a peaceful ride

The clerk crested the hill and looked down on the valley of tree stumps. They were the corpses of a century of pillage, the great ecosystems in their crowns long ago having fallen silent forever. The great swath of destruction showed the first few signs of being erased. Saplings springing up about the bodies of their parents stretched their infant leaves out to catch the sun and rain.

He was facing east by southeast, and the sun dazzled his eyes as he scanned the horizon. The trees came up again after what was likely half a mile of barrenness. There, at the edge of that distant tree line, the clerk saw the red-eyed man standing next to a black horse. The clerk had no glass he could use to get a closer look. No way to tell if he had yet been seen.

The red-eyed man was not alone, the clerk could see once he shaded his eyes with his hand. Three people were standing around the red-eyed man. Too far away to catch speech or to see if they were armed. There was no time. The clerk gigged his horse forward and approached at a trot. His body was as loose and easy as if he were wandering out of church during the recessional. No wind stirred the poncho.

The clerk watched as the red-eyed man turned and disappeared into the forest on the other side of the logging valley. The way toward that tree line was downhill, and the clerk felt his horse pick up speed, felt the footing become uncertain. The three at the tree line were headed toward him. He saw they wore similar clothes, moved in fits and starts. Closer now – they were younger than him, and violent.

Down the hill and the ground leveled out. He could take them in passing if he tried, but they might start shooting. They might start shooting anyway. No cover amid the stumps. No way to herd them if they came at him. At best he'd lose the horse, which he needed if he wanted to catch the red-eyed man.

The clerk knew it was another game. He was always playing games, the red-eyed man.

He slowed to a dignified canter as he approached them. They leaped from stump to stump as they got closer, eventually closing on him and surrounding him. His horse came to a stop as the one in front stepped in. He was a tall whip-thin guy with a ratty face freckled and cratered with acne, hair in some kind of samurai topknot with the whole left side of his head shaved. Clothes black and covered in chains and studs. The others circled behind the clerk's horse. The kid in front was seventeen, if that.

You gotta pay a toll, you wanna cross this field.

The clerk said nothing. Looked down from his perch at the kid and the smirk on his face, looked back at the other two. Nothing on his face, and anything that was on it hidden by the shadow of his wide-brimmed hat.

I said you pay if you wanna cross.

The clerk tugged on the reins and spurred his horse forward into a canter, right past the kid, who stood in stunned silence for a moment, the other two looking to him, confused. The clerk had made no move for the shotgun that hung alongside the saddle. The horse had negotiated a path through a small copse of stumps before the kid and his two companions surrounded it again.

Hey! Maybe you don't hear so good or maybe you don't speak English, but you pay the toll! The gun, a flat-topped polymer toy of a handgun, came out of the kid's waistband as he grabbed the clerk's reins and tugged them to stop the horse.

The clerk's hands moved with no great speed. With the right hand he reached down and jammed his index finger behind the trigger so it couldn't be pulled, wrapping his thumb around the front of the trigger guard and taking firm hold of the entire weight of the gun in that vise-grip. His left hand jacked the gun's slide back and then slid it off of the rest of the gun, leaving the boy with a handle and a barrel and no means of firing any bullets.

The clerk threw the part at one of the other two, striking him in-between the eyes as he tried to pull another gun just like it. The third had a small revolver, but by the time he had it out, the clerk had taken the first boy's hand, twisted it up behind his back, and then dragged him from the ground and dropped him on the saddle behind him, facing backward, the arm braced up by the clerk's back. The clerk grabbed hold of the boy's belt in his right hand as the boy screamed out and cursed, his tendons and ligaments raging.

The horse started a steady trot toward the tree line. The clerk spoke as if to nobody in particular.

Sure would be a shame if anybody interrupted my nice peaceful ride on this sunny morning.

I'll fuckin' kill you, you asshole! I'm gonna fuckin' AAAAAAAAAAH

The clerk leaned a centimeter back in his saddle, his back pushing against the arm and sending the boy into pain that drove all other thought from his head. When the clerk leaned forward and the pain went back to the insistent burning it had been before, he heard the clerk talking to himself. Mmhm – a mighty fine peaceful ride. A damn shame if it got spoiled by talking.

