Bargaining.
[following this:]
Click.
Clack.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
Clack.
She had spent months in denial, following Sam's death. It was easier, focusing on her need for justice; as if that would bring him back from the dead. In the end, she left him behind, because it was easier than having to come to terms with what really happened.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
Clack.
Then had come the anger. Esfir had been right when she said that she had been angry and stupid. She lashed out against everyone, and everything. Her taste for revenge had been so strong that it overpowered almost everything else; it was all she could see, all she could do to keep herself going.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
Clack.
But she felt used up, now. She couldn't scrounge together the energy to be angry, and with his blood all over her body, she couldn't force the ignorance to deny.
But if I can just get back to the Bar-
Click.
Clack.
-They can bring him back. They can save him.
The washroom door continues to click-clack open and shut in the silence of the room.
But the bar doesn't reappear.
After a time, her bloodless fingers numb around the doorknob, she stops.
She turns her head and looks at Doc's body through a veil of tears.
Hands and knees, she crawls back over to his side.
He's still warm. If I can just keep him warm, maybe there's a chance. Maybe they can bring him back. I just have to keep him warm, and get him back through that door. It has to work.
She curls up beside him again, pulling his black duster over their bodies. She wraps him up in her arms, her head on his shoulder, and prays.
Please, just give me one more chance. Just one more minute with him. Please.
When she wakes up again later, it's dark. She moves with a start.
His skin is cool.
Looking out the open front door-he had been coming in from working outside when the bar picked him up, it's just as he left it-she can see that the sun has only just set, but it's dark enough that she can't make out a thing in the room.
She shivers, wrapping her arms around herself. Her camisole is crusted against her skin where his blood has soaked through like thick glue.
With effort, she drags herself over to the door. Shining pinpricks of light in the brush outside tell her that she's not alone tonight, despite the hollow feeling in her chest. The smell of blood is strong.
She shuts the door, and braces a chair under the knob.
And then she returns to the washroom.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
She watches the sunrise from a corner of the room.
The skin under her nose is chapped, and her whole face burns. There's still a distant ringing in her ears. She has one leg bent and drawn up to her chest, while her left is outstretched and trembling a little. She's cold, and the gunshot wound is aching.
Rigor mortis had set in several hours ago, and she couldn't bring herself to stay by Doc's side. Not when he was so cold.
She's watching the bloodstains on the hardwood come into focus as the light of a new day slowly fills the room.
Please, God. I'll take his place, just give me one more minute with him. Just one more.
She starts with his boots.
Carefully pulling them from his feet, she sets them aside and slips off his socks. His gunbelt is next to go, followed by his bloodied trousers.
She wrings pink water out of a cloth she found on a shelf in his washroom, letting it accumulate in the basin she set by his side, and carefully begins washing him.
She'd peeled her own bloodstained clothes off earlier, and left them in the floor of his washroom. She took her time cleaning and wrapping her wounds, poking at the enraged flesh, rinsing and re-rinsing the holes in her meat. And when she was finished, she'd gone into his room and found his closet.
She'd pulled on a pair of overlarge long johns and a white undershirt, and sat in the middle of the floor for twenty minutes crying.
Bloody water now trickles down her forearms as she methodically scrubs his body clean. She holds his hand as she cleans the blood off his stiff fingers, working in a daze, slow enough that she gets every trace of blood out from under his nails, from the creases in his palm, from the well left by his cuticles. She cleans her red fingerprints from his face. She washes the stain of his life, long turned cold, from the hole in his side.
She combs his hair.
She prepares and wraps his body.
And then she redresses him in the finest clothes she can find in his closet, and slips the gold band she'd found by the basin back on his ring finger.
Yours.
She bends over his hand, pressing his knuckles to her lips, and cries for another twenty minutes.
Midday finds her wandering his house. It's quiet, and still. His kitchen is simple, stocked with a few non-perishables and canned goods. There is a bit of firewood stacked by his stove. His bedroom is unadorned, his bed made, books spread about in much the same fashion as in his room at Milliways.
