The Collection

by Bentley Little

  What would his father expect him to do now?

  "I think we should talk to the council," he said. "Tell them our plans."

  Lone Cloud snorted. "What for? It's a free country. We don't need their permission."

  "They know more than we do," Full Moon said. "Maybe they can help us."

  Lone Cloud thought for a moment. He nodded. "Okay. But we'll tell them. Not ask them. Tell them."

  "Deal."

  He let Lone Cloud do the talking when they met with the convened council later that afternoon. His friend was typi­cally forceful in his presentation, typically defensive in his attitude.

  "No," Black Hawk said vehemently when Lone Cloud finished. "No guns. You cannot bring guns."

  "Why not?"

  "It is not the way."

  "It's our way," Lone Cloud said.

  Black Hawk stood with difficulty, his hand shaking as his finger pointed at the younger man. "No!"

  "We're not asking you, we're telling you," Lone Cloud said.

  The other council members looked nervously at each other.

  "You will die!" Black Hawk said. His voice was an en­raged whisper.

  "Then what should we do?" Full Moon asked him.

  "You are the one who saw the men. You go there—"

  "They killed my father, too."

  Black Hawk glared at Lone Cloud. "You did not see them."

  "What do I do when I get there?" Full Moon asked.

  "I do not know. Perhaps it will be revealed to you."

  "What do you think?" Full Moon asked his friend as they left the meeting a few minutes later.

  "We bring the guns," Lone Cloud told him.

  He dreamed that night of a saloon. The type of saloon that could be found in old westerns.

  Or on Death Row.

  There was no liquor behind the bar of the saloon, only jars filled with organs floating in watered-down blood. Skeletons, posed as stereotypical gamblers, sat around the round oak tables.

  Full Moon stood alone in the middle of the saloon. From outside, he heard the sounds of a gunfight: shouting, then shooting, then silence. A moment later, he heard boots on the wooden sidewalk outside. A tall man was silhouetted from behind by the sunlight. He walked through the swinging doors into the saloon, and as he came into the room, Full Moon saw that the man was his father.

  His father tipped his hat, and the top of his head came off. Blood poured down his face in even rivulets. "You killed me, son," he said. "You killed me."

  They set off in the morning, leaving just after dawn in Lone Cloud's pickup.

  Full Moon brought a .22.

  Lone Cloud brought a .45 and a shotgun.

  They did not speak as they drove through the desert. Lone Cloud was at the wheel, and Full Moon stared through the passenger window at the empty, overgrown parking lots and the abandoned, broken-windowed buildings that period­ically fronted the highway.

  He thought about the men he'd seen in the casino. What if they weren't ghosts? he wondered. What if they were reg­ular men, men who just happened to have aged well?

  They weren't.

  But did that make any difference? He didn't know. The men had killed his father, and Lone Cloud's father, and he supposed they deserved what they were going to get, but it was still a dirty business and the whole situation made him extremely uncomfortable.

  Full Moon cleared his throat, turned away from the win­dow. "I've never killed anyone before."

  Lone Cloud did not take his eyes off the highway. "Nei­ther have I. But they have."

  "What will that make us if we do kill them?"

  "They're not alive," Lone Cloud said. "Or, if they are, they're not human."

  "Then how are we going to kill them?"

  "What do you mean, how? We brought guns."

  "What if guns don't work on them?"

  "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

  They drove for a moment in silence.

  It is only you. You are the one.

  "Why did they come to the casino?" Full Moon won­dered aloud. "And how come I was the only one who saw them?"

  "Doesn't matter."

  "Maybe it does."

  "Black Hawk doesn't know any more about this than we do."

  Full Moon didn't believe it, but he nodded. "I hope you're right," he said.

  Death Row.

  Full Moon got out of the pickup and stood on the hill above Rojo Cuello, looking down. The street looked exactly as he remembered it. Around the street, the city had been transformed, the empty ground between buildings paved over with parking lots, built up into condominiums, the buildings themselves torn down or made over.

  But Death Row remained unchanged.

  He had known that would be the case, and it frightened him. He glanced over at Lone Cloud, and the blanched look on his friend's face mirrored his own emotions perfectly.

  For all of his bravado, Lone Cloud was just as scared as he was.

  He scanned the street below for the spot where his father had been killed, found it almost instantly.

  The past returned in a rush.

  He 'd been awakened by his father in the middle of the night, shaken awake, and he opened his eyes to see his fa­ther sitting on the edge of the bed. "Get dressed," his father said. "It's time to go."

  "Go where?"

  "Rojo Cuello. Death Row."

  He cried almost all the way there, begging his father to turn back, but his father drove on through the darkness, re­peating grimly that he had no choice.

  Full Moon was supposed to drive the pickup back home.

  His father would give his life to Death Row but not his truck.

  Truth be told, Full Moon had been frightened more for himself than for his father, filled with dread and terror and the horrifying certainty that he too would be killed, but when his father parked the pickup on the hill above town, gave him the keys, told him to take off, and started walking down the path that led through the weeds and brush on the side of the hill, Full Moon drove down the Rojo Cuello highway instead, his heart thumping so hard it felt as though it would burst through his rib cage as he sped down the winding road to Death Row.

