Rueful Regret Read online

  “So what did you do then?” Bass asked.

  “I asked him to make her stay,” Grimes said. “So he did. He fixed her so she could never quite rot away – not in her coffin, not in my memory. Not all of the meat maggots in Nebraska could chew her down into nothing, no matter how hard they tried.”

  Bass looked down at the coffin he had been lying in. He could see her clearly now. He could see the maggots working away on her flesh. He could see it growing back despite their darnedest chewing attempts.

  Sally kept on saying nothing.

  She kept beating on Bass with her grim silence, heaping her wordless fury down upon him, blasting her nothing and silence and emptiness straight at him like a stake driven straight through Bass’s aching head.

  “I don’t imagine you ever tried whiskey?” Bass weakly suggested.

  “Nothing helped,” Grimes said, ignoring Bass’s weak-assed attempt at humor. “Nothing helped but seeing you here scratching in the dirt like a poor fucked-up chicken – and even that is highly over-rated.”

  Sally nodded mutely.

  Bass looked down at the grave.

  It looked deep enough.

  “Well, is the history lesson and the chicken dancing and the worm picking finally over with?” he asked.

  Sally still didn’t speak.

  She just dropped something in the dirt beside Bass.

  Something that jingled when it hit.

  Bass looked at what she’d dropped.

  It was a set of shackles.

  “I had them made from your bounty money,” Grimes said. “It ain’t silver and there isn’t thirty pieces but I figure that it’s close enough to justice from where I’m standing.”

  Bass still didn’t get it.

  Sally finally spoke.

  “Tie yourself to her,” she told Bass. “She’s been chained around my heart for long enough. You keep her company for a while.”

  Bass stared in disbelief.

  Sally cocked the shotgun.

  Bass just shook his head, still not believing what was happening.

  He wanted to giggle only nothing was really all that funny anymore.

  So instead he shackled himself to the rotting unrottable corpse.

  “Snug it tight,” Grimes said.

  She had good bones beneath all of that rotting meat. Whatever Medicine Ass had done to her had sure turned the trick.

  When the shackles clicked shut around the bones of her wrist Bass snugged the other end onto his own left wrist. It was tricky, working with one hand as he was – but if Grimes could do it he figured he could too.

  “Now put her coffin in the grave,” Grimes said.

  That took some doing.

  “She’s your friend,” Bass complained. “The least you could do is help me some.”

  “She’s yours now,” Grimes said. “Bought and paid for.”

  Sally went back to saying nothing.

  Bass pushed on the coffin.

  It was hard work, being shackled to its contents like he was. His hands were in rough enough shape from rooting in the dirt. The skin was scraped raw and his nails were broken and a couple of his finger bones too.

  But he kept on pushing.

  When the coffin fell into the hole the weight of it damn near jerked his hand from off of his wrist.

  “Now bury her,” Grimes said.

  Bass didn’t even bother arguing.

  He clawed and rooted and knee-dragged the dirt back into the grave. He would have chewed it up and spit it out if he could. It should have taken less dirt to actually fill the hole, being as it was full of a coffin and all, but for some reason the hole seemed to need more filling than it ought to have took.

  Finally it was done.

  “Are you going to leave me here by myself?” Bass asked. “Chained to this dead woman?”

  “You aren’t alone,” Grimes said.

  Bass just shook his head in disbelief.

  “I kept the axe that I used on my own arm,” Grimes said. “If you are strong enough you can free yourself.”

  He picked the axe up from the wagon and threw it – just far enough away so that Bass wasn’t going to get to it easily.

  For a one-armed man he threw pretty good, Bass thought.

  “If you’re strong enough,” Grimes repeated.

  Bass just spit.

  His spit hit dirt and nothing else.

  Sally finally spoke again.

  “You might need this,” she said, throwing the shotgun just a little further than the spit. “In case you’re NOT strong enough.”

  And then the two of them – Grimes and Sally – climbed into the bone wagon and rode away.

  Chapter 19 – An Angel’s Benediction Misplaced

  Bass lay there in the dirt, waiting for the buzzards to circle.

  He tried reaching for the axe, but it was too far to reach.

  He tried reaching for the shotgun, next.

  It was quite as far as the axe. Maybe just a fingertip or two beyond his reach.

  For now.

  “Good to know,” he said to himself.

  After a time he tried talking to the dead woman.

  He told her everything that he remembered about his own life. He told her everything that he had did and the things he wished he hadn’t done and even a few things that he wished he had.

  He even told her about Sally. He told her how he and Sally had almost figured out how to feel something – only just a little too late.

  “I came that close,” he said.

  She never answered, much.

  The sun rose and set and rose and set.

  The ants worked away at what his bones had been wearing.

  It wouldn’t be too long before he started growing his very own suit of maggots.

  He wondered if maybe what Medicine Ass had done for the woman was working the same way on him.

  He tried for the shotgun again.

  This time he was just about a half of a fingertip away. His wrist was looser in the shackles and he could stretch just a little bit more.

  “Shouldn’t be too long,” he said.

  The sun rose and set one more time.

  He did not sleep.

  He told her his whole story throughout the night. He told her own story back to her – or at least what he remembered of it.

