| Black Mountain Lady |
Jay
Dyck
Dyck
Diary of a Goat herder: 12 June 1981
But, more and more, Nicki was behind the herd. Up in a solitary meadow in Alder Creek,
I would see her coming along, hundreds of yards down slope, picking her way after us
over the broken rocks, standing still and gazing off, crying the way a goat will when it
finds itself alone, but not responding to my call or the answering bleats of the herd.
But, more and more, Nicki was behind the herd. Up in a solitary meadow in Alder Creek,
I would see her coming along, hundreds of yards down slope, picking her way after us
over the broken rocks, standing still and gazing off, crying the way a goat will when it
finds itself alone, but not responding to my call or the answering bleats of the herd.
| Chapter Fifty WE USED TO DIE |
For her part, Cat had realized that the runaway train had rumbled through one more crossroads without
slowing down. Murder was only one more technical triviality that had accompanied what had become, and would
be forever, the main act of her life. She had become pregnant.
She hadn't even seen it coming. But she had asked for it, had asked for "something, something new,
anything."
And she had specified. "Nothing that I know of," she had said, to Agnes Tawny. "Nothing that I have had. But
something, something new, anything. I don't know."
By the time she had her own interview with Deputy Sheriff John Barlow, she was as cool as Old Fargo, at least
as pertained to some foreign geology instructor whom she had kicked over a cliff. Her baby was the main thing
in her life now. Everything else must rotate around that.
The Sheriff himself could rotate around a red hot poker, for all she cared.
Barlow was not surprised when the call came. Mrs. Dolan was asking if he could be so kind as to come by the
farm, should he find it no trouble. He got the message second hand from Mary Crowell at Minnie's Cafe.
Andrea Clare could have called the sheriff's office in the county seat and had the request relayed to Deputy
Barlow. But Mary had picked up where Minnie had left off at being the informal, yet reliable message service.
John was in Minnie's at least half a dozen times a day, usually more. When he was finished with one function,
duty, or amusement, Mary would know if there was another one waiting for him. He was at the Devlin-Dolan
farm before noon on the same Wednesday that Andrea Clare had placed the call.
slowing down. Murder was only one more technical triviality that had accompanied what had become, and would
be forever, the main act of her life. She had become pregnant.
She hadn't even seen it coming. But she had asked for it, had asked for "something, something new,
anything."
And she had specified. "Nothing that I know of," she had said, to Agnes Tawny. "Nothing that I have had. But
something, something new, anything. I don't know."
By the time she had her own interview with Deputy Sheriff John Barlow, she was as cool as Old Fargo, at least
as pertained to some foreign geology instructor whom she had kicked over a cliff. Her baby was the main thing
in her life now. Everything else must rotate around that.
The Sheriff himself could rotate around a red hot poker, for all she cared.
Barlow was not surprised when the call came. Mrs. Dolan was asking if he could be so kind as to come by the
farm, should he find it no trouble. He got the message second hand from Mary Crowell at Minnie's Cafe.
Andrea Clare could have called the sheriff's office in the county seat and had the request relayed to Deputy
Barlow. But Mary had picked up where Minnie had left off at being the informal, yet reliable message service.
John was in Minnie's at least half a dozen times a day, usually more. When he was finished with one function,
duty, or amusement, Mary would know if there was another one waiting for him. He was at the Devlin-Dolan
farm before noon on the same Wednesday that Andrea Clare had placed the call.
It is easy to dismiss the words of a goat herder. It's easy to see that vines on a goat pen say that the goats
have gone, long enough for foliage to flourish on the bare wire of a pen that was once nibbled clean top to
bottom and far and wide as a goat's nose could reach.
It's easy to dismiss the philosophies of a rebellious teenaged girl headed for tragedy. It is easy to judge the
message by the bearer. If doom is on the frontier, shall we hear it best from the mighty warrior, the scientist,
the statesman or the barefoot waif?
It probably is wise to dismiss the waif's description of calibers. So, one false move, one ignorant comment, one
dollop of incorrect data, and the whole revelation can be abandoned. We can pay attention then for the
entertainment value alone, and goddess help us if mangled messages invade our couch-bound souls.
have gone, long enough for foliage to flourish on the bare wire of a pen that was once nibbled clean top to
bottom and far and wide as a goat's nose could reach.
It's easy to dismiss the philosophies of a rebellious teenaged girl headed for tragedy. It is easy to judge the
message by the bearer. If doom is on the frontier, shall we hear it best from the mighty warrior, the scientist,
the statesman or the barefoot waif?
It probably is wise to dismiss the waif's description of calibers. So, one false move, one ignorant comment, one
dollop of incorrect data, and the whole revelation can be abandoned. We can pay attention then for the
entertainment value alone, and goddess help us if mangled messages invade our couch-bound souls.
| * * * |
"That's the way it’s always been for me. but I don't complain. I wouldn't be the woman I am if it wasn't for my
upbringing. And I kind of like the woman I am.
"My ma wasn't too happy. But, like I said, her adventure and romance died with my daddies.
"Things weren't so down and out after that. After that we always lived in a house, Ma always had a car, and
there I was riding the school bus past those frosty fields of beans and barley, wondering if any of it was really
true.
"By the time I was old enough to be sneaking around smoking cigarettes behind my ma's back, there was a
gas station down at the corner where there used to be a swamp and a hay barn. So I used to walk down there in
the evening and get a coke, a Hershey bar, and a pack of Winston's. I felt pretty safe. In those days most of
the cars going up and down the road were people I knew, friends. So I was safe.
"And the guy who worked at the gas station was a nice guy. Kinda strange, but nice. He used to talk to me
when it wasn't too busy. He always listened, which was more than I could say for almost anyone else.
"The girls on the bus used to talk about him. This was in high school, and they used to borrow somebody's
mom's car and go down and get five dollars worth of gas and try to tease Joe, but he didn't tease too well. Kathy
Schultz said he was probably a fag, but Kathy Schultz probably used to suck her own horse's cock too, and
that's more than a guess.
"I'm a mean little bitch sometimes, I suppose, but I'm kind of defensive about Joe, because he was important
to me for a while.
"It took me a while to figure out who I was. I got into trouble and drifted around, the girl in me confused, the
woman in me emerging.
"More than a woman emerging. An animal emerging. The forced one. Emerging.
"I learned about it nights, beneath the moon, on my knees.
"I learned to be adorned with radiance, to feel the simple sweetness of rosy light pouring over me. I learned to
relax into my bliss, and it came over me slowly, so that I suddenly realized, I had known how for years."
upbringing. And I kind of like the woman I am.
"My ma wasn't too happy. But, like I said, her adventure and romance died with my daddies.
"Things weren't so down and out after that. After that we always lived in a house, Ma always had a car, and
there I was riding the school bus past those frosty fields of beans and barley, wondering if any of it was really
true.
"By the time I was old enough to be sneaking around smoking cigarettes behind my ma's back, there was a
gas station down at the corner where there used to be a swamp and a hay barn. So I used to walk down there in
the evening and get a coke, a Hershey bar, and a pack of Winston's. I felt pretty safe. In those days most of
the cars going up and down the road were people I knew, friends. So I was safe.
"And the guy who worked at the gas station was a nice guy. Kinda strange, but nice. He used to talk to me
when it wasn't too busy. He always listened, which was more than I could say for almost anyone else.
"The girls on the bus used to talk about him. This was in high school, and they used to borrow somebody's
mom's car and go down and get five dollars worth of gas and try to tease Joe, but he didn't tease too well. Kathy
Schultz said he was probably a fag, but Kathy Schultz probably used to suck her own horse's cock too, and
that's more than a guess.
"I'm a mean little bitch sometimes, I suppose, but I'm kind of defensive about Joe, because he was important
to me for a while.
