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<<replace "#header-text">><<include "header-text">><</replace>><script>var myDiv = document.getElementById('passages');
myDiv.scrollTop = 0;</script><<link '<div class="menu-item"><b>00</b> go back</div>'>><<run Engine.backward()>><</link>>
<<link '<div class="menu-item"><b>02</b> saves</div>'>><<script>>UI.saves()<</script>><</link>>
<<link '<div class="menu-item"><b>03</b> settings</div>'>><<script>>UI.settings()<</script>><</link>>The Revenant's Lament<<set $choice to 0>><<nobr>><style>
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</style><</nobr>><<type 40ms>>Come, sit by the fire. There's nothing to fear, and the nights are growing colder.<</type>>
<<type 40ms>>Let me tell you a story. Would you sit with me and listen?<</type>><<cont append>><<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Yes.|real start]] </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[No.|false start]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><</cont>><<nobr>><style>
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</style><</nobr>><<type 40ms>>Perhaps it's for the best. You can stay, stranger. Warm yourself by the fire, watch the stars. The sun will rise and the wind will be at your back and you will<</type>><span class = accent><<type 25ms>> never<</type>><<type 25ms>> return.<</type>></span>
<<type 40ms>>What's that?<</type>><<type 40ms>> You seem startled. I told you, there's nothing to be afraid of.<</type>> <span class = accent><<type 40ms>>This world will be just as cold and lonely tomorrow, not having heard the story as it would be, having listened.<</type>></span>
<<type 40ms>>Oh? You want to listen?<</type>><<cont append>><<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Yes.|real start]] </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[I didn't say that.|false start 2]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><</cont>><<nobr>><style>
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</style><</nobr>><<type 40ms>>Nonsense.<</type>><<type 40ms>> Come, sit with me.<</type>><span class = accent><b><<type 25ms>> Listen.<</type>></b></span><<cont append>><<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|real start]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><</cont>><<nobr>><style>
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</style><</nobr>><<type 40ms>>Let me start here. John Cassidy King was an angry, scared man, a cold man, as cold as winter and just as cruel. He had himself a cowbird of a daughter, some insidious parasite of a child who he raised as a son, raised to eat the other eggs and bring damnation upon the nest, raised mean as a rattlesnake, all striking and venomous. And in the middle of the night, she robbed him blind - took everything, even his name, even his life - and ran west.<</type>>
<<type 40ms>>So, this is the story of John Cassidy King. Not the man and not the girl, somehow both and somehow neither.<</type>><<cont append>><<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|deal with the devil 1]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><</cont>>It was a lonely, cold night, some time in late October, though the days seemed to blur into one another as the miles passed just as endlessly, covered in a gentle blanket of snow. White snow, red rock. Bone and blood, like some vulture's grisly prize. Like he'd be, someday. And that was enough of that; for John Cassidy King, like for most folk, death was a terrifying inevitability and not one he'd like to face in this snowy gulch, surrounded by the cattle he drove and his horse, who'd surely eat him, knowing his father isn't the one pulling her reins. And that was enough of that.
Camp was built for the night, a fire set to burn in some small cove tucked into the bosom of a rock outcropping, hidden away from the snow and wind. With his back to the wall, John looks out to the stars. Catches his steaming breath at the beauty of them all, the splay of the cosmos absent from his youth in the lamp-lit cities, when his hair was long and worn in braids, when he wore dresses for the holidays and church and nothing else. He felt just about the same then, out of place and looking up to the heavens for an answer, a north star. Answered by a distant coyote's howl, a lonely echo met in chorus by a pack. John could laugh. It's just him out here, just him and his meager herd and the damned stars. Neither pack nor echo greets his voice; all is quiet, muted by the snow as he hums a hymn, stokes the fire, gathers his blankets and jacket further around him and shivers still.
The flames dance, leaping and crackling and luring the cowboy closer and closer to sleep, promising that in their arms there lies warmth, peace, rest. At their undulating fringes, something shifts, casts a long shadow upon the stars. Immediately awake, John finds his father's revolver, draws it swiftly from his belt.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|deal with the devil 2]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>"Who's there?" He asks, trying to make his voice real low and tough, something to hide the tremor of his hand. "I know what I saw and I ain't afraid of you. Come out here, don't you hide from me, coward. Come and face me like a man."
"Easy now, son," a voice replies, a tall, rail thin man trudging out of the snow. "I don't mean you any harm, and I sure didn't mean to startle you. Forgive me, and put that gun down." The man must not have walked far, John thinks. He's not dressed for cold like this; wears a suit white as the snow, pressed linen without a trace of the reddish mud pervasive to where the snow melts in the sun, a wide brimmed cowboy's hat, and uncreased white leather boots, all pale and stark as ice. He carries little with him, no revolver on his belt, no knife either, no pack nor bandolier, just a guitar that he unslings carefully, sitting on a log across the fire. "Son, I asked for you to put the gun down. Just let me warm these tired bones by the fire for a while, won't you oblige an old man in that?"
The lonesome stranger doesn't look old. For the briefest of seconds, he looks like John's father, smiles in the same crooked way, his thin lips curling back into a snarl or sneer, nothing real in the expression. A coyote grin; knowing something John doesn't. And then he's a stranger again, one with short, slicked back salt and pepper hair and the shadow of a beard across his jaw, one with eyes black as a clouded night, empty, dull, filled with flame. Dead eyes, corpse eyes, the very same eyes as the cowboy's father. And John's hand tightens on the wooden grip of the revolver, his finger itching to pull the trigger.
"What do you want from me?" John asks, unable or somehow unwilling to hide the way his voice shakes, sounds young and womanly again, inundated with the fear that this stranger sees right through the layers, knows what he is. Knows what he isn't. "Tell me what you want, tell me who you are and I put the gun away."
The stranger sighs, his shoulders slumping. "Fair enough. I suppose I can tell you. They knew me in the East as a gift-giver, someone who could bring fantastic things to those who believed. And much like it did for you - something went wrong and I came out here, out to these barren lands, looking to start over. I don't ask for much."
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|deal with the devil 3]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>"I ask for the warmth of your fire for just this night, and for you to oblige me in a song. I was a musician once, way down South, though it's been many years since I've had an audience."
"And what's in it for me?" John asks, selfishly.
"I did say I was a gift-giver, didn't I? I can give you anything, anything at all."
"Anything?"
"<i>Anything</i>, John Cassidy King. Anything from the clothes off my back to all the stars in the heavens."
There are no stars in the heavens. Perhaps this should have scared him; the sky dark as the stranger's eyes and twice as empty. Perhaps this should have silenced him; there's no way in heaven nor hell that the stranger should know his name, that damned name, his father's name, but still he continues, enthralled, incredulous, pistol again holstered at his hip.
"All for a song and a place by the fire?"
"Yes, son. All for a song and a place by the fire." He extends his hand, silver rings inlaid with some glossy black stone glinting in the firelight. <b><span class = accent>"Do we have ourselves a deal?"</span></b>
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Yes.|deal with the devil 4]] </div></li>
<<if not hasVisited('campfire end')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[No.|campfire end]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('campfire end')>><li><div class = choice-item><span class = grayout> No.</span></div></li><</if>>
</ol></div><</nobr>><<nobr>><style>
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</style><</nobr>><<type 40ms>>Well.<</type>> <<type 40ms>>That ain't much of a story, ain't it? Tell you what, why don't we start over, from the very beginning?<</type>><<cont>><<goto 'start'>><</cont>>John Cassidy King reaches for the stranger's hand, the stranger whose coyote smile has returned, whose eyes are again filled with flame, whose hand burns. Burns. Burns, cold as fire, cold as death.
The deal has been sealed. There's no turning back now.
"What do you want, John?"
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> <<linkreplace "I want to be feared.">>[[I want to live forever.|deal with the devil 5]]<</linkreplace>></div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> <<linkreplace "I want to be loved.">>[[I want to live forever.|deal with the devil 5]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> <<linkreplace "I want to go home.">>[[I want to live forever.|deal with the devil 5]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> <<linkreplace "I want to disappear.">>[[I want to live forever.|deal with the devil 5]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> <<linkreplace "I want to die.">>[[I want to live forever.|deal with the devil 5]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[I want to live forever.|deal with the devil 5]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>I want to live forever," John blurts, before his conscience can get the better of him. "I want to live forever, I don't want to die. Please, I don't want to die."
"Nobody wants to die, son. And you've been as so kind to show me the warmth of your fire and I don't suppose you'd kick me out before I could play a song or two, so - consider your wish granted. You, John Cassidy King, will live forever." He caps his speech with a flourish of his hat and an exaggerated bow over the guitar he rests now on his lap.
John's heart resides in a leaden pit somewhere around his navel, he shakes not with cold but with terror - and the stranger begins to play his guitar. Lonesome chords, strummed quietly at first, uncertain, tested against the hollow and the crackle of the fire. An accompaniment to a voice barely a whisper, hoarse and breaking from miles of disuse - and then something quite different to the speaking voice, the roughness abruptly broken and dissipated, replaced instead with voice as rich and deep and alluring as those glacial streams found high in the mountains, just as cold, just as beautiful, just as deadly. The lonely cowboy the lonely audience for notes that fall desperately into the silence, trying and trying and failing to fill a gap that has no name, a gap that should be filled with something intangible, notes reaching like smoke to empty midnight skies.
And John knew every word of the song, though he knew not the language in which it was sung, comfortable to find his voice amongst the choir of passing creatures that hummed and rattled and harmonized, entranced by playing of the guitar before heading on their way. A strange feeling, worming its way into the center of his being as the stranger played the final chords.
"Thank you kindly, son." The hoarseness of the stranger's voice returns, as does the silence. "It's been an eternity since someone's been so kind to have listened to my song. It's been an eternity longer since I've gotten to rest my weary bones - if you'll forgive me and my abruptness, I'll be retiring for the night."
