A Man And His Rifle - FREE SHORT STORY (Snipers and Injuns and GHOSTS, oh MY!)

[NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:  Alright, my pretties. Here's another, longer piece that I'm wasting on cyberspce when I should stop being such a lazy shit and compile a book of short stories. But what's the point of having a gift, if one does not intend to share it? This gift comes in a sleek leather case, polished mirror-perfect and scope-mounted. The NRA is fond of saying, "Guns don't kill people. People kill people." But those lollygaggers never laid their peepers on the Comstock .380, latest in the collection of Senator Rudolph Sinclair. 

What if every action we took left a piece of intention behind it? Imagine a world stained with anger and pain and joy and lust. Might not a certain artifact, continuously exposed to war and murder, bear the weight of so many intentions? And what if those intentions learned to speak ... or formed an appetite? 

These are the questions Rudolph Sinclair has helped me answer. Enjoy. And comment if you like it. Help me remember that I'm not as worthless as my mommy tells me.] 


Senator Rudolph Sinclair suffered through the auction’s niceties. His campaign manager had advised him against the baseball cap, dark glasses, and nondescript khakis he’d planned to wear. “Let them see you as you are, Senator. It’s not a crime to have a passion. You’re the only damn reason this state hasn’t had its second amendment strangled by the tentacles of Liberal octopi.” That Jake had managed to inject the use of a cephalopod into his argument, let alone its plural, left Rudy too amazed to argue.

So here he stood, sweating in his Woolworth suit, glad-handing with the usual socialites to the tune of dinner plans and fundraisers that would never come to be. A beau monde earsore with failed hairplugs was babbling on about toll revenue bonds (The profits will be quite generous, Senator), when the auctioneer’s assistants wheeled up the item.

Rudy rushed to his seat before the stage, sitting at attention, knuckles white around his bid card.

“Our next item for auction is the Comstock 380,” the auctioneer announced. “Rare doesn’t begin to describe this rifle. Designed and manufactured by Cornelius Comstock in 1862, only three hundred made it out of production. The Comstock features a twenty-five round magazine—an unheard of feat for its era.”

The Senator wet his lips, staring at the leather hard-shell case, laid open to reveal form-fitted velvet and a cobalt barrel devoid of rust. He felt a shape hollow itself into the center of his heart, and understood at once he was looking at the only thing grand enough to fill it.

“Fifty-thousand dollars!” He swung his bid card high, realizing too late that the dickering had not begun.

The auctioneer smiled, seemed about to make a quip, then flooded with recognition. Squaring his shoulders, he nodded at the Senator and went on as if he hadn’t heard. “This lever-action, breech-loading rifle featured a scope with twice the range of its contemporaries. Hand-formed of brass and jewelers glass. Comstock had expected a government contract from the Republic of Texas, and wanted his first three hundred to be perfect. He borrowed against his estates, lands and livestock. Alas, the contract never came. Soon after the Republic’s announcement, Mr. Comstock was discovered in his cellar, with his rifle laid across his lap. He had shot himself through the chin.”

A shocked murmur ran through the crowd. Not until Rudy lowered his eyes to his reflection in the polished steel podium, did he realize he was ginning. He adjusted the expression to one of practiced concern and sidled his eyes.

“Had the Comstock contract been awarded,” the auctioneer went on, “Many historians believe that Lincoln might have lost, and we’d all be wearing cowboy hats.”

“Never would have happened,” someone mumbled through the laughter, to which the auctioneer smiled and said, “One can never know. Now, I believe the opening bid will start at,” he dropped a wink at Rudy, “Fifty thousand dollars.”

The auctioneer’s voice sped up, his eyes shifting through the crowd, his finger snapping with deadly efficiency to mark the rising bids.

The Senator watched it unfold from a distance, the voices lost beneath his rushing blood. He was afraid for no reason he could explain, and yet beside the fear, in arms with it, was a feverish urge to defend. The room rippled around him. Tuxedoed waiters broke in clouds of cannon smoke that briefly held their form, the seated attendees collapsed into lump-tossed hummocks, and the ceiling shattered into a cold gray sky.

It was no longer an auction house, but a field. He was crouched in a ditch, watching soot-smeared faces roar toward him in a charge, and then he was rising with others beside him, dropping on his elbows and taking aim—one, two, three—the enemies stumbling with eyes rolled up in pain or blank altogether—four, five, six—kneecaps and elbows and one man’s entire cheek erupting in a red spray—eleven, twelve, thirteen—each shot taking another—twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five—until the magazine discharged only empty clicks and the field was filled with death.

The Senator jumped out of his seat. “Eighty-thousand dollars!”

When the crowd—not a field, he thought suddenly, a crowd, you’re at an auction, and for God’s sake sit down before someone snaps a photograph—stayed silent, the auctioneer turned to him. “Eighty thousand dollars. Going once … going twice…”

“Eighty-five thousand,” a voice yelled.

Rudy hunched his shoulders as if stung, hearing something very close to pleasure in that Yankee accent. He turned to see a man with Kirk Douglas cheekbones and a broad hinterland build; a man Rudy had narrowly beat in securing the seat majority last election, and who, according to political scuttlebutt, had been actively digging dirt for a slander campaign in the coming year.

Hunter Lewiston, one time Governor and insufferable prick, smiled from across the room. “Don’t look so surprised, Senator. It betrays your age. I could suggest a good night cream. The wife swears by Dead Sea salts.”

The Senator’s elation burnt in a volcanic flash. Lewiston didn’t even hunt! He hated guns, had nearly had them illegalized in his home county. If not for Rudy’s efforts, the devil might have succeeded.

“What could you possibly want with an antique rifle?” Rudy called, hearing the auctioneer’s warning: “Eighty-five thousand. Going once…”  

Rudy raise his card, still watching Lewiston. “Ninety thousand!”

Lewiston shrugged. “Any weapon off the streets is a victory.” He raised his own bid card. “One-hundred thousand dollars!”

The crowd gasped.

The Senator looked long and hard at this fool in his pinstriped suit and tri-folded gray kerchief. Lewiston looked like a pimp, not a politician. Though these days even Rudy had to admit it was hard to tell the difference. Republican, Democrat, Tea Party, Constitutionalist, Green Party, Independent: just banners to hide ambition. Rudy fought through the clouds of his own desire and made himself gauge his foe. He would suffer for his anger, and the ensuing outburst would likely haunt him. 

