The Gonzo Wolf

This was originally published in the 2025 Texas Author Con Western Horror Anthology titled “Tumble Bleed”.

If you’d like to purchase a physical copy (in either paperback or hardback), or the INCREDIBLY TALENTED audio book, go here .

I also have a couple of signed copies on hand (just me; no one else) here.

Ma’s ‘Sketti

By Rev. Dare Cloud

            All the way back to being a tiny baby boy, the only thing I wanted to do in my life was entertain folks. You know, give them all a reason to smile instead of thinking about everything that’s come and gone over the last twenty years. You’d figure the end of the big war would’ve made men breathe a sigh of relief. Well, I’m telling you there’s still a bunch of folks with their cheeks about to bust from holding it in so long. Regardless of it all, this is the moment I’ve been waiting for. I will not disappoint them.

            You see, when I was a tiny tot too young to even wipe his own bottom, I would always stand there in church singing louder than anyone else in the whole house. I didn’t have any idea what I was singing about back then, but I knew all the words by heart. Their meanings didn’t matter none.

            What did matter was that all those eyes were on me whenever I’d screech to the heavens above, and they couldn’t look away. Although some would argue the origin, it appeared as though the good lord above gave me the gift of being a singer. Times what they were in the great Black Cat Thicket, my Ma & Pa took me on a tour all over the state. The results were the same no matter which church I performed for. All eyes were on me. I had them right where I wanted them, even though I didn’t know what I could’ve wanted at age ten other than being the most famous boy in the Red River Valley.

For five long years, we ran the wheels off our old wagon going service to service. From bayou, to prairie, to the edges of the hill country, I saw everything the creator had made with his own two hands. There surely wasn’t any way I’d been anywhere near this famous if I’d just stayed home and did whatever anyone else did in The Thicket. They’d have gone off to Greenville to sling cotton down the Sabine River or even got on with the Red River Express if it recovered from the roundhouse burning down. You didn’t have much of a choice back in those days, and they’re not that much better in the here and now.

            I grew up in those years quite a bit. Most of those folks were treating me like I was the messiah himself and gave me just about everything I could’ve wanted. To tell the truth, there were some of those women who weren’t caring that I was a teenager when it came to after parties and broom closets. There were quite a few of them widows who’d lost their men to either the war or the bottle, and their pickings were limited as far as how best to relieve some Tejas tension from doing all that farming themselves. Menfolk weren’t that good at keeping secrets, and they’d end up banished from town by the local preachers. A teenage boy? Hell, there’s still some pinky swears I hold close to my heart to this very day. One of them is about to come untied, but it’s about time.

            One of the nights when I was being taught a thing or two by the enchanted and former Mrs. Mitchell, who was known for teaching for a living in one of those fancy Hunt County schools, a stranger interrupted us. He didn’t at all act surprised to see the schoolhouse madam kissing on a fifteen-year-old songbird. He shushed her away under threat of squealing her deeds to the townsfolk and took her place in the room. What he held in his right hand would soon become the best friend I’d ever known.

            “Well, Mr. Songbird,” he began. “It would appear as though you’re that little old famous boy I’ve been looking for. The one I’ve been hearing all about.”

            “Yeah, mister,” I replied, still slightly upset at my sudden loss of teacher lips. “Just what have you been hearing about me? Have you been hearing about just how damn good I am at what I do?”

            It was at that moment when an unexpected sparkle illuminated the man’s otherwise blackened eyes. I didn’t notice them when he first entered the closet because he’d had his hat brim tilted down covering his face. Also, the former Mrs. Mitchell was a bit taller than me, and she had been blocking my view. I was beginning to believe this wasn’t a mere man who’d interrupted my quest for singing excellence throughout our fair countryside. The lord’s work, and all. Honestly, I think it was my nonchalant attitude towards the Holy Father that attracted him to me in the first place. At least that’s what I’ll tell myself when it’s all said and done. I’d been receiving almost all the glory normally owed to him in the first place, so I’d gotten a little big headed. Wouldn’t you?