  He and his father reached the street at the same time. And he saw the men take his father down. He 'd driven to the street with no plan, with only the vague notion that he would rescue his father and save his life, but his mind had been a terrified blank as he 'd sped down the curving road, and though he often thought later that if he had floored the pedal and barreled down the street he might have run over the murderers, he braked to a stop at the head of Death Row.

  His father emerged from between two buildings, walking slow and straight, head held high as though unafraid, and the man with the mustache came out from the lingering sun­rise shadows and shoved a knife deep into his stomach.

  Full Moon screamed, and the man looked down the street at him and grinned.

  His father fell, clutching his midsection and rolling on the ground, and the other two appeared out of nowhere, the man with the patch laughing as he yanked down his father's pants and cut off his penis, the man with the beard scream­ing as he used a hatchet to hack off the top of his head.

  For a brief second, Full Moon considered speeding down the street and running over all three of them, but he knew he'd hit his father's body as well, and then the three men were bending over his father and there were even more knives in their hands, the multiple blades glinting orange in the dawn sun, and he understood that if he did not get out of there then, the men would come after him, too.

  He threw the truck into reverse and took off, barely able to see through his tears, looking more at the rearview mir­ror than through the windshield, seeing the men gleefully carving up what was left of his father, and then he smashed into a bush, nearly going off the road, before he quickly righted the vehicle and sped back up the hill, this time keep­ing his eyes on the pavement.

  He stopped at the top of the hill and looked down, but Death Row was empty, and
he quickly put the truck into gear and took off.

  "I don't see anyone down there."

  He glanced over at Lone Cloud, wondering how his friend's father had been killed. They had never discussed the details.

  Full Moon walked toward the pickup. "It's getting late," he said. "Let's go."

  They parked in the middle of the street, in front of an old livery stable at the east end of the Row. The pavement had faded into dirt some yards back, and before them the dusty road narrowed as it passed between the wooden buildings. There was something threatening about the stillness of the street, about the silence and the utter lack of life. One block over, cars and trucks were driving by office buildings and fast food restaurants, but here on Death Row it was as if the modern world did not exist.

  Except for them.

  Lone Cloud got out of the pickup, tucking the .45 in his belt, the shotgun cradled in his hands. Full Moon followed his friend, holding the .22, ready to shoot anything that moved.

  Lone Cloud cleared his throat. The sound was loud, jar­ring. "Do you think they're hiding?" he asked.

  Full Moon shrugged.

  "You think we should look for them? Or should we wait for them to find us?"

  Full Moon did not know, and he was about to shrug again, when he noticed a one-story building halfway down | the street on the left side, situated between a small hotel and what looked like a sheriff's office. The building stuck out, f protruding into the street, and its architectural style was rad­ically different from that of the surrounding structures.

  He took a tentative step forward, sucking in his breath. A wave of cold washed over him as he looked at the building. It was their house, their old house, the one his father had built.

  The one that had burned down after his father's death.

  His father's murder.

  How had the house burned down? Was it arson? A fire­place accident? A leaky gas line? He couldn't remember.

  Had he ever known?

  His gaze was drawn to the blackness within the open doorway. He could not remember the last time he had thought of their old home, but now that he considered it, everything about the situation seemed suspect. And the fact that he could remember no details, that his mind glossed over the specifics of that time, retaining only the broad brushstrokes of occurrence, worried him.

  He walked toward the house, toward the open door, his hands gripping the rifle so tightly that his palms and fingers hurt. He heard Lone Cloud following behind him.

  It is only you. You are the one.

  There was something about Black Hawk's words that didn't sit well with him, that made him uneasy, though he hadn't really thought about it until now. The one? What did that mean? Was he the one chosen to kill these creatures? Or was he the one chosen as a sacrifice to them?

  Had his father been sacrificed?

  Full Moon stopped walking. He had never thought of that before, had never even considered that the tribe might be complicitous in the killings that had occurred on the Row. But it made sense. He had wondered at the time why the law had never been brought in to investigate, why there had never been any police or FBI or BIA or any sort of officials looking into the murder of his father, but when he'd asked his mother about it, she had told him to shut up, to not say anything, that there was nothing that could be done about Death Row.

  He stared at the house, and he remembered how, after their home had burned down, they had been given a new one, a bigger one, one built especially for them by two of the tribe's contractors.

  Given?

  Since when had the tribe given houses away?

  He turned toward Lone Cloud. "After ..." He cleared his throat. "After what happened to your father, you moved, didn't you?"

  Lone Cloud nodded. "They were tearing down our old house to build the gas station."

  "And they gave you a bigger house?"

  Lone Cloud nodded, puzzled. "Yes."

  "Payoff," Full Moon said. "They sacrificed our fathers and paid us off."

  Lone Cloud shook his head. "What the fuck are you talk­ing about?"

  "You don't see it?"

  "See what?"