It's not much.
(It never had to be.)
She pulls her duster on over his clothes, her movements tight and laced with pain, and steps out onto his front porch. He hadn't lied. It's clean, and quiet, and stunning. His horse is penned up a few yards ahead, right outside a small barn, and then for as far as the eye can see, there's nothing but greenery.
She finds a dead branch to use as a walking stick, and hobbles along his property, eyes wide and glassy as she takes everything in. There's an axe out behind the barn, next to some uncut wood. Inside the barn she finds an old Winchester and some tools, feed and hay for the horse, and a few cords of firewood. There's more up by the house, but not much. She finds the stream he told her about, and sits on the bank for a long time, just watching the current pass.
Please. Please don't take him from me. I can't do this without him.
It's late when she returns to the cabin, though the sun lingers on. She'd guess it's close to harvest time-perhaps near the end of August-without any reference to tell her otherwise.
As far as she can tell, there are no other estates nearby. She can't even begin to guess where the nearest town lies. Those were things she had been hoping to learn with Doc by her side. Instead, she feels lost, and isolated, out in the middle of the woods, in a world that is not her own.
She hasn't eaten for two days, but she can't seem to convince herself to cook. So, after bringing more fresh water inside the house and lighting a small fire, she locks up for the night, and lays down on a quilt by Doc's head.
Eyes on his pallid face, she ignores the smell of death beginning to creep from his skin, and slowly pulls her fingers through his hair until she falls asleep.
She leaves at the first sign of light.
Making her way first to the barn, she retrieves a shovel from the stack of tools she had found, and then makes her way out along the path she had picked out the day before. She walks through scrub and sapling, clearing a wide path as she goes, and then stops at a small clearing.
Sniffling, she checks the straps she tied around her wrists to keep Doc's overlarge gloves on her hands, decides on how to place her bad leg so she won't hurt herself, and then begins digging.
It's painstaking work, miraculously finished by mid-afternoon, wrought by her tears and sweat and fresh blood.
She stands in the stream for a long time afterward, shivering, ensuring that her wounds stay clean of any dirt or grime. The skin around her graze is red and angry, her thigh aches, and though she can't see it, she knows there is a large bruise on her back where Ramon's first bullet had struck the Kevlar. She's fairly certain she's running a fever, but she can't think about that right now.
There are more important things to be done.
There are clean sheets in a linen closet. A Bible by his bed. Outside, she straps his Winchester around her back, and cleans wood and hay out of a barrow she found by the corral.
She carefully spreads the clean sheet next to his body, smoothing out the wrinkles. And then she rolls him over onto it, choking back her tears, holding her breath, begging any god or sentient entity that might be listening to make this a dream. Make it go away.
This can't be happening.
She drags him out the front door and onto the handbarrow, careful not to bruise or jostle him, and wheels him to the hole she dug.
The ceremony is simple, though punctuated by her grief. She has to stop several times to rage, fistfuls of dirt and leaves, bruises left on her chest as she beats herself in lamentation.
Perhaps her anger isn't all used up, after all.
But by the end, her voice is small and broken.
"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen."
Please, God. Please.
She stays until dusk, standing guard over his final resting place.
You've put him in the dirt. There's no coming back, now.
There's a noise in the brush, and when she lifts her swollen eyes to look, she sees a buck several yards away. He scents the air, but doesn't seem to notice her right away. He's leading a small herd: two does, and a teenage male.
It's cruel, in a way. As she sits with death, beside death, in death, new life moves around her. If she should try to touch it, it would run from her just as surely as that herd would.
You only kiss the men you kill.
God will punish you, Sinner.
Her hands can dig a hole, hold a pen, work a field, and take a life. But they never seem strong enough to hold onto the things she loves.
CRACK
The herd scatters, but the buck only lopes off a few feet before he falls.
Smoke curls from the barrel of her rifle.
It's life and death.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
And the world keeps moving on, without him.
