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.