Fistful of Feet (23 page)

   Sheriff Doyle said, “I don’t understand.”

   The image of Calamaro laughed. “You’re not supposed to.”

   Betty and Stacklee watched the sheriff as he passed away, his eyes still looking into the direction of the empty desert.

   “Let’s go,” Stacklee said. Behind him, Bluford was standing stiff and nervous. All the violence he had witnessed this day was more than he had seen in his whole life.

   “Where’re we going now?” Bluford said.

   “Keoma, maybe. That is, if the Indians didn’t go there, too,” Stacklee said. He told Bluford to help him take the sheriff off the cactus. Then they started walking off, with Bluford dragging the sheriff’s body.

   After a few minutes, they saw someone in the distance. It looked like a woman in a dress. Stacklee stopped dragging Doyle and waved his hands. “Holy shit, it’s Kimama!”

   The Indian walked faster towards them, smiling. When he reached the group, he looked at the sheriff’s corpse. He frowned. “Death came.”

   Stacklee nodded.

   Betty said, “Can you help us bury him?”

   “I do not have my shovel but I will help.” Kimama motioned for them to follow him.

   Bluford said, “Can’t we bring him to Keoma and have him buried there?”

   “You want to explain how he was killed? They’re going to know Indians didn’t do it. Not like he’s all chopped up like the others,” Stacklee said.

   Bluford nodded.

   Kimama led them to a spot between two black boulders. “Here.” He started digging a hole with his hands and was soon joined by the others.

   When the body was in the ground, Kimama said a traditional prayer from his tribe. He held his hands up and covered his eyes. “Protect this man for he is not really dead but eternal. His spirit is alive. It is death that has died.”

   Then Stacklee said a short prayer he had learned from the church he went to as a child. “Lord, take the sheriff as your right hand man. He had a good heart even if the devil sometimes covered it with Hell-dirt.”

   Betty cried while thinking her own prayer.

   Bluford wasn’t religious and didn’t really know the sheriff too well anyway. He just kept his eyes down out of respect. So much death made him rethink his station in life. Being a professional cheat didn’t seem like such a productive way of living anymore. He thought that maybe he could learn to be respectable. Maybe Betty would open up a new business and let him work there. He’d have to remember to ask her.

   The group said their goodbyes to Kimama and then started off again, hoping to find solace in the town of Keoma.

   As she walked, Betty thought of Calamaro, the handsome stranger that had entered her town dragging a wooden donkey behind him. He had saved their lives and there was a chance that she’d never see him again. Betty didn’t want that to happen.

   Stacklee thought of death. He thought of all those people in town who meet their fates at the hands of those Indians. That was a shitty way to die. But really, was there a good way to die?

   Even if you spend your last earthly minutes in the arms of your husband or wife, you’re still leaving them for good and who knows for sure where you’re headed? Maybe there isn’t a Heaven or Hell like they tell you in church. Maybe you end up spending eternity riding on the back of a giant scorpion that keeps going in circles and you can’t tell him the right way to go because your mouth is full of dust.

   Or maybe you just end up becoming dirt. That’s probably more likely. All the dirt in the world is just the millions of people who died. That’s why you bury people in the ground so they’re closer to what they eventually become.

   Stacklee’s thoughts were interrupted by Bluford.

   “Hey Stack.”

   “Yeah?”

   Bluford lowered his voice so Betty couldn’t hear. “What do you think happens to people when they die?”

   It was as if the man had read his mind. Stacklee said, “I’m guessing no one knows for sure.”

   “Yeah, but what do you think?”

   “I guess we just rot until we’re dirt,” Stacklee said.

   “That’s a gloomy way to look at things, don’t you think?”

   “Well, if you get a better idea, let me know.”

   They continued walking through the desert, occasionally talking or stopping to take a drink of water. But they mostly kept silent.

