Published by Poetry Editor on November 30, 2016. This item is listed in Issue 32, Issue 32 Poetry, Poetry

Arson With a Smile

I keep a little sun in my pocket, a little
ball of warmth, a little light for days
stuck inside staring out the window
dripping with self-doubt and frustration
to burn a hole through the walls
melting shower curtains to run naked
into the fading rain, climb the red side
of a full rainbow stretching into black
holes waiting like a secret path
where gumdrop forests breed ruckuses
of dragons flapping wantonly
among the moss under ancient
trees sprouted from starlight borrowed
from the stash Prometheus stole
from the sun, hidden in pockets
he sewed himself onto his socks
where no god would think to look
so that even chained at the mercy
of eagles one glance down to his feet
ignited fireworks in his heart

— John Reinhart

An arsonist by trade, John Reinhart lives on a farmlette in Colorado with his wife and children. He is a Frequent Contributor at the Songs of Eretz and his chapbook, encircled, is available from Prolific Press. More of his work is available at http://www.patreon.com/johnreinhart

Editor’s Notes: The image of Prometheus is from an Italian article MITI GRECI | PROMETEO, IL GIGANTE CHE AMAVA L’UMANITÀ (GREEK MYTHS | PROMETHEUS, THE GIANT WHO LOVED HUMANITY):

La mitologia greca è ricca di storie bellissime: battaglie, eroi, magie, tradimenti. La nostra cultura è cresciuta su queste leggende. Come quella di Prometeo, il titano ribelle che rubò il fuoco per donarlo agli uomini e…

Greek mythology is full of beautiful stories: battles, heroes, spells, betrayals. Our culture has grown out of these legends. Like that of Prometheus, the rebellious Titan who stole fire and gave it to men and …

http://www.focusjunior.it/scuola/miti-greci-prometeo-il-gigante-che-amava-lumanita-prima-parte

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Published by Poetry Editor on November 30, 2016. This item is listed in Issue 32, Issue 32 Poetry, Poetry

Ithildin

Noldor women, elven men
now silent,
now singing
in the slow, sonorous music of stone
learned from the dwarrow
of the halls of Khazad-dûm?
Wait.

In the moonlight you coax,
you tease
the precious fumes of molten mithril
slowly, so slowly,
out of moonlit, starlit mist
with words of thrumming power.

So much effort for so little!
But the artisans require it
for a project worthy of Fëanor himself.
And over several misty evenings
the small basin fills.

The weather clears.
The forge-fire dies.
When Celebrimbor inspects their basin,
And passes his hand above the harvested ithildin
It causes the contents of the bowl to shine like stars,
reflecting Elbereth’s glory,
glow as if moonlight shimmered on water.
“What word will unlock its power, my lord?”
Asks a smelter-singer, with a respectful bow.

Celebrimbor’s eyes lift to the lambent snows
above the dwarrowdelf, and he smiles.
“Friend. The inlay is for a door to our friends.”

— Wendy S. Delmater

Wendy S. Delmater is a writer, poet, and the long-time editor of Hugo-nominated Abyss & Apex Magazine. Recent publication credits include short stories and poetry in *Star Line*, Silver Blade, The Singularity magazine, and Illumen. Her new poetry chapbook  Plant a Garden Around Your Life can be found  on Amazon.

Authors’ Notes: J.R.R. Tolkien drew heavily on Nordic myths in his mythology of elves. So it felt fitting to have a Nordic translation of an origins story for the Doors of Mordor from the happier time when Hollin (Eregion, in elvish) was under the dominion of the high elves who had come from Elvenhome to Middle Earth. The linguistic challenge of writing this poem in a similar style to Tolkien’s verse while staying within the confines of Norwegian, which has very few words, were considerable, but we believe that the results are worth it.

Margrét Helgadóttir (translated into Norwegian)

Ithildin

Noldorkvinner, alvemenn
stille nå,
synger nå
den langsomme, dype musikken i sten
lært fra dwarrowene
i Khazad-dûms haller?
Vent.

I måneskinnet lokker du,
du egger
de dyrebare partiklene fra smeltet mithril 
sakte, så sakte,
ut av månelys, stjerneklar skodde
med ord av trommende styrke.

Så mye kraft for så lite!
Men håndverkerne krever det
for et prosjekt verdig selveste Fëanor.
Og over flere tåkefulle kvelder
fylles de små bollene.

Været klarner.
Smi-ilden dør.
Når Celebrimbor undersøker deres balje,
Og lar sin hånd gli over den høstede ithildin
Får det innholdet i bollen til å skinne som stjerner,
gjenspeiling av Elbereth’s herlighet,
glødende som månelysets skimmer på vann.
“Hvilket ord vil låse opp dets makt, min herre?”
Spør en smelter sanger med et respektfullt bukk.

Celebrimbors øyne løftes til den hvitstrålende snøen
over Dwarrowdelf og han smiler
«Venn. Innstøpningen er for en dør til våre venner.»

— Margrét Helgadóttir

Margrét Helgadóttir is a Norwegian-Icelandic writer and anthology editor (African Monsters, Asian Monsters) living in Oslo. Her stories have appeared in a number of both magazines and print anthologies such as In flight literary magazine, Gone Lawn, Luna Station Quarterly, Tales of Fox and Fae and Girl at the End of the World. Her debut book The Stars Seem So Far Away was published by UK-based Fox Spirit Books in 2015 and was shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award in 2016.  http://margrethelgadottir.wordpress.com/

Editor’s Notes: Ithildin was a substance made by the Elves out of the metal mithril and used by the Gwaith-i-Mírdain in constructions such as gateways. Ithildin could only be seen by the reflected light of the Moon and stars, and even then remained hidden until a “magic” word was said. The designs on the Doors of Durin were made from this substance. In the legendarium, Gandalf translated ithildin as “starmoon”[1].

Tolkien stated that ithildin is a Sindarin name, meaning “moon-star(light)”, “moonlight” or “starlight.” The word contains the elements Ithil (“moon”) + tin/tîn (“spark; star; twinkle of stars”). He noted that the correct Sindarin form should be ithildim [2].

[1] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, “A Journey in the Dark”

[2] J.R.R. Tolkien, “Words, Phrases and Passages in Various Tongues in The Lord of the Rings”, in Parma Eldalamberon XVII (edited by Christopher Gilson), pp. 39, 66

(Cited from Tolkien Gateway)

The composite image was stimulated by the line, “bowl to shine like stars”: a crystal bowl superimposed with an abstract radiant light source.

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Published by Associate Editor on November 30, 2016. This item is listed in Issue 32, Issue 32 Stories, Short Stories, Stories

The Executioner’s Correspondent

by Kathleen Brogan

When Dornan Blackthorne was twenty-three years old, he began receiving strange messages from an unknown correspondent. Dornan had just been appointed Master Executioner in the city of Telvannath, after eleven years apprenticed to his father, and had never corresponded with anyone in his life. His father, the executioner in a much, much smaller town, had taught him how to read and write via the Scriptures, but that had been for God, not for letter-writing. And letters, Dornan knew, were something quite different from what he was receiving. They were longer, for one. Two, you knew where they were coming from. Three, letters came by post, not in your private journal.

The idea for the journal came from his father. Grellik Blackthorne was a sharp old man, and he knew the trade as well as anyone. “Write ’em all down, the poor sinners,” said Grellik, “Mark ’em down with a date, the crime, and the sentence. Show it to the city when you need more money. Proof of work performed.” And so Dornan did. There was no more honorable an executioner than Grellik Blackthorne, Dornan thought, so he planned to follow in his father’s footsteps the best that he could.

Dornan did not notice his first correspondence until after he had completed his second execution in Telvannath. He had pulled his journal from the shelf and sat down at his desk, a rickety old thing in the cluttered, unpacked room where his children would live if he had them. His wife, Caralee, sat in the floor hunched over a copy of the Scriptures. The right side of her face was horribly scarred–an accident from her childhood. She was the blacksmith’s daughter, and had an unfortunate encounter with a piece of hot metal. She’d fallen face-first on a rack of cooling pots and pans, and from what Dornan understood, she was lucky to be alive. Caralee was much older than him–thirty-five, she had told him, but she wasn’t sure. Her marital options were limited by her scarring, and Dornan’s by his occupation. No one wanted to marry the hangman. Dornan opened his journal and glanced over the first entry he had completed.

1. Jorund Faxil. Theft, rape. Death by the sword. Guilty

The sword. He snorted at the memory. The man deserved death by the wheel. The man would’ve been drawn and quartered back home, but they didn’t do that in Telvannath because they were progressive. His father would’ve caused a fuss, Dornan knew, but the executioner in Telvannath didn’t have that kind of power. Everything here was decided by Senate ruling. Dornan was naught but the instrument of the Senate’s will.

Dornan was still thinking about that, and a little bit of what he might’ve done differently had he the power, when he noticed something underneath Jorund Faxil’s entry. There was a word there, a word he had not included in his original assessment.

Guilty.

Or perhaps he had included it in his original assessment? He looked more closely at the handwriting, which at first glance could’ve passed for his own, but upon closer inspection it was far too neat. Dornan’s handwriting was serviceable at best. Besides, why would he, Dornan, write the word guilty as an addendum to an entry? Of course he believed Faxil guilty, or he wouldn’t have bloody executed him! It was justice!

The back of his neck was hot, flushed, and he thought that maybe he should open a window. “Caralee, love,” said Dornan. “Have you had any guests over that I’ve not known about?”

“No sir,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“Someone’s mucking about in my journal,” Dornan said. “I didn’t write this bit.”

Caralee appeared beside him and set her copy of the Scriptures down on his desk. She leaned in close to read the word–she had awful eyesight. The smooth, unscarred side of her face brushed up against his. “Goo-lty.”

“Guilty,” Dornan corrected. Caralee was not a good reader, but she tried very hard.

“Guilty,” she repeated. “You didn’t write that?”

Dornan shook his head.

“Maybe it’s someone having a laugh,” said Caralee. “Sneaking into the hangman’s house on a dare.”

“Maybe,” said Dornan, but he doubted it.

Caralee stood up straight and placed her hand on the Scriptures. “Maybe it’s the Lord talking to you. Telling you you’re doing the right thing, and that Faxil’s burning in a lake of hellfire right now.”

Dornan snorted. He hadn’t set foot in a church in years. Not because of any reservations against the institution (he had his Scriptures and he read them daily) but because no one liked seeing the executioner in church. In his hometown, Dornan’s father had been told explicitly not to attend sermons because it made people jumpy. Dornan didn’t want to make any good church-going folk uncomfortable, so he stayed at home with his Scriptures. He sincerely doubted that the Lord wanted anything much to do with him. “I guess that’d be a good thing,” Dornan said.

“Put it away somewhere safe,” said Caralee. “That way you know you’re the only one writing in it.”

That, at least, was a good idea. Dornan carefully wrote his latest entry:

2. Gerard Wallace. Embezzling city funds. Death by the sword

And locked his journal in the box where he kept the money that he would send home to his father every month. Old Grellik’s eyesight was failing, and Dornan knew he couldn’t keep up the profession much longer. The pittance the town would give Grellik once the executions stopped would hardly be liveable.

◊ ◊ ◊

There was some period of time between his second and third executions. Dornan spent much of his time travelling back and forth between the Senate hall, located at the top of the escarpment that was the city of Telvannath, and Docktown, where his home was located. Every day he made the long trek from the bottom of the hill to the top, seeing if the Senate had any work for him that day. He was paid either way, and perhaps because of that he felt obligated to check in frequently to ensure he was completing his job to the Senate’s satisfaction. It was what his father would’ve done. He took to stopping by the cathedral on days that the Senate didn’t need him, again because it was what his father had done. “Church-goin’ folk don’t need a reminder of earthly punishments when they’re thinking of heavenly ones,” Grellik had told him. “But don’t let your Bishop be a stranger.” Telvannath’s holy man, Bishop Yelvin, never made Dornan feel unwelcome. More importantly, the frail little man seemed comfortable in Dornan’s presence. Perhaps it was because they had somewhat of a professional relationship–Bishop Yelvin gave the last rites to poor sinners before their execution.

