The Circle E. B. Ranch was a swollen blister of affluence on the desolate Pecos River valley. The aging proprietor strode from the porch of his immense home to greet The Hatchetman at the main gate as he tethered his horse.
“Merrick String. The veritable Hatchetman of Apache Pass, as I live and breathe. Had I known we were expecting a bona fide war hero, I’d have had a feast ready!”
The rancher known as E. B. Günther locked eyes with The Hatchetman and vigorously shook his hand.
“Your efforts to cure the New Mexico territory of the native threat precede you.”
The Hatchetman broke eye contact. Only for a heartbeat.
“I got a block of ice that goes real well with a bottle of rye,” Günther said. “Come on in.”
The two sat in a garishly appointed den. Taxidermied hunting trophies, leather-bound volumes with unbroken spines, and polished rifles festooned the walls. It was the refuge of a man who came from nothing and had no idea how to make it appear natural once he found himself with entirely too much.
“Now what can I help you with, Mr. String?”
The Hatchetman splayed his worn leather-bound diary on one thigh, pencil nub hovering just above it.
“I’m searching for a chuck wagon cookie. I’ve heard tell you once employed him.”
Günther took an exaggerated draw off his glass of rye, and rummaged through a small cedar box for a cigarillo.
“I’ve employed thousands at the Circle E. B. Ranch. Hell, I first raised these timbers at the age of seventeen. Nary a cock whisker on me! You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t remember every single hand. Can you be more specific?”
“I reckon this was about thirty-five years ago or so. Corpulent man. Wore a bowler hat.”
“Thirty-five years ago?” The rancher quipped. “You can’t expect me to—”
“Boiled his own fucking head in a Dutch oven.”
Günther shot up from his chair. “You son of a bitch. Almost made it to the finish line without that business coming back to haunt me.”
The Hatchetman let the rancher breathe, allowing time for whatever resistance was left to drain away.
Finally, Günther took his seat.
“His name was Ephraim Tibbets. I needed a dough puncher for longer runs. Colorado, Louisiana, and such. Held a hiring drive at the local watering hole. That fat whoreson Tibbets was in line, greasy hat in hand, offering up his services. Figured a man that stout had to be a good cook. Plus, he already had his own chuck wagon, which saved me the cost of building one.”
The Hatchetman’s pencil nub danced across the diary page in practiced shorthand, absorbing every detail.
“We put him up in the bunkhouse with the rest of the cowpokes. Ended up having to build him an entirely separate shack, on account of him being so godforsaken smelly. Man had a strong aversion to soap. His chuck wagon was a whole ‘nother story. Must’ve been thirty coats of black lacquer on it. Looked like a god damned shadow, even at high noon. Downright odd. Still, he cooked like you wouldn’t believe. I had my own house cook by then, and I was still sneaking out at sunup for Ephraim’s biscuits.”
Günther refilled his glass with a shaky, liver-speckled hand. The Hatchetman got the sense he was fortifying himself against something.
“Time went by. My business grew. I had more cattle. More employees. More complaints about Ephraim. His demeanor had always been rough, that wasn’t new. It was the other stuff. The shit he’d say in his sleep, the books he’d buy from unsavory folks along the way. My boys couldn’t read, but they peeked at them while Ephraim was serving up beans, or heeding nature’s call. Disturbing drawings, they said. Lost a couple cowboys in the middle of a thousand-head cattle drive from Colorado because of them.”
The Hatchetman rested his pencil nub in the fold between two pages, and massaged his aching hand.
“I’m surprised your men didn’t just run Tibbets off.”
“Almost came to that,” Günther said. “The two boys who quit came back here to collect their belongings. I told them I’d fire Ephraim when everyone got back, but I still had a thousand head of cattle in transit, which meant I needed happy cowboys, which meant I needed a cook feeding them, even if he was going batshit. I doubled those two boy’s pay to stay on, and told the rest of my men I’d double their pay if they stayed on until the end.”
“And that worked?” The Hatchetman asked.
“It did, until it didn’t.”
The Hatchetman picked up his nub.
“By the time those two boys got back to the drive, Ephraim had gotten considerably worse. Holding full-on conversations with vultures. Screaming gibberish about how he ain’t got no place in the livin’ world into the night sky. Still, he cooked, and his chow was outstanding. Those damned biscuits. That and my extra money kept them driving those cattle home.”