John nods, his words eaten by that selfsame silence pressing in on his ears, the same quiet as a peaceful snowfall, when the world is muted and blind. No snow falls. The stars seem to, leaving burning trails across the sky. <i>Angels</i>, the cowboy thinks. Fallen like the devil, leaning in to listen to the last echoes of the stranger's song.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|deal with the devil 6]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>Alone, the cowboy waits. Finds the questions seeping in again, like they always do. When was the last time he had company? When was the last time he had company that wasn't another strange fellow, another cautiously guarded conversation, the brim of his hat low as his voice as he tried to find his father's gruffness? Is his preference of company a betrayal, a fundamental trickery - is his desire only ever a perverted shadow of the way he pretends to be his father, something warped by summer's restless heat into a daydream, a desperately wounded ache somewhere deep within to hold another, to take another, like-minded and like-bodied into his arms and be seen, held and beheld - is it wrong?
Is is wrong to want more than this emptiness, minding the herd along the lonesome trail he follows with what is left of his heart? Did this make him happy, once, to flinch from every noise that could be another soul and play coward, to whistle sharp between his chipped teeth to call upon the furious beast of a horse and bristle with all the fury of a mountain lion, to carry with him a hawk-eyed glare, cursing and damning all who stray into his path? Is there some satisfaction to be found in dust-covered clothes, shivering in the depths of winter and sweltering in the summer sun, sleeping slumped against rock by the dying embers of the fire, remembering the song like a lullaby, slipping strangely away from the world? Did he truly not know the words he sung - or did he not want to recognize them, content with entrancement?
Does he believe the stranger's promise - that he'll live forever?
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|deal with the devil 7]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>The lonesome stranger is gone, come morning. Not even footprints in the snow remain.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the town 1]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>Three days pass before John reaches the next town, less a town and more a railyard masquerading as town. He trades his cattle for his pay, money that burns a hole in his pocket, sets his mind alight with a thousand different ideas of what to spend it on, bare necessities and more hedonistic wants, fleeting desire and wild speculation.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the post office.|the post office]] </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the church.|the church]] </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]] </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the railroad office.|the railroad office]] </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the trading post.|the trading post]] </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the general store.|the general store]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>The post office is just a short ways up the street; tired riders in their dusty blue shirts gather, saddle-sore, with satchels of mail by horses and stagecoaches, their journeys come to an end with the completion of rail lines. They'd have no mail for him - why would they? How could they? John Cassidy King is a dead man with none of his name to survive him, dumped in a cemetery somewhere in New York, not a stranger in men's clothing drifting from town to town at the foothills of that great wall of the Rockies.
There's no point in going to the post office.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<<if not hasVisited('the church')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the church.|the church]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the church')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the church.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]] </div></li>
<<if not hasVisited('the railroad office')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the railroad office.|the railroad office]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the railroad office')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the railroad office.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
<<if not hasVisited('the trading post')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the trading post.|the trading post]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the trading post')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the trading post.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
<<if not hasVisited('the general store')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the general store.|the general store]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the general store')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the general store.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
</ol></div><</nobr>>John passed the church - a short, squat building with a rickety steeple - on his way into the town. Never a pious man; the promises of damnation and hellfire, of the imminent apocalypse, of horsemen on high and angels wielding swords aflame were lost on him. He'd sooner find his religion in the crooks of a body than slumped in a pew, listening to a preacher who somehow drones and screams at the same time, his vitriol and fire dampened by the undeniable fact that he too sins, that he too will be caught up in the great flood he claims will come and cleanse the world. Just the thought of returning to the church turns his stomach, makes his skin crawl and itch as though there were insects beneath it, his very being shudder in revulsion.
Going to the church would be a grave mistake.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<<if not hasVisited('the post office')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the post office.|the post office]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the post office')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the post office.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]] </div></li>
<<if not hasVisited('the railroad office')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the railroad office.|the railroad office]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the railroad office')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the railroad office.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
<<if not hasVisited('the trading post')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the trading post.|the trading post]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the trading post')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the trading post.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
<<if not hasVisited('the general store')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the general store.|the general store]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the general store')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the general store.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
</ol></div><</nobr>>The railroad office is a hive of activity; those few folk bound for the train out of this small town jostle for position with porters and wranglers and livestock as the incoming women in their fancy, pale city clothes cling to the arms of men in black suits ill-equipped for the roughness of the town that has greeted them by spitting on their shoes. It would be so simple to buy a one-way ticket in some cheap train car or to wait until the train starts to move and cling on to the side of a railcar for dear life or make some exchange with the trainmaster to secure passage far, far from this place.
Despite the temptation, John resists, watching the chaos from afar. He'll stay here, in this town with no name.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<<if not hasVisited('the post office')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the post office.|the post office]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the post office')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the post office.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]] </div></li>
<<if not hasVisited('the church')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the church.|the church]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the church')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the church.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
<<if not hasVisited('the trading post')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the trading post.|the trading post]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the trading post')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the trading post.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
<<if not hasVisited('the general store')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the general store.|the general store]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the general store')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the general store.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
</ol></div><</nobr>>The trading post is just across the street from the post office, the hitches outside occupied by tall, painted horses who graze on sparse grass, shuffle and snort and wait for their riders to return. The type of creature to make John nervous, beasts so assured of their own existence that fear becomes an afterthought. A short, portly man all but falls over himself to open the door to the trading post, his face bright red as he jabbers at a pair of tall, haughty men who carry pelts and leather over their shoulders and converse loudly and freely in a foreign tongue. One of them gives John a flint-dark stare, narrows his eyes, nudges his companion.
And John looks away before wandering on, not wanting to draw the ire of the hunter whose gaze remains pinned to his back.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<<if not hasVisited('the post office')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the post office.|the post office]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the post office')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the post office.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]] </div></li>
<<if not hasVisited('the church')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the church.|the church]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the church')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the church.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
<<if not hasVisited('the trading post')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the railroad office.|the railroad office]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the trading post')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the railroad office.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
<<if not hasVisited('the general store')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the general store.|the general store]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the general store')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the general store.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
</ol></div><</nobr>>The general store is closed, the hazy window streaked with grime just barely transparent. Inside, a lonely man sits in a wooden chair amongst dusty shelves, oiling a lever-action rifle rested on his lap as one would rest a child, with caution and reverence. He cycles the action, smiling longingly at the gun, running his fingers down the length of the barrel. And then he notices the cowboy in the window, an unexpected audience to his little ritual and the rifle is all but instantaneously shouldered, the black eye of the barrel level with John's own.
Panicked, John lurches and falls off the porch, lying in the hardpacked dirt of the street until his heart stops hammering away in his chest.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<<if not hasVisited('the post office')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the post office.|the post office]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the post office')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the post office.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]] </div></li>
<<if not hasVisited('the church')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the church.|the church]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the church')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the church.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
<<if not hasVisited('the trading post')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the railroad office.|the railroad office]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the trading post')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the railroad office.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
<<if not hasVisited('the general store')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[Go to the trading post.|the trading post]] </div></li><</if>>
<<if hasVisited('the general store')>><li><div class = choice-item><<linkreplace 'Go to the trading post.'>>[[Go to the saloon.|the saloon]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li><</if>>
</ol></div><</nobr>>As though this is some strangely unwelcome stroke of fate, John finds himself in front of the saloon. How strange, for everywhere else he sought a diversion to feel so odd and cold - or in the case of the church - utterly hostile. But the bowed porch of the saloon does not feel foreboding with its crowd of drunks, the doors swing open on creaking hinges and he is greeted with the briefest of glances from patrons and barkeep alike - but not the barrel of the rifle, not the cold beads of sweat that ran down his back as he stared at the looming steeple.
A gathered group of musicians catch his eye; an old man leans against the wall and plays the fiddle with a frayed bow, a boy who could be his son perches on a stool and strums a mandolin, at their side is a at their side is a young woman with a pink bow in her hair who plays a bass just as tall as her - and wearing a suit as ivory as the keys of the piano he plays is a stranger with short, slicked back salt and pepper hair and the shadow of a beard across his jaw. The lonesome stranger, who glances up from his keys and finds John with eyes black as a clouded night, empty, dull, filled with flame. He smiles a coyote smile, and turns back to the song. A familiar one, his velvety voice permeating the hum of life in the saloon, an undertow, a siren's lamentation. A promise, a gift given.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item><span class = grayout> Leave.</span> </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item><span class = grayout> Leave now.</span> </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item><span class = grayout> Something isn't right.</span> </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Get a drink.|the saloon 2]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>John feels strange, so very strange, cold and shivering despite a warmth in his chest like whiskey, like a campfire in the snow, like the sun beating down upon his back, like hellfire concentrated where his heart should be. An insatiable itch, an urge - do something - do anything. A promise - he won't ever die - so why not <i>live</i>?
They tell stories about these immortal men of the west. Outlaws and folk heroes alike, train robbers and noble sheriffs, stagecoach drivers and lonesome drifters - they all start <i>somewhere</i>. And here, in the saloon of some small unnamed railyard masquerading as a town, the legend of John Cassidy King could begin.
He leans over the bar, catches the eye of the tired barkeep who gestures exasperatedly for him to just speak his mind already. A glass of whiskey, and a good one, at that. The best one he's got, actually. The barkeep rolls his eyes and an indignant John postures, leaning further over the bar and sneering as his drink is poured and all but shoved into his hands. A single drink to begin, two fingers of cheap whiskey passed off as something with more import, worthy of a hefty price tag. Shot with disdain and disgust, the glass slammed into the scarred bar top, another call for the barkeep, the same request. The same pattern, over and over again until the warmth is unbearable and the world turns hazy before John, a confidence like hellfire filling his veins. Immortal he, only ever a few steps removed from mythology.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item><span class = grayout> That's enough.</span> </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item><span class = grayout> Sleep off the liquor.</span> </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item><span class = grayout> Sleep off these delusions.</span> </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item><span class = grayout> Please, just <i>leave</i>.</span> </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Play cards.|the saloon 3]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>Somewhere between the bar and the tables shoved to the back of the room where men gather under a haze of tobacco smoke to gamble away their paychecks, the ivory-suited stranger calls to John.