  "Why did they let our fathers come here alone? Why didn't they get a posse together? They knew what the Row was like. They knew what happened here. Why didn't they come with our fathers? Or try to stop them?"

  "What could they do?"

  "Why did they let us come here? Why didn't they want us to bring guns?"

  Lone Cloud blinked. He stared down the street. "Black Hawk," he said slowly.

  Full Moon nodded.

  "He was council leader when our fathers were killed."

  "And he was old even then." Full Moon licked his lips. "How long do you think he's been head of the council?"

  "You know the tribe's history."

  "No, I don't. You tell me."

  Lone Cloud thought for a moment. "I don't either," he admitted.

  "How old do you think he is?" Full Moon asked. Lone Cloud did not answer, and the only sound on the silent street was their overloud breathing. You are the one.

  Damn right, Full Moon thought. He took a deep breath. "Let's do it," he said.

  They strode forward. The fear was still there, but it had been shunted aside by anger, and Full Moon was grateful for that. He walked into the black doorway of the house his fa­ther built, Lone Cloud a step behind.

  Only it wasn't the house his father built.

  The outside was exactly the same, down to the chipped white paint on the right upper edge of the doorframe, but there was no coat closet entryway leading into the living room. There was only a long, narrow, black-floored, black-walled, black-ceilinged hallway that stretched forward to what looked like a blood-red room.

  Where someone was screaming.

  His father.

  Full Moon ran down the hallway, not noticing if Lone Cloud was following him, not caring. He heard only the screams, and he remembered clearly, though he had forgot­ten it until now, how his father had screamed when they'd killed him, how the screams had continued long past the point when his father should have been dead, how he'd heard them clearly even as he drove away in the truck.

  He reached the doorway at the end of the hall.

  His father stood alone in the center of the windowless room, screaming. There were no pauses for breath, only one long continuous cry. He had heard that scream before, in the soundtrack to his nightmares, a hellish variation on the orig­inal death screams he had head on the Row.

  His father was skinned and scalped, and though it had been years—decades—ago that it had occurred, the blood was still flowing, still fresh. It oozed from exposed muscu­lature, droplets forming into drops, drops into rivulets, the rivulets cascading down skinless flesh, puddling on the floor, dark crimson against the lighter rose.

  "Father!" Full Moon cried.

  His voice was lost amidst the screams, and the frozen muscles of his father's face did not even twitch as Full Moon yelled, the white staring eyes not budging from their focus on nothing.

  Instinctively, without making a conscious decision to do so, he raised the rifle to his shoulder and shot his father in the face.

  The screams died instantly as his father's head exploded, his skinned body falling in a heap. There was a jerking spasm, then a shifting and shrinking of the form on the floor as it compressed itself into a fetal position and began to melt, the now liquefied substance of his father soaking into the floor.

  The walls and ceiling of the room darkened almost imperceptibly, and then the room was empty, the floor dry, and it was as if his father had never been there.

  Full Moon was shaking, breathing heavily, the air harsh in his throat and lungs. He turned, but Lone Cloud was not behind him, and he hurried back down the hall toward the front of the building, reloading as he ran. He saw another red room off to his right, and he stopped, grabbing the door­frame.

  He watched Lone Cloud shoot his screaming father in the face.

  He watched Lone Cl
oud's father melt into the floor.

  "Come on!" Full Moon yelled.

  The two of them ran outside.

  Death Row was no longer silent. A hot wind was blow­ing, and it carried with it screams. The screams of men, women, and children, pitched at different tones and vol­umes, all sounding without pause. The street still appeared to be empty, but it felt as though it wasn't, and the two of them looked through the swirling sand for a sign of move­ment.

  A black cowboy-hatted figure walked toward them through the dust from the far end of the street.

  Full Moon raised his rifle. Lone Cloud took the .45 from his belt and aimed it.

  "What's going to happen if we kill them?" Lone Cloud asked.

  Full Moon shook his head. "I don't know."

  "You think anyone's ever tried this before?"

  "I don't know."

  The figure walking toward them was carrying a hatchet, and as he drew closer, Full Moon could see that it was the man with the beard. The one who had cut off the top of his father's head.

  Full Moon raised the .22, sighted the man, and shot him in the chest. The man's head jerked back at the same time that his chest exploded, dark liquid spewing out from be­hind, and though he hadn't heard the report, Full Moon knew that Lone Cloud had shot the man as well.

  "Behind you!" Lone Cloud yelled.

  Full Moon swiveled as he heard the thunderous sound of Lone Cloud's gun. He saw, for a second, the man with the mustache, arm raised, a knife clutched in his fist, but then the man was gone, disappearing instantly, appearing sec­onds later far off to the left. Lone Cloud shot again, this time hitting the man in the arm. The man dropped the knife, and Lone Cloud shot once more, hitting the man in the gut. Mus­tache doubled over and fell, unmoving, onto the dirt.

  The wind had died down by this time, and the tempera­ture had dropped. Full Moon tried to reload his rifle, but his hands were shaking and he dropped a shell. He took another one from his pocket and inserted it in the chamber.

  "Two down," Lone Cloud said. "One to go."

  "I give up!"