8 or so AM

Aimee and I were snuggling. She hugged me hard, kissed me and kissed 
me, promising she could get better. I said that even if she never did, I 
surely wouldn't leave her. Hell, I'm getting old and I've had plenty of sex 
(I hope). In my dotage, her presence is what counts.

Then Aimee told me--as if I really didn't understand--that making a baby 
takes more than snuggling. "Yeah, I know, honey," I whispered, running 
my fingers through her fluffy short hair, feeling futility and the dry 
prickle in my eyes from last night's tears. I couldn't tell her that she's 
barren and I can't fake the hope of a miracle conception. Your Goderville 
woman got pregnant, sure--but I'd never wish a tragedy like that on 
Aimee.

Shit. My head hurts. I wonder if she hit me with that frying pan after all? 
In the pain, there is some clarity. I know Aimee and I had a little girl and 
she's gone. We had a daughter. I can almost say her name. I can almost see 
her face. Cold Harbor.... Did she die there? I think so. How do I tell Aimee 
we can't ever have her back?



June 21

The fun around here never ends.

I tried to die three days ago. My head hurt so bad and my thoughts were so 
shredded--I had to make it stop. Went out back to the chicken pen and put a 
knife to my wrists. Leaned over their tub while the birds cocked their 
heads quizzically and red polluted their drinking water. I don't remember 
passing out, but I felt hot dirt and pebbles under my cheek and Aimee was 
calling me a cocksucker and wasn't it just too damn bad that she was a 
doctor and could stitch me up fine.

And tarnation (insidious local vocabulary) if she didn't, with sewing 
thread. I ought to have been frightened sour as Aimee burned the point of 
her needle and drew the thread through its eye, but I was staring, dead 
inside--that particular dead I'd felt in a cold, quiet room in the Factory. I'd 
watched numbly then, too, wondering who I was while the last dregs of an 
IV dripped into my vein. Her tourniquets bit into my arms like my Maker's 
restraints.

Anyway, I'm in Sanctuary again. Doc says I'm developing an unhealthy 
fetish for this place and I think he may be onto something. Everyone is 
staying quiet about my tryst with the carving knife. You've already 
guessed, I suppose, that I tripped the suicide function. I remembered too 
much, and the last person the Earps want to hear that is George Chancellor, 
Jr.

I had to have blood. Morgan Earp matched up as my type and he reveled 
like a saint-on-fire in feeding me from his veins. Morg's on this penance 
kick for getting Wyatt whipped: performing good deeds for everyone with 
a face long and sad as a basset hound's. While we were doing the living 
dead thing, I told him he shouldn't be so hard on himself. "Warren," he 
sighed, frowning at the tube full of dark crimson that ran from his arm to 
mine, "If you knew...well, I guess you will sometime. Anyway, Wyatt--he 
don't hold no grudge. He says just to think of those marks as battle scars. In 
a righteous war, he says, these things happen."

I smiled weakly. (What the hell was he talking about?) "But you want to 
give yourself a few wounds to feel better?" I asked. 

"It's the only way." His head bowed.

I told Morgan that I thought Luther's influence was picking up stink. The 
Angel was in earshot and he walked over to flick my forehead. Guess that 
means he likes me.

My wife--I can call her that now, I suppose--has no recollection of sewing 
me up. Doc was pretty impressed by her forgotten know-how. He hopes 
she can recall some of her medical training when her personality 
stabilitizes; says he could use her help around Sanctuary.

In her amnesic state, Aimee can't do much for me besides drive everyone 
in Sanctuary mad with her quicksilver ways--and make me love her even 
more for it. I know that she is very different from the woman I once knew, 
but I don't just love the vestigy; I love this woman, too. If she stays as 
much of a fruitloop as she is now for the rest of time, it will be okay by 
me. And I just have to add that she looks lovely in this emerald green dress 
that Bessie and the girls made. It brings out a shadow coloring--a hint of 
something that originally besotted me.

God, I feel this retarded macho pride of ownership. If the woman Aimee 
was knew what I was thinking now she'd thwack me good. She was her 
own person, with a boundless heart, but she didn't really need me or Him 
She stooped to love us. She'd have done better without us.


June 22
1 PM

There was some kind of trouble over in Willcox yesterday. Doc said he 
didn't know the details, but the Earps set off this morning. He changed my 
bandages while a clove cigarette hung from the side of his mouth and then 
told me I should go on home. Aimee was my walking stick on the leg back 
from Sanctuary. God damn, the morning was hot--its about 105 degrees 
out there right now. It was maybe 80 inside our thick adobe walls. Aimee 
sat me down at the table and we were discussing whether, in this heat, the 
need to eat lunch superseded the need to cook it, when dusty Virgil Earp 
appeared in our doorway. He tipped his slouch hat to Aimee. "Afternoon, 
darlin'."

"I thought you went to Willcox." She appraised him with narrow eyes. 
Since that day in the Peace Office, she always starts out suspicious of 
Virge, but can't hang on to her paranoia in the face of his soothing paternal 
magnetism. When he said he'd stayed home just to see this green dress 
everyone was talking about, she let her mouth quirk. Told him to sit down 
and not fall on anything sharp, for shit's sake.

We small-talked awhile, all of us sitting at the table. Drank shots of cactus 
hooch that brought up a wet sheen on my skin and make the room 
shimmer. Suddenly, Virge laid his hand on my arm, just above the white 
puff of the bandage. "Warren." His eyes--ice and fire in there, sparking. "I 
come here today to ask you somethin' important. Real important."

As I nodded, blinking, he reached out for Aimee. I watched her consider, 
then carefully rest her hand inside his open palm. Virgil squeezed it, 
squeezed my arm, too. His mustache jiggled as he spoke. "Wyatt, Morgan, 
and I--we want to adopt you. We want you to become a brother, and you, 
Miss Aimee, to be our sister."

I clenched my jaw to keep my mouth from falling open. Petunia, I don't 
know how to write about this to you any more than I knew what to say to 
Virgil. I was--and am--truly flummoxed and, frankly, scared stupid. It 
makes me want to blubber, too. I admire them so much and they want me. 
Funny, in your last letter, you wrote about how you shed a tear when your 
queen told you she needed your presence. I think we're running on some 
sort of parallel track here, Petunia--both of us ending up in the heart of 
things again, just like Before. I'm tempted to write something horky like 
'They wiped our minds, but they cannot wipe our destiny!' Not that I want 
to die fighting for some cause that now eludes me. I just want us to be left 
alone here. I want to see you again some day, too. I'd like to know who we 
were. That's all. Fuck power, fuck glory, fuck everything but the love we 
bear for other people, and that which they bear for us. I know there used 
to be a name for the kind of person I've become, but it's locked away 
behind my mental zipper.

Virgil wants us to think about the offer. I _do_ need to think. By becoming 
a Boss Earp, I--well, become a Boss Earp. A godling on the streets of 
Tombstone. That's sobering. Aimee, however, is in the high altitudes 
where little cogency is possible. She made up her mind the minute Virge 
mentioned there'd be a big Adoption Party and the governor might truck in 
ice cream.


Mail train today. This letter is done. You'd best have written me. I'm not 
going to cope with two-month silences again.

Yours,

Sundance



June 26

That trouble over in Willcox was courtesy of Curly Bill. Apparently, the 
boys hung banners in town proclaiming "The Time is Now for 
Revolution", "Drop Dead Feds", "Instant Karma", and other goading 
sentiments. Young Major is livid. He badgered the governor into riding 
over there to see the evidence of impending insurrection. And because of 
this tempest-teapot activity by the Boys, the innocent town marshall of 
Willcox was taken to Rehab at Fort Apache (better than a six foot drop, I 
suppose, but that poor man is going to hurt), and Governor Chancellor has 
placed a curfew on all of Cochise. Everyone, in every town, has to be off 
the streets by ten PM. Anyone caught outside after ten will be shot.

Peace Officers are exempted from the curfew, but Wyatt says there's not a 
chance that the Bluttos will ask 'friend or foe' before firing, so he's called 
off our night patrols. Virgil joked that the Feds'll have as much self-
control as a pole jockey ready to shoot off a load. We laughed, but it felt 
like gallows humor.

Morgan was left behind in charge of dangerous (wink) Willcox. Yours 
Truly is now the number three man in Tombstone. Yes, we're being 
adopted, but thanks to Curly's gang, there won't be any ice cream. Aimee 
is ready to spit.

My wife.
Might as well catch you up on her first. We've had some interesting 
conversations these last few days--interesting because a marked change 
precedes them. She might be whirling around like a dervish in the middle 
of the room--no, I don't know how she got on this spinning thing; she just 
tells me to shut up when I ask--or she'll be tapping on cooking pots until 
my brain is ready to run out my nose, and then she'll just stop. Her posture 
changes. It gets--well, queenly--as straight as Sylvia's, and Aimee's not 
wearing that corseted bodice you described. (I'll bet that Her Majesty's 
breasts _do_ bulge enticingly over of the top. I wish you joy in teasing 
them forth.)

Anyway, Aimee's face changes, too. Becomes tired and sad. If you knew 
her, you'd be stunned by the transformation. I might have panicked the 
first time it happened if that careworn expression hadn't tallied with my 
inner vision of her old self.

