William S. Burroughs (45 page)

The cow dances
offstage, and suddenly the audience realizes that the fire in
the backdrop is real...

Meet
me in Saint Louie, Louie

Meet
me at the fair

Don't
tell me the lights are shining

Anyplace
but there
...

The lights go on.
The music plays. Well-dressed characters stroll through the fountains
and booths and restaurants...There is Colonel Greenfield, and Judge
Farris, Mrs. Worldly, Mr. and Mrs. Kindhart...Walk-on parts, all
perfectly dressed models of wealth and calm self-possession...

The Director
screams out: "No, no, no! It's too stiff! Loosen it up, let's
see some animation. Tell a joke.
"

"Well, you
see the clerk is being nice. This old colored mammy wants to buy
some soap: 'You mean toilet soap, madam.
'

"
Oh
no, just some soap to wash my hands and face.
. .

"It's a sick
picture, B. J."

"Oh well,
the songs will carry it.
"

Meet Me in Saint
Louis, The Trolley Song, Saint Louis Blues, Long Way from Saint
Louis
...
They are turning off the fountains,
carrying the sets away.

"All right,
you extras, line up here.
"

"Look, I
told a joke. I get one-liner pay.
"

"You mean
you dropped a heavy ethnic. We had to cut the whole scene.
"
A security guard edges closer. "Pick up your bread
and beat it,
Colonel."

Train
whistles
...
"Saint Albans Junction."

"Which way is
the town?"

"What town?"

"Saint Albans."

"Where you been
for twenty years, Mister?" Just the old farmhouse
...
where
are the boys? There are no boys, just the empty house.

Denver
...
Mrs.
Murphy's Rooming House, a little western ketch in the station
...
Salt
Chunk Mary's, rings and watches spilling out on the table
...
Joe
Varland drops with a hole between his eyes
...
train
whistles
...
clear creek, weeds growing
through the rails
...
"End of the line:
Fort Johnson."

"All rise and
face the enemy!"

The Wild Fruits
stand up, resplendent in their Shit Slaughter uniforms. Each
drains a champagne glass of heroin and aconite. They throw the
glasses at the gate.

When
shit blood spurts from the knife

Denn
geht schon alles gut!

They stagger and
fall. Kim feels the tingling numbness sweeping through him, legs and
feet like blocks of wood
...
the sky begins
to darken around the edges, until there is just a tiny round piece of
sky left
...
SPUT he hits a body, bounces
off, face to the sky
...
he is moving out at
great speed, streaking across the sky
...
Raton
Pass
...
the wind that blew between the
worlds, it cut him like a knife
...
back in
the valley, now in the store being tested
—
Wouldn't
mind being reborn as a Mexican, he thought wistfully, knowing he
really can't be reborn anywhere on this planet. He just doesn't
fit
somehow.

Tom's grave
...
Kim
rides out on a pack horse. Kim, going the other way, heads out on a
strawberry roan. A rattle of thunder across the valley. Kim
scratches on a boulder:
Ah Pook Was Here.

Frogs croaking, the
red sun on black water
...
a fish jumps...a
smudge of gnats
...
this heath, this calm,
this quiet scene; the memory of what has been, and never more will
be
...
back on the mesa top, Kim remembers
the ambush. Time to settle that score.

Kim is heading north
for Boulder. Should make it in five, six days hard riding. He doesn't
have much time left. September
17, 1899,
is
the deadline, only ten days away.

In Libra, Colorado,
his horse is limping. Kim figures to sell him and move on, after a
night's sleep. He receives an early morning visit from Sheriff Marker
and his frog-faced deputy.

"So you're Kim
Carsons, aren't you?"

"So you got a
flier?"

"Nope. Just
wondered if you figure on staying long."

"Nope. Horse is
lame. I figure to sell him, buy another, and move on."

"Maybe you
better get the morning train. Faster that way." Kim took the
stage to Boulder, arriving at
3:00
p.m. on
September
16.

He checked into the
Overlook Hotel..."Room with bath. I'll take the suite, in fact.
I may be entertaining."

Kim took a long, hot
bath. He looked down at his naked body, an old servant that had
served him so long and so well, and for what? Sadness,
alienation
...
he hadn't thought of sex for
months.

"Well, space is
here. Space is where your ass is.

He dries himself,
thinking of the shoot-out and making his own plans. He knows Mike
Chase will have a plan that won't involve a straight shoot-out. Mike
is faster, but he doesn't take chances. Kim will use his
44
special double-action. Of course it isn't as fast as Mike's
455
Webley, but this contest won't be decided by a barrage.
First two shots will tell the story and end it. Kim will have to make
Mike miss his first shot, and he'll have to cover himself.

But Mike has no
intention of shooting it out with Kim. Mike is fast and he is good,
but he always likes to keep the odds in his favor. The fill-your-hand
number is out of date.

This is
1899,
not
1869,
Mike tells himself.
Oh yes, he will keep the appointment at the Boulder Cemetery. But he
has three backup men with hunting rifles. This is going to be his
last bounty hunt. Time to move on to more lucrative and less
dangerous ventures. He will put his past behind him, take a new
name. He has a good head for business, and he'll make money, a lot of
money, and go into politics.

It is a clear, crisp
day...Aspens splash the mountains with gold. Colorado Gold, they call
it; only lasts a few days.

The cemetery is
shaded by oak and maple and cottonwood, overhanging a path that runs
along its east side. Leaves are falling. The scene looks like a
tinted postcard: "Having fine time. Wish you were here."

Mike swings into the
path at the northeast corner, wary and watchful. He is carrying his
Webley
455
semiautomatic revolver.
His backup men are about ten yards behind him.

Kim steps out of the
graveyard, onto the path.

"Hello, Mike."
His voice carries cool wind clear on the wind.

Twelve
yards
...
ten
...
eight
...

Kim's hand flicks
down to his holster and up, hand empty, pointing his index finger at
Mike. "BANG! YOU'RE
DEAD"

Mike clutches his
chest and crumples forward in a child's game.

"WHAT THE FU
—
"
Someone slaps Kim very hard on the back, knocking the word out. Kim
hates
being slapped on the back. He turns in angry
protest
...
blood in his mouth
...
can't
turn
...
the sky darkens and goes out.

THE
PLACE OF DEAD ROADS. Copyright
© 1983
by William S. Burroughs. All rights reserved. Printed in the United
States of America. No part of this hook may he used or reproduced in
any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case
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Grateful
acknowledgment is given for permission to reprint a portion of "Keep
the Home Fires Burning" by Lena Guilbert Ford and Ivor Novello.
Copyright
1915
by Chappell
&
Co., Ltd.; Copyright renewed, published in the U.S.A. by
Chappell
&
Co., Inc. International
copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Library
of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Burroughs,
William S.

The
place of dead roads.

I.
Title.

PS3552.U75P54
1983 81
3'.54
83-8498

ISBN
0-312-27865-9

First
published in the United States by Holt, Rinehart and Winston

First
Picador USA Edition: May
2001

10987654
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