"It took me a while to figure out who I was. I got into trouble and drifted around, the girl in me confused, the
woman in me emerging.
"More than a woman emerging. An animal emerging. The forced one. Emerging.
"I learned about it nights, beneath the moon, on my knees.
"I learned to be adorned with radiance, to feel the simple sweetness of rosy light pouring over me. I learned to
relax into my bliss, and it came over me slowly, so that I suddenly realized, I had known how for years."
| * * * |
| * * * |
Deputy Sheriff Francis Timothy O'Farrell dithered.
The deputies with the guns took less time to decide that it was the moment to act. The suspects had failed to
shed their guns; they had failed to move away from their ponies. They had mounted, and were perhaps
mounting an attack as well. They had become a clear danger to all of the deputies involved in the stakeout.
Prior objective one. Check!
Trouble was that the big sycamore got in the way. Everyone was stunned by the sudden, spontaneous, explosive
change in the small group of targets at the base of the steep hill. In a twinkle it had shifted from a little crowd
of motionless bulls eyes into two swift, scrambling, haunch-flexing, dust-raising images in full retreat.
The gunner and his mate in the island of scrub near the corner of the pasture were startled, and then lost the
riders behind the great, white trunk of the old sycamore. Similarly, the emplacement crew on the brow of Del
Mar Mesa saw them disappearing beneath the changing green and golden foliage.
From the position on Knebel's ridge, the suspects appeared briefly from beneath the sweeping sycamore limbs
before disappearing from view, cutoff by the tall patch of corn.
The man with the rifle in the cornfield itself was perhaps the most jolted by the suddenness of the
riders'action, but he got off the first shot nevertheless. It was a miss; he shot wildly. He had been prepared for
anything save for having the galloping desperadoes coming straight at him and his radio-partner across the dirt
junction.
Then they were off, flying down the stretch of road that ran north to the main road, no different from two
racehorses with their jockeys, tearing for the finish line, over the hills at the Del Mar Race Track.
A scruffy windbreak of nameless, dusty trees ran about fifteen feet high along the east side of the road upon
which Bob and Johnny dashed. This prevented the rifleman in the cow pasture from reacquiring the fleeing
riders as anything more than a flickering, on again, off again flash through the spaces in the windbreak.
The deputy at the top of the steep hill would be similarly blocked from making a clean shot until right near the
end of the road when the riders would break free from the cover of the scrubby trees and dash across the little
bridge that forded the dry creek bed. Then they would certainly have to slow down at the corner, for either they
would have to turn to the left or the right or risk leaping over the row of mailboxes into a dense patch of brush.
Quickly the sharpshooter adjusted his elevation for the further distance. He put his eye to the scope, and
watched the road where it emerged from behind the windbreak.
The gunman on the hill to the west, on the other side of the Shaw Valley mouth, made similar adjustments to
his scope, and settled down to watch until the bobbing heads came with their bodies and mounts to the bridge,
at which point they would leave behind the concealing cornstalks.
Frantic to be in on it, the men posted in the cornfield stumbled through to the road. The deputy with the rifle
raised it to aim at one of the retreating figures, and his partner drew his pistol and prepared to fire as well.
Across the windbreak, the pasture-deputies also began to shoot at the flashes of color. The thirty-eight Special
slugs mashed heavily through the line of scrub and lost themselves in the corn. The thirty caliber,
solid-jacketed rifle bullets knifed through the shrubbery and sailed off with pointed momentum. One crashed
into the Torrey highlands south of Del Mar. Another broke a bedroom window in a house down the valley. One
speeding lump of copper and lead ricocheted, and then shattered the headlamp of a car parked by the pumps of
The Flying "A," three miles distant.
The deputies with the guns took less time to decide that it was the moment to act. The suspects had failed to
shed their guns; they had failed to move away from their ponies. They had mounted, and were perhaps
mounting an attack as well. They had become a clear danger to all of the deputies involved in the stakeout.
Prior objective one. Check!
Trouble was that the big sycamore got in the way. Everyone was stunned by the sudden, spontaneous, explosive
change in the small group of targets at the base of the steep hill. In a twinkle it had shifted from a little crowd
of motionless bulls eyes into two swift, scrambling, haunch-flexing, dust-raising images in full retreat.
The gunner and his mate in the island of scrub near the corner of the pasture were startled, and then lost the
riders behind the great, white trunk of the old sycamore. Similarly, the emplacement crew on the brow of Del
Mar Mesa saw them disappearing beneath the changing green and golden foliage.
From the position on Knebel's ridge, the suspects appeared briefly from beneath the sweeping sycamore limbs
before disappearing from view, cutoff by the tall patch of corn.
The man with the rifle in the cornfield itself was perhaps the most jolted by the suddenness of the
riders'action, but he got off the first shot nevertheless. It was a miss; he shot wildly. He had been prepared for
anything save for having the galloping desperadoes coming straight at him and his radio-partner across the dirt
junction.
Then they were off, flying down the stretch of road that ran north to the main road, no different from two
racehorses with their jockeys, tearing for the finish line, over the hills at the Del Mar Race Track.
A scruffy windbreak of nameless, dusty trees ran about fifteen feet high along the east side of the road upon
which Bob and Johnny dashed. This prevented the rifleman in the cow pasture from reacquiring the fleeing
riders as anything more than a flickering, on again, off again flash through the spaces in the windbreak.
The deputy at the top of the steep hill would be similarly blocked from making a clean shot until right near the
end of the road when the riders would break free from the cover of the scrubby trees and dash across the little
bridge that forded the dry creek bed. Then they would certainly have to slow down at the corner, for either they
would have to turn to the left or the right or risk leaping over the row of mailboxes into a dense patch of brush.
Quickly the sharpshooter adjusted his elevation for the further distance. He put his eye to the scope, and
watched the road where it emerged from behind the windbreak.
The gunman on the hill to the west, on the other side of the Shaw Valley mouth, made similar adjustments to
his scope, and settled down to watch until the bobbing heads came with their bodies and mounts to the bridge,
at which point they would leave behind the concealing cornstalks.
Frantic to be in on it, the men posted in the cornfield stumbled through to the road. The deputy with the rifle
raised it to aim at one of the retreating figures, and his partner drew his pistol and prepared to fire as well.
Across the windbreak, the pasture-deputies also began to shoot at the flashes of color. The thirty-eight Special
slugs mashed heavily through the line of scrub and lost themselves in the corn. The thirty caliber,
solid-jacketed rifle bullets knifed through the shrubbery and sailed off with pointed momentum. One crashed
into the Torrey highlands south of Del Mar. Another broke a bedroom window in a house down the valley. One
speeding lump of copper and lead ricocheted, and then shattered the headlamp of a car parked by the pumps of
The Flying "A," three miles distant.
| * * * |
Diary of a Goat herder 13 June 1981
She spent a night out, alone and lost, and stood at the gate the next morning, her unmilked
bag tight as a drum.
When the first rains came in the fall, Nicki lay down and shook in the mud, snot and tears
for three days, grew cold and stiff, and we dragged her away to a tiny meadow in the tall
manzanita down behind the orchard where the coyotes found her and left no trace, not
horn nor hoof nor bone.
She spent a night out, alone and lost, and stood at the gate the next morning, her unmilked
bag tight as a drum.
When the first rains came in the fall, Nicki lay down and shook in the mud, snot and tears
for three days, grew cold and stiff, and we dragged her away to a tiny meadow in the tall
manzanita down behind the orchard where the coyotes found her and left no trace, not
horn nor hoof nor bone.
| * * * |
Before Vikor left Birmingham, fifteen people had bled to death at his hands. The first had been the
unfortunate dowager. The second was in the parking lot back at the airport. Vikor had merely followed a
prosperous looking gent who had disembarked from another flight. Mister Victim had collected his luggage and
was lugging it to his car.
