Beyond the Horizon

by Ryan Ireland

  ‘If you want some, I got some extra,’ the man said.

  The stranger didnt seem particularly surprised by the offer, even in this spartan place. He sat cross-legged, arms resting on his knees. He craned his head all around, examining the way the cloth draped and wrapped over the ragged frame of the hovel. ‘I’d take some cloth, if you could spare it.’

  The man crawled over to a chest that served as a table and cleared the top of it. He opened it up and shuffled some of the contents about and pulled out a folded square of cloth.

  As he held it, the stranger noted the seams along the edges, how thick the fabric felt, how it textured closer to canvas.

  ‘It’s a sail,’ the man said. ‘An old boat sail.’

  This sparked some amusement on the stranger’s face. ‘Strange place for a boat sail to end up.’

  The man nodded, said it was his father’s doing and went outside in search of his woman.

  iv

  The stranger’s abode progressed surprisingly quickly. In a matter of weeks he dug out what he said would be the porch and most of the inner room. He began reinforcing the walls with branches and saplings when the man came to visit.

  ‘Comin along real well,’ he said.

  The stranger draped the oilcloth over the exposed dirt and braced it with the poles. ‘Should be a real fine piece once I’m done here.’

  The man nodded in agreement. He dismounted the mule and pretended to show a detailed interest in what the stranger was building.

  ‘Had a question about that registerin business,’ he said.

  The stranger unfurled a length of cord and laced it between the poles to hold the cloth flat. His lithe fingers worked quickly, tying knots. ‘What about it?’

  The man looked out beyond the homestead, out beyond where the sky and earth met. He squinted. ‘You said I’d have to go to the territory seat, to register her an the baby.’

  In his throat the stranger made a grunting noise. He asked what about it again.

  ‘Caint say I ever heard that bein done,’ the man said.

  ‘It’s a census year.’ The stranger said it real flat like the answer should be explanation enough. Then, as the man opened his mouth to ask for clarification, the stranger continued. ‘You said your woman was a wayward—her people left her here. Something tells me that shes not part of this country. And something tells me that baby—the one you have nothing to do with creating—hes gonna be dirty skinned too.’

  ‘Dont see what thats rightly got to do with anything.’

  ‘There’ll be a census marshal coming around. They find out youre housing a couple non-citizens and they’ll take them away.’

  The man appeared to be physically knocked off-balance and he staggered about for a second. ‘They caint do that,’ he protested.

  Stranger nodded in agreement. ‘They cant if you register them out at the territory office.’

  ‘Whereabouts that?’

  For a moment the stranger closed his eyes and appeared to be visualizing a place of myth, constructing it in his mind. Then he opened his eyes. ‘A ways from here, place I never been before.’

  ‘How far?’

  ‘You know,’ the stranger said, ‘you could not register your family. You could hide them whenever a passer-through came near.’

  ‘Office is far away then.’

  ‘It is, yes.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Farther west, out Colorado way, place called Fort James.’

  ‘You be able to get me direction of some kind?’

  ‘Yes,’ the stranger said. ‘But you should be warned: this might be hard country here, but out that way, thats no country at all.’

  The next night provided more of the same—the man insisting on legitimizing his woman and the baby, the stranger reluctant to provide details.

  ‘I can find Fort James just fine,’ the man said.

  The stranger grunted as he used a piece of driftwood to brace the porch roof. ‘It’s a ways from here,’ he said.

  ‘Need a headin, a direction—thats all.’

  ‘You sound confident. Did you used to be a scout in the army?’

  The man squinted, folded his arms. He did a rare thing and considered his words before he spoke them. ‘Got some maps,’ he said. ‘Know how to guide myself usin the stars.’

  The stranger quit working and devoted his attention to the conversation at hand. ‘You know celestial navigation?’

  ‘No,’ the man said. ‘Just know how to follow the stars to get where I needs to go.’