"Well, I ain't seen your face in a minute, John Cassidy King! But I do kindly recall your hospitality, and Lord, do I hope you remember our deal." John nods, the drink in his stomach sloshing uncomfortably, bile and spit gathering under his tongue. The stranger continues, thumbing the worn keys of the piano. "We've just got one song left before we're fit for a break and some mingling - won't you oblige me and my fellows just one more song?"
"I don't suppose you've got another deal for me?" John asks, his words muddling together.
"Son, I can't quite give a gift larger than what I've already given you, but I sure can offer you the company of some fine gentlemen and a finer young lady, a couple fingers more of whiskey, and a hand or two of cards. Is that deal enough?"
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Yes.|the saloon 4]] </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> <<linkreplace "No">>[[Yes.|the saloon 4]]<</linkreplace>> </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>"Sure is." John slurs, grinning wildly.
"Why don't you come and join me here, son?" The stranger pats the piano bench.
"I don't play, don't know how. Ain't learned like that, no sir."
"Look out at these drunken fools, boy. Do you really think they're expecting some European master to come and play some high-and-mighty opera hall kind of music? You think they know the difference between the black and white keys, the difference between a sharp and flat? You can just pretend, boy, there ain't nothing wrong with being a pretender - you just have to have <i>soul</i>." He laughs, the cackle of a crow hovered over some sun-bleached corpse. John's blood runs cold. "You still got one of those, right?"
The stranger doesn't wait for a response, instead playing the opening notes of a song that feels equal parts foreign and unnervingly familiar. The cowboy nods along, reaching for the keys with trembling fingers. He knows the song, the same melody of the stranger's campfire song. A ballad, perhaps too slow and too sweet for the chaos of the saloon, but a ballad nonetheless. The story of a lonesome drifter as a petal on the wind, searching for the thorny stem from which it was pulled, the soft arms in which he had once rested. And then the song is over and the trance broken, the cowboy's hands resting on the keyboard beside the stranger's, the stranger laughing maniacally once more.
"I didn't think you had that much soul left in you there, John. Lord, you wouldn't had thought you'd never laid hands on a piano before." He rests a hand on John's shoulder. "Why don't we get a drink or two, play some cards?"
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the saloon 5]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>In the back of the saloon, under a haze of smoke and alcohol, John squints at his cards, the symbols and numbers blurring together into a mess as incomprehensible as the words whispered into his ear by the dark-haired bassist who sits on his thigh and laughs softly at the redness of his face. He can only pretend its just the alcohol, just the cold, not the hand on his chest or her gentle teasing, the ribbon once in her hair tied around his wrist, her lips just barely brushing his cheek as she chides him, makes some slight about his cards, calls his bluff. John folds. Wants so badly to kiss her, to lay her on this table, to do unholy things - and knows he cannot, that his desire can only be the drink talking, this is wrong somehow, he should have folded sooner, this betting will be the death of him, this strange boldness that has overcome him and wreathed him in its arms will carry him to the seclusion of a grave and not a bedroom.
"Another hand, John?" The man in the ivory suit asks.
The woman on John's thigh smiles at him, leans close enough to all but taste the whiskey on her lips, leans the backs of her arms on his shoulders, tangles her fingers in his hair. Doesn't flinch when John puts a hand on her waist. "Another hand, darling, please, maybe a little more whiskey. I'm yours."
And how could John ever say no?
The deal goes swiftly around the table, five cards face down and the shifting of chairs and money. Some men pick up their hand with confidence, have to hide their grin from the watchful eyes of those who wait and watch, peering at the corners of their cards and masking whatever emotion they may bring - unlike those who halfheartedly swipe at their cards and hurl them down with disgust, the jack of hearts briefly laid bare to the table before it is again covered with a hiss of disapproval. John takes a sip of his drink, reaches for his cards, almost drops them, their faded backs slick in his fingertips. The bassist smiles at his clumsy attempts at the same bravado of the others, leans down, presses forward, kisses him until the cards are slipping through his fingers. The table roars with laughter and cheers and jeers; red as that damned jack of hearts, John finally turns to his hand. Three aces. Two eights. Full house. A long shadow falls over the cowboy's cards.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the duel]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>"That's a dead man's hand, boy. And I don't know who the hell you are, but you're about to be a dead man." The voice above the cowboy rumbles, distant thunder on a late summer's afternoon. "Get up."
"Who the hell are you?" John manages, stumbling over his tongue.
"The man who's going to kill you. Now get up from the table, or I'll drag you out to the goddamn street myself."
"You can't fuckin' kill me - I'm immortal!" The cowboy laughs and laughs and laughs, laughs as the man - a tall brute dressed in black from the brim of his broad hat to his worn leather boots with hands like bear paws and a face as craggy as some distant mountain range - drags him by the collar from his chair. The woman now formerly in the cowboy's lap screams at the man in black, hurls epithets and a glass of whiskey at his chest. Pointless endeavors; John is dragged through the saloon, thrown down its stairs to lie face-down in the dust of the street.
"Get up, boy!" A swift kick to the ribs. "Get up! If you can't die then surely you won't object to a duel, will you now?" Another kick. The man in black crouches by John, seizes him by the hair, bellows in his face. "Look at me, boy - I don't know who the hell you are but <i>Lord</i>, you will rue the day you laid a single finger on my girl! Now get up, or I'll just gun you down in the dirt like a dog."
With a screech, the woman flings open the saloon doors, lunging her way onto the porch. "Lawrence - darlin' - don't you do this!" Men grab her arms, wrestle her from the doorframe as she writhes and fights. "Lawrence Welles, don't you dare, don't you hurt him, it ain't his fault, I swear it, Lawrence, Lawrence, <i>please</i>!" Softer, quieter, looking at John's bruised face, lip and nose dripping blood already. "Please don't hurt him." And whether it was a plea for the kindness of John Cassidy King or the mercy of Lawrence Welles, only the Lord knows - and He has kept His silence well.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the duel 2]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>With a fury like that of the horsemen riding from on high, John finds his way to his feet, glaring at Lawrence. Fate, predestination, damnation all converging upon this singular point in time and space as the sun sets over the town. Five paces apart, they stand. John sways, spits blood into the dirt, feels as though he might puke. Immortal. But not invulnerable; he aches already, his vision doubled, his body sore. The duel will be over quickly, at least. And he'll walk away; he's immortal, though wounded, he will not die. He cannot. Someone somewhere calls for the duelists. The woman screams for them to stop, to put an end to this madness. And Lord, for all her ferocity, there was not woman nor man nor even God that could stop what was to come.
John turns and at the same time reaches for the revolver on his hip, knuckles dragging across the leather, the grip of his pistol slipping out of his fingers like the cards. Slow, too slow, still fumbling with the weapon as the muzzle of the other pistol flashes twice, the reports seen and not heard as his own revolver kicks heavy and loud in his hand. The man in black stands, dust swirling around his feet. And the cowboy tries to raise his revolver, brandishes it emptily at him, fires another round that whistles away into the sky somewhere beyond the man in black's head. The trigger clicks past empty cylinders, click after click after click as John staggers, knees buckling.
"And here I was, thinking you were immortal." Lawrence Welles crouches by the cowboy who lies in the open embrace of the dusty street, greedily lapping up the seep of blood from John's wounds as he stares glassily up at the slow sunset, chest heaving. Blood on John's lips, blood in his mouth, all but drowning in it. Can't catch his breath. Can't take a deep enough breath to stave off the strangulation. He feels numb; nothing hurts anymore, not even the wound where his heart should be. Strange, to think that he could die and feel nothing.
Strange, to think he could die. Strange, to think that he will. The man in the ivory suit leads the man in black away, glancing over his shoulder and smiling one last coyote smile.
Bloody as a sunrise, John Cassidy King dies again in some street of some small town.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[The end.|interlude]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><<nobr>><style>
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</style><</nobr>><<type 40ms>>That's no way to end a story. Our hero - bled out in the street, picked over by crows, their magnificent plumage black as the garb of his murderer. Who - let me remind you - goes unpunished, left to loom as a long shadow across the desert. That's no way to end a story, no, no. Good triumphs over evil, the devil gets his due, and John Cassidy King<</type>><<type 40ms>> does<</type>><<type 40ms>> not<</type>><<type 40ms>> stay<</type>><<type 40ms>> dead.<</type>><<cont append>><<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the wind]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><</cont>><<nobr>><style>
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</style><</nobr>>The wind rises out of the East, a sweeping force across the oceans of grasses that sway in the breeze, unaware that are borne with them on their tides are souls. Blissful little currents of air twirling and twisting, dancing, inviting their newly-found friend to come and rejoice with them as they rise and rise, creeping over the mountains and growing heavy. A storm, more apt for the fury held within. A change in conductor, a sudden cold, a sudden bitter, laden heavy with ice, with rage, with terror. Through the mesas and buttes and lonely rocks of the high desert, across the ridgelines and peaks, down every desolate mountain pass, careening through the towns it encounters, searching. Screaming, howling, tearing at the forests it encounters, bearing fractured limbs like spears, branching lightning across the sky. A lamentation for the corpse of John Cassidy King, presumably dumped in the tumbled-rock bed of some ephemeral stream frozen over, unfindable. Rage, rage incarnate.
And the wind dies down, having clawed furrows through the West and found nothing, nothing but violence and emptiness.<<cont append>><<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the sun]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><</cont>><<nobr>><style>
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</style><</nobr>>The sun rises in the East, the same East as the joyful wind, rises to break the clouds and and carry with it the remnants of the storm as father would carry child, gentle despite the storm's fury and rage. Paints the sky in shimmering gold and rich orange, deepening to crimson tongues of flame that do not burn but warm instead. Despite the thick blanket of snow and the glaze of ice bringing its surface to a mirror polish reflecting the sun's majesty, there is still some warmth taken upon the rooftops of the sparse towns and the hidden hollows where rock is bare and unconquered, defiantly worn across the backs of those who wake with the its rising. A most gentle reminder in this embrace; all is not forsaken, there will be warmer days. There will be light; this, the first promise - just as omniscient as any god and just as old, the sun warms all. All are welcome in its embrace, borne as motes of light on the faintest of sunbeams.
