By Keertan Somasundaram
Edited by Ellena Lu and Alloe Mak
Preface
In the late 1960s, Sri Lankan-Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje released a verse novel (narrative poetry of a novel-length) titled The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left-Handed Poems. It is a fictionalized recreation of principal events in the life of Billy the Kid, a notorious American outlaw. The short story that follows this preface is inspired in part by his section detailing the life of Pat Garrett.
In 2000, Ondaatje also released a novel by the name of Anil’s Ghost, detailing the merciless atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan government against its Tamil population. In the book, it is described as a civil war. But it can only be accurately described as a genocide. Between 1956 and 2009, over 200,000 Eelam Tamils were killed, over 12,000 raped, and over 2 million displaced. In 2020, the Sri Lankan President estimated well over 20,000 of the 2 million who were displaced were dead.
In response to Canada making May 18th Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day (in 2022), Sri Lanka stated that it “rejects the reference to Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day by the Canadian Prime Minister and that it is a distorted narrative of the past conflict in Sri Lanka aimed solely at achieving local vote-bank electoral gains, and is not conducive to broader goals of communal harmony.” In 2016, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged the UN’s failures in Sri Lanka which he named along with Rwanda as an example of “never again” repeating itself.
Never again is repeating itself as you read this short story.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
Lately, my dreams have become vivid recollections of my past failures.
Last night in particular, I dreamt of the night when I decided to leave the farmstead I grew up on. My mother and father were all but cruel—they offered me room and board for little more than fixing the creaky bench they’d built years prior that sounded as if it would collapse the minute you sat on it, or for little more than taking the carcasses of our sheep away after they’d turned into a mangled mush from the coyotes in forest next to us. One day I had shirked my duties to go drinking with some friends that I’d met in town, when I’d arrived home it was nearing dusk. I can’t recall any of the lady’s names, but I flawlessly remember the feeling I had when I returned to the farmstead to find a coyote feeding on one of our sheep. The banality of boredom I’d felt stumbling home was quickly overtaken by a new feeling.
How long had it been since I felt this, wondered my mind, staring at the coyote mauling my animal. Why I didn’t feel any remorse was lost to me. Hearing me approach, the coyote speedily spun around and bared its fangs at me, to signal that the sheep was his kill, the blood on his teeth giving him ownership of what was originally mine. However, its message fell on deaf ears as the dire scene in front of me was invisible at that point—I was completely lost for words. The wind’s gentle breeze against the fabric of my shirt wet from my drinks. The deep growling of the coyote. The stars that seemed to inhabit every bit of the sky, slowly turning darker and darker with every blink I took, they all seemed like nothing to me. My world was only my curiosity. I wholeheartedly believed that I felt a more dashing sense of compunction for the coyote than I did the sheep, and I realized that I had held that compunction almost my entire life. Snapping out of my trance, I took another step and the coyote took solemn steps back, before retreating from the farmstead with haste. I decided the same for myself. Rushing into the home where I had grown to be the drunkard I was I started packing wildly. When my mother asked what I was doing, I simply exclaimed that I needed to get out, and that I would now be travelling the entire west. With surprisingly no objection, both my mother and father bid me farewell, granted me a horse, and let me on my way. Although I had told them that I hadn’t needed anything, I recognize now that I wouldn’t have made it a week without having what I snatched from the farmstead—and what my parents gave me. My curiosity had turned me into an idiot, and my parents (whom I’m no longer sure wanted me as their child) wouldn’t have me dying as one either. As I opened my satchel, I saw that my mother, when I was grabbing all my things in a hazed frenzy, had neatly packed a very large bag of coins that would fund me for at least 4 months, as well as some bread. The sense of insignificance a child feels throwing a tantrum now inhabiting my mind, I rode out, away from my town, into the broad deserts.
It had been around five years since then. My dream faded as quickly as the memory of that old home as I woke from my slumber to notice that the blazing sun created a new mark on my arm. Either that, or from one of the scorpions hiding under the piles and piles of sand that inhabit this place. As I looked around, I noticed that in stark contrast to the abundance of blisters on me, I was missing almost a quarter of my belongings. Besides the cacti, scorpions, and caravans that fill the great emptiness between towns, the desert is also filled with bandits, miscreants, and thieves. They (or, by the lack of hoofprints, he) came at night, while I was curled up in a small tent I had fashioned from a large loom of fabric stolen from the last town I’d visited. Surveying what they had taken, I saw that most of my food and water were gone. I kept my horse spooled to a makeshift pole I’d stuck in the ground and put my supplies next to him, praying to the lord before I slept that they’d be there when I rose. Surprisingly, the thieves hadn’t taken any gold, only the bunches of food I had left, meaning my one concern was to quickly find another town to get a meal. As I ran my hands through my hair, a patch of it fell out. Dry as it was, I believed it was a relief for the bunch to leave my reddening scalp. Looking through the rest of my belongings I realized that the only other thing missing was a sculpture of a horse, made of redwood, missing its one back foot. I had gotten the sculpture as a gift from a barkeep a couple of years back, whose bar I accidentally defended from a gang of bandits after I’d drunkenly shot one of them. He gave me the sculpture, and although it was a gift one gives when the present is something idly lying around of no value, I had kept it all this time as a memory of my first kill. The barkeep said that he forgot who had given him the horse, but that the man had left an impression on him as I did, and was perfectly willing to part ways with it as a thanks (as well as a small bottle of whisky). The burglars must have found the three-legged beast interesting, but what confounded me was why they’d left my gold. That confusion didn’t linger in my mind, however, as I quickly packed up heading to the next town over. My horse sighed in exhaustion as I topped him, but moved quickly with the understanding that he would most likely die if he spent any longer in this desert.