            Cracking the door a tad, giving each a sliver of light between us, the ill-timed messenger handed his treasure unto me. Cold at first, then searing hot as though it’d made a connection of mythic proportions, the instrument caressed the palm of my hand better than Mrs. Anybody in any broom closet in any church in any county. I breathed a deep sigh of relief as though I’d just expelled a penny’s worth of frustration into a silly wishing fountain.

            “Dear boy, I believe you misunderstand me,” he chuckled. “I’m in no need of your inconsequential vocal squealing and squeaking as though to imitate the annoying crows of the fields. Are you not from the Black Cat Thicket?”

            “Yes sir,” I answered, slightly irritated by the strange man’s rather faux-biblical insult.

            “Well, this guitar belongs to a man who lives deep in The Thicket,” he explained while simultaneously strumming the newest object of my affection. “I was just wondering if you’d be so kind as to allow this musical instrument to merely hitch a ride with such a well-known and spiritually recognized soul such as yourself. If it’s not too much to ask…”

            It was at that moment that my fingers formed minds of their own and sprang into place upon the strings. It just seemed to fit as though I’d picked up one of these guitars every day of my life, and I don’t recall ever really touching one before. I mean, I’d touched on one a few times, but never really “touched” if that means anything. I guess, in other words, a guitar and I had never shared a psychic connection; such that I felt destined to incorporate it into my act.

Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t as good as some of those colored fellows in that bughouse under the covered bridge in the bottoms, but I was just as good as some of those strait-laced preacher’s sons on the whiter sides of town. For now, that was good enough for me. My ignorant mind erupted with possibilities.

            “Mister,” I interrupted. “It would be my pleasure to accompany this fine instrument through the perils of The Thicket in journey to its master under one condition…”

            The shadowy gentleman raised his right eyebrow so high; it looked like it was going to cut a hole right through the ceiling. It was defined and sharp; I got a feeling in the pit of my stomach like this old devil was going to bow his head and cut me down to the bone and right in half! Still, I swallowed with confidence the best I could and finished my proposal.

            “And that would be what, dear boy?”

            I tried my best to hide my gulp. “Would it be too much to ask, sir, if I may use it in my act between hither and thither?”

                        His smile shone white against his somewhat tanned skin, forcing me to squint in its brilliance. It reminded me of crescent moons on dark nights in The Thicket, laying on my back in the family wagon and whistling sad songs to the kinfolk of the stars who’d fall to Earth on my watch. I was starting to get homesick for that old bog. Homesickness wasn’t good for business.

            “Oh?” he inflected, interrupting my drift away. “I wasn’t aware that you played, my boy. By all means. Play away, just make sure it arrives in The Thicket unscathed.”

            “I have piddled with a guitar a time or two, sir, and I swear on a stack of good books that this here guitar will arrive home unmolested.”

***

            It was about a year later when we began the journey home. It wasn’t like the good people of the great state of Texas were tired of me performing, it was that we couldn’t hold any more stuff in our wagon, and we’d even bought a bigger wagon and a couple of bigger horses! Me and that guitar were cleaning up.

            From the moment that old fellow left me in the closet with that guitar, we’d become the best of friends. After a couple of weeks, the word had gotten out about the Thicket church boy who’d learned to strum. Soon after, the churches couldn’t even hold the crowds. They were pouring out the pews and into the graveyards like some kind of bizarre, macabre pasture party. It wasn’t long before someone saw dollar signs. As expected, Ma & Paw began the negotiations.

            They constructed these big outdoor venues on the back side of the buildings out in the church yards where we could play all summer long to endless amounts of folks, weather permitting. You just never knew when you were going to get beat on the head by heaven’s hailstorms when you were laying it down on a sweaty, August evening. Then, it happened.