But if he was wise…

The auctioneer’s voice came from a ghostly distance: “The standing bid is one-hundred thousand dollars…”

Think. What did he know about Lewiston? His family had made their fortune in oil, still did. They’d had a hand in the BP spill that had turned the Gulf of Mexico into a stillborn casket and the litigations were ongoing. Hadn’t he heard somewhere that the Lewiston throne was nearly toppled? So then, could this showboat media-whore of a politician really afford to throw away his family’s money in one-tenths of a million just to embarrass an adversary?

“Going once,” announced the auctioneer.

Rudy locked eyes with Lewiston and smiled. 

No, he decided. This is a stunt … and he’ll pay dearly for it. He turned and sat with the efficacy of a samurai the moment before self-disembowelment.

“Going twice…” 

Absolutely calm.

“I withdraw my bid!” Lewiston sounded panicked, as if a door had been opened on an act of ineffable perversity.

Another shudder ran through the crowd—not one of shock this time, but the piteous groan reserved for a prizefighter that has just stepped into a jaw-crushing blow.

Even the auctioneer affected disdain before rolling his eyes to Rudy. “With the bidder withdrawn, all challenged bids are rendered moot. Again we’ll start the bidding at fifty thousand. Let me remind the attendants that bids should be considered before being promised.”

But by then no one dared to enter Rudy’s ring.

The Comstock was his.

*****

Jake was waiting to greet him with dazzled eyes. “I heard you gave Lewiston a dose of the Sinclair venom. In front of a hundred able-walleted contributors, no less.”

“You heard right.” Sinclair motioned his driver inside, pointing up the double curved staircases. “Put it in the study, please. I’d like to examine it for myself.” He tucked a hundred dollar bill into the driver’s front pocket before turning to Jake. “That man has all the gall of a dragon.”

“The driver, or Lewiston?” But Jake was smiling. “What better place for him than politics? Lucky for you, the humiliation was staged. One of Lewiston’s chimps tipped a reporter with The Tribune, who saw the whole thing from the back row.”

“One of Lewiston’s?”

Jake shook his head. “Just a hard-nose pain in the ass out to change the world.”

“The world doesn’t change. He’ll find out soon enough … and be heartbroken like the rest of us.”

“The story goes to print tomorrow. Probably in the back. I’ll call a few favors, see if the fires can’t be fanned.”

“Fan away.” Rudy looked up the staircase. The driver was descending slowly, awed by the brocaded drapes and polished wainscoting. Rudy’s usual chauffeur was on vacation. “Did you find the study?”

The driver nodded. “It’s a beautiful house, Senator. Thanks for the tip … and the self-guided tour.” He offered a cocksure smile, a young man like the reporter that would carry Lewiston’s embarrassment to the public, a young man that still thought he was capable of anything.

“Glad you liked it.” At the bottom steps Rudy tucked an extra Fifty into the driver's pocket. “That’s for not coming back to steal anything.”

The driver laughed and Rudy laughed with him, his big white teeth clapping as he guided the driver out. When the door was locked he turned to Jake. “Poor bastard doesn’t even realize that he’s drowning. He sits under his cap, thinking one day someone will recognize his potential. The world doesn’t reward possibilities. Only actions.”

“You are a man of action,” Jake agreed.

The Senator studied his campaign manager. Until that moment he had always believed Jake’s facade was reserved for outsiders, faces that emoted interest and praise at soirees that were the politician’s eternal bane.

Jake pinched his brows. “Senator? You alright?”

Rudy blinked and shook his head, loosening his tie. “I need to get out of this suit before I suffocate. Any word from Laura and Rachel?”

“They called to say that Pompeii is too hot, and Rome too crowded.”

“You’d think a trip to Europe would be grounds for celebration.”

Jake smiled. “I told them you would call tomorrow before your flight.”

“Thanks. Take the rest of the night off.”

“And your dinner plans? Stevenson still wants to talk about the—”

“—Logging rights, yes, I remember. That’s all Stevenson wants to talk about. I’ll have to reschedule.” Rudy made his way up the stairs.

Jake called behind him. “Stevenson has deep pockets. He contributed generously to your last campaign. A fact he’s fond of recanting every chance he gets.”

Rudy grumbled. “Alright. Push it back to eight. That gives me three hours before I have to stare at his hideous mole.”

“Should I send another driver? One more-seasoned, perhaps?”

“No.” Rudy smiled. “I like to watch men drown.”

*****       

It was almost midnight by the time he reach his study. The high-backed leather chair protested against his frame. Rudy Sinclair was a big man, fatter than he’d like to be, but still solid as an oak. At first, the dinner with Stevenson had gone as expected, filled with parries and feints indirectly expressing interest in the western forest regions of the state. The lands had been blackballed from deforestation by the former administration—a reality Rudy Sinclair could remove with a few greased palms and a fountain pen. Where the night took its turn for the worse was when Rudy had refused. The President’s Transparency Initiative, he’d said, had made the kind of backroom deals to which Stevenson was accustomed nearly impossible. Rudy might be able to do it, given time. But the logging industry’s drying well was of no immediate concern to his agenda.

“Agenda,” Stevenson had whispered, clenching his napkin with knuckles white as chalk. “I’ll give you an agenda. It’s called the press discovering you own shares in half of the companies that made contributions to your campaign.”

“That’s hardly illegal,” said Rudy.

“Ah, yes.” Stevenson dabbed steak sauce from the mole that bulged above his lips. “But the amounts are. I’m no stranger to your subsidiaries. Most of the companies are in league with one another. The paper trail is well washed, but we loggers know a thing or two about washing money.” He smiled. “Writing off your own campaign to neutralize profits. That’s a high crime in Washington.”

Rudy had paled. “Are you threatening me? Stevenson, listen to me, and listen closely. I can accomplish things to our mutual benefit, but not overnight. In six months to a year—”

“A year?” Stevenson laughed. “Don’t fuck with me, Senator. Or I’ll fuck with you.”

“All this talk of fucking’s made me thirsty.” Rudy snapped for the waiter and tapped his fingers on the tablecloth while he waited. With a scotch hot in his belly he said, “I can help you. But I’ll need time.”