A sinful man doesn’t keep a grave, and my sin is one of pride. A couple of months before this, my shoes were polished, my hair kept right, and as I visited from town to town, my collection of apparel only grew. I’d accepted perfectly that I wasn’t set out to see the pearly gates—but at least when I’d greet Satan, it’d be with a toothy smile (all-white) and leather boots that still mooed. However, as time ticks by like it always does, a man tends to grow. I’d grown tired of traversing the same terrain and drinking the same whisky, and although each town I visited had different partners, they all blended in together after a while, the pleasure became akin to visions seen on sunny days.
Tired of something fleeting, I turned to a life of gambling. I’d bet on fights going on in the street, the amount of beer my drinking partner could guzzle, and even the likelihood of a child being born alive or dead from the womb of a woman I’d never met before. One of those fateful days, a day almost as sweltering as this one, I was entranced in a game of blackjack (and a couple of drinks) with a rowdy group I’d met only recently. The town I was staying at went by the name of Barnum, and it was near several mountain passes that the visiting gangs would use as hideouts. When I first approached the town, I was coming in from a small commune a couple runs south. The place was surrounded by a surprising amount of greenery and inhabited by an even more surprising group of Mexicans. They were incredibly hospitable (almost to a fault, as they barely saved their mayor after a bandit they were housing went wild), and when asked where I could get my next gambling fix, told me to travel to Barnum. As I arrived, I met a fellow by the name of Harry Longabaugh who told me of his strange affinity. It seemed as though he was a bigshot in a (semi) notorious gang known for robbing trains. He had come down from Montana, and before that down from a place called “Calgary” up north. We spent quite a bit of time together, as he told me his exploits of gold, women, and evading authorities all over whisky, moonshine, and beer.
It was the night before I was about to leave to find another temporary abode when Harry (who at this point, only answered to expletives) proposed we play blackjack over a couple of drinks. The drinks didn’t surprise me because, at this point, Christ himself wouldn’t be able to transform the amount we drank from water, but I didn’t take Harry for a gambling man. Nevertheless, he brought down some people in his gang and we played a game in the town bar. Since I was the most acclimated to it, I decided to deal, still putting a gracious amount of money on the fact that my good buddy Harry would win. The night started swell—no one drunk enough to be embarrassing themselves and no one angry enough to throw their cards at the bartender. That didn’t last very long, as it turns out bandits aren’t well-known for their integrity. It started when the man left of Harry, a big soul with a moustache to match, pulled out a card from his sleeve.
“Hit.”
No one noticed, other than me of course, but I chose to let the game continue without interrupting. I’d grown tired of regular betting at this point and I wanted to see what the man was up to (I also didn’t trust I’d make it out in one piece if I’d said anything). He had an unassuming face, one that didn’t quite match anyone’s I’d seen before but was more an amalgamation of all the trustworthy people I’d met along my midwestern journeys.
“Hit.”
“Split.”
A toothpick protruded out of his mouth that he was fervently swirling around with his tongue, sometimes he would swallow it whole and stick it right back out again. No one noticed, other than me of course.
“Stand.”
“Hit.”
The man took one look at his cards, another at his drink, a look back at his cards, and then took a large swig of his whisky, leaving two drops left in the glass. With a drunken smile, he said;
“I’m out boys. G’night.”
Throwing his cards across the table, he started to stand up when Harry quickly grabbed his arm and pulled him back. Sitting back down, he listened as Harry told him with a straight gaze that “No man is a man if that boy is a sniffling loser.” At that moment, I felt the feeling one does when one knows that something critical is about to occur and decided to quietly pull my share of the bet across the table back into my pockets. My intuition was correct, as when I had heard the last coin collide against the others in the cotton of my pants, the man hit Harry squarely in the nose with a punch that erupted the room.
