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.

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.

update schedule and thanks where it's due

Patrick's story arc has taken a fair amount of time, and it's my intention to power on through it before the month is out. Part of this is because I've just come to a revelation on exactly what the story of our shadowy third clerk will center upon. I had always envisioned some details of his first story arc but until last night really had no clear idea just what the central conflict of his tale would be.

I should of course mention that I did not come to this epiphany on my own, but, as usual, received some help from Sean K, the same rowdy son of a bitch who has created virtually every piece of art for this site (often at a moment's notice). He has been in on The Last Clerks since the very beginning, and has always been a sounding board for the frequently ridiculous ideas I come up with. In this case, the seed he planted in my head for the first story arc of Spencer LaSalle has blossomed into a horrific, disfigured tree that gushes blood rather than sap when stabbed.

Which is to say, it's perfect. Stay tuned.