The two others were following, the clerk knew. They were arguing loudly over whether or not they could get a shot in. One of them came up on the right, and the clerk could hear the revolver's hammer cocked back...

So peaceful. Would be quite irritating to have anybody take up following me on such a peaceful ride.

The clerk shifted as if to look off to his left, his right hand dragging the boy by the belt so he hung partially off the edge of the horse's rump, covering the clerk from that angle, the boy's arm still crimped up and the pain the worst yet.

AAAAAAAAHYOUFUCKINGIDIOTHE'LLKILLMEHE'LLKILLMEBACKOFF!AAAAAAAAH

The clerk readjusted himself and the boy and did not hear them following. Soon he had reached the tree line. He let the boy's belt go and leaned back, knocking the boy to the ground face first. He brought the horse around and looked down at the boy, laying there with his arm cradled to his chest and weeping openly.

That was about the most peaceful ride I've had in a long time. I might gladly have paid a toll to have such a fine, peaceful ride.

I'll fucking kill you. Snarling through the tears. I'll fucking rip off your head.

I'll have to pass this way again and have another ride just like that one.

The boy did not look at the clerk as the horse continued on into the woods at a slow canter, that man's eyes again focused intently on the tracks of his quarry.

At length, the boy's two companions made it to him. He punched one of them in the face with his good arm and shouted at them.

We're going after 'em! Fucking asshole with the faggy haircut set us up! We're gonna kill 'em both!

Jer, what's that on your belt?

What is what on my belt what the fuck are you...?

He looked down, found a small cylindrical thing as large as a fun size candy bar dangling from a belt hook he did not own, a green light pulsing on it.

What?

The light turned red, and the three of them became an expanding torrent of the individual parts that made them up. They rained down to the ground amidst the fire.

Some several hundred yards into the forest, the clerk put the detonator back into the saddlebag alongside the two other triggered charges. His eyes never left the tracks the entire time.

By next spring the saplings at the forest's edge had taken hold of the pieces, and in time the roots rose up and consumed those excisemen.

Those who chanced by the place found it to be peaceful.

calves

The grocery store had been the defining feature of the small town when it still had life in it. All of the windows were shattered or dusted over since then. The yards conquered by weeds. The green sign out at the outskirts put the population at a hundred people. Vermin and stray pets had taken up in the houses – most of them long since emptied by littering.

Then there was the grocery store, strangely pristine throughout all of it. The clerk had found it empty and so could only assume it had been devoid of provender for so long a time that the rioting which fell over the world simply passed it over as something already raided of all its worth.

He stood over the shopping cart corral outside on the cracking asphalt of the parking lot, tossing corn into the midst of the chickens there. He'd cut a length of four-foot-tall chain-link fence from the derelict yard of one property or another, capturing enough aluminum ties that he could rig it to surround the cart corral. The door was another theft from an old privacy fence, the hinges nailed to the metal frame. Despite his best efforts it scraped a cedar-colored arc in the asphalt whenever he opened or closed it, but it worked, and it was a damn sight better than some other endeavors at carpentry he'd undertaken in his life.

The road slanted downward away from the store, so that a lost shopping cart might rocket off into the next county, if such things as counties could still be reckoned or accounted for. He looked down and saw the cloud shadows play across the ground. She approached with the borrowed cart in tow, the rattle of the wheels traveling up to his ears even at that distance. He liked to watch her move. She was young like him – maybe twenty-five. She had been a mother and had the waist to show it, but every other curve on her was subtle. She had round cheeks and brown hair that she wore back in a ponytail that always shimmered because he made soap for her.

The sky had grown darker. He could feel the rain coming. She finally made it up to him, panting a bit from the uphill walk. She wiped a strand of hair out of her face and smiled.

Mister Spencer.

With a gloved hand he tipped his hat. Despite his hard appearance and the quietness of the reply, the voice was urbane and deep, almost bold.

Miss Aimee.