Before the fight got out of hand, I decided I’d do Harry a favour and break it up. This wasn’t particularly in my character—I’ve been in situations like this before and my best response was always to pack it up, get on my horse, and gallop away to the next town. But something was different with Harry. I’d felt a certain amount of empathy that I hadn’t felt in a long while, one that I’d surely forget in a couple of months, but a moment of empathy nonetheless. It is important for a man to act when he feels something in times like these because it’s times like these when a man is stuck to feel nothing at all. I put myself in between Harry and the man, apologizing for both, and offered Harry a washcloth to rid the blood from his now cherry nose. They looked at each other with a fury that quickly turned into a peal of riotous laughter akin to a horse neighing as it washes itself in a cold river. They sat back down quickly, rearranged the table, and continued on with the game.
“Boy, no one hits me like that. Stand.”
“Fuck you.”
“Ain’t we talk about yer… Hit. Yer vile use of profanity already? It’s awful.”
“I hit ya, how I wanna hit ya. An’ that’s how it’s gonna be until one of us is six feet under. I talk how I wanna talk, too.”
“Hit. I’m just sayin’. It’s fuckin’ miserable.”
“Y’ain’t say all this when Garrett hit ya.”
After the mention of this Garrett fellow, I saw a hesitation on Harry’s face. He fumbled his cards for a second, then continued.
“Stand.”
I was now immeasurably curious. From the brief amount of time I’d known Harry Longabaugh, he wasn’t one to shut up from the mere mention of anything, let alone one’s name. He had made a great many enemies through his days and he’d blabber about them nonstop, almost as if he was a locomotive that ran off of nothing but what he drank and the reactions of the person he was blabbering to. So to see the great Longabaugh as silent as a great oak piqued my curiosity—more than any bet I’d placed over the last few years, any garment I’d bought, or any woman I’d had the pleasure of bedding. I decided that I wanted to keep this feeling going, so I decided to ask Harry simply;
“Garrett?”
Without taking a look up from his cards, he sighed with force and started.
“Marshall. Marshall P. Garrett. Not a soul knows what the P stands for but it ain’t particularly important at all. Hit. You could call him a sorta ranger type, although he ain’t exactly privy to working with the marshalls. And—Split. And ya also could call him a nasty fucker who did this to me.”
Harry put his cards down for a second, swiftly enough so that the man to his right (who almost resembled a weasel) wouldn’t see them, and showed me his right ear, which had a curiously-shaped hole in the top crevice.
“This Garrett fellow is interesting. Ya go into any town n you’ll hear whispers about him, even though he ain’t done crap fer any gang around. Hit. He ain’t visit—burp—excuse me, but he ain’t visit any ladies of the line anywhere he’s at either. Might as well have an affinity for one of us. Stand. The word is that he’s had the sharpest hand in the West fer a while now. I heard this—Hit.—I heard this and I found him. I found him ‘cause I can’t let those rumours go unchecked. Anyhow, I meet him at a rinky-dink like this, and that fucker gets me right in the cheek. I didn’t even say nothin’—I tapped his shoulder n the next thing I knew I was on the ground. Hit. Fore’ I even was able to pull out my gun, he shot me straight there.”
He pointed to his ear. My excitement was palpable, if someone were to see me for the first time they might mistake me for a dog hearing the bell for a treat.
“Anyway, I haven’t seen or heard about him since. That was, gosh, a couple years ago. Hopefully, he ended up cold somewhere in the desert—I only wish I coulda been the one to do it. Stand.”
“Yer bitch-made Harry. If I’d seen Garrett that day he’d have already been like that. That fucker. Garrett.”
When the big man to Harry’s left said this I’d expected a reaction, but he just continued to play. The man chuckled, once again playing with his toothpick that he somehow hadn’t dropped in the fight. I suddenly felt a cold draft behind me, not from the wind, but from someone moving around with the swiftness of it.
“Did I hear one of y’all mention Marshall Garrett?”
I turned around to see a man dressed in tattered clothing, who could very much use a wash– his stench making my eyes water. He looked around, surveying the table like a vulture surveying a dead carcass, and the feeling of the cold draft now penetrated my blood. There was a quiet pause at our table that seemed to take over the whole bar. I started to reach for my hat.
“What about it?”
Is what the big man (whose name I sadly never got) was most likely going to say before a bullet swiftly penetrated the same mouth housing his toothpick. Before the rest of the gang could react, I pocketed the rest of the money from the table as Harry and his gang got up and began to fire at the mysterious assailant. Rolling out of the way, and only hearing gunshots and yelling in the background, I ran out of the bar, jumping onto my horse and taking an early leave from Barnum.
As the dust clouds behind me were covering my tracks and I disappeared like a tumbleweed, the only thing on my mind was Marshall P. Garrett and the man who was shot down at the mere mention of his name. I’d never see Harry after this but I’d hear about his escapades, and in my mind, I’d recognize him as the greatest person I’d met in my adventures. Since without Harry Longabaugh, I wouldn’t have been introduced to Marshall P. Garrett.