Execution number three was Dornan’s first woman in the city of Telvannath, and also his first hanging in the city. It was a much more high profile case than his first two, and Dornan felt that this could really cement his position. In the days that led up to the event, Dornan worked himself up into a frenzy making sure that everything went off smoothly. He replaced the ropes in the gallows and then double-checked and triple-checked their integrity, using heavy sacks filled with stones. Caralee cleaned up his black leather armor with some oils she bought from the tanner, and she cut his hair. When Dornan had tried to go to the local barber, the man had shooed him out quickly, not giving him any definitive reason as to why. He didn’t have to. Dornan had seen the same thing happen to his father all of his life.

Elizabeth Baker, the poor sinner that Dornan would be executing, had been charged with killing her newborn child, caught in the act by her husband. As with the execution of 1. Jorund Faxil. Theft, rape. Death by the sword, Dornan was surprised that Elizabeth Baker was getting off so easily. His father had executed many women by the wheel, by drowning, even one drawn and quartered for the same crime. Not so in Telvannath. Elizabeth Baker was to be hanged.

Dornan did not sleep well the night before. He kept thinking of the journal, though he refused to look at it. If anything had been written next to 2. Gerard Wallace. Embezzling city funds. Death by the sword (which, Dornan knew, was highly unlikely), it could compromise the sense of calm that was so important for all executioners. He had to maintain the impassive face of justice. Any showing of doubt or uncertainty could not only end his career, but start a public riot.

At high noon, Dornan led the procession from the Senate Chamber, flanked by soldiers in shining metal breastplates and blue plumage. Back with the sinner walked Bishop Yelvin, wearing no armor except for the heavenly kind, his long black robes brushing up against his boots. Bringing up the rear of the party was one of the town’s Senators, dressed in judicial red, who would be pronouncing judgment on Madam Baker. The streets were filled with Telvannath’s citizens, far more than for his first two executions. Dornan’s suspicions had been right–this was going to be a spectacle. They passed midtown, where merchants tried to hawk ‘holy’ or ‘blessed’ items to anyone who would listen. They further descended Telvannath’s hill, coming back to Docktown. The gallows were built against the southeast wall of the city, where the tang of the river’s smell mixed awfully with that of the rotting corpses the city occasionally left artfully displayed across Dornan’s workstation.

Dornan ascended the gallows steps with Madam Baker and Bishop Yelvin. Despite the bishop’s soft, gentle assurances at possible salvation, she did not repent. Dornan suspected that was more from the fact that she could not stop crying long enough to form words. The crowd was immense, reaching past the field of Dornan’s vision, but in that moment he was not worried. He had prepared as well as he could, and besides, he had the most experience with hangings. They were the execution of choice back home. The gallows were better constructed in Telvannath, actually containing a trap door so that the executioner wasn’t required to simply push the sinner from a ladder. The only other difference was that the sinner was hooded which, as far as Dornan was concerned, was kinder to the children in the audience. The awkward way the dying kicked their legs was enough to cause nightmares. The eyes bulging, the tongue flailing–no one needed to see that.

Elizabeth Baker was safely conveyed into the hands of the Lord, Dornan performing a near flawless hanging. The noose gave him no difficulties, the trap door did not stick, and the poor sinner did not kick–well, kick more than was to be expected, at any rate. Dornan did not let his impassive countenance drop as the crowd dispersed and, once he felt the body was safe from any sort of mob behavior, he decided it was safe to head home. They’d remove Madam Baker in a few days, once everyone had the chance to see her. Dornan thought about his journal and felt a sense of dread and apprehension, though he told himself that was foolish. It had been a fluke, a one-off trick by some street rat. That was the end of it.

In Docktown proper, the streets were largely empty. People were probably still hanging about the pub, talking about the poor sinner and what could’ve possibly motivated her to kill her own child. When Dornan arrived home, he noticed that some of the shingles had fallen from his roof and cracked on the cobblestone street. He would have to get them replaced.

Docktown as a whole had a slapdash feel to it, built from whatever materials were travelling through port at the time, but Dornan was making enough money to maintain a level of upkeep that his neighbors could not. Dornan knew that he could probably afford a house in one of the nicer districts, but he also knew that would never be allowed. It didn’t bother him so much. His was a nice little house.

Caralee was inside, trying to read. At first he thought that she was looking at his journal, but of course she was not. It was the Scriptures, as always, and he immediately felt guilty for his momentary suspicion. Caralee was one of the kindest people he’d ever met, and she deserved better. He didn’t give a damn about her scarring, but everyone else had. Now she was stuck with him, the son of an executioner who had no other job prospects. No one would apprentice the executioner’s son. No one would marry the executioner’s son–no one, except sweet Caralee. She glanced up at his entry. “How’d it go?”

“Off without a hitch,” said Dornan. “Talk about it in a moment.” He retreated to his bedroom, where he kept his lockbox underneath his bed. He took the lockbox to his office, hands shaking slightly, unlocked it, and retrieved the journal. Underneath 2. Gerard Wallace. Embezzling city funds. Death by the sword, were the words Not Guilty.

The rage that burned through Dornan’s veins was like nothing he’d ever felt before. Not when a poor sinner broke his father’s wrist during an execution, not when he’d watched his mother’s body become riddled with boils from the plague. This was a personal attack. His lips formed words that never saw air, and he was suddenly sweating. It wasn’t his place to judge the sinner. That was the Senate’s job! Yes, he’d done it before, but not in Telvannath–that wasn’t his job. If he wanted to keep himself and Caralee in good health, why, he had to keep doing what the city told him. Besides, Wallace was obviously guilty. He’d confessed to Dornan three times under the screws, which he had done at the city’s behest. Who was this person to judge Dornan in his own journal? He was merely the instrument of justice!

Furious, he withdrew a piece of parchment from his desk and began writing some correspondence of his own. His father would know what to do.

I find myself in a situation that is perplexing and peculiar.

He had a dictionary and had to look up how to spell both ‘perplexing’ and ‘peculiar’.

I am keeping a career journal as you have requested of me, but someone is leaving notes in it.

He gave a brief description of the hangings, further consulting his dictionary three times. Dornan closed his note with his own suspicions.

I think that someone is breaking into our home and playing some sort of trick on me, though Caralee thinks it is the Lord writing these messages. This journal is well guarded and locked away. I would appreciate any counsel you could provide. With all of my love, your Son Dornan.

Writing the note had calmed him somewhat. He was giving this mysterious person what they wanted by giving into his anger. He shook his head as if that would actually clear it, then wrote the third entry in his journal:

3. Elizabeth Baker. Infanticide. Death by hanging.

Dornan didn’t know what he would do if this one read ‘Not Guilty’. He placed the journal in a pouch, grabbed the lock from the lockbox and its key, and made for the front door. “What’s the matter?” asked Caralee.

“I have to go to the locksmith,” said Dornan, not even sparing his wife a glance. Perhaps it had been her, after all. He didn’t know what to think.

“Another note?” she asked, but he did not answer her. He slammed the door shut behind him and set off at once for Docktown’s locksmith.

The locksmith was a man probably close to Dornan’s age, but the way his skin pulled tight over his bones made him look much older. Dornan hoped he wouldn’t turn him away like the barber. Dornan looked to the lock in his hand and realized he was still wearing his executioner’s leathers. He cursed inwardly. No chance of the man not recognizing him. “I need a new lock,” said Dornan, when the locksmith did not initially demand that Dornan leave. He seemed to be testing a tumbler mechanism, fiddling with a pick in the keyhole. “I think someone’s figured a way to get into this one. I’ll gladly exchange it for a discount toward a new one.”

“That was funny about Baker, wasn’t it?” said the locksmith. “Bring me your lock.”  Dornan was not eager to speak of 3. Elizabeth Baker. Infanticide. Death by hanging, but the locksmith continued. “Happy marriage. Why do you think she dunnit?”

“Who can guess the mind of a sinner?” asked Dornan. This was not a conversation he wanted to be having, and he hoped the locksmith would take the hint.

He did not. “I think–I’ll tell you what I think–I think that it was the husband that dunnit. I think he framed the lady.”

“I don’t make those kind of decisions,” said Dornan. “I just follow the will of the Senate.”

“Easier that way, I bet,” said the locksmith. He tossed Dornan a new lock, which he fumbled and had to retrieve from the floor.

“How much will that be?” asked Dornan.

“Two silver.”

“Two silver? Are you mad?”

“Two silver or no lock,” said the locksmith. His smile showed too many teeth.

Dornan grumbled but seemed to be without option. He handed over two silver to the locksmith, who inspected them closely.

“Thank you kindly,” he said, dropping the silver into his pocket. “Good work today, hangman. You did your job good.”

Dornan was still fuming about the price-gouging, but he had enough of a mind to remember his place. At least he hadn’t been refused service. “Thank you, good smith,” he said, his face becoming impassive only through years of practice. He returned home and locked the journal away in his lockbox with his new lock. He placed the entire box inside a larger box, which had some trivials inside–old dice, a hammer and nails, a piece of flint and steel, and the like–that he had not bothered to unpack since his arrival in Telvannath. Caralee came upon him there, in the space room.

“Another note?” she asked again.

Dornan snorted.

“What did it say?” Caralee asked.

He said nothing.

“You’re just doing your job,” said Caralee.

Her words echoed the locksmith’s, and he didn’t like it.

Execution number four was rushed through Telvannath’s courts because the poor sinner was considered a risk to both himself and others. His name was Marvin Addle and he was the closest thing the city had seen to a career killer in some time. He murdered women who looked like his mother, though from what Dornan could gather, she was a ripe old bird and he could almost understand Marvin’s frustrations. An unfortunate trio of black-haired, blue-eyed women fell to him before he was discovered by a stable boy, who had come to work in the early hours of the morning and discovered Marvin screaming at the corpse of his Master’s wife. The only reason Marvin was granted death by the sword was because the Senate wanted it over as quickly as possible. Dornan later discovered that one of the poor black-haired blue-eyed young women had been a Senator’s wife.

Marvin was a difficult case from start to finish. He babbled and flailed as Dornan’s assistants attempted to reign him in for judgment. He kissed Bishop Yelvin on the lips when the priest asked if he sought absolution for his sin (Bishop Yelvin took that answer as a ‘no.’) Dornan could hardly hear the Senator’s judgment decreed over the sounds of Marvin’s yelps. The Senator gave Dornan a helpful nod and then–in what could only be considered divine providence–Marvin stilled enough so that Dornan could give a clean cut. A good death. An excellent example of his ability to remain calm in the face of adversity. He considered writing that in his journal, though he knew he would have to look up how to spell “adversity.”

Following this particular execution, Dornan chose to accompany Bishop Yelvin and his assistants on their journey outside of town, to the mass grave where Marvin Addle’s body would rest. The Senators had insisted that his body be removed from Telvannath as soon as possible. Yelvin’s assistants sat in the back of the church’s wagon with the body, while Dornan sat next to Yelvin in the front.

“Bishop,” said Dornan. “I have a question, and it’s not going to come out right. I try to do right by the Scriptures, but it’s hard when I can’t come to church.”

“Ask away, Blackthorne,” said Yelvin. “And the Lord appreciates your efforts, even given your situation. Especially given your situation. You know that.”

Dornan ignored that statement. “Does the Lord speak to you directly?  Does he leave you messages that you give the church?”

“It is…” the Bishop paused. “A trifle more complicated than that. The Lord nudges my thought patterns, but he doesn’t give me words in the way that, say, he gave us the Scripture.”

“Oh,” said Dornan. The wagon creaked along, and the two men sat in silence for a moment.