Vikor was not so much following him as he was just sharing the route to a distant corner of the lot. Carrying
his own suitcase, he had headed for an imaginary car, guided only by intuition. At first he was part of a throng,
three separate flights having come to earth in the space of a few minutes. Gradually the crowd had thinned,
dividing in streams to different areas, dividing again, breaking off in groups, families, couples and as
individuals. Finally there were only two.
Baxter Blake stopped by the trunk of his blue Buick. With a sigh he lowered the two suitcases and the
briefcase to the ground. He was fifty-five, and he was getting too old for this. He comforted himself with the
glow of success. As a traveling industrial machinery marketing representative he had escaped once and for all
from the trap of black poverty that he had found himself ensnared in by the chance of birth.
Guys he had grown up with worked as luggage handlers in this very airport. He chose not to recognize them;
he hoped they would not recognize him. He pulled out a large white handkerchief and wiped his shining brow. It
was humid. He smiled at a fellow white collar slave who had just set his own bag down at the rear of the car
parked just next to Baxter's own, and was fumbling in his pocket for his keys.
The stranger smiled back. "Hot enough for you?" asked Vikor in a good natured tone.
"Lord, I guess," replied Baxter Blake. He pocketed the hanky, and turned to his own trunk lid. He inserted
the key into the new sedan and turned it. The lid popped open like a breath of quality. The honky, who had
turned in frustration now to his own suitcase in search of the elusive key, was driving a five year old Ford
Tempo. Baxter exhaled a smug breath, drew in another, and clamped his hands on the handles of the two
suitcases. Grimacing with his own strength, he straightened up. He would pay in the morning, he realized, for
showing off like this. Honky wasn't even looking anyhow. With a heave he slung the right hand bag over the
back lip of the trunk compartment.
Sudden pain stabbed him at the very center of his being. His fingers splayed with reflex of agony, one suitcase
thudding back to the pavement while the other tumbled into the trunk.
Fast as a slick fang, Vikor pulled the dagger from the back of Baxter Blake, pulling him off balance at the
same time. The man went over onto his back as Vikor sidestepped him, coming around in front as he fell and
immediately plunging the knife again, this time into the chest of the victim.
Before he could draw back once more, the black man's hands came around and clamped on the wrist of the
murdering honky. Vikor felt his heart thunder in surprise. He was looking right into the eyes of the dying
Mister Blake. He tried again to pull free, but he was held in the grip of final desperation. Bringing his left foot
up without a thought, drawing back calf and thigh like a serpent preparing to strike, Vikor thrust a kick
straight into the face of the older man.
Baxter Blake's world exploded into a hum of stars. He felt his grip fail. The blade came free, followed by a
crimson gusher.
Vikor felt the heat of the black man's blood on his hand. Quickly he seized what was left of the hair on the old
bull's head and jerked the head back and down so that Baxter Blake's throat gaped in a vulnerable arch.
Heedless now of the blood, Vikor moved. Hooking his knife hand first to the left, he slashed the throat with a
strong, fast back hand, exactly as he had practiced it a thousand times in the training pit back at the farm in
Dove Springs. With the grace of a plunging hawk, he severed the arteries, gullet, veins and windpipe. The trials
and dreams of Baxter Beauregard Blake fled like saddened angels with his final breath.
Vikor rose cautiously and looked about. He looked back toward the terminal, but there were no more
passengers heading his way. The few he could still see were busy loading their own luggage into their own
trunks, chattering with guests and hosts, minding kids and sweating with the weather. None could have
witnessed the little scuffle behind the cars at the end of the lot.
He was covered with blood. He would get better at avoiding that in future kills. For now it didn't matter. With
the ease of strength that would have embarrassed the old show off, he hoisted the body into the trunk.
Had the late Mr. Blake been driving a Honda, Vikor would have had to make different arrangements. But the
Buick was fine. He wrestled the one suitcase free of the trunk, and the dead businessman slumped further
down, completely encased now within the roomy compartment.
Before closing the lid, Vikor removed the wallet of the prey. A quick glance told him that here had been one
businessman who wasn't afraid to carry cash in his wallet. A fair amount to be sure, but Vikor rifled all of the
pockets as well, coming up with a pocket knife, more keys, and, lo! a money clip with the real loot, a thick fold
of hundred dollar bills. Down went the trunk lid.
Removing the keys from the trunk lid, he now inserted the appropriate one into the driver's door, and, with
one twist, he unlocked all of the doors.
Into the back seat went the luggage, some of it bloody now. Vikor himself was dripping with gore. Following
another quick, sweeping glance, he stripped off the scarlet laundry and stowed it on the floor. He wiped his
hands on the undershirt. Opening his own bag, he finished the cleanup with hand wipes and a towel that were
laid on the very top. Discarding these as well, he drew out a clean shirt, a Hawaiian print, and threw it on. His
muscles rippled with adrenaline.
He tossed his suitcase into the front seat.
Seizing the keys from the driver's door, Vikor hopped into the luxury automobile, his car now, the way that he
figured it, and away he went.
At the ticket booth he choked back a wave of nervous alarm as he handed the parking permit to the
attendant. Blood was smeared still on the back of the wrist that extended through the open window of the
Buick. While the attendant punched buttons and computed the fee, Vikor wiped the fresh stain away with a
handful of tissue from the box that he found in a little compartment between the seats.
"That will be six dollars, suh."
Vikor handed him a ten. "Keep the change," he said. He drove away without waiting to hear the thank you.
He stowed the car in an underground parking lot associated with the Sheraton Hotel. Ditching his wheels this
way was to become an oft repeated tactic for Vikor. Taking his own suitcase, he walked up to the street and
caught a cab over to the Days Inn on one of the freeways at the edge of the city.
He took a room. Once inside, his virgin nerves allowed him to endure a genuine bout of the shakes. Jesus
Christ! He had done it! He was a killer, a murderer, a thug, a robber, a highwayman, a pirate… a predator.
True, he had not eaten his prey, per se. But a weasel in the chicken house doesn't eat his prey either, content
to suck the blood from a dead hen's neck. When the shakes had subsided, he pulled out the wallet and the
money clip. These would substitute nicely. The blood from the throat of the dead man in the trunk down in the
hotel parking tomb was already drawing flies back on the airport's asphalt.
The wallet contained fifty-three dollars. Vikor had already taken a ten from the stash for the parking fee and
the tip. He had paid for the room with the American Express card. Also in the wallet was an Alabama driver's
license, photos of Baxter Blake's wife and three children, all black like the victim himself, and a VISA card.
Vikor turned his attention to the money clip.
The two bills on the outside of the fold were hundreds. All of the rest were twenties, save for one lone fifty
sandwiched in between the denominations. The sum of the clip contents was four hundred seventy dollars. It
was no get rich quick scheme, the events of the morning. Vikor urged himself not to be discouraged. There was
plenty more, not in the pockets whence came this treasure, but in others, and they were everywhere. He went
down to lunch.
unfortunate dowager. The second was in the parking lot back at the airport. Vikor had merely followed a
prosperous looking gent who had disembarked from another flight. Mister Victim had collected his luggage and
was lugging it to his car.
Vikor was not so much following him as he was just sharing the route to a distant corner of the lot. Carrying
his own suitcase, he had headed for an imaginary car, guided only by intuition. At first he was part of a throng,
three separate flights having come to earth in the space of a few minutes. Gradually the crowd had thinned,
dividing in streams to different areas, dividing again, breaking off in groups, families, couples and as
individuals. Finally there were only two.