There comes a time in a man’s life when he has to decide to make a change. I decided this quite promptly on the back of my horse without a destination. My pride was dried up like an olden well—yes, I was well-endowed with funds but with nothing to actually be prideful about. Everyone cares about money, where their next meal is coming from, or just surviving. I wanted to be more than that. I was above Harry and his gang of miscreants, I was above the scorpions and snakes at my feet in the desert, and I was above just wanting to live. I realized that I needed to want to want to live. My dreams, various but all exactly the same in nature, needed to be rewritten to give me purpose. Purpose is what a man uses to oil the engine of his life, what he uses to feed his family at night, and what he uses to win a gunfight with a stranger. How I had been prideful without any sense of it was a question that eluded me greatly, but that night I had found it. Satan would see me at the gates of Hell and no longer laugh. My pride and my purpose was Marshall P. Garrett. I needed to find out if the feeling I had when Harry was describing his stature to me could be as real as it was witnessing it in real life. That feeling that I’ve been chasing running around the midwest, through gambling and betting, through fucking and sleeping, through fighting and stealing, those feelings were but a fraction of what I felt riding away from Barnum that day. This pride could be my greatest sin.
After leaving Barnum, the little I had learned about Marshall P. Garrett over the last couple of months surveying towns looking for even mere information about him was simple;
- Just mentioning his name was a quick way to an early grave in some places.
- He was assumingly an assassin-for-hire.
- Married to a Mexican he had met in a town he had a job in.
- Never stayed in a town for too long.
- Abandoned said Mexican after two weeks.
The most important bit of information eluding my entire investigation that would bring a private detective agency turmoil or a mother to tears was that not a single group was able to hold a singular answer to the question of whether or not Garrett was still breathing. All I knew was that he was alive a couple of years ago, around the same time I started my journey, because a ghost couldn’t have been one to put that hole in Harry Longabaugh. After I had left Barnum, I lost count of the number of towns and communes I had visited asking about Garrett. In a quarter, I was met with blank stares, the next quarter, met with a short story, the next quarter, with gunfire, and the last quarter with instructions on where to go to find him—instructions that would never bear fruit. In my head, I was betting money against myself finding any useful information in the small town that I could see getting closer in the distance. I decided this would be a good place to start recollecting my stolen supplies.
My horse, who I had nicknamed “Yeller”, was a very good horse. I gave him his name after I realized how often he made a commotion when he noticed a river. To Yeller, a river was like a piece of ham to a dog or a piece of candy to a baby. We’d constantly have to take detours onto rivers where he’d prance around, which at first annoyed me, but which afterwards I got used to, opting to just go fishing down the stream from where he was. A reliable horse, Yeller didn’t need me to give him directions or extra enthusiasm, as soon as I whistled, he’d come by to pick me up and as soon as he saw a town in the distance, he’d bolt in its direction. His black hair is amazing for riding away from conflict in the night and serves as a good identifier when he’s in a stable of mostly brown or white ones. As Yeller came to a stop near a small water basin at the side of a general store, I rubbed his mane as I dismounted him and tied him around a post right next to the basin. Yeller guzzled down the water like a thirsty coyote, and I meandered over to a rickety line of stores. Walking to the bakery, I bought 2 loaves of bread, and at the butcher, some turkey and salt pork, sold to me by an interesting-looking woman.
“What’s this town here called?”
She looked at me with an intriguing face, almost like she hadn’t spoken to anyone in ages.
“Arminto. We ain’t get much visitors. You get off the wrong stop?”
I hadn’t rode the train in ages, as I learned very early into my journey I wasn’t willing to abandon Yeller to sit on cushioned seats. As this butcher spoke, I heard it pull into the station with the creaks accentuating how little it came. This was a good sign for me—anyone getting off at this nowhere town was either taking a much-needed break from or completing a long and arduous journey.
“Just stopping by. Say, what’s yer name?”
“Sammy. Wha-”
“Say, Sammy, I’m staying in this here Arminto for a week or two.”
I slid her a couple of coins.
“If anyone comes in by the name’a Garrett, you let me know. That means anyone AND everyone who walk into the store, ya ask their name. I’ll pop in every once ina while, just to check in.”
Sammy collected the coins with a smile and looked up at me.
“No problem.”
I collected my wrapped meats and threw them in my satchel alongside my bread. I hadn’t necessarily gotten back everything I’d lost but enough to sustain myself comfortably. I never particularly had to worry about money—the amount I started this journey off with, I rationed. As an able-bodied man, there isn’t too much trouble finding honest work. Walking out of the butcher onto the creaking wood planks and then onto the cracked ground, I recognized two things. One, that the weather has gotten at least twice as hot since I entered the store, and two, that there was a suspiciously interesting group of men that were just entering the town bar next to the general store where Yeller was stationed. As I wiped the dust off my hat I set my targets on those men, who looked as though they surely just completed an exigent task and just got off of the train. I ran over to the general store, saying hello to Yeller, and throwing my goods over him. I washed my hands in the water basin to freshen up and not smell of salts, before I started walking towards the bar.
