Lourdes: A Vampire In The Old West

21. Stop

A glass 50 yards away shatters. A jar 100 yards away explodes. A tin 200 yards away becomes a halo of sparks. A boy, scarcely 16, lies against the ground, fixed behind the barrel of a hunting rifle. With deep eyes, he peers out. His breath slows. His fingers tense around the trigger. His breath stops. A can 300 yards in the distance disappears.

Turning his rifle to a speck on the horizon, he trains now on a moving target. Crossing quickly in front of endless sky and towering buttes, this dot kicks up a shower of sand, a trail of gold dust dancing in its wake. The speck grows closer and starts to make a noise. Hooves. A gallop. The sound of a determined horse's gait.

The boy, all alone in a sea of wild grass, steadies himself behind his gun. His Winchester's teeth track the speck as it swells. Larger and larger. Its hoof beat is a drum in the child's ears and a jolt across his heart.

And then it makes another sound.

"Damsel!" The speck calls.

Immediately, the boy is up, his legs stretched and arms spread wide. He waves to the dot.

"Here! I'm over here!" The boy called Damsel yips. His yellow hair flops about his head. He jumps to grab the speck's attention and swings his rifle to give his tiny form even more height. The dot, turning into a rider on horseback, gallops straight across valleys and fields to meet the leaping boy.

Without stopping, without slowing, the rider extends a hand, and still charging, swoops Damsel into his saddle. He plants the boy against his back, and as soon as he's certain the boy is secure, he snaps up his rifle, stowing it out of the child's reach. Damsel wraps his hands around the rider's waist.

"Tommy! Tommy! Did you see me? I hit all the targets in one shot!" Damsel shouts.

"No," the rider responds. "I didn't see you shoot the targets, I didn't see you take my gun, and I didn't see you hike five miles from home, either. I didn't even know you left until Mother started panicking." Thomas, Damsel's brother, looks down at the kid. He smirks. "I didn't see you shoot the targets, but I wish I did."

"You wanna go back?" Damsel asks. "I can shoot 'em again!"

"Normally, Damsel, I'd love to, but we gotta head home," Thomas states.

"Why? Is Mother really worried?" Damsel questions. "She never notices I'm gone until night, and even then, as long as I'm practicing with a horse or a gun, she understands. She knows I'm just trying to be as good as you."

"Thanks, kiddo, but don't say that last part to Mother today," Thomas sighs. "She's not too happy with me right now."

"Why?" Damsel shouts. "What did you do?"

†

"You took a job in Heather!" Thomas and Damsel's mother shouts. Ripping a hand against Thomas, she leaves a red mark in the shape of her palm on his cheek. "Does that hurt? Well, does it? Because that's nothing! You take a job in the Town of Heather, and you're going to end up dead!"

The woman is a thing with leather skin and hair made of twine. She places her hands on her hips and scowls at Thomas. The young man holds his face, staying silent as his mother looks at him as she would a stranger. Damsel watches it all from the dining room table. From under the dining room table. The boy hides there. He wipes his nose. He rubs his eyes. And as his mother hits his brother again, Damsel turns his head.

"Mother, I can make more in Heather than I can out here," Thomas speaks in a metered tone. "I can earn in six months there what two years of cattle runs and odd jobs will get me here. And I'm going to send it back – all of it – to you and Damsel." Both of Thomas's cheeks are ruddy. "I'm doing this for you."

"You walk out that door, and it's the last I'm ever going to see of you!" Thomas's mother barks. She throws a hand at an unvarnished door in the room's corner. It leads to never-ending green interrupted only by the black and white of cattle roaming free. Somewhere beyond the prairies, someplace well outside the curve of this earth, is the place calling her son.

"Mother, I'll be back, and think of everything I can bring back with me," Thomas speaks with a glimmer of a grin. "Pots... Pans... A carpet sweeper... A kerosene lamp... Silk... Margarine... Milk chocolate..."

"I don't want none of it! I don't need none of it!" Thomas's mother spits. "We're making do as is! Tell me how this family's going to survive without you! You get us a little money right now, and if you get shot or strangled or stabbed in Heather, we'll have none! What are we supposed to do then?" The man's mother hits him again. Not a slap, this time it's a punch to his chest, and it knocks the boy into the farthest wall from the door. The wall's a simple thing. Planks of dry wood. The whole room, a kitchen, is spartan. Uneven shelves hold a copper kettle and humble number of unmatching plates. A black stove is surrounded by the bones of kindling. Damsel sits atop a checkered rug that after years of soot, dirt, and toil is little more than brown woven atop more brown.

"They say Heather's possessed!" Thomas's mother shakes. "It and all the towns out there ain't right! The people are crazy! I've seen stories about it!" Thomas rolls his eyes, but his mother's chattering teeth don't cease. "Its mayor... He was burned alive... Tied up and set on fire in the town hall!"

"Mother, don't believe what you read about Heather in the papers," Thomas sighs. "They're just stories made up to sell more copies. I'm going to be paid well, you and Damsel are going to live the life you deserve, and the job's got insurance should – God forbid – anything happen to me. Enough for you to buy a house in the city and little Damsel to buy a silver gun. Or if you skip the house in the city, a gun made of solid gold."

Thomas's mother strikes him another time. She brings both hands against his chest, but no longer strong punches, they're feeble taps, weightless touches from a hopeless soul. Water collects in her eyes, and after a moment, her powerless attacks turn into an embrace. The woman hugs her son, squeezing him as her tears spill over his back.

Still shivering beneath the table, Damsel watches his mother's teardrops soak into the brown rug, loosening the soil just enough to restore splotches of its former colors.

"Tommy... I can't lose you..." The woman whispers. Her hands knead into the man's shirt, grasping at him, pawing him, trying to hold him closer still. Thomas strokes his mother's hair. He shows her only a beaming face. The woman bawls there next to her son until there's no more water she can find. And then pressing her red eyes against her boy's chest, she speaks again. "Tommy... You said your job pays us should you pass away... What job did you take?"

Thomas reaches into a pocket and hands the woman a neatly-folded telegram. Breathless, his mother studies its words, and after she's finished, she holds it still, absorbing the card itself. She lets its message drown her brain. Not looking back at her son, she crumples the paper and throws it to the floor. She stares for a long moment now at the space that held the obituary, as while it's no longer between her hands, it's a phantom haunting the air.

She sniffles. She swallows. She blinks.

Finally tilting her vision up, the woman's eyes dart about Thomas's face. The woman slaps him. Looking upon her son, all she sees is a corpse.

Damsel reaches out beneath the security of his table, grasping the balled-up telegram. He presses the wrinkles flat and gazes at its ink.

THOMAS SHETLAND -(STOP)- YOUR APPLICATION TO THE TOWN OF HEATHER SHERIFF OFFICE IS APPROVED -(STOP)- PLEASE REPORT TO SHERIFF THOMAS WASILIEV DONOVAN ON OR BEFORE THE FIRST OF MAY -(STOP)- YOU WILL BE GREETED WITH A BADGE AND THE RANK OF DEPUTY -(STOP)-