“Don’t worry on it, Blackthorne,” said Yelvin. “Though he may not speak to you in a manner you understand, he guides your life in other ways. Especially you over others, as the instrument of his judgment.”

Dornan considered revealing his situation to the Bishop, telling him of the strange messages that no one else could possibly leave. But Dornan was afraid. The Bishop had close connections to the Senate and, well, if they suspected Dornan was mentally affected, then he would be removed from his position. What would happen to him then? And Caralee? So he remained silent, and looked on as the Bishop’s assistants unceremoniously dumped Marvin’s body into the stinking pit.

Instead of returning immediately home after his excursion with the Bishop, Dornan returned to the church with him and confessed. He confessed his desires for other women. He confessed his anger at the children in his community who threw horse dung at his windows. He confessed his doubt in the Lord and the judgments that he cast down on the poor sinners. Bishop Yelvin assured him that the Lord worked in mysterious ways, and Dornan agreed with that wholeheartedly. Yelvin gave him some special prayers to try over the coming week, and Dornan was grateful.

When Dornan finally made it home, dusk had fallen over Telvannath. He kissed Caralee and ate the pork chops she had made for him. She told him that his father had responded to his letter, and Dornan told her that he would check it when he was done with work that evening. He had put off the journalling long enough. Then he retreated to his office and locked the door.

3. Elizabeth Baker. Infanticide. Death by hanging.

Then:

Guilty.

He breathed an immense sigh of relief. The word guilty had never looked so lovely. Of course, the mystery of the correspondent still went unsolved, but Dornan had exacted justice for Elizabeth Baker’s child. The shaking that had stirred his bones since Marvin’s death ceased, and he rubbed his temples, feeling as though he could smooth out the wrinkles that had taken root. Then he wrote:

4. Marvin Addle. Murder (3 counts). Death by the sword.

He breathed in, and out.

He had expected being the instrument of righteousness to involve less anxiety. Already, he was wondering what the journal would say for Marvin. When would his bones begin to quake again?

Deciding that it was not a topic for the moment, Dornan locked his journal away, putting it in the same place it had been before. It was obvious that there was no hiding it. Dornan found Caralee, who gave him the letter from his father. It was short, and it was simple, like his father always was.

My dear Dornan,
Send your correspondent my regards. I have retired from the profession and am glad to finally be free of his incessant judgments.
                        G.B.

Dornan frowned and read over the letter again. And again. He checked the back of the paper to see if he had missed something, but he had not. He looked up to Caralee, who wore an expression of mild concern. He knew that he should apologize to her for having been so cross lately. For suspecting her of being responsible for this foolishness. She really was too good for him. “What did he say?” she asked.

He did not have a ready reply. He looked back to the paper and thought of his father, poor Grellik Blackthorne, and how the old man was to survive with the pittance paid to a retired executioner. “He’s retired now,” said Dornan. Maybe he could stay in Telvannath with him and Caralee. Dornan could clean out the spare room.

“Oh,” she said. “Did he say anything about…” She did not finish her sentence. The smell of the pork chops from dinner lingered in the air, and it nearly made Dornan sick. There was innocent blood on his hands, and there would be more. Innocent blood bought his livelihood.

“Someone playing a trick,” said Dornan. “Must be. No need worrying our heads about it.” He gave his best attempt at a smile and took her hands in his own. She raised her eyebrows at him, but did not question him further.

He wore the mask for the rest of the evening, the mask he knew he would wear for the rest of his life. It was not so different from the stern indifference he wore when working at the gallows. But it was a lie then and it was a lie now. What would be written underneath his name, he wondered, were it written in his journal?

Dornan Blackthorne. Murder, innumerable counts.

He never wanted to know the answer.

—«»-«»-«»—

Kathleen Brogan
Kathleen Brogan recently received her MA in English from Marshall University. She works as a librarian in Huntington, West Virginia.

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Published by Poetry Editor on November 30, 2016. This item is listed in Issue 32, Issue 32 Poetry, Poetry

George Tecumseh Sherman’s Ghosts

Florida, 1914

Most nights, you mention him,
the ghosts rise from the cypress
come back to wail and moan.
Haints all look the same,
can’t tell the whites from the Brothers,
‘cause the war took every one alike,
and some still stick around.

It’s been nigh fifty years, Granpappy say,
back when it was the Civil War,
and that man with crazy eyes came through—
old General Sherman and his men
took our food, our mules,
even our women along the way,
burning and blazing every field,
cotton or corn or sugar cane,
telling us we join up
so’s we’d be free, that’s what they said.

Granpappy almost starved,
beings how the soldiers got the food
and only scraps for the Brothers that survived;
still more drowned at Ebeneezer Creek
trying so hard to keep up,
a-marching straight to hell,
all the while still being slaves,
no better than the Reb’s to them.
But them haints, General Sherman,
they all look the same.

— Marge Simon

Marge Simon has won the Strange Horizons Readers Choice Award, the Bram Stoker Award™ (2008, 2012, 2013), the Rhysling Award and the Dwarf Stars Award. More at margesimon.com

Editor’s Notes: The superposition of solider statues on the base of the William T. Sherman Memorial in President’s Park (Washington, DC) in silhouette on a photograph of cypress trees (by blackmagic), all rendered in a ghostly sepia, complements the poem.

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Published by Poetry Editor on November 30, 2016. This item is listed in Issue 32, Issue 32 Poetry, Poetry

Dave’s Strip Club

I know it is only a synthetic shell:
False skin grown in a sterile plasma farm, sold
By the yard, shipped cold, pathogen-free, and
Uniform. Beneath it, there is an ordered consistency
Of gel pre-molded, and mechanistic mysteries
Indifferently coiled and calibrated
Against the entire range of tolerances
The present gravity and rhythm can stew up.
Deeper, there is a nano-carbon chassis,
Micro-motors, and anabiotic pulleys; with a battery
Compartment smack in the middle
Of that oh so wonderful abdomen.
I’ve seen them coming off the production
Line:  each private run of dozens to hundreds
Meticulously customized to the purchaser’s core need.

Imagine what stories there might be
If that sex-slinging gyndroid were fashioned
Of real, sweating, sinfully sugared flesh:
If her back could truly counter twist like that;
And if her cutthroat breasts had come with evolution,
And not simply been disgorged
From a frustrated engineer’s late night fantasy.
Imagine:  the orgasmic gymnastics
She and I as a fighting pair might accomplish,
Making any not-as-lucky ordinary man in sympathy
Glow sadism green and blue electric envious—
Eyes bruised beyond simple focus and his tongue
Acid-flat against a uselessly unclasped jaw.
When she’s done with me, I might find
My soul stuck in neutral, my condition brother to that of
Ordinary robots—robots terminally returned, once their wickedly
Thin effective service life has drearily expired:
Obedient, uncaring, and willingly scrapped for reusable parts.

— Ken Poyner

Ken Poyner’s latest collection of short, wiry fiction, Constant Animals, can be obtained from Barking Moose Press, at www.barkingmoosepress.com, or Amazon at www.amazon.com. He often serves as strange, bewildering eye-candy at his wife’s power lifting affairs, where she is one of the most celebrated female power lifters of all time.  His poetry of late has been sunning in Analog, Asimov’s, Poet Lore, The Kentucky Review; and his fiction has yowled in Spank the Carp, Red Truck, and Café Irreal, Bellows American Review.

Editor’s Notes:  The image, “Android Legacy,” was created by Oliver Wetter / Ars Fantasio (Deviant Art) in collaboration with photographer Louis Konstantinou and model Gianna Vlachou. (Copyright notice and disclaimer: You are welcome to share my work or repost it.)

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Published by Poetry Editor on November 30, 2016. This item is listed in Issue 32, Issue 32 Poetry, Poetry

A Grand Guignol Kind of Night

The right kind of night for
a theatre of the dark absurd,
an enchanted evening’s folly
for addict-connoisseurs
of murder most foul.

Shadows were gathering,
in the salon, the greenhouse,
the library of countless shelves,
dread passions soon released
in the night, voices raised
in anger, three screams,
the barking of a dog.

Morning would find
blood in the back garden,
a scimitar discarded
on the study floor,
the stoked remnants
of belladonna dreams
in the sunlit haze
of the unaired rooms.

On the screened porch
the chairs and tables
tossed this way and that,
broken glass and the
residue of spilt drinks
scattered across the tiles.

Bodies would be
trucked to the morgue
in the county meat wagon,
thick with the scents
of death and horror.

By noon of the next day
the slaughter and wreckage
will have streamed away,
furniture properly placed,
dead bodies resurrected,
shifting shadows restored,
prepared for one more
dark enchanted evening
for addict-connoisseurs
of murder most foul.

— Bruce Boston

Bruce Boston is the author of more than fifty books and chapbooks. His writing has received the Bram Stoker Award, the Asimov’s Readers Award, a Pushcart Prize and the Rhysling and Grandmaster Awards of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. His latest collection, Resonance Dark and Light, is available from most online booksellers. bruceboston.com

Editor’s Notes: Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol (The Theatre of the Great Puppet was a theatre in the Pigalle area of Paris (1897 -1962) specializing in naturalistic horror shows, often graphic and amoral popular from Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre. (See Wikipedia for more discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Guignol

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Published by Poetry Editor on November 30, 2016. This item is listed in Issue 32, Issue 32 Poetry, Poetry

A Nuclear Winter

Not from heaven
but from hell above us,
yellow snow falls. Pieces

of brown sugar, so sweet,
but my hot chocolate is not.
I need a teaspoonful.

“But uranium is not tasty.”
“Yes, but it can kill me
then I can complain to god
about hot chocolate.”

The next day, I wake up in my bathtub
with my nose bleeding.
I need to clean it up, I need carbohydrate
but the cafeteria only sells yellow cakes
today, day and night.

“Smells like vomited brown sugar,
made with saccharin instead of bananas.”
My roommate tells me.

From outside the bathroom window
a tree gives me her finger, a little ruby bud.
I touch it, so cold and firm. Then she asks me:

“How can my child and I survive?”
“Donate 10 dollars to the church”
I write on the mirror.

Above the slender shadows of trees
clumps of deserted bicycles lay rusted
everywhere, as if melted together.

“Where are their owners?
Above or below us?”

It’s so unfortunate,
Prometheus brought us fire
and that bomb.

— Chengyu Liu

Chengyu Liu came from China seven years ago and is currently living in San Diego. He loves poetry and doing research on biomolecules. His poems are published or forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Aphelion and Grievous Angel.

Editor’s Notes: A yellow-rendered bright snow starlight background and an atomic bomb explosion suggest a nuclear winter

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Published by Associate Editor on November 30, 2016. This item is listed in Issue 32, Issue 32 Stories, Short Stories

Eisin, an Eastwise Folktale

by Laura DeHaan

One sings the tale of Eisin, in her grave before her time
                 A grave made not of ash and earth, but hoarfrost and hard rime.

The tale they sing is false. It’s not the ice that holds the wench but the summer sun and the seaward breeze, and the love of a youngling fool.

I sing then the tale of the youngling fool, who fell in love with a maiden of ice and broke her heart thereby. I sing for her parents, the poor witless fools, I sing for the witch and her wretched assistance, I sing for the summer and sunshine and sweetness and I sing for the silence that follows a sigh.

I sing then this song.

Oldmother Taige and Oldfather Fallow had wished for a daughter a very long time. They had not always been old, but they had always been barren, and this was a source of marital strife. One could not even blame the other, for both were as sterile as swampwater boiled. Perhaps they went mad. Perhaps they were mad. For certain as summer, something had snapped.

This thing snapped in winter, as many a madness-related things do. The snows were thick and stuck like thistles, the wind was quiet and biding its time. Oldmother Taige and Oldfather Fallow scarce could open a window or door without a snowdrift drifting inside. With no way to leave and no one to visit, what else could they do but go out of their minds?