The bar doors creaked with a certain familiarity to my crusty ears. This bar, the same as most I’d visited around, was only different in the volume of its patrons in the midday. As I walked up to the counter, I scouted to see where my targets were, like a coyote determined to strike a weakly secured farm.
“Gimme a beer.”
“We ain’t got that.”
“A cider, then.”
I couldn’t say if the barkeep was old or young, what colour his skin was, or the texture of his hair, as I was entirely focused on the group of men laughing around the small table to the left corner of the bar. It was a trio, one of them clearly older than the rest. Trios were always harder to sneak into, but all I had to do was focus on the one who the conversation wasn’t centred on. The two younger cowboys who shared the same style and shaved the same too, were entranced in a conversation that involved banging on the table and laughing until the air around them was less dust than it was spittle. I decided to narrow my focus down to the older gentleman, in my experience, they were always more intelligible (or at least open) to hearing out my plight.
“Who’re they?”
“I look like a registry to you?”
A surprising answer, one that made me break my concentration on the trio. I turned to look at the bartender. He looked much greener than me, but the way he moved behind the bar made it seem as though he’d been up to this for a while now. He had pale skin as if the blood had been drawn from it or he hadn’t seen the sun in a couple of weeks. He didn’t wear the garm of a traditional barkeep, instead, he was dressed more like a runaway cowboy. Every time he stepped, you could hear the clack of the spurs on his boots, and he kept a piece of wheat in his mouth as he worked. There was no one seated at the bar besides me, so his stare was intently focused, which was off-putting at first. I hadn’t been stared at like that for a long while. My adventures in the West consisted of me running far and wide, from problem to problem and town to town. Most people I met would exclaim their plights to me as if I would bring about a mystical solution, only for their saviour to leave a couple of days later. So their exclamations weren’t entirely to me, they were to the world. To the desert, to the West. So when this barkeep, with his pale skin and cowboy boots, stared at me so intently almost as if he were thinking of the place on my body he’d be able to hit to kill me instantly, I was surprised to say the very least.
“Y’aren’t from ‘ere. Y’ain’t usually come ‘ere either. What makes you think I’ll tell ya anything?”
I stared intensely back at the bartender. He slammed my drink in front of me, far enough it would be uncomfortable to reach.
“I’m just travelling around. Ended up ‘ere. Not to my liking either. Just on the lookout for someone.”
He slowly pushed my drink towards me. It seemed as if he was done talking to me, but I felt compelled to continue my original line of questioning.
“Actually, I’m lookin’ for my brother. He worked with quite a notorious crew, and that man over there? Looks just like a certain someone I saw runnin’ around with him.”
I slid an extra coin against the wooden bar. I felt uneasy trying to talk to the barkeep about anything important, I definitely wouldn’t share my name, or the fact that I was after Garrett. He slid the coin towards him and threw it in his pocket.
“So, I ask again. Who’re they?”
“That’s better. Those three over there? They just got back from Lost Creek. The two young’uns are brothers, n the old coot is their uncle of sorts. His name is… shit. Something like Lance. The kids are Jake n John. There was a third one, Rob. I hope that ain’t who yer talkin’ about. He got killed by some Indians around this time last year. But they ain’t change a bit after that. Exactly the same in the face of everything. Uncle got a lil quieter, but those two boys? Scares me honestly.”
The boy working the bar had a surprising maturity about him. When I had killed my first man, it didn’t hit me how great a deal it was until around a year later. I saw a hanging in one of the towns I had visited—the man convicted was accused of sleeping with the mayor’s daughter. Before his neck snapped, a shrill voice erupted from the crowd, yelling and begging for the police to stop it. A little boy, around six, came bursting through the crowd demanding that his father be let down from the rope and that it be cut off of his neck so he would return to hug the child. The pleas fell on deaf ears and a second later the crows on the rooftops of the shoddily built townhouses went flying into the sky. That night, I had a nightmare of the man I had shot a couple of years ago, bleeding out on the floor, replaying over and over. I woke up drenched in sweat. This barkeep was mature beyond his years. I slid him another coin and started towards the trio.
“Hey geezer. Ya look rough. Lemme buy ya some whisky.”
The two boys immediately stopped their conversation, taking one look at me, and then towards their uncle. He stared straight at me, I had noticed the glare’s coldness as I was walking towards them from the bar. I knew I wouldn’t be able to have the conversation I wanted with the two boys listening in on it. The old man grunted and then started to get up.
“Fine. But ya owe me two.”
His voice was gruff and his mouth moved with his grey beard. He sounded exactly as he looked. We walked together towards the bar as I rang the barkeep up for the old man’s drinks. Before I could even start, the old man started questioning me.
“Whadya want outta me?”
“I don’t gotta want somethi—”
“Cool it kid. Ain’t a soul wanna talk to an old man like me unless they want something. Now, get to askin’ or I’ll take yer drink n go back to my table.”
“Ok. Have ya heard of a Marshall P. Garrett?”
“Yes.”