            It was on one of those particularly sweltering August nights when I was singing away into the void about one of those saints; Peter or Paul, I don’t even remember. Anyways, I was just singing away when a big storm cracked open the sky and the rain poured down like the good lord was baptizing his entire flock. Now, it wasn’t no tornado or lightning heavy kind of storm, so the preacher didn’t send everybody home. They kept on dancing, so I just kept on playing.

            It was right then and there when the god I was singing for exited the building with a tip of his hat and a finger salute. Somehow, by luck, by fate, by sinister deed, or by the laws of breeding-aged ladies in rain-soaked cotton dresses, a line of beauties aligned like a magical constellation of gyrating perfection. It was about time I adjusted my lyrics to fit my ever-evolving fan base.

            I don’t know; maybe you’ve heard of one or two? Maybe “Toot Suite”? That one was pretty popular. It goes:

I know a little lady.

And she can’t be beat.

But sometimes she lets it slip.

In her toot suite.

            Yeah, they all used to think that one was pretty good, and they’d ask me to play it two or three times at the end of every show.

            Anyways, we did that all summer long that year, and our load was getting mighty heavy. It was time to come home and unload both our wagon and us. We’d made enough money to where there’d be no need to perform or go to market until the springtime. Shoot, I even heard Ma tell Pa that we’d have enough to build onto the house in Black Cat Thicket, and we wouldn’t even have to be the ones to do the building! Pa was going to hire some folks. That, friends, is some fancy doing by the way my mind works. I couldn’t have been happier and was on pins and needles to see where it all went next.

***

            I knew we were nearing home without even coming fully awake and looking. The October morning chill felt less sharp and more soothing. Also, the leaves were a lot less crunchy from them being wet all the time. We were nearing The Thicket.

            I’d managed to grab me and my folks a wagon full of money and whatnots by singing a few songs here and there. Once I brought the guitar into the act, things changed for what some would call “the wicked.” Those old fogeys leftover from the war got interested once I brought the instrument on board and things took a mighty fine turn. You know they weren’t going anywhere without their whiskey bottles. Sure enough, those churches all became potential outdoor saloon venues six days a week with a convenient place to take a piss come Sunday morning.

            Truth was, I couldn’t care less who I was playing for. In the grand scheme of things, I was just building my following for the next couple of years so I could be old enough to move out of The Thicket and hit the big times in Greenville. That’s where all the action was, Greenville. Rumor has it that old Greenville was on schedule to be bigger than Dallas by then. I’d be singing to the lips and purses of those nice smelling ladies on those main street hotel stages. Heck, they even have an opera house there, I think. Lots of cotton money, and rich, old men with unfulfilled wives. Me and this guitar have basically carved out our destinies for the next ten years or so until we die face down in a big city gutter. That’s how I pictured it. If they’d write a play about my life someday, I mean. I’d pay to see it once, even if it were only about me up until this moment. I digress, but it’s fun to dream…

            That was the moment when the first shot rang out.

            In all the mind-bending chaos, I thought I heard a few more shots, meaning there was some fighting back on either the part of Ma or Pa. They were both packing. I mean, if you already have everything you’ve ever wanted, in a physical sense, what are you going to do with the rest of your money? Well, the first thing my mind goes to is to buy more guns. You can never have too many guns, and my parents were both strapped for the ride home. You never knew when someone was going to want to rob you on the road, and apparently Ma and Pa proved that by being caught unaware. It wasn’t like we’d been keeping our newfound wealth a secret.

            If someone had followed us all the way from down south, surely, I would’ve noticed it. Maybe not Ma and Pa because they were getting on up in the years, but surely, I would’ve noticed horses or wagons or two fellows on a horse who always seemed to be going in the same direction we were. I certainly would’ve noticed, or Coyote; he’s pretty wise to that type of mysterious intention. I’ve talked about him before, right? Coyote, the guitar. I’d never even thought about giving a guitar a name until it told me it already had one. I’m not sure I would’ve gotten as good as I was if it weren’t for all his nightly words of encouragement.