Baxter Blake stopped by the trunk of his blue Buick. With a sigh he lowered the two suitcases and the
briefcase to the ground. He was fifty-five, and he was getting too old for this. He comforted himself with the
glow of success. As a traveling industrial machinery marketing representative he had escaped once and for all
from the trap of black poverty that he had found himself ensnared in by the chance of birth.
Guys he had grown up with worked as luggage handlers in this very airport. He chose not to recognize them;
he hoped they would not recognize him. He pulled out a large white handkerchief and wiped his shining brow. It
was humid. He smiled at a fellow white collar slave who had just set his own bag down at the rear of the car
parked just next to Baxter's own, and was fumbling in his pocket for his keys.
The stranger smiled back. "Hot enough for you?" asked Vikor in a good natured tone.
"Lord, I guess," replied Baxter Blake. He pocketed the hanky, and turned to his own trunk lid. He inserted
the key into the new sedan and turned it. The lid popped open like a breath of quality. The honky, who had
turned in frustration now to his own suitcase in search of the elusive key, was driving a five year old Ford
Tempo. Baxter exhaled a smug breath, drew in another, and clamped his hands on the handles of the two
suitcases. Grimacing with his own strength, he straightened up. He would pay in the morning, he realized, for
showing off like this. Honky wasn't even looking anyhow. With a heave he slung the right hand bag over the
back lip of the trunk compartment.
Sudden pain stabbed him at the very center of his being. His fingers splayed with reflex of agony, one suitcase
thudding back to the pavement while the other tumbled into the trunk.
Fast as a slick fang, Vikor pulled the dagger from the back of Baxter Blake, pulling him off balance at the
same time. The man went over onto his back as Vikor sidestepped him, coming around in front as he fell and
immediately plunging the knife again, this time into the chest of the victim.
Before he could draw back once more, the black man's hands came around and clamped on the wrist of the
murdering honky. Vikor felt his heart thunder in surprise. He was looking right into the eyes of the dying
Mister Blake. He tried again to pull free, but he was held in the grip of final desperation. Bringing his left foot
up without a thought, drawing back calf and thigh like a serpent preparing to strike, Vikor thrust a kick
straight into the face of the older man.
Baxter Blake's world exploded into a hum of stars. He felt his grip fail. The blade came free, followed by a
crimson gusher.
Vikor felt the heat of the black man's blood on his hand. Quickly he seized what was left of the hair on the old
bull's head and jerked the head back and down so that Baxter Blake's throat gaped in a vulnerable arch.
Heedless now of the blood, Vikor moved. Hooking his knife hand first to the left, he slashed the throat with a
strong, fast back hand, exactly as he had practiced it a thousand times in the training pit back at the farm in
Dove Springs. With the grace of a plunging hawk, he severed the arteries, gullet, veins and windpipe. The trials
and dreams of Baxter Beauregard Blake fled like saddened angels with his final breath.
Vikor rose cautiously and looked about. He looked back toward the terminal, but there were no more
passengers heading his way. The few he could still see were busy loading their own luggage into their own
trunks, chattering with guests and hosts, minding kids and sweating with the weather. None could have
witnessed the little scuffle behind the cars at the end of the lot.
He was covered with blood. He would get better at avoiding that in future kills. For now it didn't matter. With
the ease of strength that would have embarrassed the old show off, he hoisted the body into the trunk.
Had the late Mr. Blake been driving a Honda, Vikor would have had to make different arrangements. But the
Buick was fine. He wrestled the one suitcase free of the trunk, and the dead businessman slumped further
down, completely encased now within the roomy compartment.
Before closing the lid, Vikor removed the wallet of the prey. A quick glance told him that here had been one
businessman who wasn't afraid to carry cash in his wallet. A fair amount to be sure, but Vikor rifled all of the
pockets as well, coming up with a pocket knife, more keys, and, lo! a money clip with the real loot, a thick fold
of hundred dollar bills. Down went the trunk lid.
Removing the keys from the trunk lid, he now inserted the appropriate one into the driver's door, and, with
one twist, he unlocked all of the doors.
Into the back seat went the luggage, some of it bloody now. Vikor himself was dripping with gore. Following
another quick, sweeping glance, he stripped off the scarlet laundry and stowed it on the floor. He wiped his
hands on the undershirt. Opening his own bag, he finished the cleanup with hand wipes and a towel that were
laid on the very top. Discarding these as well, he drew out a clean shirt, a Hawaiian print, and threw it on. His
muscles rippled with adrenaline.
He tossed his suitcase into the front seat.
Seizing the keys from the driver's door, Vikor hopped into the luxury automobile, his car now, the way that he
figured it, and away he went.
At the ticket booth he choked back a wave of nervous alarm as he handed the parking permit to the
attendant. Blood was smeared still on the back of the wrist that extended through the open window of the
Buick. While the attendant punched buttons and computed the fee, Vikor wiped the fresh stain away with a
handful of tissue from the box that he found in a little compartment between the seats.
"That will be six dollars, suh."
Vikor handed him a ten. "Keep the change," he said. He drove away without waiting to hear the thank you.
He stowed the car in an underground parking lot associated with the Sheraton Hotel. Ditching his wheels this
way was to become an oft repeated tactic for Vikor. Taking his own suitcase, he walked up to the street and
caught a cab over to the Days Inn on one of the freeways at the edge of the city.
He took a room. Once inside, his virgin nerves allowed him to endure a genuine bout of the shakes. Jesus
Christ! He had done it! He was a killer, a murderer, a thug, a robber, a highwayman, a pirate… a predator.
True, he had not eaten his prey, per se. But a weasel in the chicken house doesn't eat his prey either, content
to suck the blood from a dead hen's neck. When the shakes had subsided, he pulled out the wallet and the
money clip. These would substitute nicely. The blood from the throat of the dead man in the trunk down in the
hotel parking tomb was already drawing flies back on the airport's asphalt.
The wallet contained fifty-three dollars. Vikor had already taken a ten from the stash for the parking fee and
the tip. He had paid for the room with the American Express card. Also in the wallet was an Alabama driver's
license, photos of Baxter Blake's wife and three children, all black like the victim himself, and a VISA card.
Vikor turned his attention to the money clip.
The two bills on the outside of the fold were hundreds. All of the rest were twenties, save for one lone fifty
sandwiched in between the denominations. The sum of the clip contents was four hundred seventy dollars. It
was no get rich quick scheme, the events of the morning. Vikor urged himself not to be discouraged. There was
plenty more, not in the pockets whence came this treasure, but in others, and they were everywhere. He went
down to lunch.
So, that was two. There were to be thirteen more, before the terror of Birmingham boarded another jet and
fled like a hawk. Fifteen kills in one city. It was a record that he never approached during the rest of his bloody
career. Fifteen.
He had learned a lot between the fat, old dowager and the prosperous, middle-aged man.
By the time of his meeting with Diana in the hills of Southern California, he had learned to limit the slaughter
to one, maybe two, victims at each location on his random itinerary. He had learned to keep moving, even to
leave skunked, if situation or intuition demanded. Some victims had no money. Some had only credit cards.
Some had jewelry.
Gems and precious metal he brought home and added to the buried treasure at Dove Springs. His third kill in
Birmingham provided the foundation for this hoard.
Another black, but this time a woman, she fell right into the young man's hands. Almost literally, for Alicia
May Tumplin was a prostitute, and she knocked on our hero's motel door.
'Licia May Dumplin' was what they had called her in school, and a hell-bent, cock-sucking, lie-down-and-
spread-'em little dumpling she was. She was well beyond such a caricature now.
"Good afternoon," she said to the apprehensive young hunter who opened the door to room number 222. "My
name is Sandra."
Here was a wrinkle of adventure that Cat One had not covered. Nor had Diana prepared Vikor specifically for
the experience of opening his door to a full-fledged whore.