I thought that he would continue after that, as most did. However, he just remained solemn, staring at me.
“What about him?”
“Well, whadya wanna know?”
“How do ya know him?”
“He grew up in the town I was born in.”
This was the closest thing to any sort of lead I had in a long, long time. To say I was ecstatic would be an understatement.
“Can you tell me about him?”
“Why’ve ya got such a infatuation with ‘im?”
“Can ya?”
“Fine. Marshall was… interesting. To say the least. He was a quiet kid. Grew up without a daddy. Loved his mother to death. So much so, that most of his buddies growin’ up? They were all sportin’ women. Just like his mother. He’d hang around the house ‘till late fer that reason, but never once did a thing with any of them. His daddy left him a gun as a kid. Or he prolly just forgot it. Either way, Marshall was shootin’ cans before he had hair on his balls. Why’d you wanna know all this?”
“Keep going. What town was it?”
“It ain’t have a name. Somewhere near the south, though. Besides that, Marshall had a fixation on languages. I worked o’er at the general store, n he would come in to practice. It started when he was around… fifteen or so. He ain’t tell no one he spoke French. Not a damn soul. I ain’t even know how he learnt it. Even when I questioned him about it he’d act like I was crazy, but I could hear him speak it to his ownself. Always smilin’, too. He spoke the best French I’d heard in my entire life. Well, the only French. But the matter was, he spoke it like we speak English. Like the Mexicans speak their lingo or the Indians speak theirs.”
“I heard about yer nephew.”
“The Indians ain’t do it. That’s—that’s just what we tell people. The fool was ridin’ around on his horse n slipped off to meet a rock. We buried him just an hour north of here. Honestly, if yer serious about this Garrett—”
“I am.”
“Well. If ya go abt a day’s worth west from here, past two lakes, you’ll reach the Wind River. Itsa camp the Indians set up. They run it like a town, n they take kindly to travellers who stop by only fer a couple days. No one knew who Marshall’s father really was, but his complexion led me to believe somethin’ like that might be the case. N they all talk to each other in some way or the other.”
I’d heard enough. I was ready to gallop with Yeller, even run, towards the setting sun to meet these Indians. This was the first thing of value I’d heard about Garrett in weeks of searching, and it could finally be what got me to him once and for all.
“Alri—”
The old man grabbed my shoulder, before taking a large swig of his drink and slamming it onto the table.
“Just a word of advice boy. Whether you find Garrett or not, whether he’s dead or alive? That ain’t gonna change a damn thing. You’ll still shit the same afterwards. You’ll still wake up the same. You’ll do everything the same, just with the knowledge of whatever comes outta his mouth. Ya think that’ll change you? The arrow of your life disrupted by a few words from a wannabe ranger? What’re ya, a fuckin’ child? Those two boys’d know better then ya. He might be part-Indian. He might be full cowboy. Does that change the blood runnin’ through yer veins? Does that change the colour of yer eyes? The only thing that’ll change either, is a bullet through ‘em. Listen to me softly, boy. Lose yer chase. Yer gonna get nothin’ out of this whatsoever. Not gold, not an answer, not a job, not even pain, if that’s what yer lookin’ for. Yer just gonna end up with absolutely nothin’. Garrett is the same as one of those tumbleweeds rollin’ thru the desert. N so are we. Nothin’ we can do about it. Just how this world works.”
He finished his whisky with a strong gulp.
“You die, a child gets alive to replace ya. Another one lookin’ fer Garrett. Another one to nothin’ but… but, not even disappointment. Ya just feel nothin’ at all. Go to their town. See what ya find. Everything there’ll be a recollection of dust n faded photographs.”
“Is he alive?”
The old man looked at me this time, putting down his glass with a tenderness I hadn’t expected. The look was filled not with coldness or anger, this was a look of fatigue and sadness. He stood up from the bar stool, the floor creaking below him, and he walked back over to his two nephews, sitting down at the table. I set some coins on the counter for the barkeep and readied myself for the journey ahead. As I exited the bar, I took a quick glance at the old man. He didn’t even lift his head from the table. I ran over to Yeller, fed him some carrots, and started off towards Wind River.
The trip to Wind River was one of the more pleasant of my journeys. Not only was I propelled by an infectious excitement that seemed to also affect Yeller, but we both enjoyed the two lakes in between our destinations, filled with lush greenery and wildlife. I decided to bring some fish from both lakes as an offering to the Indians in the town. Quite frankly, I hadn’t much experience with them, but they couldn’t be worse than the drunkards and killers I had dealt with daily in the towns I inhabited before Wind River. As I got to the town, I decided that it was an entirely idiotic idea to offer the fish as a gift to them—if one saw the town without its inhabitants it couldn’t be remotely considered an “Indian” one. Their architecture (other than a couple of interesting statues), stores, and horses all particularly resembled any other town you would find across the deserts. I didn’t have space for the fish in the satchel I brought with me on the trip, as I had left the larger one back in Arminto, so I decided to eat one before entering the town and discard the other for a lucky animal to find and snatch up. I decided that instead of wandering into random storefronts or bars, I’d head straight to the mayor to discuss Garrett—if I knew there wasn’t a lead I’d rather just leave, and the only piece of information I was looking to find here was of Garrett’s ancestry.
