Fuck Your Mother

Fuck Your Mother

by

Bobby Derie

Hrun and Thum sat on piled stones of the weir, fishing into the grey waters of the river, away from the fires and smells and sounds of the Place. Thum threaded a squirming blackbug onto the v-shaped bone hook, slim brown fingers working at the spindly legs. Hrun preferred small balls of old goat cheese, pungent and sickly-smelling, that sank slowly by the weight tied to his lines.

None would mistake them for father and son. Thum was lean and not yet into his full height or beard, the scars of his thirteenth summer still healing on both cheeks, sandy brown hair loose and unruly, hanging past his brown eyes and covering his face, a stone knife at his waist. Hrun was taller and wider, his skin burned darker by seven more years under the son, and blue-black lines crawled up both arms to whirls on his shoulders and chest, half-hidden under a mane of dark brown hair; bits of shell corkscrewed around the edge of his one good ear, the other bunched and cauliflowered.

They sat that way as the insects buzzed and the birds sang, watching their lines in the water, until finally Hrun broke the silence.

“Hrun fuck Jhill.” the older man said.

Thum drew a hand over his face, parting the hair so he could look at Hrun, but the older man’s eyes were fixed on his own line, which gave a tug. The younger man drew in his own line, the hook empty of bait or fish, and let Hrun on the weir.

Fhana’s lean-to was on the far side of the Place, and Thum circled around the game trail, not wanting to see or be seen by anyone. Thum arrived to find Fhana bent over before the Mhelgran, and lay down at the base of a tree. He waited as they grunted and gasped, and remembered the sounds Jhill and Mhal had made beneath the bearskin, when he was a boy, and thought of the sounds that Jhill and Hrun would make, and Thum bit his lip and grasped the handle of his knife until the knuckles turned white and the leather thong bit into his palm. Presently the Mhelgran left, and Thum waited until he was out of sight before rising and turning to Fhana’s lean-to.

On bare knees with ass bent to the air, Fhana kneeled where the Mhelgran had left, one hand idly playing at the crotch, the other arm serving as a chin-rest. Flushed and blushing, Fhana smiled as Thum came into the clearing and pointed at the bulge in his loin-cloth, but Thum nodded his head no.

“Hrun fuck Jhill.” the younger man said.

Fhana’s smile became a frown, and sat up, bare backside coming to rest on dusty heels, head rising to the height of Thum’s chest. One hand still ran up and down the shaman’s cock, but the boy-girl finished quickly and motioned Thum to sit as Fhana got dressed, then came and sat next to him, one hand brushing the hair back behind his ear to see Thum’s face.

“Hrun fuck Jhill.” Fhana said. “Hrun hurt Thum.”

The young man shook his head.

“Jhill hurt Thum.”

He shook his head again.

“Thum fuck Jhill.”

At that, Thum started, shifting away from Fhana, but Fhana’s left hand caught him at his collarbone, and Fhana’s right hand gripped Thum’s wrist as he tried to draw his knife. Fhana leaned in close, breath smelling of the Mhelgran’s seed.

“Mhal dead.” the boy-girl whispered into Thum’s ear, the warmth of her breath causing him to get hard again. “Hrun fuck Jhill.” Thum managed to nod his head no.

Fhana turned as she stood, still grasping Thum, and with impossible force the young man was thrown onto his back, slamming into the earth hard enough to knock the wind from him. Fhana stood over the young man, who skittered backwards over the earth away from her.

“Hrun fuck Jhill.” Fhana said, louder, and Thum was already on his knees at the game trail.

“Hrun fuck Jhill!” Fhana screamed, as Thum ran away.

Thum slowed down when he reached Jhill’s fire. She was holding a fish over the coals with a fire-blackened stick, fat sizzling and dripping into the flames. Her hair was the same sandy brown as Thum’s own, but her skin was twelve summers darker from the sun, and her eyes were green.

He sat down next to her.

“Mhal dead.” Thum said, and saw Jhill stiffen a little, her eyes less bright than a moment before. “Hrun and Jhill…” he let the name trail into the wind.

Jhill dug the stick into the earth, letting the fish hand over the lowest part of the fire, and wrapped an arm around Thum. The two embraced, the young man’s head buried in the older woman’s hair.

“Mhal dead.” she said. “Mhal and Jhill. Mhal and Jhill and Thum. Thum and Jhill.”

Thum brought his head up, his brown eyes looking into her green eyes.

“Hrun and Jhill.” he said.

“Hrun and Jhill and Thum.” she said.

“Hrun fuck Jhill.” Thum said, and kissed her on the mouth. Jhill smiled as he got up. The older woman turned back to the fish that was almost black on one side, as Thum walked away.

Thum found Hrun still on the weir, a small pile of fish beside him, sucking the last of the cheese-bait with sticky fingers. The younger man sat down next to the older man, and watched the line pull in the water a little.

“Hrun fuck Jhill.” the younger man said.