Vikor had just returned from the restaurant on the main level. He had been leery of opening the door at all,
concluding after a moment that not to open it would be suspicious. He had just finished showering; the loot was
stashed out of sight. Anyone who had heard the shower running moments earlier would have wondered had
there been no response to the knock. After all, it might be the maid.
It was no maid, nor maiden, that stood humbly in the hall, her hands demurely clasped across her tiny
handbag. Black and beautiful, "Sandra" was dressed in alluring purple, hair straight and long, pearls about her
neck and jeweled rings sparkling from each of her fingers. The dress was not excessively short, but was cut to
seductive lines that accentuated the curve of the hip, and the pearls nested in the décolletage. Vikor was
speechless.
"I'm Sandra," she repeated. In a voice both forward and polite she suggested, "Would you like me to come
in?"
Vikor licked his lips. Whatever that meant, Sandra, who was used to taking bold chances, was disarmed. She
smiled. Vikor returned the smile, and stepped aside, ushering her in with an open hand. "Please," he said.
She stepped across the threshold. Her high, white heels clicked across the tile, then softened to silence on the
carpet beyond the entry. Her bare-chested, wet-haired host quietly closed the door.
The following morning, when the body of 'Licia May Tumplin was found, throat-slashed and jewel-free in the
bathtub of room two-twenty-two, there were two questions that bothered the investigators. The first was that
there was no sign of penetration or seminal emission, not in or on the corpse, nor anywhere else in the room of
Mr. Baxter Beauregard Blake.
Birmingham's homicide team found nothing strange about the traveling businessman's rental of a motel room
in his own home town. That happened all of the time, to accommodate liaisons of every description. The puzzle
was that the staff at the Days Inn was half-sure that the man who had presented the credit card to pay for two-
two-two was not black.
But, they saw a lot of people each shift; there could have been some confusion. That was the second to the last
clue that this trail yielded. The last was when, several days later, the car and corpse of Mr. B.B.B., Mr. Better
Business Beauregard, Baxter B. Blake, was discovered in the depths of the parking structure next to the
Sheraton. The case remains unsolved.
A dozen other murders that occurred during those two days in Birmingham remain unsolved as well. Had
homicide ever put together the news, that all of that carnage had occurred during the one forty-eight hour
period, it would have amounted to another clue, for sure. But that never happened.
Vikor vacated his room after stashing the whore's jewelry in the bottom of his suitcase. That it might all be
cheap costume jewelry was not a possibility. One of the subjects that Cat One had explored with her inquisitive
son was gemology. He could tell a diamond from a rhinestone; he could tell an emerald from glass. He knew
the difference between gold and gold plate. The same with silver.
He could differentiate between genuine pearls, cultured pearls, and fakes. 'Licia May Dumplin's pearls were
not cultured or fake. What Vikor did not know, and he wondered about it, was whether whores normally went
about with thousands of dollars worth of jewelry on their fingers and necks.
She had had only two bucks in her purse. From her last fuck, thought Vikor, with caustic, private humor. On
her fingers were a small cluster of diamonds, a ruby, a sapphire, a small pearl, another ruby, a diamond
solitaire, a larger pearl flanked by tiny emeralds, and another sapphire. Her hands looked like the midway at a
carnival.
In addition to the necklace and the rings, his guest had worn diamond earrings. All of it was now rolled in
tissue and stashed. Vikor had even taken the precaution to check the navel of the cooling carcass, lest he walk
off and leave the largest ruby of all still embedded in its dark socket, but all that he discovered was a clean,
black nook, without a trace of lint.
He checked the tops of her stockings and the folds of her clothes so as not to leave behind the main cash, but
that was it; he had it all. Two dollars, and several thousand worth of gold and jewels.
He searched inside her bra and her panties, but her fragrant pussy he let be. Vikor may have loved his prey,
and he knew he was weird, but he was not weird like that. Dead or alive, his victims were treated with
appropriate respect. He did not want to love them that way.
He knew from his learning at the feet of his mother, and from wise Diana as well, that the struggle of the
human predatory spirit to express itself, to evolve and to incarnate with the balance of survival, had taken
many a perverse pathway. While many would, if they knew about him, judge Vikor to be a pervert, and worthy
of ultimate scorn, he had his own standards and ideals.
The spawn of rape himself, he was no rapist. Life's little mutations must needs explore every niche, every
style and combination. The wind-blown seeds of dandelions come to light on a million surfaces, fresh earth,
raging waters, hot tar and brick seams. Life dashes her genetic experiments against the world, and life destroys
them all but for the few who find the fertile favor.
Every imaginable adventure, every despicable potential, has to take its turn and be dashed to ruin if it finds
not the perfect fit. It has been said that sex as practiced by humanity is unique in the kingdoms of life, and so
it is, and so is our violence as well. Perhaps the mixture of the two has been the formula for civilization itself,
in all of its madcap variations.
Perhaps when the process is complete, perhaps when the ten thousand year churn of heredity and environment
has made Mother Nature's sweet, creamy butter, perhaps when the ruthless hand has weeded out the ugly and
the cruel, perhaps there will be no civilization with its wars and its prisons, its torture and its poverty, its
technology, its swarms, its famines, its plagues and destruction.
Perhaps humanity will have become two species with no confusion as whether to rape or to devour. Perhaps
one will be the incarnation of that gentle aim of saints of all the ages, a beautiful, peace-loving race of
vegetarians dwelling in a garden of plenty. Maybe they will love, in tranquil ease, the pure waters, the radiant
sunrise, the peace of a planet gone quiet and serene. They will raise their young in prosperity, maybe; they will
bear their burdens in freedom.
They will walk their paths and choose their mates and their homes untrammeled by oppression and prejudice.
They will live for the day and die without tragedy. They will sing about the flowers and the land. Perhaps.
Perhaps. And perhaps the other race will also flourish, fewer in number, sacrificing themselves to the law of
the wolf and the panther, wandering through the world alone, gathering in tiny packs, and teaching their
children the moods of the moon and the weather. Perhaps their lives will also be beautiful, fraught with secret
surprise. Perhaps they will have outgrown cruelty and perversion. Perhaps they will cheer only for the glory of
the kill.
Perhaps like mammal herself, luscious creature who feeds her young from the springs of her own hot blood,
this pair of unnamed species will descend from a common ancestor, poor, benighted, quarrelsome, vanished
humanity.
Perhaps.
Vikor didn't know about that. Vikor didn't know anything about that. He did know that it was only the wise
counsel of Cat One and Diana that had saved him from the final agony of bitterness. A mother raped. A
mother raped, and tortured and killed. A grandmother assaulted. Another grandmother assaulted and then
driven into hiding. A grandfather shot down on a country road. A great-aunt and two great-uncles murdered in
a crossroad. A mother hounded by the law… Vikor had plenty of reasons to be bitter.
"To let yourself be bitter is to miss out on the flavor of life," Cat One had repeated the words of Agnes Tawny
to her son. Agnes Tawny herself had a multitude of excuses for missing out on that flavor, a multitude of
reasons to be bitter. But she was not.
What impressed Vikor was how similar the advice of Agnes was to the admonitions of Diana. He remembered
her at winter sunsets, when they would sit on the end of a ridge, and she would muse over reality. "Don't
punish yourself for other folk's cruelty," Ma would say. "You don't need to lift a finger, to get your revenge, to
see that the assholes of the world get what's coming to them."
"People like Clyde and Carl are the bitter ones," said Agnes, referring to the villains of that snowy night so
long ago, the two pathetic fiends that Old Fargo had calmly shotgunned. "Probably they themselves have been
hurt, in the past. Maybe by the police, maybe by their parents. They want to get even, so they keep the score,
and they ruin their own lives in the balance."
