Brody’s eyes drift to the wooden Indian. Grim-faced, time-roughened joints creaking, the creature loads another arrow.
“My father spent the rest of his life runnin’ from his tribe in their various guises: coyote, hawk, cougar…deer. When he died, the curse was passed on to me. They’re punishin’ me for his crimes. And they’ll punish you if you get in their way.”
Brody looks over his shoulder. Incensed, the herd pours over the Dodge on a wave of frantic whispers. The sound of them now is deafening. He scrambles away from the railing, puts his back to the door, wishes he had his knife, or better yet, his gun. He has never felt so vulnerable, and in truth, afraid, as he is at this moment. Sweat trickles into his eyes; he blinks it away. But, Death by deer, he thinks, and splutters a laugh. No one will ever believe it. He elbows the door.” Let me in, man.”
“I can’t.”
“Then toss me out a weapon or something. Anything.”
“You don’t need one. In protectin’ me, Red Cloud will protect you too.”
Helpless to do anything but watch, Brody draws his knees up as the deer that have made it onto the Dodge leap toward the house only to be struck down in mid air by the arrows from the wooden Indian’s bow. Red Cloud’s feet haven’t moved from his small rectangular pedestal; only his arms look alive. They reload the bow, faster and faster, until they become a blur, and above them, the Indian’s painted eyes are narrowed, mouth down-turned in a grimace. The wooden points of the arrows cleave the air, thudding into the hides of the seemingly endless ranks. As they fall, the deer turn to clouds of dust, which in turn swirl upward as if caught in a vortex. And in those miniature twisters, there are screaming faces.
Time draws out, and Brody is desperately aware of every second that’s lost to him. Any moment now he expects to hear sirens, drowning out the screams of the dying deer. Should have kept walking. Nothing but bad luck in this goddamn town. Should have just kept on walking. He imagines the faces on the cops as they jump from their cruisers, pistols trained on him, ready to bring him down, only to find themselves watching a wooden Indian pegging a bunch of homicidal deer.
“Every day it’s the same,” Blue Moon says wistfully. “And will be until they force me to take my own life, or step outside to meet them, whichever happens first.”
“Then why not make a deal with the old man? The guy who makes the deals.”
“Because I have no interest in the kind of peace he has to offer.”
More arrows tear flying deer from the air, their bodies thumping down hard on the car, making it rock on its wheels, denting the hood, the roof, decorating the pale blue metal with dark blood. Brody watches, mesmerized, until the death of the animals begins to feel monotonous, a tiresome display of a hunter’s brawn. He’s even starting to feel a bit sorry for those poor bastards. He stands, brushes splinters and dirt from his already ruined suit. “I’m leavin’. I have to. Pissed away too much time already in this freakshow of a town.”
“Better wait, boy. Won’t be safe till they’re gone.”
Brody puts his hands on his hips, glances at Red Cloud, who ignores him. “Tell me something, Blue. If you’ve got your goombah here with his endless supply of arrows, why can’t you come out, at least as far as the porch? That tribe of yours don’t seem to be bothering me none. Not up here.”
To Brody, it’s a short forever before he gets an answer, and when it comes, it is in the form of a door easing open and not a voice. Brody peers at the widening crack between door and jamb. It is dark inside. Low to the ground, as if Blue Moon’s been sitting on the floor all this time, the old man’s hand emerges from around the door. In it is held an old-fashioned revolver, which he sets on the porch. Then the hand withdraws and the door is quickly shut.
Brody stands there, staring at the grooves in the door, at the memory of what he thinks he has just seen.
“Take it. It’s loaded.”
Brody nods, but doesn’t reply. Instead, he stoops, collects the gun and checks to see if the old man is pulling a fast one on him. It’s an old Colt, but it’s fully loaded and looks serviceable. “Why are you helping me if you know so much about what I’ve done?” he asks at last.
“Because I’m no judge, boy, and I’m certainly no better. I know there are always two roads, but the right one ain’t always necessarily the good one. I’ve traveled both, and I still can’t tell ’em apart.”
“All right then,” Brody says, feeling dazed as he slips the gun into his waistband and slowly descends the porch steps. Arrows cut the air over his shoulder, but he doesn’t flinch. Deer rain down on the Dodge, smack hard against the ground, kick and protest imminent death. The gun is cold against his belly, as cold as he imagines the old man’s hand was. They stole something precious from a rival tribe. A statue of a deer, made from obsidian and wood.
Obsidian and wood.
He wonders how many nights his sleep will be plagued by what he has seen in this town, how often he’ll be dragged out of his dreams by the wooden Indian, the tribe, and the old man’s hand. He stops short of the car and ducks low as a deer launches itself up over the hood, watches it jerk back at the behest of Red Cloud’s arrow and drop heavily. Blood speckles his cheek. Antlers scratch the bottom of the driver-side door. The dust devils spin away, elongated faces within twisting in torment, and then disappear. The passenger side door is facing him, so this is where he’s heading. He expects it to be locked; another trick, another inconvenience, but it isn’t and swings open with a labored groan. There are cobwebs on the steering wheel, beer cans and used condoms on the floor. A pine tree freshener spins lazily from the rearview mirror but the interior smells of rotten meat. He’s inside, hand on the keys when another deer, eyes wide in fury or panic, Brody can’t tell which, and doesn’t much care, rams the side of the car, its head colliding with the glass on the driver side, inches away from Brody. It cracks, but doesn’t shatter.
With shaking hands, he turns the keys. The engine whines, then catches and roars into life. He yanks back the gearshift. The grinding noise is not encouraging, but then the car bucks once and heaves backward, throwing up dirt that sprays across the porch, where an old wooden Indian is tirelessly defending an old man made of black glass.
He shakes his head, looks back to the path. The deer are crowded there, watching him, blocking his way.
“To hell with this,” Brody mumbles and jams his foot down on the accelerator.
Chapter Twenty
The pain begins at sundown.
I’m walking, not even a half a mile clear of Winter Street when my guts turn to liquid fire. A gasp and I’m doubled over; another, and I’m on my knees, my shoulder against the graffiti-riddled wall of the long-abandoned Brautigan’s Drugstore, my hand splayed on the concrete before me. My vision begins to blur, then it paints everything red, as if I’m wearing crimson shades, or there’s blood in my eyes.
Another wave of pain and then I realize the first few rounds were nothing. Nothing compared to the incredible torture that comes with the sensation of my bones narrowing, shifting, bending, poking at the skin in an attempt to reshape me. My muscles protest as they’re played like cello strings. My nerves sing in torment, jarring the thoughts from my head. It’s as if I’ve been bound in barbed wire and someone is tightening it, ever so slowly.