   The journey to Keoma seemed to take forever as if the desert expanded its boundaries for the sheer purpose of allowing the three of them to reflect on death. Betty wondered if they’d ever make it. But even if they reached the town, at least she’d have Stacklee by her side and that made life a whole lot easier to endure.

CHAPTER FORTY

   Calamaro felt wary about Betty and the others walking through the desert alone but he hadn’t seen any other choice. He just couldn’t go with them.

   Now the town was empty except for the corpses of the townspeople who hadn’t been lucky enough to survive. It was worse than any of the towns he had seen destroyed by the war.

   Standing in front of the brothel, Calamaro savored the silence and stillness of the town. Though he would never get over the death of his wife and daughter, he felt good having saved people’s lives and killed some evil men. There was now a balance in Calamaro’s mind, something that he hadn’t felt in a long while.

   That peace of mind was interrupted by a voice behind him that said, “Hey.”

   Calamaro jumped. He turned around and saw the short, bald man standing right behind him. It was the same man he had seen the previous day, the man with the dead, milky eyes.

   The Hard Candy Kid.

   Flakes of horse flesh covered his clothes and his eyes were even more intense this time.

   “Hey,” Calamaro said. He was uneasy but hoped it didn’t show.

   “Never saw the town so quiet. It’s beautiful. Like a garden.”

   Looking out at the corpses of both humans and animals, Calamaro didn’t think the word beautiful was appropriate. He said, “The whole town’s ruined. Everyone’s dead.”

   “Yeah, I know.”

   Calamaro said, “I guess every man has a right to his opinion.”

   “You’re right about that.” The Hard Candy Kid looked at Calamaro and squinted. He said, “What the hell happened to your face? Indians get to you?”

   “No,” Calamaro said. “William Lyons did.”

   “I believe it. The guy’s an asshole.”

   “He’s a dead asshole now.”

   “Good.”

   The two of them stood silently side by side for a few minutes. There was no sound except for the occasional desert wind that whistled through the rubble of the town and the squeaking of jailhouse door as it balanced on its loose hinges. Then the Kid dug into his pocket and brought out two dark green candy-sticks. He offered one to Calamaro who declined.

   The Kid sucked on his candy while the two of them stood in silence again. Finally, he stopped eating and spoke.

   “You know what my earliest memory is?” he said, the candy sticking out of the corner of his mouth. “It’s of my father making me beat a dog to death. You believe that? Made me beat it to death because it spooked some of his precious horses. I didn’t find out till I was a full grown man that a father ain’t supposed to do that, you know? A father’s supposed to teach his son how to fish and hunt and take care of his family, shit like that. By the time I realized he was wrong, it was too late. I was already a mean little cocksucker.”

   “Sounds like the man was a bastard,” Calamaro said.

   “He was. But it wasn’t just him. He was the first who was rotten to me and then all the other boys my age were taller so they took to tormenting me. Even the fucking horses seemed to laugh at me. But I showed them all. Sure as shit I did.” He spat onto the ground, covering a scorpion in green phlegm. “You know, soon as I grew up, I realized that when I had a pistol I could make anyone do anything I wanted them to. You know why?”

   Calamaro shrugged.

   “Because all my life people kept doing that to me.” The Hard Candy Kid put another stick of candy into his mouth.

   Calamaro said, “Guess you had it pretty rough.”

   The Kid stared at him, grinding his teeth. The candy broke off in his mouth and fell to the ground. “Rough? As rough as I’ve had it, I’ve given it back to everyone and anyone. Men, women, children.”

   “Don’t forget horses,” Calamaro said. He realized that it was a mistake to say but he knew the man had a particular thing those animals and he couldn’t resist.

   The Kid cleared his throat and spat out another gob of phlegm. “You getting smart with me?”

   Calamaro shrugged.

   “Be smart with me all you want, cocksucker. That’s not going to make me go away. I didn’t just stay in this ruined town to make conversation with you. I’m here because of what you did.”

   Calamaro said, “And what did I do?”