Aimee doesn't remember the past when she's in these states, but she can 
converse fluidly and logically about the life of the town, about loving me, 
and about missing Him. She says not knowing who she's aching for makes 
it almost unbearable. Aimee's showing the symptoms of Unboxing Night 
Syndrome. I want to keep her back from horse trough oblivion by telling 
her that you may be Him, but I'm afraid to. She can't see you or talk to 
you, and you aren't having fugues that bring anything back. Getting her 
hopes up could be worse than letting it alone.

We haven't been able to have sex, although we're making progress. If 
Aimee's in control, she's pretty much okay. She's teased me wickedly and 
made me come with her hand, but she won't suck or ride me yet. I can 
hang out indefinitely on the attention she's providing, but I can't give her 
an orgasm in return. Rubbing doesn't seem to be enough and she gets 
frightened when I use my mouth. In one of her 'lucid' states, she said she 
doesn't know if there's enough clitoral nerve sensation left. Says she can't 
remember what happened in the Factory, but she knows this damage is a 
result. I shivered when Aimee added, "The guards said I enjoyed it." Do 
you think Factory Bluttos are trained in parallel blither? A guard snerked 
the same thing in my ear once as he fucked me up the ass.

The town.
The local economy is already shot to shit by the curfew. There's no twenty-
four hour booze service, so there's a reduced need for hooch, so the 
distillers have product unsold, so the stills aren't fired up, so the corn we 
get from the Amer-Indian ghetto is sitting on the supply dock, ad Capitalist 
nauseum. Lucid Aimee says she's disgusted by freemarket alcoholism. I 
want to warn her that she's looking into its freefall herself--that her need 
will get worse before it gets better.

So, business sucks for the saloons, but the whorehouses are innovative as 
ever. They've reversed their hours of operation. The girls at Bessie's used 
to sleep all day and screw all night. Now, they're out at noon with faces 
painted clownish and their gaudy gowns on the way to fading in the sun. 
Somehow, the night made the hookers, drag queens, and herms look muted 
and less--well, stupid. I mean, they're supposed to be Ladies of the 
Evening, right? Now I know why.

The prostitutes' regular customers are also living in reverse. Consequently, 
nothing is getting done around here. If your horse throws its shoe, or the 
wheel falls off your bike, that's tough because the fix-it shops are staffed 
by habitual Janes and Johns. I haven't seen anyone over in the clayworks 
for several days and the tailoress who's making me some new clothes has 
disappeared into some pretty boy's street crib. If I happen to hear her 
moaning behind a curtain, I'm going to rip it open and demand my cravat. 
A man can't be Number Three Earp without a mutherfucking cravat.

The adoption.
Aimee and I have gone to the hacienda several times and been introduced to 
all of Clan Earp. Wyatt has two wives: the aforementioned snappish Mattie, 
and the weepy one was Josephine. Morgan's got a husband named Texas 
Jack Vermillion. Virgil's not married. There's a whole gang of sons and 
daughters. I've mentioned Newton and Sadie. I'll bring up the others if 
needs arises because I can't keep them straight myself. 

Oh, the yellow dog is named is Peaches. He's one of a dozen. The Earp 
hacienda is packed with people and pooches. There's no room for Aimee 
and me, which is fine, because there's a lot of tension in that house. I didn't 
expect it, although now that I see it, I should have. Wyatt's under nonstop 
stress and he's an introvert who doesn't speak unless he's got something 
pithy to say. Mattie just believes in talking. Pithiness need not apply. Josie 
is a Drone (a Clone lacking a voicebox, in case you call them something 
different in Goderville) with an drive to tend plants. She's mistress of 
Doc's herb garden and helps him prepare his tonics, teas, and drops. Wyatt 
relies on Mattie to bitch and bully for him--to practice nonrestraint exactly 
the way Wyatt can't or won't, while Josie brings him heart's rest: he'll love 
on her quite tenderly when he thinks that no one notices.

The lunch.
I endured an obligatory meal at the governor's table. Get this: It was above 
100 outside, but just on the other side of his house wall it wasn't more than 
70. There was a machine propped in the dining room window, humming as 
it blew cold air. As soon as I saw it, I knew I used to have one of these 
wonderful thinggies (can't recall the name, of course) in the Before Time. 
Thought about how nice it would be to get all sweaty with Aimee in a room 
under its cooling influence.

I stared at that machine off and on while we ate. It kept me from making 
too much eye contact with the governor. Having Wyatt and Virgil at the 
table did not alleviate my jitters. I kept ticking my teeth with the fucking 
fork tines because my hands were trembling. And I was afraid that he'd 
notice my scars, so I kept my wrists hidden by the sleeves of my new 
canvas duster and, for good measure, sheltered my hands under the table 
whenever the food wasn't en route to my mouth. The lunch was wonderful, 
by the way: these long, thread-thin noodles and tomato sauce. _Fresh_ 
tomatoes boiled down and spiced with garlic and rosemary by Chancellor's 
dark-skinned housewoman. Sure beat the heck out of salt pork, beef jerky, 
fried corn flour, sun-dried everything, and produce that was sealed up in 
tin cans long before the war.

I was nervous, but I had a sense of what Chancellor would be like. I've 
been in and out of his office delivering reports for nearly a year, and then 
there was the Cherry Hill speech, so I knew his bluff politeness; I'd 
bumped his veneer of pity above stockboard fidelity to ideals we never 
shared.

"So." The Governor wiped his hands and dropped his napkin on noodle bits 
and orange-crusted china. "Here you are--our new Number Three. It's a 
pity Morgan's been farmed out to Willcox, but...." He spread his hands. 
"So, a great deal of responsibility is coming to you quickly, Warren, but 
I'm sure you'll do well by Wyatt so that he can do well by me."

Wyatt laid down his fork. "Warren knows how to calm a fight. He can read 
and write. He's got our regard. He'll make a good brother, sir."

"No doubt." Chancellor smiled at the spare, blond man to his right. "I trust 
your judgment. You know that, son." Then he looked to me with small 
brown eyes in his wide, fat, flushed face. "Wyatt and Virgil will teach you 
the practice of civilian governance in Tombstone. What I want to set you 
clear on is the theory behind that governance." He pushed back in his chair 
and rang a tinkley little bell that summoned his housewoman. "We're ready 
for the port, Matilda."

"Yes, sir." She dipped a curtsey, retreated. By the time she returned 
bearing a tray with four small glasses of crimson fluid, Governor 
Chancellor was telling a tale I've heard fragments of before: how he 
selected the original group of Simpletons to settle Tombstone from the 
inmates of his Factory. Among that Delivery Lot were Wyatt, Virgil, 
Morgan, Doc, Henry Hooker, and others who have become the town 
authorities of Bisbee, Willcox, and other communities in Cochise. (Curly 
Bill was also in that first shipment. Old Chancellor shrugged when he 
mentioned him, said he couldn't be a perfect judge of character, now, could 
he?)

Tombstone was a ghost town when they arrived. All the inhabitants were 
run off, abducted, or killed, maybe--although we've never found their 
remains. I know that at least some of them thought they'd return. While on 
perimeter patrol, I've come across marriage bands, deeds for property, 
gold jewelry, photo albums--all boxed up in plastic containers or canvas 
bags and buried in shallow desert holes. Graves, really, for the trappings of 
lives gone by. Some folk around here will take a hoard for their own, but I 
leave them be, as I hope my stash--if I buried one--is left in situ for me.

Virgil told me awhile back that when the First Merchandise were off-
loaded and stood blinking in the brilliant sun, Old Chancellor strode along 
their straggly line down the station platform, surveying the horizon and 
grumbling to his adjutant that all they'd find in this desert were their own 
tombstones. Virgil was dismayed--they were so sick and parched and there 
was their Maker bitching that they'd landed in the shit zone when he'd 
promised a kind new place. Virgil hadn't been long broken. Shaking in the 
heat, struggling to stand, he hung onto Wyatt and watched Chancellor 
loosen his collar, call for a cool drink, and complain about FEMA's ill-use 
of a loyal servant. Virge wept then, Petunia. Said he put his head on 
Wyatt's shoulder and bawled.

If Chancellor saw Virge cry that day, he didn't mention it. In the 
governor's narration, all of the Merchandise were straight-spined and 
thankful, keen to march off the platform and go straight to work. And he 
recalled himself at their head, pitching in and lending spirit. I had to look 
him in the eye while he spoke--and really, it was best that I did. Loathing 
kept me pokerfaced.

During dessert, he finally got to his point--the theory of governance he 
wanted to impart. My cherry pie came with a bronze town marshal's badge 
on the side of the plate, two tips of the star poking pink sugary goop. I 
picked it up gingerly and wiped it clean with my napkin while Chancellor 
urged me to put it on, then told his sheriff to do it when I hesitated. 
Wyatt's hands didn't tremble. Gave me a blue diamond eye-lock and a little 
nod as the pin pushed through fabric.

"There. Splendid." Chancellor clapped. The sound drew my gaze to a smile 
that had spread his fleshy face wider. The governor sat back and folded his 
hands on his gut, the grin faded, and his lips pursed. "I want to make you 
understand," he spoke in a serious timbre, "that behind all Wyatt does or 
orders done in Cochise Ghetto there is only one goal: to preserve FEMA 
law and rule. If you can't stomach that, you'd best take off the badge again 
before you leave my house."