And the sun disappears behind a cloud as it begins to sink; spent and tired but promising it will return, always and forever.<<cont append>><<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the plant]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><</cont>><<nobr>><style>
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</style><</nobr>>Somewhere, between two halves of a boulder split by ice, in the earliest mornings of spring, a small plant with pale green leaves unfurls for the first time. It is cold, and the sun's rays just barely reaches the broadening leaves; it is fed by the snowmelt and the infrequent rains. It grows, tests roots against rock and finds it no longer impervious. It grows, creeps upwards from the crack to find a world, stark and beautiful, before it. But it is rooted. It stays. Despite the howling wind and the lashing of storms, despite the buzz of insects drawn to the stagnant pools where once was ice and snow and their probing proboscises - it stays. Persistent, peaceful. The leaves grow thick and fuzzy with fine thorns, armor enough and soft all the same. The sun warms it generously, looks upon it with fondness, the same wonderful fondness with which it had gazed upon its first moments of germination, pale and fragile and delicate. The long days of summer are the most faithful of companion, cloud-dappled shadows dancing across leaves that know the generosity of gentle summer rains and flowers that flutter in the cool breeze through the valley.
And it knows that when the days grow shorter again and the sun's embrace must lessen, the world losing its warmth - it will not lose its kindness. That remains, as its leaves are shed, wizened and brown. There is peace in persistence; come the warmth of spring, the sun will again turn its face upon pale green leaves and implore them to sprout once more.<<cont append>><<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the mouse]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><</cont>><<nobr>><style>
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</style><</nobr>>Small things move in flightless patterns across the earth, searching, always searching. Their migration is an endless one, knowing they are small and hunger always, fleeing the hawk and coyote and the melting of the snow, following the sparse greenery gifted generously by the bosom of the desert, eking out life in its smallest components and joys. Simplicity, knowing the warmth of another, companionship after what felt like eons alone, the wind and the sun and the stoic foliage all bitterly alone. But this, small things together in fleeting camaraderie, cold nose nuzzled into fur, tails tangled, this is warmth. Peace. Small things move in flightless patterns across the earth, leaving the tiniest of trails, the traces of paws in first snow. Enough for something loosed from its chain, slavering and slobbering, driven mad by the concept of prey, something it could never escape, betrayed by the jealous wind and sun. And that was the end, snapping jaws and yelping fury.
Small things twitch and sputter in sporadic not-patterns; kick out blindly at the gloved hands that pulled it from the dog's maw. Calm, gentle, all the warmth of a sunbeam, all the same softness as laying side by side with another. Peace. Small things succumb in endless patterns, sacrificed to the hunger of the others and the embrace of the soil.<<cont append>><<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the coyote]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><</cont>><<nobr>><style>
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</style><</nobr>>Hungry. Frothing at the mouth hungry, broken-teeth hungry. Exiled hungry. Didn't learn how to be alone, hungry. Thought it would always have a pack, hungry. Too young to feel this old, too hale to be this haggard, too full to feel this hungry, just barely a step above the carrion it sinks its shattered jaws into, rotted flesh and long cords of gristle gut-string clung to collapsed skeleton. Hungry enough to snap at the crows that circle and swoop and mock, pecking at its sunken form as it yelps and snarls and hungers still. Desperate, hungry, no longer a hunter but a scavenger, lowly, hateful, searching for where carrion collects, chasing storm clouds and stalking the dying dregs of the other creatures that would walk the unkind earth. Even its own kind, relishing the confusion and horror of its kin, broken beyond the protection of the pack. Hungry. Finds where a different kind of carrion collects, heaped massacres of men that leech their bloody reek into the soil, wait to rot and be unmade. Develops a particular kind of hunger. Walks as grim to every graveyard, following the murders of crows to richer feeding grounds, hungry. Insatiably hungry, distended gut filled with putrescent meat, gnawing on knucklebones, irreverent of fate.
Hungry. Did not count on the hunger of others, the vultures that followed, waited for it. Hungry. Whined and yapped and begged at the moon for a pack. For something to come and satisfy its hunger. Bristled and snarled at the unkind earth's answer. Found itself amidst the carrion.<<cont append>><<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the mountain lion]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><</cont>><<nobr>><style>
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</style><</nobr>>A solitary hunter, lord of the night. Strange for even its kind, larger, stronger, bolder. Lonelier. Something that walks the paths of men, stares with glowing, too-human eyes at those who too travel in solitude, remembers the taste of flesh, vestigial, ancient body-memory of something pathetic and eternally hungry. Does not hate in the way that the starved hates - but overlord, oppressor, it lurks above the paths, watches and waits for the road-weary to slip into the delusion of their journey, willingly forget they are watched, they are prey. It is not hungry. But it remembers hunger. It is not afraid. But it remembers fear. Can stave off both in hunting, can unbecome what hides in its bones if but for a moment. So it waits, stalks the outcropping above the footpath, rich with unfortunate souls. Waits. Descends silently, an amorphous shadow upon the frost-covered stone, dark as the wings of the vultures and crows that will follow, taking thankfully, uncaringly what it cannot itself consume.
A solitary traveler, exhausted. Looking for a place to lay his head. Catches a glint like a shooting star, somewhere above, wishes upon it for rest.
A solitary hunter, crouched low, following silently. Prey looks over its shoulder, sees its shadow, fills the air with the rich musk of terror, reaches for its hip, stumbles, draws out something gleaming in the starlight and it lunges, all tooth and claw and heavy paw.
The traveler runs from the creature of the night, screaming until his voice breaks, emptying the cylinder of the revolver, guarding wounds that burn like wildfire. The mountain lion limps forwards, fur bloodied and tail dragging, mouth hanging limply open, a sound somewhere between a whine and a snarl emanating from the punctured throat, aspirated blood drooled onto the ground. The traveler collapses. The mountain lion makes a noise something like a gurgling laugh and follows the traveler, collapsing into darkness.<<cont append>><<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the traveler]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><</cont>><<nobr>><style>
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</style><</nobr>>The traveler wakes - if you can simplify this seeming reanimation to simply <i>waking</i> - to the curiosity of carrion birds at his flesh, poking beaks and prodding talons at his eyelids and fingertips and the edges of the raised seam of wounds clawed into his shoulder and back. A haze of confusion, limbs leaden and aching, mouth filled with acrid spit and stale blood that collects on cracked lips, face half-sunk into thawing mud. A haze of confusion - this frigid muck beneath a starless sky a far cry from the railyard masquerading as a town.
John Cassidy King wakes in a body that is not his.
<<cont append>><<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|temperance 1]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><</cont>>A body that is dying. He cannot properly breathe, cannot possibly stand, will succumb again here and - and he cries. Finds this body more apt to it, less conditioned to biting its tongue and squaring its shoulders and pretending as though nothing hurts. It hurts, the all of it. The stinging wounds, the cold, the persistent ache of death, something he cannot put his finger on; some paralytic sense of un-belonging, stranger to this corpse, stranger to life. It would be better to die. It would be better to die; John sees an unfamiliar reflection in the ripples of water past his cheek, wears this body like ill-fitting glove, cannot find a voice in this throat past a thin, hoarse whisper, cannot find strength in the limbs, longer than he remembered and bone-thin, cannot find anything in this empty mind to indicate whose life he has stolen. Cannot shake the urge that he has clung to this corpse, parasite and Lazarus in one, miracle and curse alike - and should not be here. But this body is dying. Oozes blood that dries or starts to freeze through the shredded jacket, shivers less and less with each passing second where breathe disturbs the reddening pool in the mud.
He has to get up. Doesn't know what happens should he die again. Doesn't want to know; has some horrible vision of flashing teeth and howling winds, aches for a form contorted and bestial. He has to get up, lest he sink through this mud and wake in Hell.
It takes another miracle to raise him from the earth, claw his way from the shallowest of graves excavated by the rain and the changing of the seasons. Dragged like a corpse, he follows the footpath, one foot in front of the other, staggering a zig-zag path and ignoring the numbness of his fingertips and the hellfire that spreads across his back.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|temperance 2]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>How many miles must he have walked, for the sun to be rising by the time he saw any sign of civilization save for the path? How many hours, for the fencepost leaning crooked to have brought tears to his eyes? John followed that fence line like a prayer, like it would lead him to salvation, though every step burnt, felt as thought it would damn him back to the grave.
How long must he have followed the fence line, for some familiarity to be creeping into the body he inhabits? A strange feeling blossoming in the center of his chest, warmth, the heart shot through whole and the implication thereof; despite the cold, there is warmth in this body. And that is wrong, evil, foul, a perversion the same as calling himself John Cassidy King. Same as wanting, same the hunger felt in the saloon with the boldness of drink and the bassist on his thigh; death the only fitting reward for his insolence in the face of God and man alike. Murderer, pretender, cowbird, wreaking havoc on the unsuspecting eggs of those righteous, those who need not feign existence nor identity. No bath could clean the stain from his hands. No poultice could heal the wound he bears as cross, stigmata borne of stigma.
How long must he have lamented his sorry existence, for the faintest sight of life on the horizon to have surprised him? A solitary shape, walking through the morning's mist towards the fence line. Salvation or damnation. John's heart races in his chest. He cannot find voice enough to call out to them, makes some hoarse noise instead, breathy and quiet. Tries again, tries to wave his arms and feels as though they will fall from their sockets, resigns himself to limp towards them, hoping they notice his plight, take pity on him.
Closer, the figure grows; John leans on the fence, hopes they see him through the mist. Closer. The figure shifts, becomes a woman in a pair of battered trousers with a fencepost and tools beneath her arm. Becomes in an instant a woman holding a rifle, her tools abandoned. John doesn't flinch. Better for it to be this way.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|temperance 3]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>"What brings you out all this way, stranger?" She asks, rifle not straying an inch from John's brow.
John cannot find the words in his choked throat. Slumps over the fencepost, groans some incoherent response.
"Do you need directions?" She pauses, inches closer. Looks at him more carefully, he who wishes he could sink into the muck until he reaches Hell. Lowers her rifle, lets her tone grow real soft. "Do you need help?"
