She loved him more than the town, more than herself, more than me.
I had loved him too, and he had lied to Auntie. He just wasn’t attracted to her. His natural wife was much younger than him and he thought I was much younger than her, though by then I’d lived for centuries. And he took me in the barn and I let him because I wanted to be filled up with something no amount of magick could give me, something fleshy and quick of breath, and later, we lay exhausted and content.
We snuck around for a long time. His wife was always suspicious. It was she who first approached Auntie, not long after she’d told Jeremiah that she loved him. And when the woman came, furious, Auntie thought the woman meant to attack her for what she’d shared with the woman’s husband. She’d known the day would come you see. Men are weak and they can’t keep secrets. But his wife had come to her and threw a pair of my panties at her feet. First the rejection from the man she loved, and then betrayed by her own niece. Of course, to me, it wasn’t betrayal at all. He didn’t like her. He liked me.
I tried to explain that to her on the street but she had poisoned herself before coming to meet me and she died while I was still speaking.
At first I’d thought she’d only fainted. People gathered around. There was much made of her death and for a while I toyed with the idea that she had presented to Jeremiah, a living carousel that sucked the years away like a babe drinking its mother’s milk. He asked about his wife, which would have been okay if he’d been talking to Auntie, but he wasn’t. The incantations left me in fever for three days but she, Jeremiah’s wife, died slowly, rotting away until she burst like old fruit and the townspeople came to a decision to burn the property to prevent further spread of whatever disease had befallen her. They were smart people but as superstitious as anyone anywhere.
While they built Jeremiah a new home, expecting him to live out his final golden days in the sun, carting the weight of his wife’s memory admirably, I went to work on the carousel. It took a year to understand Auntie’s notes for she was light of hand, wrote precisely and in sinfully tiny script, not to mention her mind was prone to bits of racing so the mechanics, both physical and occult, were not in order. I pieced it together over months of tiring labor. Then it took only one night to build.
The next morning the whole town came to see what this strange mystery was. I went to my beloved’s new home, certain Jeremiah would ride the ride, or at the worst, he would object for a while, full of pride. But when I arrived he was dead. He looked peaceful in his bed, his gray hair long and curly, his skin bearing a healthy shine as if he’d just recently scrubbed every bit of dirt from his pores. It hurt to see him so, but I was no necromancer.
I fled, crying, back to the carousel.
My people waited there, murmuring.
I wanted to order them to bring him, place his body on the platform, but I could not bear to see his corpse again. His death meant little to the younger generations. He was just a kind old man with a heavy heart. What they wanted to know was the purpose of the carousel, though the most excited of course were the children, who saw only adventure. Oh, their faces, so pink and bright, the sun beyond them all red as the rock we stood on. I composed myself and decided I would share the gift I had built for Jeremiah with all of them, for I had not, in my fervor of studying Auntie’s notes, intended to share it with everyone. But my chest pained me greatly and the curiosity, the pure, unadulterated wonder on their faces, put me at ease. They were my children. They deserved an eternity of peace if that was what they wanted. Simple minds. Old men eager to be young bucks again, strong and agile, and old women who looked in the mirror every morning with a quiet and stubborn disdain against the effects time had made upon their eyes, their mouths, their necks. Time. It, not Death, was what they feared most. Near the end, death is welcome, it is a relief. It’s while we’re in the pull of time’s terrible stream that we see how quickly the years evaporate even as they erode us.
The children… They were furious that they couldn’t ride. I took the oldest group first while their grandchildren and great-grandchildren stomped around, pouting, some crying outright, unable to be soothed until they got a turn. The fossils had no idea what the ride was for, simply thinking it was nothing more than what it appeared. Those who had been together for a half-century, stood hanging onto the centaurs and each other. Those who had lost those they’d loved filled the other side, like two sides of the same coin. I chanted and the clear blue sky above us began to darken, storm clouds rising like towers in the west over the far rim. Thunder shook the platform and the glass in every building.
I whispered, “I love you all,” and the carousel moved at a jerky start, nearly tipping some of them over. The children had gone quiet. The rest watched, fascinated. Slowly, holding their breaths, they watched colors dance from the centaurs’ eyes and the creatures themselves tugged at the ropes they clung to, their desperation feeding the machinations still unseen.
It whirled, the old couples riding but a blur to those on the ground as the first fat drops of rain fell. Not a soul felt them. Light danced on that whirring, whizzing, otherworldly machine. It built in intensity until the spectators had to shield their eyes. And thunder boomed again, closer, and I prayed for them, that they would understand. The rain pounded, the carousel blurred blue and black and white and red, all of the colors smearing together until a loud pop sounded and the ride went still.
Those on the ground uncovered their eyes, blinked, some swore, some cried, “Jesus,” as those on the platform looked at their partners, shaking their heads.
Tears followed, smiles, laughter, disbelief. The now-young joined those who had only watched. I had expected a rush of movement, a mob of either angry faces or frightened ones. But the spectators were like statues.
The now-young strutted for a moment before one of them said, “How long is this going to last?”
