Even Cowboys Have Bigger Intentions - 10/1/2004

"Name's L. Roy James. 'An I already know your name. Saw the big damn hat from a mile off," I told the man as he swung a leg over his horse and dropped to the ground, handling the reins.

"Ellroy?" he asked, tying off to a post outside the store.

"L period space Roy. James."

"And the L stands fer Lady, right?" His joke wasn't funny so I smiled. The gun was out and ready for shooting before he'd ridden up. I didn't walk into a gunfight with a weapon holstered. That was just plain dumb.

Before he had a chance to say anything else I'd killed him, put the bullet from my army issue Colt .44 in his chest. Wasn't really from any army I'd fought in, but it was originally issued during the war so's I always called it that, givin' it some historical reference. The body were dropped against the ground and I walked over, nuzzled the toe of my boot into his ribcage, hard, makin' sure he wasn't gonna move again. Made that mistake once, early on, and paid for it with a scar across my ankle from some Cherokee's boot knife.

Having determined the likelihood of death I lifted the arms of the dead man and, with a couple of people not already used to this sort of thing watching from windows or porches, dragged the body over to the morgue, which of course was an empty barn where the coffins were built. Hauled the body up on top of the slab, a few long boards stacked onto wooden horses, held down with old, iron nails. Checked the pulse, lifting the hand into the air and gently searching for the feeling of a heartbeat.

Nothing.

"Roy!" the voice started into me. He never called me by my first name, which my deceased mother gave me. I could hear it often. Often enough to know that it would probably always be there to taunt me like it did. Remind me of what I was doing and the big plan that my father would never see to know that it wasn't just worthless, doing those artistic things. "Roy, there's nothin' in drawing yer damn pictures. No future, boy. No respect! Here," he'd say, holding out his hand. "Here's where your vitality is, in your own two damn hands. Gotta make something of yourself by working hard, using your damn hands like they's meant ta be used."

He would take away the slate, the chalk, take away the books. Remove the earnest efforts of an eight-year-old in order to get him out there, working hard to pry the gold out of dead outlaws' teeth or scavenge the workable metal from their horses' hooves. Son of the corpse-handler, set about putting things in the ground at an early age.

"Damn, Roy, you've got some practicin' ta do if yer gonna be the next in line to handle this business of mine." Truth be told, I didn't want to. I was scared ta death of the dead folks, their vapid gaze, double zero eyes. Worse 'an that, they were mostly the criminal types in our town, people laid to rest in violent struggle. There were stories about the animated spirits of those people travellin' into the real world and not stayin' dead.

When I was twelve my father went off to join up with the Texan's militia, fighting in the great battle of the Alamo and losing his life there to Santa Ana's ruthless charge. He got to see Crockett and Bowie though, who by then had quite the following of young boys, legends of the frontier lifestyle. I wanted to be them. I wanted to know them, at least, and that would never happen now. There was pride in my father's demise, out there with the heroes, a hero in his own way.

"Yer daddy hid in the basement while the Mex'cans killed 'v'ryone!"

"There is no basement in the Alamo," I replied. That was the first real fight I'd gotten into, ten years old and self-employed, building wooden houses for the folk done murdered in my town. Some of the kids I knew, my age, were 'fraid of me somethin' fierce. Called me Morbid James. Boy by the name of Rick, I believe... Yeah, Rick somethin' or other, got into it with me and came out almost dead. Parents of the boy weren't very accepting, none of the townspeople either. Thought it was strange, a ten-year-old who worked on the dead. Didn't particularly want me around.

So I left. Took an old army issue Colt .44 and a horse that I had the money for, my father's busted out saddle and some silver spurs that I would later sell way below cost in order to pick up some food. I rode out to the next town and offered my services in whatever way I could, using my hands to fulfill my aspirations. I worked hard, harder than anyone could have believed from someone my age. At fourteen I took over Deputy duties for a local man ran the prostitution and kept the law in the meanwhile. I shot a man that almost shot him. As reward there was a deputation. And booze. And women.

For awhile I didn't do nothin' but hang around town and take lives. I didn't have anythin' else to do, really, and it paid well and kept me fulfilled. And there I was learnin' the ropes of running a business besides gunslinging. I kept the books for the whorehouse sometimes and other times worked as a bartender. Mostly earned a name for myself as a killer, though.

Eventually it came down to me 'an the benevolent lawman, where's I'd have ta' shoot him if I wanted to continue the business I was runnin', taking just a little off the top of every transaction. He found out, or would soon, after I made a slip-up somewhere along the line and gave myself away. The books weren't what they should have been and he'd know when he saw. So I decided instead to head on out during the night.

Twenty-five years old, now, living in a lonely place just southeast of Tucson, a couple days ride through the desert. I found it by accident, as if the horse just sort of knew where to go. Slept on through the ride, holding on in a drunken haze as we galloped into the middle of nowhere and found something there, a place I'd never been where I wouldn't be followed by my former employer. And after a few years here I'd managed to pile up quite a body count and a local reputation as a fair and just law-type, even though what I mostly did was take from the no-longer-living.

I came back to what I'd always wanted to be, in the end. I started up with the books and the thinkin' and drawin', settling on a method by which to live forever in the annals of artistry. I was working on a monument to self-respect.

~~~

The cleaver came down, slicing through epidermis and calcified skeleton at the wrist, severing the hand from it's former owner. L. Roy James tied off the stump and held up the hand, peering at it, turning it from front to back and making sure everything was in right formation. He smiled, brining the hand back down to the table and pulled a thin, wide iron from the fire he started before he confronted the man, applied it to the open end of the hand and sealed it shut.

He picked up a long, curved needle that dangled a line of metal thread and walked to his wall, it's ninety-eight right hands sewn together and forming a lattice that climbed the side of the barn. It was his epic plan, the thing he'd been seeing in his mind for years now. He sighed and found a spot where he could attach his newest piece and began sewing, linking flesh to rotting flesh and whistling.