            He had dreams too, that Coyote, and I had every intention of helping him out the same as he did me all along this singing tour that was now coming to an abrupt end. We’ll get to all of that in a moment. First, let me tell you about old Coyote.

            It seems there was this freed man, black fellow, made some folks mighty mad over a bad cotton deal in Greenville. Those cotton barons weren’t treating him properly and paying him what he’s owed so he shot one of those old dollar men dead in the street. I mean, it was those rich men’s fault for being so greedy. Freed man or not, he’d been given some of the same land he’d picked cotton on during the slave days and began turning a profit. Some of the poorer white folks started to get jealous and a deal was made to rid this man of his newfound endeavors. Well, he wasn’t having none of it because he drew his pistol and spilled that fat bastard all over Lee Street. By the time anyone wrapped their heads around the idea that a freed man would’ve had the audacity to clear the mind, literally, of one of Greenville’s high and mighty, he’d turned and ran.

            He’d made it all the way to Black Cat Thicket by the time the lynch mob caught up to him. He was waist deep in the Sulphur River when he was lassoed back to shore. Of course, the sheriff was one of the vigilantes so there wasn’t anyone trying to stop the spectacle. That lasso slipped smoothly up and became that man’s death noose as he was yanked out of the river. They tossed it up over those old Bald Cyprus trees on the bank and hung him dead. Money, as I was in the process of finding out – we’ll get to that in a moment – was the root of all evil.

            You see, Coyote was that tree because of tree spirits and such. I know you know about them already. That freed man made a deal with Old Scratch in his final moments to get revenge on all the old fellows who’d hung him. In that moment, with a shake of Satan’s mighty fist, he ripped the finished shape of a guitar right out of old Coyote’s roots. Painted with the blood of that old cotton farmer, it soon made its way into the hands of an old strummer who’d do all the murder. We’ll talk about all that some other time, perhaps. Right now, me and Coyote are bobbing in the waters of the Sulphur River and coming to grips with what just happened. The robbery, I mean. My folks were dead, and all our money and trinkets were gone.

***

            When I came back into consciousness, I wasn’t sitting alone. It wasn’t any of the bandits that took care of my Ma and Pa or anyone else meaning to do me harm. It was carrying the same face as me but not like me at all. It was a Black Cat Brave. It was the real Coyote standing above his guitar on the banks of the Sulphur River like a ghost to its stone in the graveyard. I managed to grab it out of instinct when I leapt from the wagon.

            Now, the Black Cat Braves were a gang of wanted Natives who’d made our government’s finest look like buffoons for several years out in The Thicket. If you weren’t from there, you weren’t going to find nothing or no one, especially some fellows who were born on the land instead of traipsing through one of the white man’s finest educational establishments. Of course, it didn’t help any that me and the folks in town helped them out from time to time when they’d get a bit in over their heads with the patrols. In return, they kept things out of The Thicket that white men wouldn’t understand. Cursed animals and bad things, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

            “Thank you,” Coyote whispered with sincerity. “Thank you for bringing me back home.”

            “Well, you are mighty welcome, Mr. Coyote, sir,” I replied, trying to gather my thoughts for the next step in the game. Having my parents killed did put a bit of a hitch in my newly formed plans. I’m not meaning to sound selfish, but let’s face it, my fate made little difference in the directions of their lives since I’d already made enough coin to set them up for life. In all fairness to my ability of placing checkmarks in boxes, I did exactly that by proxy.

            I don’t think it’s proper to ask too much of Native ways, so I can safely assume that they become trees when they die, or they get put into the ground and fed to the trees like some kind of natural, branching consciousness throughout the planet and more of him went into this one tree than any other. That’s how I imagine it, anyways. Regardless, we were within a stone’s throw of what this spiritual being referred to as home.