And I, and their families and their friends, could see the fear in their faces. Even if it was only once that a miracle could happen, it would not be enough for some, because they would desire it, again, and again, and again.
They turned to me. I stood on the platform. “It’s a gift you can use forever,” I whispered, and despite the rain, they heard me, shuffling forward like sheep, like children.
One of them said, “Forever?”
I nodded.
“Forever,” I promised them. “Nothing can take this from you and there is nothing to fear.”
And for a while there wasn’t.
*****
Through the late 1800s and all through the1900s the valley and its people were self-sustaining. Tough and quiet men with joyous faces built greenhouses, and they made long and dangerous trips north for dark soil and brought it back by rafts down the Rio Grande. Horses were lost or stolen, men were attacked by natives, trappers, renegades, and to them, the brave family men who came west like Auntie and I had, believed it worth it because they knew that anything worth having was also worth risking your life to obtain.
Spells and sacrifice assisted dusty labor.
Women taught children to work crops, the value of harvest, and sometimes, when the earth groaned against the weight of their demands, the valley trembled until unseen anger passed. More spells, more sacrifice, more men heading west and north and south to trade gold for lumber and glass, grain and cloth, and as the years drew on a problem arose.
Our joyous and hardworking men, faces so amazed and transfixed by their lot in life, and the gift we gave them, had established friendships outside Gossamer. These friends they made—shopkeepers and ranchers and river-men—noticed what anyone would notice as time passed. Because these men aged, these men troubled, glimpsing the end of their lives on the far horizon and mounting like a winter storm. These men, the outsiders, did not understand why Jesse Unger had been making an annual trip to them for the last ten years and hadn’t aged a day. Some feared him. Others tried to ask politely. Some grew agitated that their womenfolk had also noticed, the way womenfolk must, f
or not being visual creatures, we are good keepers and can appreciate the effort other keepers of homestead and memories exhibit. And there were some of those wives who wanted what it was Jesse had found, whatever potion he drank or whatever air he breathed. The women questioned him. He smiled his warm smile, wanting to invite every person he liked to join us, but it was not allowed. I would not allow it. It tore Jesse down the middle to have to turn a deaf ear to other people’s ache for what he had and felt he should share with them. But he couldn’t risk being blinded and banished like others had who broke the one law that kept us all safe.
Talk got around about others like Jesse, men who had visited forts to the north or east for supplies.
Rich men caught wind, and like rich men must they imagined a fountain of youth in some high desert spring bubbling water that could make them richer than any king, richer than Solomon.
Expeditions were funded and mercenaries, both Indian and white, were hired by a Mr. Jennings, a Mr. Poe, a Mr. Lancaster.
Men at odds with each.
Men in a race for a fortune.
At first their hired thugs slaughtered each other in windy mountain passes, ambushed other groups in lonely and obscure ravines, picked off opposing forces from bright ridges with the sun beating hot upon their backs, lying on hard, unforgiving rock as prone and motionless as the fallen.
The land drank their offerings greedily.
The rich men grew poorer searching for Gossamer, and the natives, once discovering through what English they understood what exactly it was they were searching for, all refused further help no matter the amount being traded for their tracking and fighting skills.
Native cultures all had stories of warring parties who drew close to a sacred place and were never seen again. The Pueblo were incredibly close and the first to notice bright lights in the air to the north, only miles off. They sent scouts to decipher the spirit lights. The scouts came by night, six of them, armed, and the air around the bowl vibrated to a pitch that caused ears to bleed and minds to dissolve into the essence of terror.
They fled, bleeding from their ears, confused in thought, relying solely on instinct and scent the way a horse will to find their way home. The shaman tended their walking corpses, worked to understand the garbled speech as the scouts shifted from confusion to convulsions. The shaman, old and wise and observant, knew curses and magic as well as the scouts had known the land and sun from which they lived.
His magic was ineffective and crude as he worked by firelight over the pale, twisting shapes that had once been filled with vitality and an acute sharpness. They died, the scouts, which to a shaman is nothing since life goes on even after the heart and brain stop circulating blood.
But he witnessed how they went—darkness rising from the ragged breaths they exhaled, as if spirits not their own had ripped them apart from inside, these shapes flickering, turning ghostly heads filled with a multitude of eyes, his way. The spirits accompanied the silence, the boys and men they’d left now staring from on their backs into eternity—and it drove him back into the corner of a small adobe hut, shielding his eyes.
Other tribes, those working for Mr. Jennings, Mr. Poe, and Mr. Lancaster, experienced worse ends. Outlaws caught wind as well, the way they will, on the fringe of a modern world headed toward industry. Many of them, on the stupid belief that they were white and had already whipped many Indians into place, came hunting for the fountain of youth in the high red rock country where ghosts walked mesas and stars blazed above them.
But the rich men pooled their resources and hardened their hearts, for the lives of the men lost were trivial in light of what they could gain.
*****
Back at the turn of the 20th century, when the rich men pooled their resources and hardened their hearts—for the lives of the men lost were trivial in light of what they could gain—they finally developed an idea all of them put their faith and cash into. They stationed the cruelest of men round the clock for months on end at each of the posts where Jesse and the others came to buy and sell and trade. It was only a matter of time they’d discussed, but every day they grew older and more anxious.
