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Blazing, blinding sun reflecting off of rocks. It’s so warm that the air itself is simmering, dancing and weaving while vultures circle lazily in the cloudless sky. Arthur knows where his horse is headed, wants to pull on the reins. Pull the animal to a stop, tuck tail and run. He would give anything to run from what he knows he’ll find.
Please, not again. Please. Arthur tries to speak, but the words break and shatter before they leave his lips, just as dry and parched as the rest of the landscape. Eliza had written that they hadn’t gotten enough rain and needed help. Crops failed, Isaac was in need of new clothes. Come soon. It’s her voice echoing off the rocks and dry dirt path rather than his own and it’s nothing more than a mochery. He never arrives soon enough to stop it and it’s been years. Too many to count. Too much time has been allowed to pass and Arthur is still at a loss as to how the sun rises and sets, that flowers still bloom and seasons still come and go. After all, he’s little more than an empty, bloodied shell of a man. Why shouldn’t the rest of the world be the same way?
The horse plods along, moving too quickly for the pace and before long, Arthur finds himself dismounted, hat in hand and approaching two mounds of freshly dug earth. Please don’t make me do this, I cannot see it again, please… Arthur cannot stop himself anymore than he could his horse, anymore than he could the spineless, soulless men that broke the door off its hinges and soaked the floor of his son’s bedroom floor with blood.
Voices of neighbors, guarded, but full to the brim with pity for a man running himself ragged to provide for his family - or so they believed. She tried to hide him, we think. Didn’t quite make it to the wardrobe in time before…well. It’s a terrible thing. God awful terrible. We’re so sorry, Mr. Callahan.
We thought about waiting for you to lay him to rest, but we wasn’t sure when you’d be next through town and with the heat–
A few more steps and his vision narrows. Two crosses of rough, hastily cut wood. No time for names to be carved, not that Arthur knew her last name in any case. Next to one cross, a carved toy horse is placed and it’s at that moment that Arthur wakes, bolting upright in his bedroll and screaming. The sound of it echoes into the forest around him, silencing the critters going about their business for a moment or so before they continue on. His horse shifts where she’s hitched, but she doesn’t so much as spare him a glance. As often as he wakes up screaming, for one reason or another, it’s no surprise that she isn’t bothered by it.
Cold sweat is dripping down his back, soaking through the layers of clothing and his stomach rolls, pitches and cramps. Arthur doesn’t even have time to get to his feet before he convulses, vomiting what little he’d eaten into the dirt. His back hunches as it rolls through him, relentless and never-ending until all he’s got left to bring up is bile and spit. Arthur has to force his eyes to stay open as he leans forward, letting his forehead fall into the dirt as he tries to pull in a breath. If he closes them he’ll see it all again. He’ll imagine what he wasn’t there - should have been there - to find. It should have been him to open that door and find his boy and his mother.
Eliza on her back, chest bloodied and ruined by a close-range gunshot. Only a few steps behind her, splayed on his stomach in the middle of a pool of blood. So much blood; far too much blood for such a little body. Arthur had seen the stains the neighbors had tried to scrub out and he’d had no conception that a four year old could bleed that much. Enough blood to drown Arthur for the rest of his days. Enough blood to drown the world in.
His eyes, blue like his Pa’s, had been open when the bodies were found. Staring sightlessly at the wardrobe his Ma had probably told him to run to. She’d assumed that the wooden bar across the door would buy her enough time to hide Isaac. So long as Isaac survived, what happened to her wouldn’t matter a jot. But the bar splittered, the door flew off its hinge and she couldn’t put herself in front of him in time.
Arthur’s fists scratch and scramble at the dirt as he pulls in a breath, only to exhale a wail. The pain is as horribly sharp as it had been ten years ago. No amount of time has dulled it. No amount of bottles or blood spilled by his own hands has washed it away. It chips away at him bit by bit and one day there will be nothing left of him at all.
Another inhale, a louder, more ragged scream that rips his heart out as it tears out of his throat, “Isaac!” The sound of his own voice echoing back at him raises the hair on the back of his neck. He sounds wild, wrecked and, frankly, mad. Like a wounded animal scrambling and desperate to escape pain. But there is no escape, not as long as his heart still beats.
“I can’t– M’sorry, I’m so sorry. My f–my fault,” hoarse whispers, confessions whispered to the earth that offers no forgiveness. There is no forgiveness for a father who cannot protect his child. There is no atonement for the man who buries the family he was meant to protect. All there is is wandering with no purpose or meaning to his life.
Should have laid down right next to him and put a gun in your mouth. Oughta do it now. What’re you goin’ on for? What’s left when you’ve already buried your heart? The voice is familiar, sinister in the way it’s so calm and cool, voice dark and slick like oil.
Arthur groans, hands coming to his ears in hopes of blocking the whispers out. He’s still kneeling in the dirt, shivering now that his sweat has cooled in the night air. Far off in the dark of the trees an owl hoots. His gun is nearby, that’s true. But if he were to do it, who would see to his horse? She depends on him too and he can’t rightly leave her to fend for herself, as appealing as the idea is. He is so tired. Tired in the twisted, shattered fragments of his soul. Arthur feels ancient, crippled and broken beyond repair. A quick end would bring peace, but peace is not something he deserves.
Inhaling shakily, Arthur crawls back to his bedroll, whipping the sick from his mouth and beard with his shirt sleeve.
No, this is his punishment. Living is the price he must pay for the single greatest failure of his life. Arthur must go on living in a world that has already ended, wandering like Cain until his body gives out and he, too, is buried in a hastily dug grave. He deserves nothing better.