            Right as rain, just like in the bedtime stories he told me in all those hotels and guest rooms abroad, there was the exact shape of the guitar missing from the tree. You could even see the splinters from where that old devil ripped it out of its heart. His old claw marks lined either side of it, giving me a bit of a chill down my already frigid spine. Reading about the man at church was one thing, but seeing proof of his physical existence, according to legend and old Coyote, that is, is something else entirely.

            Regardless, it appeared as though the Brave was finally going to get some rest after a hellacious journey of carnage and revenge the likes of which I wished they’d also make into some kind of play or stage production. I doubt people would pay money to get scared, though. It’s silly when you think about it.

            I couldn’t help but think that I was a major cause of this family catastrophe. Sure, my folks went crazy with showing it all off, but they wouldn’t have much to show off if I hadn’t taken things to the extreme. A large part of me thought I was punished for my greed by removing those I cared for most. But who would do such a thing to the singing angel who’d brought so much happiness to the people far and wide? Coyote could see me scratching my head deep in thought with my trousers sinking further into the mud; he brought me back into the moment.

            “My friend, I can’t help but feel my journey home has somehow put you and yours in unspeakable danger,” he said.

            “Nonsense, Coyote, my friend, we were going this way to go home to The Thicket. What caused their demise was our combined love of things fancy; our love of being admired. It’s a horrible trait, sir, and it’s damaged two thirds of my current family unit. This will just be one of those missteps I’ll have to live with for…”

            “My friend,” he pleaded. “Please do not place that instrument back into the tree from whence it came. I am indebted to you for returning me to what was once the land of my people. As repayment, I will provide the means for which you may achieve vengeance for your losses.”

            The nearly transparent image of the spirit I knew as Coyote knelt at my feet, vowing eternal service until my cup of revenge runneth over. At first, I really didn’t think it would be worth the effort since I never got a look at anyone responsible. I couldn’t just go around all willy nilly killing anyone who looked like they might’ve murdered and robbed someone on a lonely road through The Thicket. Do you know how much killing that would be? Well, I do, and it’s a lot. Luckily, Coyote did manage to get a peep at them as we tumbled out of the wagon. Apparently, things like twisted stomachs and vertigo don’t affect inanimate objects. I’d never even thought to ask before.

            I looked at the dedication upon my spiritual friend’s face and thought to myself there was no way I could say “no” to that. I couldn’t help but think he sort of got his jollies by inflicting pain and whatnot on others, or he wouldn’t be begging to help me while he stood three feet away from his peaceful eternity. Just one big push from me, and the world’s oddest tree gets its spirit back. Then again, most folks don’t have a good friend like me.

            “I accept your offer, sir,” I said, placing my hand atop what would’ve been his physical shoulder if he were still alive. Instead, it felt like I was standing in springtime and somehow managed to stick my pinky finger right back into winter. “In return, once my bloody vision has come to fruition, I shall take you back to this tree or another tree of your choosing.”

            He placed his equally chilled hand atop my own shoulder and bowed in agreement.

***

            And now, we’re finally here. The tobacco smoke hangs still in the air, making it difficult to breathe behind the curtain. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to how much these frontier cowboys smoke that stuff. Some of it happens to smell a bit off – a little more natural; skunky even – and I could easily see myself getting wrapped up in that like a warm, snuggly blanket. It smells like home.

            I don’t mean “home;” the place. I mean “home;” the feeling. I think it was something we were teased with for nine months before our Ma’s spit us out onto a clean spot or a dirty spot. Maybe that determines who we are as a person; where we were spat out into the world; a clean sport or a dirty spot. Anyways, we spend our entire lives searching for the euphoric safety of “home.”

            Now, I’ve never been so incredibly intoxicated that I couldn’t walk or hold the load in my britches, but I imagine that’s what it must feel like. Maybe intoxication reminds us of the womb. We destroy ourselves with the bottle because it feels like home. Anyways, it’s an unexplored avenue, per se, if I need one in a pinch.