"Those guys in the truck that went after Maggie and my ma," this was Diana talking again. "They weren't
happy. They were probably miserable. They were probably fighting with each other all the time when they didn't
have someone else to mess with."
Vikor remembered Cat saying, "Agnes says that happiness is to be shared, even if you only share it with the
wilderness around you. There is no happiness in cruelty."
He himself was not much of the backwoods philosopher. The memories came. The advice from each side of
reality swirled together in his head. He was thankful that he had heeded it. He knew enough by now to know,
that bitterness, in his profession, would be fatal.
But he knew as well why he was at least unsympathetic to his victims, their survivors, or the whole decadent
and corrupt world from which they came. He knew why he was not swayed by arguments for morality,
generosity, or compassion. Any suffering or woe that his behavior brought upon any of them they had asked
for and deserved.
He did not owe them one damn thing.
fled like a hawk. Fifteen kills in one city. It was a record that he never approached during the rest of his bloody
career. Fifteen.
He had learned a lot between the fat, old dowager and the prosperous, middle-aged man.
By the time of his meeting with Diana in the hills of Southern California, he had learned to limit the slaughter
to one, maybe two, victims at each location on his random itinerary. He had learned to keep moving, even to
leave skunked, if situation or intuition demanded. Some victims had no money. Some had only credit cards.
Some had jewelry.
Gems and precious metal he brought home and added to the buried treasure at Dove Springs. His third kill in
Birmingham provided the foundation for this hoard.
Another black, but this time a woman, she fell right into the young man's hands. Almost literally, for Alicia
May Tumplin was a prostitute, and she knocked on our hero's motel door.
'Licia May Dumplin' was what they had called her in school, and a hell-bent, cock-sucking, lie-down-and-
spread-'em little dumpling she was. She was well beyond such a caricature now.
"Good afternoon," she said to the apprehensive young hunter who opened the door to room number 222. "My
name is Sandra."
Here was a wrinkle of adventure that Cat One had not covered. Nor had Diana prepared Vikor specifically for
the experience of opening his door to a full-fledged whore.
Vikor had just returned from the restaurant on the main level. He had been leery of opening the door at all,
concluding after a moment that not to open it would be suspicious. He had just finished showering; the loot was
stashed out of sight. Anyone who had heard the shower running moments earlier would have wondered had
there been no response to the knock. After all, it might be the maid.
It was no maid, nor maiden, that stood humbly in the hall, her hands demurely clasped across her tiny
handbag. Black and beautiful, "Sandra" was dressed in alluring purple, hair straight and long, pearls about her
neck and jeweled rings sparkling from each of her fingers. The dress was not excessively short, but was cut to
seductive lines that accentuated the curve of the hip, and the pearls nested in the décolletage. Vikor was
speechless.
"I'm Sandra," she repeated. In a voice both forward and polite she suggested, "Would you like me to come
in?"
Vikor licked his lips. Whatever that meant, Sandra, who was used to taking bold chances, was disarmed. She
smiled. Vikor returned the smile, and stepped aside, ushering her in with an open hand. "Please," he said.
She stepped across the threshold. Her high, white heels clicked across the tile, then softened to silence on the
carpet beyond the entry. Her bare-chested, wet-haired host quietly closed the door.
The following morning, when the body of 'Licia May Tumplin was found, throat-slashed and jewel-free in the
bathtub of room two-twenty-two, there were two questions that bothered the investigators. The first was that
there was no sign of penetration or seminal emission, not in or on the corpse, nor anywhere else in the room of
Mr. Baxter Beauregard Blake.
Birmingham's homicide team found nothing strange about the traveling businessman's rental of a motel room
in his own home town. That happened all of the time, to accommodate liaisons of every description. The puzzle
was that the staff at the Days Inn was half-sure that the man who had presented the credit card to pay for two-
two-two was not black.
But, they saw a lot of people each shift; there could have been some confusion. That was the second to the last
clue that this trail yielded. The last was when, several days later, the car and corpse of Mr. B.B.B., Mr. Better
Business Beauregard, Baxter B. Blake, was discovered in the depths of the parking structure next to the
Sheraton. The case remains unsolved.
A dozen other murders that occurred during those two days in Birmingham remain unsolved as well. Had
homicide ever put together the news, that all of that carnage had occurred during the one forty-eight hour
period, it would have amounted to another clue, for sure. But that never happened.
Vikor vacated his room after stashing the whore's jewelry in the bottom of his suitcase. That it might all be
cheap costume jewelry was not a possibility. One of the subjects that Cat One had explored with her inquisitive
son was gemology. He could tell a diamond from a rhinestone; he could tell an emerald from glass. He knew
the difference between gold and gold plate. The same with silver.
He could differentiate between genuine pearls, cultured pearls, and fakes. 'Licia May Dumplin's pearls were
not cultured or fake. What Vikor did not know, and he wondered about it, was whether whores normally went
about with thousands of dollars worth of jewelry on their fingers and necks.
She had had only two bucks in her purse. From her last fuck, thought Vikor, with caustic, private humor. On
her fingers were a small cluster of diamonds, a ruby, a sapphire, a small pearl, another ruby, a diamond
solitaire, a larger pearl flanked by tiny emeralds, and another sapphire. Her hands looked like the midway at a
carnival.
In addition to the necklace and the rings, his guest had worn diamond earrings. All of it was now rolled in
tissue and stashed. Vikor had even taken the precaution to check the navel of the cooling carcass, lest he walk
off and leave the largest ruby of all still embedded in its dark socket, but all that he discovered was a clean,
black nook, without a trace of lint.
He checked the tops of her stockings and the folds of her clothes so as not to leave behind the main cash, but
that was it; he had it all. Two dollars, and several thousand worth of gold and jewels.
He searched inside her bra and her panties, but her fragrant pussy he let be. Vikor may have loved his prey,
and he knew he was weird, but he was not weird like that. Dead or alive, his victims were treated with
appropriate respect. He did not want to love them that way.
He knew from his learning at the feet of his mother, and from wise Diana as well, that the struggle of the
human predatory spirit to express itself, to evolve and to incarnate with the balance of survival, had taken
many a perverse pathway. While many would, if they knew about him, judge Vikor to be a pervert, and worthy
of ultimate scorn, he had his own standards and ideals.
The spawn of rape himself, he was no rapist. Life's little mutations must needs explore every niche, every
style and combination. The wind-blown seeds of dandelions come to light on a million surfaces, fresh earth,
raging waters, hot tar and brick seams. Life dashes her genetic experiments against the world, and life destroys
them all but for the few who find the fertile favor.
Every imaginable adventure, every despicable potential, has to take its turn and be dashed to ruin if it finds
not the perfect fit. It has been said that sex as practiced by humanity is unique in the kingdoms of life, and so
it is, and so is our violence as well. Perhaps the mixture of the two has been the formula for civilization itself,
in all of its madcap variations.
Perhaps when the process is complete, perhaps when the ten thousand year churn of heredity and environment
has made Mother Nature's sweet, creamy butter, perhaps when the ruthless hand has weeded out the ugly and
the cruel, perhaps there will be no civilization with its wars and its prisons, its torture and its poverty, its
technology, its swarms, its famines, its plagues and destruction.
Perhaps humanity will have become two species with no confusion as whether to rape or to devour. Perhaps
one will be the incarnation of that gentle aim of saints of all the ages, a beautiful, peace-loving race of
vegetarians dwelling in a garden of plenty. Maybe they will love, in tranquil ease, the pure waters, the radiant
sunrise, the peace of a planet gone quiet and serene. They will raise their young in prosperity, maybe; they will
bear their burdens in freedom.
They will walk their paths and choose their mates and their homes untrammeled by oppression and prejudice.