.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
Clack.
She had spent months in denial, following Sam's death. It was easier, focusing on her need for justice; as if that would bring him back from the dead. In the end, she left him behind, because it was easier than having to come to terms with what really happened.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
Clack.
Then had come the anger. Esfir had been right when she said that she had been angry and stupid. She lashed out against everyone, and everything. Her taste for revenge had been so strong that it overpowered almost everything else; it was all she could see, all she could do to keep herself going.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
Clack.
But she felt used up, now. She couldn't scrounge together the energy to be angry, and with his blood all over her body, she couldn't force the ignorance to deny.
But if I can just get back to the Bar-
Click.
Clack.
-They can bring him back. They can save him.
The washroom door continues to click-clack open and shut in the silence of the room.
But the bar doesn't reappear.
After a time, her bloodless fingers numb around the doorknob, she stops.
She turns her head and looks at Doc's body through a veil of tears.
Hands and knees, she crawls back over to his side.
He's still warm. If I can just keep him warm, maybe there's a chance. Maybe they can bring him back. I just have to keep him warm, and get him back through that door. It has to work.
She curls up beside him again, pulling his black duster over their bodies. She wraps him up in her arms, her head on his shoulder, and prays.
Please, just give me one more chance. Just one more minute with him. Please.
When she wakes up again later, it's dark. She moves with a start.
His skin is cool.
Looking out the open front door-he had been coming in from working outside when the bar picked him up, it's just as he left it-she can see that the sun has only just set, but it's dark enough that she can't make out a thing in the room.
She shivers, wrapping her arms around herself. Her camisole is crusted against her skin where his blood has soaked through like thick glue.
With effort, she drags herself over to the door. Shining pinpricks of light in the brush outside tell her that she's not alone tonight, despite the hollow feeling in her chest. The smell of blood is strong.
She shuts the door, and braces a chair under the knob.
And then she returns to the washroom.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
She watches the sunrise from a corner of the room.
The skin under her nose is chapped, and her whole face burns. There's still a distant ringing in her ears. She has one leg bent and drawn up to her chest, while her left is outstretched and trembling a little. She's cold, and the gunshot wound is aching.
Rigor mortis had set in several hours ago, and she couldn't bring herself to stay by Doc's side. Not when he was so cold.
She's watching the bloodstains on the hardwood come into focus as the light of a new day slowly fills the room.
Please, God. I'll take his place, just give me one more minute with him. Just one more.
She starts with his boots.
Carefully pulling them from his feet, she sets them aside and slips off his socks. His gunbelt is next to go, followed by his bloodied trousers.
She wrings pink water out of a cloth she found on a shelf in his washroom, letting it accumulate in the basin she set by his side, and carefully begins washing him.
She'd peeled her own bloodstained clothes off earlier, and left them in the floor of his washroom. She took her time cleaning and wrapping her wounds, poking at the enraged flesh, rinsing and re-rinsing the holes in her meat. And when she was finished, she'd gone into his room and found his closet.
She'd pulled on a pair of overlarge long johns and a white undershirt, and sat in the middle of the floor for twenty minutes crying.
Bloody water now trickles down her forearms as she methodically scrubs his body clean. She holds his hand as she cleans the blood off his stiff fingers, working in a daze, slow enough that she gets every trace of blood out from under his nails, from the creases in his palm, from the well left by his cuticles. She cleans her red fingerprints from his face. She washes the stain of his life, long turned cold, from the hole in his side.
She combs his hair.
She prepares and wraps his body.
And then she redresses him in the finest clothes she can find in his closet, and slips the gold band she'd found by the basin back on his ring finger.
Yours.
She bends over his hand, pressing his knuckles to her lips, and cries for another twenty minutes.
Midday finds her wandering his house. It's quiet, and still. His kitchen is simple, stocked with a few non-perishables and canned goods. There is a bit of firewood stacked by his stove. His bedroom is unadorned, his bed made, books spread about in much the same fashion as in his room at Milliways.