A daughter they fashioned from snowdrift and ice, a tiny thing first for she would melt and puddle into the earth. With perseverance (and madness— never doubt, this was madness) Oldmother and Old-father crafted themselves a lovely shining maiden.

By then the outside snows had melted and winter was merely a memory, but inside their home the winter remained.

Oldmother said, If we open the door, our daughter will melt.

Oldfather said, Then let us stay inside and die, so that our daughter may live. Is there a greater act of love than this?

And so Oldmother and Old-father stayed inside, growing weaker and weaker, their ice-daughter watching them with no eyes at all. They would have died, and should have died, but for the witch passing through the woods.

Most witches keep to themselves and their hovels, waiting for fools to come before them. This witch then was different, nosy and meddling, peddling her bargains at tuppence a head.

Misery and maledictions! came her cry to the winter-locked door:

Misery and maledictions,
Fortune-telling and predictions,
Quaffs for coughs and all afflictions:
Misery and maledictions!

The old couple heard this and made their lament:

Mercy, not misery, Wise One, oh Witch,
Succour and sustenance, salvage and scrap!
Mercy, not misery, Wise One, oh Witch,
Fold us in kindness, let love be your wrap!

The witch, she went to the door and knocked. Who asks mercy of a witch? she said. Who thinks they have the right?

No right, said Oldmother Taige, no right and no hope, but we are hopeless and have something to lose, and so we ask mercy, oh wisest of hags.

And what would you ask of me? said the witch, who knew better than to open the frost-rimed door.

Save our daughter, said Oldfather Fallow. Give her our lives, that she may live.

And what do I get? said the witch.

Oldfather had no answer, but Oldmother said, Take our memories before we die. I’ll not have my daughter living with the shadow of our sadness over her well-sculpted head.

Done! said the witch, and in a trice the ice-girl breathed her first and her foolish parents breathed their last.

The witch swung open the cottage door and gestured grandly to the outside world. Your inheritance! she said, and buried the bodies and swept the floor and started a fire in the crusted old pit. The ice-girl never moved, never spoke, never saw. She lived, and that was all, and so the witch stayed in the old couple’s cottage and practiced her doings within.

Those who lived nearby knew to stay away from the witch and her newly-bought daughter, but there would be travellers with more stuffing than brains, more romance than reason in their well-meaning hearts. They saw this girl, this beautiful cold creature who merely breathed and shone and did nothing at all, and they proclaimed that they would give her their all, for so beautiful a creature should not be cursed with the mere heavy burden of living. One foolish young fisherman gave her his eyes, one foolish young troubadour gave her his tongue, one foolish young roustabout gave her his movement, one foolish young cripple-boy gave her his ears. This left the cripple-boy with nothing of his own in the world and he joined the old couple in the bottom of the garden.

From herself, the witch gave the girl the name Eisin and thereafter largely ignored her. The girl was a gift-grab but useless besides; her voice was most pleasant but her songs passing dull, her conversation was limited and her intellect null. Still, she inspired the travelling fools, and the witch continued making her bargains and trades.

At last came along the most foolish of our travellers, a young man so in love with the idea of love that his every breath was a sigh and every blink was a bow. When he saw the crystalline form of Eisin outside, glowing and radiant and casting dancing drops of sunlight over the woodland floor, his sweet young heart burst and broke and scattered itself.

I love you, he cried incautiously, and her first response was a smile. She would have smiled if he’d called her a dunce or a sluggard or a sloth, but he didn’t know it and that was that.

Did you hear me? he said when she did nothing but smile. I love you. Haven’t you any response?

Still she only smiled, and the witch stuck her meddling head out the window and called to our youngling fool:

Flittering and flattering,
Not a thing is mattering.
Run and dance and smile and sing,
But she cannot do everything.

I care not for what she cannot do, said our Young Mister Foolish.

You should, said the witch. You spoke of love, and Eisin here hasn’t a shred nor a morsel within the whole of her being.

Then Eisin spoke, and our boy’s heart shattered anew: What is it, to love?

Our young fool gathered her hands in his. Cold they were, and slick and yielding; she smiled at him and murmured nothing.

To love is to replace yourself with another, said our youth. It is to take them within yourself. One who loves has a blessed existence; one who loves may never die.

Eisin looked to the witch in the window, and the witch, she smiled too. May I have this love? asked Eisin.

Our boy, he answered for the witch: Take it, he said, there is nothing else worthwhile in life if one such as she cannot love.

And what do I get? asked the witch. If she is getting your love, which is the only worthwhile thing, then what dregs do you plan to throw to me?

Take the rest, our boy said wildly, all that remains of me after, whatever is left I leave for you.

Barely worthwhile, said the witch, but worth enough. All right then, keep holding her hands and enjoy the feeling while it lasts.

And a surge, such a surge that our foolish young idiot felt! Eisin’s hands grew warm in his, warm and slick and yielding, plumped instead of sculpted. He smiled, she smiled, and the wider she smiled the less he cared, and the less he cared the more she melted.

Melted! Ah yes, melted; how else should this story end? When Eisin loved, she became truly human, but a human heart’s too hot to hold a figure of ice and snow. She melted, did our Eisin, and her hands ran to water in our youngling’s foolish grasp. The drops of sunlight became drops of herself; the tears she cried were her eyes.

I love you, she told our witless hero, and in the next moment his ankles were damp with her self.

I’ve killed her, he said.

The wonderful part, said the witch, whose heart was a stone full of maggots and holes, is that she never would have died if you hadn’t told her to want something that was not hers by right. Tell me, is it better this way?

Our boy looked at the water seeping into the earth, steam rising from pockets and splotches and springs, cooling and misting in the hollows of tree trunks, fading and fleeting and gone.

She will return in the rain, said our boy. In the morning dews, in the winter snows, in the water we drink and the tears that we cry. She is larger than herself, as love is larger than self. And he himself fell dead at that, for his life was for love and his love had melted, scattered to summer and the seaward breeze.

—«»-«»-«»—

Laura DeHaan
Laura DeHaan is a healthcare practitioner in Toronto. Her first novella, Becoming Beast, comes out in October 2016 with Grace&Victory Publications. You can find the lists of her other publications on her website I Am In Your Eyebrain, or follow her on Twitter @WritInRooster if you need to kill like five minutes of your day.

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Published by Associate Editor on October 10, 2016. This item is listed in Issue 31, Short Stories, Issue 31 Stories

Time Like a Rope

by Lou Antonelli

Time is like a rope.  –  Ray Bradbury

This is a story about how I traveled along a loop in the rope of time. It starts with what I was told by the little old lady in Pasadena.

Okay, I know you are hearing that Jan and Dean tune in your head. No, it wasn’t that little old lady. Yes, she was a little old lady, but she was English, and I met her in Pasadena, Texas. It’s a suburb of Houston, where I grew up. I was fresh out of the UT journalism school, on my first newspaper job. They didn’t trust me with any hard news stories back then.

The managing editor called me over to his desk. “We have a local hookup with the 70th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic,” he said. “There’s a woman living here now who is a survivor of the sinking.”

“Wow, how old is she?”

“She’s 82. She was saved in a lifeboat with her English family. She later married a petroleum engineer and moved to Texas. She didn’t like to talk about her experience on the Titanic while her husband was alive—she said it bothered him to hear about it—but she’s widowed now and living alone in Pleasant Estates.“

“That’s a real link to history,” I said.
He handed me a slip of paper. “Here’s her address and phone number. Her name is Nancy Atkins.”

* * *

Her face was a tracery of wrinkles, but her eyes were bright and blue and seemed to glow from within. She came from a good English family—her father had been a member of the cabinet of Prime Minister Asquith during the First World War.

She explained that one reason she had been happy to live in America was that she had a younger brother who went to Cambridge, became a Communist professor, and was recruited as a spy during the Cold War. He was exposed in a scandal known for the most prominent member of the conspiracy, a man known as Kim Philby.

Her brother fled in the middle of the night to the Soviet Union in the 1950s and was never heard from again. She said living overseas with her Texas husband helped her avoid the recriminations at home.

She and her other siblings sailed on the Titanic with their mother. She explained her father—a conscientious man burdened with Liberal Party duties—had planned to sail with them but was held back by work and sent the rest of the family ahead on a holiday to Upstate New York with a promise to catch up with them later via another steamship.

It was a lucky accident—the family was saved, for he might have very well been left behind aboard the doomed ship. “My mother never castigated him again concerning his work habits,” she said.

She had a clear, sharp, very British way of speaking. At times, with my East Texas ears, I would have to ask her to repeat herself during the interview.

We spoke for 45 minutes and she gave me a wealth of personal details and observations. She was a bright, curious young girl at the time, and it was a fascinating first-person account of a historical tragedy.

When we finished, I apologized for the many times I asked her to repeat herself because of our different dialects. She smiled. “Do you recall what George Bernard Shaw said about American and British English?”

“That the United States and England are two nations separated by a common language?”

“You’re well-educated and intelligent, young Mister Patton,” she said. She paused. “I wonder whether I could ask you to help solve a puzzle for me.”

“Of course, if I can,” I said.

“Do you know when the song ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ was written?”

That took me aback. “No, I assume it was written recently, it was the number one pop song last year. Why do you ask?”

“I heard someone sing the song on the Titanic,“ she said. “When it was on the radio last year, I recognized it. I hadn’t heard it since 1912.”

“I suppose someone took an old tune and wrote new lyrics,” I said.

“That’s the odd part,” she said. “When I heard the song on the radio, I recognized the lyrics. They didn’t make any sense to me when I heard them on the ship, though.”

“That’s impossible, Bette Davis was in pigtails in 1912,” I said.

“Nevertheless, the Texan sang the song to me and my girl friend.”

“There was a Texan on the Titanic?” I asked, a bit surprised.

“Yes, apparently he was a stowaway,” she said. “We saw him when the First Officer took him on deck, but kept him in handcuffs.” She frowned. “He died with all the others.”

“Ma’am, how could a Texan have stowed away on a ship that sailed from Ireland?”

“I have no idea, I was a girl of twelve at the time, and I didn’t think about it,” she said. “I’ve never a told anyone about this encounter, because it never made a whit of sense to me. I hadn’t thought of it for years, until I heard the song on the radio last summer.”

I pulled my chair closer to the table and opened my note pad again. “You need to tell me this story.”

* * *

She sat back down after serving hot tea for both of us.

“As I said, my mother, my older brother, my younger brother and I were off on a holiday to New York,” she said. “We were going to Saratoga. Another family we knew, the Davies, were also on board, and they had a daughter, Elizabeth Anne, who was the same age as I was. We knew each other from school, and we were constant companions on the ship.

“We were on the First Class deck when saw the First Officer with a man in handcuffs,” she continued. “The stranger wore an ill-fitting jacket that was obviously borrowed and was shivering violently, which we both thought was unusual. We didn’t feel it was all that cold, it was only 45 degrees that afternoon.

“The way the First Officer minded him, it was obvious the stranger was a prisoner who was taken above deck for some air. We overheard some nearby adults say that he was a stowaway, and from his manner of speech, a Texan. Then another officer walked over to the First Officer, who spoke to him briefly, and then undid his own handcuff and hooked it onto the railing.

“The First Officer followed the other officer through a nearby door and began to talk into a speaking tube inside. It was obvious he had been called away on an errand. As he spoke he watched the prisoner through a window.

“My friend Betty was somewhat mischievous, and she said to me, ‘Now watch this.’

“She took a few steps backwards in the direction of the prisoner, still facing me, and then called out: ‘Are you a real outlaw?’

“The man didn’t turn his head—he knew he was being watched—and said, ‘Ahm a prisoner of war.’

“He was heavyset, with steel gray hair and a receding hairline that was obvious even in profile. His eyes were coal-black behind his spectacles.

“‘You’re a liar,’ Betty called out. ‘You are too young to be an American Confederate rebel.’

“I was the leader in the Second Texas War of Independence,’ he said firmly.