“One night, Ephraim lit out to jaw with some Pueblo medicine man by them cliff dwellings around Puye. Cowboys said they were relieved to be rid of him for a few hours. They passed a bottle, sang some songs, and went to bed feeling good for the first time since they first hit the trail.”
Günther filled his glass to overflowing. Sweat darkened his shirt. He occasionally pulled a curtain back to peer outside, as if mentioning Tibbets might conjure his presence back to the ranch.
“The screaming woke them up. It was barely sunrise; coals were still red in the campfires. It came from behind the chuck wagon. That’s where they found him. His big Dutch oven was hanging on a hook over his cook fire, and he was…”
The Hatchetman nodded, signaling the old rancher to take as much time as he needed.
“Tibbets must’ve been at it for hours; dunking his head in that boiling water, surfacing for air, doing it again. Skin and meat sloughing off his skull like a stew chicken. The raw hollows of his eye sockets. His stained teeth, no longer hidden behind his sooty beard and chapped lips, moved up and down, as if he was trying to say something.”
“And then what happened?”
“My people got on their horses and left Tibbets in their dust. Supposed to be a two-day trip, but they managed it in one. Cattle were exhausted and dehydrated. Some had to be put down. I was furious about it until I’d heard what happened. All those work-hardened men talking at once, like frightened kiddies telling their pappy about a dog getting run over. I grabbed the men who still had balls left in them, and rode out. I was just starting out, and broke as all get-out. They’d left equipment behind I couldn’t afford to replace.”
“Did you find the camp?”
“I did. Tibbets was gone, but everything was still there. Bedrolls, saddles, even that God-forsaken chuck wagon. Made you nauseous just looking at it. The boys packed up, and I went ahead and opened its back gate, figuring I’d salvage pots and knives for the next cookie I hired.”
Without warning, Günther pulled a spittoon from a corner, and vomited into it. When he’d finished, he looked at The Hatchetman with watery eyes.
“And…I saw it. That burlap bag, bottom dark with stale blood. Reckoned it was full of soup bones or some such. Something inside me told me not to look, but it was like I was watching myself reach for it, undoing the twine holding it closed, my mind screaming for me to stop.”
The Hatchetman leaned forward in anticipation of whatever came next.
“Those shoes. Hundreds of little leather children’s shoes, with their little beads and buckles. Some with little feet still stuffed in them. That’s when I knew. The desert sun hitting that black lacquer turned the inside of that chuck wagon into a veritable oven. That’s how he rendered the fat out of those little bodies. Sweet merciful Christ. I’d eaten hundreds of those biscuits…”
Günther grabbed the sloshing spittoon and let loose another volley.
“Children…” The Hatchetman let it float in the air between them like a grotesque balloon.
“Books and supplies weren’t all Ephraim was procuring on his little expeditions. Was going to put a bounty on him, but decided against it. Didn’t want the law sniffing around my livelihood. Besides, ain’t no way he’d survived what he done to himself.”
“What did you do with the chuck wagon, and Tibbets’ things?” The Hatchetman asked, no longer writing.
“Tried burning it. Wouldn’t catch on account of whatever retardant he’d mixed up in all that lacquer. Was like trying to burn stone. I buried the shoes, gave those kids whatever dignity I could, and left that abominable wagon where it stood. Figured nature would reclaim it. As for his belongings, there’s an armful of his books down in my root cellar. Everything else was tossed in a bonfire, including that smelly old shack of his.”
The old man, chest heaving and chin glistening, had exhausted himself recounting the tale; a confession that drained the soul instead of setting it free. The Hatchetman asked for directions to the medicine man Tibbets visited. Günther obliged, but not before demanding The Hatchetman take Tibbets’ books with him.
“You hate it,” Günther said as The Hatchetman strode for the door.
“Hate what?”
Günther reached for an antique blunderbuss mounted on the wall and absently polished it with a handkerchief. “Hate what you done. Apache Pass. I saw your face when I brought it up. You want my advice? Leave this Tibbets business alone. It won’t bring back none of them Indians you hacked up.”
The Hatchetman paused, hand hovering over the doorknob.