“You have three days. The Senate hearing is in two days. I suggest you use that mouth of yours for something other than evasion. I’m one-third of the reason the taxpayers are supporting your vices. You would do well to remember that.”

Rudy smiled. “And here all this time I thought you admired my policies.”

Rudy thought of it now, the chair squeaking with the nervous bounce of his leg. It was unsettling to be threatened; worse when the threat could result in indictment. Pushing the matter out of mind was difficult, but another two scotches helped with that. By the time he turned on the parlor lights and retrieved the long leather case, it was fuzzy and growing dimmer.  

“Let’s see if money can buy happiness, after all.” He disengaged the snap-locks, brass dusted with a green patina. But for a small tear near one of the wooden feet, the case was perfect.

When he opened it, the smell of earth and misery wrapped his senses. For a moment he was sitting somewhere else, with the mingled aromas of tobacco and fresh-cut wood and cotton ... yes, an entire barn full of cotton. Warm liquid ran down his belly, pattering the floor between his legs.

And then he was in his chair, the same as before. 

His shirt was dry. 

“That’s twice now,” he whispered, wondering if the stresses of his job were not finally catching up to him. He ran his fingers over the barrel, the handcrafted brass scope. Rudy leaned closer to read the inscription.

"Cornelius Comstock. N. 300.” 

Coldness came from the pit of his stomach, stirred by the auctioneer’s words: Mr. Comstock was discovered in his cellar with his rifle laid across his lap. He had shot himself through the chin.

Rudy stared at the engraved letters until his eyes hurt. He snatched a loupe from his drawer and titled a gooseneck lamp, certain he would spot dark red crust nesting in the steel grooves. 

For a moment he actually saw it, and it seemed not a stain, but a wound, open, bleeding with the force of a severed artery.

He pulled back the loupe with a yelp and fell into his chair, the wheels rattling over the hardwood floor until they crashed into the baseboard. His weight made the bookshelf shudder. He looked up in time to see the steel Rifleman Award totter on its platform before it fell.

There were two seconds—not enough for his reflexes to save him. Hot sharp pain drove into his skull. The room flashed white before going dark again. Rudy felt his body melt to wax, the heavy muscle and adipose tissue sliding from the leather. He blinked, saw a rivulet of blood drip from his own eyebrow, and crashed to his knees.

The Indian standing over his desk was nearly seven feet tall. The painted skin, once dark olive, had leeched to sickly gray. The Indian his bared black teeth in a grin of commiseration in those final moments before uncosciousness. And yet that was not the worst of it.

The worst was the bullet-hole below his eye.

*****        

Jake found him in the morning, lying in a pool of blood, the rifle open on the desk. “I thought, well, Jesus, I thought you’d shot yourself.”

“Yes,” Rudy took ice from the minifridge and packed it on the wound, “I sat down, shot myself, and managed to put the rifle back before I hit the ground.”

Jake said nothing. That he'd been disturbed was a good sign. Perhaps he wasn’t as empty-hearted as Rudy had earlier suspected. 

He allowed himself to led to the couch, and drank the pain into a reasonable state while they waited for the doctor.

“That’s a nasty cut.” Dr. Heinland told him, taking a last look. “You’re lucky it hit flat.” He hefted the trophy in his hand, then set it on a lower shelf. “Had it been an edge, it might be a coroner standing here in my place.”

“A shotgun election is all this State needs.” Rudy smiled. “It would be anarchy in the streets without this brave lion to lead them.”

“Make sure the lion takes his rest and elevates his head. You’ve had quite a nasty concussion. And,” he removed the scotch glass from Rudy’s hand, “No drinking. If there’s even a slight hemorrhage, liquor will make it worse. We’re aiming to decrease the blood flow, Senator. And that means ice. Fifteen minutes every two hours. Can you do that?”

Rudy nodded. “Let’s say I increase the ice-time to twenty minutes every hour. Will that earn another scotch?”

Heinland shook the glass. “It would likely earn you a coma.”

“What if it’s on the rocks?”

The doctor rolled his eyes and gripped his leather satchel. “I’ll pour this down the sink on my way out. If you start vomiting, hallucinating, or losing balance, we’ll need to arrange for a CT-scan.”

“Hallucinating?” It must have been the way Rudy said it, because both men turned.

Heinland eyed him carefully. “This is no time for pride, Senator. Tell me what’s happening. The last thing I need is a malpractice suit. I admire your wife as much as the next man, but she’d have her claws on my license sooner than you’d have this scotch from my hand.”

Rudy took a deep breath. “Could a hallucination be triggered by the impact?”

“Are you saying you saw something when the trophy struck?”

“You’re the one saying that. I’m asking a question.”

Heinland thought about it. “It’s possible, but unlikely.”

Rudy nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

“Senator, I can’t help but feel that you’re not being entirely honest.”

“I’ve made no definitive statements by which to draw that conclusion.”

“I forget you are practiced at this art.” Heinland tightened his jaw. “Allow me to be frank. Omission is a lie. One that can only harm you in the end.”

Jake piped in. “If there’s something wrong, you need to tell us. I don’t want to walk in here this afternoon and find you gnawing on your tongue.”

You’d like that wouldn’t you, you little kiss-ass? “It’s nothing really.”

“If it were nothing,” Heinland said, not unkindly, “I wouldn’t still be standing here. Have out with it, you stubborn ox.”

“I saw,” Rudy laughed to himself and looked away. “I thought I saw an Indian standing over my rifle, alright?”

Both men shared a look. Heinland set his bag down and checked Rudy’s eyes again. “How long did it take for you to see this … this Indian?”

“A few seconds. The trophy hit me, I fell on my knees, and when I looked up…” His hands were trembling as he dropped them below the desk. “When I looked up he was staring at me.”

“What did he look like?” Heinland pulled out the stethoscope to check his pulse, his eyes sharpening with alarm.

Rudy could see him perfectly, the snakes of oily hair cascading to his nipples; bands and feathers caked with earth; pupils covered by a soapy film; black spile teeth jutting from a pale blue gumline.

Rudy snapped his eyes to the rifle case and laughed. He’d meant for it to sound like he was leading them on. Instead it came out brittle. “Shit, I don’t know. He looked like a dead Indian.”

“A dead Indian now? How did you know he was dead?”

“He had a…” Rudy tapped his cheek with a trembling finger. “A bullet hole in his face.”

