IGMS Issue 4 (14 page)

The aliens clustered around the tiny train, stroking it and each others' heads, sharing the human's memories. Then they shrank the train and carefully positioned it amongst the billion other objects in their portrait of Earth. There was much to contemplate in this piece, especially the train's mysterious place in human culture. Still, the train itself wasn't the point. The memories were what mattered.

John Garret had never met the horse he couldn't break.

Until the last one.

The staircase creaked so loudly it sounded like someone dogged his footsteps. He crossed the Antler's lobby then stopped to button his long black coat. They had buried him in his suit, the white shirt with the scratchy collar and the long brown pants. But, they hadn't nailed him in the box with his new boots, just the floppy old pair he wore the day he died. Some might call it a tribute, a way to let the devil know he'd died with his spurs on. More likely somebody at the K-Bar decided it was a waste to plant a man with a pair of fifty dollar boots on his heels. He reached for the door.

"Ever think Hell would be like this?"

Garret tried to ignore the voice from the other side of the room, but Shorty O'Dowd wasn't having it. He stepped out from behind the hardwood bar with the fancy brass rail and shuffled across the floor. "I was expecting a lot worse. How about you, John? What did you expect Hell to be like?"

"Never gave it much thought one way or the other." Morning sunlight slanted through the windows, and for just a moment even the Antler seemed cheerful and warm. He stood in the sunbeam and rolled his left shoulder to work the stiffness from it. Seemed the longer he stayed here, the harder it got to rouse out.

"You want breakfast?" Shorty asked.

"Don't see much sense in it."

"Reckon you're right. Ain't like a man gets hungry down here, is it?"

"Nope." Garret knew damn well it wasn't breakfast Shorty wanted. Soon as he left, O'Dowd would pull out his bottle, the one that never seemed to run dry, and try to get stinking drunk. He might as well throw down shots of horse piss. Whiskey, like food, was something a body could do without once they shoveled dirt over you. He buttoned the last hole on his coat and stepped outside.

Wind grabbed his coat tails as Garret cinched his hat down. His boots crunched against the frozen dirt as he neared the abandoned livery stable. Like every other building in town it was grayed, the paint peeling off the false front. Rusty hinges groaned as the barn doors swung open. He stepped inside and pulled out his tobacco. Shorty had his vices, and he had his own. Fingers aching with cold, he twisted a smoke then struck a match, the flame cupped so close it singed his long gray mustache. The wondrous scent of Prince Albert mingled with the musk of old horse crap and dry hay. He took a long drag.

Smoke rolled down his throat and vanished as if it had never been. No pleasant kick, no mellow taste lingering after he exhaled. Nothing to prove he smoked at all except for the hot cherry burning his thumb and finger. Disgusted, Garret snuffed the cigarette then headed round back.

A dozen houses made up the town, silent as death. Nobody in town but him and Shorty. Nobody in a thousand miles for all he knew. He stepped toward the old corral and smiled coldly. Not another soul alive except for the moon-eyed stud dancing circles inside the pen.

"Good morning, you hateful son of a bitch." Garret's voice was loud and cheerful. "I hope you hurt as much as I do."

The rangy palomino threw its head, ears flicked forward, nostrils flared as he caught Garret's scent. He stood sixteen hands if he was an inch, with high withers and white front feet made for striking. A tangled yellow mane whipped around his bald face. But it was his eyes that grabbed. Black on the right, pale-blue on the left, rimmed red and split up the middle. A billy-goat's eye, or a snake's, ice cold and vengeful. The stud dipped his head but never let Garret out of his sight.

"Good to see dying ain't changed you a lick."

One moment he and the stud had been hogging around the pen at the K-Bar, the next he was here. He remembered hanging over the saddle, desperate not to get thrown, when the crazy bastard kicked high. Up and over they went, ground and sky changing places as the animal fell. Garret tried to get clear, but his foot tangled in the stirrup. Crushing pain took him as the stud lit on top of him. But the horse had paid for it too, his back broken in the fall. Last thing Garret heard before waking up here was the gunshot as the boys put the horse down.

His saddle lay on the top rail. A bridle with a rawhide hackamore hung off the horn. Garret knew every scuff on the old saddle, the curve of the high cantle as familiar as snow on a winter's day. An oiled riata, coiled tight, was tied to the right pommel. The rope mocked him, daring him to throw a loop.

"Think we should have another go at it, old son?"

The horse spun away. Bits of dirt and frozen manure clattered against the rails as. the stud raced around the pen, defiant as the day he died. Garret's shoulder ached as started to untie the riata, his left arm all but worthless. He let the coils drop against the fender, loud as a judge's gavel. Shaking as much from shame as the icy wind, John Garret wandered back to the Antler.