“I imagine it’s similar to knowing you’re responsible for employing someone who killed countless children and fed their fat to unsuspecting folks. Guess we just have to live with our sins. That, or we do something about them.”
Günther winced. “I suppose those are the two available options, yes.”
The Hatchetman put Tibbets’ books in his saddlebag, and rode from the Circle E. B. Ranch in the direction of Carlsbad. The cooling evening air was sweet with wild lavender.
He was several hundred yards away when the muted bark of a blunderbuss discharging perked the ears of his horse.
The setting sun was a bloody coin in the sky.
•••
Nestled by a small fire, The Hatchetman’s body spasmed with the sudden onset of sleep. Flames guttered in a light breeze as he slipped deeper and deeper into a dream seasoned by the revelations of the day.
A young Merrick building a cabin in the unyielding heat. His smiling wife Etta coming to greet him with a cool jar of lemonade. The smell of her hair as she embraced him, despite his being caked in sweat and sawdust. Both of them washing in the stream that evening. Making love on a nearby picnic blanket as the sun dips behind canyon walls. Melting into each other like—
—Glistening fat seeping from a small boy’s corpse as it bakes inside the black chuck wagon. Thick, yellow fluid draining from precise slits, collecting in an iron bucket below–
—A frazzled Etta holds their infant daughter Mildred, pacing around the cabin to ease her crying. Merrick pulling his boots on, another long day of pounding iron at the smithy ahead. “Just leave already, like you always do.” She tells him, tears cascading down flushed cheeks. Not knowing what else to do, he–
—Lumbers over to several children playing on the edge of town. He offers them peppermints. They take them greedily. “You ain’t allowed in,” a ruddy-faced girl with a pronounced limp tells him. “On account of everyone having the fever. Us kids who ain’t sick get to play here, though.” Excited breath whistles through his nose. His heart thrums against his gravy-spackled shirt, and the ether-soaked pocket square tucked inside one suspender strap, as he grabs for–
—Etta as she fights against him. Flies swarm unwashed cookware in the sink. Their hungry daughter screams as her parents tussle. “Why haven’t you fed the baby? What’s happening to you?” Etta howls and struggles against the protective bear hug he’s put her in, not wanting her to hurt herself, or to hurt Mildred. He–
—Cracks open a book resting on a bucket in his shack. He strains to make out words, silently working his mouth as a grimy fingernail passes under terms like “manducation” and “autosarcophagy.” A torn page is pasted next to his cot; an illustration of a snake eating its own tail with the word “ouroboros” printed underneath it. He reaches into a pocket, produces a golden, flaky biscuit from it, and–
—Asks the doctor if Etta’s behavior is normal. She is sitting in a rocking chair facing the wall, her head resting on her left shoulder, giving her the affectation of a curious puppy. “Lethargy is a common side effect of laudanum. Just make sure she takes it until her nerves are settled.” The doctor exits, leaving Merrick to feed Mildred a dinner of breadcrumbs soaked in cow’s milk. He lifts her out of her crib, cooing, removes her lavender bonnet, and–
—Kneads a ball of dough with his meaty fists. Hungry cowboys are yawning in their bedrolls. His yellow-brown smile is–
—Drooping. He holds a bouquet of wildflowers he picks on his walk home to discover the front door wide open. He announces his arrival to an empty house. No Mildred in the crib. No Etta in her chair. He looks out the window and spies a corner of their picnic blanket peeking from behind a tuft of sweetgrass on the stream bank. He smiles. That’s when he notices the empty bottle of laudanum. And that the cleaver he made her is missing from its hook. And a torn page from the unused diary he’d bought her that reads “I’m sorry.” He sprints out the door, toward–
—A pair of vultures pecking at a prairie dog carcass. He approaches slowly. The carrion birds break from their meal, and appraise the corpulent man with a cool, almost royal indifference. “I seen you over here eatin’. My-my name is Ephraim. I’d like a job.” He quickly swipes his hat off to prove his deference. “I got books. One of ‘em says to approach y’all when I’m ready, or some such.” The vultures’ polished coal eyes assess the groveling human. And then, after a long pause, one of them scratches at the sand with a clawed foot. It is all the confirmation Tibbets needs. He—