She brought the cart up to him and took a towel off of the top of the large cardboard box she had inside it. He looked inside to find a mass of kittens no more than a few weeks old, weaned of their mother's milk and pawing at the sides of their featureless prison. She smiled. Priscilla had six this time. I know that old pervert from the town oughta be coming back any day now to stock up.

Maybe.

Hmph, maybe. I'll have more corn for you next week anyhow. She pointed to his chickens. So... how much cock do I get for this much pussy? Her face had twisted up in a naughty sort of smile, her tone of voice perfectly even and deadpan.

He smiled just a little.

We'll see. I'm sure you came for more stuff.

Mmhm. I'll go get what I need. Wouldn't want to get caught in the rain.

She intentionally slid her hip along his in passing, and they entered the grocery store, he throwing the tarp over the chicken coop and pushing the cart with its load of kittens.

He had already brought in the cattle ahead of the rain.

Later, she sat on the edge of the bed he kept in the back office, her skin dark in the light of the candle, he behind her and resting his chin on her shoulder. The sound of the rain drifted down from the roof, and brought a shiver to his back. She giggled at him.

What? he asked.

Nothing. Hearing the rain does that to me, too.

He felt her grow uneasy in the quiet. What is it?

I left him alone.

He'll be fine.

I shouldn't leave him alone.

You shouldn't bring him up here.

I know. But I hate to leave him.

They were silent. The rain did not abate, and he could feel her listening for it to be over. She shifted, turned around, their legs tangling, and she eased him down onto his back and laid on top of him. Her hand traced the contour of his chest. He was bone-thin, but the muscles stood out. She never asked him about the misshapen bit of bone that seemed to come off his sternum, covering the heart like another tightened fist.

You should come down to the house and meet him. I tell him about you all the time. He can say fifty words now and he can walk all by himself.

I can't leave the store.

Nobody comes out here when it gets cold. You should come some time then, stay with us for a while.

I'll think about it.

She kissed him and got to her feet, reaching for her clothes. No you won't. You never do.

That's true, I don't.

She gave him a playful little kick in the shin. I'm going. You give those little kittens to good homes.

Best I can.

The rain stopped soon after she and her tarp-covered cart were down the hill and reaching the turning point in the road. There was another solid hour of daylight left, and he knew she carried the big kitchen knife with her even if some delay should keep her out after dark.

He watched her vanish from sight, and stood leaning against the wall of the chicken coup until he came to the sudden realization the light had grown poor and he still hadn't eaten. Wandering back into the store, he walked the freezer section, seeing that the machinery still worked. Back in the break room there followed the attempt at cooking something.

His hand hovered over the controls of the George Foreman grill for a little while, then fell back to his side.

He looked down at the disembodied piece of an animal he had raised up from calf to meat with his own hands. He'd seen it birthed, cared for it, and had only the vaguest recollection of ever doing so. He returned to the bed, changed the sheets, and fell asleep as another wave of rain swept in.

update schedule: busy busy busy

Apologies for leaving this by the wayside, but a couple of other projects have reared their heads that might actually yield something should they succeed. This, while fun, just doesn't pay dividends. I'm hoping to update again before the end of the month, and hopefully finish off Mr. LaSalle's tale soon.

Stay tuned.

wiki update #7: it shall be archived

For those following along at home, I've put up the first compiled version of the story, incorporating Part One (in which Howard Wells goes crazy like Shaka Zulu).

The new archive section of the wiki will host such updates. Those particularly sharp-eyed will notice some very minor differences to the version posted up - this is because this is a work in progress.

Enjoy viewing the archive here.

More of Spencer LaSalle to come.

south through the trees

The red-eyed man fled through the forest, and the clerk followed.

The clerk wore an earthy old poncho over the green shirt and black jeans that made up his faded uniform. The flat, wide-brimmed black hat on his head shaded the features of his face. The horse beneath him was an older model with few amenities, and the voice box had been taken out of it so long ago that the corrosion at the neck from that old surgical wound had worked its way up to the base of the skull, and the actuators wheezed and pumped loudly in the stillness of the redwoods.