I arrived in the town and a young man walked up to me while I was still on my horse, explaining in simple terms that if I stayed longer than exactly three days in the town, my safety could not be guaranteed and all my belongings would be forfeited to them. I agreed to his terms with a grand smile—I knew that I wouldn’t stay longer than the night and his request seemed generally amicable to me. Before he walked off, I asked him where the mayor was and the man said that they didn’t have one. My smile quickly turned like the moon’s crescent—I’d gone on enough snipe hunts to know the outcome of my search in this town. I decided that I’d cut my losses and leave before dusk, but my curiosity of this enigmatic town got the best of me and I decided to park Yeller next to a basin so I could walk around. Everything in town was written in English, and although all the people were some shade of brown, they greeted me with a smile and a nod almost as if it were rehearsed. I noticed, however, that as soon as they crossed my peripheral vision they’d look with scorn where I’d walked upon. I found myself in front of a whorehouse and decided that if I were to leave Wind River, I’d leave with some pleasure. I couldn’t remember the last time I had bedded anyone, let alone relieved myself. I paid my dues at the front and was led into a surprisingly clean bedroom with almost perfectly white sheets. I looked at myself in the small mirror on the bedside table. It would be gracious to say that my teeth were yellowing, and the skin on my face was patchy, bits of it starting to peel off. I wasn’t in the mood for anything. As I plopped down on the bed my money had walked in, dressed in a lacy gown. I could only say the first thing that came to mind.
“Do ya… do ya know any Garretts?”
She paused her approach and giggled.
“Ain’tcha gonna ask fer my name?”
“Ok. Go ahead.”
“Chepi.”
“I ain’t heard a name like that before.”
“Y’ain’t the first.”
She pushed me onto the bed with little force and got on top of me. I pushed her off gently and put her to my side. Chepi had brown hair that matched her brown eyes and her skin was a hazel tone. She looked into and through my eyes. To be seen as cloudy as she did me, even as her pupils were almost absorbed by mine, was what I imagined it felt like as a child being ignored by their parents, pleading for food. I had known what it was like to be invisible.
“You gonna answer, or should I leave?”
“What?”
“Garrett. Y’know any Marshall Garretts?”
She paused and then sat up in the bed as I continued to stare at a crack in the ceiling that seemed to be getting bigger and bigger.
“Who’s askin’?”
“Here.”
I opened my palm to offer her a couple of coins. She looked at them with disgust, shifting her gaze to me, and curled up my fingers. She took a long pause, as if she were debating whether or not to let the words at the roof of her mouth escape. After a weariful sigh that seemed to subtract years from her life, she started.
“A couple years ago, I left Wind River on a whim. I wanted to see what everywhere else had to offer. Wasn’t particularly any better than here, but I ended up in a lil’ town called Sunshine. I met a lady by the name of Martinez there. She had a cripplin’ affliction where she couldn’t go abouts her day without opium. No one knew where she got it, almost as if God Himself came down to reward her fer survivin’ her last—last dash. I… enjoyed, her presence. I tried to make her stop what she was doin’, but ya really can’t do much with someone like that. One day, a man came to town. Yer… Marshall.”
I immediately perked up. Sitting straight now, against the wall used as a headboard, I looked right into Chepi’s mouth. She wasn’t at all looking at me, or acknowledging my presence. She was living the story she was telling me with great vividity.
“This Marshall wasn’t a bad fellow. He drank. Drank quite a bit. He was good with a gun, too. He could tell a joke at the bar, walk outside n end a man’s life, then stroll back inside to throw out a punchline. He saw Martinez n I swear, I could see hearts in both of their eyes. N they were good for each other fer what it was. They said Marshall pissed alcohol, and Martinez stopped him. She hid her thing from him, though. They got hitched, n she invited me to the ceremony. It wasn’t nothin’ too fancy, but Marshall somehow wrangled a priest from a town nearby to make it all… official n shit. I loved Martinez n I could see why she loved Marshall. He kept her safe. From everythin’, and herself too. Not—not fer long, though. God came down and gave Martinez one last dash. She told me about it, n I was tired of telling her not to. I shoulda said, somethin’. If anythin’. Marshall walked in one day n Martinez’s mouth was foamin’ like n animal’s. He ain’t even try to save her, he just—he just held her. Held her for what seemed to be an eternity. Ain’t cry or nothin’ either. He was holdin’ her like if he did it’d make her better. You’d think an event like that’d make a man a drunkard, especially if he was one before. He ain’t pick up a bottle. I’d ask him if he’d be alright, n somedays he’d burst at me like his revolver. I was scared he’d shoot me one day, but his voice was just that loud. It was too much fer me, so I came back home, went back to doin’ this. A while after that, he sent one letter to me, or at least a friend did. It was a report that said he died, n a note in it fer me.”