            Home.

            It’s been a year since me and Coyote took off walking toward the sunset on that chilly October Sunday. The newspapers all said that my Ma & Pa were both shot in the head when they were robbed. As far as my fate was concerned, they thought my body was thrown into the river and gone forever, out to sea for a million fishes to nibble my unmentionables. I was a young man now in a world where nobody knew my name; at least the name ‘twas given to me upon birth.

            After gathering my bearings on the banks of the river, I realized that I had enough pocket money to live on for a bit if I were frugal. When I ran out of money, I’d play for tips in the saloons from town to town following the scent of those who’d done me eternally wrong. Old Coyote knew exactly what direction they were heading since he lived in the spirit world and all. Mystical place, that spirit world. It’ll tell you just about anything you want to know if you just succumb to the desires of the night whisperers. You’re just a vessel, after all. What harm is a hitchhiker or two in the grand scheme of things? They make good conversations in the lonely moments.

            Town to town, we only seemed to be a few days behind them for the longest time. During the day, me and Coyote would write songs and practice until the skin upon my fingertips could endure no more. When the sun went down, we played the largest saloon in whatever town we lay our heads, eat like kings, and have our fill of the local snogging trough. It was a never-ending intensification of debauchery from the outskirts of Dallas on into the west. The lawlessness became more apparent as soon as we left the United States. When we hit the Arizona territory, I truly believed I stood at the gates of Hades itself. I was the furthest from church steps I’d ever been, and I was in love.

            “Alright, boys, we got ourselves a good one tonight,” came the announcer’s voice on the other side of the curtain. I took a deep breath and awaited the parting of the veil. Ma’s ‘Sketti. Coyote says that’s a Native word for “Good Luck.”

            “Now, this little feller, he doesn’t look like much, but he sure packs a wallop!” continued the man who more than likely obtained his employment for simply being the loudest man who applied. “If you don’t believe me, you can ask anyone who’s seen his performance between here and Abilene, especially some of them women folk. It’s rumored he’s been rather gifted in that area as well…”

            The man carried on with my unwarranted come-up – I’d be more than happy to show them all myself if he’d shut his frontier trap. Poon. – and I strummed a “G” chord as quietly as I could just to make sure I was still in tune. It was the best way to tell on the go. I normally worried not since Coyote kind of took care of himself just like he was another human being always standing by my side. Couldn’t anyone else see him, but I knew he was there, always standing tall with his hand upon my shoulder like he did that day on the banks of the Sulphur River in my nearly forgotten home of Black Cat Thicket.

            “Misters and Mistresses, The Screaming Coyote Saloon of Hutchinson Ridge proudly presents Lil’ Diablo!”

            The saloon lanterns pelted my face like a firing squad as the curtains revealed Coyote’s selection. The man who introduced me was wrong of his assumptions in every sense of the word. Couldn’t anyone between here and Abilene tell anyone anything about the antics of Lil’ Diablo and Coyote, because we rarely left anyone alive to tattle on us to the next town. Nothing big – little places here and there between the bigger settlements so nobody would really be missed all that much. By the time the news reached anyone in a position of authority, me and Coyote were long gone and disappeared. Then, when we crossed the border, the carnage was inconsequential. Whoever was left standing at the end of the night walked on sans challenge.

            “Please, old friend,” I inquired beneath my breath. “Tell me you knew the finality of our quest would synonymously resemble your nomenclature.”

            I could feel him smile in jest upon the palms of my hands with joyful energy. He vibrated against my body, eager to sample the night’s delicacies. Spirit or not, we all must feed.

            My first song of the set, the only song necessary to satiate my destiny, slapped the walls of the establishment like a scorned lover across the face. The words came as I’d rehearsed:

Well, I’s born out on the wrong side of the river,

Always starving, poor as dirt, and worn-out shoes

The good lord surely gave me what I needed.