And again, John cannot summon words, cannot find any form of advocacy save to collapse further, to raise a bloodied hand stiff with mud. She walks closer, the rifle slung again across her back. Reaches out a hand of her own, small and delicate and worn rough with calluses.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Help me.|temperance 4][$choice to 1]] </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Stay away from me.|temperance 4][$choice to 2]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><<if $choice is 1>>"Help me, please," John whispers, praying she hears. "Please, I don't want to die." The voice is soft, far softer than John's forced-ragged intonations, lacking the learned gruffness, his father's harshness.
"You aren't going to die, stranger. Don't you worry. I'll help you, I've got you." She sets her shoulders unconvincingly, straddles the fence line, wraps an arm around John's muddy frame. "I've got you," she repeats, both soft and determined.<<elseif $choice is 2>>"No," John rasps. The woman walks closer. "Stay away from me! Stay back, please, please, please." He barks, his voice broken and high, the desperate whine of a coyote with its paw stuck in a trap.
"You look like death, stranger. Please, let me help you," she implores, setting her shoulders unconvincingly.
"You don't want what I have," John begs. "I'm cursed, I'll curse you! I don't want that, please, please just stay away from me." Quieter. "Just let me die in peace."
"If you're cursed - then so be it. I'd rather die accursed and having helped than leave you out here to die cold and muddy. That's no way to go, stranger. You don't deserve that."
"I deserve worse," he argues. "You don't know what I did."
The woman shakes her head, tears welling. "Just come with me, please. At least die warm and clean."
And John in his tiredness cannot find a way to argue with her further as she straddles the fence line, wraps an arm around John's muddy frame.<</if>>
She, arm around waist, leads John towards a low wooden farmhouse. Leaves him slumped in a chair on the narrow porch as she fumbles with the latched door, considers briefly the mess that dragging him inside in his current state would bring - and steels herself, wrapping her arm around his waist once again.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|temperance 5]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>The house is small and unremarkable at first glance, save for its warmth. A cramped first level with furniture strangely out of place; things more akin for the parlors of businesses or the wealthy, portraits and maps hung proudly on the walls, shuttered windows decorated with fine curtains. The wood stove burns cheerfully, heating an upstairs that remains dark and secretive, the stairs shadowed in the corner. John and his ward pick their way through this almost-maze; he tries his damndest not to track mud upon the rugs or leave blood on the linens, not to leave a stain upon the kindness of this stranger.
She leads him to a back room, someplace with stone floors and flickering lamps and a large basin with a bucket beside, a second, smaller stove heating water as if she anticipated finding a muddy, bloodied stranger in her fields.
"I'll have water shortly," she explains. "Will you let me look at you, please?" And she sounds scared of John, as if he would lash out, leave bloody gouges of his own upon her.
For all his guilt he knows no suffering is holy; he uniquely cannot repent by dying, cannot be a martyr no matter how hard he tries. So he submits, gentle as the hands upon his shoulders removing the ragged jacket.
"I won't hurt you, I promise," she whispers, and John feels metal against his skin, a knife point sliding across his back. "I just need to see your wounds." He nods, throat tight. Reminded that this is not his body, that he does not know what lies beneath the thin linen shirt, does not - in part - want to know, would rather stay undetermined and thus safe from judgement; he will be greeted with horror either way. She cuts the shirt from him and asks nothing, says nothing. Places fingers on the raised seams of torn skin on his back that jolt with pain like lightning, apologizes softly for having wounded him further. "You're in a bad way. I'm sorry. I can help you as best I can, if you'll allow me."
And what choice does John have?
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|temperance 6]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>Laid bare, John shivers in the cold of the back room. The woman makes no indication of discomfort or disgust at the body that he dares not look upon, instead helps him gently into the bath, cleans his wounds with care.
"Is it strange?" She asks. "Do the men ever treat you different, I mean. Do they know?" A longer pause, looking into John's eyes with an expression of sympathy, not condescension, not horror. "You don't have to pretend anymore, if you don't want to. I'm just like you. And I'm not going to hurt you, I promise. I'm like you, I'd never hurt you."
"I never stayed long enough in one place for there to be suspicions. Never spoke enough, never did anything that wasn't pretending, never."
And she sighs, bows her head, rests a hand on his cheek. "What's your name, stranger? Please, let me do you the kindness of knowing you by your name."
He pauses, mouth slightly open. Considers, for a brief second, the relief of being known by a name, proper. Considers, for a brief second, the agony of abandoning the only name he's ever truly known. "My name is John Cassidy King - but that's my father's name. I took it from him when I headed west and it's served me well, been a shield and a blind both. I had another name, back many miles East and many years, a saint's name that wasn't ever mine."
"Can I call you Cassidy?" She asks, the ghost of a smile upon her lips.
Cassidy nods, searching for some remnant of John's toughness, her long-gone father's callous nature. "Can I know your name?" She asks of the woman who has given her a gift she cannot possibly repay.
"Temperance." Cassidy must have looked confused, for she explains further: "Just Temperance, no surname. I'll not submit myself to that shame, belonging to a man. I'll never take a husband, I've never belonged to my father nor any of his damned family."
And Cassidy does her best to understand, knows why she was relieved at her having been a pretender, knows why she chose to rename Cassidy in that moment. Knows where her own relief comes from.
"Thank you, Temperance," she murmurs. Does not add - <i>I'm like you, too.</i>
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|temperance 7]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>The days come and go. Turn to weeks, turn to months. In time, the ragged wounds upon Cassidy's back heal, turn to long scars that ache in the mornings. She fears there is no way to repay Temperance, <<if $choice is 2>>who does not ask about the curse, does not ask about the terror with which Cassidy had greeted her, does not ask about the wrong she had done, about how she came to bear her father's name, about why and how she had fled to the West, turned to a life of pretending. <<elseif $choice is 1>>who does not ask about the wrong she had done, about how she came to bear her father's name, about why and how she had fled to the West, turned to a life of pretending.<</if>> Temperance shows neither fear nor revulsion; for every nightmare, for every moment of terrified silence under the sun, a moment of equal tenderness, her embrace as gentle as the warmth of the sun upon one's back. In time, the curse begins to be forgotten; Heaven and Hell are but words to Cassidy, for whom worship no longer carries with it dread nor terror but tangibility; the roof over her head, the warmth of the fire, the woman who tends it.
In time, over the course of a seemingly endless gray winter, Cassidy grows to find in her savior something uncertain. Something insidiously close to desire in the moments in which Temperance appears starkly beautiful; the way she fixes her hair in the mornings, the light through the windows illuming the freckles across her cheeks as she reads in the late afternoon, the way her sure hands wrap around the handle of the knife as she prepares vegetables in the the kitchen, the redness of her nose as she returns inside from the cold, the way her pale eyes reflect the brightness of the snow, the cupid's bow of her lips as she smiles at Cassidy, sets her heart aflutter. They gather in the evenings for warmth; Temperance remarks that this is the first time she has felt warm in years and Cassidy pretends as if the cold is what causes her to embrace her that much tighter. In the light of the final embers of the fire on some evening non-descript but for its frigidity, Temperance asks of Cassidy a fearful question. One to heal a desperately wounded ache somewhere deep within to hold another, to take another, like-minded and like-bodied into her arms and be seen, to be held and beheld. It is with solemnity that Cassidy kisses Temperance, promises to stay, to forsake all else if need be. And this is repayment enough, Temperance promises; adoration, worship, scripture long abandoned for the altar constructed of their devotion, their bodies.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|temperance 8]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>Gentle spring comes and the first brave shoots are coaxed through the frost in the garden, the fields soon run fallow as the snow wanes away. Cassidy learns to homestead, fixes fenceposts and chops firewood, turns a plow, sows the next harvest's seeds, lets her lover rest through the morning. Rewarded with a hand on her waist, Temperance's promise that she would teach her to dance, waltzing through their bedroom to hummed music, melodies interspersed with laughter and tripping over the other, missed notes turned to kisses broken apart by too-broad smiles. Come summer, and the long days and longer nights are filled with story-telling out on the porch, Temperance's legs draped across Cassidy's lap, fingers absentmindedly linked as the sun sets and the stars in all their majesty slowly rise. Temperance tells Cassidy about as many of the constellations as she can remember, arm raised high and Cassidy's gaze never strays any further than the tip of her finger. The long summer turns slowly to a mild autumn, half the harvest taken to market to trade for the necessary things for winter, the garden's bounty preserved alongside it. The autumn proves to be one of fractious sun and rains as soft and gentle as Temperance upon Cassidy, no longer the pretender but at peace. Not needing to be feared, not begging to be loved, no longer searching for a home nor wishing for death or disappearance, having found at last safety and serenity with another cradled close to her heart.
In time, all that Cassidy dreams of is to grow old with Temperance by her side. Knows - tries to forget, tries to pretend otherwise - that death will not take her then. Resolves to find some way to pass in peace, holding her slumbering lover in arms grown strong and weathered from seasons of labor in her name and sake, swears on a long-abandoned God that she will find some way to never leave her side.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the devil 1]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>It is on a late October's eve in the heart of the worst storm Cassidy has ever seen, a maelstrom borne from Hell itself, that she knows she could never escape the sins of her forebears. For, in the midst of this raging storm, there is a silence.
And in the silence, there is a knocking at the door.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the devil 2]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>A lonesome stranger stands at the door. Except - this man is no stranger. For the briefest of seconds, he looks like Cassidy's father, smiles in the same crooked way, his thin lips curling back into a snarl or sneer, nothing real in the expression. A coyote grin; knowing the very same thing Cassidy does. And then he's someone else, a man in an ivory suit with short, slicked back salt and pepper hair and the shadow of a beard across his jaw, one with eyes black as a clouded night, empty, dull, filled with storm. Dead eyes, corpse eyes, same eyes as the cowboy's father, same eye's as the cowboy's own corpse.
"What do you want?" Cassidy calls through the door.
The stranger calls back. "I don't ask for much. The warmth of your fire for just this night, and refuge from the storm. And if you'll oblige me, a song."
