The Trouble At Jackalope Pass - 1. More Than Bargained For

Snapping the cover to the scope on his rifle, Thor, shut, he was mindful of ensuring the ever-present dust from this god-forsaken country was brushed free of the scope’s cover. It wasn’t good, he thought. In fact, his senses told him the job just became a giant fustercluck. Too many things went sideways since he accepted the simple retrieval of a runaway. Much too late, he realized the all-important details were either fudged or glossed over. Had it been anyone other than Rawlings asking him to take the job, he would have declined and would have gladly told them to go fuck themselves. The money wasn’t that good to begin with. After six months of chasing renegade worrels, he needed a break. A long vacation was what the doctor had ordered. Too many years chasing whatever incorrigibles the Marshal's office hadn’t the time for, or simply were too lazy or incompetent to go after, was taking a toll. He simply was too late this time.

As he was packing up to leave, his thoughts were interrupted when a series of sharp noises could be heard just down from his lookout. Carefully looking over the ledge behind him, he saw two male jackalopes engaged in a clash for mating superiority; to be the one dominant male and win the trope of females ready to breed. In this neck of the county, the jackalopes lived amongst the rocky outcroppings and ledge faces of the higher elevations. Like the mountain goats of the even higher elevations, they were sure-footed in even the rockiest, sheer cliff faces.

It was fascinating to watch a pair of male jackalopes struggle for dominance. They would line up some thirty feet or more apart and at some unknown signal, set off hopping, charging at each other across nearly vertical surfaces. Tilting their heads, they would clash violently as their antlers interlocked. Then the true test of superiority would begin. Generally, an older male would have the upper hand, having survived previous clashes of would-be titans, swatting the younger male aside. Both would live to see another day; unlike the boy he saw down in Bitter Valley.

Earlier that morning, from his perch at the top of Jackalope Pass, he had a clear view into Bitter Valley. A godforsaken town if there ever was one. A place time passed by, more than once. If it weren’t for the shaleite found in the mine, a few feet below one of the rocky outcrops surrounding Bitter Valley, there’d be nothing here but dust bunnies and jackalopes. A more inhospitable environment one would be hard-pressed to find. The sun had barely been up for an hour; the temp where he was perched had to be a hundred-and-ten-degrees. Down in Bitter Valley it had to be at least twenty degrees hotter. Even up here at the top of the pass there wasn’t any shade lest what one could find under an outcropping of rock. Down in the valley there wasn’t any to speak of.

There wasn’t any vegetation, no gardens, flower patches or shrubbery to speak of. Any trees that might have grown down in the valley were long gone. Used to build the ramshackle shacks that the upstanding citizens called homes and businesses. Folks clung to the sides of the buildings on the shady side of the street if they had to be out during the day. The town didn’t come to life till at least an hour past sundown, why then, he wondered, was what looked like the entire population out this morning? It was the question that first sprung to mind when he reached the top of the pass.

His arrival at the top of the pass wouldn’t be what he would call fortuitous or auspicious. Someone wanted him delayed, to be a day or more behind his quarry. For what reasons, he surmised, would take some discernment, once he had a better grasp on the hidden hands behind this mission. The answers, the clues he needed to find, lay down in Bitter Valley, along with the boy he was to bring back.

When he first looked down at the town, the first inkling something was wrong was all the townsfolk gathered at one end of the dusty main street, oblivious to the rapidly-rising heat of the early morning. Situated in front of them were gallows atop a wooden platform. To the side of the restless crowd, a door opened and from the opening of the ancient, nearly derelict building was the boy, not fully covered, as all he was wearing was a flimsy, threadbare camisole that had seen better days, his hands bound tightly behind him.

He watched as the crowd jeered as he was led to the platform, nearly hysterical as the noose was placed around his neck. It had to be one of the town fathers he assumed, as the man began to speak. Reaching for his worrel gun, Thor, he tried to gauge the distance. With the long barrel of nearly five feet, it would be a test of his skill. It was a distance far greater than he had ever shot; the variables strained the utmost limits of his accuracy. It wasn’t a shot one could simply aim and fire; it would take a bit of time to set up, if he were to hit the target at all.

