t something I had to worry myself about.”
“Can’t be too careful, I guess,” said Thomas, moving to offer his hand before the heat of the fire had him snatch it right back.
“That’s right,” the old man agreed, nodding to them both. “That said, sit down and let’s eat.”
I noted that neither Thomas or Willie asked the old man his name either. They offered their own, like any civil man would, and when his wasn’t offered by return they simply carried on regardless. Maybe they hadn’t even noticed. Maybe they were so put off by his attitude that they didn’t like to inquire any further. Whatever the truth of it, we sat down and he set to stirring the stew one last time.
“Like I said”—Thomas began rummaging in his satchel—“we have some meat to add to the pot, if you’ve a mind.”
“Never eat it,” he replied, which seemed to strike Thomas as mighty strange.
“It’s beef,” he said, as if that might make the difference.
“I don’t care if it’s unicorn,” he replied. “Beans are all I need. You got a plate?”
This question wrong-footed Thomas terribly, more because he was confused already than because he didn’t know where his plate was.
Willie passed his over. “Just beans is fine by me, I’ve been trying to shit his dried beef out for the last five days, figure my ass could do with the break.”
“You didn’t complain when it was going down,” Thomas replied sulkily.
Willie shrugged. “It tastes fine once you’v
e broken it down some, but, you ask me, the spirit of the cow lives on in it. It fights back every morning.”
“You sound like a goddamn Comanche.”
“Too dark for an Injun, you blind fool.”
They both laughed at that. I figured it was one of those jokes that built up between people on the road.
“The soul doesn’t stay in the meat,” the old man said. “Not unless you kill something just right.”
Which put an end to polite conversation for a while.
We all focused on our beans, Thomas dropping chunks of his dried beef into it and to hell with Willie’s comments. They looked like pieces of wood: as hard as oak and half as tasty. Thomas ate enough of them, though.
Willie lost half of his in his beard. The damn thing looked like a bloodied scalp by the time he was done, great streaks of dark red matting the grey hair.
They were good beans, I’ll give the old man that. Spicy. I had no doubt I’d have cause to regret as much as the night wound on.
“So,” said Thomas, not one to give up on conversation for long. “Where are you headed?”
I looked towards the old man, but he didn’t seem to plan on replying. He had finished his food and was rolling himself a smoke.
“I’m heading to California,” I told them. “Been offered a job in my cousin’s bank.”
“It must be one hell of a job to be worth the miles.”
I shrugged. “I fancied a change anyway. He’s heading for a town called Wormwood.”
“Can’t say as I’ve heard of it,” admitted Thomas.
“I have,” said Willie. “Well, no... it can’t be the same place; the town I heard about was just a story.”
“Stories are good!” said Thomas. “Food’s been ate, time for drinking and stories.” He rummaged around in his satchel and pulled out a bottle. This boy was a regular grocer on the trail.
Willie shrugged. “Don’t mind tellin’ it, though it’ll take me a minute to get it straight in my head. Been some years since I heard it.”
“And if that ain’t an excuse for first go on my whisky I don’t know what it is,” said Thomas with a smile, offering his friend the bottle. Willie didn’t argue, just took a mouthful and looked contemplative. He offered me the bottle, but I shook my head.
“I don’t drink,” I explained.
“No meat, no drink... Willie, my boy, I think we’ve found ourselves a pair of monks!”
“I didn’t say nothing about not drinking,” the old man said, holding his tin mug out rather than just taking a swig. “That doesn’t kill anything except yourself.”
“Well, that’s the way to get the party spirit going,” laughed Thomas, pouring the old man a good sized measure and then taking a mouthful from the bottle himself.
“Wormwood,” said Willie. “This is how I remember it...”
“I DON’T KNOW how much faith you should put in this. I heard it from an old sideshow performer called Alonzo, and he always was one for drink and lies. The more of one he had, the more the other came out of his mouth. Still, it was a good story and that’s all that really matters.
“He told me that Wormwood doesn’t really exist. It’s a dream of a town. A ghost. Not like the godforsaken wastes of wood and sand you see now, towns that ran out of people and money before the last board was nailed. Nobody abandoned Wormwood. It just ain’t quite part of the world.
“It’s had lots of different names. Appeared in lots of different places. Once it was a bunch of huts in Tibet. Then a tribal gathering in Africa—and you can shut your goddamned mouth, Thomas, I ain’t never set foot there, my skin may be black but I was born in Texas, as well you know. Wherever it appears, it’s a small place, empty and as a solid as a dream. It appears for a day then it’s gone. Every hundred years, so Alonzo said. Lots of people have heard of it. Lots of people want to find it, because Wormwood is more than just a town. The buildings are just a disguise, something it wears so it fits in. What Wormwood really is a doorway. Right at its heart there’s a place where you can step through and walk right into Heaven.