“‘My name is Betty Anne Davies,’ she said, winking back at me. ‘What’s yours?’

“The stranger reeled off a long name that I couldn’t repeat or remember. It sounded like an Italian soup. He then added, almost as if to himself, ‘They put me here to die. They have abolished the death penalty, but they want me dead. So they put me here.’

“That startled me, and Betty, who said, ‘What do you mean by that?’

“‘You’ll find out this morning,’ he said thinly.

“The man was clearly unhinged.

“‘So your name is Bette Davis, eh?’ He pronounced it back like the American pronunciation, Davis not Davies. I don’t think he could hear the difference.

“Then he began to chuckle, almost maniacally. He said to himself, ‘It seems so long ago’, then and he began to sing to himself, low but clear. The tune was unfamiliar, the words nonsense.

Herr Harris hollow cold,
Herr lipser Swede supplies,
Herr Hansa nevah coiled,
Sheesh gat Bette Davis Ice.

“Betty Anne drew back to me. ‘The man’s a raving lunatic,’ she hissed.

“The First Officer was coming back out on the deck. We could tell he knew something was up.

“‘Let’s go,’ Betty hissed.

“The First Officer looked at us, and then at the stranger, whom he grabbed, and—after retrieving his handcuff from the railing—hustled below desk.”

“That’s the last you saw of the man?” I asked.

“Not quite,” said Mrs. Atkins. “Yes, we learned early in the morning what he alluded to, when the ship struck the iceberg and were all on deck, waiting to board the lifeboats. His reference to ‘ice’ seemed foreboding. While I waited with my family to board the lifeboat, I saw the man again, on the listing deck. He was clinging with one hand onto a funnel, trying to stay on his feet. He was no longer in handcuffs; I assume he was abandoned to his fate.”

“Did he say anything else you?”

“No, he was on the far side of the ship. He looked very cold and very angry.”

“Did he go down with the ship?”

“As our lifeboat pulled away, I saw him, still clinging to a handhold on the tilting deck, shivering violently. His mouth was moving furiously. I couldn’t tell if he was praying, or cursing.”

“That’s amazing, certainly a strange encounter,” I said rather lamely after a pause.

“I hadn’t thought about it for years until I heard that song on the radio,” she said. “Like you, I assumed it was an old tune with new lyrics, but then I recognized the words that hadn’t made any sense to me so many years ago. The pop song now has only made the mystery, as Alice said, ‘Curiouser and curiouser’.”

She smiled like a grandmother. “You’re a clever young man, and as the saying goes, ‘journalists are generalists’. Perhaps you will find an explanation for this.”

“I appreciate your confidence, ma’am,” I said.

But I never did.

* * *

I did later learn that “Bette Davis Eyes” was an original song, and it wasn’t written in 1981, but 1974. Kim Carnes just lucked out with the best cover, helped with some of the cutting edge electronic music technology in the early 1980s.

The few times I saw Nancy Atkins afterward, we never spoke specifically about the stranger on the desk of the Titanic. I think she was uncomfortable with the strangeness of the story, and so was I. Fact was, I’m not sure I believed it—until now.

* * *

Nancy Atkins died in 1991. She had told me Betty Anne Davies died during the London Blitz, while serving as a nurse. So I suppose I’m the only person alive who knows about that doomed Texan on the Titanic.

You’ve probably read and heard how, after the most recent election, more Texans than ever support secession or autonomy.  Texans don’t like being on the losing side of anything.

The supporters of secession, the Texas National Movement, has gained thousands of members since the last election. And its headquarters are in another Southeast Texas city, Nederland.

I’m the managing editor of the paper now. Our staff has been shrinking steadily in recent years now, thanks to the national Recession as well as turmoil and difficulties in the newspaper industry. So when I put a story on the Texas Nationalist Movement onto the news list I decided to do it myself.

I drove to Nederland and pulled up to the headquarters in a strip mall. The storefront office was a bustle of activity as volunteers assembled and mailed out membership packets. They all wore t-shirts with the TNM symbol that reminded me of the old Texaco gas station logo.

A young man walked out. He was heavyset with dark hair that was just beginning to gray. He had a burning gaze and coal black eyes. He held out his hand.

“Dan Millieriestri, pleased to meet you.”

Something went Ding! in my head.

“Did you say minestrone?” I quipped.

“I get that a lot in Texas,“ he said, “being an Italian-American. My parents immigrated to Texas after World War II.”

We walked into his office. “You can just call me Dan.”

He was intelligent, intense, forthright, and subversive—just the kind of guy to light the powder keg of a second Civil War. It was a long interview, and as we wound down, I had a thought.

“I want to add something by way of a humanizing touch,” I said. “All we have been talking is politics. Do you have any hobbies?  What do you do for relaxation?”

“Of course I spend a lot of time working with the movement, but you know the saying, All work and no play…” He laughed. “Sometimes I strum an old guitar, when I am trying to think and relax.”

He pulled a battered case from behind his desk and pulled out an old acoustic guitar that looked like it cost all of fifteen bucks in a pawn shop.

“I’ll just plunk away and play acoustic versions of old pop tunes. I like the ‘80s stuff a lot, they still wrote lyrics then.”

I played my hunch. “Do you know ‘Bette Davis Eyes’?”

He smiled. “Sure do. That was the Number One song the week I was born in 1981.”  He began to play. “I’ve memorized the lyrics.”

* * *

Back in the parking lot, I put my elbows on the roof of my car and my head in my hands.

Nancy Atkins and her friend thought the Texan was referring to “ice” with the song lyrics he sang on the deck of the Titanic—which was ironic in light of what happened to the ship.

They were not familiar with a Texas accent.

Our local pronunciation of “eyes” and “ice” sounds very similar—especially if you’re British, I suppose.

As Bradbury said, time is like a rope, and now I’ve travelled completely around this loop.

I remembered what the little British girl saw as the lifeboat pulled away from the sinking ship:  “He was shivering violently, and cursing or praying.”

It was eighty degrees on that late November day as I stood in the parking lot outside the Texas Nationalist Movement headquarters. Unremarkable weather for a native Texan—who would freeze in a snap if thrown into the cold North Atlantic in April.

I know how this story ends.

Some day, Dan Millieriestri will reach the end of his rope.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lou Antonelli

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Published by Les Weil on October 10, 2016. This item is listed in Issue 31, Short Stories, Issue 31 Stories

The Beast of the Modocs

by Scott T. Barnes

Bugs Alford stood in Milkshake’s stirrups and squinted at a shadow in the tall grass of field four. From atop his mare Bugs could see the morning sun reflecting from the snow on Crater Lake volcano twenty miles to the north, but the web of dikes, waist-high grass, and cracks in the peat soil made spotting a missing animal in the flats of Oregon’s Fort Klamath valley nearly impossible.

He might have ridden by her any number of times already. She might have gotten caught in quicksand and all he’d find is a smelly bubble gurgling through the mud.

Not a shadow, a black angus cow.

“Ho! Found her!” Bugs called to the other searchers.

Lucky she had fallen close to Seven Mile Canal where the road ran. They could take her to help if there was still time. And she’d need it—her head lay against the ground like she hadn’t energy to hold it up. She wasn’t sick last time he’d checked, which meant that something had gotten to her recently. Something…

Flies. Hundreds of them. Not so unusual in this bog country, but these rode her flanks rather than the small of the back where the tail couldn’t swat them.

Dead? No. He could hear a raspy pant. And the only stench of rot came from the tule reeds across the canal at the wildfowl refuge. Bugs slowed up until the rotund veterinarian Doctor Stewart, owner Steve Tuttle and cowhand Louise Hanford caught up on horseback. Following behind on the pumice-covered road a Ford Explorer raised a storm of white dust. Little Mai, Steve’s Vietnamese fiancé, couldn’t ride a horse to save her life. She drove or she walked.

Bugs fist tightened on the reins. Lousy luck, Steve’s first day as patron since his old man died and they had to put everything on hold to search for a missing cow. Six cowboys and the vet twiddling their thumbs, and a dead cow cost upwards of $1,200. Hard money in tough times. Enough to make a new owner run back to the city to work for someone else.

Probably the taxpayers.

Bugs pulled his .22 Remington rifle from the saddle holster, feeling the smoothness of the stock, the rough patch where he’d carved his initials when he was sixteen. It took more than a coyote—even a pack of coyotes—to bring down a half-ton cow.

They dismounted. Mai pulled up and joined them, her wide eyes darting like a nervous animal’s. Her flat, elongated nose added to her exotic appearance. Bugs understood Steve’s attraction, though he never would partner with a gal whose heart beat on pavement.

The cow didn’t flinch as Bugs knelt and shooed the flies away. Five precise cuts lined her flank, foreleg to haunch, as if a claw had raked her. Throat tightening, Bugs spread one of the cuts, a watermelon gash with the white of ribs showing at the bottom.

It’s happening again.

Steve staggered away and vomited.

“What, what is it?” Mai asked, trying to see around the men.

The wood and steel of Bugs’ rifle felt alive. The trigger, he knew, would yield with a pressure just so. Six years ago cows had started to go missing. And on that day the air had felt crisp like this morning, filled with electricity like the world was about to explode.

After mutilating fourteen animals in so many days, the Modoc Beast had murdered his pa and disappeared. Until now.

The reeds in the Wildfowl Refuge twitched. A flock of geese rose into the air. He stood and brought the .22 to his shoulder, sighting along the bead to the base of the reeds. His vision focused to narrow points.

Nothing. Too easy to hide. It could be sitting there laughing and he wouldn’t see it. But he’d come back with his hound and flush the thing out.

You took Pa, but I’ll make sure you never kill again.

Doctor Stewart was speaking into a palm recorder. “Subcutaneous lacerations, just touching the muscle. Hardly nicked the bone. Not deep enough to kill, only deep enough to bleed. There is no blood in the grass except right beneath the animal; my guess is that she was wounded on the spot and didn’t wander. Whatever tool was used was sharp as a razor.”

Steve looked better than Bugs would have expected. Enough to break an old cowboy, seeing an animal torn up like this, let alone city folk. Mai clung to his hand, a vein in her wrist pulsing.

“When did it happen?” Steve’s voice cracked a little.

“Late last night. I’m not a forensics guy.” Doctor Stewart tugged on the cow’s ear and the tongue protruded. “But she’s not dead yet.”

Bugs stalked back to the animal. “I’m sorry, mama.” He lifted his Remington and killed her with a bullet to the temple.

Mai shrieked.

The balding vet shook his head. “We’ve got to call the sheriff. An animal didn’t do this.”

Bugs mounted Milkshake. The mare twitched against his thighs.

“What do you mean?” Steve asked. “What killed her?”

“Not what,” said Doctor Stewart, “but who. Animals don’t cut so precisely not to kill. This is just like…just like someone wanted her to suffer.”

Just like six years ago.

Mai reached for her phone but Bugs waived her off. “Cell phones don’t work out here. I’ll call the sheriff from the corral on the land line. You can stay or go back to the corrals. It’ll take an hour before he gets here.”

Doc Stewart and Louise stared a hole in his back as he trotted along the dusty, pumice covered lane. There was a big ‘4’ painted on a sign on the canal side indicating the field number. The Klamath Oregon Wildfowl Refuge, a morass of tules and bog, bordered the canal along this entire side.

Bugs fretted about the sheriff. He’d ask awkward questions.

Your brother still in prison? He gets out tonight.

Tonight? Quite a coincidence. Yeah, but Spike didn’t do it the first time, and he couldn’t have this time. The Beast did it.

Where were you last night? Sleeping. Alone.

No witnesses? None.

Six years ago they had blamed his brother. But it’d be different with Spike in prison. They’d blame Bugs.

He kicked Milkshake into a trot and covered the three miles back to the ranch house before the sun cleared the evergreens of the valley rim. Pickups and horse trailers littered the parking lot, four wheelers jammed between them. A green canoe rested on the canal bank, probably Mai’s idea of a suitable mount.

