Unbury Carol(91)
Soon he understood the man was describing a circle.
The sloshing sound, the oozing of something wet: Moxie couldn’t be sure what that was.
One revolution complete, the man began another, a second circle within the first, breaking the pattern to connect the two circles he’d made. He was good at what he did, Moxie understood; at times he couldn’t hear the man moving at all.
The second circle finished, the man began a third, an arc that would bring him very close to Old Girl, sleeping soundly yet. He limped slowly, patient. Something a little bit gray was added to the sky and something a little bit black was taken away. He’d passed the mare and was at the foot of the grave when Moxie heard the mare stir and lift its head and look to the limping man. Moxie watched them both.
The Cripple turned his head to the horse.
The horse, docile, made no move and the triggerman continued, not taking his eyes off the beast. His steps got smaller but so did the circumference of the circle, and it took him just as long to complete the third as it had the first.
On the fourth round Moxie smelled it. A wind crossed close to the ground of the graveyard and brought to him the inimitable smell of oil. The man, he understood, planned to burn him and his horse. He looked to the shins again and the picture was almost complete.
Whatever had happened to the man’s legs, he’d made up for it.
Moxie did not move.
The Cripple limped to the sleeping outlaw. He balanced on one boot, raised the other carefully, and let the oil drip onto the legend’s shirt and pants. Moxie watched the triggerman limp quietly out of the four circles, to the border of pine trees that guarded the graveyard. Moxie heard another soft click as the boot heels closed again. The Cripple turned to observe his work.
He reached a hand into his pocket and removed a small box. A flame came to life between his fingertips, and Moxie heard him whisper-sing,
This is the Where, outlaw, and this is the When…
This is how it looks when you get to the end.
The he let the match fall to the oil…
* * *
—
…Smoke stopped when he heard the mare lift her head. He was near the foot of the open hole and he turned to see the beast staring at him. The outlaw was sleeping to Smoke’s left and he didn’t want the horse to wake him. He held its gaze for a long time before continuing with the fourth circle. What Smoke would like to see was the rickety beast get up and try to run through four rings of fire.
The legend was going to burn and Smoke smiled with some humor. What a thing to wake to. What an end.
Smoke limped to the side of the sleeping outlaw.
The moonlight gave strange contours to the outlaw’s face. The fire by the grave was almost out, but it flickered a brief shadow on the outlaw’s chin and Smoke mistook it for movement. He waited. A wind came and the fire moved again and Smoke saw it was shadows after all.
The dark face remained still, sleeping.
Smoke balanced on one boot and raised the other slowly, his finger still in the loop in his left pocket. The oil flowed in a thin neat line, and Smoke knew he didn’t have much left. It didn’t matter. He had enough. What sounded good was removing his shin and pouring the rest down the sleeping man’s throat.
The oil circles were set. And they were connected now to the outlaw’s shirt and pants. Once he caught, where would he go?
The outlaw didn’t wake. Smoke understood that the myths, the legendary stories, had happened back when James Moxie’s mind was much sharper than it was tonight. That glory was got a long time ago. The legend, his clothes in oil, his horse too tired to address a stranger…
…truly…in person…there was nothing to him at all.
Smoke limped into the shadows of the pine trees that framed the graveyard and turned to look at what he’d made.
It was magisterial.
Moxie would wake aflame and run stumbling into the grave he slept beside. Smoke thought he might just get himself a shovel and bury the myth himself.
He reached into his pocket and took out the small box and brought fire to life off his fingernail.
He whisper-sang a song:
This is the Where, outlaw, and this is the When
This is how it looks when you get to the end.
He let the match fall.
The outlaw sat up long before the first ring caught the second. And there were two more yet to be caught.
“Moxie!” the outlaw called, confusing Smoke, calling out his own name.
There was excitement in the voice. And more…
…there was an accent.
Vaguely, Smoke recognized the voice. The lilt to the syllables, the clipped syllables that he used.
“Now, Moxie! Now!”
Smoke heard movement behind him coming from the pines and he turned to see a man break through the dark. A red shirt and foam-white eyes beneath a tan hat. Smoke stumbled, the fire building behind him, his legs incapable of running.
Then the outlaw, the legend, the myth was upon him.
Smoke had time to think,
Everything about this one is true.
Moxie didn’t grab a phrase from the Book of Cliché Pleading. Instead he took Smoke by the blond hair of his head and pressed a gun to his heart and fired.
The horse whinnied as Rinaldo led her away from the spreading fire and the flames howled toward the lightening sky, but Moxie heard none of that. He let go of the Cripple’s hair and saw that the triggerman remained standing, balancing, it seemed, on his lower legs, his chin limp to his chest.