This guitar to play those Black Cat Thicket blues.

            The Black Cat Thicket blues. Oh, I used to have them for certain. Growing up in the marshes and flood plains between both the Sabine and Sulphur rivers, I can spot a fawney from a mile away. At least I can now since me and Coyote were best pals. These old sod busters, cattle drivers, and part-time bandits never knew a life as hard as the one you’d live down in The Thicket. I don’t care how deadly they claim the frontier could be, it feels like a merry journey, for the most part.

Well, my Ma & Pa were killed out on the roadside.

Lift me dry, left me high, and left me sad.

The good lord surely gave me what a wanted.

A way to make the bad times not so bad.

Silly bastards. “Good” is a point of view. Just because everyone’s mind immediately goes to the man in the clouds. No, this song is praising the dark lord below, the one who made me realize my true purpose in life. Was I doing this to avenge the deaths of my parents still, or had I discovered a higher – or lower – calling. Trust me, my good lord and your good lord wouldn’t make good bed fellows. Still, that doesn’t mean they should waste a perfectly good bed on semantics. Ah, now for the chorus. My favorite part.

Amici, ad infernum & venite

Just when you thought your world was going well.

Those Black Cat Thicket blues are never picky.

Hello, my friends, I welcome you to Hell.

            The demonic voice that came out during the first line of the chorus was Coyote’s work. Sometimes he jumped inside me and used my mouth to do his bidding in the physical world. It was then that Coyote came to life to do what he did best. Play guitar? You are sorely mistaken. The strings popped off the head stock and shot across the room as though they were attached to an endless spool of magic. They filled the space in the swinging doors to make sure no one was getting out of the Screaming Coyote Saloon alive to tell tales of Lil’ Diablo and his harmonious guitar.

I’ve hunted high and low for these two cowboys.

To damn their names and take back what is mine

Too bad, the rest of you are going with them.

To Satan’s fire on someone else’s dime

            I wasn’t just singing my song to hear the sound of my own pretty voice. I had an agenda, and that agenda was ripe for the picking. Just as soon as the supernatural began happening and those lyrics were sung, two scruffy looking men must’ve heard something funny or familiar in them. They stood straight up and shot for the nearest exit, which was already preoccupied by the strings of that Bald Cypress guitar, sawing upon one another in an eerie tune for fate’s last dance. Coyote lassoed both and dragged them kicking and screaming to my feet. After all this time, all these songs, and all these long miles walked upon hard ground by feet meant for marshland living, I had the targets of my deepest, darkest desires within reach. I didn’t even bother to ask for their names. I just knelt forward and gave them every ounce of my energy to fulfill the promised show. They paid to see this, after all. I might as well show them what they came here to see. The rest of the crowd, unwise to my true intentions and seeing I’d chosen my targets, paused to witness what would happen next. There was only one entrance or exit to the building, after all. The frontier proprietors of such establishments were sick and tired of paying for broken windows from destitute cowboys who could barely afford a glass of whiskey.

Pray to God and signal his attention.

No, he can’t save you but it’s worth a try.

Coyote here will do what he’s intended.

Make sure your final look won’t bat an eye.

It was then, the thick “E” string in all its winding glory, jammed itself straight through the fabric of one of the hoodlum’s trousers. He shrieked in pain as the string’s grooves entered the slit in his penis, sawing back and forth until it pushed its way through the resistance provided via his urethra, penetrating the flesh of his prostate, and exiting his anus like a razor-sharp serpent bent on vengeance. The sawing intensified as a whirling, blurring mass of flesh exploded from the back side of the poor man’s pants, leaving what I could only assume was called “back blast” upon the stained plywood of the saloon flooring. He collapsed, writhing in an ever-growing puddle of his own bodily fluids. His unimaginable misfortune was payment for that of my mother. The song’s final chorus was within reach, and a long rest was well overdue.