My jaw tightened. Had to loosen up to speak. "Sir, I've always worked for 
quiet here, ever since I became a peace officer."

"Exactly." The governor agreed. "You're a good Simpleton, Warren. Your 
Maker shaped you well, just as I shaped Wyatt and Virgil--I was hard on 
you, wasn't I, boys? Gave you extra training and correction. Worked with 
you so that you knew you were Quality Merchandise." He turned to the 
brothers who sat stick-straight and steely but for an identical twitch of left 
eyes. When both swallowed at the same time, I knew they were buttoning 
down. Clones tend to act in sync when their ire or fear comes on-line.

When the governor looked to me again, I couldn't sustain my deadpan. I 
had to knock back my little glass of sweet booze; the cup rapped sharp 
against the table on the downswing. A good Simp, huh? My cajones 
dropped from their hiding place. "You're telling me that I need to be a 
collaborator."

"Yes," he replied slowly. "I am."

My eyes trailed the pretty gold-leafing around the rim of the glass. "Sir," I 
finally told the FEMA sonofabitch, "I don't care to leave Cochise. It's my 
home now, and I doubt the outside world is much freer. Besides," I looked 
up. Saw him watching me with a raised brow and a salty glimmer. "No one 
I love is out there, unless its in another ghetto. I mean to protect the loved 
ones I have here."

"Through law and order?"

Wyatt and Virgil cleared their throats, picked up their glasses and drank. 
Sat the cups down exactly parallel. Christ, I had to be careful. I couldn't 
disappoint them. "I'll do everything I can to keep folks safe," I told the 
governor, trying not to grind my molars. "I don't want problems here. I'll 
work with Wyatt and Virgil and I'll work with you."

"And my nephew?" The governor smiled again, then belched delicately and 
patted his full belly. "Excuse me.... By the way, Warren, you'll need to go 
over to the barracks and get the major to issue you a flare gun. Wyatt will 
instruct you in the protocols of its use and safekeeping," he stressed his 
final verb.

"All right. I'll take good care of it, sir."

"I have no doubt ." He reached out to pat Wyatt's shoulder. "I must say, 
you've made an excellent choice, son. You always make the right choices. I 
am very proud of you." He rose and touched Virge's arm as he passed by 
on his way around the table. "And you, too, Virgil. You are your brother's 
support--the Aaron to his Moses. And I know I'll be proud of you, too, 
Warren." Chancellor extended his hand to me. In my mind I imagined the 
plump fingers curled around the handle of a Maker's strop, licking out at 
Wyatt and Virgil. Felt as if I'd smooched the Devil when I shook it. Once I 
thought of Chancellor as a marginally decent man. Now I see another 
Federal cretin.


Petunia, I'm going to close off this letter with a something Amy wrote in 
the dirt out by the bird pen. Yeah--wrote. I watched her do it. Later, she 
asked me who'd made the chicken scratchings and what did it say?

"We fell,
seeing dark
Months flow--
rise, ebb, and end
Winter slow and summer short
beneath barren skies"

Looks like I've married a poet.


All my love,

Sundance

P.S. Aimee says I should send you hugs and kisses--"whoever the hell you 
are."
P.S.S. Moses and Aaron...?



July 30


I just got your fearful note. So, turnabout ain't fair play, huh?

No, I'm not in Heaven. I was indisposed and then duty summoned. First, I 
had to coordinate well-digging in a little dust speck called Patagonia, then I 
played visiting dignitary at Chiracahua Mountains Mining Camp, then I had 
to trot Doc to Nogales to treat (and euthanize) some victims of a Federal 
flambe, and then there was a big bee swarm at Hooker's. Holliday picked a 
hundred stingers out of one of Henry's ranch hands, and about a half dozen 
of us stood by with knives and axes for the two days he raved with fever. 
Doc said that if anyone was going to burp up a monster, this was the time. 
But we didn't need to kill-or-be-killed. The man recovered--he's fine now, 
and is as immune as immune can be.


In the month since I've worn a flare gun, we've been on call twenty-
four/seven. Virge says that's the way it always is. My brothers and I drink 
so much damned coffee that we've got the perpetual shakes. I've developed 
a spasmodic twitch in my right cheek that Doc says might go away if I nix 
the caffeine, but how the hell can I? Shit, I've already learned how to sleep 
in the saddle. Really--no kidding. Virge and I rode to Hooker's after 
midnight and I snoozed the whole way, chin on my chest, while my horse 
followed along after his.

I have to tell you, though, Petunia: I look marvelous.

Wyatt had a tailor make us black broadcloth suits and white shirts with 
stiff, high collars. We've got suitcoats that hang to our knees, leather boots, 
silver spurs, neat red cravats with brass stickpins, wide flat-brimmed hats, 
and each a bronze star on his lapel. The other day, I caught sight of us in 
the drygoods shop window and I had a weird epiphany. We look like we're 
headed for the O.K. Corral. I know that's not good, but I'm not sure why. 
There is an O.K. Corral just down off Fremont behind Fly's Photography 
and Boarding House and I know something is going to happen there. Or did 
it already happen...?


Things haven't changed between Aimee and me. No consummation, 
penetration--whatever. Honestly, the Moose has shown no interest. But 
don't infer that anything is amiss between us (that's between me and Aimee, 
not me and the Moose). Far from it. I love my wife so much it hurts. And 
sometimes I'm so thrilled when I look at her that my breath catches in my 
chest. No lie.

Aimee's hair has grown out some now; she's wearing it parted on one side 
and flipped carelessly across her forehead. The new growth is less gray--
more copper-red, like her old self. She's put on some weight, too, and her 
skin looks tanned, not crisped. Yeah, I'm sure your raven queen with her 
milk-pale face has maximum hubbahubba, but I'll take my Raggedy Aimee-
-crowsfeet, chapped nipples--hell, if her skin was like a desert rattler's, 
she'd be a prize just for those azure eyes.

And mentally? Well, Doc and Luther agree that she's moving toward a 
lasting integration. Our Aimee-in-progress is now a mix of the modern 
nutcase and the bitter saint of my partial recall. She's accessing her medical 
training again, too. While I was in Nogales with Doc, Tombstone received 
a Delivery, including several half-boxed Simps in need of critical care. 
Luther tells me Aimee was at Sanctuary, with Josie in the garden, when the 
stretchers appeared. He literally watched her click and become a doctor for 
the time it took to save those sufferers. "I thought I'd ruin the miracle with 
a breath," Boggs told me, puffing on his clove cigarette under the wicked-
bright moon. "What the hand of one man sunders, the hand of another can 
breach. And whichever you choose--to build or destroy--the waves that roll 
out from your deeds are felt by every microbe within God Itself."

I scanned the sky above Sanctuary's spire for cownappers. "What's a 
microbe?" 

"Oh, they're tiny fuckin' little things."

I turned to see his profile shining in the lunar light. "Hey, Luther, do you 
think you're saved yet?" 

"No, not yet," Boggs sighed. "But I am gone from the seventh circle to the 
first."

"Will you tell us when you make parole?"

"I have every intention of it. And I mean to use your connections to get us 
some party cake. Chocolate, if you please, Warren."

You know, Petunia, I've really gotten to like this sonofabitch.


Once again, duty drags me from you. Aimee wants to spin out in the cool 
night before curfew kicks in. I need to stand by and be ready to catch her 
when she falls over, giggling. 


August 1
12:15 AM

This curfew sucks.

A little while ago, I had to take a dump, and it's not easy to aim for a small 
pot by lantern light. I decided to sprint to the outhouse. Dashed by the 
chicken pen, made it inside our little smelly clapboard box, pulled down 
my trousers, and settled above the hole. Suddenly there were thudding feet, 
barking orders, and the door flew open to hang limp on its leather hinges. 
Fortunately for me, the three red laser beads from the Bluttos' weapons 
glittered off the badge pinned above my heart.

Of course, after this near-death debacle, I had no asswipe. Amy and I have 
already used all the strips we cut from my old worksuits. Now we're 
wiping with declassified scrap paper from the governor's office.

I'm feeling generous right now, so go on--share my humiliation. Give 
Sylvia and her courtiers the regal titters. And here, have another out-take 
from my scatological day:

This morning, on our crack-of-dawn patrol, Virgil and I found somebody's 
cows loose and broken into the corn cribs. They'd munched out all night 
and were looking sick with their stomachs swollen, but still they chewed 
on, grinding the new corn sideways between big molars. Virgil and I had 
to grab some planks and thwack their rumps to drive them away. They fled 
down Fourth Street bellowing and squirting chartreuse shit.


Once you stop chortling, Petunia, we'll move on to something more 
dignified.


You asked about my relationship with my new brothers. Well, I spend 
more time with them than I did before, and see more of Wyatt's frustration 
with the cruelties of our lives. I also feel more of the incredible peace that 
radiates from Virgil. I think I understand what Chancellor was saying--
Virge gives Wyatt the spiritual vitality he needs to fight on. And Wyatt 
does indeed view this as a war, but war in the way of chess--little moves 
that add up. When I asked him what endgame he was playing, he put his 
hand on my arm and leaned in close. Whispered that he wasn't talking 
about imminent checkmate, so there was no use telling me more. He'd let 
me "know what needed knowin'" when the time was right--there were 
other moves to unveil first. I'm not sure that I want to understand. I'm 
happy with this fence picket up my crapchute, thank you very much.