They will live for the day and die without tragedy. They will sing about the flowers and the land. Perhaps.
Perhaps. And perhaps the other race will also flourish, fewer in number, sacrificing themselves to the law of
the wolf and the panther, wandering through the world alone, gathering in tiny packs, and teaching their
children the moods of the moon and the weather. Perhaps their lives will also be beautiful, fraught with secret
surprise. Perhaps they will have outgrown cruelty and perversion. Perhaps they will cheer only for the glory of
the kill.
Perhaps like mammal herself, luscious creature who feeds her young from the springs of her own hot blood,
this pair of unnamed species will descend from a common ancestor, poor, benighted, quarrelsome, vanished
humanity.
Perhaps.
Vikor didn't know about that. Vikor didn't know anything about that. He did know that it was only the wise
counsel of Cat One and Diana that had saved him from the final agony of bitterness. A mother raped. A
mother raped, and tortured and killed. A grandmother assaulted. Another grandmother assaulted and then
driven into hiding. A grandfather shot down on a country road. A great-aunt and two great-uncles murdered in
a crossroad. A mother hounded by the law… Vikor had plenty of reasons to be bitter.
"To let yourself be bitter is to miss out on the flavor of life," Cat One had repeated the words of Agnes Tawny
to her son. Agnes Tawny herself had a multitude of excuses for missing out on that flavor, a multitude of
reasons to be bitter. But she was not.
What impressed Vikor was how similar the advice of Agnes was to the admonitions of Diana. He remembered
her at winter sunsets, when they would sit on the end of a ridge, and she would muse over reality. "Don't
punish yourself for other folk's cruelty," Ma would say. "You don't need to lift a finger, to get your revenge, to
see that the assholes of the world get what's coming to them."
"People like Clyde and Carl are the bitter ones," said Agnes, referring to the villains of that snowy night so
long ago, the two pathetic fiends that Old Fargo had calmly shotgunned. "Probably they themselves have been
hurt, in the past. Maybe by the police, maybe by their parents. They want to get even, so they keep the score,
and they ruin their own lives in the balance."
"Those guys in the truck that went after Maggie and my ma," this was Diana talking again. "They weren't
happy. They were probably miserable. They were probably fighting with each other all the time when they didn't
have someone else to mess with."
Vikor remembered Cat saying, "Agnes says that happiness is to be shared, even if you only share it with the
wilderness around you. There is no happiness in cruelty."
He himself was not much of the backwoods philosopher. The memories came. The advice from each side of
reality swirled together in his head. He was thankful that he had heeded it. He knew enough by now to know,
that bitterness, in his profession, would be fatal.
But he knew as well why he was at least unsympathetic to his victims, their survivors, or the whole decadent
and corrupt world from which they came. He knew why he was not swayed by arguments for morality,
generosity, or compassion. Any suffering or woe that his behavior brought upon any of them they had asked
for and deserved.
He did not owe them one damn thing.
| * * * |
We used to die in hospitals, in ranks of beds and rooms and wings and floors of numbered halls. We used to
die in automobiles, and trapped in depths of mines.
We used to die in senility and refuse. We used to die in the dribbling shame of age. We used to die in
convulsions, in contortions; we used to die in our sleep. We used to die while making love, while dancing,
bathing or laughing with joy.
We used to burn to death, trapped in the hasty errors of technology and a world gone wild for wheels and fire.
We used to die screaming in the clench of machinery run too hard, too long, attended by awareness too weary
or too bored.
We used to die, poisoned by our own wastes, asphyxiated in our own animal belch. We used to die from falls,
electrocution, toxicity… we used to die from careless lack of control.
We used to die in prisons and concentration camps, in riots, and lynchings, and holocausts, and drive-by
shootings, and war.
Now, who knows how we die? How are we so blessed, that our fitness includes not being able to see too well?
Sometimes we find what's left behind, after the kill; sometimes we don't, but never is there much of an
explanation. Herman is gone. The rest of us step over and sharpen our senses.
Who does these things? Who catches us when we are alone? Why don't we recognize them? Do we recognize
them in that last moment when maybe we see the knife flash?
die in automobiles, and trapped in depths of mines.
We used to die in senility and refuse. We used to die in the dribbling shame of age. We used to die in
convulsions, in contortions; we used to die in our sleep. We used to die while making love, while dancing,
bathing or laughing with joy.
We used to burn to death, trapped in the hasty errors of technology and a world gone wild for wheels and fire.
We used to die screaming in the clench of machinery run too hard, too long, attended by awareness too weary
or too bored.
We used to die, poisoned by our own wastes, asphyxiated in our own animal belch. We used to die from falls,
electrocution, toxicity… we used to die from careless lack of control.
We used to die in prisons and concentration camps, in riots, and lynchings, and holocausts, and drive-by
shootings, and war.
Now, who knows how we die? How are we so blessed, that our fitness includes not being able to see too well?
Sometimes we find what's left behind, after the kill; sometimes we don't, but never is there much of an
explanation. Herman is gone. The rest of us step over and sharpen our senses.
Who does these things? Who catches us when we are alone? Why don't we recognize them? Do we recognize
them in that last moment when maybe we see the knife flash?
| * * * |
Johnny Stream rode with the untamed fury of a wild east wind over a high pass on a midnight mountainside.
The open gates that lured him now like celestial beacons were the same portals that he had stepped through on
frosty mornings to connect with Mike Wertz and the milk run to the Naval Station.
Once the galloping riders burst clear of any concealment from cornstalks, limbs or saplings, the sharpshooters
on the two hillcrests began to fire as well. These were all missed shots. The bullets whizzed mere inch fractions
from the head and body of racing Johnny. He felt the little hawks pluck at his collar, and his hat was blown
away.
The first bullet from Knebel's ridge missed its target and thudded into the earth between the dry streambed
and the main road. The sniper rapidly worked the bolt action mechanism of the Remington. He realigned the
scope, centered the crosshairs on the heart of the hybrid, led a little, and squeezed off a second shot.
This one missed as well, nipping at the neckerchief as it went by, then ricocheting off the pavement beyond.
The slug soared into a lofty arc and descended into the hills between Border Road and Skyline Drive, four miles
to the north.
The two rounds fired from the steep hill met similar failure. Johnny Stream seemed almost magically
protected, veiled by the mantle of serendipity. The first bullet bounced off of the bridge itself. It soared away,
over the hills, to land in the ocean west of Del Mar.
The second shot from the southeast glanced off the road and came down in the town itself, cracking a tile on a
red-roofed hacienda, then rolling into the gutter of oblivion.
The open gates that lured him now like celestial beacons were the same portals that he had stepped through on
frosty mornings to connect with Mike Wertz and the milk run to the Naval Station.
Once the galloping riders burst clear of any concealment from cornstalks, limbs or saplings, the sharpshooters
on the two hillcrests began to fire as well. These were all missed shots. The bullets whizzed mere inch fractions
from the head and body of racing Johnny. He felt the little hawks pluck at his collar, and his hat was blown
away.
The first bullet from Knebel's ridge missed its target and thudded into the earth between the dry streambed
and the main road. The sniper rapidly worked the bolt action mechanism of the Remington. He realigned the
scope, centered the crosshairs on the heart of the hybrid, led a little, and squeezed off a second shot.
This one missed as well, nipping at the neckerchief as it went by, then ricocheting off the pavement beyond.
The slug soared into a lofty arc and descended into the hills between Border Road and Skyline Drive, four miles
to the north.
The two rounds fired from the steep hill met similar failure. Johnny Stream seemed almost magically
protected, veiled by the mantle of serendipity. The first bullet bounced off of the bridge itself. It soared away,
over the hills, to land in the ocean west of Del Mar.