  She just lay there and listened which is sometimes damn near as important as fucking is – when it comes to making love.

  “This probably sounds a little different coming out of my mouth than yours,” he told her. “But I aim to get this down just as best as I can.”

  Then he tried for the shotgun again.

  He tried and he reached it.

  “I’m not sure just exactly what I am going to do,” he told her. “But it’ll be something for sure.”

  He lay there in the dirt, cradling the shotgun barrel.

  The barrel was warm with the heat of the noonday sun.

  He tipped the shotgun up.

  He raised the barrel and took careful aim at a cloud passing overhead.

  “Maybe God is hiding behind that cloud,” he told the undying woman. “Maybe I can catch his attention.”

  He thought hitting the old man.

  He imagined what it would feel like, shooting God.

  Then he squeezed the trigger. The sound of the shot echoed for a long time – maybe longer than any other shot he had ever fired.

  He looked up at the cloud.

  Had it parted?

  Had it moved, just a little?

  He was certain that he had hit it.

  He was sure that he had left some kind of a mark.

  Then the buckshot rained down around him. Some of it scratched him and some it just bounced.

  He lay there staring up at the cloud for a very long time.

  He could see a little bit better now that the sun was shining down upon him.

  He tugged at the shackle around his wrist.

  The shackle felt a little bit looser.
<
br />   He hadn’t eaten in several days.

  “It won’t be long,” he figured aloud.

  He lay there and grinned up into the uncaring sky.

  Up until now he had never noticed just how very much the sun looked like the moon, only brighter.

  A shadow drifted down over his face.

  He heard the ruffle of wings.

  It’s an angel, he thought.

  My own personal angel.

  He was still laughing, low and rueful, when the beak dug down into his eye hole and began to root.

  The End

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Steve Vernon is a storyteller. The man was born with a campfire burning at his feet. The word "boring" does not exist in this man's vocabulary - unless he's maybe talking about termites or ice augers.

  That’s all that Steve Vernon will say about himself – on account of Steve Vernon abso-freaking HATES talking about himself in the third person.

  But I’ll tell you what.

  If you LIKED the book that you just read drop me a Tweet on Twitter – @StephenVernon - and yes, old farts like me ACTUALLY do know how to twitter – and let me know how you liked the book – and I’d be truly grateful.

  If you feel strongly enough to write a review, that’s fine too. Reviews are ALWAYS appreciated – but I know that not all of you folks are into writing big long funky old reviews – so just shout the book out just any way that you can – because I can use ALL the help I can get.

  Also By Steve Vernon

  LONG HORN, BIG SHAGGY – A TALE OF WILD WEST TERROR AND REANIMATED BUFFALO

  *Bone Bits, Boogers and Walking Bastard Haunts *

  The bullet chewed into the meat of Jonah Walker’s dust gray horse long before he heard the shot. Jonah kicked free of the stirrups as the horse dropped. He tried his hardest to land on his feet, but didn’t quite manage the trick. He hit the ground like a sack full of busted bricks, smack dab in front of parched out buffalo skull. His ankle twisted and his knee sang out like a freshly skinned Siamese cat.

  He stared down at the buffalo skull.

  Big ugly thing.

  He could have sworn the dead hump bones were laughing at him.

  “Shut up skull. You’re dead and I ain’t.”

  If they were laughing, he was outnumbered. There was nothing out here but dead humps, as far as he could see.

  Dead buffalo, blown down to nothing but shiny white bones.

  Skulls and rib cages.

  Whole damn skeletons.

  Yes sir, the buffalo hunters had picked this range clean a long time ago. They had ridden through this country like a herd of gun toting locusts. They took the skins, and some of the bones that were close enough to the railroad tracks to sell for fertilizer. But way out here, this far from nowhere, in the shadow of the distant mountain that men call the Devil’s Anvil, they just shot the big humps dead and left them right where they fell. Which was probably what the booger that had just shot Jonah’s horse had in mind for him.

  At least he was still alive.

  The way he figured it, that put him way ahead of the hump skull.

  At least for now.

  He touched his knee, ginger-like. It felt spongy and warm. It was already swelling up, soft under his fingers, like the bone was wet and rotting. He didn’t think anything was broken. At least he sure hoped not. That horse wasn’t going anywhere too fast, and civilization was one hell of a long hobble-hop-walk away from where he was to.

  The horse kicked at the air and snorted red foamy snot.

  It wasn’t pretty.

  Jonah touched it with a fingertip - a thick pink gumbo of tissue and blood and half breathed air.

  Damn.

  It was a lung shot. That meant slow death and no coming back. He ought to finish the dang thing off, but he didn’t have that many bullets left.

  “I may need these last couple of bullets,” Jonah told the horse.

  The horse snorted.

  Kicked again.

  More horse snot.

  Maybe he could use his knife to open its throat. I could save on bullets. I wonder how long it’d take a horse to bleed out dry? Damn thing would probably kick him to death, halfway through dying.

  The horse stared up at him with eyes as black and flat as Apache tears.

  The damn thing was begging to die.

  Shit fire and save on matches.