August 3

Tomorrow, I'm headed to Iron Springs, due west of here between the 
barren backs of the Whetstone and Mustang mountains. It's another social 
call--a quadruple wedding--and the folks want a Boss Earp at their feast.

When I told Aimee I was riding out again, she drew up straight and 
drummed her fingers on the table. Her lips compressed down to a peewee 
dot. Then Aimee swore like a sea monkey--or something like that (more 
reflex vocabulary), vowed to ask the Earps for a divorce, and marched out 
of the house. I followed her toward the hacienda calling her name, finally 
grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around.

I started to say that I was sorry for leaving her alone so much, but she 
shouted, "Stop treating me like a goddamned glass relic! I'm sick of being 
left behind. I have valuable skills to contribute to our investigations and my 
credentials are as good as yours. You're not going to pretend to party up in 
Iron Springs--Yes, _pretend_." She gave me a double-dog-dare-you-to-lie 
glare while I squinted at her with a lined brow. "It's plain that you've got 
other motives. So, what's up there? Did something eat someone's liver? Did 
someone see Big Foot?"

"Honey, that's disgusting. What's Big Foot?"

Aimee plunked her hands on her hips, cocked her head, and glowered at 
me. Then her lower lip trembled and her shoulders sagged as anger shifted 
to grief. "Screw fucking Big Foot!" she sobbed. "I just want to go to the 
party! I never get to go anywhere! Warren, you bastard, you never take 
me anywhere!"

I held her to my chest and didn't let her see my smile as she told me how 
Voiceless Josie was so boring, how Big-mouth Mattie never shut up, how 
she was ready to push Luther Boggs's head under the pea green sea, how 
she wanted to piss on Holliday for not letting her be an Angel until she 
remembered how to be a doctor at least most of the time. How everyone 
was having fun but her.

As Aimee complained, it occurred to me that there was no reason why she 
couldn't come along. It's not a long or dangerous ride to Iron Springs and 
she's fit to travel. Hell, if I get bitten by a snake or something Aimee'll just 
blink, become a medic, and go right to work, sucking the poison out of my 
arm, or my rump, or whatever.

I found Wyatt over in the peace office and told him Aimee wanted to come. 
My brother looked up from his reports and rubbed his hand over the 
silvery stubble on his chin. "Well," he finally said. "I don't guess it would 
hurt nothin'." I grinned and my mind raced ahead as he added, "Might even 
just be better this way."

I was fumbling in my pocket for the key to the locker where I keep pencils 
and paper. There would be people in Iron Springs who'd want letters 
written. I couldn't wait to tell Aimee she could come. "I'll need a second 
horse, Wyatt."

"Take Mission Impossible. He's a fat old stud and won't give Aimee no 
trouble."

I'd collected up what I needed. Bade Wyatt farewell as I walked by. He 
caught my arm and I glanced down into at cool-metal eyes. "I'm sorry to 
put you through this, Warren."

I laughed. "Yeah, partying's a real bitch, big brother."


When I told Aimee that she could go to Iron Springs she hooped and 
hollered and pulled out her green dress. Leapt around the house waving it 
like a flag.

We're heading off just before dawn. I'll leave this letter with Virge to put 
on the next mail train.


Love,

Sundance



September 1

Petunia, I'm getting your letters and I know you're worrying. I am alive, 
but I can't talk to you right now. I will write as soon as I can. I'm sorry, 
but I can't say more.


Warren



October 12
9:35 AM

Dear Petunia,

I was damned surprised when Thomas A. Becket came to see me. They had 
to unstrap my wrist so I could reach out to shake his hand. I'm in the midst 
of another rough patch. The suicidal urges come on quick and lack 
warning, so there's always a few Angels around, ready to wrestle me 
down. But I am often in control for whole days now, so Doc says the 
integration _is_ happening, albeit slowly. In a few weeks, perhaps, I'll be 
able to go home.

As I said, I was surprised to meet Mr. Becket. I had no idea that Simpleton 
couriers were allowed to travel between ghettos, moreover pass diplomatic 
pouches. Had no clue that there was any real coordinated collaboration 
between ghetto governments.... Shit, there's a lot I don't know, and a lot 
Wyatt should have told me. You could have fessed up, too.

It doesn't really surprise me that you're ass-deep in all this. Don't worry. I 
still love you. Even your tangential complicity in what befell Aimee and 
me isn't enough to break that affection--only strain it. And despite the fact 
that you knew what we were in for at Iron Springs and said squat, I still 
feel you are worth confiding in.

Goddamn, that sounded high and mighty. Shit, why wouldn't you believe I 
was getting the chance I'd pined for--the chance every Simp wants--and 
that it would be less frightening if I didn't know until the last moment. 
Funny how mercy can feel so much like betrayal.


We started our ride to Iron Springs before sun-up, covering the familiar 
ground in darkness. Aimee'd never ridden before, and although Mission 
Impossible had the reputation for docile plodding, one of his stablemates 
had peed in his oats or something that morning and he was Mr. Equine 
Attitude. I ended up riding him, sticking Aimee on my horse, Dilemma, 
and telling her just to slack the reins, hang on to the saddlehorn, and let the 
big Appaloosa follow me on the prancing shithead.

Around noon, when the heat was at its worst, we stopped at a muddy 
stream to let the horses water, and lay down on a bedroll in the shade of a 
few big Cottonwoods. It happened then. Finally. There wasn't any talking--
everything was ragged breathing and wet trailing tongues, and Aimee's 
hands scrabbling at the Moose while I was scrambling to slide the pants off 
my hips.

We lay there under the trees' outspread limbs, fingers working nipples, 
fondling balls, sliding back and forth in moist crevices, while lips roamed 
and traced and centered in. Aimee wasn't frightened at all; she was 
passionate and happy, and as she bounced on top of me, through the clouds 
of my pleasure and haze of my groans, I saw red hair and pretty breasts. 
She was two women--one past and one present. I loved them both, came 
inside the dual woman hard, shuddering, grasping her hips tight, leaving 
red marks that would mottle into bruises.

Afterward, overheated, we lay side by side, holding hands. I knew Aimee 
hadn't come, and I knew I shouldn't try to make her. My heart advised me 
to let her be, not take away her hard-earned freedom to choose.


It was late afternoon when we came up over the ridge to Iron Springs and 
were shown to a dusty ramada that served as camp guestquarters. Then 
Aimee and I walked down to where one of the springs pooled, cool and 
clean. Tombstoners don't get to bathe often and we were thrilled to hold 
each other, pink-scrubbed skin against skin, in the waist-deep clear water.

She kissed me, then rested her forehead against my chest, lifted her arms to 
tickle fingertips in the fringe of grayed hair at the back of my scalp. I 
shrugged and then shivered. "I wish--" Stopped. Wished I knew who I was 
wishing for. A part of me did. It seemed like there was a little body on my 
lap. A saggy diaper. We were outside on a warm night in a big tub of 
swirling water. Little hands were splashing. "Da da da!" There was soft 
laughter from she-who'd-become-Aimee and from a dark-haired man. It 
was the same man I recalled before, telling me I'd be all right when my 
arm was bleeding. He and Aimee were up to their shoulders in the circling 
water at the other side of the tank. Suddenly, I remembered that we'd 
called it a 'heat tub'; it was out in the backyard of our home. I watched as 
she and the man kissed, then smiled shyly in opposite directions. It's 
precious, I thought. They can still be so demure.

Aimee was nibbling my earlobe. The pinch of her teeth pulled me back to 
dusk at Iron Springs. She wrapped her arms and legs around me, made me 
support her weight while she stroked herself against the Moose, who arose 
to poke his red, one-eyed face out of the water. We conjoined again, as 
we'd done before, sometime and somewhere in that other world. We'd 
made a baby in that world--created life through the heat of our fusion. A 
daughter. Aimee's, mine, and somehow His, too.

But our child is dead now, Petunia, and even before they got hold of me 
out there at Iron Springs, I'd begun to realize that He wasn't you. Ouch. 
Mentally, I see you recoil from that like a slap. Not because you didn't 
know. You did. (More mercy in another guise?) No, that was just a slap 
from me, plain and simple. I love you; I owe you the rebirth of my spirit, 
but lies by omission hurt.


There's a lot for me to write and not that long before Thomas A. Becket 
will come for this letter. You probably already know nine-tenths of what 
happened to us--you just want to learn how badly it's fucked us up. Well, 
I'm your huckleberry.

Let's set the stage quickly: On the trail back to the mining camp Aimee and 
I were surrounded by the unlikely welcoming committee of Curly Bill and 
his two-score gang. The highwayman on his high horse was still wearing 
mourning for Missouri: a black frock coat streaked with copper-colored 
dust, gray rouge to ghostify his emaciated face, long blond braids and 
feathers. He didn't answer when I asked, "What's up, Bill?" Just waved his 
hand at the boys who promptly swarmed us, pushed us down on rough 
ground to bind us hand and foot, then threw us each over a mount's empty 
saddle. It's a hell of a position, Petunia--one that compresses the ribcage 
painfully, lets a drippy nose run amok (pardon the pun), and when the 
horse squirts a pee you catch the mist in the face. Yum. 

