ENTRY #2
Six feet doesn’t seem that high when it’s your head resting on your shoulders. Add another six beneath it though at it gets a little scary. Carlos looked down at the hard packed soil twelve feet beneath him; a guy could hurt himself falling from that height. Not a problem for me though, he mused, I’m never gonna reach the ground. Carlos swallowed hard, the stiff fibers of the noose about his neck were rough against his Adam’s apple.
A hard, unsympathetic voice called out from behind him, “You know I only got one regret about all this.” There was a long pause and the scent of cigar smoke filled his nostrils as the Cole’s grizzled face came into view, “I can’t kill you twice.”
“A nice sentiment” Carlos managed to quip, his voice slowly strangled out by the rope as it was pulled tighter, “but I do resent the idea”
“You won’t be resenting it for long, outlaw. These are the King’s hills and you ain’t got a right to mine in em. Not now, not ever. But you knew that, huh? They knew it too” the gruff voice snarled out as he pointed to the already hung men to his right and left, the warm smoke puffing from his lips with each word. That smoke, burning in its near-volcanic intensity made the hairs on Carlos’ neck stand on end. The few members of the public who were still curious at the spectacle turned and muttered to each other.
“Not like it was my original idea. Plenty of men before have been here and got out with their prize, why not me?” Carlos countered, pushing back with the ball of both feet as hard as he could. If he slipped up, that twelve feet below him would get a lot closer. Never thought he would get to this point, envying the dead weights still swinging to his right and left, only to be hoisted back to god’s green earth to show the crowd what a dead man looked like. As if they didn’t already know, he mourned to himself.
“Plenty of men ain’t the Sin of Comstock Lode. Plenty of men ain’t rebels. Plenty of men ain’t you, Carlos Bleu, ain’t they?” the Cole bellowed, poking him hard in the back with his stirrup, pushing Carlos closer to the edge of his makeshift grave. If the law-man didn’t have the townspeople’s attention before, he definitely had it now.
“I would hope” he choked out, “that I am rather unique in that”. Coughing a bit as he felt the stirrup pushing harder and harder again, Carlos managing to stumble back, the show not yet apparently ready for him to start it. “But, you sure I broke the law?” he questioned, trying to smirk for the crowd before he was quieted by the noose tightening once more, the rope burn from the nose rubbing against his neck starting to really bite into him.
“I know what I know, scum. I’ve been chasing you and your band of misfits since you hit that bank in Lovelock, through the city of Fernley, all the way to here. Coming back to where you once belonged is one thing, but caught in your old man’s old mine?” the accuser explained with a slightly incredulous breath, waiting just long enough for Carlos to have to gasp for air again before he continued, “What sort of idiot do you take the King’s man for?”
“I take him being a blind fool” Carlos scraped out, his face starting to turn red, “King doesn’t care about these hills, no more. Care’s not for anyone”. A few questioning faces peered from the crowd, the first spritzes of rain beginning to shower the scene. One foot slipping out over the edge, Carlos was afraid for a split second that he was going to fall when he felt a sudden tug back from the edge. Had someone ended his current predicament while he was talking to this lawman or was he about to half to worry about a firm push?
“Not yet, boy. If I can’t do this again some other time, I’m going to make this little rope dangle you at the time of my choosing” he huffed out, bits of ash puffing out onto his hair as he answered Carlos’ question. After a slight tug and another puff of smoke, the air once again became silent. As if dissatisfied with itself, lightning struck in the distance, a roar of an angry sky filling the air not ten seconds later. “Now then” he said quietly, as his voice became huskier and more persona. Leaning in close to Carlos’ ear, he whispered tauntingly, “tell me about Emanuel Bleu. Your father.”
“What about” Carlos started, the spit in his throat lubricating his words like fine dried cement, “him? Man was shit farmer and a drunk, what else there to know?” One footfall away from his grave and his lineage was a sudden problem for this man? Turning his head to face the Cole, Carlos’ eye, the one he could still open, stared right into the face of his adversary, stinging with the sky’s watery bite.
“Before that, scum. Before that” the rough voice repeated with a drawl. “And yet again the monster before you, gentle ladies and men, lies to the officer of the law. I hope none of you hear the foulness escaping his wretched lips, I can hardly contain myself to not break his mouth so he cannot say such slander about the people of this town” he shouted, his voice booming as he directed them away from his private conversation with bombasticy. “Before being a no good father he was a no good something. You know what that something was, don’t you?” the cement block of a voice demanded quietly, filling Carlos’ ears with the same sort of infernal dust that now filled his hair.