Amici, ad infernum & vinite

There’s no rope left to ring the closing bell.

Those Black Cat Thicket blues are always final.

Hello, my friends, I welcome you to Hell.

            Then, it was Pa’s turn. The older of the two gentlemen who I still didn’t bother asking his name, was picked up by several strings – way more than six – and dangled in the air like a captured deer awaiting the knife. Simultaneously, twenty of those possibly one hundred enchanted guitar strings entered his body beneath his finger and toenails. I salivated as Coyote slid them in slowly, making sure neither digit could accommodate the sting without pain. Looking closely, I could see the strings serpentine through his flesh, causing multiple “pops” as they broke through various barriers of his body. Then, as though the murderous fugitive was frozen in time, his life visibly disconnected from his face.

            Coyote had managed to snake his way into the finger and toenails, up through the veins and whatnot, and into the heart causing instant death. He hung there like a lifeless, gruesome chandelier above the blood-painted floorboards of The Screaming Coyote saloon. Then, Coyote retracted his numerous appendages, frantically whipping the man torturously from the inside out. Layers of flesh compiled beneath the slaughtered like slabs of bacon to a campfire skillet. When there was nothing left but tattered skeletal remains, my other-worldly friend released them to the gothic cyclone of mismatched body segments below. They weren’t even “parts,” mind you, segments. Imagine a bad trip to the market with a drunken butcher. Those kinds of segments.

Amici, ad infernum & vinite

There’s no rope left to ring the closing bell.

Those Black Cat Thicket blues are always final.

Hello, my friends, I welcome you to Hell.

            With that, I took my bow and fully opened my attention to the dream that had come true before me. Night after night, between trail bedding and hotel cushioning, I dreamed of the moment I would avenge the death of my folks. Certainly, I had to break a few extra eggs to make the scramble but, in the end, I think it was all worth it. Yeah, the good young man inside of me would ponder eternally the fact that these patrons had families and livelihoods to go back to when the show was over. It wasn’t my fault these dirt farmers couldn’t handle my encore.

            Like the lifeless lot who lay at my blood-soaked feet, the guitar fell free from my hand; weightless and hollow. The statuesque image of the brave warrior Coyote stood before me in the same way he’d disappeared from sight; with his hand upon my shoulder solidifying his vow. He looked at me deep in the eye, touching whatever shards of tattered soul I had left, and spoke.

            “As promised, I have given my assistance in the returning of your family honor.”

            “And as promised,” I carried on. “I release you of this burden and am eternally grateful for your help in avenging the death of my loved ones. There was no way I could’ve done that alone.”

            Side by side, we squished through what remained of the butchered town of Hutchinson Ridge in the Northern Arizona Territory. The sun was peeking over the distant mountaintops, bringing on the morning to a now deserted region. Churches, mine shafts, or freight and buckboard station; they were all empty and in attendance to the previous night’s performance.

            What had only seemed like a few talented minutes on my behalf was several excruciating hours for everyone on the receiving end of Coyote’s lesson. It’s a funny thing, magic. No matter how deeply I fall into its trance, I can never quite comprehend the math behind it all. Then again, mathematics is for teachers and such. I’m a musical little devil.

            “What will you do next, oh great spirit of the bald cypress? Will you return to the thicket from whence you came and stand tall as the guardian of our homeland?”

            Coyote twisted his lips as though he wanted to judge me with a test sentence before reciting the entire limerick. As side-eye flipped into smile, he turned sincerely, holding out his hand in hopes of my agreement. We were a duo, Coyote, and me, after all. Couldn’t have one without the other. I mean, you could, but folks could really be able to tell when I’d sing a little off key if I didn’t have the guitar. I accepted his offer before I’d even heard the details.

            “I was thinking we go a little further east than Black Cat Thicket, perhaps Georgia. I have an old score to settle with a fiddle…”

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