  The stranger snorted. He threw his head back to look into the sky above. Evening swirled the tongues of red cirrus clouds into the mellowed lighter shades of aged day. A ghost moon, nearly full, waned into existence. There were no stars yet. It wouldnt be long. The stranger looked at the man. ‘You’ll have to travel in the night then,’ he said.

  ‘I know it.’

  ‘Some people say the country is more dangerous at night.’

  ‘They say that. I figure it’s about the same, just darker.’

  The stranger chuckled to himself. He went back to constructing his porch space. After a moment he quit again.

  ‘Wheres a man like your kind learn to travel by the stars?’ he asked.

  The man seemed to anticipate the question and his delay in answering seemed to be a predetermined measure for effect. ‘Father was a sailor,’ he said.

  The stranger nodded. ‘Thats where you got the sails from, the oilcloth.’

  ‘Took them when I left.’

  ‘Took the maps too.’

  ‘Thats right. Took whatever I could fit into a wagon, said I was gonna sail the ocean on the other side of the country.’

  This truth pleased the stranger and he smiled. ‘Instead you end up in this place—place like the Sargasso.’

  The man’s eyes sharpened. His lips drew tight and constricted until they were white.

  ‘Say something wrong, friend?’ the stranger asked.

  The man shook his head slowly, not taking his eyes from the stranger, who smiled at him like a fool. ‘Just never heard another man talk bout the Sargasso, no one this far inland anyhow.’

  ‘I’m well traveled,’ the stranger said. ‘Now we’ll need to plan for your leaving. It wont be easy on your woman.’

  v

  The man did as the stranger told him to do. He prepared his woman a drink of boiled leaves and squeezings of wild chives. It would help calm her hysteria, the stranger had said. It would also cause in her a deep sleep.

  Only after she fell into slumber did the man leave, kissing her once on the cheek and again on her swollen stomach. He took the saddlebag he filled with meal and maps, the shiv he’d fashioned from a bolt.

  ‘You must leave in the night,’ the stranger had instructed him. ‘The worry—the anticipation of your leaving—could cause the hysteria to grow.’

  ‘An what’ll you do then?’ the man had asked.

  They had sat in the nearly completed interior room of the stranger’s abode to discuss the matter as the woman only appeared more and more uneased in the presence of the stranger.

  ‘I’ll bring her here,’ the stranger said. ‘This is a discreet place, a safe place for her to give birth.’

  ‘An youve birthed some babies in your time?’

  ‘I have.’

  The man looked about the shelter. Secretly he was impressed with the stranger, how fast the place took shape. He’d asked how someone goes about making a home so fast once and the stranger simply said such things were a matter of time.

  ‘You marked out how to go to Fort James?’

  The man nodded. ‘Gonna wear my mule down tryin to get there an back so quick though.’

  The stranger smiled the same awkward smile he rarely let happen. ‘You’ll be back before you know it. You’ll have your woman right with the government. Son’ll be legal too.’

  ‘You think it’ll be a boy?’

  ‘I have a sense about these things,’ the stranger sai
d.

  The man kissed his woman’s stomach once more and stole off out the door. He nearly ran into the stranger as he slung the flap door open. In the moonlight both men appeared with shallow features and muted shades.

  ‘Thought you’d be around tomorrow,’ the man said.

  ‘Best if I’m here to explain everything in the morn,’ the stranger said. He patted the man’s shoulder. His hand felt warm, soft. ‘Better if you go now.’

  And with that the man left on his mule. He looked over his shoulder once he made some distance, but saw nothing behind him. He looked up into the cosmos, saw Virgo sprawled out, Spica glowing the brightest.

  The woman started awake at the touch of foreign hands around her womb. When she saw who the hands belonged to she scuttled back on her bedding.

  ‘Eres satanás.’

  The stranger smiled. ‘Me confundes con otra persona. He venido aquí para salvarle.’

  ‘No,’ the woman said and she pulled her skirt down in an attempt to keep the stranger away from her unborn. He approached still. Outside some birds shrieked. Sun came glowing through the canvas roof of the structure. She cried out for her man.

