Endless West (I) (955 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: fch
Rating: 2 on 14 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Jack McCallum (View user info) at 2006-04-30 13:35:53 EDT
Endless West (I)
Billy-Fine was down a rocky arroyo looking for a stray calf when the gunnies came a'slaughter out of the high grass and rode down the wagon train.
The arroyo was long and winding, and most of its length was just a bit higher than a man riding a cornie, so Billy was hidden from view when gunnie outriders shot down any herders circling the thousand or so head of shulls, herders who might have shouted a warning to the wagons.
The boy was born Billy Black Crow, but his father (another Billy Black Crow and an eccentric one at that) had named all of his sons and his single daughter 'Billy.'
His oldest brother was Billy-First. The brother a few years older than he was, and a self-confessed stumble-bum, was Billy-Fool. Billy was only fourteen, but he had grown up on the trail and had a knack for knowing what to do. He could roust and corral shulls (even the longhorn brams) and start a fire and rope a calf. He was also a fine rider, so his name was a good fit. His little sister was Billy-Girl.
He had just spotted the calf, following its bwah-bwah calls and feeling no need to hurry, when the first shots carried across the open grassland.
This was bad. The herd had just crossed nearly one hundred miles of hardpack, dry earth baking under the sun, and now that they were in lush grasslands the big shaggy beasts were moving slow, grazing and fucking and drinking water from the ricepools they found.
If the shulls were moving slow, the herders were outriding and trying to move them along. And if the herders were outriding around the thousand head of shulls, they were not close to the wagon train.
Some of the wagoneers had a little fire in them, but they couldn't fight like herders could.
Billy left the calf where it was and turned his cornie around. "Let's go, Chorely," he said, squeezing the bare back and sides of the big animal with his ankles. Some people whipped their cornies. Billy-Fine never did that.
He realized with a fleeting burn of shame that he didn't have his bow with him. All he had was a small bootknife and his old tossing axe.
The only way out of the arroyo was a mile back, where one wall of the ravine had collapsed.
Chorely ran back the way they had come, feet thundering on dry earth, head bobbing. The cornie's single horn of white bone was set dead center along their course, and as Billy looked over it, hunkered down close to Chorely's muscular neck, he imagined that must be what it would be like to look down the barrel of an iron to the stub of a sight on the end.
The hawk feather that decorated the thong holding back his long black hair fluttered and bounced in the middle of his bare back.
They were approaching the fallen wall when all hell broke loose on the grassy plain above. Billy-Fine heard more irons shooting than he had ever heard in his life, and he heard the short, familiar bursts of sound from the old bugle being blown, the call for all outriding herders to come back to the train.
*
Mikkel Shandler was leading the charge, as he always did, his wide brimmed hat pulled down tight over his long blond hair. Yet there had never been a charge as big as this.
He had heard from trail traders that a good size wagon train was coming along, and he intended to bushwhack it.
There had been gunnie bushwhackers along the trail as long as wagon trains had followed tracks worn into hardpan and paths beaten through greenlands. That was nothing new. What was new was the alliance.
Shandler had heard about the wagon train at the same time as two other bang gangs, and instead of fighting among themselves to see who would get to raid the train, which Shandler, Tuck Roobner, and Grinning Greeley Jones were on the verge of doing, encircled by the men and women of their gangs, they had followed the suggestion of a young boy, no more than ten years old.
Quintin Shandler had no great love of his father, but without a father, without family, Quintin would be riding solo, no wagon train to join, no bang gang to run with.
Simply being the son of Mikkel Shandler was enough to guarantee that no family would take him in, and he didn't want to end up as trail vermin, like the traders who offered up anything for goods to barter, pogey meat and pelts, shitberries, even their own families. Quintin didn't want to poke into pogey tunnels, dodging sharp teeth to collect their acidic meat or hides that had to be washed a hundred times to get out the stink of their piss. He didn't want to collect delicate shitberries, which had a juice that was good for scrubbing clothes clean, but if they burst in your hand (and they burst easily) and you got one drop of juice near your mouth or nose, a few hours later you'd shit until it burned. A raging wildfire coming at you couldn't get you to break out of one of those squats. You'd shit and burn, inside and out, most like. And the thought of offering for trade a little girl of two or three years with the words, "She grow up to do some fine fuckin and suckin you teach her right," gave Quintin the chills. He saw that happen, a year ago.
Sometimes, when he couldn't sleep, he wondered whatever happened to that little girl with the sad blue eyes and the hair that looked like it was on fire.
When it seemed like the three gang leaders were going to draw iron Quintin had said, "Why not just join up? Work together, take fewer chances, and split the booty?"
"I'd like to split the booty, all right," Grinning Greeley Jones said, glancing at Quintin and winking at the elder Shandler. He was a known bumfucker with a taste for young boys.
