3. Bonegift
Structure lingers.
Two days later found her walking, still looking, with more than a few changes made.
The most obvious concerned her clothes. As she headed west it seemed the days became hotter. The terrain she moved across became more arid and desolate, if no less beautiful. Field and forest gave way to long stretches of dry prairie grass and the first hints of cacti. She took to stripping down in the morning, bundling the jeans and excess sweat pants in the jacket, rolling that into a tight wad she could strap to her backpack. She kept the knit cap, as protection from the direct sun that grew intense as the day wore on. It also served to keep the sweat from her eyes. After the sun set and dark began to rise, she’d slowly re-acquire the clothes. The nights were still cold, and she was still grateful for every layer when she finally lay down to sleep.
The cat paced her as she travelled, keeping a solid hundred yards in front of her. His wounds healed with impossible speed, almost invisible by the second day, though a slight limp remained and always would. He rarely made use of the road, preferring the more challenging trail of the ditches and culverts. The plentiful wildlife also distracted him, and — both days so far — he had presented her with kills. Rabbits, prairie dogs, an unknown little beast that looked like a gopher. He’d drop them at her feet and dash back to his pacing lead, as if he were the navigator on this journey he’d joined.
She was grateful. There were no towns in sight and she’d seen only two cars since her dreamlike ride with Char. Neither of them had stopped, though the rust eaten and filthy Cadillac had slowed, creeping past her as the thin and hungry occupants stared out with less than friendly eyes. The cat had hissed viciously and fluffed into an image of malice. Whoever had been driving took that for what it was worth and moved along.
The two days of mostly silent walking honed her ritual. When night fell, she’d make camp. She looked for particularly clear and dry ditches for this, reluctantly moving onto the prairie farther from the road when her choice spots were damp or overgrown. She’d build a fire and clean whatever prey the cat had brought her, complaining to him all the while about her broken knife. She’d spit cook it and — while she waited — would try to set her thoughts in order. The cat would sit in the draft of the roasting meat and knead the dry ground with his paws, growling low in his throat in anticipation. Her stomach generally echoed him. This would be the background music of her jumbled contemplations.
While she had clear and detailed memories of her childhood and the early years of her marriage, there appeared something like a wall the closer to the present she attempted to remember. The days — weeks? months? — before setting off on her trek were the haziest and least clear. What had set her on the road? She knew that it was something that frightened her, something that had forever altered her life, yet the specifics of the event remained mired in haze.
The meat always interrupted. She’d learned to tell the moment it was done by the sound of the sizzle and the clarity of the juices dripping into the fire. She and the cat would eat in silence. She supplemented the meat with the hoarded trail mix and dried fruit from her pack.
After that, the cat would excuse himself for his late night business and she would give in to the sleepiness that a full stomach instilled in her. She’d bank the fire as best she could and lie back, staring at the stars or the clouds as the case might be. She was averaging 20 miles a day, so sleep found her quickly those two nights, and the cat never stayed gone for long. With him next to her, the dreams seemed afraid to bother her.
On the morning of the third day of travelling with the cat, she found her gun.
The sun was about halfway to noon, and the road was beginning to shimmer with heat when a gleam off to her right caught her eye. She slowed, staring. It bloomed again — about a half mile off the road, she estimated.
She considered a moment. There was no sign of a car in either direction, and she wasn’t expecting one soon. She needed to explore the area a bit anyway, since her canteen was near empty and she couldn’t be certain of finding water after dark.
But two things made up her mind for her.
The first was the return of that bone deep vibration, the feeling Char had called the Leaving Song. It had faded in the days after that ride, but was back with a vengeance, buzzing through her like a fever.
And the second was the fact that the cat sprinted towards the gleam like a creature possessed.
She sighed, shouldered the weight of her pack into a comfortable position, and set off after him.
The ground away from the road was hard packed but far from barren. In addition to the scrub bushes and prairie grass, there was an assortment of cacti and all manner of insect life.
Ten minutes of walking brought her within discernable sight of her goal. She actually smiled at it when she figured out what it was.
The ancient camper topped pickup truck had seen better days. Where wheels had once lifted it proudly from the ground, only concrete blocks stood now. She slowed her pace and took in details.
It was a Chevy, a 50’s model some voice inside told her. The round, almost sensual angles of the hood were a dead giveaway. Rust spread across the metal in a slow, inexorable tide. Rust had washed from the body through uncounted rainy seasons, digging deep red rivulet canyons in a spiderweb pattern around the truck.