###

No Justice for Dead Horses

No Justice for Dead Horses

by

Bobby Derie

Gibson bolted awake, and the woman’s screams followed him all the way back from the nightlands to the Arizona Territory; became one with the terrified, pain-wracked scream of his horse. A great black shadow clung to the gray mare like a half-starved tick, dressed in trade cloth and hide, lapping at a ragged, ugly wound. The horse was on the ground, sides heaving and in a sweat, blood trickled from her neck, foam speckled the corner of its mouth, and the old girl had shat herself—Gibson didn’t much blame her, he was fit to cack his own breeches as he reached for his Springfield, but the black shadow detached itself and loped west toward the mesa, lost in the scrub before he could get a shot off.

By the light of the dying stars and moon, as the sky turned into the deep purple of pre-dawn, Gibson surveyed the damage. The mare had a hole in her neck as wide as his hand, blood dried black and sticky on the edges, the painful scream down to a whisper, and her kicks had grown feeble as the life fled from her in a crimson trickle. More worrisome, there was a new cast to her head he didn’t like, the shape of her skull more pronounced as if the flesh had shrunk back against the bone, lips curled and peeled back to reveal teeth longer and sharper than he remembered. Gibson moved behind her, to where she couldn’t see him, and lifted the rifle at an awkward angle, aiming for a point near the back of the top of the skull. Old Comanche had taught him a prayer to say, for the spirit of the animal that gave its life to the hunter. Gibson didn’t try to say it, since he wasn’t a praying man, but as he fired he thought of it.

The man who had sold Gibson his knife claimed it had been owned by Colonel Bowie himself, though Gibson rather doubted it. Still, it was fourteen inches long and had a blade three fingers wide, good for cutting brush and stripping hides. Now he set it to task cutting off the grey mare’s head, starting at that nasty wound and sawing at the muscles, slipping the edge down in the space between the vertebrae to get through the gristle there. By the time the work was done and he had wiped the blade clean on the horse’s flank, the heat of the morning was on and he looked a butcher, but there was no help for that. Gibson toted the saddlebags up on his shoulder and, rifle in hand, set out west.

If the town ever had a name, Gibson never knew it, and there were none in it now that might tell him. He crossed a wood plank bridge over a dry creek, made note of a great, twisted acacia tree that spread its shade over a handful of human bones, the fragments of a rope still clinging to one stout, thorny branch. Beyond it lay a boot hill that ran right up against the side of the mesa, and turned his steps toward the old lopsided adobe brick church.

The doors were solid, but unlocked, the air cool and still, and Gibson moved inside to avoid being caught with the sun at his back in the doorway, moving carefully while his eyes set to adjust. The altar, if there had ever been one besides some wooden table, had obviously been sacked, the chairs in the nave that served instead of pews in disarray, and there was a gaping hole in one wall of the sanctum where the instruments had been removed—Gibson took this all in at a glance, then moved with a purpose to the tower. A thin, strong manila rope hung in the darkness of a spiraling wooden stair. Gibson climbed the steps carefully, kicking aside small mounds of pale grey-speckled bat-shit and brushing his way through fine, invisible filmy webs, hoping the attercops weren’t too nasty a breed in these parts. The stair gave way to a platform and a small forest of hanging, furry bodies, the air alive with their stench, and the space where the churchbell might have been was empty. Gibson slid out the knife and cut the rope, letting it fall back down, then turned back down the stairs to follow it.

The sky burned blue as Gibson squeezed a few more drops of blood onto the tin plate, then bound the cut with a scrap of cloth. The day at the cemetery had been mostly wasted, as any ghouls had got tired of competing with the coyotes and gone on to richer pickings. Near afternoon, as he set to lunch, Gibson had finally found it—a black hole, just big enough for a corpse to be laid in, up the sheer side of the mesa. Some of the Indians used to bury their dead that way, or so Gibson had heard, though he’d no idea how they’d gone up and down it since there were no hand or foot holds he could see. So he finished eating and set to wait.

As dusk settled into night, the plate of still-liquid blood sat a few feet away from the base of the mound, and Gibson’s legs were cramped. The crickets and bats were singing, and the darkness separated into its different colors as Gibson’s night-eyes took hold, muted blues and deeper blacks of shadows-on-shadows. One of those shadows crawled forth from the lip of the hole and crawled lizard-like down the earthen face of the mesa. It continued to crawl, belly to ground, face forward toward the plate of blood, and began to lap it up, teeth scratching at the tin. Gibson gave a pull, muscles in his arms and back bunching, cramped legs screaming as he gave it everything.

The loop of rope buried in the dirt around the plate caught on the forearms, then drew tight as the rope slipped through the knot. It screeched, and thrashed, and pulled, but Gibson kept it up as the rope drew tighter, and then he started walking, dragging the thing behind him, fighting all the way, digging its feet in the earth, grasping at every rock and bit of shrub, rolling around to jerk the rope as it burned a furrow in Gibson’s shoulder. It was a short walk from the boneyard to the dry creek, but it took an awful long time. Gibson remembered that old Comanche as he bent arm and back to the task, how the weathered brown man had taught him to tap a little blood from the horse, just enough for a man to survive when he’s out in the world and food and water are scarce, and warned him never to do it too often, or too much. A man without a horse, away from people, was a dead man.