"Wait now," Mikkel said, giving his son an approving nod. "Maybe the boy's got something."
"Yuuup," Tuck Roobner cawed, his pale white face showing color only when he found something funny. "He got worms from all a' them books he reads!"
There was an explosion of laugher from the crowd that had been expecting a fight. Even Quintin's older brother was laughing. Cage was born of a different woman than Quintin's momma and as hard as his father.
The idea of actually sitting down and wasting daylight reading books was bake-brained crazy. Everyone knew books were best used for wiping, or trading to the few suckers that wanted to read, like young Shandler here.
When the laughter died down, the three bang gangers struck a deal. They would raid the train together, something that had never been done before, and they would split the profits. The three men shook on the deal, and the elder Shandler kicked Grinning Greeley Jones in his chin-tappers and busted his nose when Greeley asked if he could assfuck Quintin to seal the deal.
"Boy can't get his work done if he's bleedin from the ass now, can he?"
That was about as much love and respect Quintin had ever gotten from a father who had slit the throat of the woman who birthed him a son.
The three gangs had gotten organized and loaded their irons and rode out as one. That wasn't the only thing done that had never happened before.
Mikkel Shandler had told Quintin to come along this time. When the boy had simply stared Mikkel had slapped the boy hard enough to raise a bruise on his cheek.
"Get on your cornie, boy," Shandler had said, holding out a gunbelt to his son. "You're gonna use this iron on wagoneers today."
"Yup, little brother," Cage said with a broad grin. "Let's see what you've got."
Now Shandler was leading the gunnie charge with nearly a hundred cornies behind him, the assembled gangs racing out of the high grass toward a long wagon train, the men on the cornies packing irons, the people in the wagon train having nothing but bows and arrows and spears and knives to use in their defense.
All of the gunnies were calling out what had once been a cry to urge their cornies forward and was now the cry for going a'slaughter.
"Ya-ya-ya-ya-ya!"
Holding back, slowing his cornie with a tug on the reins, Quintin both prayed his father would die and hoped the old man came out of this okay. As much as he hated to admit it, Quintin needed the old man if he was going to survive.
That didn't mean he was wishing any redskins dead today.
*
Chorely stepped up out of the arroyo onto hardpan, and Billy got his first good look at the gunnies.
The pale hardpan gave way to softer, darker soil, fed by streams and cricks. The source of the water was the North Range. The wagon trail led west closer to the North Range than the South. The mountain range to the south was older, lower, dryer. The range to the north had higher snow-covered peaks, and the snowmelt fed the cricks and streams. The weather was much more harsh northward, but water was life. Passing through rain and snow was worth the effort because it led to grasslands, and fields of wheat and corn, and fruit trees, and berry patches, and pools full of rice.
Billy-Fine had once asked his father, why the train never just stopped and settled down in one of the fertile areas.
"God's will is to keep movin'," Big Billy had said. "Those who slow, suffer wrath. Those who use irons, suffer wrath."
"But the palefaces use irons, pa, and lay in wait for wagon trains. Don't they get punished?"
"Don't know 'bout that," his father had said. "The curse of the red man is to do what God says."
Billy could see that, once again, his people where paying the price of obeying the laws of God. Only this was worse than he ever could have imagined.
The wagon train was spread out in a long line following an old path through low grass, defenseless. The gunnies had come out of the high grass and were riding up and down the line, irons shooting.
Billy's eyes were good, and he could see a few dark shapes sprawled on the low grass far from the train, herders who had been gunned down. The shullherd was breaking up, kews and brams and little calves running hither and yon.
He dug his ankles into Chorely's sides and the cornie broke into a full-out gallop for the train. He heard distant bangs, hollow and harmless sounding at this distance. He saw a man topple from a wagon. The thick canvas covering the wagon was blue and white, but Billy couldn't make out the pattern. The man falling to the grass was either Todd Longtooth or Elmer Chased By Bears.
Some wagons were moving, and some were stopped. Two were afire. There were more shapes sprawled in the grass near the wagons. Many more.
Billy had crossed half the long distance to the train when the gunnies converged on a dozen wagons.
They'd come a'slaughter and that was done. Now they were looting.
*
"There's an easy target," Mikkel Shandler said. "Now hurry, boy. The outriders will be riding in, and they have a lot more piss and fire in them than these softies in the wagons."
Quintin looked from his father to an old woman weeping in the back of a wagon. She was cradling an old man in her lap. Half of the man's face was gone, shot clean off.
"She hasn't done any harm," Quintin said, "Be a waste of a bullet."
"He's all a'shiver," Cage hollered as he rode away, a sack filled with stolen goods over one shoulder.