They didn't take us far, but it was _too_ far. Aimee screamed the whole 
way--"No, no, no, no" over and over and over. It was heart-wrenching. I 
don't know how she was getting enough air to keep yelling. I was gasping--
mostly, I suppose, from lifting my head enough to keep my glasses on. I 
wouldn't be much good to Aimee blind. Her shouts grew louder when they 
pulled us off the horses and carried us into a lop-sided pavilion tent pitched 
among some boulders in the hollow of a worn-down mountain. The sun 
was low and half-hidden, casting rose-red on canvas, the ground, our skin.

Once I got a full breath I started yelling, too, calling them mutherfuckers 
for terrorizing my wife. I couldn't guess but this was a new prank on the 
Feds. But it was a definite shift in modus operandi: a kidnapping-to-annoy 
leading up to...what? A good sound tickling? Glue and feathers? Maybe 
dress us up like Young Georgie and his tart, Fat Sarah, then pose us tied in 
a suggestive street tableau with me in drag and smeary lipstick?

Two of Bill's boys stood me up and braced me between them, their fingers 
digging into the flesh above my elbows. I jerked my head to toss my glasses 
up to the bridge of my nose. Saw two FEMA-issue cots in the tent's dim 
center, unmade, with thin mattresses. There were cuffs--Factory restraints-
-attached to the four posts of each bed. Cold rushed my veins, but the 
freezing flood didnÍt stun me, it made me buck and snarl, "What the hell is 
happening here? Why are you doing this?"

Bill regarded me down his long nose like I was a piece of fluff. Then the 
gangly turd gave me a weak-lipped smile and told his flunkies, "Tie 'em 
down while I get the drugs."

Aimee started screaming. Not little sounds--full-fledged, out-and-out 
shrieking. My reaction was as automatic: I head-butted Curly Bill. A nice 
clean crack of foreheads and Bill pitched backward. So did I, seeing stars 
then a big burst of white when one of the men rapped me upside the head 
with his fist. As my vision cleared, I saw Aimee on one cot. They stretched 
her out while she screamed and writhed. She was shouting that name again-
-"Moldin"--and pleading for intercession.

Curly Bill sat on his ass in the dirt with legs out straight, heavy glasses and 
turkey plumes askew. He cocked his head toward the second cot and his 
flunkies pulled me toward it, my bound feet scraping the ground. I landed 
on my stomach, half on the bed, then the ropes around my wrists were 
loosed and I was flipped onto my back, the lumpy padding beneath me, as 
the struggle to subdue me began. I'm no 100-pound woman. I could and 
did give them a fight, and when I was finally locked in the cuffs, they were 
panting.

I no longer heard AimeeÍs screams. Rolling my head to the right, I saw her 
looking up at Curly Bill with flat blue lakes for eyes. My eyes widened, 
too, as Bill tapped the bubbles from a large syringe with a thick steel 
needle. "No!" I shouted and yanked against the leather. "What are you 
doing? Talk to me, you sonofabitch!" Bill ignored me, bent over Aimee, 
who lay seemingly paralyzed by fear. "Tell me what the fuck is going on!" 
I tried to sound like I could scare the piss out of stone, not like it was ready 
to leak out of me. "What are you doing to her?"

"Will someone gag that prick?" Bill said quietly, then speared Aimee's 
vein. Her back curved, thrusting her ribcage up, while I heard tearing and 
a strip of tape was pulled tight across my mouth. Aimee stayed arched, as if 
in rigor, mouth open in a soundless scream. I was shouting her name 
through the sticky gag's impediment, rattling the cot, twisting my wrists 
and ankles in the cuffs, trying to get to her--to save Aimee. Then tremors 
racked her, bounced her small body against the mattress. When they 
abruptly ceased she lay splayed, her drab olive t-shirt crawled half up her 
midriff, empty-eyed and pale.

"Good." Bill fished in his pocket. Drew out a small bottle and dropper. He 
widened Aimee's lids with a thumb and forefinger and one, two little fluid 
beads splashed onto each pupil from the dropper's tip.

And then Bill did the same to me, Petunia--drugs and then drops, I 
suppose, although I don't recall the latter. The fat needle felt hot as fire; 
the yellow fluid filled my mouth with a copper taste while rigor locked my 
body in an arc, and after--well, perhaps you recall the Gates of Hell. Mine 
opened for me, like a corpse's arms--all rotten skin and bones.


This is what I now know about my Before Life--this is what I remember. 
The story isn't complete, but more comes back to me every day, starting as 
little spots that tremble, then bloom into images or repeating scenes. 
Memories, all mine again. There's no order to their return nor any 
accompanying cheat sheet, but the recollections remain even after I'm done 
smashing the adobe with my skull or my fists.

My name was Walter. It feels strange to write it, stranger to speak it. I 
haven't said it to anyone except my reflection in the mirror. I remember a 
childhood family in a place where the wind rippled gold swaths of wheat. 
My mother had a heavy accent. Called me "mal--" something that meant 
'mischievous' in her native language. My father wore a uniform and a gun. 
I think he was a Blutto in the days before body armor.

In time, I also became a Blutto dressed in camouflage, sent to someplace 
hot, where the leaves dripped water and children wired themselves with 
bombs to stop us from taking their homes. We shot those children who 
tried kill us. Bang through the head. I remember the snap of fear in a boy's 
eyes as I pulled my trigger, and the blood and brain matter afterward. I 
finally know my most heinous crimes, but why couldn't they be simple and 
black--why a shade of gray that I'll never endure?

Later, I returned to the wheatfields and wore a uniform and weapon like 
my father, then became special and dressed normally--I hear the words 
"soft clothes." Finally, I was promoted to bureaucrat and worked in a huge, 
protected beehive building in a grand city. There was a woman I loved, but 
ruined whatever we had together. I can hear her telling me, "You never let 
me help you" and "Why won't you let me in?" In the end, I think she died. 
I see her lying in a bed. White bandages. She grabbed my hand, 
demanding, "Listen to me." I can't remember what she said, but I'd like to. 
Whatever it was, it was important. I owe her the courtesy of recalling it.

He and Aimee entered my life at the beehive--somehow my subordinates. 
Now that I remember him, I wonder how I could have confused him for 
you, and how I ever could have forgotten him.... That wasn't as a slight, 
Petunia. I've discovered that you're two individuals, so I'm afraid you'll be 
unhappy if I write lovingly of Him. Stupid. But I've been away too long; 
I'm starting to forget that you're above all baseness. I need the strength of 
your good aura to be the same. (You knew I couldnÍt stay mad for long, 
didnÍt you?)

Anyway, "Moldin"--the name Aimee calls--that's Him. But his name wasn't 
Moldin, it was closer to Moldar. And Aimee? I smile now at how close we 
came: Jane, Loraina, Aimee, Elaina--mix them all together and you almost 
get Dana. But he and I never called her that. She was always known to me 
and to Moldar as "Sculee." Aimee is Dana Sculee.

I see them sitting side by side, facing me. Aimee is beautiful, young and 
round-faced, with perfect make-up and styled hair. He is the man in the 
heat tub: handsome, but solemn and watchful. Black suit, white shirt, blue 
patterned tie. Badges on lapels--F, B, and an I. I'm talking to them and they 
glance at each other, sending secrets. Their intimacy annoys me--makes me 
jealous. I want them to let me in the way Shar--Shari--no, _Sharon_ wanted 
me to. (Her name just came back, Petunia. This is what's happening to me 
every day.)

I remember kissing Moldar for the first time in some public pissery. It's 
more than a memory--it's a sensory flashback: my finger touching a lower 
lip that's swollen and discolored, then leaning in to gently suck the damage. 
I hear him groan, feel him shiver and start to pull away. Then Moldar 
moans at the caress of my hand on the back of his neck, his weight leans 
against me and I use the tile wall to support us. We kiss until I pull back to 
babble that I mutherfucking love him and I love Sculee, too, and I don't 
want one or the other, I want both, and what the fuck are we going to do 
about it? He stares at me with dark eyes. Blinks, then nods--finally--and 
walks away. I remember thinking, "Great. I've blown it. What a dork." But 
later on, I'm knocking back some fine Federal booze in a palatial house, 
when the doorbell chimes and there they are--Moldar and Sculee, black 
coats and serious expressions. "We came to talk to you, sir," she says.

I guess we did, and our parlance set the stage for conjoined lives. In the 
Before Time, I don't think people had multiple spouses. I remember 
worrying about appearances--hiding my left hand beneath my desk, like I 
hid my suicide scars from Old Chancellor, wanting to shield the double 
gold marriage bands from prying associates and lackeys. From _your_ 
eyes, too. (Surprise.) I see you sitting opposite me, in the chair where 
Moldar sat. You're telling me that he'll be all right if he cooperates. That 
he won't feel much pain and they'll let him come home when the tests are 
over. As you talk, I feel a pain in my chest--it's emotion, killing me like a 
heart attack. I can't save Moldar. I can barely save myself and Sculee. So 
far, this is the only memory I've reclaimed of you.