As it was, in setting up the rifle to hit the cross beam of the gallows, knowing the slug of copper-jacketed lead would disintegrate the dried-out wood, he knew he was too late. The chair the boy was standing on was pulled out from under him. Cussing a silent stream of every curse word he knew, he watched helplessly as the boy swung, his loosely-bound feet kicking for purchase that wasn’t there. Furiously, he watched as the struggle to live slowly ebbed.

Instead of letting the boy drop through the opening in the gallows, letting his weight arrest his fall, thereby snapping his neck when the rope grew taught, granting him a mercifully quick painless death, rather, they let him slowly hang with death taking its time.

He was in danger of a black rage taking over, the hidden part of his soul screaming to be let out, to lay waste to the shithole that was Bitter Valley. He knew the shot was beyond his capabilities, the distance far too great, that once again on this fucked-up mission, someone wanted him to fail. He watched helplessly as the boy was cut down, his body lying on the platform. Those who did this were animals, and he’d show them no mercy. They hadn’t had the decency to even cover the boy’s head. Instead, they let the assembled denizens watch the struggle for life play across his contorted face. Half-dressed as he was, they even refused him the clothing that would hide his final indignity, when he soiled himself at the time death took him.

~~~

He needed to plan and by the time he was done, the citizens of Bitter Valley would know the true meaning of the town’s name. He watched as the boy was placed on a stretcher and returned to the room he had come from. Those who carried him secured the door as they left the building.

Perhaps it was an omen, or the first bit of good luck to come his way. As he was preparing to leave the summit, he saw the freight wagons heading towards town from the north. A cursory inspection through his rifle’s scope proved him correct. On that wagon train was everything the good citizens of Bitter Valley needed to survive another harsh month in the arid, desert valley. Nothing grew there that could be eaten; the local water was brackish and alkaline. Everything needed to keep exporting the valuable shaleite had to be brought in. Once the freight wagons were emptied, they were loaded and sent back on their way.

If he were a betting man, he’d wager the first wagon, considering the day’s events, would be brought to the saloon and unloaded. The rest would wait a day as the fresh kegs of beer were opened. It’d take a couple of hours or so for the beer to work its magic, and that was when he’d strike.

Fingers to his lips brought forth a sharp whistle, bringing Horse, Dog, and Mule from a shady overhang. Never made sense to him to name animals when they already had a perfectly good name. He’d waited long enough; the sun would be down in a couple of hours, and Bitter Valley would be getting drunker as the night grew darker. It was time to get going; he needed to reach the trail where it grew wider before dusk. There’d be hell to pay if they stepped on a dust bunny; at this elevation their shrieks could be heard for miles.

While dust bunnies were not normally seen by anyone in town, the secretive little motes posed more danger than most folks knew. Little was known about them other than the tangly clumps of discarded hair and dust they left behind in their various travels. They moved with a silent grace, always in the periphery and in the shadows of human vision.

As their name indicated, they reproduced prodigiously and always in the cool, damp of the desert evening. Out in the desert, in the later hours of the morning, he knew it wasn’t uncommon to see a pair engaged in sexual congress and explode from the static electricity their frenzied mating emitted.

In the darkest hours of the night, in the deeper, higher elevations of the desert like Jackalope Pass, it wasn’t uncommon to see the little furballs emit an ethereal blue glow not unlike St. Elmo’s Fire, preening themselves prior to seeking a mate. Confined, for the most part, during the day to the cooler, shade-covered recesses on the sides of Jackalope Pass, they’d come out at dusk and gather in the cart road that led to Bitter Valley. The good citizens of Bitter Valley, having seen over the generations the ethereal glow as they went about their business, considered the pass haunted. Tales were told of the few brave souls who had, at one time and never to have returned, braved the cart road to investigate the source of the nighttime wonder. What they didn’t know was that, in fact, the dust bunnies were voracious omnivores.

It was a slow trip down from Jackalope Pass. It was rarely ever used considering its reputation. The cart road was washed out in places, and threading their way amongst the gathering dust bunnies had taken time. While many of the dust bunnies were lost in the procreating frenzy, there were those who had other hungers to satisfy, eyeing the rarely-seen travelers crisscrossing amongst them. A few well-placed growls and yips from Dog sent the dust bunnies scurrying over the edges of the cart road.

