Red Ropes — Isabella Burns
The alkali was white, covering the western land like a promise of purity. This wasn’t snow, though–this wasn’t pure or soft. This was rock. Rough, hard, waiting to be stained. It covered the landscape, like a long-dry sea. Fish bones, cattle bones, human bones. You couldn’t walk two feet without the reminders. Here and there, a scorpion would jut out from under a cactus, only to scutter back in when it saw the sun had not yet fully set. Its rays lit up the evening in gold. That was the only gold around here. Two more steps, crunching in the mineral. More bones. More false promises.
Two men faced each other now. Their dark figures cut the sea of white and gold, standing out like thieves in a confessional.
“You came,” José called out.
“I said I would. I’m no coward,” James responded.
“Never said ya were.”
They held each other's gazes, only standing a few steps away from each other now.
“You was thinkin’ it,” he finally spoke, jerking his head at him, “You don’t hide it well.”
“Maybe you just read me well, hermano,” José replied. He was taller, with dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin. His hair was pulled back, his white vest buttoned up. He was sweaty and dusty nonetheless, shining in the evening sun.
The second man, the scraggly one, huffed out a laugh. “Bastard.” He said it caught between sweet and cruel, like steel coated in sugar or blood licked from a lover.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” the words rolled off of his tongue with a slight smile, his eyes narrowing.
They were both bastards. Both abandoned to be free, both sons of the sagebrush and fathers of the new world. They had matching scars, his on his left eye, and his on his right. They stared each other down. The Mexican noticed how James’ hair hadn’t been washed in days, the way his shoulders hunched forward, like a little lynx waiting to pounce; he noticed the dirt and dust on his oversized boots. The American noticed the little smile that played on José’s lips; something was always funny around him, always better than it should have been.
“I’m gonna kill you, you son of a bitch,” James spat.
José laughed, crossing his arms and shaking his head, “Yeah? That why you invited me out here? To kill me? You gonna?” He teased, leaning in, letting the words spill out, rough as rock and smooth as smoke. “At least I got my mother.”
“At least I’ve earned my lot,” he gritted through his teeth, like an upset toddler dressed up in bloody denim and a cartridge belt.
He laughed, throwing his head back to the sky and pointing at him. “You ain’t earned shit, pendejo.”
“Is stealing not earning?”
To him, it was. To crawl so deeply into something, to crack its ribs so gently that it didn’t stir and to burrow so quietly into its chest, to sneak into its very essence… that was a learned skill. Or was it instinct? It was the same way a fox stealthily dug into a farmer’s land; it didn’t know what it was doing, but that didn’t make it any less impressive or invasive.
“You don’t steal fair.”
“Since when was you a moral man?” James grumbled, his voice laced with the skepticism that could only come from intimacy. He saw the scar on his back.
“There’s a difference between being moral and being stupid, cabrón,” he spat, like a snake shelling out venom. Light caught on his white teeth, reflecting off the sharp incisors. They had bit James before, many a time. He sunk them into his shoulders, pressing down until his lips were sucking on the dirty skin. One day, the teeth on skin wasn’t enough. José began to paw at his chest, whining, begging, as claw met rib. James ripped easily. The fox took his prize, running off with it between his teeth, his head proudly pointed up to the western sky, wagging his tail as he ran off. He left the other man empty with scars like train tracks and fear like a schoolboy.
“Whaddya want me to do about it? It’s my goddamn life, it's my goddamn life, if I’m a stupid bastard or a cay-bron or whatever the Hell you’re always callin’ me. What’s it to you? Leave it, you goddamn–leave it. I ain’t that stupid. Am I? Am I?” He stepped closer and heard the crunch of the mineral beneath his heavy boot. The air was thick and dry, suffocating him and pushing him back.
“Always have been.” José smiled, not wide, but not hidden, either. It was his turn to taste the paradox, the steel and the sugar, the lover’s blood.
The American took a breath and shook his head. He wanted his turn to tear into skin, and the other man wanted to be devoured, licked dry, his tender flesh pulled from every bone, falling off just for him to take and scarf down. He wasn’t a lamb or a rabbit. He wasn’t weak. He wasn’t running. He was as holy as communion wafers. He was laying himself bare in the hellscape, letting the sweat coat his skin and his ascot hang too low on his neck. He was giving the other man the chance to return the favor, to get his own prize.
They locked gazes, caught between predator and predator. They were too similar. Neither man would back down. Neither man would ask what the hell they were doing. They were filling their boots; they were digging their graves. Flowers would grow there, unbothered by the tread of spurs, growing in the freedom of the alkali that would normally nurture only death, never life.
The American spit on the ground, saliva hanging from the corner of his mouth, his hand slowly raising toward his belt.
José raised his eyes, looking at him from below his dark lashes.
And what was this? Some cruel trick of fate? Linking two souls, they couldn’t escape. In the vast plains of white and yellow, dust and bones, James felt claustrophobic, like he got that little red string tied so tight around him that he couldn’t breathe. He writhed like a fish caught in a net, like a cow caught in a lasso. He spun in circles until he fell on his ass and sunk deeper into Hell.
He wasn’t supposed to get twisted with his own weapon. He was supposed to wield it, to bear the cross and be the symbol. He was supposed to do, supposed to be, a lot of things. He tried to push the rope down, to tear it off, dancing with the divine and stepping on his own feet. It clung to his ankles. Of course it did.
Meanwhile, the other man’s hand came to his own belt.
They hesitated. You weren’t supposed to hesitate. James shot.
He had tried to kill a part of himself, and in doing so, he had tried to kill someone else. He had killed someone else, and he had killed himself. He tried to rid himself of the rot on his heart, tried to tear apart the decaying flesh. When he reached inside, nothing was left. His heart wasn’t his own, it was still in his goddamn teeth. It belonged to him. The man lying under the setting sun, red flowers blooming through his chest.
He hovered over the body, giving it a gentle kick. “Tell God not to worry about saving me… brother.”
Isabella Burns is a senior at Amador Valley High School. Her prior publications include The Malu Zine, The Weight Journal, and The Lighthouse Literary Magazine. She has edited two issues of The Lighthouse, and this year, she will serve as editor-in-chief. Greek mythology and Metallica are just two of her many inspirations. When she isn’t writing, she volunteers as an English tutor or carves soap.