“What was he, then?” Carlos wheezed out, his eyes starting to water. His face wasn’t looking so good either, turning another shade of ripe tomato red as he tried to speak. I can’t get myself out of this one without a miracle, he guessed. Eye’s tensing, his hands at his neck clawing, Carlos felt himself fall slightly into the ink blackness of the big sleep before being tugged back again. Air flowed again into his lungs as he had the chance to think, perhaps to live, before he was prodded ahead all over again.
“Guess we’ll never know” the Cole jabbed, the shit-eating grin on his face obvious even if he hadn’t been able to see him. The Cole’s stirrup slammed into the base of Carlos’ spine again with a loud crack. “Feeling tired are we? Wish I could drag this out forever, but you know what they say about time” the man spoke almost softly, the timbre of his voice deepening as he slammed the stirrup into Carlos again, “Never enough of it.”
Five, six seconds away, the crack of thunder crashes. The crowd in front of them murmured to themselves, looking to the man who had yet to die.
Three seconds and the men on stage stood there, looking skyward as the trickle became a downpour.
A downpour became a torrent as lightning struck a tree in the distance, a mere moment between the strike and the sound making it all too clear the direction the storm was heading.
No longer focused on the man about to be hanged for his crimes against the King, the crowd left the executioner and the to be killed alone in the midst of the thunderstorm.
“Guess it’s just you and me, Mister Bleu!” the giant Cole hollered over the storm, the wind having long ago picked up. “One man, his noose, and scum destined to die. Guess God wants you out of his territory quicker than I do, so I think it’s about time I obliged him and gave the Devil his due, too. Say hello to your damned posse down in hell, you sinful piece of”
One.
When the bolt struck the stage, the bodies which had earlier been arrayed on the stage like tree ornaments trembled, muscles still conducting their duty long after their tour with their bodies had ended. The nearest corpse to Carlos and the Cole exploded, the guts, blood, and bile spraying all over the lawman and the criminal.
The Cole, with his stirrup still pointed at the back of Carlos, and steel-toed boots fared better. Not by much, though, Carlos mused as the hand that had before been saving him from falling into the bed in front of him was launched backwards, dragging the outlaw a few feet back. Momentum, Carlos prayed, don’t let me swing back just yet. Dragging his feet as hard as he could, the wet wood below his feet cracked under the pressure. A combination of luck and horrible, horrible timing collaborating together to ruin his day even further, Carlos kicked one last time.
The crunch of formerly dry, unstable wood beneath his buckskin boots was the last thing he heard before the fall. That fall, followed by the crunch of his legs as he kept moving forward allowed him one last thought before stopping him in his tracks completely. “Alive?” he said out loud, realizing the strain he was under moments after speaking erroneously. No, he was dead, at least he would be if he didn’t get out of his current predicament. The rope, which had before been taut, had tightened after his drop, the curvature of the angle the rope was being tugged at being the only thing stopping him from dropping into the skeleton-filled pit below.
Face burning with oxygen deprivation, Carlos swung his head to the left, grasping for something, anything, as he realized there was little stopping him from falling further except the crumbling wood above him. The same ash that had sprinkled his neck and hair earlier now formed a cohesive sludge, scalding themselves to his skin with the heat emanating from the earlier lightning strike.
Gnashing his teeth, Carlos managed to turn his body around, seeing for himself how tightly the rope dug against his throat and the decayed wood giving way. The day was not getting better, he considered, his eyes bulging as he scrambled for a plan. Wood. Rope. Splinters. No air. Total eclipse of the day. Rope. Rope.
Rope.
That was it! Swinging his body sideways, Carlos gambled. Gambling his sins away in Comstock, gambling his sins here. One last trip to avoid paradise. The road to perdition, Styx, hell, it all could wait. He had one last struggle in him at least.
Swinging back and forth as the air in his lungs began to give way for carbon dioxide, Carlos’ face darkened further. With another crack, the rope broke through another section of wood. Any closer, any further, and. And.
And silence. Lightning struck again, the same exact spot as before, but now, instead of behind him, the shock was through the floorboard in front of him. The smell of burning, yet wet wood festered in his nostrils as he continued to swing, his plan changing rapidly once the smoke cleared. If I can catch my legs on the metal latch for the hangman’s drop, Carlos ruminated, maybe I can use the rope a little better. Barely having time to think, Carlos shifted his body so that his swinging was diagonal, succeeding in catching his leg on the latch.
Twisting his body back and forth now, Carlos’ still near-bulging eyes stared at the end of the rope, only for him to catch sight of something rising from its’ post-lightning launching. The Cole, body infused with what could only be a lightning cracked glow. Or something, Carlos feared, shivering as he rotated his body more fiercely to cut the rope. The Cole was shambling towards the gallows, feeling around his waist for his pistol, only to fail to find it.