—Frantically stumbles to the stream. Etta bobs face-down in the gentle current, legs anchored to bank mud. Her forearms play host to desperate crosshatches of slashwork. The cleaver is missing. Probably in the stream, slowly being covered by silt. A wad of blood-spattered linen lays crumpled on the picnic blanket. There is something buried inside the linen, something small, and still. Merrick drops to his knees, screaming. It’s not so much an act of lamentation as it is his heart attempting to escape his horror-stricken body. He doesn’t know how long he’s been kneeling there, or when his neighbor Bode Straub arrives. “Oh, oh god damn. It was them God damn Apache, wasn’t it? God damn it, Merrick. Get your guns. You can mourn later. Let’s get them bastards while they’re still close.” What can he say? That his wife butchered their baby before taking her own life? The truth is too awful to admit to himself, let alone a near stranger like Bode. No, it’s easier to just agree it was Apache, the catch-all boogeymen of the west. It was Indians. It was Indians who did it. Of course, it was Indians. He’d hunt for the Indians. After that, he would bury his—
—pain in the sand his fists clutch on both sides of the cook fire as he submerges his head in the boiling cauldron. Flashes of color flicker before his eyes as they rupture, floating out of their sockets like steamed jellyfish. Bellows of anguish escape his blistering mouth in the form of air bubbles, which quietly burst on the surface of the steaming vat of human broth. “Soon,” he thought crazily. “Soon I will meet the”–
—“Bastards who did this to my family,” Merrick repeats like a desperate mantra as he stalks through the Dragoon Mountains. Tanned Chiricahua Apache warriors ride bareback, defending against the might of the California Column at the Battle of Apache Pass. A war club pings off the back of his skull, sending him sprawling forward, rifle skittering into the hardscrabble. A Chiricahua warrior whoops as he dismounts from his horse, brandishing a knife. Merrick rights himself and produces a steel hatchet from his belt; the last thing he forged in his smithy before he sold it to Bode and joined the Union Army. Merrick whirls around the warrior’s stabbing lunge, and buries the hatchet into his back. After that, there’s nothing but chopping. And blood. And pleading in a language Merrick cares not to understand in his senseless rage. And screaming. And his wife’s pale corpse begging him to stop. And his baby’s broken body wriggling in bloody linens. And chopping. And chopping. And—
•••
The Hatchetman bolted upright from a bed roll dark with sweat. His chest heaved with the effort of recollecting air he’d screamed out in his sleep. A turkey vulture rested on a petrified log not twenty feet from where he lay. It gazed at him placidly with its shiny black eyes buried in its scalded red face.
The details of the dream ebbed as he packed, but flickerings of horror and shame lingered long into the ride to Puye.
•••
The Hatchetman reached the Pueblo ghost city the following evening. An azure-cyan sky swelled behind the sheer cliff faces of the mesa, still gilded by the dwindling rays of the day.
He trotted around debris along the crumbling wall’s edge, examining endless rows of black holes carved high into the red rock face. None showed signs of occupation, save for the handful which had become shit-speckled bird roosts.
When sundown yielded to a night sky choked with pinprick stars, The Hatchetman went about gathering kindling. He fed his horse the last crabapple from his saddlebag and rested on a wind-blunted stone with some dried beef for himself.
As he chewed, The Hatchetman soaked in the loneliness of the desert cliffs; the jarring lack of presence. The medicine man may have moved on, or simply died in the years since Tibbets spoke with him. He would be old, too old for scrambling up rickety ladders, or long horseback treks for provisions.
Just as he decided he’d backtrack to the nearest town at sunup, The Hatchetman caught a glimpse of something in the cliff wall. He smothered the fire with a few kicks of sand, and waited for his eyes to readjust.
A steady orange glow illuminated a cave opening at the far end of the mesa wall, maybe two-hundred feet high. He remounted his weary horse and rode over to investigate.
When he reached the wall, a rope ladder hung from the cave opening. The Hatchetman tested its strength with a foot on one rung, then ascended at an awkward, twisting pace.
Lantern light danced on smooth carved walls, revealing recessed shelving holding all manner of pottery, herbs, tools, and books. The low ceiling was black with soot of ten thousand fires.
Sitting on the floor, draped in a banded woolen blanket, rested a wizened man with a brown, heavily wrinkled face.