“Jesus,” Jake whispered.

Heinland stood up—too abruptly for Rudy’s taste. “I think I’ll order that CT scan, after all.”

“Oh, come on. I was drunk. I don’t know what I saw.”

“Your heart rate says otherwise,” Heinland said. “Your pulse jumped to 160 while you were talking.”

“I didn’t see a ghost.”

“As a man who has seen countless corpses and not one ghost, I’d be the last to support such a claim. I am, however, worried that your concussion might be worse than suspected.”

“I’m fine,” Rudy promised. “Just let me relax. I’ll keep an eye on it. If I feel dizzy or see something, I’ll call. I’ve got too many things buzzing in my head to let a little concussion keep me down. No hospital. No CT scan. That's the end of it.”

Heinland turned to Jake. “You’re witnessing that he refused medical treatment after my insistence?”

Jake, still looking at Rudy with those pale frightened eyes, nodded once.

“Then I’m done here. Call if you feel anything. I mean it, Senator.”

“You act like I could die at any moment.”

Heinland made for the door. “Death stalks us all.”

*****      

When he was finally alone, Rudy went back to his desk. He’d had to threaten Jake to make him leave, but the toady had finally gone, promising to call in the morning. 

Heinland had taken his glass, so Rudy chugged directly from the decanter’s crystal neck. Good and drunk, he stared at the Comstock for what seemed an eternity.

Outside the sky had grown dark. Clouds pushed from the east, swallowing the light. He opened the windows and looked down his driveway. It was no Whitehouse lawn, but it was large and beautifully manicured. He’d played Irish golf courses with fairways not half as lush. Twelve foot black iron gates were set in stone columns every fifteen feet, each equipped with motion-activated cameras. For as long as leaders had led, precautions had been taken to protect them. Guards, knights, mercenaries, and now … electronics. It was a wonder that the world continued to blame its problems on those chosen few they elected to solve them. Each year they’d rally and donate and demand to be lied to, and each year the next up-and-comer would be unable to do a damn thing. The public was a hungry machine, chewing through its saviors. Would that Christ had been alive, the poor bastard would by now be a carcass hung in some public square. The brutality of Man would never change, only manicure itself like these lawns, obscuring the immoral mud beneath.

It wasn’t that Rudy enjoyed exploiting the public’s hungers; he only understood and made use of them. Some might speak of revolution, but no one wanted it. Disappointment was as American as baseball. How many friendships and courtships, he wondered, had been fused on such an introduction, whilst complaining. Dissatisfaction was America’s religion. They yearned for the promise of greater things, so that they might suffer through the grueling days ahead.

“Purpose,” he whispered, taking another sip. “I give them purpose.”

And then pain … driving through his skull with the relentless pressure of a drill.

Rudy twisted on his heels and dropped the decanter. The room shifted colors, going bright and hot orange. As he watched, a knife of blue color bled into a horizon line. He was moving on an elevated platform, thumping up and down. The comfortable leather-and-polish scent of his office was replaced by heat and sweat.

His mouth tasted of bones. Bits of silica popped and ground between his teeth. Dust billowed in red curtains ahead of him, and there were horses—at least twenty of them—cutting up a rise peppered with scrub-brush and weeds.

Rudy looked down, saw the cantle of a saddle bobbing between his legs, and went absolutely rigid. “WHERE AM I?”

He turned, meaning to scream again, and fell mute.

The riders to his right and left wore only sun-bleached skulls atop their necks. One of them turned and smiled, the tendons snapping downward beneath his cowboy hat and connecting, the veins and skin growing into a grim face covered with a fortnight of scraggy black whiskers.

“Where are ye?” The man pulled his revolver and laughed at the sky. “In Hell, boy!”

And then the ridge was open and there were running women and children, braves mounting horses with images painted across their flanks. They had spears and bows and determined almond eyes.

But none were a match for the rifle.

Its polished cobalt barrel winked as Rudy raised it, slamming the stock to his shoulder and taking aim at the largest of them, a Chief by his look and massive steed. His headdress billowed in a white comet’s tail as he charged, pinwheeling a knotted bloody club above his shoulder.

Rudy felt himself smile as he squeezed the trigger; heard himself laugh when a hole punched through the painted cheek; watched the dead cowboys cheer as the big chief flew sideways on his horse and was promptly crushed beneath its trampling hooves.

*****

Rudy woke with a gasp.

The night was black beyond his bedroom windows. He could hear rain and the grumble of distant thunder. He was sweating as if … well, as if he’d just charged on horseback through a desert. The dream had left a knot in his gut. Not the brutality, so much as the joy it had brought. When his cheeks began to burn he turned to the bedside mirror and saw a grin stretched across his face.

The Comstock .380 was on the bed where his wife ought to be, laid on a long silk pillow. Somehow in his sleep he’d started to polish it. Chamois rags dark with stains were wadded next to a tin of gun oil. In one part of his mind he felt outrage—he’d removed the patina and destroyed any chance of selling it at value!—but the other, larger part was calm, almost reverent, to behold it.

How it glowed in the moonlight, as a sculpture carved from blackened ice. A thing the ancients might have fallen before to worship with grunts and silent prayers.

He explored with cautious fingers, trailing the oiled surface. Each touch brought strange images—battlefields and vendettas, suicides and betrayals—that pulsed between his temples like a dream. The feelings were black, yet with them came a building sweetness. The air rippled around him, his breath growing shorter, heightened, strained, the heat building in his fingers, in his loins, spitting fire and smoke and…

Rudy threw back his head and moaned, sinking into the pillows and giggling like a bride.

His fear seemed foolish now. This tool of judgment beside him was a platform. With it he could rise above the world and all its anguish, offering punishment or pardon with a single aiming eye. Here were the scales of life and death, smelted and reshaped.

Rudy lulled against his pillows with his rifle. He could feel the wetness on his thigh, the flush in his face, the world growing heavy around him. His eyelids shivered. He scooted the rifle closer, not wanting to be away from it, and yawned. Something shuffled across the carpet, but he was too tired, too content.

His lids slipped even lower. The rainy thunder disappeared beneath the gentle beat of his heart … and for a moment there was absolute silence.

The faces that pushed through the shadows around his bed were swollen and pale, their eyes strained open as if to warn him.