The second shot from the southeast glanced off the road and came down in the town itself, cracking a tile on a
red-roofed hacienda, then rolling into the gutter of oblivion.
| * * * |
A novice assassin, Vikor had disembarked from the 747 on a hot grey morning in Alabama's capital. No longer
fifteen, he had received an extra ten years of training and experience under the tutelage of her whom he called
Mother, Cat One. The grace and ferocity nursed by Ma had been disciplined and balanced by Mother.
Martial arts for self-defense, martial arts with a dagger, what Mother called the dagger-dance or sometimes
the dance of death, martial arts for offense if you will, had been mixed with every sort of familiarity with the
ways of the world's herd. There had been trips to cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, Bakersfield and
Sacramento.
Big cities, small towns, planes and trains and buses, hotels, motels, restaurants and nightclubs, museums and
theatres, supermarkets and malls, office buildings, parking structures, churches, temples and synagogues, she
led him through them all. Sometimes they went by car, Cat's own, or a rented car in a distant city or town.
They would cruise the neighborhoods rich and poor, past the schools and the corners, the parks and the
playgrounds.
Easing like innocuous vipers through the ragged slums, mother and son would peer through the windshield at
the prostitutes and pickpockets and dope-dealers, at gangs and street people, beggars and cripples and morons,
as well as the harried workers and mothers and children that moved amidst the rabble.
Prowling the suburban streets like a pair of invisible tigers, they studied subjects like isolation and density;
they measured the locks and the walls.
fifteen, he had received an extra ten years of training and experience under the tutelage of her whom he called
Mother, Cat One. The grace and ferocity nursed by Ma had been disciplined and balanced by Mother.
Martial arts for self-defense, martial arts with a dagger, what Mother called the dagger-dance or sometimes
the dance of death, martial arts for offense if you will, had been mixed with every sort of familiarity with the
ways of the world's herd. There had been trips to cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, Bakersfield and
Sacramento.
Big cities, small towns, planes and trains and buses, hotels, motels, restaurants and nightclubs, museums and
theatres, supermarkets and malls, office buildings, parking structures, churches, temples and synagogues, she
led him through them all. Sometimes they went by car, Cat's own, or a rented car in a distant city or town.
They would cruise the neighborhoods rich and poor, past the schools and the corners, the parks and the
playgrounds.
Easing like innocuous vipers through the ragged slums, mother and son would peer through the windshield at
the prostitutes and pickpockets and dope-dealers, at gangs and street people, beggars and cripples and morons,
as well as the harried workers and mothers and children that moved amidst the rabble.
Prowling the suburban streets like a pair of invisible tigers, they studied subjects like isolation and density;
they measured the locks and the walls.
| * * * |
Nighttime in the arsenic mine. Sitting warm and dry, inside the rocky chamber, one could scarcely hear the
rain at all, even when it poured. By grey day Carol could see it hammering steadily down across the small
opening. The smudge of a fire just inside of the raindrops' reach was all it took to keep the cavern cozy.
The boys were out there somewhere, in their ponchos. Johnny had a horse again, the nameless mare.
Widowmaker had gone back to Marilyn. Cheyenne had died. Diana was curled in her bunny fur watching the
rain, but she might just as soon be in her poncho too, and on the loose.
Carol pulled her own blanket about her shoulders and watched the rain. It really wasn't that cold. It's just that
there wasn't much to do on a rainy day in a mine.
rain at all, even when it poured. By grey day Carol could see it hammering steadily down across the small
opening. The smudge of a fire just inside of the raindrops' reach was all it took to keep the cavern cozy.
The boys were out there somewhere, in their ponchos. Johnny had a horse again, the nameless mare.
Widowmaker had gone back to Marilyn. Cheyenne had died. Diana was curled in her bunny fur watching the
rain, but she might just as soon be in her poncho too, and on the loose.
Carol pulled her own blanket about her shoulders and watched the rain. It really wasn't that cold. It's just that
there wasn't much to do on a rainy day in a mine.
| * * * |
"We'll lose them. We'll lose them." Bob chanted with the rhythm of the gallop. Now the two men from the
position in the cornfield began to fire from their new location a straight shot behind the fugitives. Their first
two shots tore through Bob. "We'll lose them," he moaned. "We'll lose them."
And who will nurse you back from these awful wounds, Bob Cabler? The silent question beamed from the
invisible witness in the sky. Another rifle shot connected with his wild heart and wrenched it beyond hope. This
was not like the thump on the head eight years back, when consciousness was the first to go. This time it
seemed like his awareness of these last seconds would go on forever. He felt like he was piloting the body of a
huge spider he had seen, a spider whose insides were gone, whose limbs and jaws were dry and dead. Bob was
gone; he was blown away. He saw the mailboxes race toward him without slacking; he felt Spot accelerate, felt
his gelding's muscles surge with the flood of escape. He heard the hoof beats disappear as the row of boxes
dropped from view.
We'll lose them, he concluded, and he wished his partner well. His own lifeless form crashed into the thicket.
The horse crashed ignominiously into a thrashing pathos of broken legs and barbed wire arteries. Spot had
nearly bled to death before ever a kind soul could reach him with a merciful bullet.
position in the cornfield began to fire from their new location a straight shot behind the fugitives. Their first
two shots tore through Bob. "We'll lose them," he moaned. "We'll lose them."
And who will nurse you back from these awful wounds, Bob Cabler? The silent question beamed from the
invisible witness in the sky. Another rifle shot connected with his wild heart and wrenched it beyond hope. This
was not like the thump on the head eight years back, when consciousness was the first to go. This time it
seemed like his awareness of these last seconds would go on forever. He felt like he was piloting the body of a
huge spider he had seen, a spider whose insides were gone, whose limbs and jaws were dry and dead. Bob was
gone; he was blown away. He saw the mailboxes race toward him without slacking; he felt Spot accelerate, felt
his gelding's muscles surge with the flood of escape. He heard the hoof beats disappear as the row of boxes
dropped from view.
We'll lose them, he concluded, and he wished his partner well. His own lifeless form crashed into the thicket.
The horse crashed ignominiously into a thrashing pathos of broken legs and barbed wire arteries. Spot had
nearly bled to death before ever a kind soul could reach him with a merciful bullet.
| * * * |
Diary of a Goat herder 14 June 1981
The pages grow few. I venture to say what I learned from the herd, but I remember
Shauna, the nights I would sleep in the pen with a fire, on guard against the lion. Shauna
would come and tap gently on my head with her hoof, then press her head to mine. I
would wake to find her curled next to me like a drifted pillow, coiled fur in the cold winter
moon, breezes of dust rustling. Nights of noses and eyes, dead leaves in darkness.
On moonless nights in the spring, my whistle and my hand stretched in the moist
darkness would find the nose, the fur pat nod of loyalty.
The pages grow few. I venture to say what I learned from the herd, but I remember
Shauna, the nights I would sleep in the pen with a fire, on guard against the lion. Shauna
would come and tap gently on my head with her hoof, then press her head to mine. I
would wake to find her curled next to me like a drifted pillow, coiled fur in the cold winter
moon, breezes of dust rustling. Nights of noses and eyes, dead leaves in darkness.
On moonless nights in the spring, my whistle and my hand stretched in the moist
darkness would find the nose, the fur pat nod of loyalty.
| * * * |
| * * * |
Diary of a Goat herder 15 June 1981
The days grew long, new moons, evening stars. Running through the dewy grass in the
morning, towing my Levi jacket in the air, to thumb down whatever pickup truck came
clanking coldly up the dirt road toward town.
The days grew long, new moons, evening stars. Running through the dewy grass in the
morning, towing my Levi jacket in the air, to thumb down whatever pickup truck came
clanking coldly up the dirt road toward town.