The clerk made out the red-eyed man's trail as best he could during the day, stopping at the first lowering of the light that he might not miss the slightest trace of his wandering quarry. His target had taken to concealing evidence of his campfires or going the night without them altogether. The clerk appreciated this knowledge, because it betrayed the fact the red-eyed man knew he was being hunted and needed to take time to cover his tracks. Another sort of man might have been infuriated at this, but the clerk, with his impenetrable gaze and his absolutely silent demeanor went about the hunt unperturbed.

Today his quarry was passing closer to the ocean, the clerk could see. The pathway had always been south, sometimes shivering acutely to the east or west, but never doubling back north. It might be an elaborate ruse, but the clerk did not think so. He thought the red-eyed man had somewhere he wanted to go. The clerk had an inkling that maybe he should stop the red-eyed man before he got there – head him off somehow, if only he knew a way to do it. Since he did not, he suppressed that worry when it did rear up in him. There were things worrying didn't solve, and solutions unknowable to even the most inquisitive.

The light was waning as he came to a stream. The red-eyed man had camped there the previous night, he could tell. He'd tried to cover the campfire with silt from the stream, but the scent lingered even still, and the clerk walked about the area in a thirty-foot radius, again finding droppings and the bones of a bird, picked clean but for the last vestiges of black meat and gristle clinging stubbornly to them.

He was gaining despite the nature of tracking. The red-eyed man would throw things about to create a ruse. He would, for instance, canter his horse along one route and then order it to reverse precisely backward in its own footfalls, then he'd blunder it into some thick underbrush where the tracks would not be immediately apparent and continue onward. The clerk would be fooled for the better part of an hour on a few of these occasions, but he would always find the trail again, and if he saw two campsites in a day or a campsite and another good bit of travel, it meant progress.

This was one day behind. Closer than he'd ever been. Tantalizingly within reach – almost worth the risk of another hour's worth of travel. Almost. Even half an hour's worth of messing around in low light meant he could set himself back a day's worth of tracking if he lost the trail.

He tied his horse to a tree and set about making his own campfire. From its sheath in the saddle where it hung next to the big shotgun, he drew out the hatchet. The trees about him yielded first thin branches and leaves for kindling and then an armful of logs.

He doffed the poncho for the work, revealing the skeletal figure beneath. The body thin and white, seeming almost emaciated. Good concealment for the wiry strength in his arms and legs. Not tall enough to be tall and certainly not short. The hair and eyes were the darkest, starkest black. He kept his hair and face well-barbered, taking time each morning to take a straight-razor to his stubble, each movement just so. It spoke more of precision than of prissiness – something that found its root in habit rather than vanity.

Affixed to the chest of his shirt, just as carefully, the name tag that read:

S P E N C E R

The gun sat at his right hip, the holster and the grip oriented such that it was clear he was a left-handed draw. The bandolier hugged his middle snugly, the bullets in their loops casting the occasional glint as a dapple of sunlight caught them through the great canopy overhead. The gun was a monster, seeming too large for so slender a man, until he rested his hand on the butt of it, as he sometimes casually did. Then you could see how well the long-fingers, as if it had been crafted precisely to his spidery hand.

The machete sat in its canvas scabbard on his beltline at his back, the handle protruding from behind his left hip, the blade nearly as long as his arm, sharp at the edge but corroded and patina-covered along its flat. The weapons had the effect of making his lower body appear wide and weighty, his upper body frail and insubstantial. This he could not have cared about.

Wood was never a problem, and so he soon had what he needed. From his saddlebags he withdrew the small electric cooler he had plugged into the outlet in the horse's left ass cheek, and out of that he selected a vacuum-sealed plastic pouch with chunks of rabbit meat inside it and several chopped bits of onion and red and green peppers. With the hatchet he whittled a small branch down to a skewer, speared the ingredients and started the fire with the horse's cigarette lighter.

With the kabob in his stomach and night having fallen, he donned the poncho again and put the hat over his eyes, though it was some time before he could will them to shut. All about him the shadows of the forest quivered in the uncertainty of the firelight, painting for him many grim and intangible falsehoods upon the faces of those things that were somehow still tangible, and he had seen all of it before and so slept through it unmoved.

update schedule: the butcher cometh

I will very soon begin the introductory story arc of the mysterious third clerk. As before, I try to write ahead of what I post so I can keep up with editing, but I've finally come to the end of what I had prepared and from now on we sail by instinct.