“Do you speak English?” The Hatchetman inquired.
The medicine man pointed to his ear and nodded in the affirmative, but then pointed to his mouth, and shook no.
“My name is Merrick String. I was hoping to speak with you about someone I’m looking for.”
The Pueblo man grinned with far too many teeth for someone of age. He scurried to a corner of the dwelling, and produced a slab of slate and a stick of chalk.
He motioned for The Hatchetman to sit by a small fire, over which a kettle steamed. The Hatchetman obliged, and was handed a tin mug of greenthread tea.
The old man used his chalk to write.
My name is Okawae. Who are you looking for?
“This was thirty-five years ago. I believe you met with a cattle drive cookie named Ephraim Tibbets. A big white man.”
Okawae quickly erased the first words, making room for more.
Don’t know him.
The Hatchetman spun the mug in his hands, revealing a stamped circle with two letters inside it. E. B. A quick glance at the kettle on the fire showed a similar Circle E. B. Ranch stamp.
The Hatchetman reached into his satchel and produced one of Tibbets’ strange books, titled A Treatise on the Gibbering Saints. He handed it to his host.
Okawae’s eyes grew large.
How?
“A man named E. B. Günther gave it to me. He employed Ephraim Tibbets.”
The elder didn’t respond. He flipped through pages, enraptured by the unnerving figures and illustrations within.
“I have more in my saddlebag. Those can also be yours, provided you tell me what I need to know.”
Okawae finally pried himself from the book, and put chalk to slate.
I will tell you what I told him.
•••
It was morning by the time The Hatchetman departed the cave. Creosote bushes on the desolate trail gave way to the Chihuahuan Desert. Sandy soil made for labored walking. The splintered peaks of the Organ Mountains loomed like the petrified remains of felled gods.
He stopped his horse in a clearing that offered a view of brushy desert expanse, and laid out his bedroll, as well as the handful of provisions he’d secured from Okawae alongside his instructions.
The first step required to gain an audience with the white man’s hell requires capturing their attention. You do something that gets you seen.
The Hatchetman collected kindling as he thought about the desiccated children’s feet Günther discovered inside the black chuck wagon; Tibbets’ greasy signal fire for the denizens of the underworld. It was a step The Hatchetman knew he needn’t dwell on. His actions at Apache Pass were sufficient.
The second step involves an act of self-sacrifice to prove yourself worthy of palaver.
A fire was lit, and a skillet full of Okawae’s cooking lard rested atop strategically placed stones to keep it flat as flames licked heat into it. The pinks and oranges of sunset yielded to bruised blues and purples.
The Hatchetman retrieved the bitter slice of ceremonial cactus Okawae had given him, and chewed it as he watched the lard deliquesce into three inches of boiling fat.
Some committed cherished belongings to fire. Others slaughtered loved ones. Not enough. Ephraim understood this. To become a servant of hell, he desecrated the very flesh the white man’s god gave him.
A tingling warmth spread through his body, quickly spread to his mind, and softened his vision. He discarded his duster, and rolled his left shirt sleeve up to his elbow. Emerging stars twinkled their horrified objections as he approached the cook fire.
Only an unnatural commitment to self-violation will prove one’s worthiness.
A searing white light flooded The Hatchetman’s eyes as he submerged his left hand into the skillet. Molten lard roiled around his wrist, sending needles of scalding spatter up his forearm. His body convulsed in an agony not previously thought possible, and he employed his right hand to keep the left from escaping too quickly. Each second was a torturous, floating eternity.
One must contemplate the ouroboros. The snake consuming itself is a sigil of eternity, as well as the act of recreation through destruction.
The Hatchetman lifted his hand from the skillet. His skin slid into the fire, where it sputtered and sizzled. His gorge rose as he appraised the curled grey mass of dead, steaming fingers. The aroma of fried meat faintly reminded him of the pork chops Etta sometimes served for supper.
You must commit to this second act with mindfulness and intent.
The Hatchetman slowly raised the ruin of his hand until it was level with his sweating face. Günther’s description of Tibbets’ self-immolation suddenly made itself present in the chill of the night air. “His stained teeth, no longer hidden behind his sooty beard and chapped lips, moved up and down, as if he was trying to say something.”