And Cassidy's heart sinks, she slumps against the door. Temperance understands in the way she always does, without question. But she is not cruel like Cassidy is; she will not turn away a stranger asking for warmth in the middle of the night, she could not be swayed by Cassidy's pleas - <i>this is a trick, don't listen to him, he cursed me, he'll curse you too, I can't let that happen again. I can't let that happen to you.</i>
The stranger is untouched by rain, his white suit crisp and clean as he rests by the fire. "Thank you kindly. It ain't all too common that you find kindness like yours in this world anymore."
"Well, we try our best," Temperance replies cautiously. "Folks deserve kindness, especially on nights like tonight."
"You'd know a thing or two about kindness, wouldn't you, John Cassidy King?" Both Temperance and Cassidy freeze. The stranger continues. "Though I suppose it's just Cassidy these days? Quite a far cry from where we first met."
"Who are you?" Temperance asks, edging towards the rifle on the mantle.
The stranger sighs, his shoulders slumping. "Oh, this damned question. They knew me in the East as a gift-giver, someone who could bring fantastic things to those who believed. I was a musician once, way down South, though it's been many years since I've had an audience. In the North, I was a speculator and a businessman, brought the Union on rails out West. And in the West, the goddamned West, they know me as the Devil."
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the devil 3]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>Temperance shoulders the rifle, wraps her finger around the trigger. "I think you should leave." Her voice is cold, venomous.
"I know the rifle isn't loaded, Temperance. I know you keep the bullets in the nightstand by your side of the bed. You're not who I'm here for. I made a deal with one John Cassidy King - and you know what they say. The Devil always gets his due."
"That's not true - Cassidy - tell me that's not true. Please, God, tell me that he's lying to us."
Cassidy-John bites back shame and yet cannot look Temperance in the eyes. "I'm sorry. Temperance, I'm so sorry."
"How is the frontier treating you, John? How is this new life treating you - better than the grave? Better than the wandering? How strange is it - not to pretend to be your father, no - but to have become Lazarus in a stranger's corpse? Is it strange, to have stolen someone's else's life? Is it everything you had ever hoped for? Is this desolate frontier the life you wanted?"
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[It is.|the devil 4][$choice to 1]] </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[It wasn't always.|the devil 4][$choice to 2]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><<if $choice is 1>>"It is." John-Cassidy promises fervently. "It is, it is - my soul ached for this. For peace, for kindness, for tenderness, for the arms of another. For someone like her. For someone like me. I wasn't ever a pious man, never a pious woman, but I found religion here, in these four walls. I know what it means to live. I don't want to die but by her side."<<elseif $choice is 2>><</if>>
"How sweet," the Devil sneers. "But you see, John, I'm <i>bored</i> with you. I set you free of death to be a sinner. And instead, you've become some penitent fucking saint."
"I ain't a - "
"You were a murderer, John! A thief. A gambler and a cheat and a drunkard and a liar. And now your greatest sin is that you take the Lord's name in vain as you kneel in your nighttime perversions of faith, profane some God you never believed in to begin with, raise your <i>bitch</i> as a golden idol!" The Devil is crimson in the face, howling at John, who with all his might tries to stand between him and Temperance, tries not to hear his father's voice. "<i>I</i> gave you all this! This is <i>my</i> doing! And I'll just as soon take it away. You're <i>mine</i>, John Cassidy King. You always have been, you always will be. You'll do what I say."
And what choice does John Cassidy King have?
"Forgive me." The Devil smooths the front of his suit, readjusts his tie, takes a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabs away the slightest rivulet of blood at the corner of his mouth. "I can undo what has been done - at a cost, of course."
"Please," John whispers. "Just tell me."
"Find me the man who killed you - Lawrence Welles, if I'm not mistaken - and kill him. Find your corpse. Dig it up if you must. I'll be waiting, though I must warn you - I'm an impatient man. You'll have until the next full moon." He extends a hand. "Do we have a deal?"
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[What if I refuse?|no]] </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[What if I agree?|yes]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>"And what if I refuse your offer?"
"Then you, John Cassidy King, will get until the next full moon to make your peace with this world. And I will take your body and leave your ghost to wander the earth forever."
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<<if not hasVisited('yes')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[What if I agree?|yes]] </div></li><</if>>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the devil 5]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>"What happens if I kill Lawrence and find my body - what then?"
"You'll be free, John. Mortal, but free. You'll live out the rest of your life and while you still draw breath, I will not interfere in your affairs."
John's heart aches. "And what happens if I fail along the way?"
The Devil smiles a coyote smile. "Then I'll claim your body and leave your ghost to roam this goddamned earth forever."
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<<if not hasVisited('no')>><li><div class = choice-item> [[What if I refuse?|no]] </div></li><</if>>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the devil 5]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>"So, what'll it be, John?"
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Shake the Devil's hand.|the lead]] </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Decline his offer.|temperance ending]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><<nobr>><style>
body{background: var(--black);}
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</style><</nobr>><<type 40ms>>For twenty-eight days, I clung to Cassidy. I told her I loved her with every breath, until the words were all I could think or say. Christ, I missed her more and more with each and every passing second.<</type>><<type 40ms>> Lord.<</type>><<type 40ms>> She wasn't afraid.<</type>><<type 40ms>> Or, if she was, she didn't show it, she didn't want me to see it, to see her like that. She was so kind, so noble, so brave. Every single day, even her last, God, even her last, she spent making sure I'd be alright for when -<</type>><<type 40ms>>
I'm sorry.<</type>><<type 40ms>>
She spent her last day making sure I'd be okay.<</type>>
<<type 40ms>>And I don't know if the Devil was right about her - if she really was a murderer and everything else he accused her of - and I don't think I care either. The Cassidy I knew was a kind woman. The Cassidy I knew was a forgiving woman.<</type>><<cont append>><<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|temperance ending 2]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><</cont>><<nobr>><style>
body{background: var(--black);}
#header{display:none;}
.menuflex{display:none;}
#passages{border-top: none;}
</style><</nobr>><<type 40ms>>So, I hope you'll forgive me for my hostility, stranger. Every time a stranger comes knocking at my door, I'm reminded of the man who took my love, my heart, my sun and moon and all my stars from me.<</type>><<type 40ms>> Twenty-eight days...<</type>><<type 40ms>> I buried Cassidy in the back garden and think of her every time the flowers bloom. Lavender was always her favorite - and, Lord, it grows better over her bones than it ever did in her care. It's what she would have wanted, you see - I couldn't let the Devil take her from me. I couldn't. She understood.<</type>><<type 40ms>>
God, I hope she understood.<</type>><<type 40ms>>
I've buried many a stranger since, though none in such illustrious company as my beloved Cassidy. I know my Cassidy. I know she can't return to me. I know. Every so often, the Devil sends one of his strays out my way, just to claim they're my lost love and ensure my misery - and I always do them the kindness of hearing my tale of woe before I deliver them to an early grave.<</type>><<type 40ms>>
I'm sorry it had to be this way. I hope you understand.<</type>><<type 40ms>> You aren't my Cassidy.<</type>><<type 40ms>> You'll never be her.<</type>><<cont>><<goto "END SCREEN">><</cont>>There is no choice to be made. John knows he cannot leave his love; to do so would be akin to death - and death is otherwise inevitable come the next full moon; an unacceptable outcome, to die young and not . But there is a chance, should he take the deal. A slim chance, a needle in a haystack, one man and one corpse to be found and entire frontier to search. A chance nonetheless - and thus no choice. John shakes the Devil's hand, whose hand burns. Burns. Burns, cold as fire, cold as death.
The deal has been sealed once more, reaffirmed. There is no way to turn back now. There never was.
"Smart man, John. I'll be seeing you at the next full moon." And the Devil turns on his heel and leaves, the door left swinging on its hinges, the storm outside raging once again. The rifle clatters to the floor and John turns in time to embrace his lover, who crumples before the fire.
"Why, Cassidy?" Temperance asks of John. Begs of him. "Who even are you? What does that make us?" For once, John truly has no words. He waits, clings to Temperance as she sobs before the fire, endless, senseless words falling like tears. "Don't you dare leave me, John Cassidy King. How could you, how? I can't do this, I can't go on like this, I can't go on without <i>you</i> - how dare you?"
"I'll come back," he lies. Prays it isn't a lie and yet knows, deep down in the darkest parts of where his soul should be - knows it is. "Somehow, some way, I'll show up at your door again. I won't be gone forever, I swear it. I promise."
"You'd better," she threatens. "I'll find some way to love you, however you return. I promise, I'll find some way."
"Can you forgive me?"
"Yes. But only if you come home. How could I forgive you if you left and never returned?"
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the lead 2]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>There is a cruelty in the things left behind. Temperance, most of all; for in the throes of self-preservation, John forgot that his life was never his own, owed to a sequence of saviors and harbingers alike. The Devil, that damned Devil in his suit of white, played both and neither and all the while John threatens to crack under the weight of revelation laughs like a carrion bird, smiles that awful coyote smile from on high. Has the last laugh, having left a gift by the door.
A revolver, dull black iron, rests with open cylinder upon the table. Seven bullets beside, enough to fill the cylinder once - and a spare that lingers dreadfully out of place, heavy and cold in his breast pocket. Temperance makes no attempt to stop him as he leaves, standing pointedly in the threshold, waiting for her to stop him, to tell him to just come back inside, to apologize. She stares instead, eyes red and brimming with more tears, chin trembling. He turns to leave.
"Cassidy."
John peers over his shoulder. "Temperance."
"Return to me."
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the lead 3]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>The enormity of the task before John is apparent in the way the Devil deigned to bestow upon the cowboy his horse - a massive beast, black as pitch with a single streak of white down his forehead, who huffs and snorts at John's arrival, kicks at the dirt, snaps at the hands on his reins. Feigned, condescending assistance, mockery that prickles at John's skin, feels like hellfire, like insects burrowing and crawling through his flesh, like being eaten alive.