As the monstrous Cole stumbled around, Carlos ran out of breath, his arms drooping down as the darkness from before loomed heavily on his capacity to remain conscious. Must find air, Carlos despaired, hands slowly returning to his neck as he attempted to loosen the noose. Digging his sharp chin downwards, he tensed his neck as hard as he could manage, the sweat and rain giving him just enough leverage to squeeze himself into it.
However, he was soon finding himself in a different quandary. Can’t move my damned neck, he shouted at himself, his breathing short and shallow, drowning in a pool of water and hemp rope. Coughing as the rain began to pour through small holes in the wood, lightning struck again, attracted to the metal gelding of the pulley, burning right through the rope. Like a cat rediscovering gravity, Carlos realized that nothing was holding him up anymore.
What had he been thinking earlier, that he wasn’t going to even hit the ground? As time seemed to slow around him, Carlos began to drop, the near-iron grip he’d had on the iron latches for the trap door now meaningful under the endless tirade of water and his own mass. The first eleven feet of his fall were terrifying, but the last half a foot was worse.
The crunch of landing, of bone shattering, was not an unusual sound for Carlos to hear. The mine he had worked in growing up had seen cave-ins, ancient dead bodies, the occasional animated skeleton, but the crunch was audible enough to cause him to shiver.
Letting his head loll back as the pain began to electrify his entire body, he noticed something peculiar. A shard. Bone. Rolling his back a little, Carlos felt something sharp embedded in him, something not quite metallic, but equally painful. Rolling over to his side, he looked to where he had lain before, to see arm bones long ago left down in this pit to rot. Part of the Ulna was missing, he noticed, feeling the missing shape finding a new home in what was decidedly NOT an arm.
Soaking wet, Carlos began to limp forward, to the wooden steps out of the pit. After all, they occasionally needed to clean this thing out, so there had to be some, right? Although his vision was blurred by the continuous rain, he, at least, found himself at the edge. Feeling around, he groped and groped until he found the rotted wood planks, grasping hard. Had to move. Had to get out of here before the Cole found his gun.
Splinters digging into Carlos’ hands with each rung conquered, the outlaw kept climbing. Moving. Moving. Moving. Kept moving up. Digging his fingers hard, he hoisted himself over the edge into the open, rain still battering everything in sight. Including, much to Carlos’ horror, a rapidly approach Cole with his pistol found and drawn.
“Thought you, thought you could get away from me, scumlord?” the Cole grated out, his gravelly voice rougher than before, “I got you now. No noose. Just me, you, and three bullets to your damned heathen skull”. Aiming his gun shakily, the Cole closed one eye, his remaining eye glowing with the Stygian energy that propelled his life. Much like all other Coles of the law, Carlos mused to himself, as he resigned himself to what was unfolding, this one had to be infused with some sort of energy. Stygian in his case. Death. Each time that Cole killed or was around someone who was killed, they gained some of their life force. If he’d known that, he wouldn’t have offed the Cole’s henchman during their chase, he mourned to himself, shaking his head.
Licking his lips and raising the gun again for theatrical effect, the Cole’s eyes glowed with infernal energy, slowly lowering his gun again.
Too slowly.
Lightning struck again, guided to the Cole with the metallic cylinder in his hand, however complex as it was. Caught alight by the lightning, the lawman stood there, jape agape, his whole body singed with the lightning that had struck him already and again. Before he could even fall, lightning struck thrice, four times, and a fifth, each shading him an extra bit closer to coal. The Cole stood there, aloft yet on the ground, silent.
“Fuck” a heavy voice whispered, the bearer of the King’s law slowly collapsing as he spoke.
Scooting away as quickly as he could, Carlos found himself buried by the Cole, the fire-bound ashes that had come from his constant smoking before now erupting from every opening in the Cole’s body. Caked in burning hot ash, the rainwater was seared into Carlos skin, his hair, his breath stolen from him. Body twitching, Carlos was suddenly still.
Darkness.
He couldn’t see, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t feel anything.
A flash of light. Piercing sensations of dull memories drill into his skull, the feeling numb, yet apparent. A crackle of energy. Life.
An hour later, Carlos emerged from the ash, still soot-covered, but alive. The rain had petered to a halt by this point, Carlos noted, struggling to walk forward as the rain washed away the sludge that was formerly the Cole. Slowly limping through town, Carlos stumbled into a nearby bar, the inhabitants staring at him like he’d just grown a second, or even third, head. Slowly turning his head, Carlos came face to face with a stranger. A mirror. He looked. Different. His eyes, formerly a dark even blue, were now a crackling red, pulsing with slight tremors with each breath. The little nicks across his face, from years of mine work, glowed. His black hair, deep auburn.
He was no longer just an outlaw.
He was a Cole.
