The Mittens, sprung bloody from a thousand screensavers, might be, if they were in sight, burning palms onto his retinas, and the red, the red, the flare of John Ford's own personal backlot, where John Wayne kicked a saddle and drawled break out the grain and chased the Navajo stand-ins for all his Comanche...
Suck in a breath, son; it might be yer last; there's a good little cowboy. Staked him to spikes and left him, no shit, to dessicate with the brittlebush, the coyote. Ghoul-gunslinger, might have been. Got the girl to safety and chased him, silver-swinging, into the sage-scented scrub. Got turned round in the canyon, jumped. A howl out there. Everything gone to ground now. Streaks of wrist-red onto the old earth. Highish noon.
Pray a little, to the valley of the gods. Dean's gonna laugh at it; no hoof-thunder; no fool-cavalry to fuck it all up.
*
Not like this, Sam shouts to the sun, get back here, you bastard.
There's such a thing, John Wayne muses back, as a creature that'll just keep comin'. Ride a horse a thousand miles and then eat him. There's a Stetson-silhouette, right there.
Sam's brain crackles over the cowboy fire, pork-strip, mesquite. Think I don't know that, he says, since I was nine, I knew that. Think I haven't been eaten before. Think I haven't come back.
It's not hell here. It's beautiful.
Not by what you believe, John Wayne says. But one day this country's gonna be a fine place to be, you'll see.
Pain's like rock, like something he's felt a million times, the earth the demon-dirt, entrails; after all this time slip to the empty, heaven or hell and desert, death. He'll follow the water if he finds it; follow it back to tourist-town, tug at the stakes.
John squats at his side, spits, maybe a horse-pat.
What do I believe then, Sam says.
Long as you live, John Wayne says, never ask me again.
There's a dry western wind.
*
Maybe a horse-pat, a slap. Croak of a desert corvid.
Sam. Sammy. Jesus Christ.
No, John Wayne, he groans, alkali-tongue, lets his brother tip the canteen, tell him they're not so far, tell him (no) he never stopped looking, haul him up, fold him under the fire of the mesa.
Scout for the Texas Rangers, he mumbles, without pay.
Yeah, Dean says, fingers his neck, me too.
Sam breathes into his brother's hatbrim into his hair the whole of their own always-keep-coming.
"Girl's safe," Dean says, "you did good, Sammy."
Navajo land red under the setting not so far from where the canyons come together like seven fingers on some old hand.
Sun's going down. There's water. They're not so far from the road.
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carisma_sensei
FILLED:We Shall Gather at the River
Date: 2015-11-03 01:02 am (UTC)Gut-red. Highish noon.
The Mittens, sprung bloody from a thousand screensavers, might be, if they were in sight, burning palms onto his retinas, and the red, the red, the flare of John Ford's own personal backlot, where John Wayne kicked a saddle and drawled break out the grain and chased the Navajo stand-ins for all his Comanche...
Suck in a breath, son; it might be yer last; there's a good little cowboy. Staked him to spikes and left him, no shit, to dessicate with the brittlebush, the coyote. Ghoul-gunslinger, might have been. Got the girl to safety and chased him, silver-swinging, into the sage-scented scrub. Got turned round in the canyon, jumped. A howl out there. Everything gone to ground now. Streaks of wrist-red onto the old earth. Highish noon.
Pray a little, to the valley of the gods. Dean's gonna laugh at it; no hoof-thunder; no fool-cavalry to fuck it all up.
*
Not like this, Sam shouts to the sun, get back here, you bastard.
There's such a thing, John Wayne muses back, as a creature that'll just keep comin'. Ride a horse a thousand miles and then eat him. There's a Stetson-silhouette, right there.
Sam's brain crackles over the cowboy fire, pork-strip, mesquite. Think I don't know that, he says, since I was nine, I knew that. Think I haven't been eaten before. Think I haven't come back.
It's not hell here. It's beautiful.
Not by what you believe, John Wayne says. But one day this country's gonna be a fine place to be, you'll see.
Pain's like rock, like something he's felt a million times, the earth the demon-dirt, entrails; after all this time slip to the empty, heaven or hell and desert, death. He'll follow the water if he finds it; follow it back to tourist-town, tug at the stakes.
John squats at his side, spits, maybe a horse-pat.
What do I believe then, Sam says.
Long as you live, John Wayne says, never ask me again.
There's a dry western wind.
*
Maybe a horse-pat, a slap. Croak of a desert corvid.
Sam. Sammy. Jesus Christ.
No, John Wayne, he groans, alkali-tongue, lets his brother tip the canteen, tell him they're not so far, tell him (no) he never stopped looking, haul him up, fold him under the fire of the mesa.
Scout for the Texas Rangers, he mumbles, without pay.
Yeah, Dean says, fingers his neck, me too.
Sam breathes into his brother's hatbrim into his hair the whole of their own always-keep-coming.
"Girl's safe," Dean says, "you did good, Sammy."
Navajo land red under the setting not so far from where the canyons come together like seven fingers on some old hand.
Sun's going down. There's water. They're not so far from the road.
* with apologies to John Ford's The Searchers.