The Devil wanted fury. And so fury John Cassidy King became.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the lead 4]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>For three precious days, he rode, fought the beast for every inch, every mile. At gloomy sunrise, bloody through the haze, a dead town rose. Horseshoes echo on dusty cobblestone, the wind trails long, dusty shadows through the streets, congregates on porches and between the decaying ribs of half-boarded doors, the building's guts strewn onto the boardwalk. Furniture lies legs up like the bloated remnants of gut-shot animals, shattered windows glitters, glassy eyed as John passes the broken teeth fenceposts, tries not to see, to know, to recognize; in every gaping maw left where whatever fury that razed the town ripped door from hinges, there lurks a familiar ghost with red rimmed eyes and a rifle clutched to her breast.
The wind whispers - <i>return to me</i>.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|the lead 5]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>The first town that was not already a belly-up, sun-rotted corpse was halfway there already. A railroad all but encircled it, a noose to its broken neck. Buildings sunk into the soil, buckling at their centers, flinching away from those who look too long or too close, their inhabitants fleeting blurs of faces that peer through yellowed curtains, cast their eyes upon the ground, lest they look upon anything but their own misery.
It is here, in the miserable saloon, quiet and sallow, that John approaches the bar.
"What?" Drawls the bartender, dirtying a glass with his rag.
"I'm looking for someone," John tries to explain.
"Ain't we all?" He slams the glass on the bar top. "Look. Unless you're going to give me a name or spend your money, I'm telling you to get the hell out of here. We don't need your kind."
John's blood boils. Two men stir from across the room, hushing their compatriot, a white-clad stranger. John draws the revolver, cold as ice. His chest aches, the bullet in his pocket burning. "Lawrence Welles. Where is he?"
"Get your gun our of my face, boy."
"Or what? You'll kill me? I ain't afraid to die. I've done it already."
"Why are you looking for Sheriff Welles? Did he lock you up, throw you in the drunk tank, tell you to leave the working girls alone?" The bartender mocks, singsong. "Oh, poor bastard - did he tell you to put away your iron?"
"He murdered me," John snarls. "He shot me in the heart, he murdered me."
"Get the hell out of my bar."
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Leave.|mirage 1][$choice to 1]] </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Stay.|pyre 1][$choice to 2]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>And John knows this is a fight he cannot win. Stares the bartender dead in the eyes, holsters his revolver. Turns his back on the bar and the town, leaves without a single word, insults and profanity hurled at his back. Atop the Devil's horse, he tries not to cry, biting the inside of his cheek. Strange, not to fight when every fiber of his being told him to pull the trigger, to waste the bartender upon his own wall of grimy glasses and cheap booze. The world spins like he's had too much to drink, but he spurs the Devil's horse onwards, following the railroad tracks into the empty vastness that awaits, searching for a man who wishes not to be found and a corpse laid deep beneath the dusty soil.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|mirage 2]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>Days slipped past as John followed the railroad tracks. Somewhere where sky and ground bleed together, a vast empty nothing where something should surely be, he slipped under, pitched forwards in the saddle and awoke, aching and sore beside the ties, clad in tattered clothes bleached almost-white by the sun. Through torrid days and gelid nights, under the slow waxing of the moon, pace steady as the beat of his heart, he walked. Nothing else beside remained, though he wasted under the gaze of the sun, was made hollow by the wind that laughed and danced as he, bound in persistence, cast his gaze upon the unyielding earth and slogged onwards.
He had sought revenge, had sworn an eye for an eye, to kill the man who murdered him but -
But what?
There is no death for things eternal, he can just as easily kill the wind and sun and this endless plane as he can become it, there is no death for John Cassidy King. Surely, he had succumbed after; the almost-corpse borne upon the Devil's horse could go no further, and this body was thus called upon. And surely, when he laid to rest and saw in the hollow skies the circling of vultures, he had succumbed there, taken to the wing with those who unmade him, pushed further. Found himself here, in this indiscernible form at the crossroads with pistol clutched in hand, a single bullet in his pocket and staring at a lonely railroad switch with naught to surround it but the same empty that echoed in his ears. He can do nothing but stand there, not knowing which way to travel and too afraid to divert down any one path.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|mirage 3]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>At dusty sunset, golden through the haze, a dead town rose. Footsteps echo on dusty cobblestone, the wind trails long, dusty shadows through the streets, congregates on porches and between the decaying ribs of half-boarded doors, the building's guts strewn onto the boardwalk. Furniture lies legs up like the bloated remnants of gut-shot animals, shattered windows glitters, glassy eyed as John passes the broken teeth fenceposts, tries not to see, to know, to recognize; in every gaping maw left where whatever fury that razed the town ripped door from hinges, there lurks a familiar ghost with red rimmed eyes and a rifle clutched to her breast.
The wind whispers - <i>return to me</i>.
And John walks beneath the open mandible of the church, bell still hung in the almost vertebral steeple. As if it calls its faithful to service one final time, it rings dully in the breeze. John sits where he always used to, at the very end of the very first pew, and looks up, to where there should be a pastor. Instead, the moon peers softly through shattered stained glass.
<i>What brings you to me, my son?</i>
"Tell me, father, tell me where he is. Tell me where He is."
And the moon is no pastor, knows no religion nor what John is, what he has pretended to be, what he is not, has never been. She knows temperance, knows truth, knows the adoration of another, not bearing any light of her own. She responds in the only way she can. <i>There is nothing for you here. Nothing, not even death.</i>
"The sheriff," John drones, half lucid. "Father, please. Tell me."
<i>Lawrence Welles is under my gaze, as all are. But he fears the end of the world follows him. And you fear you are the end of the world. I fear both of you are right, I fear both of you are wrong. There is nothing for you here,</i> the moon insists gently, caressing a fragment of stained glass, wrapping around its edges and softening them.
"Tell me."
<i>I cannot do anything but cry for you, my son.</i>
"Can I kill him, father? Will I be free, father?" John pleads, caught in a moonbeam. And the moon knows that neither she nor God are the father John Cassidy King calls upon.
<i>I will lament you, as I always have. You will only ever find peace in death.</i>
"I'm sorry," John whispers. "I can't die. Not for you. Nor can I live."
<i>Then you understand why it is that I weep for you.</i>
John gazes up through the stained glass and knows then that he must leave. There is nothing for him here, not death, not life, neither day nor night, nothing but the silent lamentation of the moon and his own empty prayers to a pulpit long abandoned.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|graveyard 1]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>"Like hell I will," the cowboy mutters, pressing the barrel of the revolver to the bartender's forehead and thumbing the hammer, the hollow click of the cylinder deafening in the saloon. "Where is he?"
Rough hands seize John from behind, force his gun hand skywards, kick his legs from under him. Wordlessly, they drag him from the saloon as he curses and splutters, kicks and claws and wrestles with his captors for the gun whose muzzle is twisted towards him dangerously, his finger slipping from the trigger. And then he is dumped in an alley and the pistol falls from his hand and in an instant his captors alight upon him, scavengers upon carrion, kicks delivered to his face and ribs and every time he curls to escape the pain or cries out, they grow ever more furious; having tasted blood, they thirst for more. Blind with tears and dirt and the swelling of his already-black eye, John thrashes against a weight on his chest, lands weak strikes that draw laughter and and not reprieve and then something is driven between his ribs that takes with it the air from his lungs, the voice from his throat.
The weight is lifted. John presses a hand to his chest, curls around the sudden flooding of warmth. Crawls in the dirt, whimpering like a pup, dry heaving. Through the swollen slit that remains of his vision, he sees only the boots of his murderers, who catch their breath and wheeze with laughter, voices frayed by adrenaline.
John Cassidy King is dying, alone and scared in the back alley of some half-corpse town, his fingers wrapped around the handle of his pistol.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|pyre 2]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>John Cassidy King stands, flexing new hands and trying with all his might not to stare at the blood spreading across his slowly collapsing chest, the muscles straining in some elaborate game of give and take as John wrests control, forces upon it life where but an instant before there was death, punctured lung, perforated liver. The other man, an unshaven brute in a long brown overcoat fixates upon it, pale with shock. It is a simple, brutal thing to take the knife slick with blood no longer his and execute him, carving a wavering line from navel to sternum.
Pistol in hand, John returns to the saloon.
"Christ, you look like hell! He give you that much trouble?" The bartender laughs
"They're dead. Both of them." An unfamiliar voice, coarse, garbled by foamy blood at the back of his throat. "I am what remains."
The bartender is as pale as the man left to bleed, backing away from John who encroaches, leaning into the bar. "What <i>are</i> you?"
"I told you. Now tell me where Lawrence Welles is."
"Go to hell."
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|pyre 3]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>If Hell were a place on Earth, it would be found in John's wake. The next town was a dishonest one; facades of fresh paint and false smiles lie nothing but vacuous empty, sweet decay. Slaughter, decadent to John's vulture tongue, still starved of answer or direction. Days slipped past, one with the crows, one with the blood-stained muzzles of the coyotes, loping through the high desert, becoming, unbecoming, swarmed with flies. Corpse after corpse. Town after town, carving slowly through the belly, flesh and muscle and the delicate veil separation after which spills the entrails, equal parts putrid and savory, profane and unholy and righteous; morality lost upon consumption and consumption an act of devotion. John dreams of what it would be like, Lawrence Welles split open, laid bare not as his beloved was but as a cut of meat, as a carrion feast, ribs splayed to the sky and his face buried between.
The moon waxes ever closer and John is hungry. Broken tooth hungry, never learned to be alone hungry, all rotted flesh and long cords of gristle gut-string clung to collapsed skeleton hungry. Seeks out the towns, hungry.
Some ways out into the mountains, under moon-lit skies, lies a town of tinder awaiting a spark. It smolders, reeks of smoke as a wildfire from some distant lightning strike encroaches ever so slowly. The townsfolk watch; there is nothing they can do, nowhere they can go. The end of the world lies beyond the ridgeline. The thing that was once John Cassidy King follows the tongues of flame into the town.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|pyre 4]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>The flock gathers, drawn to the chapel obediently at the ringing of the bell. Slow, near mindless, empty gazes fixed at the fires from on high. John wanders amongst them, snapping at all who pass and fix upon him briefly with glassy eyes, resigned dogmatically to their pilgrimage. Familiar eyes stare back at John, face after face after face all bearing the devil's flame filled gaze; premonition, promise. <i>Return to me,</i> they whisper. White clad shades walk arm in arm with a man in black, laugh at the thing that hisses and growls, slavering for their demise at its teeth.