A joyless laugh coughed out of The Hatchetman as he brought his hand ever closer to his bone-dry mouth. Tibbets wasn’t trying to say something.
He was chewing.
•••
The twittering shriek of a vulture shook The Hatchetman from unconsciousness. His eyes fluttered open to a deep blue pre-dawn glow.
He took in the skeletal remains of his hand, swaddled in Okawae’s bandages. There was no Ephraim Tibbets before him. No black chuck wagon. The medicine man’s instructions hadn’t worked. There was nothing but pain, and the promise of a slow death by infection. There was–
His bleary eyes landed on something in the sun-hazed distance. Its darkness stood out against the landscape surrounding it.
With great effort, he shuffled to his horse, which he untethered from its tack, freeing it to live out its days on the plains. The horse wandered off to graze but didn’t stray far.
The Hatchetman stumbled toward the object, with only lightning strikes of pain from his hand keeping him conscious and upright for hours.
And hours.
And hours.
And—
There. Parked amongst the mesquite and tarbushes. Impossibly. The black chuck wagon loomed before The Hatchetman like a tumor on reality itself. Its midnight black lacquer radiated heat. He dropped to his knees and sobbed.
And there, perched atop the driver’s bench, was the repulsive bulk of Ephraim Tibbets.
A filthy bowler hat topped his mummified skull at an absurd angle. His considerable girth was clad in grime-caked pants and a sleeveless shirt that bore the drippings of a thousand meals.
At the head of the blighted wagon, a horrifying eight-legged amalgamation of children’s shoes and living tendons was lashed to the driver’s reins. It noticed The Hatchetman, and playfully pawed at the sandy desert floor with a leathery hoof the size of an anvil.
Tibbets’ swollen, sightless head regarded The Hatchetman, drinking in the dying man’s exhaustion and agony like brandy.
Finally, he patted the creaking driver’s bench. And there he was. The Hatchetman couldn’t recall crawling to the wagon, or scrambling up its sides. He’d somehow lost time. He was on his knees in the sand. And then he was sitting next to the gargantuan child butcher, whose ravaged mouth issued gurgling squelches.
Perhaps it was by some brand of hell magic that The Hatchetman, whose eyelids drooped with the strain of staying awake, was able to convert the muffled mastication into words.
State
Your
Business
With
Hell
With his good hand, The Hatchetman reached into his pocket, and produced the lavender baby bonnet he’d carried with him since he was a young man.
“I want to know if my wife and child are there. If they are, I wish to exchange my soul for theirs.”
A sound like tree branches throttling a clogged abattoir drain issued from Tibbets. Try as he might, The Hatchetman couldn’t make sense of it as he did before. The sloshing, rhythmic gasps grew louder, jiggling the great man’s gelatinous chest with the effort.
It was laughter.
When it finally subsided, he answered.
We
Don’t
Have
Them
The Hatchetman’s eyes bulged. Tears melted into the sweat moistening his pale cheeks. His tongue struggled, thickened by dehydration and blood loss.
“But suicide. Baby not yet baptized.”
Again, Tibbets’ meat grinder of a laugh turned The Hatchetman’s stomach, and thrummed through the lacquered bench like an approaching storm.
You
Believe
Your
God
To
Be
An
Infant
Torturer
The Hatchetman jaw slackened as an inherent truth buried under withering effort and self-deception steamed up from his core. Of course, they were safe. It had all been for nothing. Decades of self-torture and contrition in pursuit of the black chuck wagon, wasted.
Tibbets raised a flabby hand in objection, as if he were reading The Hatchetman’s mind.
Not
Wasted
And just like that, he knew. The chase was never about saving his family from an eternal suffering they’d never earned. That was a lie he fed himself to keep from swallowing a gun. He’d spent the remainder of his miserable life seeking worthy punishment for the lives he’d taken in a fit of delusion and grief that awful day. And he’d finally found it. It was as if a millstone had been lifted from his tired heart.
It
Is
Time
With that, Merrick String climbed down from the driver’s bench, and spent his last remaining strength crawling to the rear of the conveyance, where the gaping maw of the cook box awaited him. As he pulled himself inside, the darkness and searing heat embraced him like a relieved wife greeting a husband returning from war.
He grinned as he shut the heavy hatch behind him.
