Unbury Carol(72)

All these triggermen were the same. Pig pellets for brains.

When he was close enough to see the source, a small pile of bricks in a clearing, he did not see Smoke anywhere near it. Bunny stepped lightly through the woods.

Hiding behind the trunk of a big tree, Bunny waited. Smoke would return. Whatever he was doing here didn’t make any sense and so he’d return and make sense of it. Sweat fell from Bunny’s thin hair. He scanned the woods surrounding the small fire and then saw something inside the fire that made him look closer. Smoke, it looked like, was burning something after all. Whatever it was, Bunny wanted to see it. It wasn’t even a matter of informing Lafayette. Bunny just wanted to know. He stepped quietly from around the trunk and thought he saw it was a playing card, the Two of Storms, when he tripped, his black boot connecting with something that sounded like tin.

He grunted as he fell. A stick jabbed him in the nose and his knee hit a rock but none of this registered as quickly as the slick boot heel upon his throat, threatening to crush him.

In the soft sunlight and shadows, Bunny saw Smoke above him.

“You following me, Bunny?”

Bunny couldn’t talk. He gagged and his face was red and with his hands he tried to move Smoke’s heel but couldn’t. He kicked and flailed and Smoke pressed harder.

“Stay still, Bunny.”

The smell of burning oil choked him and Smoke’s boot choked him and Bunny’s face was changing from red to purple quick.

“You want a drink, Bunny?”

Smoke slid his boot along Bunny’s throat until the tip was pressing hard on the apple. Saliva sloshed out the sides of Bunny’s mouth.

“You do wanna drink, don’t you.”

Smoke turned until the boot heel was over Bunny’s mouth. Then he fingered the string in his pocket and pulled.

The fresh oil came fast, thick, and filled Bunny’s open mouth.

The Trail-watcher writhed and gurgled beneath it, trying to scream. His small hands gripped the tin-shin. Oil pooled on the ground surrounding his head.

“I need your help on a couple of things, Bunny,” Smoke said.

Choking, Bunny spit as much out as he could.

Smoke slid his boot again, and now the heel was back on Bunny’s throat. Bunny looked up at the triggerman through glasses wet with oil. Despite his desperation, he couldn’t help but notice Smoke’s hair, half cut.

“I’ve been seeing two sets of tracks,” Smoke said, “when there should only be one. You with the outlaw?” Then Smoke looked up, to the sky, as if thinking. “But that don’t make sense, does it. You’re right here with me. Any idea who those second tracks belong to?”

Bunny struggled but Smoke eased the pressure enough to let him speak.

“There’s a hundred set of tracks on the Trail!” Bunny blurted. “You pig-shit fool!”

Smoke reapplied the pressure. “A pig-shitter? Me? Might be. Might be so. You think I’m…overthinking, Bunny?”

Bunny gargled a bundle of throaty syllables.

“Might be,” Smoke said. “Might be so.”

“Get offa me!” Bunny was able to say.

Smoke shook his head no. “I told you I needed your help on a couple of things. That means I got one more request. That okay, Bunny?”

Bunny struggled to nod.

“Do this pig-shitter fool a favor, Edward, will you?”

Flame came to life between Smoke’s fingers, and Bunny’s eyes grew wide.

“Will you?”

Bunny wiped oil from his face with his hands.

“Tell me which cards represent the men who took my legs.”

Garbled syllables came forth in answer, and Smoke eased the pressure on Bunny’s neck.

“Say it again, Bunny.”

The woods were quiet save the struggle. Smoke listened very close.

“And?”

Again, leaning closer, bending at the waist, Smoke only listened.

“And? And?”

After Bunny was through, Smoke did not smile. He did not sing or howl or rhyme. With his boot still hard on Bunny’s throat, he bent forward and took hold of the deck of cards in the secret pocket of Edward Bunny’s brown jacket. Bunny struggled but Smoke had no trouble tearing it loose. Then he rose to standing again and held the cards before him, leafing through the yellowed deck, stopping at the four cards Bunny had struggled to name. They were all four of them the same suit, Knives, and they were all four of them together in a row.

“You don’t drink,” Smoke said, looking again at the red face beneath his boot.

Bunny couldn’t respond. He couldn’t do anything but look up at one of the dozens of pig-shitters who needed someone like him to watch over them.

“Let me buy you one, anyhow.”

A fresh match came to life between Smoke’s fingertips. Bunny tried to scream.

The oil glistened on Bunny’s lips and teeth. Smoke removed his boot heel at last.

As the blessed gust of oxygen entered Bunny’s throat, Smoke let the match fall.





Dwight saw the silhouette in the distance but couldn’t tell who it was. A conclave of cardinals rose from in front of the horse’s hooves, a red curtain appearing then pulled aside as the birds settled on the thick branches of the willows lining the Trail.

The silhouette remained upon its horse.