He told the cowboys to run the corral sprinklers to keep the dust down. He tied Milkshake to a pole inside the barn and called the sheriff. Then he retrieved Wild Bill Hickok. The honey-and-white basset hound squirmed gleefully as Bugs set him on the back of the four-wheeler. Good old Hickok, always faithful. Always willing. He held his straw hat on with one hand and gunned it with the other, back to the crime scene.

“He looks so ancient!” Mai patted Hickok’s salt and pepper nose and got a licking.

“Hickok’s got the finest nose in the Klamath Valley.”

“Really, at his age?”

“Watch.”

The old hound ran circles around the carcass, then took off across the road and plunged into the canal. Bugs and the others rushed to the edge. Hickok swam in a great circle, mouth open in glee. Then he dragged his sopping self back up the bank and shook dry, drenching Bugs. His white-tipped tail wagged.

“I think he’s gorgeous.” Mai laughed with the others.

Bugs wiped the slime from his face, trying not to get angry. Maybe Hickok was getting too old.

* * *

Old Dick leaned over the wooden rail of the chute and zapped the cow with his hotshot while Steve rattled a plastic bag tied on the end of a stick. They hollered and rattled, rattled and zapped until the Angus’ eyes got wild. The black cow bucked, sending manure flying like sticky bees. Another zap and she backed up into the head of the cow behind, panicked, and charged towards the only opening: the squeeze. When the head flashed past, Bugs slammed the metal jaws on her neck, squeezed the iron walls over her body and swung the back door shut so no other cow could charge forward and kill Doctor Stewart, who had already shoved his arm in the yearling’s anus to the shoulder in order to feel her fetus without contaminating the vagina.

Bugs kept his hands overhead on the hydraulic levers in case something needed moving now. Next to him fluttered the schedule of which fields to gather which day.

Three hundred animals to go and the noonday sun had come and gone. It’d be dark before he could set up for Beast watch. Bugs ground his teeth and resisted the urge to yell at the others to go faster. Fast meant mistakes, and mistakes took time to undo.

“Pink eye!” Dick shouted, hobbling along the catwalk.

Bugs cursed. He hadn’t even noticed.

The yearling had a wound across her left eye which grew in from the outside like the Devil’s anus. Blood pooled over the cornea and dribbled to the ground.

“Open!” Doc Steward painted a white O on her back. Not pregnant.

Louise pushed her gun between the squeeze’s bars to stick the cow with five ccs of Eight Way. She wore a tee-shirt, jeans and manure-encrusted tennis shoes, and her curves looked fine.

Mai worked the other side. She wore skinny jeans, cowboy boots and a white tee-shirt that said Hanky Panky in pink. Her griddle cake stomach showed when she stretched up her arms.

“So Bugs. Why did the sheriff want to talk with you?” Steve’s attempt to sound casual fell flat.

Bugs grabbed the shears, clipped off the fly tag and wrote down the yearling’s ID.

“Because Bugsy has a history,” Dick said.

“Dick, don’t let your whale mouth overpower your hummingbird ass.” Louise’s twenty-something voice made the ancient expression hilarious. Her auburn hair muffined from under a 49ers ball cap.

“Well, he has a right to know. Steve’s the owner here. Besides, I’ve known Bugsy since he was a gleam in his father’s eye. I can talk about him, right Bugsy?”

Bugs wrapped his meaty arm around the cow’s neck and twisted it to the side. “Sure thing, Dickie.”

“What do you mean a history?” Steve asked.

“A few years back in Chiloquin—that’s a town, not a chewing gum—a bunch of cows were butchered up the same way as that one last night. The Indians said it was the Modoc Beast, some Indian legend.” Dick chuckled. “Maybe the buffalo god taking revenge on whitey’s cows.”

“Dickie!” Louise said. “Bugs has shaman blood in him.”

Dick caught Bugs’ eyes and winked. Dick, too, was half Modoc.

Mai arched her eyebrows. “Shaman? Cow torture? This place is a riot.”

“It didn’t stop there. It killed Bugsy’s father. I knew him, one mean son-of-a-gun. Brought up two tough sons. Course the sheriff said Bugs’ brother Spike killed him. Put him away for years.”

Tonight. I’m picking him up tonight.

“Perfect.” Mai jerked the plunger on her vaccination gun, sucking in the white vaccine.

Louise held the yearling’s eyelid open and dumped sulfa powder in the wound. The cow bellowed. “The Beast protects the land from trespasses.”

How is killing my Pa protecting the land? My Pa loved his cows more than he loved…anyone.

“Some PETA freak could have killed that cow,” Doctor Stewart offered, glancing at Bugs. “They’re willing to do just about anything to give ranching a bad name.”

Steve pushed his hat over his forehead. “Bugs, I have to ask, these being my cows and all, and you foreman here… Why did they blame your brother?”

Louise sucked in her breath. The jawing stopped. Time stopped. The lows from the corral sounded distant as Bugs’ heartbeat thudded. The revelations from the trial flooded back: animal mutilation, murder.

He confessed. He confessed! But he didn’t do it; I saw the Beast do it.

Old Dick dropped from the catwalk, walked over and squeezed Bugs’ bicep with a hand hardened from ranching. Compassionate. Warning.

The cow jerked her head, throwing Bugs to his knees. He rose, lifted the hydraulic levers and released her. The cowboys took their places.

“The Modic Beast killed that cow,” Bugs muttered. “And I’m going to kill that son-of-a-bitch.”

* * *

Bugs and Spike climbed back into the cab of the F150 after stopping at the Fort Klamath cemetery. Spike didn’t put on his seatbelt, and Bugs fumed at himself for not saying anything.

No conflict. Keep it peaceful.

“You always put flowers on mama’s grave?” Spike asked.

“A rose from me, and one from you. I use snowshoes if I have to.”

Spike snorted. His raven-on-skull tattoo stretched wide on his deltoid, exposed in his yellow muscle shirt. He flung his arm across the F-150’s bench seat, forcing Bugs to scrunch over the steering wheel. His jaw was square, solid, and covered with gray stubble, his neck muscles looked like tree roots. “So, what’s new on the Flying J?”

Bugs couldn’t keep the pride from his voice. “Dickie works for me. And Louise Hanson.” And four other cowboys.

“So Bugsy got his dream job—thanks to Spike taking the fall.”

Bugs didn’t permit himself to grovel yet again. He’d done enough of that in letters and phone calls over the years and it never satisfied Spike. He let the wheels whine over the asphalt of route 97.

“You giving me a job?”

Bugs hesitated. “We got enough people…”

Spike glared. “You told the owner about me.”

“Shit, Spike, everyone in the valley knows you’re a felon. When winter comes around you can build fence.”

“After all, I protected your ass, and you can’t even give me a job. You know they would have convicted you, little brother. I bought you six years of freedom.”

Bugs pulled an envelope off the Ford’s seat, fat with twenty dollar bills. “Here’s my last paycheck. I put a room at the A-Frame Inn on my card for two weeks.” He’d planned to say, ‘After that you’re on your own,’ but the words caught in his throat. He’s a felon now. Who will hire him if not his brother?

Spike slammed his palm against the dash. In almost the same motion he snatched the envelope from Bugs’ hand.

“I’ll get more, Spike. I’m just a little tight right now.” Spike’s unpredictability scared him most. He could go from laughing to rage in moments, as if his skin veneered over a hurricane. A year younger, Bugs took Spike’s wrestling title in high school, but he doubted he could do it now.

Spike protected me. By confessing he did more than all my friends combined. “I’ll talk with Steve about the job,” he allowed.

Spike withdrew the bills and counted them one by one. “Forget it. With cows being butchered I don’t want to be anywhere near the Flying J.”

How did he hear about that? Bugs tried and failed to keep his eyes from widening. He loves those mind bends.

Spike grinned sideways. The lone traffic light in Chiloquin flashed by, illuminating his face in ghastly reds and greens. “I got my sources. In prison, everyone has sources. Stop here. I need to stretch my legs.”

“We’re three miles from the motel.” And then he saw the glow up ahead. “I’ll just drop you off at the casino. No need to walk.” No need to pretend.

“Fine.”

They pulled up to the one-story building, its brightly-lit awning covering the driveway circle like at a fancy hotel. A group of forty-something women dressed like sorority girls staggered out of the automatic doors. Spike eyed them hungrily.

“Don’t spend it all. I don’t get paid again until next Friday.”

Spike grunted and slammed the door.

* * *

Arms crossed, Louise waited at the pumice road’s fork, where one branch led to the ranch house and the other to the aspen wood. Bugs stopped the backhoe and she climbed in, scooting him over with her hips and putting her feet on Hickok. Her hips were nice, firm and full, but whatever pleasure he felt from their contact disappeared from knowing she had come to lecture him. She had that look.

He put the backhoe in second high and rumbled ahead. The murdered cow the backhoe dragged by a chain spit up dust like a peat fire spit smoke.

“You think to lure the Beast to a blind?”

He tried his warmest smile. “Bout time for you to get home, Louise. It’ll be dark soon and we’re gathering field three early tomorrow.”

“We’ve got to talk.”

“Talk away.”

She frowned. “I’m not like your kid sister anymore. I’m twenty five, though you hardly seem to notice.”

He looked at her sideways. “Sure I noticed, but I don’t believe you came here to talk about your age.”

“That’s right. I came to offer you a job.”

“A what?”

“A job. You’re a fine welder and my dad’s welder just up and quit. You could make double what you’re making here. The winters would be easier. Besides, I’d like to see you. You could take an apartment in Klamath Falls…”

“Being a cattleman is all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

“And how long do you think this will last? That’s three cows murdered in three days.” She pinched her thumb and index together. “Steve’s about this close from closing shop.”

Bugs shifted up and they rattled over the bumpy ground towards the woods. Occasionally the road noise would change as they ran over diversions criss-crossing the valley.

Louise tapped her lips. “I’ve been thinking about that third cow. Whoever killed her chose a place a long way from anywhere. Did you look for tire tracks on the road?”

“No.”

“Well I did. There weren’t any. We drove the herd up the lane the night before, so if the killer had come in a pickup there should have been fresh tracks.”

“Um-huh.” The Beast doesn’t drive a truck.

“That means he either rode across the fields or through the Wildfowl Refuge. Across the fields is a twenty mile trip to Kildeer Road and you’ve got to cross the Wood River. Mighty risky for a man on a horse and too far to walk.”

“So the killer came across the Wildfowl Refuge,” Bugs said, interested in spite of himself.

“Either that or he passed directly in front of Steve’s house, and those gates are locked. Bugs, only you and Dick know that refuge well enough to ride a horse across it. Not many people could walk it, and no one would want to.”

Spike knows it too. But he was in prison until two days ago. “So you think a man on a horse risked his neck to cross the refuge just to kill our cow. Like that’s a lot more probable than the Modoc Beast.”

“Bugsy, either you take this seriously or…” She threw up her hands.

He couldn’t stand Louise staring at him from the sides of her eyes. “I know what I saw. My pa ripped to shreds, the Beast standing over him. I’ll never forget…it looked animal, bison-like, but partly human.”

“You were a boy; you saw what you wanted to see.”

“My brother never did kill him. He protected me.”

“My dad said your pa was mean as a whip—drove your mother to suicide and drove your brother crazy enough to torture cows—and murder his old man.”

Bugs banged his fist against the steering wheel. If she kept talking, if she said one more thing about his brother…

“You know what the sheriff’s gonna think?” He could feel the air from Louise’s words puffing against his ear. “He’s gonna think that you’re following in your brother’s footsteps. You better take stock of your situation and stop this Beast nonsense.”

He slammed on the brakes. The metal on the backhoe rattled and banged. Hickok barked in surprise. “Get out.”

“Think about what I said. Dad won’t hold that job open forever.”

“Out!” She had another mile to walk, but he didn’t care. She could walk barefoot on glass for all he cared.

