“Years.”
“Do you think you can get it up?”
“I’d like to try.”
Magic Child put her arms around the sixty-one-year-old bald-headed, paunchy, half-drunk keeper of strange horses and kissed him on the mouth.
“I think I can do it.”
In the Barn
Greer carried a lantern and Cameron carried the blankets and Magic Child trailed after them into the barn. She was very excited by the hard lean curve of their asses.
“Where’s the best place to sleep here?” Cameron said.
“Up in the loft,” Magic Child said. “There’s an old bed up there. Pills keeps it for travellers to sleep in. That bed is the only hotel in town.” Her voice was dry and suddenly nervous. She could just barely keep her hands off them.
Greer noticed it. He looked over at her. Her eyes darted like excited jade into his eyes and then out of them and he smiled softly. She didn’t smile at all.
They carefully climbed the ladder up to the loft. It smelled sweetly of hay and there was an old brass bed beside the hay. The bed looked very comfortable after two days of travel. It shined like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
“Fuck me,” Magic Child said.
“What?” Cameron said. He had been thinking about something else. He had been thinking about the six gunshots off in the hills during dinner.
“I want you both,” Magic Child said and passion broke her voice like an Aphrodite twig.
Then she took her clothes off. Greer and Cameron stood there watching. Her body was slender and long with high firm breasts that had small nipples. And she had a good ass.
Greer blew the lantern out and she fucked Greer first.
Cameron sat on a dark bale of hay while Magic Child and Greer fucked. The brass bed sounded alive as it echoed the motion of their passion.
After while the bed stopped moving and everything was quiet except for the voice of Magic Child saying thank you, thank you, over and over again to Greer.
Cameron counted how many times she said thank you. She said thank you eleven times. He waited for her to say thank you a twelfth time but she didn’t say it again.
Then Cameron took his turn with Magic Child. Greer didn’t bother to get out of bed. He just lay there beside them while they fucked. Greer felt too good to move.
After another while the bed fell silent. There wasn’t a sound for a couple of moments and then Magic Child said, “Cameron.” She said it once. That’s all she said it. Cameron waited for her to say his name again or to say something else but she didn’t say his name again and she didn’t say anything else.
She just lay there affectionately stroking his ass like a kitten.
The Drum
The slamming of screen doors and dogs barking and the rattling of breakfast pots and pans and roosters crowing and people coughing and grumbling and stirring about: getting ready to start their day beat like a drum in Billy.
It was a silver early-in-the-morning drum that would lead to the various events that would comprise July 13, 1902. The town drunk was lying facedown in the middle of the Main Street of town. He was passed out and at peace with the summer dust. His eyes were closed. There was a smile on the side of his face. A big yellow dog was sniffing at his boots and a big black dog was sniffing at the yellow dog. They were happy dogs. Both of their tails were wagging.
A screen door slammed and a man shouted so loudly that the dogs stopped their sniffing and wagging, “Where in the hell is my God-damn hat!”
“On your head, you idiot!” was the female reply.
The dogs thought about this for a moment and then they started barking at the town drunk and woke him up.
Welcome to the Dead Hills
They woke up at dawn the next morning and rode out on three sad horses into the Dead Hills. Their name was perfect. They looked as if an undertaker had designed them from leftover funeral scraps. It was a three-hour ride to Miss Hawkline’s house. The road was very bleak, wandering like the handwriting of a dying person over the hills.
There were no houses, no barns, no fences, no signs that human life had ever made its way this far except for the road which was barely legible. The only comforting thing was the early morning sweet smell of juniper brush.
Cameron had the trunk full of guns strapped onto the back of his horse. He thought it remarkable that the animal could still move. He had to think back a ways to remember a horse that had been in such bad shape.
“Sure is stark,” Greer said.
Cameron had been counting the hills as they rode along. He got to fifty-seven. Then he gave up. It was just too boring.
“57,” he said.
Then he didn’t say anything else. Actually, “57” had been the only thing that he’d said since they left Billy a few hours before.
Magic Child waited for Cameron to explain why he’d said “57” but he didn’t. He didn’t say anything more.
“Miss Hawkline lives out here,” Greer said.
“Yes,” Magic Child said. “She loves it.”
Something Human
Finally they came across something human. It was a grave. The grave was right beside the road. It was simply a pile of bleak rocks covered with vulture shit. There was a wooden cross at one end of the rocks. The grave was so close to the road that you almost had to ride around it.
“Well, at last we’ve got some company,” Greer said.
There were a bunch of bullet holes in the cross. The grave had been used for target practice.
“9,” Cameron said.
“What was that?” Magic Child said.
“He said there are nine bullet holes in the cross,” Greer said.
Magic Child looked over at Cameron. She looked at him about ten seconds longer than she should have looked at him.
“Don’t mind Cameron,” Greer said. “He just likes to count things. You’ll get used to it.”
The Coat
They rode farther and farther into the Dead Hills which disappeared behind them instantly to reappear again in front of them and everything was the same and everything was very still.
At one time Greer thought he saw something different but he was mistaken. What he saw was exactly the same as what he had been seeing. He thought that it was smaller but then he realized that it was exactly the same size as everything else.
He slowly shook his head.
“Where does Pills get these horses?” Cameron said to Magic Child.
“That’s what everybody wants to know,” Magic Child said.
After while Cameron felt like counting again but because everything was the same it was difficult to find anything to count, so Cameron counted the footsteps of his horse, carrying him deeper and deeper into the Dead Hills and Miss Hawkline standing on the front porch of a gigantic yellow house, shielding her eyes against the sun with her hand and staring out into the Dead Hills. She was wearing a heavy winter coat.
The Doctor
Magic Child was very glad to be home and she considered these hills to be home. You couldn’t tell, though, that she was happy because she wore a constant expression on her face that had nothing to do with happiness. It was an anxious, slightly abstract look. It had been on her face since they had awakened in the barn.
Greer and Cameron had wanted another go at her but she hadn’t been interested. She had told them that it was very important they get out to Miss Hawkline’s place.