Rudy started awake, expecting the dream to shatter. But when he looked up they were still there, sliding forward from all angles, like things pulled on wheels.

Rudy struggled to lift his arms, to kick or scream. Help, he thought, realizing that his lips wouldn’t move. HELP! 

The strangers clicked deep in their throats, flashing in the lightning. Moss and mud clung to their uniforms and flannels and bare chests. One poor fool was burnt completely to his neck; a wound had taken one cheek so that his gnawing teeth peeked through.

They closed in until the ceiling above him was a maze of cold white eyes. And just when Rudy thought they would devour him, the bedroom doors slammed open. It was hard for his eyes to comprehend the movements of their retreat. Their bodies shifted like a spliced roll of film, suddenly ten feet from his mattress and arranged in an aisle that led to the open door. Rudy struggled to lift his eyes…

And immediately regretted it.

The Indian stood waiting at the hall, the bullet hole in is cheek whistling with each breath. As he lifted his arm to point, trailing beads and soiled feathers, a spear of lightning slammed down on the lawn.

The room went electric blue. The windows of the great house rattled in their frames. And the noise that followed was not thunder, but a voice. Go was all it said.

Go.           

Rudy repeated the word aloud.

But by then he was alone again, and his body was already moving.

*****

The phone rang.

Rudy rolled out of bed and fell to his knees, groaning. Between his concussion, dreams, and hangover, he didn’t know which to blame for the worms of pain gnawing at his brain. The carpet billowed like a sheet beneath his vision. Somehow he made it to his elbows and crawled the rest of the way to the antique nightstand, where the telephone was still shrieking.

He yanked the receiver hard enough to pull the cradle to the floor. “Hello?”

“Rudy, honey, you sound half dead.”

His eyes went wide. “Laura?”

“You’re not expecting another woman’s voice, I hope?”

He smiled, yet felt a throb of guilt. In a way he had been with another, if only briefly, if only in dreams. “No, darling. A trophy fell on my head yesterday. I had a minor concussion.”

“Call Doctor Heinland at once! Rudy, you didn’t go to sleep, did you? You could’ve had a stroke! Oh honey, what happened? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. Heinland of the Third Reich already paid me a visit.”

“He’s a fine man, Rudy. And discreet.”

“He’s a crocodile with a license to bite whomever he chooses with that poisoned tongue of his.” But Rudy was smiling. The banter fulfilled him, the way they snapped at each other. “Anyhow, I’m fine. I rested. There’s work to be done.”

“What work?”

“Forestry commissions. A new piece of legislation I need to draw up before tomorrow. It’s urgent, I’m afraid.”

“Stevenson?” Her voice went cold. “I told you not to let that snake contribute.”

“A golden snake is better than a dog, however loyal.”

“It always comes down to money, doesn’t it?”

“Enough, Laura. One more harpy shriek and something’s bound to tear. How would you feel to know you caused my stroke?”

“Let me see…” He could hear her smiling, imagined her standing at the window of some Italian courtyard, overlooking a fountain that’s marble had been carried there by slaves. “…I could put you into hospice, vacation for the rest of my life, and use you when I pleased. Slip a few Viagra into your mouth and mount you like a wooden horse. How would I like that? Quite well, I think. My father never bought me a wooden horse.”

Rudy rolled his eyes, but the blood was rushing downward. She was diabolical. “And how is Rome?”

“How was Rome, you mean.”

“You’re not there?”

“I’m in JFK. I brought Rachel back early.”

He looked at his bed, where the rifle had been the night before. “You can’t.”

“I can and will, King Sinclair, if you give me leave, my liege.” Then she laughed. “Don’t sound so glum. All those muscled porters caring my luggage has done something to me. Something only you can help me with.”

Rudy knew it was a lost cause. “When should I expect you?”

“We’re going to take the train. Can you arrange for a driver to meet us?”

“A train?”

“If I spend another minute cramped in an airplane, I’m likely to take a hostage. How would that bode for your next campaign? I’ll be in at 8:00PM. See you at 9:00. I want you undressed. No. I want you in your tie.”

The line went dead. He set down the phone in the cradle and put it back on the table. There was no happiness left within him. It seemed something had drained it. Something with teeth. He looked out the window. The rain was still pouring, the sky a portentous gray.

He was about to rise when the phone rang again.

Rudy rolled his neck to the left. Had he been a wizard, the night table might have burst into flames for the look he gave it. The receiver was still warm when he pressed it to his ear. “Hello?”

“Senator?” It was Jake, sounding tentative.

“I’m fine.”

“Good. That’s good. Did you sleep well?”

He thought of the dream, the pale muddy faces, the Indian chief pointing and the black voice of the thunder: GO. “My neck is stiff and I had a few nightmares.” He was surprised by his own honesty. “You’d never believe what I dreamed.”

“That’s interesting, Senator, really … maybe you can tell me later.” The pitch in his voice shifted to a cadence he knew well: scandal. Something had gone wrong, and hopefully for someone else. “The article about Lewiston didn’t run this morning.”

“Why not?”

“Are you near a television?”

A black weight roiled in his stomach. His skin went cold and prickly. It seemed that some malevolent force was gathering in the air with anticipation. He reached for the remote and clicked. The panel TV erupted in light. “What channel?”

“CNN will do.”

Rudy barely heard the words. The phone dropped from his fingers, clunking against the carpet from a great distance. He rose higher on his knees, tilting his head like a curious spaniel. There was a ‘non-bias news informant’, her blonde hair coiffed beautifully against the rain. She was standing outside a house he knew all too well, the mullioned windows and steepled third story, the wrought-iron gates with the decorative “L” anchored between riverstone plinths. Crime scene tape flapped behind her, and one of the high study windows was shattered. The camera did a quick close up on the second floor, where police officers were walking within the room.

“Senator?” The bug-thin voice of Jake called up to him. “Senator, are you there?”

He picked up the phone. “I’m here.”

Jake laughed, and it was then the bloodless hunger of their chosen trade washed over him with all the unyielding cold of an artic sea. This horror, this abomination, was cause for celebration. “I can’t believe it. But I’d like to find the son of a bitch so I can buy him a drink.”

Rudy smiled. Not an easy thing to do when your body was completely numb. “Yeah, me too.”

“Lewiston was our only threat. The seat is yours.”

“The seat is mine,” Rudy repeated. “Do they have any suspects?”