The character of Spencer LaSalle has always been a problem for me in past incarnations of The Last Clerks. This is due in no small part to the fact I never really worked the grocery store job I've based the character upon. He is also unlike the other characters in a few fundamental ways, as will be seen.

What I can promise is that the violence in this story will be excessive in ways that make even me question my sanity. A new update should come down hopefully by Friday, but might need to wait until Monday. In the meantime, I'm working on compiling the stuff that's coming before so you can read up.

Until then.

those last parts of her

The clerk's first bullet put out the man like a candle. He stood with his head cocked back, all thought and personality canceled, the face shocked and the powder burns of such a close gunshot only beginning to appear.

The others – some nine men – had rested their rifles on their shoulders or stood with their weapons barely at the ready, and they were not ready to shoot when he executed the man who had grabbed his rifle and thrown him to the wall, and they were still not ready to shoot when he spun about and brought the heel of his left foot into the dead man's side in a roundhouse kick that might have decapitated a teenager – and as that was ending, they had time to process his left hand fanning over the hammer of the pistol and nobody could tell if they were hit or if the blood on them was somebody else's.

He let the empty gun fall without ceremony. It hung stewardless from the strap as he ran low to the ground, snatching up the rifle. He knew about how many paces to the nearest rock large enough to provide cover, and he scrambled for it, swinging behind it as bullets clattered across it and tore into the ground. He'd killed two outright – wounded a third and fourth to the point of dying. There were still too many of them.

From above he heard the high voice of Shep, heard another contingent of them scrambling down the rocks, putting more fire on him, yet another approaching from inside the cavern. He caught a brief glimpse of the store up at the top of the canyon - gouts of flame and smoke darkening the sky. They'd done an old-fashioned Zippo raid on it when they'd found out where he'd gone. He put the ear bud back in, hands working the revolver, flipping the loading gate open and ramming each chamber clear with the speed of a robot.

Saladin. Salaam alaikum.

---

Shep's machine pistol spat in a dangerous arc before him as he stumbled down the rocks alongside his squad of four. The rocks gave under one of his men, and that one went tumbling headfirst along the crags and debris, becoming at some fateful point in that journey an empty sack of flesh. The body crashed into the path of the bullets of those already on the canyon floor, perforated by them.

The marauders paused in horror at what they had done, and in the ringing silence that followed, there came the clear, impossibly loud cry of the falcon diving out of the sun toward the cavern entrance, within which there were still at least ten of Shep's men. Shep watched the grim thing barrel toward its own ruin, the metal of its body and wings searing red-hot as it intentionally cranked more power than the fragile body could handle.

The clerk rose. Six men on the canyon floor, one just emerging from the cavern. The clerk put a bullet in each of the six and ducked down just as the firebird struck the dumbfounded new arrival in the chest and drove him back into the cavern.

---

The man at the head of Shep's spelunkers had lost two men on the way down – stuck in the crawl space, still screaming, hyperventilating with claustrophobia and without any light to guide them. He'd become convinced this was perdition. All of the wandering over the world in Shep's band of demons, all of the murder and pillage and rape, all had added up to this. It was the tribulation, the end of days, and this, here, was his final reward – to wander in blackness unending, without depth or contiguity.

When he saw the light, he praised Jesus. And when he emerged, he saw the tall, golden-haired man destroy the lives of six of his comrades. The marauder stood there, the seven or eight others that had managed to follow him bunching up behind him.

When he looked to see the source of the shriek coming out of the sky, it was upon him. The hawk's face white-hot, the talons that sunk into his chest destroying the flesh that surrounded them. It was not some false construct that felled him, he realized, but the winged messenger of the gods themselves. The others staggered back, the darkness of the cave lit by the searing glow of the falcon for one instant as it opened its beak to unleash a final utterance, and then its valediction became light and concussion.