The boy was trying to sound cool-headed, but he was on the verge of panic, and his brother's mockery didn't help. He didn't want to kill anyone, not even this crying old redskin with snot hanging off her lip.
Mikkel saw that most of the gunnies were already riding for the high grass with bags full of booty. Time was short.
"Do it, boy. You got to spill blood if you're gonna share in the spoils."
An arrow whistled between their cornies and Mikkel Shandler spat in disgust.
"Damn you boy, let's ride." He shot the old woman, blowing out the back of her head, and then turned his horse to follow the others.
*
Billy-Fine saw the gunnie shoot old Mrs. Turning Leaf, and he saw that two outriders were coming close, bows in hand. Joey Green Beetle and Carlon Highwaters might catch the last two gunnies heading for the concealment of the grass, but Billy thought he could get there faster.
He leaned a little, and Chorely turned for the high grass.
*
"Dad!" Quintin had glanced over one shoulder and saw a redskin riding bareback after them. "Outrider!"
Mikkel looked, laughed out loud, and drew his cornie up, turning to face their pursuer. He drew his iron and fired just once, seeing the rider reel from the impact of the slug.
"Just a boy," Mikkel said to his son. "One with more courage than you've ever had. Too bad he's gotta die."
He turned his horse for the high grass again, following Cage and the others.
*
Something tore into Billy's skin close to his left eye, gouged his flesh like the claw of a mountain cat, and clipped off the top of his ear.
He saw the gunnie turn away.
Billy pulled his tossing axe from its sheath. You've hit little running bigears from further away, he thought, and threw.
*
They were fifty feet from the high grass when Mikkel Shandler made a noise, a nonsensical grunt of sheer surprise.
Quintin looked at his father and saw the shaft of an old tommyhawk clinging to the back of the older man's head. The entire palm-sized blade was buried in Mikkel Shandler's skull, and blood was pouring off the wooden shaft like a stream of piss.
"Dad!"
Mikkel jerked and twitched like he was dancing in the saddle, and then he slid sideways off of the cornie. He didn't fall clear. One foot was caught in a stirrup, and his son heard the dull snap of breaking bones before Mikkel rolled free into the grass.
*
Billy-Fine brought Chorely to a stop. He saw that his tossing axe had hit home. One man fell, and another one, no, it was a boy, kept on, his cornie disappearing into the high grass.
After a moment he nudged Chorely closer to the fallen man. Behind him, the bugle was still blowing.
"Well, he's just as dead as a pile of shullshit," Billy said, and then he leaned over and heaved up.
*
On a ridge of sandstone rising over the borderland between hardpan and grasses, a single coyote sat on its haunches, watching the two boys.
*
In the high grass Quintin used both hands to steady the heavy iron in his hands, sighting on the redskin only a few years older than himself and slowly squeezing the trigger.
http://www.ubersite.com/u/Jack_McCallum/l/fch
User Reviews
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-05-02 19:03:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-05-02 18:51:12 (#)
Ranking: 2
So indians are cowboys and cowboys are indians????????
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Possibly... and if so, which one got chocolate in the other one's peanut butter?
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-05-02 18:51:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
So indians are cowboys and cowboys are indians????????
Submitted by nrduncan (user info) at 2006-05-01 12:47:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Yes (user info) at 2006-05-01 12:09:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
good stuff
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-05-01 02:21:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2006-05-01 02:17:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i didn't like the story at first, nor the terminology, but the...ending, salvaged it for me
Submitted by shitfuck (user info) at 2006-04-30 21:23:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I dig it.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-04-30 19:46:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I know several people with whom I work, both men and women,
who constantly reek of cologne/perfume. I think it is their
replacement for a daily shower.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-04-30 19:23:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-04-30 19:03:09 (#)
Ranking: 2
Everyone must be in church. This deserves lots of good ratings.
--
This is THE quietest weekend I've seen on Uber in ages.
One of my neighbors appears to bathe in Brut.
Do people actually want to smell like that?
Jesus wept.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-04-30 19:03:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Everyone must be in church. This deserves lots of good ratings.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-04-30 16:21:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by myexstaintstain (user info) at 2006-04-30 15:10:37 (#)
Ranking: -2
You are a fyucking dirty redneck faggot ass incestuous hick
--
No arguments here, but what in the story deserved a -2? Constructive crit is always appreciated.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-04-30 15:20:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I thought the setting was self-explanatory. Dteails at six,
film at eleven.
Good as always, Jack.
Submitted by myexstaintstain (user info) at 2006-04-30 15:10:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
You are a fyucking dirty redneck faggot ass incestuous hick
Submitted by ConorJS (user info) at 2006-04-30 13:54:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
So wait... what HAPPENED? Before this, that is. What's the setting, I guess I'm trying to say.