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Angelus · (08-26-2013)

Sidewinder
Part 1: "Bullet Points"

At the airport newsstand, Angelus picked up a paperback western. The cover was generic, showing a standard-issue tried and true Texas cowboy, looking long and lean, walking down the dusty streets of a western town with gun riding his hip. Neither the title nor the author meant anything to Anj. What drew him was a line that seemed to leap out from the cover.

"He rode a thousand miles," Anj read, "to kill a man he never met."

Anj paid for the book and tucked it into his carry-on bag. When the plane was in the air he dug it out and looked at the cover, wondering why he'd bought it in the first place. He read off and on, and when he did, he never chose westerns.

Maybe he wasn't supposed to read this book.

Maybe he was supposed to keep it as a talisman.

All that for one sentence. Imagine riding a thousand miles on a horse for any purpose, let alone the killing of a stranger. How long would it take, a thousand-mile journey on horseback? A thoroughbred got around a racecourse in something like two minutes, but it couldn't go all day at that pace any more than a human being could string together twenty-six four minute miles and call it a marathon.

What could you manage on a horse, fifty miles a day? A hundred miles in two days, a thousand miles in twenty? Three weeks, say, at the conclusion of which a man would probably be eager to kill anybody, stranger, or blood kin.

Was this big Texan on the cover getting paid for his thousand miles? Was he in the trade? Anj turned the book over in his hands, read the paragraph on the back cover. It did not sound promising. Something about a drifter in the Arizona territory, a saddle tramp, looking to settle an old Civil War score.

Forgive and forget, Anj advised him.

Angelus, riding substantially more than a thousand miles, albeit on a plan instead of a horse, was similarly charged with killing a man as yet unmet. And he was drifting into the Old West to do it, first to Denver, then to Jackson, Wyoming, and finally to a town called Fremont. That had been reason enough to pick up the book, but was it reason enough to read it?

He gave it a try. He read a few pages before they came down the aisle with the drink cart, read a couple more while he sipped his V-8 and ate out of a small bag of trail mix. Then he evidently dozed off, because the next thing he knew the stewardess was waking him to apologize for not having the fruit dish he'd ordered. He told her it didn't matter, he'd have the regular dinner.

"We do have an Indian dish if that's your fancy," she said.

His mind filled with a vision of an airline tray wrapped in one of those saffron-colored robes, extending itself beseechingly and demanding alms. He had the regular dinner instead and ate most of it, except for the mystery meat. He dozed off afterward and didn't wake up until they were making the descent into the airport.

Earlier, he'd tucked the book into the seat pocket in front of him, and he'd intended to let it ride off into the sunset wedged between air-sickness and the plastic card with the emergency exit diagrams. At the last minute he changed his mind and brought the book along.

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Let's not waste time with pleasantries. Let's just cut right to the chase… deal?

Okay, here it goes -- I now feel infinitely dumber having listened to Eli James talk.

And talk.

And talk.

AND TALK.

There. I can finally get that off my chest.

But seriously, would someone be willing to front a cash payout to anyone willing to put this mouth-breathing hick down for a dirt nap?

If you're going to insist on making your little late night informercials can you maybe get a catchy soundtrack, something with a banjo preferably, or at the very least try to say something relevant?

How long was that last one? I'd guesstimate six hours but I stopped paying attention to go pour bleach into my eyes.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure all your other little Kool-Aide sippers think you're a wise old fart sitting in your easy chair, smoking out of a corn cob pipe, waxing poetic about the time you had to shave Mama James back fur off with your buck knife.

By the way, Eli, here's a pro-tip. I know you're just a 'good ol' boy' and words and "speaking good" is real hard for you, but how about you learn how to pronounce my name right before it ever enters your fucking mouth?

You got a message for me, huh? I got a message for you. If you think you're walking out of Warfare on both legs you got you face buried further up Sincere Lee Wild's ass than I thought.

You're not here for a cause, Jim Jones, I mean Eli.

You're just a fat old country bumpkin that looks like your relatives have been fucking each other for far too long.

So go ahead and talk of promised lands and your little manifest destinies, but I live in the real world Eli. The real world where you're just a man made of flesh and bone.

Bone breaks. Flesh splits open.

You can try to fool all your little followers into believing that you're going to bring them to the winner's circle. If they believe that they're more disillusioned than you are.

I hate to rain on your parade. I'm sure you had a big night planned for after your victory too. Maybe a little KFC, watch some Deliverance on Blu-Ray so you can rewind and watch your favorite parts over and over again.

Keep thinking that. I'm sure it'll work out as well for you as when your Pa told you not to get frisky with your cousin Mary Lou. Or was it Jebidiah James? Aw hell, you all look alike anyway.

I'll see you on Wednesday, Eli.

Until then, you might want to turn that gator over on the fire. Looks a bit ripe.

He spent an hour on the ground in Denver, another hour in the air flying to Jackson. The cheerful young man at the Hertz counter had a car reserved for Peter Lake. Anj showed him a Connecticut driver's license and an American Express card and the young man gave him the set of keys and told him to have a 'blessed day.'

The keys fit the white Chevy Caprice. Cruising north on the interstate, Anj decided he could live with everything the car had but its name. There was nothing capricious about his mission. Riding a thousand miles to kill a man you hadn't met wasn't something one undertook on a whim.

Ideally, he thought he'd be bouncing along on a rutted two-lane blacktop in a Mustang, say, or maybe a Charger. Even a fucking Pinto sounded like a better match for a rawboned, leathery desperado like Peter Fucking Lake than a Caprice.

It was comfortable, though, and he liked the way it handled. And the color was okay. But forget white. As far as he was concerned, the car was a palomino.

It took about an hour to drive to Fremont, a town of around ten thousand midway between Jackson and Glenbrook on I-25. Just looking around, you knew right away you'd left the East Coast far behind. Mountains in the distance, a great expanse of sky overhead. And, right in front of you, frame buildings that could have been the false fronts in a film. A feed store, a western wear emporium, a rundown hotel where you'd expect to find Wild Bill holding aces and eights at a table in the saloon, or Doc Holliday coughing up his lungs out in a bedroom on the second floor.

Of course there were also a couple of supermarkets, gas stations, a two-screen movie theater and a Toyota dealership, a Pizza Hut, and a Taco Bell, so it wasn't too hard to keep track of what century you were in. He saw a man walk out of the Taco Bell with cowboy boots, and a Stetson. No horse though. Just a pickup truck.

The hotel was located right in the center of things on the wide main street. Anj imagined himself walking in, slapping a credit card down on the counter. Then the desk clerk would say that they didn't take plastic and then he'd say nervously "or p-p-paper either. Eyes would be darting around nervously as he prepared for the shooting to start.

And Anj would set a silver dollar spinning on the counter. "I'll be here for a few days," he'd announce. "If I have any change coming, buy yourself a new pair of underwear."

And the clerk would glance down and realize he'd soiled himself from fear.

He sighed, shook his head, and drove to the Holiday Inn near the interstate exit. They had plenty of rooms, and gave him what he asked for. The clerk was a woman, a very young, very blonde young lady.

"Enjoy your stay with us, Mr Lake."

No stuttering. No stammering.

He unpacked, showered, and went to the window to look at the sunset. It was the sort of sunset a hero would ride off into. Stop it, he told himself. Stay with reality. You've flown a couple thousand miles to kill a man you never met. Just get it down. The sunset can wait.

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