It was near the Halloween of 1910 when, distracted by one of the first automobiles, Jesse drove his wagon into Albuquerque and a man stepped out into the road in front of the Springer Transfer Company. The man held a gun in his fist and his eyes were unforgiving and Jesse, who had known what it was like to fear death before, nearly smiled. He thought his own mortality ceased to exist when he took that first ride on the black carousel, and he thought, wrongly, that pain as he’d known it before that event could fail to cling to him now.
He pulled the reigns and stopped his rig. The man with the pistol was much older, wiry, and dusty and smelled like a brewery. Men will underestimate other men who look and smell a certain way.
The fighter, whose name was Dutch McCullen, lived out of the bottle and no one really knew whether the liquor made him mean or he is what gave booze such a bad reputation. He didn’t like loud mouths, and in true fashion, he hardly spoke. What he did was hit a grinning opponent—whether with the crown of his head, his fist, or a bullet—because the only thing he hated more than loud mouths was grinning fools who looked at him, and then at themselves, and saw how high and mighty they were.
And that was what Dutch saw when he looked at the vibrant boy, roughly thirty years old, sitting on the seat above and behind two shiny and sweaty horses. The horse on the right stamped its foot as if in challenge. The other raised its head, perked its ears.
Jesse said, “You ought to put that gun away, Mister. Ain’t going to do you no good but get you into a heap of trouble.” And he smiled that beatific smile of his, that confident, unruly beast of undying confidence that nearly made his face glow, and the old fighter smiled back and pulled the trigger.
The bullet caught Jesse in the knee and blew blood and bone back into his lap. He stared at his torn pant leg, pale in the face, knowing that the pain was going to register at any moment and him hoping that it would be so intense that he’d pass out because if all the shooter wanted was to rob him, he could take it without a fight.
The gun boomed again and his other knee cap evaporated in front of his eyes and he screamed until his lungs felt like they were on fire, holding the undersides of his legs, knowing he couldn’t even hobble away, probably wouldn’t ever be able to walk again at all.
The pain was incredible though and he was thankful for that because he didn’t have time to worry about if the carousel would fix the damage done to him when he needed to worry about catching lead in his chest.
Dutch walked casually up to the wagon and broke open the breech on his pistol and replaced the two bullets he’d spent. He spat on the dusty road and looked up and down the street and at a few men who had gathered in the big sliding door of the Springer building. He nodded their way. The men didn’t respond, knowing that another man’s trouble was none of their business and if a sheriff was close by then it was his responsibility to address the situation in whatever way he saw fit.
Meanwhile, Jesse’s screams had petered out and he saw a long black curtain rushing before him, like a liquid wall of night speeding down that old wagon trail where now strange vehicles spat and puttered and men in top hats laughed as they gripped the steering wheel.
That wall of darkness rushed like a locomotive straight down the road at him, swallowing light poles and citizens who had come to see what the gunshots were all about, and it hit him square in the face, that wall of darkness. And he woke later. The pain was worse then, the ruined ligaments, shards of knee cap stuck in his stomach like bone quills, the burned and pummeled meat of his thighs aching where the bullets had cut a path before burying themselves deep in the tissue. He lay flat on his back, a pile of leather or canvas beneath his head. The sun winked far on the horizon. The wagon bounced and jostled over rough track, and he saw the tops of trees crawling by, the sky an azure rooftop streaked with wisps of ivory miles above him.
Dutch sat next to him. He said, “Someone is awful interested in where you come from. Why is that?”
The old fighter asked because he didn’t know and he knew the rich men wouldn’t tell him even if he beat the hell out of them. But he was a curious man and he liked to know why he was being paid to hurt someone and extract information. It always came down to money for those who were paying him, but this was different. These rich men—Jennings and Lancaster and Poe—were the gravest and most drawn and anxious bunch he’d ever seen. He hadn’t asked around the area much, though he did listen in on some conversations and nothing nobody said made much sense. It was all horseshit, far as he could tell. He slapped Jesse’s cheek because the boy’s eyes were fluttering, his mouth slightly open, and so dry it felt like he’d drank the desert, and the old man said again, “Why they interested in where you come from?”
Jesse didn’t want to answer, but he wanted the pain to end, and he wanted to be home.
He whispered, “I’ll take you there.”
“Why though?” Dutch said. “What’s there?”
Jesse frowned but his eyes burned like lanterns, and he said, “Magic.”
*****
That old lean fighter Dutch McCullen brought Jesse in and we heard them coming. He’d gleaned the basics, as incredible and unbelievable as they sounded, from Jesse over the week-long trip back. Part of him was a practical man and wanted to laugh at the burned-down rich folk who put so much stock in fairy tales, but the curious part of him, as well as the experienced part of him, knew that there were greater mysteries, some of which you only collided with once in a lifetime. If what the young man said was true then Dutch thought he’d just take the whole pie and figure out how to distribute it once he had it. It was a big if, he thought, but time would either prove or disprove Jesse’s proclamations.
Gossamer: A Story of Love and Tragedy Page 5