---

The clerk heard Shep's roar of frustration as the cavern erupted in flames. Man-shaped things came stumbling out of it one by one, each covered in flames that blotted out all distinction, featureless and uncommunicative, but aware. They tried to swat at the flames that cloaked them, and each in his turn fell to the rocks lost in his own agony.

Shep's voice spurred his last three men onward.

Keep fire on him! I want him!

Shep had the sun at his back, and the clerk fired up at them with the rifle, but couldn't get a good sight on them...

The clerk felt a bullet bite into the side of his left arm and the rifle fell out of his grip. He retreated to cover, falling into a sitting position.

Their boots beating down across the rocks, getting closer. He took hold of the pistol as Shep rounded the corner. They were surrounding him, guns up.

Nobody kills this asshole but me! Nobody shoot, got it?!

Shep grabbed the clerk by the vest and dragged him to his feet kneeing him in the stomach and then hurling him to the dirt. You smart now, huh, you fuck? I'll fuckin' fix you. He kicked the clerk in the face, sending him rolling back along the dirt.

Shep. The scraggly-bearded youth calling after him. Get that gun away from him!

Shep whirled around. His face-paint running, the skull-face becoming a dripping two-tone highlight of the sickly-thin contours of his face. The wound in his side from the falcon still oozing. I SAY WHAT GETS DONE AROUND HERE! HE FUCKED WITH US AND NOW I FUCK WITH HIM! DO YOU ALL SEE?!

Shep, the gun...

He shot six times, you fuckhole! It takes a year to reload that piece of shit! Pay the fuck attention!

The clerk stumbled slowly to his feet, hand still on the grip of the pistol. He spat blood out of his mouth. Well, you dress like a girl, and here I see you hit like one. It makes me sorry about having to kill all of you. Though, maybe one or two of your crispy friends over there isn't dead and can see after burying you. This climate is terrible for burn victims, I'm told... but great for consumption. I don't suppose any of you have that.

Shep let out a single laugh and regarded his prey as a mafia don does a shop owner. The three of his men stood bathed in their own cold sweat, their eyes fixed firmly on the clerk, the looks on their faces incredulous as their leader strutted about before this force of nature as if he could ever own it.

I'll forgive everything if you kneel down and beg me for it and promise to join me. I am also merciful.

The clerk had not really been addressing Shep when he'd last spoken, and he turned to the scraggly-bearded youth now, speaking as if Shep weren't even there.

How much is this guy paying you? Or you... yeah, you, with your mouth hanging open. I mean, what does it take to constitute gross mismanagement these days if this isn't it? Weren't there like, ten times as many of you a few minutes ago? How hard do you think it's going to be for me to whittle down the rest of you? I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

The sounds of hoofbeats echoed in the distance – grew closer. The scraggly-bearded youth wasn't sure anybody else was hearing it. Shep... there's a—

Their leader wound his fist back and struck the clerk in the stomach again, flooring him. How you think you're gonna take us now, huh? Tell me how.

Shep...

SHUT UP!

The clerk smiled up at his enemy from his position on the ground on his back. Still he held the pistol in his grip, still hanging from the strap. The same way I do everything – with a seven-shot pistol.

The clerk kicked Shep in the scrotum and put a bullet in the head of one of the last of the three other men. The clerk was up, dropped the gun to dangle again by its strap and had Shep in a human-shield choke hold, stealing the machine pistol from him in a single deft move, unleashing a completely inaccurate salvo at the other two, who leaped to cover.

The horse Saladin jacked thundered into view, and the clerk shoved the barrel of the gun up to Shep's temple. You are a special kind of dumb son of a bitch, and this is the last chance I'm giving you to run away from all of this and clean that stupid paint off your face and take up the ways of the monastery for the rest of your born days. Put my rifle in the horse's saddle.

He released Shep from the choke hold but kept the hand on the collar of his jacket. Finding his breath again, Shep spat out a curse.

Fuck your moth—

The clerk grabbed the man's left hand and twisted it up behind him and Shep's voice went high with pain. My mercy is that pile of original recipe henchmen over yonder. I'm afraid if you want a complete performance, I'm going to need a major credit card. Otherwise, you can put my rifle on the horse, if you see what it is that I am saying to you.

