Richard Brautigan - The Hawkline Monster - A Gothic Western

“You’re going to kill the monster,” he said, in a very old voice. His mouth moved and his voice seemed to come out moments later.

He towered above them.

His hair was white like the frost on the grass outside the house.

“The monster ate my master,” the giant butler said. “If only I were younger, I’d kill that monster with my bare hands.”

His hands were huge and knotted with arthritis. Probably in their day they could have killed a monster but now they were in repose like old gray uneatable hams.

“You’re going to kill the monster,” the giant butler repeated. He was very tired from his trip to Brooks to pick up new things for The Chemicals. He was getting too old to make a trip that long.

The giant butler’s eyelids were drooping.

“Thank God,” he said. The word God almost lost itself in his throat. It sounded like somebody sitting down in an old chair.

The door that led to the basement was a heavy iron door with two bolts on it. Miss Hawkline pulled the bolts back.

There was also a large padlock on the door. The lock was very impressive. It looked like a small bank. Miss Hawkline took a huge key out of her dress pocket. She put the key into the padlock and started to turn it when suddenly there was a huge crashing noise behind them.

They were all startled and turned around to see the giant butler spread out, over 7 feet and 300 pounds, on the floor. He looked like a stranded boat in the hall.

Miss Hawkline ran down the hall toward him. The other Miss Hawkline followed like a shadow in her footsteps. They crouched on their knees over the giant butler.

Greer and Cameron stood there looking down. They already knew he was dead while the two Miss Hawklines still searched for life in his body. When they discovered that he was dead, they both stood up. Their faces were suddenly very composed. There were no tears in their eyes though they loved Mr. Morgan like an uncle.

Greer was holding a lantern in his hand and he had a rifle slung over his shoulder and a large pistol stuck in his belt. Cameron was holding a sawed-off twelve-gauge shotgun in his hands. The giant butler lay dead on the floor. The two Miss Hawklines stood there silent, totally composed, looking unreally beautiful.

“What do we do now, young ladies?” Cameron said. “Kill the monster or bury the butler?”

“Do you know what I really want to do?” Miss Hawkline said.

“What?” Cameron said.

“I’d like to get fucked.”

Cameron looked down at the giant butler and then at Miss Hawkline.

“I’d like to get fucked, too,” the other Miss Hawkline said to her sister. “That’s what I’ve been thinking for the last hour. It would be very nice to get fucked.”

Greer and Cameron stood there with their guns while the giant butler lay there alone and forgotten with his death. Greer took a deep breath. What the hell? You might as well do one thing as another.

“First things first,” Cameron said. “Let’s move this body out of the hall. Where do you want it?”

“That’s a good question,” Miss Hawkline said. “We could put him in his room or we could lay him out in a front parlor. I don’t want to bury him now because I want to get fucked. I really want to get fucked. What a time to have a dead butler on your hands.”

She was almost a little mad that the giant butler had taken this particular time and place to die. He looked awesome lying there in the hall.

“Hell, this is too much to think about,” the other Miss Hawkline said. “Let’s just leave him here for a while and take care of getting fucked.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about him going any place,” Cameron said.

So they just left the giant old butler lying dead on the hall floor and went off to get fucked, taking along with them a 30:40 Krag, a sawed-off shotgun, a.38 and an automatic pistol.

Greer as he made love to Miss Hawkline kept thinking about Magic Child. Miss Hawkline had a body that was exactly the same in its appearance and delightful movement as Magic Child’s.

They were making love in a beautiful bedroom upstairs. The room had many delicate feminine things that were unfamiliar to Greer. The only thing wrong with the room was the cold. It was very cold in the room because of the ice caves under the house.

Greer and Miss Hawkline made love under many blankets in an incredibly ornate brass bed. Their passion had not allowed time to be spent building a fire in the fireplace.

Greer kept wondering as they made love if this Miss Hawkline were Magic Child. At one moment he almost said the name Magic Child to see if she would respond, but then he decided not to because he knew that Magic Child was dead and it did not make any difference in which Miss Hawkline she was buried.

After they finished making love, Miss Hawkline lay gently cuddling up against him and then she said, “Don’t you think that it’s kind of strange for us to be up here making love while the butler is lying down there dead in the hall and we haven’t done anything about it?”

“Yes, it is a little strange,” Greer said.

“I wonder why we didn’t do anything about his body. You know, my sister and I are really very fond of Mr. Morgan. I’ve been lying here for the last few minutes thinking about why we haven’t done anything about him down there. It’s not a very gracious thing to go off fucking while your family butler, whom you love like an uncle, is lying dead in the hall of your house. That has got to be a very peculiar way to react.”

“You’re right,” Greer said. “It sure is.”

In a bedroom down the hall a similar conversation was taking place between Miss Hawkline and Cameron. They had just finished making some very enthusiastic love in which Cameron had not a single thought about this woman being Magic Child. He had really enjoyed their fucking together and had not allowed any intellectual process to cloud his pleasure. He used his mind for more important things: like counting.

“I guess we’ll have to do something about your butler,” Cameron said.

“That’s right,” Miss Hawkline said. “I completely forgot about him. He’s lying dead in the hall. He fell over dead and we left him there to come up here and get some fucking in. It totally slipped my mind. Our butler is dead. He’s down there dead. I wonder why we didn’t do anything about his body.”

“I asked you if you wanted to do anything about it down there but you girls wanted to come up here and get fucked, so we came up here and that’s what we’ve done,” Cameron said.

“What?” Miss Hawkline said.

“What do you mean what?” Cameron said.

Miss Hawkline lay very puzzled beside Cameron. There was a slight furrow between her eyes. She was in such a state of consternation that it was almost like slight shock.

“We suggested it?” she said, after a few moments of trying to figure out what events led them away from the body of their beloved dead giant butler and upstairs into the arms of love-making.

“We… suggested… it?” she repeated very slowly.

“Yes,” Cameron said. “You insisted upon it. I thought it was a little strange myself, but what-the-hell, you’re running this show. If you want to fuck instead of taking care of your dead butler, that’s your business.”

“This is very unusual,” Miss Hawkline said.

“You’re right there,” Cameron said. “It ain’t your ordinary run-of-the-mill thing to do. I mean, I’ve never fucked before with a butler lying spread-out dead in the hall downstairs.”