She jumped off the tractor and he popped the clutch, leaving her chocking on a carcass-blown storm of pumice. He didn’t slow down until he bumped over the twisted ground between the aspens behind the ranch house. He left the carcass in the middle of a ring of trees as bait, parked the tractor back on the road, and then returned on foot with Hickok and his .22 to wait out the night. He regretted not being a hunter—he’d own something with bigger stopping power than his .22.

Too bad he’d fought with Louise. She meant well, he knew that, but the way she said things. He shouldn’t have made her walk, that’s wasn’t cowboy-like. He bundled the blanket around his legs, grateful that Hickok was there to keep him warm. He’d apologize next time he saw her.

The cold crept down from the mountains and chilled his hands until he wasn’t sure he could even pull the trigger. At least it killed the stench of dead cow. It recalled six years ago when he was out looking for a missing yearling with Milkshake while summer lightning flashed over America’s deepest lake, Crater Lake.

He’d heard a shout.

He shone his flashlight into the distance. All he could see was grass and the light’s reflection from the flooded fields. He spurred Milkshake but she reared. He yanked the bridle to the side and her front hooves came crashing down. “Move, come now.” He spurred again, she reared again, and he yanked to the side, forcing her to turn in a full circle. “Come on!” The third time he kicked with anger and Milkshake surged to a gallop. He leaned to the side and shone the light just beyond the horse’s hooves.

Then the horse stopped short and Bugs ate the horn and the light tumbled from his grasp. As the beam swung it illuminated the Beast: tall as the horse with a buffalo’s hindquarters and a bear’s head—but not claws. No, the Beast had human arms and white, white hands. And Pa lay at its feet, sliced to ribbons.

Then the flashlight flickered in the water and died. Bugs dismounted and ran forward, crying out, expecting any second to be stuck by the Beast. Pa was hurt. Pa was hurt. He felt with his hands until he found the body, tacky with blood. Lightning flashed and he saw his father’s eyes.

Bugs saw those lifeless eyes every night before sleeping. And they had blamed his brother. The cops interrogated Spike until he confessed.

They might have blamed me.

Hickok whined and stirred against his legs. Bugs blinked his eyes open. He hadn’t realized he had closed them.

“What is it?” The dog shimmied free and ran. Bugs felt on the ground for his gun, stood, and tripped on the blanket. He stumbled forward, losing sight of Hickok among the silver dollar, moonlit aspen leaves. Branches thwacked him, logs tripped him and a barbed wire fence ripped a hole through his shirt and into his side. In two hundred yards the trees began to thin, the land sloped towards the ranch house and the open parking lot.

Bugs kept moving. Lights blazed on the wrap-around porch. Then the Beast flashed into sight, two legged and bear-like. It crossed the lot in two strides.

Bugs dropped to one knee and squeezed. Crack!

The Beast stumbled and Hickok scampered into the parking lot behind. The stupid dog would try to take it down by himself. Bugs worked the bolt and fired off another shot.

“Steven!” Mai glared at Bugs from the porch.

Steve burst from the house in an open jacket and boxers. “What the—” he spotted Bugs “—hell are you doing shooting in my yard?”

Bugs tried to make the .22 look unthreatening. He gestured with his chin beyond the house, where Hickock’s yaps sounded fainter. “The Beast…”

Mai wore a white terry robe with one shoulder bare. Her hand sliced the air as if it could cut Bugs down from 30 feet away. “I told you we needed to get off this ranch and back to the city. Look at this. Look at this!”

“Go inside Mai.” Steve’s temples pinched with tension. “We’ll talk later.”

“The Beast… I seen him.” Bugs pointed stupidly beyond the house. Words jumbled in his head.

“You shoot a gun in my yard in the middle of the night? Don’t bother coming to work tomorrow.”

The world shrank to a pinpoint. Bugs felt his legs wobble. “But I seen him…”

Hickok scrambled around the corner of the house, sopping wet. He must have jumped into the canal.

Steve held out his hand. “Give me your keys, Bugs. You can pick up your paycheck after we’re through working cattle. You’re done here.”

* * *

The sheriff had wedged a card on the frame of Bugs’ single-wide trailer door and left two phone messages. Telling himself it was too late to call, Bugs drove five miles south of Fort Klamath to Mel’s, a bar-diner with dim lighting, country-western music and waitresses with tanning-booth grins and three ex’s each. Dick would be there, eating the chicken fried steak before heading home to his six PM bedtime. Like clockwork.

He patted Hickock on the seat next to him. “Good boy. You stay in the truck, keep an eye on things.” The evening mist created a miasma around the red neon Mel’s sign. He rolled his tongue around his teeth, hesitating. He hadn’t set foot here in years. It was fine, mostly. But Mel’s was a drinking establishment, and in cowboy country that meant fights. And Bugs being large attracted fights. The last time, the wiry bartender had hustled him and the other man outside in the middle of a left jab Bugs knew was about to connect… He didn’t remember much about the rest except being surprised to find himself in the snow. And losing.

Dick knows something he’s not telling. And with Dick, that was surprising as hell. Bugs grinned, thinking how easy it’d be to get the old codger to blab.

Inside, the neon beer adverts gave the mostly empty tables a red hue. Two TV screens showed the Steelers versus the 49ers, third and goal. Dick sat in the corner alone in his cowboy uniform:  buttoned shirt, jeans, a belt with an oversized buckle. Dick’s Big-R cap sat on the table next to him.

Bugs nodded at the bartender on his way over.

Dick scooted the empty chair out with his boot. “Bugsy. Tough luck with the job. You should have told Steve you were going night hunting…in his parking lot. What were you looking to get, Bugsy? Snipes are all holed up for the winter.”

Bugs turned the chair around and straddled it, leaning on the back. “I already got a job offer in Klamath Falls. I might take it.”

“I might too, if I weren’t so old. Louise’d make a nice catch.”

Bugs puffed air out his mouth. The old man knew more about Fort Klamath’s goings on than anyone.

Dick cut into his chicken fried steak, white gravy drowning the chicken and fries alike. The smell made Bugs’ mouth water.

The waitress twisted off a Budweiser cap and set it down without asking Bugs’ preference. Its smooth biters relaxed his throat and quelled his stomach growl. He normally skipped dinner to keep his weight down to an even 220. He gave her four dollars. “Dickie, I need help in corralling the Beast. I seen it last night in Steve’s yard.”

Dick sliced off another triangle of meat. “Lost another mama today from field six, cut up the same way. Steve’s letting us keep her for the barbecue.”

The Beast killed the animal in the field they were scheduled to work. I’m missing something and I don’t know what. “If we get a bunch of hunters out there we’ll get it. We can clear my brother’s name…

“Dickie, I’m desperate here. I’ve been thinking and thinking, and I can’t see the sheriff blaming anyone for these mutilations but me. At best, I am…was, the foreman there, and I let it happen. At worst, well, he thinks I’m crazy already.”

Dick leaned back and scratched his bald head. “You’ve been through a lot, Bugsie. Why don’t you take that job offer, get out of Fort Klamath for a while? Steve won’t stick around. He’ll sell the Flying J and I’ll put in a word with the new owners.”

Bugs stood slowly, feeling a hundred pounds heavier. “Dickie, not you, too. You of all people. You’ve always believed me.”

Dick took a second to answer—an eternity for the old man. “Well, Bugsy, I know you didn’t kill your pa. The Beast did it, sure as the hair growing out my nose.”

Bugs knew a conversation split, a place he could lose or gain some valuable insight. He chose his words carefully. “How are you so sure?”

In answer, Dick asked Bugs to bring Hickock inside. No worries, the bartender was a friend. Feeling anxious but curious, Bugs returned with the 30-pound hound squirming under one arm. He set him on his chair and stood behind, knuckles white on the chair-back.

Dick gave the dog a quick pat on the rump. “Good boy, Hickock. Now don’t take this personal.” Then he gargled something from the back of his throat, bobbing his Adam’s Apple, producing a throaty, inhuman noise.

Hickock’s tail stopped mid-wag. He sat still…too still, a rigor mortis-like stillness. Bugs touched him, and jerked his hand away in fear. The flesh felt stiff. The hound didn’t react.

Dick recovered his knife and fork. “When this started six years ago, they never found tranquilizing agents in the mamas. Now, how do you get a 1,000 pound animal to sit still while you carve her hide?”

Bugs blew on Hickock’s eyes. They watered, but the dog didn’t blink.

“You see, your pa neglected your history. The shaman magic started simple, freezing deer and rabbits, making it easy to hunt. The Modocs aren’t like the coastal Indians that could reach into the rivers and scoop out salmon. We had to survive in the evergreen desert of Eastern Oregon. But we ain’t only hunters, we’re warriors. Always fighting.”

Bugs felt panic begin to grow. Dick was killing his hound…

“And one of the shamans learned how to freeze people. Easy to shoot arrows into statues. Soon all the shamans learned. Modocs dropped like flies on poisoned shit. The tribe would have disappeared—”

“Dickie!” Bugs growled.

“Eh? Oh. Now don’t you do anything foolish, Bugsy. He’ll be fine.” With another inhuman noise, Hickock stumbled, falling face-first off the chair onto the stained, blue carpet.

“Anything the matter?” The bartender called from behind the counter.

Bugs knelt down and stroked the dog’s fur. Hickock, whining, tried to bury himself in his arms. Bugs wanted to tear Dick’s head off…but he knew, beneath his anger, the old man was trying to tell him something important. And he had already missed a sentence or two. The old man was still talking.

“…he gave up everything to save the tribe.”

“You said the shaman became the Beast?” Bugs asked.

“He used up all the magic he had, and all that of like-minded shamens, and turned himself into a spirit. Louise had part of it: the shaman hates trespasses on the land, cow killings and such, but that isn’t his purpose. He exists to kill anyone using the magic against another human.”

Bugs stood, hefting Hickock in both arms. The dog trembled. “I don’t know this magic. Pa never taught me.”

“Your pa was a shaman, and he got himself killed. Maybe he got in a fight with Spike and froze him. Maybe he caught Spike butchering cows. He used the magic and the Beast heard.” Dick drew his steak knife across his throat.

It made sense, the first time this whole craziness had made sense. “And the cows? Who is killing the cows?”

Dick leaned back. “You get yourself to the city, Bugs. Leave this mess behind. It’s haunted you enough.”

Bugs frowned at the old man. He thinks I’m doing this.

* * *

Bugs used his cell phone to call the A-Frame Inn. “Spike?”

“What does little brother want?”

“I need your trigger finger. Spike, I saw the Beast last night at the Flying-J. It was fast. But you can hit it. You can shoot a mosquito at 50 yards.”

He could hear Spike grinning. “I could shoot the mosquito’s prick off.”

“Yeah. It’d be like bagging Sasquatch. It’d clear your name.”

“Sure thing, little brother. Pick me up.”

No hesitation. No price. This is way too easy. Bugs returned to his single-wide and loaded his .22 and ammo, cammie jacket, flashlight, and Cheetos into the Ford. He slipped a Bowie knife and case onto his belt and checked that he carried the spare ranch keys, keys he’d return after this ended.

He owned one bolt-action 22, which meant only Spike would carry a gun. No stores were open at this hour, and none would sell him a gun if they were.

Whatever Spike’s price, I’ll know by the end of the evening.

* * *

They parked under the evergreens bordering the Wildlife Refuge. Spike insisted Hickock remain in the truck, saying that the hound would make noise. Bugs didn’t like it, but Hickock was mighty shook up. He relented.

They spread the barbed wire fence, climbed between the wires and went trespassing. Bugs leapt across the first watercourse and headed straight into the five-foot tall tule reeds. Spike called him back.

“The Flying J’s that way.” Bugs pointed west, his arm a ghost in the moonlight.

“We’ll follow the ditch so we don’t get lost.”

“I won’t get lost.” Within thirty feet Bugs fell twice into bogs up to his hips. He hauled himself out by the tules and returned to where Spike waited.