“They picked up a few suspicious characters, people with known grudges. A police officer called for you—”

Rudy went stiff.

“—but I told him you’d suffered a concussion—”

Rudy remembered the lighting, the pale eyes of the chief, the pointing finger, GO…

“—and been in bed all night. Don’t let it trouble you. The Senate hearing is tomorrow. Do you think you’ll be fit to travel, or should I send Washington an apology for your absence?”

“No, that’s alright.” Was that his own voice he heard? It seemed so far away, so meaningless. “My head is feeling better. Laura decided to come home early. She’ll need a driver. Her train arrives at 8:00.”

“I’ll take care of it. And Rudy, don’t sound so glum. This is great news for us. Lewiston was a pustule, and we both know it. He had children that hated him, a wife that bedded anything with a workout regiment, and an entourage fit for a Russian mobster. I’d be surprised if the dog misses him.”

Rudy smiled, feeling hollow. “It seems God has a political party, after all.”

*****

He stood in his garage, trembling. It was cold enough to see his breath. No matter how long he closed his eyes, his custom gray Mercedes still glistened with beads of rain. It was impossible, of course. It was condensation from an open window, or a leak in the roof. One of the maids had taken advantage of his injury and robbed it for a midnight joyride. The countless possibilities cycled through his brain, faster, growing hot and white until they melded into a bluish flash of lightning.

“The thunder,” he moaned. “Go. It told me to go…”

He stumbled back toward the house, and by some strange tilt physics found himself at the driver’s door, opening it to examine muddy footprints on the mats. The tread pattern was distinct. He’d seen it a hundred times on autumn hunts, stamped in a trail behind him. He wanted to cry out, to fall onto his knees and beg for pardon. But what came tumbling from his lips was laughter.

He flinched at the sound. It was so rich, so deliciously mad, that he scarce believed it was his own. He heard a muffled clunk, looked down, and saw that he had disengaged the trunk.

“Stop it!” he cried. “You’re my feet! MY feet!”

They marched on, heedless to his calls … until he stood at the open trunk, its horizontal slit of darkness breathing a smell of wet mud into the garage.

A warm desert wind gusted from behind him, scooping the trunk open.

Rudy jerked back. “Impossible. It’s impossible.”

But it was not impossible. Except for the tear at its corner, the Comstock’s leather case was still perfect. It looked like a guitar, or a long trombone. Not a weapon. Surely, not a weapon. This detail lingered with him, promising meaning, then disappeared as he leaned forward to run his fingers along the stitched hide. His body obeyed this time. At its touch, he felt the apprehension tumble from his shoulders.

He could feel it now, all around him. The desert sun. The dry siroccos. The godless wastes upon which brigands rode as kings. He popped the brass latches, expecting light and heat and the blue flash of lightning.

But inside was only contoured velvet; the dark polished barrel and brass-mounted scope. It was curious how the sight of it made him feel: as if he was not one man, but many, collapsed and folded over like a sword. The problems of his world seemed trite and meaningless in the face of such dark histories. They welcomed him like old friends. Come with us. Into the nightland, my boy. Where eternity masquerades as the desert sun…

He slammed the case closed.

Just as quick, he was himself again. Rudy Sinclair, Senator Rudy Sinclair, Father of Karen, Husband of Laura, de facto master of the loyal dog known as Jake.

But was he also a murderer?

The thought troubled him, but not so much as the thick grassy smell of mud. Its source remained a mystery. The trunk was spotless. He fastened the brass latches and grabbed the handle, when the crinkle of plastic made him freeze.

He looked around him—one could never be sure, when dead apparitions were afoot—then carefully lifted and set the case onto the floor.  “It seems we have a have stowaway, captain.”

When he prodded the heavy black garbage bag, the earthy smell gusted from its opening. He wound it around his hand, grabbed the Comstock’s case in his other, and made his way back into the house.

Just in time to hear the doorbell.

*****

Rudy set the case in the foyer, hiding the garbage bag behind it. He checked his hair in the mirror, not liking what he saw. Somehow his wound had reopened. Blood was caked along his hairline, and something dark and gritty peppered his scalp. He scratched a clump loose, rubbing it between his fingers.

“Mud…”

When the doorbell rang again, so close, so loud, he jumped.

He listened for the clack of footsteps on the marble, but knew that the maids were gone. He should have already been on his way to Washington. “Damn it.” He gripped his hair and winced as his fingers brushed the wound. “Dammit, dammit, DAMMIT!”

“Senator?” A voice called from behind the door. “Senator, are you in there?”

Trembling and licking his lips, Rudy spied through the Judas hole.

A man stood in a nondescript gray suit, slicked black hair, pole-straight, staring right at him. He leaned forward, his face oblong in the shifting perspective. “Senator, might I have a word?”

Rudy thought of running. But that would be absurd. He didn’t know who this man was, or how he’d gotten through the gate. He looked professional, but there was something icy in the muscles of his jaw. Something watchful. He weighed his choices. It didn’t take long to see that he had none. He wasn’t guilty of anything. He couldn’t remember. He’d had a head injury. So what if the rifle was in his trunk. So what if he’d taken an amnesiac cruise through the rain. Those weren’t incriminating.

He bowed his head in resignation, breathed deep, and opened the door with a smile. Rudy looked the man up and down. “I’m not feeling too well, I’m sorry it took me so long.”

“Senator Rudy Sinclair.” It was a statement, not a question, and Rudy didn’t much care for the way it was spoken.

“Yes. And you are?”

The man pulled the flap of his sports coat to show his badge. “Detective Hornsby. Homicide. I was wondering if I might take a few minutes of your time. Just a few questions, nothing serious…”

“I have to be to the airport in an hour and I’m running behind.”

“Going somewhere, Senator?” The way he said it made going sound like running.

“A Senate hearing. Have you heard of them?” Rudy narrowed his eyes. If the bastard wanted to peel formalities and cut to the meat, then by all means he meant to oblige him.

“I have, as it happens. I voted for you. I’m not hear to ruffle feathers, Senator. I just have some questions I need you to answer. Now you can invite me in … or I can come back with a piece of paper that gives you no choice. Five minutes and you can be on your way.” The man’s smile was genuine, which frightened Rudy more than the inferred threats. “What do you say?”