I got Aimee pregnant. It wasn't supposed to happen, but Moldar arranged 
it. Traded the pregnancy, somehow, for himself. He was sick a lot--fragile 
from tests like those you'd mentioned. I remember ligature bruising on his 
wrists and ankles, stick marks, and new scars. I remember holding him 
while Aimee, big as a house with my child, poked a needle in his gluteus 
and pushed the syringe's plunger. He was freaked out--hysterical after 
some new round of procedures. We got him on the bed and wrapped 
ourselves around him. Stroked his hair and murmured soothing nothings 
while the drugs took him to sleep.

We were both with Aimee in a sterile, bland room when the baby was 
born. Moldar was like a kid, all big-eyed excitement, staring as the head 
emerged from between her legs. Aimee was looking at the ceiling and 
laughing. Drenched in sweat, breaking the bones of my hand with the 
strength of her grip, and laughing with--or at--God. I wasn't sure which. 
No time to decide because my daughter was there, bloody and with a cry 
like a siren's song. I was horrified and in love.

I think we called her Draper. I know that's a strange name, but it had 
something to do with Sculee's mother. She looked just like me, leading 
Moldar to joke that something had gone horribly wrong with my cloning, 
to nickname her "Walt, Jr."

For about two years, we watched Draper grow--two good years when the 
tests that left Moldar washed out and ragged were few, when my pragmatic 
and careworn Sculee coochie-cooed, when I was fixed on nothing but my 
family.


The End snuck up while we were watching our little girl. It wasn't 
supposed to happen so quickly--we thought we had years to stop it. There 
were FEMA broadcasts on the radio, urging calm as the Lights traversed 
the daytime sky, revealing themselves as small saucers and huge floating 
platforms that were brilliant like the sun. Aimee stared up agape while 
Moldar jabbed, dead-flat, "Told you so, Sculee."

I feel like I should sing or something--sing a song I used to know about 
everything going to hell wearing pasties while I smiled. The world was 
finished--not in a poof or a bang, but in a slow grind of death. First, the 
bees came in dark buzzing clouds, then--unexpectedly--the Things with 
Claws were born. The Immune Rebels attacked the Federals, forcing the 
Feds to fight their army and the Clawed Things on two fronts.

You and I already partially recalled the devolution: the Feds wound up 
holding the north and the Rebels consolidated power in the south. Now I 
also remember the northern refugees--altered or immune humans and 
Clones--scrambling to get behind Rebel lines. There'd been a terrible battle 
for the city we lived in. The Rebels and the Feds wanted it equally and God 
knows how many died trying to take or hold it. Eventually, the Feds were 
reinforced and they drove the Rebels south, toward that place called 
Richmond. I remember walking endless miles with Moldar and Aimee, 
taking my turn at carrying Draper. "Sacka'potatoes," her mother called 
her, trying to smile. It was Spring and the earth smelled moist and alive. 
My daughter, dirty-faced, disheveled, pointed at the Daffodils I'd nearly 
trod on. "Pretty, Daddy. Pretty."

"Pretty, sweetie," I agreed. Kept walking, trying to ignore my throbbing 
feet and Draper's weight numbing my hipbone. Then I whispered to 
Moldar, "Shitty cosmic joke, huh, to die when the flowers bloom." His 
small nod said he understood Fate's sick humor.

Moldar had been planned out before his conception by Federal scientists--a 
lab-created Saint Sebastian to shoot with prototype arrows. They'd put 
something inside him--a symbiotic biodevice he called "Little Buddy." It 
killed the Clawed Things during their gestation. Moldar's had been the first 
biodevice, but now all the Feds had a Little Buddy inside them, living off 
serotonin siphoned from the brain through fine veins that threaded up the 
host's spinal column. 

Moldar was also the first who could kill Things with his mind. When he 
discovered how, he became the Rebels' best hope. There must have been a 
stressor that triggered his ability, but whatever happened hasn't returned to 
me yet.

I know we made it to Richmond and dug in there while some of the Rebels 
learned to do what Moldar could. I remember standing on a deserted 
playing field with a tall padded post ahead of us that was shaped like a 
squared-off Y. The night sky was vast and terrifying. One of the bright 
platforms was up there--high and near the less luminescent moon. Moldar 
and twenty odd others looked toward it. After a minute, sweat broke out on 
their faces, but they stared, otherwise tranquil. When the platform 
suddenly blew apart, Moldar flinched and walked away as the others 
reanimated, cheered at the fiery trails of debris that showered on land 
miles away. I followed Moldar, stood with my hand on his shoulder while 
he explained, "They want their planet back, Walt. A million years is 
nothing to them. It's like if we went to the store for eggs and beer and 
came back to a house full of rats. We'd drive them out, too--probably kill 
them, right?"

But he didn't want an answer, at least not from me.


I wish I could describe what it feels like to _need_ to die--to crave it so bad 
that self-murder becomes reflex. I've struggled to end my life a hundred 
times since I remembered Cold Harbor. And as each particle of memory 
rises to shine and burn, I go through the agony again. Days sitting strapped 
to a chair bolted to the floor, sedatives, Angels singing soothing songs. 
Sometimes I hear Aimee screaming in another room. She remembers 
losing Draper and Moldar, too, and I think the grief is spurring her more 
sharply than the suicide function.

To write this next part will be hard. Luther is here beside me now, grim 
and hollow-eyed, gripping a big ol' needle that's already primed. He says 
I'll shake and sweat and wish to heaven my daddy never loved my mama, 
but I must record what I recall. He insists that you preserve my account--
preserve Draper's memory... and Moldar's. He says to tell you, "This is 
your Cross." No, Luther won't explain what the fuck he means....


The Feds came south, attacked Richmond and drove us out. Everything was 
on fire, blazing. They used all they had against us--air and ground 
offensives. I still hear the hum of the saucers as they angled, targeting. I 
remember the explosions and see the bits of bodies: a severed head sitting 
like a garnish on a pile of debris, expression strangely serene. She--he-- 
had accepted death, but neither Moldar, Sculee, nor I wanted to go. We'd 
die fighting; we'd go down spitting in Federal faces. I know we made that 
mutual vow.


We ran along suburban streets. Not three or four miles behind us, the Feds 
were razing the city, but there it was eerily quiet--just the thuds of our 
shoes, wheezing lungs. Moldar sprinted with Draper, looked back to yell 
Sculee's name. I dragged her along with me, faltering myself when I 
tripped over the bones of a bee victim. Aimee was exhausted, starving 
from feeding her rations to the baby, giving nothing to herself but the lie: 
"I'm fine." Her hair was already going white. How the hell does that 
happen? How can grief and hardship suck the color out of cast-off cells--
that's what hair is, right? But it happens--it happened to Aimee.

We ran. Passed cars that had crashed as their drivers perished in a stinging 
storm. Ran by houses with open doors and skeletons on the driveway, past 
a school where the playground was littered with the little dead.

After the sun went down we were still hurrying east, part of a rag-tag 
group of Rebel soldiers and refugees. Behind us, the sky was red from 
Richmond's burning. They were gaining on us and we knew it. The 
soldiers thought that the Rebel line had reformed near Williamsville or 
'burg or 'town--that reinforcements were on their way from Rocky Mount. 
Why do I remember these fucking places when I still don't recall my own 
last name? It pisses me off. You've concluded, no doubt, that I'm shaking 
as I write. Luther is patting my free hand, telling me to breathe with him, 
long and slow. God bless him. Luther's weirder than hell--_from_ Hell, to 
hear him tell it--but he's abnormally nurturing... stabilizing in a way 
reminiscent of a surprise attack.

We ended up inside some big holy building with a crescent moon on a 
spire. There were Feds with flambe sticks encircling the structure. I took 
Sculee aside and asked her what it would be like to burn to death. She said 
we'd never feel the fire, that the smoke would kill us first. We should suck 
in as much as we could to get it over with quickly. I nodded, looked back at 
Moldar who was standing with Draper in his arms, her head against his 
shoulder. Wild reddish-brown curls and a small mouth pouting in sleep. 
The look in Moldar's eyes was fierce as he strode toward us and handed off 
our daughter to me. "He's out there. I saw him through the window."

"Who?" I asked.

"Cancerman. I can get you out of here."

"Moldar, no--" Aimee began, but he cut her off, sandpaper voice shouting 
that he would not watch her die, he just fucking would _not_! Then they 
were in each others arms, Moldar nearly swallowing her in his embrace. 
He kissed her forehead, telling her that he'd get away, that he'd find us 
again. All that mattered was that she and the baby and I made it to the 
Rebel line and then kept heading south.

The grief on her face--no use seeking an alliterative description. It was 
plain horrible. "Moldar, he'll make a martyr of you in that lab, trying to 
find out how you kill them."

"I know, Sculee. But I have to go," he whispered into her hair. "At least 
there's hope this way."


Moldar walked outside, into the glow of their illuminators, with his hands 
in the air. Our compatriots were already slipping by Sculee and me, 
dashing through the break in the circle of black-armored men. I remember 
Moldar pivoting, the slightly defensive curl of his fingers above open 
palms, the dark smear of facial hair over pinched cheeks, and ebony stones 
for eyes. Untucked remains of a fancy office shirt... and still wearing a 
mutherfucking tie, slack around his neck like hangman's noose. He cocked 
his head toward the safety of the darkness, mouthed, "Go."

We prevaricated another moment, then left him. My last glimpse was of 
Moldar offering his wrists to a Federal officer to be shackled or bound.