  ‘Él tiene un objetivo para los tontos.’

  The woman shook her head and cried silently. She wrapped her arms around her stomach. Inside the baby kicked.

  ‘No hay razón de resistir,’ the stranger said. He smiled kindly and extended his hand to the woman. ‘Este es el diseño general del universe. No hay nada más para usted.’

  The woman sniffled, realized whatever the stranger meant, he would ultimately be correct. ‘Por favor,’ she said. ‘Hágalo rápidamente.’

  Her request was simple and he would oblige. Then he told her it would all happen in due course.

  The plains went on for some time. The man rode the mule through the nighttime hours as he said he would do. During the day he draped his shirt over his face for shade and slept. He awoke in the evening when the silken purpled rays of the sun provided just enough light to study his maps. He ate a handful of meal and drank from his canteen and waited for the stars to emerge from the darkness.

  First the North Star flickered into existence where the dusk met the land. Low on the opposite horizon the Hydra snaked across the sky. Mighty Ursa Major rotated in the heavens. The man rode without regard for any certain destination, his gaze set far out into the great nothingness beyond.

  The stranger did as she had asked and killed her quickly. He performed the deed using a metal band pulled from the edge of a wagon wheel. He’d taken a rock and hammered the edge into a jagged blade, teeth of metal forming wherever the impact landed. While the woman waited, she wet herself. The metal band proved a clumsy tool, never intended for this use. In the end the stranger made three blows—two to the woman’s head and one to her torso, taking care not to strike the womb—and then she was dead.

  The stranger performed the task without ceremony, carrying out the act as silently as the woman received it. He collected the stray parts of her body—the hand she’d futilely raised to deflect the first blow, the fragment of skull bone with the scalp still attached. He bundled the vestiges together in her dress and tied the skirt at the top and bottom. Since she was small he could easily carry the makeshift sack into his now finished abode. The flat rock he’d slaughtered her on lay covered with blood and feces. He studied the skies and figured it would rain soon enough and clean the spot. Time now became important. The fetus would only live on for a few more minutes.

  He went to the inner chamber and lifted a wooden door to the tunnel he’d bored down into the earth. Roping the sack to his waist, he began to crawl—this tunnel plumbed deep at a steep angle and then fell nearly straight down. Siftings of dirt fell as he crawled, dragging the body behind him. He went deeper, until the loose dirt packed harder and morphed into clay. Water seeped from all sides of the tunnel. Gravity and the angle of the tunnel caused the sack containing the body to fall against the stranger. At once he became soaked with blood, water and urine. He scraped his hands against the rocks, the fissures of the labyrinth winding their way through complete darkness. He came to the end of the tunnel.

  The way into the tunnel seemed to no longer exist. He crouched low in what he suspected was a pool of spring water. He placed a hand on his bundle and still felt the baby stirring, kicking. Perhaps the way down here had collapsed. Or maybe his route had become so circuitous no light could meander its way to these depths.

  ‘Este es un lugar bueno para ser sepultado,’ he said. Finally, the baby moved no more. Then he tried to stand, but did not have enough clearance. He began laughing and let the echoes resound throughout the chambers within the earth, channeling and mapping out the landscape beneath the land above. He laughed louder at the sound of his own mania and the noise amplified to deafening levels. The rocks began to shake and wisps of dirt crumbled from between the cracks of stone. A rumbling louder than any laughter resonated from deeper than any charted cavern of the earth’s bowels.

  Two

  i

  Several days out the man saw a troupe of men. Distant things. It was daytime now and he readied himself for sleep. The men on the horizon corkscrewed their way through the grasses and up the slight gradient to where the man pitched camp. Though they remained otiose things, he could see one of them waved his hand. The man set down his meal of dried grains and mush and searched in the saddlebags for his shiv.

  ‘You there,’ the distant figure called. Again he waved his arm.

  Uncertain of how to return the call, the man simply waved his arm.

