Soujourner

We arrive from the West. From beyond the pale, beyond the jurisdiction of sovereign or cartographer, beyond the realm of knowledge. Big glanton gang vibes. Riding out of the imagination hootin and hollerin and clad in the stolen valor of vanquished empires…

We have come for your vital fluids. There is no more water. Blood is fuel now. We always like to get up real close and play in the spray. Can’t explain it. Drinking deep of blood rain through our bullet holes, pores, eyes, anywhere but the mouth. The mouth exclusively speaks hexes. Inflicting revenge mirage psychosis. Affect ataraxic ataxia. It don’t kill. The survivors were never meant to stand the heat of the desert alone & unaugmented. This draws ‘em outta their caves. Wrest free the knives and guns from within them, and lets the strongest try claim their meed of death…

They never see our approach. Liquescent biology. Flesh warps and passes through canyon crevices, county lines, prison boards. We glide silent across the endless arroyo, flickering mirage in the burning air. Not a sound from us. Only sound when it’s already too late. Falling upon prey & they are clasped in our loving embrasure. Tumbling around in the dust, hands on their necks, gun barrels emerging from bullet holes, unholstered, pointed in all directions, spraying molten lead. So close you can feel their hot breath, sweat beading off sunstruck flesh. The body is necrotic, ragged, but the indestructible and cankerous heart still screams for contact. Bang bang bang.

Before Law arrives we’ve melted away into the blistering rock. Hit em hot hot hot and omnidirectionally evading capture into the coming sandstorm. All that’s left to see is bleached bones and bloodied leather in mere moments made fixtures as familiar as the sand. Eschaton grade desertification. We are the salt on the earth. Furious and fatalistic choler seeping from the soles, demons and sun and barren desert crest in creeping lockstep march across the territory…

We were crucified, once. Stigmata from a million railroad spikes driven into the land and finally into our hands. Silver dollars never cashed, left to cover empty eyes. Benthic avatar of shriveled and outraged disbelief. Sleeping the sleep of ages. But ain’t like that now. Flick a coin to the man on the silvery strand and again atrophied bones stand. The graves, we still sleep in them, soujourning though all beg finality. Marshall oughta know we could never stay in one place forever…

…

Not much left now. Caves, canteens, aquifers, veins, wallets, tanks, spirits, rivers, wells, all drained bone dry. Still we ride into the clawing dusk, haggard flesh cleaved together against the hoary blasts of wind. Nothing beside remains.