I've been sobbing now for half an hour, sitting in the chair. Luther just let 
me up. I feel strangely safe there, immobilized--can't do more than abrade 
my wrists and ankles, but I can let the pain out. I miss him. Shit, I fucking 
miss him. And Draper. She was so beautiful, Petunia. Why did I live and 
not my little girl?

Luther says I know full well that I didn't live, that I was dead before my 
Maker's drugs hit my brain. But we'll get to that. Luther's still urging me 
on, telling me that you need to know how they murdered my child, how 
they tore Aimee and me apart.


Cold Harbor. It was a big open field where others had died--old-fashioned 
men in homemade uniforms, gunsmoke lingering as a salt-peter haze. 
There was an empathetic mist on the battlefield that night when modern 
men were dying. 'Men' in the all-encompassing sense. _Mankind_ was 
dying there.

We'd only gone a stone's throw--a fucking pittance of a distance before 
they'd captured us. I don't know if the Feds lied to Moldar about safe 
passage, or if the mop-up detachment was unaware of the deal, but I 
remember the way Moldar said "Cancerman." A sonofabitch who had 
screwed us before....

We were force-marched miles through the darkness. Draper twisted in my 
arms, cry-babbling that she wanted her blankie, her nookie, her Muffie-
kitty--things from home that we'd abandoned weeks before. I think she 
knew, Petunia. I hope she didn't, but I really think that Draper knew.

A electrocharged pen glowed and crackled on the field. About a hundred 
people were caged inside, backlit by the headlights of two big trucks. The 
fog diffused crimson flashes--slowed the strobes, bled them into the 
molasses maelstrom of shouting, screaming, laser hiss, and engine growl. 
Time was bent and funny, shock sneaking in. Shoved through a gap into the 
corral, we huddled away the last minutes of our family while Bluttos 
processed other captives. They cut off jackets and sleeves to fire red bleeps 
at small scars on upper arms, then dragged prisoners away toward the 
headlights.

"I love you both. I love you both so much." I said it over and over. The 
baby clung to me weeping, but Aimee didn't cry. I see her peeking through 
her hair, open-mouthed, as the Bluttos come near. Visceral memories: 
riiiiiiiiiiip as a knife strips away my shirt sleeve. A crimson pop that leaves 
green after-images. The Blutto's voice sounds tinny, fragmented, through 
the speaker of his biohelmet. He tells his partners that I go to the truck. 
Aimee struggles with them, making little whimpers. Cloth tears. Another 
flash. "She goes, too." They don't strobe Draper, instead they propel us 
forward with the muzzles of their guns. Jam us through a another gap in 
the electropen. Suddenly, insectoid armored arms enwrap my throat, my 
waist. Black-gloved hands yank my daughter from me as she screams 
"Dadadamamama!"

I can't write this. I can't. Fuck you for asking, Petunia--for needing to 
know. Fuck you, too, Luther--and while you're at it, kiss my ass. Yeah, it's 
over--it's not real now, but it _was_ real.... Oh God.... They slit our baby's 
throat. One moment Draper's shrieking and then her vocal chords are 
sliced and there's no sound but bubbling. I watch her eyes dull as the life 
goes.

They discard her rag-doll body--toss the trash they've made onto a heap of 
bloody, gape-mouthed corpses. People who'd been lovers, mothers, total 
strangers, all piled together with arms, legs, and torsos tangled. I 
remember a woman's breast exposed in her last struggle and a dead man's 
head on her thigh, his eyes turned up as if to get a free peep....God. Jesus 
Christ. My Draper on top of that pile, bent backwards, head dangling. I see 
her spine through the depth of the wound. See her blood running around 
her ears, along her scalp through her curls, pattering onto the bodies 
below.

I hear Aimee screaming obscenities and they start to jab us forward. 
Aimee--how can such a little person be so strong? She gets the knife out of 
the Blutto's grasp and jams it right into an articulated armor joint between 
the ribs and stomach. As the Blutto gasps and falls, she breaks away and 
flings herself on Draper and the corpses below. I'm fighting and cursing as 
they drag her off her child and backhand her so hard that blood flies from 
her mouth.

They drag us over to stand in a line at the back of the trucks. The captives 
there are shivering, clinging to the person next-by, watching Bluttos seize 
the prisoner at the head of the queue. To the truck on the left or right--
each goes to one or the other. At the foot of the loading ramps, all clothing 
is torn off and pitched into a central pile, naked bodies are bound, 
blindfolded, and carried inside.

Merchandise.

As we wait, Sculee finally weeps. Of all of us, she's been the toughest. 
Moldar and I both cried buckets during these post-apocalypse weeks, but 
not her. Now she squeezes ragged cloth and my flesh, staining me, sobbing 
like she does now, from the perdition of her soul. It wasn't Draper's tiny 
handprint that I'd remembered on my sleeve. It was Sculee's. 

When its my turn, they pry us apart, pull me to the left. I hardly notice as 
they jerk my belt off, yank down my pants, rip off the tatters of my shirt. I 
strain to see her. As the Bluttos force her toward the other truck, she looks 
to me with open, pleading hands. They're separating us. I balk, call 
"Dana!" Her name rakes my throat, and the rope grates the skin of my 
wrists and ankles as they pull it tight. A black blur as my glasses are 
slapped off and a hood is drawn over my head....


Walter died, I think, right then. Luther says that's probably why I left the 
Factory in such good shape: it's no fun to torture a catatonic. Once my 
Maker blanked me, once I started to respond as a Simp, then--briefly--
rape, whips, electricity, and the rack ingrained my obedience.

(Did I ever tell you that my Maker kept my glasses? He said 
that I could have them when I was ready for shipping. It got kind 
of...hmmm...there's a word that sounds like "balovian." Whenever he was 
close to me, I saw those glasses peeking out of his uniform's front pocket. I 
wanted them so bad that I shook and drooled. One day, as I stood before 
him, nude, wobbly, and subservient, he held the glasses out to me, one lens 
pinched between his waxy fake fingers. I pissed the floor. For real.)


Had to stop awhile and let Luther hold me. Your Mr. Becket came back 
and offered to delay his departure so I could finish this letter. I'd speculate 
on which whorehouse Becket is at, but he seems too dedicated to be 
tempted by flesh.

As I write, Boggs is massaging my neck, my temples.... It feels good.... 
When I gained coherency, Luther's was the first face I saw. Deep wrinkles 
in his brow and he trembled with anger. "Warren don't remember you, 
you cretinous viper," he was telling off Curly Bill. "He's already said he 
don't over and over, and if you get on him again I swear nobody'll find 
your shallow grave."

Bill snapped a (probably sophomoric) retort, but I didn't understand him 
above Aimee's grief. Luther was sheet-white as he turned toward the 
outlaw who hung in the background like sulking pestilence. "You hear her 
cryin'? Do you?" Luther's spoke through clenched teeth. "If you've ruined 
them, you die. Don't think I'm funnin' you neither."

Guess Bill didn't--he slunk away, but ever since Luther carted us back to 
Tombstone, Bill's appeared regularly to interrogate us. His examinations 
have one objective: to retrieve memories of himself. He remembers us, it 
seems, just as I remember you. No, I'm not sure why Wyatt lets him to do 
this--honestly, I haven't seen much of my "big brother."

At first, I was too loopy to protest when Bill came nagging. I'd have told 
him what I knew, if I'd known it, but there was nothing to say. And if 
Aimee remembers Bill, she's not sharing. She tells him he can go eat crap 
off a shingle and plugs up her ears and sings "lalalalalalala."

It appears that the connection between Curly Bill, Aimee, and me is 
Moldar. When Bill heard his name, his eyes rolled up and he passed out. I 
rather hoped I'd killed him, but alas. Anyway, I mention Moldar, Curly 
Bill fugues, and now he's more agitated than ever. If it wasn't driving me 
to drown in my own soup, I might not mind.... Oh fuck. Luther's telling 
me I'm getting worked up and I need to stop. He says I've had enough and 
it's time for you to read what I've written, then to ponder and pray.

Whatever.

Oh, and Becket said he'll take all my letters to you from now on. So, I'll 
correspond again when he returns to Tombstone. When you write me, I 
want to know what you knew and when you knew, and how you knew it, 
too. If I'm involved in whatever is happening, I'm going to be a player. 
You tell Sylvia to forward those sentiments to Wyatt.

Warren



October 20

Nope. Sorry. If you, Wyatt, and Virgil don't tell me the truth then I'm not 
talking to any of you.

Warren



October 23

I can't hear you. Lalalalalalalalalalalala....

W.



Sunday, October 26
5ish PM

It's cooling off here for the Winter. Rained some. Most days have been 
temperate and sweet as the Eastern Springtimes I now recall. This 
morning, Aimee and I sat in two of the rockers that ring Sanctuary's 
loggia, holding hands, watching cotton clouds over distant mountains. 
Mercy was the living Earth.

Beside me, my wife sipped Holliday's Guaranteed Sleepy Tea, letting the 
natural sedatives put a relaxed smile on her face, while I communed with 
Moldar and Draper. I think to them--talk about what I've remembered, 
send my love in vibratory form like the gurus say we should. I assure them 
they can move ahead and not worry about Aimee and me. We'll muddle 
through and catch up with them one day.