"Morning, John." Shorty leaned on the bar and scratched his strawberry nose. "Ever think Hell would be like this?"

"You asked me that yesterday, Shorty."

"I did?"

"You've asked me the same damn question every morning since I got here."

"Oh." Shorty flushed. "Well, I was just trying to be sociable." The squat man shuffled into the kitchen. Garret heard him stuff kindling into the cookstove until flames whuffed inside the fire-box. He almost felt ashamed at having hurt Shorty's feelings. Anxious to be away, he buttoned his coat and stepped outside.

The wind was colder today, raw as an open sore. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and hurried toward the coral. The moon-eyed stud watched him, head high. Garret watched the horse too. Something in the way the animal moved, as if he danced a paper's width above the ground, held his eye. People used to say he was fearless when it came to horses, but they were wrong. He was afraid of every bronc he'd thrown a saddle on. No, he decided, afraid wasn't the right word. Respectful. A horse had too many ways to hurt a man if he let them, but he'd never been around an animal so packed full of hate as this one. Without quite knowing why, Garret understood he had to break him or he'd wind up as empty and craving as Shorty. He tested his left shoulder. It hurt, but not so much to keep him from trying.

"All right, old son." Garret untied the riata, made a loop and rolled the twists out. The rope felt like an extension of his arm, as if he'd been born to throw it. He stepped inside, twirling it slow and easy above his head. "Let's you and me try this again."

The stud snorted, ice-white breath shooting out his nostrils as Garret eased toward the snub post set in the center of the pen. Around and around, the rope spun faster. He gauged the throw, his wrist flicking in time with the animal's lope. On the next pass, he let fly. The loop hung in the air, and then, snake fast, settled over the stud's head. Garret put his back to the snub-post and took up the slack.

The stud reared as Garret dallied around the post. Without warning, the animal turned and ran down the rope. Garret dodged, but stumbled to the ground. Desperate to avoid the knife-sharp hooves, he rolled against the bottom rail.

Behind him, the stud lunged against the maddening noose as the coils tightened around the post. Another hard yank and the leather strands broke. Free again, the stud leapt at the top rail. Wood splintered under his weight as the top two poles sagged, then snapped. The broken riata still around his neck, he bolted across the narrow creek south of town into the desert beyond.

The cookstove crackled, so hot it seemed ready to melt if Shorty stuffed one more stick inside. The little man drug up a spindly green chair and set it next to his rocker. Garret eased into the chair while Shorty rounded up his bottle and two glasses. He poured two fingers in each, then gave one to Garret.

"It's probably for the best." Shorty dropped into the rocker.

"What the Hell are you talking about?"

"That horse getting away. From where I'm looking, you're better off. That son of a bitch was out to kill you."

"I'm already dead."

"Maybe so, but what happens if you get killed again? Could be the next place is worse than this one." Shorty tossed off his drink. "Yes sir, a damn site worse."

Garret snorted, unconvinced, and took a drink. Cheap sour mash washed down his throat, the oily aftertaste strong enough to curl his tongue, but the fire went out before it hit his belly. He had a strange feeling he could drink the stuff all day and never feel a tilt.

"Well, John Garret" Shorty topped off both glasses then raised his in salute. "Here's to better days."

"Better days?" The chair legs skidded out behind him as Garret stood up. "Won't be any better days 'til I get that moon-eyed bastard rounded up."

"What's that going to prove?" Shorty struggled out of the rocker. "Think it matters a tinker's damn if you ride him? Hell is Hell, and the sooner you get used to it, the better off you'll be."

"I'll never get used to this." Garret let the door bang shut behind him. His coat lay on top of the bar where he had dropped it. His shoulder ached fiercely as he shrugged into the stiff wool. Behind him, the kitchen door swing open.

"You have any idea what's out there? I do." Shorty put himself between Garret and the front doors. "You think I didn't try to walk out of this place? I tried for months, but there ain't nowhere to go. Nothing out there but rock and dirt and that god-awful wind. Where will you even look for him?"

"There's a creek. That means there's grass along it. That stud horse has got to eat."

"You just ain't getting it. That horse don't have to eat anymore than you or I do. You can track him until the leather wears off your boots, but you ain't never going to catch him. And if you do, he'll just bust out again. He's your torment, John Garret. Hell isn't full of devils with pitchforks and pointy tails. It's just you and me and the snake-eyed horse that laid you out. And the sooner you swallow that fact, the better off we'll all be."