Rudy smiled, all teeth, laughing. “I say come in, you old dog. And let’s get this over with.”

The detective walked in, his eyes everywhere, ticking from item to item with all the efficiency of an auditor. “Where were you last night from the hours of 11:00PM to 4:00AM?”

“Well is it last night, or this morning?” Rudy jibed. “I was in bed, sleeping off a concussion.”

“Your assistant told me. He’s the one who gave me the gate code.”

“Jake is always happy to help. As am I.”

“Were you alone last night?” His eyes rolled up to meet Rudy’s. “Anyone who can confirm your story?”

“You’ll have to take my word. As I said, I’m supposed to be in Washington. The maids were released based on my schedule. The house will be empty for the next two days.”

“How do you know Hunter Lewiston?”

“Politics.”

“Did you have any enmity with the man?”

“Political enmity. Certainly. It comes with the territory. Stand for something or you’ll fall for anything, my father used to say. Lewiston and I stood for different causes.”

“Like guns?” The man’s eyes tilted up, then dropped to the Comstock’s leather case. “I understand there was a public disagreement between the two of you.”

“It was a cock-measuring contest, detective. I can see you’re no stranger to such revels.”

“I’ve measured with the best of them.” A beat passed. “Mr. Lewiston was killed last night, Senator. Shot through the eye while he was sitting at his desk. It came right through the window, ruined a rather expensive rug with brain matter. His daughter found him chomping his teeth like a fish. I’m sure you’ve heard the news.”

“Jake called to tell me. I was shocked.”

“Were you?” The eyes held him, dropped to the case and back up. “You look disheveled, if you don’t mind me saying so. Is that blood in your hair?”

Rudy smiled, felt the corners of his mouth twitch. “My wound opened. I took a stumble…” And then the light filled some dark corner of his mind, replaying the bluish bolt as it slammed into his lawn, shaking the windows, filling the house with the Indian’s voice. “Lightning struck the lawn last night. You might have seen it on your way up the drive.”

“I did. Thought it looked rather like a grave.” Then he laughed, and slapped Rudy’s shoulder. “Lucky for you, you were in bed, and not out there shooting rifles.”

Rudy felt like grabbing his throat and pinching up into the firm chords until Hornsby’s tongue came popping out. “I was out there trying to have a look. Ended up kicking a sprinkler and falling on my face. The sutures held, but they didn’t like it.” That winning smile.

“About how long ago, would you say?”

Rudy shrugged. “Half an hour, maybe longer.”

“What’s in the case?” Hornsby pumped his eyebrows; a gesture that made his gelled hair wiggle. “A new sprinkler?”

“That’s my guitar.”

“I didn’t know you played.”

“The wife enjoys it.”

“Music soothes the slumbering beast.” Hornsby leaned down, touched it gently. “That’s an antique case, if I ever saw one.”

“Got it from a thrift store.”

“A Senator who frequents thrift stores? Now I’ve heard everything. Which one? I’ve been looking for a new blazer.”

“I’m not sure what you’re driving at, detective, but by my watch, your five minutes has expired.”

“So it has.” He rose, held out his hand. When Rudy grasped it, Hornsby clamped and wouldn’t let it go. “I’d take a long shower and piece your story together, Senator. I’ve been parked out there for the last two hours, and haven’t seen the blinds so much as twitch. Maybe I’ll have a look at the sprinkler you kicked on my way out.”

Rudy found strength in some deep, cancerous reservoir. He rose to his full height, a bear with sunken eyes and lips peeled wide. “Get the fuck off of my property. I’m a U.S. Senator, and you’re a pissant detective without clout or reputation.”

“You’re right about the clout, Senator. But reputation is quite another thing. I noticed those cameras on the gate. I’m sure there’s one that covers the driveway. I’ll have my people get in touch with yours. The footage should be corroboration enough, don’t you think?” He let go of Rudy’s hand and turned to leave, making a show of tripping before he kicked the Comstock’s case.

It slid away from the wall and fell on its side. The plastic bag turned over and a muddy boot came tumbling out.

Hornsby froze, looking down at it. “Do you often wear hiking boots when checking the lawn?”

What happened next came so quickly that Rudy had no chance of resistance. The rage boiled up and through him, a brilliant light, muting the sound with the frantic rhythm of his heart.

He briefly remembered Hornsby kneeling down to grab the boot, and his own hand reaching for the iron candlestick on the mantle; the look of shock and fear that flooded the detective’s eyes after the first five strikes dropped him to his back.

Rudy didn’t remember painting stripes of blood across his cheeks, but that’s what he saw when he turned away from the anonymous pulp that gushed above Hornsby’s shoulders and looked into the mirror again.

That, and his winning smile.         

*****

With the detective’s car parked inside the garage, and his own Mercedes waiting in the driveway, Rudy rolled the body into the foyer rug and shoved Hornsby into his own trunk. It wasn’t clean or orderly, but filled with take-out bags and empty bottles. There was a certain satisfaction in burying him among his trash, this do-gooder that had spent a life sniffing the refuse of others.

“How do you like it?” he asked the corpse, before disabling the trunk lever under the passenger seat and breaking off a house key in the lock.

He mopped the blood up, bleached it twice, left the candlestick to soak under the hot faucet, and pulled a new rug from down cellar that Laura had shipped from Rome. When it was done he beamed down at the immaculate décor. A feng shui master could not have devised a better arrangement.

Shaved and preened and donning a custom black suit, Rudy descended the staircase with his hands held wide in reverence.

This palace was his, pulled up into existence with all the determination of a living God. And wasn’t he just that? Death unmasked, the smiling horseman, punishing the enemies of prosperity; those that tried to tamp the smoldering pipe-bowl of ambition, to tear away the God-given right of vengeance; those who stood with hooded eyes behind their tribunals and pulpits, selling damnation to the fleas born beneath them.

He was about to step outside, when the phone on the anteroom table chimed. Rudy incline his head and smiled, pressing it to his ear. “Hello?”

“Sinclair, is that you?”

Rudy stared at the phone with a look that seemed to say, It was Rudy Sinclair, but now all of that has changed. If I were you, I’d be mindful of my tone. “It is.”

“Any news?”

“I’m sorry, who’s speaking?”

“Don’t get coy with me, Sinclair,” barking like a 1940s editor might bark at the mail boy. “It’s Earl Stevensen.”