The edge of town has begun to catch and those mindlessly bound in prayer find those prayers unanswered, their god to be amongst the flames. John stands in the threshold of the church, stomach turning, skin crawling and itching as though the vermin nested in his flesh had found need to escape it, his very being shuddering in revulsion.
The pastor stares at the thing in his doorway, wolf to the flock, and finds piety, temperance. "What brings you to me, my son?"
"Tell me, father, tell me where he is. Tell me where He is."
And the pastor knows then what John is, what he pretends to be, what he is not, has never been and responds in the only way he can. "He has forsaken us. He has forsaken us all, He has forsaken <i>you</i>."
"The sheriff," John whines, half lucid. "Father, please. Tell me."
"Lawrence Welles sought my council, for the end of the world follows him, howls his name. And the end of the world is upon me now, is upon my flock and I stand face to face with not Plague nor Famine nor War - nor even Death - but Hunger. There is nothing for you here," the pastor insists, voice rising as if in sermon, the smell of smoke growing closer."He is far from your fangs."
"Can I kill him, father? Will I be free, father?" John pleads, feeling the heat of the fire upon his back. And the priest knows that neither he nor God are the father John Cassidy King calls upon.
"You will only ever find peace in death."
"Liar!" He roars, pistol drawn from holster to waver unsteadily about the pastor's skull. "Why do you always lie to me? I can't die, you know this, you know this and still you lie to me! Please, father!"
The pastor looks skyward, to where the roof has caught flame, embers borne on a hot, dry wind. No divine intervention comes; he does not remember the prayer, or even if he prayed. John shot him dead as the wildfire crept its way up his pantleg, dripped from the tattered sleeve of his jacket.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|graveyard 1]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><<if $choice is 1>>Borne upon moonlight, <<elseif $choice is 2>>Borne upon an ember, <</if>>John alights upon the town, less a town and more a railyard masquerading as town. A familiar sight, the church and post office and general store and saloon, the place where all began, the place where all will end. John, or whatever he has become, bowed by time and distance and divine madness, limps through the doors of the saloon brandishing a pistol made of black iron, a single bullet loaded in its cylinder, no longer burning a hole through pocket or flesh.
The patrons of the saloon stare at him as he meanders towards the back of the room, slack-jawed. Single-minded and mad, more animal than man, something gone horribly, horribly wrong, lost in translation after translation; the becoming and unbecoming, making and unmaking and knowing intimately death without embracing it, clung as a desperate lover to lives forced upon him as unwilling voyeur, parasite. He is blind to all stares, deaf to all calls for him to stop.
Somewhere between the bar and the tables shoved to the back of the room where men gather under a haze of tobacco smoke to gamble away their paychecks, John finds Lawrence Welles.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|graveyard 2]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>"I'm here to kill you," he manages, his tongue unfamiliar, swollen and heavy.
Lawrence Welles looks up from his hand, at someone entirely unfamiliar. Folds, discarding a full house, aces and eights. "They call aces and eights a dead man's hand. Bad luck. Fate. I guess my time has come, the good Lord has finally asked for me - and you must be Death."
He takes another sip of his whiskey, savors it, gazes longingly at the amber liquid before placing it by his cards, as if he will return to play another hand. He smiles insincerely at John, and without a single protest, they go to the street.
"Would you have us duel, for old time's sake?" Lawrence asks hopefully, but John shakes his head, singular in his purpose. They continue.
"Where is it?"
And Lawrence's heart sinks. "Please, John. Christ, please, have some sense. You don't have to do this. I swear."
"Where is it?" John grows more insistent, more incoherent, tears brimming as he jabs the pistol into Lawrence's back. "Where is it, where is it, where, where, <i>where</i>?"
He leads him to the edge of town, towards a small bluff that protects a meager graveyard of unfinished, oft improvised markers. "John, I'm sorry. I've repented enough, I'm sorry, I'm begging you not to do this. I understand you can't forgive me but please, take mercy on this old man."
he dead cowboy cackles, high and terrible like some scavenger bird at the prospect of offal, a fresh sacrifice to feed a hunger unspeakable. Revenge, delicate flesh, freedom all as sweet as salvation, as warm as a lovers tempered arms.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|graveyard 3]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>In the most distant corner of this small graveyard, under an outcropping of pale red rock, there lies a tombstone with the name John Cassidy King. It is here that Lawrence Welles is made to kneel with the revolver leveled at the crown of his head. To start digging. John watches carefully, waits for the revelation of his corpse, hungry, excited, alight with fury. A man in a white suit sits on the tombstone, watches the proceedings just as cautiously, smiling a coyote smile.
"You're a determined man, John Cassidy King. I didn't think you'd make it this far. But here you are. Here you are..."
The dead cowboy says nothing, just stares at the Devil.
"How good do you think it's going to feel to put a bullet in the back of his head?" He asks, almost singsong, delighting in the frustration spreading beneath John's skin and Lawrence's terror, strong enough to taste. "How good is it going to be to go home in your own corpse for once?"
Lawrence Welles stops digging abruptly, shovel clutched white-knuckled in his grasp. He faces John with abject horror. Turns his gaze to the earth, to the grave he's dug.
"Go ahead, son. This is what you've been waiting for. Take a look," the Devil orders.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|graveyard 4]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>The shallow grave bears only bones encrusted in earth. Nothing more, nothing less. How many years must have passed, for this to be all that is left? The dead cowboy stares at John Cassidy King. The empty eye sockets stare back at him, laughing as the Devil does, gazing gleefully out upon the scene before him: Lawrence who prostrates himself in a final prayer, the dead cowboy staring at the decaying bones that comprise all he is, all he thought he was, all that he was promised to become.
"What would you have me do?" John Cassidy King asks of the Devil, still staring into his empty skull. Desperate. "I can't go home, you asked for my fury and this is my fury, here - don't you see it - it's laying down there with my bones. What more do you want of me?"
"I want you to live forever, John."
And the dead cowboy has one final bullet.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Take aim at the Devil.|devil ending]] </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Take aim at Lawrence.|revenant ending]] </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Take aim at John.|lament ending]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>>Cassidy raises the pistol proudly, sets her shoulders, squares her jaw. Knows this, that she will return to her lover. And with the Devil under sights, she pulls the trigger.
The Devil lurches, blood blooming across the front of his white suit. And then he smiles that coyote smile, curling his fingers around the brilliant crimson stain.
"You're a brave man, John Cassidy King. Braver than most. But brave men and fools are oft the same."
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|devil ending 2]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><<nobr>><style>
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</style><</nobr>><<type 40ms>>Well, that's the end.<</type>><<type 40ms>> Anticlimactic, I know. You want to know what's next?<</type>><<type 40ms>> How awfully kind of you, but I fear the next chapter is not yet written. You see, John Cassidy King's story may have come to an end - and unsatisfyingly so - but it also lives on in each and every one of us, even if you haven't a story telling bone in your body.<</type>><<type 40ms>>
How about this - how about we make a deal?
If you oblige me in a song, just one - let's call it <i>The Ballad of John Cassidy King</i> - then I'll let you write the next chapter yourself. <</type>><<type 40ms>>All you've got to do is shake my hand.<</type>><<cont>><<goto "END SCREEN">><</cont>>John raises the pistol, takes careful aim at the back of Lawrence Welles' head. He watches as the empty body crumples to lie with his bones in the shallow grave.
"It's over. Unhand me."
The devil smiles that coyote smile. "Oh, but we've just begun."
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|revenant ending 2]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><<nobr>><style>
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</style><</nobr>><<type 40ms>>Now, I apologize for being so long winded in my tale of woe, but I need you to understand the severity of my predicament. See, the Devil tricked me - and he'd trick you too. I made an agreement with him, shook his damned hand thrice now.<</type>>
<<type 40ms>>I am cursed to wander while he keeps my darling waiting for me. And it just ain't right to keep a lady waiting. So, if you'll oblige a poor cowboy some directions, I'll be on my way shortly.<</type>><<type 40ms>>
And if not - well. There'll be hell to pay.<</type>><<cont>><<goto "END SCREEN">><</cont>>The dead cowboy raises the pistol to press cold and final against his chin. "I ain't going to live forever."
And he pulls the trigger.
<<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Continue.|lament ending 2]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><<nobr>><style>
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</style><</nobr>><<type 40ms>>And they say John Cassidy King is no more, that he found the most awful way to escape the Devil, to free his damned soul.<</type>><<type 40ms>>
But -<</type>> <<type 40ms>>they say this revenant soul is still out there, cast from grave to grave to grave, looking for a death that eludes him, his love and the Devil both having left him long behind to wander aimlessly. You'll hear him as a lonely coyote in the depths of night or a scream borne on the wind, having long since been reduced back to just a mote of dust borne on a sunbeam<</type>><<cont>><<goto "END SCREEN">><</cont>>
<<cont>><<goto "END SCREEN">><</cont>><<nobr>><style>
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</style><</nobr>>
<h1>The End.</h1>
<center><<cont append>><span class = accent><<link "Begin Again">><<run Engine.restart()>><</link>> | <<link "Load Save">><<run UI.saves()>><</link>></span><</cont>></center><<nobr>><style>
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</style><</nobr>><<type 40ms>>My, aren't you a familiar face? Haven't I told you this story before?<</type>>
<<type 40ms>>You can't remember?<</type>>
<<type 40ms>> My apologies, friend. Come, sit by the fire. There's nothing to fear, and the nights are growing colder.<</type>><<type 40ms>> Let me tell you a story. Would you sit with me and listen?<</type>><<cont append>><<nobr>><div class = choices><ol>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[Yes.|real start]] </div></li>
<li><div class = choice-item> [[No.|false start]] </div></li>
</ol></div><</nobr>><</cont>>