It's not much.
(It never had to be.)
She pulls her duster on over his clothes, her movements tight and laced with pain, and steps out onto his front porch. He hadn't lied. It's clean, and quiet, and stunning. His horse is penned up a few yards ahead, right outside a small barn, and then for as far as the eye can see, there's nothing but greenery.
She finds a dead branch to use as a walking stick, and hobbles along his property, eyes wide and glassy as she takes everything in. There's an axe out behind the barn, next to some uncut wood. Inside the barn she finds an old Winchester and some tools, feed and hay for the horse, and a few cords of firewood. There's more up by the house, but not much. She finds the stream he told her about, and sits on the bank for a long time, just watching the current pass.
Please. Please don't take him from me. I can't do this without him.
It's late when she returns to the cabin, though the sun lingers on. She'd guess it's close to harvest time-perhaps near the end of August-without any reference to tell her otherwise.
As far as she can tell, there are no other estates nearby. She can't even begin to guess where the nearest town lies. Those were things she had been hoping to learn with Doc by her side. Instead, she feels lost, and isolated, out in the middle of the woods, in a world that is not her own.
She hasn't eaten for two days, but she can't seem to convince herself to cook. So, after bringing more fresh water inside the house and lighting a small fire, she locks up for the night, and lays down on a quilt by Doc's head.
Eyes on his pallid face, she ignores the smell of death beginning to creep from his skin, and slowly pulls her fingers through his hair until she falls asleep.
She leaves at the first sign of light.
Making her way first to the barn, she retrieves a shovel from the stack of tools she had found, and then makes her way out along the path she had picked out the day before. She walks through scrub and sapling, clearing a wide path as she goes, and then stops at a small clearing.
Sniffling, she checks the straps she tied around her wrists to keep Doc's overlarge gloves on her hands, decides on how to place her bad leg so she won't hurt herself, and then begins digging.
It's painstaking work, miraculously finished by mid-afternoon, wrought by her tears and sweat and fresh blood.
She stands in the stream for a long time afterward, shivering, ensuring that her wounds stay clean of any dirt or grime. The skin around her graze is red and angry, her thigh aches, and though she can't see it, she knows there is a large bruise on her back where Ramon's first bullet had struck the Kevlar. She's fairly certain she's running a fever, but she can't think about that right now.
There are more important things to be done.
There are clean sheets in a linen closet. A Bible by his bed. Outside, she straps his Winchester around her back, and cleans wood and hay out of a barrow she found by the corral.
She carefully spreads the clean sheet next to his body, smoothing out the wrinkles. And then she rolls him over onto it, choking back her tears, holding her breath, begging any god or sentient entity that might be listening to make this a dream. Make it go away.
This can't be happening.
She drags him out the front door and onto the handbarrow, careful not to bruise or jostle him, and wheels him to the hole she dug.
The ceremony is simple, though punctuated by her grief. She has to stop several times to rage, fistfuls of dirt and leaves, bruises left on her chest as she beats herself in lamentation.
Perhaps her anger isn't all used up, after all.
But by the end, her voice is small and broken.
"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen."
Please, God. Please.
She stays until dusk, standing guard over his final resting place.
You've put him in the dirt. There's no coming back, now.
There's a noise in the brush, and when she lifts her swollen eyes to look, she sees a buck several yards away. He scents the air, but doesn't seem to notice her right away. He's leading a small herd: two does, and a teenage male.
It's cruel, in a way. As she sits with death, beside death, in death, new life moves around her. If she should try to touch it, it would run from her just as surely as that herd would.
You only kiss the men you kill.
God will punish you, Sinner.
Her hands can dig a hole, hold a pen, work a field, and take a life. But they never seem strong enough to hold onto the things she loves.
CRACK
The herd scatters, but the buck only lopes off a few feet before he falls.
Smoke curls from the barrel of her rifle.
It's life and death.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
And the world keeps moving on, without him.
.