~~~

He was close enough to the outskirts of Bitter Valley to hear the sounds of a town in its cups; they had been drinking for hours, all gathered in and around the saloon. As he drew closer, the sounds grew louder, and the intensity of the unwashed bodies’ odor became stronger. As he suspected, he saw the beer wagons had been unhitched from the rest of the freight wagons. The remainder had been brought up next to the warehouses, the mules put away for the night. It gave him good cover to make his way towards the gallows and the room that held the boy he was after. He’d been told from the outset that he was to come back with him dead or alive; obviously someone wanted the boy dead.

Moving as quietly as possible, avoiding the few stragglers, he was stunned by their appearance. Desiccated would have been too kind of a word to be used in any description, and apparently the womenfolk were nonexistent. In the faint glow he could see a sallow, jaundiced look about them. Any exposed flesh looked like well-worn leather. Their faces, shrunken hollows, and the loose, ill-fitting clothes hung as if covering emaciated skeletons. It appeared that there was no purpose in their movements. Their gait was more of a shuffle, minimizing any unnecessary effort. There was little differentiation between the color of the dust that coated everything and the pigmentation of their skin.

And yet, all for lack of better words, they reeked. The ill-fitting, thread-worn hooded robes they wore were a kaleidoscope of sweat stains, fanning out as if a rainbow of every imaginable color not usually seen. The stains where their sleeves joined their loose-fitting tunics were encrusted with rings of excreted body salts, giving the decrepit clothing a modicum of stiffness.

After securing Horse and Mule deep in the evening’s shadows, he and Dog silently made their way towards the door the boy was behind. What they did not sense or see were the dust bunnies that noiselessly crept behind them. Reaching the timeworn door, it was apparent that looks were deceiving. The hasp and padlock were barely attached to the dried-out wood. The planks that formed the ill-fitting door were but a memory of what they once were.

A quick twist of his wrist caused a silent explosion of wood dust as the hasp and padlock fell into his hand. Entering the dimly-lit room, the only light coming from a dirt-encrusted window covered in cobwebs, he spied the boy lying on a table. On the far side of the room, he noticed what appeared to be a secondary, ill-fitting door. There appeared to be a brightly-lit room on the other side as sluices of light leaked from the edges of the door and frame.

Accompanying the diffused light from the second doorway were the muted, distinct sounds of some sort of activity. In the dim light of the room, he could see that the door was secured, preventing entry into the space he was standing in. Slipping the lock, he partially opened the door, horrified at what he saw. There, in front of him, had to be the skeletal remains of half a dozen young men, if he had to guess, along with what appeared to be pizza pans with the remains of pizza with bite-sized, fleshy body part toppings. The size of the remains precluded anything else. At the far corner of the room was an entrance to a tunnel, one of a couple he suspected that led down to the shaleite deposits. He could feel the colder air of the tunnel depths rushing into the room. It was cold enough to give him a sudden chill, and it could only mean one thing; the shaleite was being mined by zombies.

A moment later his hunch was confirmed when he quickly surveyed the rest of the space around the tunnel entrance. In the opposite corner were two penguin assassins sleeping off a bender, judging by the discarded Pepsi bottles. Closing the door into the tunnel room as quietly as he could, he turned his attention back to the boy. He’d seen what he had to, and it was past time to leave Bitter Valley.

As he threw the boy’s body over his shoulder, Dog stood looking out the door, softly growling. Cautiously making his way to the door, one hand on Thor, he let out a sigh of relief. Gathered around the gallows, filling the small yard, were more dust bunnies than he could count. Every now and then an agitated dust bunny would set off a nervous spark. As soon as he left the shed, the dust bunnies started to file into the space he vacated.

He could hear them trying to force open the door to the room with the tunnel entrance. A wry, grim smile molded his countenance; that was one less chore he’d need to take care of. Shaleite by itself is an inert explosive, both as compressed bricks and shaleite dust, requiring an electrical charge, and when the dust bunnies made it through that door and down into the mine, Bitter Valley would go off like a roman candle.

There’s a natural, antagonistic relationship between zombies and dust bunnies. Due to their very nature, dust bunnies are drawn to the decayed flesh of a zombie. For dust bunnies, zombies are like manna from heaven. Not being the smartest in the sentient kingdom, the dust bunnies had no clue what their zombie feeding frenzy was going to accomplish. The vast number packed in the confines of the shaleite tunnel could only have one outcome.