  There were three men in the troupe—each dressed in a uniform that might have once looked regal.

  ‘Had injuns attack our division,’ the man with ropes around his shoulder said. He was an officer. ‘Lost most of my men. Apaches—thats the kind of injun we’re talkin about.’

  The man shook his head. ‘Caint say I ever heard of em.’

  The two other officers exchanged a look. ‘You aint never heard of the Apache?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You live out here an you aint never heard of the Apache?’

  ‘Caint say I have.’

  All three men laughed heartily.

  ‘Dont see whats funny,’ the man said.

  ‘You must be bout twenty years old,’ the officer said. ‘Now I’d hand over my entire army paycheck to have your kind of stupidity.’

  The two other soldiers bellowed laughter in agreement. When the man did not join in their laughter, they redoubled their glee at the man’s ignorance.

  The man took out his shiv and brandished it at the officer. ‘Go on now,’ he said. ‘You just settin here takin up my time and funnin me. Get out of here.’

  But the display the man made only caused further wails of laughter. The officer pulled a saber from his waistband and waved it in the air. ‘I’m a goddamned grizzled uncle-dad,’ he hollered. ‘I smell bad enough even the redskin niggers leave me lone.’

  The other two men hooted and took out a hatchet and a bayonet respectively.

  ‘Put that shank away, boy,’ the officer said, turning suddenly savage. ‘Hate to chop you up like I did to the niggers we took prisoner.’

  Without hesitation, the man slid the shiv into the side of his boot. ‘Would appreciate it if you fellas got a move along. I’m restin up so I’s can travel through the night.’

  ‘That so?’

  ‘It is,’ the man said. ‘Figure you fellas are probably lookin to head back to your fort.’

  The officer snorted. ‘Why’d we do a fool thing like that?’

  The other two soldiers nodded in agreement. One took a swig from his canteen. ‘Got a whole different set of skills,’ one said. ‘Might as well be dead for all the army knows.’

  ‘You gonna just do what—steal an kill?’

  ‘Whatever makes a livin.’

  ‘You gonna kill me?’

  All three of the men exchanged glances casually. The one’s gaze fixated on the mule. The man’s hand began
sliding back down his leg, toward the shiv in his boot.

  ‘Afraid you got nothin even worth killin you for,’ the officer said.

  ‘Maybe you’ll learn what an Apache looks like,’ the other one said.

  ‘Be the last thing you learn,’ the third said.

  With that the three men stood up and mounted their horses. ‘Thanks for the conversation, stranger,’ the officer said. He tipped his hat and they rode on.

  The man watched the soldiers go until they became lost in the shifting grasses of the plains. Unnerved by the visit, the man decided he could not sleep and he packed up his gear and began riding again.

  Riding during the day required a different type of navigation than at night. Instead of familiarizing himself with the stars, he had to know the path of the sun, the time of day. Navigation by the sun consisted of knowing time and space. To travel westward as he was, he needed to travel away from the sun in the morning. At noon he would be wise to stop for rest as it was the hottest time of day and the sun cast shadows without direction. Once the sun canted past the noontime peak, he would progress toward it.

  These few lessons were what he learned from his father.

  ‘Maps can be wrong,’ his father said. ‘Men draw em up, make money on em.’

  He remembered he asked his father why any man would want to make a map poorly. But this angered his father, being interrupted. Often he spoke just to hear himself talk. ‘Why do you think?’ he asked. Now the boy stayed silent. ‘How they gonna sell the next one, if this map is the best?’ He shook his head. Normally when he became this upset, he said he should have left the boy with his mother, that loose bitch with crotch rot.

  His father leaned on the rail of the boarding house balcony, suddenly calm again. He watched the waves roll in and out, smelled the air. ‘Lotta sailors now trust the maps,’ his father said. ‘They dont know how to gauge the sun. They dont know bout seabirds an what they mean. Lotta capns wont take me on cause I dont read maps—or anything really. Worse thing we ever done was come to shore.’