  The beast had been a damn good horse. He’d stolen it three towns back. Horse stealing was pretty bad trouble, but need makes want when the devil rides for home, and at that time he’d needed a horse real bad.

  This was all that fat old sheriff’s fault, damn it.

  If that old badge holder hadn’t caught that bullet in his gullet in the middle of that bank hold up, Jonah wouldn’t have needed that horse so bad. Then that fool kid got himself shot, too bad to ride and fell off in the street with the money bags in hand, hanging head down from his horse, his ankle hooked like grim death into the stirrup socket. The kid’s damn horse had panicked. It took off, riding hard for hell’s far gate, bouncing the kid behind him, scattering nuggets of skull bone and brain gunk and all that Jesus dying money from one end of the street to the other, until Jonah had turned and plugged three quick shots into the thick of the horse’s screams. The townsfolk rose up like cat bit mad dogs, rooting in the street for the brain stained chunks of dirty gold and folding cash.

  Jonah tried hard not to think about any of those bullets pissing through horsemeat and into the boy. He tried not to think about what he might have been aiming for. Some things just weren’t worth the ponder.

  To hell with that raggedy rat shit.

  A man does what he has to. He takes what he needs, and eats what he can get, and tries not to ask too many damn questions in the doing of it.

  It was truth in spades.

  It was better to be the jaws than the meat, every time.

  “Feed and need,” Jonah said aloud, damn near scaring himself to death with the sound of his own voice. “Need and feed.”

  The horse snorted again.

  Damn it.

  This was no time for poetry.

  A decision needed to be made.

  He looked at the dying beast.

  It had been a damn good horse. It had only threw him the once. It didn’t eat much and the owner never came looking for it. Jonah guessed that whoever the owner was - he was too busy sifting through the brain bits and pocketing messy gold.

  What was the dead boy’s name anyway?

  Billy?

  Jesse?

  Jonah couldn’t remember. He was too busy trying to remember how many bullets he had left in his pistol. He never was much good at counting. He lost track at somewhere about four. And wasn’t that the sorry truth. It was the reason why he’d robbed the bank in the first place. He’d needed money. If he’d had some cash in his pockets before, he might have been able to afford the little luxuries that made life feel easy.

  Things like a fresh horse.

  Or extra ammo.

  Or maybe arithmetic lessons.

  The horse whinnied, soft and wet, like its lungs were blowing through a thick red mud.

  It was in pain. Real bad pain.

  Hell.

  Jonah sympathized. His own knee was burning like fresh caught sin.

  The horse kept staring. The buffalo skull stared. Even the dirt stared.

  To hell with it.

  He drew the pistol and put it up against the horse’s skull. Just about three inches left of the ear. One shot ought to do it. He held the pistol there for a long silent minute. He tried to think of something holy to say, before putting the horse down. Then he let his breath slide out in a whistling sigh. He wondered who the hell had fired the shot that had crippled his horse.

  He wondered just when he would catch up with the dry-gulching bastard.

  And he would catch up with that dirty damn hard shooting bastard - come hell or gully high water.

  And then, because he was thinking of something
else besides what he needed to say, the words rose up.

  “Good bye you brainless sack of windy oats. If I get half a chance, you know I’m going to avenge you.”

  That seemed holy enough.

  He squeezed the trigger.

  The shot rang out, damn near deafening him.

  The horse didn’t hear a thing.

  Another bullet whizzed home, tumbled and popped through the big horse’s gullet, splashing Jonah’s face with a slurry of dead raw meat.

  “Damn.”

  The raw meat didn’t feel nor even taste good. He spit and sputtered and rubbed his face into the chewy Texas dirt.

  Damn.

  He could have saved his bullet.

  That was an insult salted down on to injury – an insult that hurt worse than his busted up knee. Another shot whipcracked down from above. The shot slammed into the horse’s gut.

  Whoever was up there was making damn sure the horse stayed dead.

  Jonah flattened out like a fresh laid shadow. He belly crawled for the nearest bit of shelter. He spotted a couple of tombstone shaped boulders and middling sized saquaro, cacti, standing in the shade of a snarling old pizon tree.

  It wasn’t much as shelter went, but he made for it, cursing all the way.

  “Juniper britches hurlberry running trots!”

  Half way there the fourth bullet hit. It damn near took his nose off. He got a squintful of sand back-sprayed into his eyes. He didn’t stop crawling, just cursed a little louder.

  “Hell’s ringing bells, louder than dirty assed angel farts!”

  But he was grinning. Sand in his eyes, and Jonah was still grinning.

  He was hurting worse than heart broke pain, but at least he had something to look forward to.

  Revenge.

  He’d seen where those shots were coming from.

  A cloud of gun smoke drifted up from out of a patch of shadow halfway up the mountain, like the shade was stretching itself out. It looked to Jonah like the mouth of a cave, a long way off. Whatever that pigheaded booger was firing had a strong streak of cannon in its bloodline. A Sharps, maybe, or could be a trapdoor Springfield rifle – which would account for the slow rate of fire.

  “You pigfucking, dogassed, boogerhead. I’m going to get you,” Jonah promised himself. “And I won’t be polite about it.”