“Yeah, well, bullshit that might be, but that’s the story and stories are always built of bullshit.
“They say you can walk right into Heaven, take a look around and then walk back out again. No need to die first. Though, hell, if you could really walk into paradise, who would come back? And maybe that’s what happens, because there ain’t nobody who has ever been there and returned.
“Yeah, Thomas, most likely it is because it’s a crock of shit. Keep that fat mouth of yours closed.
“Thing is, while there ain’t none who have been there and come back, there are plenty of folks who say they’ve seen the town itself. Not only that, but they’ve seen some of the crazy shit that’s come out of it. You don’t just dump a door to the afterlife in the middle of the world and think that nothing’s going to leak. They say that Wormwood infects everywhere around it. They say that the world goes mad just to have such a thing in it. People say they’ve seen people they know to be dead, creatures that ain’t never been alive, fires that burn and burn and there ain’t no way of putting them out. Things just go wild the closer you get to Wormwood.”
THAT’S AS CLOSE as I remember it. And of course, like Thomas, I thought it was a crock of shit at the time. It was only later, once I’d seen Wormwood for myself, that I knew the story didn’t exaggerate. The opposite, in fact: it didn’t come close to the truth. Wormwood was a hell of a lot wilder than anyone could begin to guess at.
“That the place you’re looking for?” Thomas asked the old man with a laugh.
“I look like someone who would go chasing fairy stories?” he replied. He got up from the fire, drained his whisky and tossed the cup back into his pack. “I’m going to get some sleep.”
I took that to be a sign that he had no more interest in conversation. Not that he had really taken part in the first place.
“Well,” said Willie, “that’s what I heard. Ain’t saying I believe it.”
“Where are you two going?” I asked, wanting to take the conversation away from my travelling companion and where he might or might not be heading.
“Bought ourselves a ranch in Nevada,” said Thomas. “I ain’t one for riding, but I know a good horse when I sell one.”
“And I can climb on one without breaking its back,” said Willie. “We make the perfect team.”
“I guess you do at that,” I agreed.
We talked for a little longer, Thomas only too happy to tell stories wilder and less believable than the one he’d sneered at from Willie. Most of them came from his time fighting for the North in the war. He painted himself as every hero you ever imagined. I took it all with a few grains of salt. Rightly so, as it happened, Willie telling me the truth while Thomas took a piss break.
“Damn fool makes it all up,” he said, “to cover the fact that he marched with the South. He thinks I’ll shoot him in his bed if I figure it out. Like I care; what’s done is done.”
Eventually we all decided to turn in.
I WOKE TO noises in the night.
As a rule I’m a heavy sleeper, but the last couple of days must have got to me because, as hard as they tried to stay quiet, Thomas and Willie woke me as easily as had they started banging on the cooking pot.
“I’m telling you that’s what I saw!” This was Thomas, panicking, though he was fighting to keep his voice to a whisper. “It was glowing!”
“Sounds like the drink to me,” Willie replied.
“Like I give a damn what you think.”
“You were dreaming.”
“We’re getting out of here. Just shut your mouth and grab your pack.”
Willie sighed, but I heard them picking up their things and then the sound of their boots as they ran away from the fire and into the darkness.
I sat up, looking over to the old man. He must be awake; if I’d heard them, there was no way he’d slept through it.
“Let them go,” he whispered, “and go
back to sleep.”
And, like a child at the sound of his father’s voice, that’s exactly what I did.
CHAPTER THREE
RUN, MAN, RUN!
IT WAS MORNING soon enough, and I unpacked my aching bones from where they’d spilled over the bumpy ground and tried to fit them back together. I will never understand those men who were able to spend their lives sleeping in the open. The dirt ground is there for one reason and one reason only: to be walked across in search of a bed or chair.
Naturally my companion showed no ill signs of the night; he was impervious to everything.
“Coffee?” he asked, having stoked enough life back into the fire to get some water on the boil.
“Absolutely.”
I could only imagine how this man made his coffee: aggressive, surly and likely to kick me in the stomach. After the night I’d had, that sounded just about right.
I wasn’t disappointed. The black soup I set my lips to a few minutes later was assertive enough it almost counted as a third person sat around the fire.
“What scared them last night?” I asked, deciding that it was a subject best faced head on.
“Who knows?” he replied, as evasive as ever. “They weren’t men used to the open trail. I don’t imagine it took much to have them running.”