Rudy’s face brightened. “Earl, I was just thinking about you.”

“My people are anxious to hear of your progress. I hope to bring them good news.”

“It just so happens I have some. Where are you?”

Stevensen told him.

“Could you meet me?”

Yes, Stevenson could.

“I’ll see you there. Bring an umbrella. Another storm is blowing in.” Rudy hung up, picked up the Comstock case, and stepped into the rain. He paused to admire himself in the bowed reflection of the Mercedes’ door. Normally, he liked a matching wardrobe.

But his hunting boots lent a certain rugged contrast to the tailored slacks.

*****

It was easier than it should have been; fated some might have said.

Stevensen had been waiting by the park bench in a black slicker, hiding beneath the green-white umbrella. It was a greater bullseye than Rudy could have hoped for.

Parking on the private road that touched the corner of the fields, he’d pulled the rifle from its case, pumped the hand lever, and rolled down his window so that only the barrel poked through. “I’ve been thinking about your proposal,” he whispered, as if Stevensen was there to hear him. “More accurately, about how it smells. Like death. Like a great corpse thrown out in the sun. You want all the castles in Babylon, my boy. But Babylon was scattered. With good reason. Men like you, parasites, peel pieces from the earth while she lay prostrate and gasping. You offer your hand, but in the end only use it to secure her. Then you cut!”

The first shot slammed through Stevenson’s breastbone. His slicker punched out, rippling under the park lamp. He flew back against the bench, reaching weakly for his chest. Then his face filled with understanding. His neck jerked straight and for a moment he seemed to stare across the dark fields, through the scope, and directly into Rudy’s heart.

The senator smiled. “And cut!”

Stevensen’s face disappeared in a red spray. The remnants folded limply across the slicker’s collar.

“And cut…” The third shot had been unnecessary. But it had felt no less satisfying.

Rudy had pulled into the night, feeling empowered, appointed, immortal. He’d wondered if knight errants of yore had experienced this same blood fever after each victory, if they’d galloped across dark lands feeling weightless and guiltless and free.

Idling at a light somewhere in Virginia, he noticed a child staring at him from the backseat of a minivan. The girl had a plump face, deep-set eyes like bits of sapphire pressed in dough. When he smiled at her she hid her face in the seat, peeking every so often to see if he was still watching. There was something eerie in the way she watched him, as if he were ghost or demon.

Not until the car pulled away in a left turn, and the light of opposing traffic arced across his windshield, did he see his reflection.

He reached up to touch the detective’s blood, still streaked down his cheeks. “Poor Hornsby,” he whispered. “Your intent was just, though you aimed it incorrectly. Don’t worry. I’ll see things right. Lewiston, Stevenson, they’re only the beginning. So many beasts stalk the earth on four legs. The lions are shot. The bears and tigers. Sharks are gaffed and de-finned. But who hunts the monsters that stalk us on two legs? Who, before I?”

His hand answered the question, creeping slowly to the Comstock’s case and pulling on the secret drawer he’d found not long after poor Stevenson’s execution. All of the diary entries were there, from Comstock, from the Filibusters that had traveled in the footsteps of John Glanton to pilfer the Mexican countryside after the Civil War had left them wanting; from men that had used it on Cheyenne and Navajo and Choctaw and Hopi when clearing the midlands of the dirt-worshippers. From the Great War to the smashing of Hitler’s ranks, somehow the rifle had made its way into the thick of things, aiming not by the sight of its wielder, but the hunger living within its steel. Holding each piece of folded parchment, he’d tasted the heroism of each man, their undying support of the cause they served. Historians had labeled such crusaders as monsters … but to their contemporaries they had been heroes.

As he was a hero.

The honk behind him startled his foot and the Mercedes screeched into motion. There was no rain here. A bloated moon hung open like God’s own approving eye. He was a crusader. A champion of Truth, and Certain Death to all of its predators. As he drove, Rudy lamented for Hornsby, wished there was a way to resurrect him so he might serve as high lieutenant. Alas, every war had its casualties, and every leader his mistakes.

“I’ll make it right, Detective. You just wait.”

*****     

The day was sunny and traffic wasn’t bad. Normally Rudy had to creep through First Street at an idle with one foot on the brake … but today was different. Cars and delivery trucks signaled and cleared his path, red lights turned green at his approach, and he found a parking spot right up front.

He took the stairs of the Capital Building two at a time—quite a sight for a man his size—and reached the top without breaking a sweat. The metal detectors were down, but the guards recognized him and waved him through.

A black guard hailed him. “Senator Sinclair, that’s a big briefcase you’ve got.”

“It’s my guitar. Spanish classical. Just had it refinished. The luthier was explicit. Eight hours in the trunk and the wood will warp. I told him , ‘but I have a Mercedes.’ And he told me I was a snob.” He flashed his teeth in a roar laughter.

The guard cracked a smile. “Well, that’s just cause he don’t know you, Senator.”

“I told him the same thing.” He swept the guards with his eyes. “Keep an eye out for criminals, boys. And if you see Senator Coyle, stop him for a cavity search.”

The guards erupted in laughter as Rudy made his way down the long marble hall, past double-doors already crowded with milling gladhanders from both the Senate and the House, and up to the second floor. He found the stairwell, and then the service ladder, which fed into the AC system. He gutted the breakers and listened to great beast roll over and die before climbing into the service hatch. By the time he reached the reinforced vent that overlooked the coveted stadium seats from which the Country’s decisions were made, he was covered in dust and sweat.

It took an hour for the session to start, time which he used to oil the rifle and duct-tape the bottomless one-liter bottle to its barrel. It was crude, but it would muffle the sound enough to buy him time. With the magazine fully loaded and spare rounds stacked in uniform rows beside him, he removed a few slats from the vent, bent one in a makeshift bipod and duct-taped it to where the barrel joined the stock.

Then he waited, whispering to himself and smiling at the pale-eyed voyeurs, who had somehow followed into the vent to watch. The Chief was there, his punctured cheekbone bubbling, and there was Hornsby, with a head that had been incorrectly rearranged. Stevenson smiled and nodded behind him. And Lewiston gave the thumbs up.

“Alright boys.” Rudy squinted one eye up to the backsight and cocked the Comstock’s lever. “Let the games begin.”

April 26th, 2014, Lawndale, CA 9:26PM