Unbury Carol(90)

“I’ll give ya ten seconds’ head start on those legs!”

“Ahahahahaha!”

Smoke was relishing. Smoke was alive. Smoke was…closing in.

    Moxie Moxie Moxie moo…

I’m so bored without you!



At the end of the fields the terrain changed, leveled, and Smoke saw better the torches and candlelit windows of the town called Harrows. His hamstrung legs dangled, numb and pained.

The horse whined for rest. But Smoke wouldn’t give it.

There would be no stopping tonight. Tonight Smoke was going to find the famous outlaw James Moxie…and torch him.

“Ahahahaha!”

The wood WELCOME TO HARROWS sign looked particularly flammable as he passed it.

    Moxie Moxie Moxie may…

Where in town might you stay?



Across the border, there were far too many tracks for Smoke to follow. Moxie could be holed up in any shadow, any locked hotel room, any brothel or barroom or bathhouse. The outlaw could be sleeping right here on the side of the Trail and Smoke might miss him if he wasn’t watchful.

Could be awake, too.

Asleep. Awake. Asleep. Awake.

Man of magic, why not both?

He guided the horse quietly along empty Main Street. No Harrowsers in sight.

Moxie, he knew, could be anywhere.

But Smoke found him in the graveyard.

He sang no songs. He imagined no fire. Hills became valleys and the valleys grew into fresh hills, and beyond the last of the Harrows homes, down the slope of a grassy hill, he saw the amateur camp he was looking for. The headstones were well lit by a very small fire, probably made an hour ago. The markers seemed to be able to dance with the flickering of the flames, as if Smoke were approaching a living cemetery, where even the stones might point him out, might cry danger. The big silhouette of the funeral home on another hill stood out black against the graying sky. The crosses, wood posts, stone memorials, and one-room chambers of the mausoleums fanned out beneath it like devotees, all bent at the knees in prayer.

Smoke whispered to the horse, “You make some crazy noise now and I’ll burn you, too.”

He focused on the fire, seeing now the two shapes beside it. One was the horse, and the other, yes, the other was James Moxie.

He looked smaller than Smoke thought he’d be. But legends had a way of making a man bigger than he really was.

The fire, Smoke knew, meant sleep.

Shoulda used one of them mausoleums, outlaw.

The flames were reflected in the windows of the funeral home. But no light came from within.

The horse’s hooves were silent on the grass and Smoke could read the names on the markers but he kept his eyes on the outlaw and the outlaw went out of sight as Smoke descended a small hill. He could hear the fire, could tell it was close to putting itself out.

Smoke rode the horse slowly up a last incline and stopped.

From where he observed, the headstones might’ve fallen from the sky, pell-mell, strangely artful in their chaos.

Lanterns flickered, framing the graveyard, but the only fire Smoke saw was the one by the sleeping man and the hole in the ground beside him.

Smoke looked long into the trees bordering the cemetery. Looking for anything that didn’t belong.

The outlaw didn’t move.

Smoke mouthed the syllables ma-gic but did not speak them.

The air was cool, the sky was dark, and untethered clouds passed before the moon.

Smoke dismounted, the sloshing in his shins quieter than the fire. He limped four paces and looked to the pit beside the outlaw.

A perfect place to bury a burnt legend.

Fingering the loops in his pockets, Smoke studied.

In a moment this quaint scene would be blazing.

He admired the outlaw’s fire. Moxie had done good work.

It reflected in the black of Smoke’s eyes, growing bigger, as he limped toward the sleeping outlaw and the grave dug fresh for Carol beside him.





Moxie heard the oil spilling out of Smoke’s boot heels but had no clear idea exactly what was making the sound or how it worked. He watched the man limp quietly, circling the open grave and sleeping horse. The Cripple had his hands in his pockets and Moxie connected that to whatever was happening at his feet. There was something awful about the way he walked, something that went much deeper than an injury.

He’d first seen him standing up on the hill, overlooking the graveyard, and understood by his dismount that this was the man following him. He looked lithe—Moxie had expected a bigger man—and he wore no hat and carried no gun.

The Cripple had a big horse, much bigger than Moxie’s, and the outlaw guessed he’d made stops of his own along the way. He watched him survey the scene, the thin silhouette illuminated by the full moonlight, up on the hill, looking for movement, looking for someone hiding.

Moxie was still.

Uneven steps on the soft grass and Moxie couldn’t see him on his descent of the hill. Then the man came into view again, his shape emerging from behind a giant stone, peering, pausing before carrying on, quietly, limping, stiff-legged, toward the open grave. The moonlight and stars detailed some of his features—not his face, not yet, but the folds in his shirt, the bulging of his pant legs below the knees, the slope of his shoulders, and the tilt of his hatless head.

Moxie watched the man slip his hands in his pockets and he wondered if the click sound that followed would wake the horse. It didn’t. He saw the triggerman change direction, carefully, walking no longer toward the open grave but around it.