They turned to follow the ditch, Bugs trailing, red-faced and shivering. His cammie pants clung to his legs, chaffing them, adding drag. The shiny ribbon skirted the edge of the refuge. Then it intersected other watercourses and Spike began picking ones to follow. The banks were built up, more or less solid, and the moon-lit water made a trail of sorts. Crater Lake’s distant cone, shiny with snow, gave them due north.

Each mile took a good hour, a miserable cold, wet hour. Bugs’ face itched from the mosquito bites he got before the temperature dropped below 40 and the insects holed up. Spike became a shimmer of fabric. Bugs fancied now and then that he and Spike had gotten separated and the Beast tromped beside him. The thought would send a chill along his neck. He’d turn his head real quick and squint until Spike came into focus.

All their sloshing and grunting frightened the water critters into bolting, and occasionally a goose honked, disturbed from slumber.

Finally they crossed a bridge where the diversion poured into Seven Mile Canal. Bug’s key opened the lock to the Flying J. The manure smell here differed from the slime of the refuge. Drier. More civilized.

“Where’s the body?” Spike asked.

“I don’t know, exactly.”

“Then we’ll kill another.”

“No! We’re not killing any more cows. The Beast will find us. I have a feeling.”

They spotted a good blind, a stand of willows growing on the field side of the canal, and they flattened a hollow inside it.

Spike pulled on tight leather gloves. Expensive, but they wouldn’t hurt his aim much. “You going to give me the rifle? Seems I can’t buy a firearm, being a felon and all.”

As Bugs passed the rifle across his lap, hand on the forestock, a chill ran down his arm, the sort of alarm he got when leaving home without his wallet, only a hundred times stronger.

Spike checked the chamber, sliding the bolt with a well-oiled click. Bugs settled back onto his elbows. He’d made up his mind to trust Spike, right or wrong. The Beast’s fate now rode on his brother’s marksmanship. Still, Bugs’ right hand fiddled with his knife holster, snapping and unsnapping the guard, unwilling to be defenseless.

They didn’t talk much. A few words. The night sounds resumed, rustles, splashes, gasses long trapped beneath water and peat gurgling to the surface. “I put a bullet into him last night,” Bugs whispered. “Barely slowed him down. The Beast, just like I remembered. The human arms, the bear-like head.”

“Like a werewolf?” He heard Spike grinning behind the words.

Bugs kicked out his boot. “Did you come out here to laugh at me?”

“No Bugsy, not to laugh.” And then he did laugh.

Bugs began to make out cows outlined against the distant hills. Most slept standing in knots to fight the cold. Others browsed. Something crawled spider-like atop the canal bank, its profile barely visible. “There.” Bugs sat straight.

Its arms gleamed. The beast paused and peered at their hiding place. Spike eyed it along the sight, two hunters facing off. Then the beast scampered down and disappeared among the foliage.

“Why didn’t you shoot?”

“I’ll only get one chance, and that wasn’t it.” Spike brought up his knee to rest the stock on. “It knows we’re here.”

Sweat chilled on Bugs’ fingertips. “It’s patient. It has waited six years for this.”  A tiny breeze ruffled the grass. A satellite scooted across the sky. “The mutilations have drawn it out.” No, that wasn’t it. He tried to steady his breathing, to focus on the present. The Beast mutilated the cows. So why hasn’t it been doing this for the past six years, taking cows year after year?

Because the mutilations had drawn it out.

The Beast hates cow killings, Dick had said.

“What did you say earlier, about getting lost? ‘Follow the ditch.’ We’ve found all the animals close to waterways. Hickok jumped into the canal when he smelled the first cow. The killer follows the water. Holy Jesus, I know who it is.”

“Calm down, little brother.”

Something rasped through the grass. Bubbles from the sodden peat burst with audible pops, forced to the surface by a large mass, a mass that was getting closer.

“The animals by the canals, the canoe…it’s Mai. She wants Steve to sell out!”

“Bugs, snap out of this. That thing is out there and it’s coming for us.”

A sharp smell like pear blossoms wafted from the impenetrable grass, sweet and bitter. “Mai set me up. She’s been paddling her canoe through the canals. She can see the field numbers from the water to know which fields we’ll be working in. I got to stop her. I got to protect my cows.”

“Don’t talk crazy, Bugsy,” Spike warned. “This is our chance.”

The grass parted and the Modoc Beast emerged. Its bear head was massive, like some giant, New World Minotaur. Its eyes were larger than he remembered.

Spike squeezed off a shot. The Beast dropped away. It didn’t holler, didn’t make any noise at all. Bugs couldn’t tell if it had been hit or not. Suddenly he wasn’t sure he wanted to kill it. But he knew one thing. “They are working field nine tomorrow. We’ve got to go there.”

“This thing’s wounded and dangerous,” Spike said. “Let’s not go tromping off where we can’t see.”

Bugs stood. “Come on, we’ve got a cow murderer to catch.”

* * *

The landscape passed in a blur. Not because they ran hard—too easy to twist an ankle—but because the night turned everything gray. The Beast was a distant worry. Maybe Spike killed it, maybe not. If Dick was right it wouldn’t be after them.

But Mai would be dangerous.

Bugs opened the final gate. “The Wood River is the most direct line by water to field nine. With luck, she hasn’t even left the ranch house and we can set up an ambush.”

Spike carried the rifle over one shoulder. “Whatever, little brother.”

They strode to the river side by side. Bugs was keenly aware his breath labored while Spike’s had leveled off. There was no trek, only mud and deeper mud and tough slogging. They slipped and skidded until finally Spike walked on the dry side of the bank while Bugs kept close to the water, laboring through the mud.

He stumbled across Mai’s canoe pulled up on the bank before he saw her. Her tan clothes blended with the grass. Her black hair was a patch of night. She had a blowgun in her hands.

He took a step and stumbled. She wheeled towards the sound, raising the blowgun.

“Mai, it’s me, Bugs.” He spoke as calmly as he could. His damn boot was stuck. He couldn’t pull it free without a struggle.

Mai slowly squared her body towards him, assessing the situation with quick eye movements.

Then he noticed a black-baldie flopped on its side between him and Mai, its eyes rolled back. Not frozen by magic, but crumpled by a tranquilizer. To tackle Mai he’d have to go around it. He began rocking his foot back and forth, slipping it inch by inch from the boot, trying not to pull so hard the mud would make a sucking sound. “I’m not a talker, Mai. I can’t talk you out of this. You got to do it yourself.”

At the same time, he reached his left hand into his cargo pocket for the flashlight.

He heard a whispered I’m sorry. Mai raised the blowgun.

“You hit me with that thing, my heart will stop beating. It’s designed to drop a thousand-pound cow.”

Her chest expanded.

Bugs dove left. His foot wrenched free of the boot and he crashed to his elbows.

The dart passed harmlessly by, and Mai fumbled around trying to reload. Bugs pulled out his flashlight and held it at arm’s length, shining it in Mai’s eyes. She’d be blinded, and if she shot, she would shoot at the light…or so he hoped.

He climbed to his feet and charged.

Maybe she shot, maybe not, Bugs couldn’t be sure. He slammed her to the ground and heard humph as her breath was knocked out. He knew the sound from wrestling—the sound of victory. He straddled her with a knee on her right arm and shone the light in her face. She covered her eyes with her free hand.

Crack! His flashlight exploded. The shock reverberated up Bugs’ elbow to his shoulder. He gripped his wrist in his other hand, waves of pain flowing up radius and ulna.

“That was nice, little brother. You ought to apply to the po-lice.” Spike used a fake ghetto accent for ‘po-lice.’

“Let me up, you oaf!” Mai snarled. “Get off.”

“Do what the lady says.” Spike gestured with the rifle. “Mai and I go way back.”

Spike? Mai? Numbly Bugs shifted his weight. Mai stood and spit in his eye.

“See,” Spike said, “I had lots of time there to figure out what happened the night the Beast killed Pa. The Beast tolerates a few cow murders, but eventually it takes action. I figured it’d tear up Mai and you’d get blamed. This is even better. Now little brother killed Mai with his own rifle.”

“Spike?” Mai asked. “What are you talking about?”

Bugs figured it out faster. “Run, Mai. Run!”

Spike shot. Mai wore a confused look as she dropped, a bullet hole in her forehead. Spike reloaded before her body hit the grass. “It is cleaner this way. Cleaner.”

Bugs tried to keep his brain from shutting down, from being overwhelmed. He unsnapped the knife holster’s safety, hoping Spike wouldn’t notice. He’d not go down without a fight. “Why did you kill Pa?”

Spike’s eye movement said he did see. “All Pa loved were his precious cows. He drove Ma to hang herself. So I hurt them.”

“This is about Ma, about her suicide? My God! She was ill. Depressed.” But Bugs was developing a plan. He prayed Dick was right about the Beast. Bugs could beat Mai with a blowgun, but Spike with a rifle? No chance. Better to use his ego.

Bugs pitched the knife to the side. “You are such a coward, Spike. Using Mai to do your dirty work. You never could stand against me. You’ve been afraid of me ever since I took your wrestling title. Put down that rifle and see I can’t do it again.”

Spike laughed. “We don’t do John Wayne in prison.”

“Come on,” Bugs said, dropping into a Greco stance. “Put down the toy and wrestle.”

Spike laughed again, with less certainty. He tipped the barrel downward, and then he spoke the spell, a throaty gargle rippling through Bugs’ flesh, separating meat from nerve. Bugs observed his body from a distance, unmoving, helpless. Numb as a mouthful of Novocain.

Just as he hoped. The coward used a spell.

Spike lay the rifle on top of Mai’s body. “I don’t want the Sheriff to miss it. He’s kind of stupid.” With his gloved hands he stroked the hair off her pretty face, bent and kissed her cheek.

Come now, Beast. Let Dickie be right. Let Dickie…

“Now you pay for all six years of prison.” Spike advanced, fingers twitching with anticipation.

A bear-headed beast tore from the night, knocking Spike into the Wood River. The white arms gripped Spike’s struggling body. The bison-like back bunched up, and the back legs pinwheeled, hooves sharp as knives. The Beast roared…

Purple dots swam in front of Bugs’ eyes. He couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t expand his lungs. His heart labored, ka-thump, ka-thump.

Pa, if I survive I’ll lay a wreath on your grave.

* * *

Bugs saw Louise’s red Ram pickup parked in front of the Fort Klamath post office and whipped in alongside. The sign on the door read ‘Counter open Wednesdays, 10-4.’

Louise leaned her breasts against the counter, talking to the woman behind it. She straightened when she saw Bugs and the woman wandered to the back. “Bugs, it’s been a long time.”

He hesitated just a second, then strode forward and crushed her against his sheepskin jacket. “I, uh, don’t get to Klamath Falls too often. A lot on my mind.”

He hadn’t meant to say that. She might think he was looking for pity.

“I’m sorry about your brother.”

“It…brought some clarity. Spike was guilty, after all. Mostly.” Someday he’d tell her the whole story: Pa caught Spike mutilating cows and used a spell, forgetting the Beast in his fury. Pa and Spike paid the price, Spike going to jail and Pa dying.

Louise brushed snow off his collar and he realized his hands had strayed to her hips. “Sounds like you have a lot to talk about.”

“Yeah. Yeah, maybe I do. Did you ever fill that welder position?”

“You’re looking at him, best stick welder in town. Dad thought with the economy and all, best to keep the business in the family. How about you?”

“Dick’s in charge of the Flying-J until Steve finds a buyer. He hires me to fix fence now and again. Mostly me and Hickok stay home.” Bugs leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.

Louise frowned, but her eyes were smiling. “That’s awfully bold.”

“Sorry. You know, out here in the sticks we forget our manners.”

She turned the other cheek and pointed towards it. “Well, you’d better start learning. This one’s jealous.”
Scott T. Barnes

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