Robert Coover - Ghost Town

Until, as he watched, the stars began to slide about, to realign themselves upon the black canvas of the sky as though to spell out some message for him. A warning maybe. But it was all just a sluggish scramble, like the shuffling of dominoes, nothing he could make any sense of, and he grasped thereby some small portion of his fate: that anything the universe might have to say would remain forever incomprehensible to him. So, well, maybe he could read what they had to say after all.

While gazing up at this display, he stumbled upon an old toothless Indian sitting alone on a flat stone before a small heap of glowing red embers. Nearly trod on him before he saw him there, a medicine man by the looks of him, though it could just as well have been an old squaw with shriveled dugs. This person, also staring up at the swarm of stars overhead while sucking on a long-stemmed pipe, made no sign of greeting but did not seem surprised that he’d come upon him or her in this manner. Whut do they say, oletimer? he asked. Whut do the stars say? The Indian slowly turned his or her head and peered at him, seated up there on his mustang like something growing out of its back. After a long silent time, the Indian said: They say the universe is mute. Only men speak. Though there is nothing to say. Then the ancient turned away and fell silent again, tending the embers, whose whole purpose seemed to be to provide for the relighting of the pipe from time to time. Probably would have been better if he’d let it go at that and continued on his way. Instead, he traded a strip of buffalo jerky for a few puffs on the pipe, and the next thing he knew everything was spinning around (now he could read the sky; it was like a kaleidoscopic shuffle of dirty pictures going on up there) and the old Indian was making off with his horse and all his goods. Though he was seeing double, he managed to bring the thieving savage down with a single shot to the back of his head as he was galloping away by firing both pistols at the same time. He wasn’t sure if both bullets made the same hole or if he’d shot two Indians, but he didn’t stay around to figure it out, being fairly spooked by now by the astral spectacles he was witnessing. He whistled his mustang back and heaved himself up into the saddle (it was as though he had shrunk some, it was like climbing a mountain, and he had the impression that the horse helped him somehow) and, arms wrapped round its thick neck, he made his way away, head down, from that wild stony place. It was probably about then that the ache to get back to civilization set in.

Of which by now he’s had his fill. Something to be said for the desert after all. His view of it, draped butt-high over the back of the horse, an old trailworn snuff-colored cayuse, is mostly of the ground passing under the creature’s plodding hoofs, and it strikes him that survival in the desert probably depends on attending fiercely to such details and avoiding the long view of the horizon, which can suck the gaze right out of a person’s eyes. The horizon’s a sight he suffers but rarely now, and then only upside down from under the horse’s belly whenever his head bobs in that direction. It’s a disconcerting perspective, making him feel suddenly untethered, having to hold on to the horse’s rough hairy body not to fall backwards into the sky, so he often closes his eyes when it bobs into view. And it is with his eyes closed like that in dread of being roofed by the barren desert that he hears nearby the muffled cry of a woman.

He rears up in surprise and falls off the horse. This hurts considerably, especially through the middle parts, though it’s fuzzed in with all his other hurts, pain being mostly what his body’s made of at this time. He lies there on the stony ground for a moment, curled up, doubting he’ll ever be able to straighten out again, listening to the woman’s rodentlike whimpering, but not for long; he hasn’t come across many women out in these parts and so is sufficiently provoked by the very novelty of it to raise himself up and have a look. It’s the village schoolmarm, bound and gagged on the ground a few paces away from him, measuring in the old manner from a time when he could still walk. Now he crawls toward her on his belly, sidling his way over like a broken snake might. Yu awright, mam? he gasps.

She glares at him, struggling against her bonds. Her wrists and ankles are hogtied behind her back and her gaping mouth is stretched wide around a reddish sweat-stained neckerchief, much like one he used to have, knotted tightly behind her ears. Clumsied by his own injuries and his shyness, he fumbles with the kerchief, but she shakes her head and jerks her body at him, grunting urgently now and glancing fearfully off toward the horizon, as though there might be no time to lose. He tries to turn her over on her stomach, but she seems pinned fast to the ground: he raises one hip out of the way and sees that she is lashed to what look like traces of old rusted railroad tracks, buried in the sand. He brushes the sand away to get at the knots and feels her supple flesh beneath the black dress bounce back against his hands and then stiffly recoil. Beggin yer pardon, mam, he says, and brushes away a bit more, his pains subsiding. She takes one sniff of him, glances at the filthy pink bloomers, and turns away in disgust, looking as if she might throw up. He has to reach under her to get at the knots that have parceled up her hands and feet, the ropes tough as plant roots and buried deep, and it is only after he has been working on them for a time that he registers fully just where his hands are, for he has not thought soberly upon the schoolmarm’s bottom before, nor the place down there of the parting of her thighs, now pocketing his busy raw-knuckled fists, even though he does have some notion of the black webbed tangle it might be wrapped in, got from some former time. When, to get at a rope end, he burrows a bit deeper, she arches her back away from his hands in alarm, bumping his knees with her belly, but he means her no harm, nor has he any desire to take advantage of her, for he thinks of her as the most innocent and virtuous creature on earth, and even her bottom is not so much a bottom in his mind as the pedestal from which, straight-backed and true, her virtue rises. Just where that notion of a rising pedestal has come from, of course, is all too manifest, given the split and tattered condition of Belle’s bloomers, and he turns his backside to the marm so as not to abuse her with the plain and miserable sight of it. Sorry, mam, he says, unsheathing his bowie knife and straddling her, but them knots is too tight to untangle, I’m gonna hafta cut em. So hole still, I dont want yu gittin poked.

Her eyes widen at the sight of the knife (in truth, though the question has been on his mind all night, he can’t tell what color they are, for what he sees mostly is the piercing blackness of the pupils), and she goes limp. Even her bottom feels more like a bottom now to the back of his hand as he grips her four fettered limbs down there to hold them steady, and her half-raised hip, which his member is stiffly grazing as though to plow a furrow in it, is a womanly hip in spite of its thick black wrap, pliant and gently rounded, a comfort to his gaze and to his touch. He works the blade carefully in under the ropes between her wrists and ankles, grateful for the time it takes, then with a single upward stroke severs them. The rope ends shrivel back into the sand and the train tracks disappear, but his fullest attention is on the schoolmarm, who seems — so pale and tearful, a limp bundle of the most immaculate and vulnerable softness — too faint to rise. He staggers to his feet, his manhood wagging cheerfully in the blazing sun, not much he can do about that, and tenderly lifts her up, just as a train comes roaring up out of the far horizon and goes thundering past, knocking him back with the mighty violence of its passage. And then as soon as it has come it is gone again. He can hear it bearing away into the distance and as though wheeling around some bend he cannot see, and then he cannot hear it any longer. He sets the marm down and, still gazing off toward the empty horizon, cuts away the rag that gags her. If thet warnt the dangedest thing I ever seen, he says.