My body was about to go limp. It was all for nothing.
“What… what was in the note?”
“It was a simple thing. Marshall wrote it before he had went. It was… the last thing Martinez had said. When she was in his arms foamin’ at the mouth. She kept sayin’ the same thing again.”
Chepi started sniffling, on the verge of tears. A wave of anger rushed out from me, stemming from my disappointment and impatience with the entire ordeal. I grabbed her by her shoulders.
“What the FUCK did she say?”
“She was sayin’ my name. MY name.”
What a waste of time. I got up off of the bed and opened the door to leave the room, the brothel, and Wind River.
“I don’t know if Marshall was tellin’ the truth or not, or why he told me.”
I stopped for a second to listen.
“But that was the worst thing a single person had done on this Earth. Tellin’ me? That was pure evil. You can’t get right from the dead.”
I turned from the door to look at Chepi. She wasn’t crying—her brown eyes were just cold. Her hazel skin had lost colour.
“About a week or two ‘fore she passed, we had argued. She said… she said that I dragged her down. That I should’ve never left Wind River, never said hi, never done anything to her. I was fine with knowing that was our last conversation. Marshall knew that too. But now, I know that she was thinkin’ about me, n that makes me thinkin’ about her at least an ounce right. N cause it’s right ain’t mean I can ever forget about it. Her ghost’ll haunt me until I meet it. N the only reason it’s—it’s hangin o’er me is Marshall.”
She looked at me with a fury, as if she was baring her teeth. I felt the same compunction I felt for the coyote that day. I tripped down the stairs of the brothel and ran out the door. Stumbling towards Yeller, I hopped on and started away from the town that had made me feel more anger, sorrow, and disappointment than anywhere in the Midwest.
Marshall P. Garrett is living inside of the echoes of the stories told between us all. He is the wind that carries over the mountains to the stars. He is the ripples in the water from a stone cast by a child. He is nothing to me. Nothing at all. He might have been killed by Harry, a snake in the desert, or simply by tripping over a rock. I drink whisky from the satchel attached to my side. It’s enough to keep me drunk for three whole days. The old man was entirely, intrinsically right. I have amounted to absolutely nothing my entire life and decided to put my worth into first traversing the desert (without a goal, or endpoint in mind) and then into a man I’d only heard drunken ramblings about. Will my story even be worth turning into ramblings? Marshall P. Garrett is the ripples in the water from a stone cast by a child, but stones are cast a plenty, and in many waters across the land. Will my stone create ripples? I presume that it will sink to the bottom of the deepest lake in the Midwest. At least Garrett’s name was worth mentioning and following around. It prompted men to be shot down, opened doors, and meant something to people. I will be known as the drunkard who destroyed his fortune, dying away from his family (and what friends) with absolutely nothing to live for. Or at least, that would be better than being forgotten. I believed I was better than being forgotten. Better than just living. Better than being in the corner of a picture of someone’s fading memories. A revelation came about me in my sorrow. No matter how awfully I feel of death right now, I know that we all share the same fate. One day, the echoes of Marshall P. Garrett that traverse the caves, forests, and towns will be forgotten by me, by Chepi, by the old man at the bar, and by Harry. I hope that day comes soon, so that I can live longer than those memories, so that my pride is saved. Yeller is slowing down. Why is Yeller slowing down?
At the second lake we cross, my faithful stead lays down for a final rest on a patch of grass next to the water. I stroked his mane one last time, before gathering my materials and his saddle. I will forget about Yeller. The echoes of his neighs will escape the crevices of my brain matter through the canals of my ears before long.
I begin to walk back to Arminto. I have enough food and whisky to walk at a comfortable rate back—I’ll just have to be careful of bandits and animals in the wild. It takes me three days. Why am I still going? At this rate, I could just collapse in the heat of the desert and quit being so daft. Why am I still going? I drink the last of my whisky. I see Arminto. At least, I think I do. I walk into the bar.
I see the barkeep. His pale skin. His cowboy boots. He still has the same wheat sticking out of his mouth from when I left. I hadn’t noticed how blue his eyes were, or that he had stubble on the bottom of his chin.
“You look rough.”
I sit down at the barstool.
“Here. Someone came in and gave this to me, sayin’ to give it to someone who looked an awful lot like you.”
I wonder what he’s going to pull out. He brings out a three-legged horse made out of redwood, sliding it slowly against the counter. I can barely muster up words with the thought of how dry my throat is, but it turns out my throat isn’t dry at all.
“Did they say who it was from?”
The barkeep scratches his stubble, before putting his elbows on the counter. In his pause, I look around the bar and see how empty it is compared to the first time I entered it. The table in the left corner is unoccupied.
“Yeah. Somethin’ like Garrett? Marshall Garrett.”
I remember.