Doug Donnan
Executive Editor
GTNW/nMNI-GENRE+
goodtimesnewsweekly
donnan.doug@yahoo.com
"Playin' with Fire"
by
Doug Donnan
"So
he truly did sell his damn soul for two bags of gold
then lightnin' flashed and thunder rolled and a cyclone
spun in and took him round and round so it's been told..."
*From 'The Ballad of Clayton Cardbedder'
[ Circa 1883 /
midnight somewhere in the Chihuahuan Desert / Durango, Mexico ]
"This damn wind is only makin' it that
much colder," Cardbedder called out as he pinched closed the collar of his
flapping leather duster coat with one gloved hand and tried to control his
whinnying, headstrong Palomino horse with the other. "Keep yer eyes
peeled for sumthin' that'll get us out of this Godawful wind
Benny. Hopefully we can flint strike us up a damn campfire somewhere. I'd give
up both these bags of
stagecoach gold right here n' now for a stopover in hell just to get us outa
this shit."
"Si amigo," from Benitez as he
fought to hold down his wildly billowing straw sombrero with his left
hand and whip a hurried
sign of the cross out in front of his grimacing face with his quivering rein's
hand. "Pero, be careful what
you wish for amigo. El Diablo, the Devil, much like God, loves gold and he
hears everything."
"Zat so," Cardbedder chided as
he squinted a disdainful look up into the midnight sky above and then down below between the
tentative, uneasy gate of his snorting stallion in the chomping, swirling sand.
"If that's the case, Hey! Will one of you
mighty bastards please get us outa this shit? You can have my damn
soul...if that'll help!"
"Cuidado mi amigo Card!" Benitez
shook his head as he rode up just along side now. "Be careful... por
favor."
"Aw you burrito rollin' Bible
Mexicans are all alike," Cardbedder chortled and then spat over his
shoulder with disgust. "C'mon. Let's
find some kinda damn spot and build us a fire... I'm freezin' to death."
* * *
The tired twosome rode on in desperate
search of shelter from the unexpected fridged, sandblasting maelstrom
provided by the
vast, duneless desert. The four horse Wells Fargo stagecoach they had
'interupted' a few miles back was now probably well on
its way (albeit a bit lighter) to its final destination which was El Ciudad de
Sonora (Sonora City.) Even after the
stoppage and subsequent blatant robbery, the stage driver had implored the two
desperadoes to avoid having anything to do
with the deadly Chihuahuan Desert in their attempted getaway plans. Cardbedder
had guffawed at the coachman's warning (as he did
at most things that involved dangerous repercussions) and hadn't hesitated to
blast off a couple of booming pistol shots at
the hooves of the stage's dormant horseteam to get them started, quickly, back
on the rutted dirt trail to Sonora. 'Adios y vaya con
Diablo' he had yelled after them. And, at that, he and the sombrero shaking
Benitez had made their way off into the
indifferent desert expanse with little or no half-thoughts or misgivings.
* * *
"Mira Card!" Benny called out.
"Look over there. Some desert bushes and dry brush. Looks like a heaven
sent spot amigo." "Yeh, or your horny friend El Diablo
maybe huh?" Cardbedder laughed with a dipping chin-to-saddlehorn squint
just off to their right a
hundred yards or so. "Muy bueno Benny! Vamos muchacho!"
They managed, with some degree of
difficulty, to turn their recalcitrant horses almost directly into the surging
desert wind to reach the
nocturnal sanctuary off in the distance. And in time, which is judged more by a
feeling one has in a desert such as this one as opposed to
something measured or kept track of by the ticking of some golden pocketwatch,
they rode up into.the shadowy, midnight oasis.
After sauntering all around and about in small concentric convoluted circles,
they decided that this was very probably
the best that they
were going to do under the circumstances.
So They dismounted.
"Okay then," Cardbedder blew out
in two steamy puffs. "You see if you can find some kinda place for our
ponys to rest up. I'll scrounge
around here and see if I can't find us some sort of dry kindling and whatnot to
build a damn fire. I got my flintstone in my pocket and my
bowie knife here," he unsheathed a shimmering steel blade of sizeable
length from his rawhide belt. "You jist mark my words Benny.
With Satan himself as my witness, I'll get us a damn bonfire goin' out here in
this Godforsaken place or I'll have Hell to pay...comprende-vu?"
"Por favor senor Card... Please do
not tempt fate out here," Benny hung his head a bit as he led the two
horses away. "El Diablo he works in
strange and mysterious ways just like our heavenly father, and it could just--
"Aw cut that crap out will ya?"
Cardbedder yelled as he held up the bold, curving blade of his big knife.
"No more of yer stupid satanic sermons
Benny. Now let's jist git on with it."
"Si amigo," from the submissive,
but head shaking Benitez as he walked off with their two snorting and snapping
steeds.
* * *
Benitez finally decided to tie off the
horses beneath a jutting sandstone shelf he had come up on just beyond (and
remarkably out of the bone chilling wind) a crowding stand of
towering rather bizarre and radically surrendering armed Saguaro cactus. After
seeing to the horses, he
decided that there was still ample room and space to accomodate two medium
sized cold, tired and hungry highwaymen. He
doubled back in the inky darkness in search of his maniacal,
blasphemous partner in crime Cardbedder to tell him
the
good news.