Getting the noose around its neck was a little harder. Gibson had to hit it a few times, not that he much minded, and when the damn thing tried to bite him he sat on its chest and broke its teeth in with the butt of his knife. Then he slipped the noose around its neck and cinched it, the big knot right at he base of the skull, and tossed the loose rope over the limb of the acacia, next to the rotted remnants of the last hanging.

If it had been justice Gibson were after, it were a poor hanging. No sudden drop and lights out for this thing, but a long drawn-out strangling as Gibson strung the thing up so its feet dangled off the ground and kicked at empty air. It were cruel to do that to a man or dog, but Gibson tied off the rope, then set back from his labors at the edge of the creek, to wait for morning.

###

Hexslinger

Hexslinger

by

Bobby Derie

It was round about midnight when I saw the hexslingers, and I not thirteen years old, gigging frogs out at the edge of the swamp. I can’t say as they meant to meet at the crossroads out by Devil’s Fork, the moon all fat and yellow in the clear evening sky. Pa didn’t like the crossroads, with the old dead willow covered with swinging moss, and always made me hold my breath as I walked past it, but it was the quickest way home from the swamp with a heavy load of frogs.

Now the man from the south was dark and swarthy—like as not he had a little color in him—and hairy all over, like he hadn’t shaved since Shiloh, the great mustache merging down into a pair of sideburns that crept back up to his cheekbones, only a bit of stubbly chin to keep from calling it a beard. He wore the faded grey overcoat of the Confederacy, and two great pistols stuck in his belt gleamed black in the moonlight, like they were fresh-oiled. There were no medals struck in the South during the war, but I saw shiny metal buttons stuck on the Southerner’s jacket, dozens of tin stars that a sheriff might wear out west—and each one looked to have something scratched on it, and a hole in the center where a bullet might have passed through—and I knew him then for Black Bart. They said he was a gunsmith’s son who apprenticed under a marquis of hell, and when he’d served his seven years came back to cut a bloody swath through men and beast with hell-forged iron and cursed bullets.

The man from the west now was decked out as a proper soldier of Napoleon, uniform blue and white, and there was a curved cavalry saber at his left, and a heavy pistol in a little leather satchel or somewhat under his right arm. A pale mustache liked spun straw twirled up at the corners, and a braid fell down his back where he had taken off his furry cap, but his lips were cracked and bloody-looking, and when he spoke I saw the mouth of hell open, bordered by long, pointed teeth. I never did see the horse he road in on, or his dismount, but a shadow in the full moonlight pawed at the muddy road, and a glint of a long skull peaked out once as the Frenchman laid his hand where maybe a neck should be. I thought to myself of those companies in Napoleon’s armies, who they say had signed their souls away for terrible weapons, and formed their own orders to master them and train others in their use, and did not doubt I was staring at one of their number.

They didn’t measure out paces, and if there was call or challenge I didn’t catch any of it, but it seemed to me they drew at nearly the same time, Black Bart a little quicker to point. A lance of fire lit the night, and the pale shadow of the Frenchman’s nightmare was limned in the flash; I was near half-blind against the sudden glare and darkness, but heard the bones clatter to the ground. Two claps of thunder seemed to answer, and I guessed that the Frenchman had fired at least the second shot blind, for if either found their mark I did not see it. Black Bart’s arm jerked up as if dragged by the pistol, and his left hand grabbed hold of his wrist to steady the shot, even as the Frenchman took more care with his own aim. This time, lightning and thunder seemed to come at once—or perhaps the thunder followed by an angel’s breath—and the Frenchman’s arm was gone below the shoulder, the stump still clutching his great revolver hanging loose in his sleeve.

Not without apparent difficulty, the hexslinger holstered one gun and drew the other, walking slowly to his defeated foe. The Frenchman said nothing, but stood proud and puffed out his chest as his life ran out from his ruined arm, left hand on the hilt of his saber, wolf-teeth bared.

The final shot, a moment later was a blur of dull grey silver that blew the Frenchman’s brains out behind him, so black droplets spattered on the yellow horseskull and steamed in the moonlight. Pistol still in hand, Black Bart ran his hands over the body, finding small pouches of powder, ammunition, squares of paper inked with dark orisons, and other pieces of the hexslinger’s craft, and hid them about himself. The Frenchman’s pistol he saved for last, and I watched him examine it with a critical eye, checking the sight and the action, taking great interest in the hilt before stuffing it in his own belt.

As he walked away, Black Bart was briefly hidden from the moonlight by the shadow of the old willow tree—and I saw a line of shadows following him on that road, as if a train of unseen people followed him, with only the absence of moonlight to mark their presence. The line seemed to go on for a long while, and I thought about the late hour and wondered when it might ever end, until at last the final form came by—and as it passed the dead Frenchman, a new shadow came, as if a man who had been lying down rose to sitting, then standing, and brought up the rear of the ghostly train.

###

The Racist

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