Wraiths of the Broken Land (37 page)

Nathaniel Stromler looked at his destroyed dream, and he felt nothing.

He tugged upon his reins and guided his horse away from the sundered edifice. The shadow that he trailed was long.

Nathaniel hoped that the woman whom he had loved not so very long ago would better affect his dim embers. Directly at the setting sun, he hastened his tired animal.

The spotted colt appraised its whickering neighbors as it walked into the stall that the tan mare had previously tenanted. Nathaniel shut the beast inside, stepped back and wiped dust from his blue suit, which still smelled like horse and perspiration (and horse perspiration), but at least was not brown with blood, as was his yellow riding outfit, or saturated with noisome scorpion-wrought excreta, as was his black tuxedo. He shattered the wan visage that was reflected in the trough and splashed water upon his dry, dusty skin. Wiping his hands upon his trousers, he walked toward the door.

Nathaniel emerged from the stable and strode up the pebble pathway, toward the dark square that was the Footman’s house. A silhouetted man whom he recognized as the yard negro, Sir, turned away from him without a salutation.

A distant voice boomed, “How many days go into a week?”

Nathaniel surveyed the façade and saw, upon the west porch, the telltale glow of Ezekiel’s pipe.

“So that’s the problem, eh? You don’t know how many days go into a week?” The cattle rancher rocked in his chain-suspended bench, and the pipe bowl became an arc of red light. “I’ve overrated schools back east.”

Nathaniel had no interest in squabbling with Ezekiel and thus ignored the jibe.

“The answer’s seven,” the cattle rancher stated, “not ten.” The pipe bowl brightened and illuminated two angry eyebrows.

“Good evening, Mr. Footman,” replied Nathaniel.

“Harriet!” cried Ezekiel.

“Yes?” the woman replied through the kitchen window.

“I think Mr. Stromler forgot something. A valuable pen or some gold cufflinks. Maybe an apple that’s only been half-eaten.”

“Why do you say that?”

The pipe glowed and darkened. “He’s back.”

Uninterested in defending himself, Nathaniel ascended two steps and landed upon the porch.

The cattle rancher’s furry head sprouted from the southwest corner of the house and appraised his tenant. “You don’t look too spectacular.”

Nathaniel reached for the screen door.

“Kathleen’s in the baby’s room.” Ezekiel’s voice was gentle.

“Thank you.”

“She started packing up this morning.”

Although this news should have troubled him greatly, Nathaniel felt little more than a detached sense of concern. He nodded politely, opened the screen door, entered the Footman’s wooden home (which smelled like savory pies), strode across the checkered rug, climbed the stairwell to the second floor, traversed the spotted carpet and in four more strides arrived at the closed door of the baby’s room. His bullet wound throbbed, and he waited a moment for the pain to subside.

A door creaked behind Nathaniel, and he turned around. Orton, the pubescent son of Ezekiel and Harriet, poked his head from his room.

Nathaniel strode toward the youth and said, “Do not spy upon my fiancé ever again.” He clenched his fists.

“I just—”

“Ever!”

The boy retreated into his room, slammed the door and turned the key. Nathaniel’s pulse pounded in his shoulder and in his chest, as if he had two separate hearts. He was angry with Orton, but more upset by the terrible things that men did to women, and the fact that he was about to strike a thirteen-year-old boy. The gentleman shook his weary head and turned around. Standing in the open doorway of the baby’s room and clothed in a green silk robe was his raven-haired fiancé, Kathleen O’Corley.

“Nathan?”

“I…I am sorry that I was delayed.”

The stunned woman stared at the returned wraith to whom she was engaged, and he mirrored her gaze. Although Nathaniel no longer felt the warm light of love, he knew that he wanted to protect his fiancé from the mean world, and that desire was a tether that tied him to her.

“Let’s talk in private,” suggested Kathleen.

After following his fiancé into the baby’s room, the gentleman shut the door to the world and turned the key until the lock clicked. The betrothed pair hugged. Silently, Nathaniel endured the pains that their embrace elicited.

“I’m so glad that you’ve returned,” Kathleen said, “but I cannot believe that you are wearing a gun.”

No words came to Nathaniel Stromler. He looked over his fiancé’s shoulder and at the small warped window that sat upon the west wall of the baby’s room. Superimposed on the dark gray landscape was the reflection of a translucent stranger.

About the Author

Florida-born New Yorker S. Craig Zahler worked for many years as a cinematographer and a catering chef, while playing heavy metal and creating some strange theater pieces. His debut western novel,
A Congregation of Jackals
was nominated for both the Peacemaker and the Spur awards, and his western screenplay,
The Brigands of Rattleborge
, garnered him a three-picture deal at Warner Brothers, topped the prestigious Black List and is now moving forward with Park Chan Wook (
Old Boy
) attached to direct, while Michael Mann (
Heat
&
Collateral
) develops his nasty crime script,
The Big Stone Grid
at Sony Pictures. In 2011, a horror movie that he wrote in college called,
Asylum Blackout
(aka
The Incident
) was made and picked up by IFC Films after a couple of people fainted at its Toronto premiere.

A drummer, lyricist and songwriter, Zahler continues to make music, and is now finishing his third album of doomy epic metal with his band Realmbuilder, which signed to I Hate Records of Sweden, after his foray in black metal with the project Charnel Valley (whose two albums were released by Paragon Records). He is also navigating preproduction on his directorial debut—a horror western that he wrote called,
Bone Tomahawk
, which will star Kurt Russell, Peter Sarsgaard, Jennifer Carpenter, Richard Jenkins and Timothy Olyphant.

Zahler studies kung-fu and is a longtime fan of animation (hand drawn and stop-motion), heavy metal (all types), soul music, genre books (especially, horror, crime and hard sci-fi), old movies, obese cats and asymmetrical robots.