C. Morgan - The Sport of Kings

But now Seconds Flat is panicking, rising up on her rear legs in the neighboring stall, whining in alarm, and suddenly Allmon’s hands begin to shake — he has always been the protector, that’s who he is, right, Momma? — he can barely recover his aim, can’t manage the target, especially with the mare rearing and her eyes rolling, but when she launches high for the third time with her forelegs cycling, he finds mercy and shoots through the soft velvet crook where her tongue rises against the soft palate, and then she’s choking and already bleeding out as she crumples onto her heavy quarters, slumping to the right and crashing her beautiful head against the oak of the stall.

But where is Henrietta — no, Hellsmouth! Where is Hellsmouth? A strangled sound emerges from Allmon’s chest, the sound of a distressed child, as he moves from the barn across the lane, but he presses it down until it disappears. Allmon doesn’t find her in the stallion barn, of course, only three yearling colts who swing their heads nervously as he moves out the back of their barn with his dreadful purpose. There are more mares, but eye for an eye, mother for mother is done. Now he has to find Hell. Allmon doesn’t want to kill her, only hurt her enough to free her. No one will use her again, not even him.

It’s when he moves out again into the moon-addled night, where the stars are slowly waking and stretching, that he sees her. She seems only slightly more real than the shadows around her, a flicker of blacker black in one of the paddocks. He knows it’s her; she’s unmistakable. Allmon is there in an instant, unlocking the gate and swinging it wide, stepping inside onto the soft carpet of pasture grass. He moves with unshakable resolve toward his decision, he can actually feel the revolving of the earth grating against the steadiness of his own body. But he realizes suddenly how light he must appear in the darkness, still wearing his gray Snyder Barns polo under the bright May moon with its mock shock face, how Hell is almost certainly watching him. No sooner does he realize this than he hears gladiator breath and her hooves on the ground, thudding a syncopation that coalesces to a duple rhythm, her war beat rising, rising until it’s almost upon him, and he raises a blindman’s pistol, committed, absolutely committed, but when he fires at her left leg, she keeps coming wounded or not, and he throws himself to the ground, so she thunders by him or over him, he doesn’t know which, but he feels the heavy, fluttering weight of her passage as powerful as anything he’s ever felt, and now she’s gone, beating her drum across the brick chip lane and down the manicured lawn until she finds the concrete of the road, where she beats her drum out into the wider, waiting world.

Shaken, Allmon picks himself up off the ground with bits of timothy grass clinging to his clothing, gun still in his hand. Everything’s all right, it’s all right, whether Hell is wounded or not. F is for failure but it’s not failure if she’s free, and now he’s halfway through his labors. He carefully eases the hammer forward and slides the piece into his pocket, moving out of the paddock with renewed focus, no trembling in his hands. He knows what he has to do. F is for felony, and felony is for fire. All he needs is an accelerant.

The sheds, the outbuildings, yes. He slips into the first and nudges the switch with a calloused thumb — no, this is hay storage, how could he have forgotten so quickly? It’s in the second, the one immediately next door, yes, here, the building with the mowers and the old Ford diesel truck and the gasoline along the wall in bright red plastic cans. He looks around with cold calculation for an old jar, a bottle, something — or this, an empty glass juice bottle flung into a recycling bin. He tears a rag from his own shirt, soaks it with gasoline, twisting and pressing it into the bottle, using one of his own shoelaces for a wick. Now, revolver in one ass pocket, bottle in the other, and a gas can in each hand, Allmon is on his way out the door, unrelenting passage through the night, back along the barns, toward the rear of the house. But before he reaches his destination, he’s suddenly stalled by a yawning sense of the unfamiliar, of something known once but now forgotten. The ground beneath him is spongy and forgiving, newly so. Didn’t there used to be a windbreak here? Confused, he stops in the garden by the slight movements of a ragged, sun-bleached scarecrow. He realizes he’s trampling new growth, all lined out in flowering order at his feet. Allmon stands in the perfectly arranged, greening rows. To his right he detects the familiar dark orchard, all the tender boughs swelling with potential. Something heavy hangs in the air like the scent of musk or myrrh. Summer is near.

Before him, the first story of the house spills a golden light so warm, he can almost feel it on his skin. It’s like a gold dessert cup, in which the rest of the house rests. He thinks, they’re so rich, they live their lives in that beautiful golden cup, but I never got to drink from that cup. All I ever got to drink was their spit.

The cool, seductive silence of the garden pulls him backward. Nothing bad can happen in this dark, amniotic space between bursts of sun. Do I have to go ahead, do I really have to go in there?

His mind reels back in time, fumbling for the moment when it all went askew, when his feet wandered from the path, when his world was wholly upended.

Why me, Reverend? Why now?

Because if they can’t see color in the night, you got to light up the dark.

Be not afraid.

When Allmon moves forward, his whole being is a prayer for strength. He places one gas can on the limestone steps and reaches out in the darkness for the knob on the back door.

Henry Forge, you are hereby sentenced to death.

He’s prepared to jigger the lock or break the glass, but it’s unlocked. Disgust overwhelms him. They’re so confident, so entitled, they steal your child and then leave their mansions unlocked. They’re so ignorant, they don’t realize they’re gambling even when they toss down the dice on the goddamn baize. He walks straight into the narrow back el of the kitchen, straight into the room where he first met Henrietta. He’s almost swamped by the memory of her against him, open under him, of her presence accepting him into her. They were as real as life together, as real as children. But he presses her back violently, just as he did in life. And she’s dead again.

The house is utterly still, even though the lights are on. They must be asleep upstairs, Henry Forge and Allmon’s son. He pours gas as he walks right up the slave staircase that rises narrowly to the second floor. He won’t bother with the attic. The second floor will rise up to kiss all the dry and dusty combustibles that lie just beneath the roof. Henry’s stored treasures will make for perfect kindling.

Everywhere, everywhere the markings of wealth appear as he begins his work, splashing gas onto the waxed hardwood floors, careful to avoid the wool rugs that won’t ignite as quickly. Big dressers to the ceilings and cabinets with lavish knickknacks hold no meaning for him, velvet drapes and old indigo coverlets, curvy cherry furniture that gleams dry but positively dances under gasoline. While one gas can waits impatiently in the hall, he enters every room with his revolver in hand, seeking that most precious antique, Henry Forge, and splashing gasoline everywhere he is not found. But he only encounters Henrietta in these private spaces. Here is a woman’s bedroom with silk blankets. Here is a child’s room, perhaps once her room, now their child’s — oh God, for a moment he can barely believe the child is truly his — but the crib is empty. A mobile dangles above it. He was once that child; so was she; they made one of two. Against rising anguish, Allmon splashes gas across the past and then takes care to pour extra in the bathrooms, where the acetone and mouthwash and rubbing alcohol will pop their bottles like little bombs. Burn down this world. Burn down what I did to her—