The clerk forced his captive over to where the rifle had fallen to the ground. No sound from the last two men behind their rock. When Shep had the rifle in the horse's saddle he whispered something to the clerk through the redness between just the two of them.

Kill me. Just fucking do it.

I told you how I wanted to see you die. I told you exactly how.

The clerk kicked him over to the rock and got up on his horse. Boy's I'd say it's been fun, but the world's a distrustful enough place as it is without us all lying to one another.

Shep wheeled around. KILL HIM! SHOOT HIM! F—

The scraggly-bearded youth and the other one – a man of forty with a gut and a shiny bald head, clad in a biker's jean jacket – came around the corner. Jean jacket leveled an old M1, but the scraggly-bearded youth brought his police Beretta up and shot him in the head, then turned and put his sights on Shep.

Shep stood there for a moment weaponless and without horde to surround him, the redness gone from his eyes in his panic and all the fragile regalia of his violent empire passed away with the wind. In the light of the early afternoon, he seemed to have shrunk in his biker jacket.

His last underling gunned him down there in the canyon. When the youth had put every last bullet into Shep and the corpse laid in an expanding pool of blood on the ground, he stood over it and kicked it and beat upon it with the butt of the pistol until he had nothing left in him but tears. The clerk watched this with some interest, and when it was finally over, the youth looked up at him and threw aside the pistol.

I'll do anything you want. Just please don't kill me. Please—

Anything?

Shit. Yes. Fuck. Anything, any good god damn thing, I swear it if you just don't hurt me or nothing.

Pick my hat up and bring it here.

---

The gunshot wound would not stop bleeding despite his attempts to bind it, and the injuries he'd suffered at the hands of Shep stung as he thundered out of the canyon into the sun. Eli and the girl had found the horse and made their way westward as he'd instructed. He rode him a lonely journey, all through the night without sleeping again, and his exhaustion brought him to the edge of hallucination.

At length he smelled the coast, if that were possible, and when he crested a hill he saw the great ocean spread out before him. The promised land spoken of in the girl's leaflet filled the horizon before him, glimmering with a billion little lights so many miles distant, all noise of it lost over the grandness and imperceptibility of distance.

He followed their tracks down to the rocky shore that had been created in that great cataclysm, and he found Eli beside the girl and a campfire. The clerk felt he might go into shock at any minute as he sat down.

Thank God you made it.

Thanking him again, are we?

I... I prayed. Like I told you I would.

Thank you.

They coming?

No, I— ahem. No.

I gave her the pill. There's one more. You should take it.

She needs one more dose. She might not make it without it.

Shit, YOU need it.

No. I don't need anything.

They sat in the glow of the campfire, both men staring into it for a time. Eli would cast glances up toward that other continent. The clerk saw that he was looking there.

There's another kind of purgatory in there. Do your best with her out here.

You'll be helping us.

I'm going to lay down here in a minute and I rather think I'm not going to get back up.

I need to help you. Take the pill.

The girl is your salvation. Do you understand? He got to his feet again, shakily, and lead his horse away, tossing the machine pistol to Eli. Do unto her as you would've done to your own daughter, and be saved. I'm outta here.

The sound of the horse's hoofbeats fell off into the night bit by bit until there was nothing to mark the solemnity of his passage. The man Eli sat up a lonely vigil with the girl until morning broke, and her eyes fluttered open.

---

She put flowers in her hair that summer, and when the rains came she could drink water from the leaves that rustled in a great ocean above her. In later years, grey with what wisdom the world had allowed her and toughened by her motherhood, she made the journey alone across the desert back to the white car, finding there the mummified remains of her grandmother and the men that had tried to kill them both. The desert's preservative dryness was almost respectful and apologetic.

The decay of decades had long since masked the single neat little hole that had sent those last parts of her heavenward. The old woman sat down in the driver's seat and took her grandmother's hand, and as she had done in ages long past, she lead her granddaughter along to where next she was ordained to go.