* * *
As Benitez did wend his way back to the
point and place (he guessed) where he left his freezing accomplice, he noticed
a few odd changes. First
off, and perhaps most obvious to him, was that the desert's freezing
temperature had begun to ease up. In fact, with each and every
step forward it began to rise to the progressive point of becoming tepid, then
tolerable, soon rather warm, then decidedly
uncomfortably hot and humid. That being a somewhat welcome and tolerable thing,
for now anyway. The other change was in the overall
wind velocity. It had grown, perhaps 'heightened' might be a better choice of
words at that point. In fact the daunting motion and
movement of its mounting, circuitous strength, wildy 'revolutionary' you might
say, was the stuff of sweaty nightmares.
Benny's elation at probably having
discovered the place and protection that just might save their very lives had dwindled
down and down into a
darkened hopelessness and growing apprehension, in fact, outright fear as he
squinted up ahead into the powerfully whirling and
flexing cyclonic maelstrom. Suddenly, just at the peak of his fear and
frustration, the trail and weather weary Benitez spied something
even more out of place, truly unbelievable, off in the distance up ahead...
Sparks!
* * *
And then it hit him. It must be Cardbedder
trying hard to get a campfire going for them. But it was a dubious task at that
point thought the now
profusely perspiring Benitez as he struggled with each step forward. He was in
earshot now. Even with the circular whirlwind insanity
of the driving dervish, he could just hear Cardbedder feverishly scraping away
at the flint shard with his Bowie knife. He could
hear theaustic curse words from the crazed outlaw after each futile, failed
attempt as well.
"Madre de Dios," he whispered to
himself. "Esta es un gigantesca Navajo Chindi... a damn dust
devil!"
"Oye Card!" he called out into
the maddening desert tornado. His sombrero was swiped off and away by the
churning rotating waves of whistling
wind. It disappeared behind him into the enormous funnel of dust and debris.
"Oye Cardbedder... Tener Cuidado!"
Chit...Chit...Chit... Cardbedder
scraped away at the flint rock like a man possessed. He was now monomaniacal in
his quest for fire. If he had
heard Benny's calls of warning he didn't respond or seem to care at that point.
He was oblivious, defiant perhaps, to the approaching,
raging, monstrous dust devil cyclone.
Chit...Chit...Chit...
Suddenly, inconceivablyly, the scraping
Cardbedder, somehow, managed to get some sagebrush and tumbleweed tinder to
ignite. It was a pathetic
bushy bundle of flaming nothingness, but the whipping, licking wind-fueled flames danced all around and about under the pressure of
his wrinkled boots. It was as though he was standing contempuously, defiantly
perhaps, inside his own flaming pyre. Challenging it?
Maybe, but there was no real way of knowing how he felt at that moment in time.
But, in fact, it doesn't really matter because the very
eye of the monstrous, blowing desert tempest with its powerful, wide spinning
eye open was on him, then over him, then sucked him up
inside along with his two heavy sacks of stolen, solid gold-mint coins that he
kept within a thief's arm's reach at all times.
Benitez hesitated, shaking in his boots,
halted only yards away from the catastrophic, surrealistic scene. His mouth now
agape. His obsidian eyes just
as wide in disbelief. The churning, spinning, rapidly rotating spread eagle
figure of the completely helpless Cardbedder and the now torn
free and glimmering gold coins, like a thousand tiny suns, revolving all around
and about his silently screaming mouth and body. Then,
just before Benitez almost fainted in fear and futility, there was, concurrently,
an ear-exploding vacuum noise and a soft swift sucking
sound from the insane, other-worldly churning funnel. Down and down it did
hurriedly disappear into then through the
blowing
morass of seismic sand.
Then, of a blink of an eye, quiet...only
a lingering breath of stagnant, warm wind, a desert breeze...calm and serene.
High above, the full,
indifferent, allabaster moon remained as witness. It was over, finished,
completed.
Cardbedder was gone. His precious pieces
of stolen gold bullion followed him in and down. Down into the depths... into
the black
smoldering abyss.
* * *
Benitez, shattered and shaken, dropped to
his knees just as the morning sun was painting a deep purple hue just beyond
the far off rolling
mountains on the distant horizon. The faded circlet of the moon had retreated,
seemingly with solar respect, now hanging
ever so high up in
the early morning sky.
Then, out of nowhere, whipping out of the
northwest, the two empty torn and tattered rawhide Wells Fargo money bags
slapped down right there
at Benitez kneeling position, as if they had been, somehow, left behind or sent
as some type of warning or deadly
message,
perhaps... an omen of some sort. Who can really say or know for sure.
Benitez jolted back in shock staring in
disbelief, owl-eyed, at the devoid, dead-still, double downed desert sacks. He
just couldn't take it all in,
couldn't understand what had happened out there in the middle of nowhere.
However, as the sun's golden omniscience
came and washed
over the still and sturdy mountains off in the now peaceful desert distance, he
managed to rise to his unsteady feet. He doubled back,
quickly, for the two horses. They followed him calmly by their individual
leather leads as if they were tame
domestic pets.
Benny, without even a pause or a second thought, untied his two gold
bullion bags from his hard leather saddlebag stanchions and
hefted them down with a totally exhausted grunt and groan.
He set them there at the very tips and
toes of his weathered boots, then, slowly, cautiously, looked all around and
about the vast innocent, new day
dawning desert. "Aqui...Lo siento," he whispered, prayer-like, as he
bowed his head to both God and Satan alike.
"Yo soy very
sorry, for all the things that I have done."
He slowly and carefully saddled up atop
his waiting horse. Grabbed at the hanging lead
of the riderless Palomino pony, took one last look all
around, then down at his plump peace offerings of stolen gold. He made a
furtive sign of the cross and lit out for Sonora.
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