The cat sat staring at the driver side door. It glanced at her, gave a rumbly meow, and returned its gaze to the window.
Faith sauntered up to it, annoyed by the odd behavior.
"You probably think it’s funny," she was saying "making me chase you through brush and bushes, but.."
The words faded as she glanced at the window.
At the wheel, grinning towards the horizon, sat a human skeleton.
"Oh my." Faith muttered, at a loss for anything else.
She wasn’t afraid though. Not until the head swiveled toward her, that permanent grin now leveled at her. The chill that coursed her spine caused her to hold her breath after a sharp intake.
It was the click of the door opening that caused her to whimper, however.
The boneman emerged slowly, carefully, as if worried his essential structure was unsound. The driver’s door creaked open and a small shower of rust flakes sifted to the ground.
Faith stepped back. The cat didn’t budge, just sat there swishing his tail in mild interest.
The door was left open as the boneman moved two steps towards her. It cocked its head, staring at her with empty sockets. The sun gleamed dully from the cracked round shape of its skull.
Faith met its eyes. Utterly non-plussed, she said, simply:
"Hello."
The gleam shifted as the head cocked the other way. A hand crept to the right hip. Faith followed with her eyes. They widened, partially in fear, but mainly because the sight that met her caused the vibration in her center to rev up beyond mere sensation. She moved another step backwards, and felt as if the world itself was vibrating, and she was the only still point.
Around his waist, the boneman wore an elaborate holster of deep black leather. It hung partly slack from the stripped bones.
Riding in that holster was a weapon at once both strange and familiar. The blue-gray handle that emerged, that a bone hand now hovered above, locked her gaze like a fetish. Her mouth went dry and she felt her teeth grit.
Still, the cat did not move.
"Are you going to shoot me?" Faith asked the revenant. "Why?"
The boneman stared. His hand remained an inch or so above the handle of the gun.
"No." he finally said. His voice was diaphanous and low, a distant sub-bass note throbbing in the earth. "I have waited."
"You were waiting for me?"
"Yes." There was a note of effort in that deep voice, a tone of pain. "For many years. The seasons passed and the body withered. The rains came and washed away the surface. But structure lingered, as structure will. Intent persisted, desire challenged the world."
Faith held her breath. The vibration within was almost painful.
"Now the moment arrives." The voice of the boneman drifted further toward the dissolute, becoming a sigh. "My watch is ending, the message delivered."
"What message?" The words were choked out of her. She felt as if she were climbing a wall, nearing the top.
The boneman drew the gun from its rest. He held it by the handle, and lifted it to her in offering, barrel pointing away, aimed at the red web of earth.
"Message and gift, in honest steel. Take this, and challenge the world."
Hesitantly, Faith reached for the weapon. As she took it, her fingers brushed the cool bones of the sentinel.
In that instant of contact, the vibration left her, and entered the boneman.
A memory slammed her, of herself and the gun and the stunned faces of four men. Of four explosions and how blood and brains had leapt and danced in the stark glow of kitchen fluorescent. Of vengeful angry triumph, a righteous howl…
…that passed through her like electricity, surprising tears from her.
Before her, the boneman shuddered apart, falling into a lifeless pile. Quickly, the pile itself shuddered into dust. The truck followed suit, sympathetic magic demanding its death along with its master.
A breeze picked up, out of the north, and the dust of bones and rust began their long journey across the world.
Inside her, the vibration was gone, the leaving song finished.
I have arrived, I suppose. she thought, and some deep part of herself knew that was true.
She examined the gun in her hand, enjoying the weight of it. It was a blunt, brutal and confident structure of grey steel and blue gleam. It belonged to her and she knew it.
She retrieved the belt and holster from the rapidly diminishing pile of dust. She strapped it clumsily on, figuring out how to tighten it to her waist with experimentation. The length of the belt held cartridges. They reminded her of shark teeth.
She slid the gun back to its rest and addressed the cat.
"What do you think."
The cat was cleaning himself, unimpressed by her or the spectacle just passed. In answer, he turned and trotted back toward the road.
Faith sighed, and followed. She spared a single glance back to the disappearing shrine of her sentinel. The she cast eyes ahead, following the cat.
The weight of the gun on her hip reassured her with every step. Emboldened, she set out to find a world to challenge.