He had just enough time to refill his waterskins from one of the freight wagons and set the wagon train mules packing out the other side of town. He was nearing the top of Jackalope Pass when a bright flash filled the valley below. A few moments later, the shockwave dissipated as it raced up the side of the pass. The following afternoon found them encamped at the oasis called Marble Canyon. From there they’d follow the river to Lees Ferry. From there it was but a short train ride, and the mission would be complete once they reached Cedar Ridge.

What would become of the boy from that point on wasn’t a concern of his. What was his unfinished business, was finding out who was behind the delays he encountered. Those were his thoughts as he had gone about setting up camp for the night at the oasis. Having finished and tended to the animals, he carried the boy down to one of the pools and gently washed the grime and filth away. Carefully wrapping the boy in one of his unused blankets, he laid him down under the canopy of some mountain cedar trees.

Horse and Mule attended to, it was a lazy supper for both he and Dog. This time of year, the evening came on quickly. What fire he had for his meal and coffee was put to rest shortly after. Although unaccustomed to the nighttime sounds, soon he found himself relaxing. The bottle of mango habanero rotgut in his saddle bags couldn’t wait a couple more days. Rolling a cigarette from his pouch, he used one of the fire’s dying embers to light another vice of his night. Watching the moonrise, the sounds of the nightbirds lulling him to sleep, Dog’s growl alerted him to possible danger.

Dog had been lying next to the boy under the fragrant cedar boughs and now stood, suddenly alerted as a wizened old druid emerged from the trees, walking towards the campfire. His hands raised, his face visible in the light of the evening moon, he announced his peaceful intentions.

The boy was a dryad, he was told, and his eternal soul was now on the way to Valhalla to rest with the mountain cedars he lay beneath. In time, he’d be allowed to go back out and explore the world he was so curious about, trying to understand the follies of the human world. He and those of the boy’s kind, were eternally grateful to him for saving the boy from the predations that awaited him, had he not been brought out of Bitter Valley.

The old druid brought forth a bottle to share as the rest of the evening wound down. Much was discussed and explained. The boy had suffered a painful loss. His intended, or so he thought, was a coconut palm tree. By their very nature coconut palm trees aren’t monogamous, and it was a difficult lesson for the boy to learn. For a coconut palm will go anywhere the currents of life will bring them, indiscriminate in their couplings. Heartbroken, the boy set off to seek a like-minded dryad.

The bottle of mead the old druid had brought forward was nearly empty as the old man continued talking. He was losing the battle to stay in the present as the old druid’s words droned on, and the song of Morpheus finally claimed him.

~~~

He could feel the sun hitting his face in the early morning hours of the new day. His head felt as if the 20 Mule Team from the Borax commercial was tromping inside his throbbing skull. Someone or something was lapping at his face, and forcing his crusted eyes open was proving to be a Herculean task. For that matter, any movement of a body part was incomprehensible. The gurgling coming from his midsection and lower intestines were signaling serious, porcelain-scarring trouble ahead. He could hear the scampering of little paws scurrying across the floor as a toxic, noxious cloud escaped from parts lower.

Good lord, just what in the heck did he get up to last night? At best, all he could remember was going out with some coworkers to celebrate someone’s work anniversary at McSorley’s, with everyone promising to make it an early night. The plate tectonics of his lower half shifted in a disturbing manner as he tried to sit upright.

From somewhere in the room, playing softly in the background, was the piano instrumental for the Song for Sienna. Just what his hangover needed…music for twinkle toes…could this morning get any worse, he wondered. Across from him was his laptop. As he bumped it, the screen came to life with the following:

On 1/9/2022 at 3:32 PM, astone2292 said:

Sounds like Val's got some scenes to write

@ValkyrieLet's not leave out the following!!!

“What do you remember about last night?”

I furrowed my brow. “I read the latest Ask An Author, edited an anthology story, then headed to Calgary to check on my penguin assassins and escort one of them to Valhalla. I was on the fence as to its worthiness, since it died eating an obviously-poisoned pizza, but Thor reminded me about the time it saved me from the putrid Zombie by dousing it with Pepsi.