   The Hard Candy Kid stopped sucking on his candy. The silence was abrupt and ominous. Even the squeaking of the jailhouse door stopped. He said, “You killed my brother.”

   “Your brother?”

   “Yeah. My brother Karl,” the Kid said. “But I guess you killed quite a few people since you’ve been here so maybe you don’t remember him. He probably didn’t seem that important to you but he was to me. He’s the only one who ever did a kind deed for me. He’s the one who killed my father.”

   Calamaro said, “I don’t remember your brother. You’ll have to refresh my memory.” He prepared mentally, visualizing his gun hand pulling his pistol out, pointing it at the guy, and pulling the trigger.

   “My brother was the one with the purple beard,” he said. “You remember now?”

   Calamaro indeed remembered the man with the purple beard, the one who was beating the girl in the hotel. “I remember.”

   Before Calamaro could make his visualizations materialize into reality, the Hard Candy Kid threw a punch so fast that he didn’t know what hit him until he was staring at the sky.

   “I’m going to give you the chance to fight back. You understand? That’s more than you gave my brother,” the Kid said, taking a few steps into the street. “I’m going to walk away and when I turn around, I want you standing up, ready to face me like a man. Can you do that, asshole? Can you do that?”

   Calamaro didn’t answer. He was already exhausted from the Indian attack and the punch just added to the wear on his body. Rolling over, he got to his knees as the Hard Candy Kid started walking away. When he was on his feet, Calamaro saw that the Kid was fifty yards away, standing on top of a horse carcass, his boots buried in the animal’s guts.

   “So, Calamaro, you have any more bullets in that strange gun of yours?”

   “Only have one left,” Calamaro said. “But that’s all I need.”

   The two men locked eyes and stared silently at each other. Their bodies seemed frozen in place. They were two men locked into a situation that had only two possible outcomes and both had to do with death.

   The Hard Candy Kid spat onto the dead horse and said, “It all comes down to this.”

   “Guess so,” Calamaro said.

   “That all you have to say?”

   “Yep.”

   The Hard Candy Kid pulled his weapon and sent a bullet through Calamaro’s gun hand. The Indian attack had been detrimental to his reaction time.

   “You stupid son of a bitch,” the Kid said.

   Calamaro cried out in pain, his fingers mangled from the shot. Another bullet ripped through his right shoulder, causing him to drop to his knees and cover the wound with his left hand.

   The Hard Candy Kid snickered and stomped his feet on the horse flesh beneath him. “You dumb fucking piece of shit. You’re a stupid asshole just like everyone in this goddamn town. Miserable piece of shit. You stupid son of a bi—”

   His sentence was stopped by a burp and a bullet.

   The Hard Candy Kid hadn’t even seen Calamaro pull his gun with his left hand, let alone aim and shoot it. Though the Kid was fast, he was also too preoccupied with name-calling. He also didn’t know that Calamaro often used his left hand to shoot as well as his right.

   Blood bubbled out of the Kid’s throat and fell onto his shirt. Candy-phlegm oozed from his lips. He dropped to the ground, his head landing on the dead horse’s intestines. His mouth opened, letting free his last breaths as he whispered, “Fucking horses….”

   The Hard Candy Kid was dead.

* * *

   Calamaro sat in the middle of the street, his right hand torn to shreds and his face still leaking fluid. He was convinced he was close to death. Surprisingly, he found that he wasn’t afraid at all. He was anxious.

   With his left hand he dug into his pants pocket and brought out a faded photograph. It was the first time he looked at it in months and it hadn’t changed. His wife in her dress, holding their child. Two beautiful angels. His beautiful angels.

   But now where were they?

   Betty said they were in Heaven and he hoped she was right. If that was the case, would he really be joining them?

   He kissed the photo and slipped it into his shirt, close to his heart. He fell onto his back. Staring at the sky, he saw Victoria’s face in the clouds. Then he realized it wasn’t a cloud, wasn’t Victoria’s face.

   It was the smoke from a corpse on fire.

THE END