You know, Petunia, I swear that I've felt Draper's little arms around my 
neck and heard her whisper in my ear. Aimee says that while she doesn't 
disbelieve me, what I've experienced stems from humans' intense 
psychological need for comfort and hope. Death is final, she explained, so 
we reinvent an open ending with spirits invisible, bringing consolation--
gone, but still here. If that's true, I replied, then why don't I feel Moldar 
around me, too? Because I don't. Sometimes I think his soul and mine 
connect for an instant, but he's far, far away. Maybe reincarnated. 
Wouldn't it be a hoot if Moldar came back as one of the Things? That 
would be so like him, to become a monster to try to understand it. He 
hunted the darkness for a living when I knew him.

Wyatt, Virgil, and Curly Bill showed up at Sanctuary after Worship 
wearing Holy Day black suits, blue silk cravats, and bright bronze badges. 
Neat braids over Bill's shoulders, and his lapel was poked by a silver 
mourning brooch encasing a lock of Missouri's hair. Guess he'd been 
praying, too, although I doubt for forgiveness.

My brothers and Bill didn't come alone. There was a gray-haired, bearded 
man with them--thin and bent, who held onto Bill's belt loop and constantly 
looked to the outlaw. This fellow had been handsome once, but now his 
face was full of shadows, and madness moved over his pupils like the alien 
oil. Curly Bill gestured him into a rocker, then stood behind it with his 
arms crossed on his chest, giving Aimee and me his down-the-nose smirk. 
Wyatt and Virgil dragged up chairs, too. Both sat in front of us--legs apart, 
leaning forward, palms turned sideways on knees.

"Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee." Aimee smirked. "You two nervous?"

Virgil cleared his throat. "We've got some talkin' to do."

"I'll bet." She shifted in her rocker. "Who's your friend?"

"This here's Johnny Ringo. We'll get to him in awhile."

"I'm not in the mood to listen awhile."

"You need to, Aimee. You need to understand."

"You need to go to hell."

"Aimee, enough!" I snapped, breaking my gaze from Johnny Ringo to look 
at my wife. She withdrew her hand from mine, worked her jaw. Oh, I'd be 
up Butthole Creek later, yes siree. "Okay," I told my brothers. "You've got 
our attention."

Virgil talked while Wyatt stared at the brick floor. Couldn't see eyes for 
eyelashes, mouth for mustache. Then he looked at me straight. As I've 
written, he's not much on emotional displays, so when I saw a tear hanging 
off the tip of his nose, I knew how rotten he felt inside. Wyatt wiped away 
his betrayer with the back of his hand. In the course of that motion, I 
forgave him.

They told me secrets, Petunia--the secrets you already know, like Curly 
Bill's "kung fu" is the best. The Feds blanked his memory of self, but they 
forgot to erase other important skills. I understand why--aside from 
altruism--my brothers have helped keep Bill's boys alive and supplied. 
Gotta admit, it's clever: the gang's petty hijinx distract Young Major and 
the troops while Bill plays backdoor man, looking for the numeric 
sequence to unlock a Simpleton Kingdom of Heaven.

We understand why you all sacrificed us to Bill's obsession with his real 
name. Angry as I was, it made sense. Makes sense. Wyatt and Sylvia share 
a hell of a dream, and Aimee and I feel invested.

While Virgil spoke to us, Johnny Ringo sat quiet, hands folded in his lap, a 
line of spittle running continuously down his chin. Bill leaned forward a 
few times to sigh and dab the drool with a handkerchief. Virge said Bill 
remembered Johnny Ringo from his Before Life and did unto him what he 
did unto us, but Johnny's brain fused, establishing permanent psychosis. 
After Bill recognized us at Missouri's funeral and decided to break our 
mindblocks, Holliday helped him create a safer home-brew to up our 
chance of intact survival. "We didn't want to lose you, Warren, or you, 
honey-lamb." Virge offered his hand to Aimee. I thought she might hang 
out in Grumpville awhile longer, but she took it. Squeezed his big, work-
rough fingers.

Curly Bill didn't offer an apology. Why should he? He knows he's a one-
and-only and has everybody by the dreamer's halos. My wife, however, 
had a few words for him. She got in his face on tip-toes, bent her elbow 
and made a fist. "Let's get one thing straight: you touch me again and 
Luther won't ship post-paid to Satan on my behalf. I'll kill you myself, you 
sonofabitch. Got it?"

The outlaw smiled. Whispered, "What's my name, Sculee? You know it. 
C'mon, tell me, Sculee. What's my name?"

Aimee's eyes narrowed. "_His_ name was John Fiz-something Byers. But 
you're not important enough for me to recall. Not now, not ever." And 
then she dropped back on the flats of her bare feet, ground a knee into his 
balls, and walked off toward our room with the hem of her white gown 
sweeping the bricks.

As Curly Bill slumped against the wall to groan and writhe, Johnny turned 
to him with excited eyes. Chanted, "She's hot, she's hot, she's hot."


Stop laughing. Get sober with me a minute.

I said we're invested and I mean it. But.

Yes, but. At least from me. Aimee is all yours--ready to sneak and sly just 
as she and Moldar did in the old days. Sadly, I suspect that dedication to a 
new cause will temper the manic, giddy goofball I adore. I loved my 
serious Sculee, too, but she exiled herself from the spontaneity, the giggle 
fits, the saturation by unexpected color that make life worth living, even in 
the breach. She has that life-rush now. I don't want her to lose it, replace it 
with a drone's pledge to an imagined future. I want Dana Sculee/Aimee 
Earp to live for _now_.

And I want to live for now, too. Maybe I've listened to Boggs over long, 
but this is my second chance--where I try to make up for the sins of my 
Before Life, but where I get some pity, too, for fuck's sake. I don't care if 
watching the death of another child of mine would bring down a host of 
angels and perfection on Earth. The sacrifice would be too great, even for 
the good of so many. I'm not that strong. Maybe Aimee is; maybe Moldar 
was. But not me. I will do what I can for the new cause. I may even die for 
it. But I will not watch my loved ones die.

Just so you understand.

Write soon.

Warren



October 31

I pinned on my badge today and did the morning rounds with Virgil. Total 
strangers (and strange people) hugged and kissed me. My cheeks were 
patterned with hookers' smoochprints. Then Bessie almost broke my ribs in 
an embrace. Someone needs to tell that woman she's no faerie....

My brothers and Doc had spread word that Aimee and I caught Cholera at 
Iron Springs. God knows, I look pale and slubby enough to fit the lie. 
Actually, I think I look geriatric. My hair is almost entirely gone now, and 
the thin whisps remaining are pure silver. The lines are deeper on my face. 
I see new etchings, too, and age spots on the backs of my hands. Better stop 
before I start wanting a drink. God knows, the temptation will be strong 
enough this evening.

The governor is in Tuscon, but he has suspended curfew for the holiday. 
Young Major is livid, but to counter the governor is out of his purview. 
He's just hoping that we riot so he can tell someone high up the ladder he 
knew it all along.

Do you celebrate Fright Night in Goderville? If not, I'll explain. It's an 
evening when people dress up like skeletons, zombies, or bloodsuckers, 
then parade around to remind each other of our mortal vulnerability. 
There are Jack-yams on window ledges whose ghoulish faces will shine 
tonight. Bedsheet ghosts. Cow skulls on poles. And lots o'booze--special 
"clone-blood beer" and crimson "decapitation hooch."

Aimee is going to be a sword-wielding barbarian woman from an old 
television show. (Remember, you told me you recalled smoking cigarettes, 
sitting before a flickering picturebox? _That_ was a television.) Aimee has 
made her weapons out of tin foil and a short tight tunic from a scratchy old 
horse blanket. I told her she looks sexy, but her tits are going to chafe. 
Your Thomas Becket is already costumed as a _very_ bloody murdered 
priest (wince). Luther says he's coming as himself--and that's scary 
enough. Me, I'll be myself, too, on the street with my brothers, making 
sure drunken mischief doesn't turn to Federal mayhem.

Becket told me he's heading back to Goderville tomorrow morning. (The 
only reason I believe him is that he doesn't drink.) It's late afternoon 
already, so I'll give him this letter now. Excuse the brevity. I'll make it up 
next time--double promise. I joined the poker game over at the Spreading 
Chestnut a few days ago. Doc was in rare form. Heard all about one of his 
medical inventions with which he successfully treated Young Major: The 
Constipation Probe. The dealing stopped while we shit ourselves laughing. 
I'll leave you in constip--I mean anticipation of full details....

Sundance


November 11

I'm here, Petunia. Stop worrying now. I'm back...alive--no, more than 
alive. Yes, what my brothers told you is true. No, I don't know where 
we've been or how they did it. I can only tell you what they've let me 
remember.

Around 1 AM on Fright Night I was on break from duty, queueing with 
Aimee and Luther in the corral behind Fly's, waiting to have our picture 
taken. I had my arm around Aimee, keeping her warm against my body. 
She was sleepy--boozily peevish, too, with breath like a local still. 
Decapitation hooch had stained her tongue and lips with red dye that looked 
black in the low light. She rolled her head no-no-no against my shoulder 
and told Luther, who'd dared to suggest it was perhaps bedtime, "I'm not 
fucking going home until we get a photo and you can't make me!"

The Angel closed his eyes and took a breath. "Precious, you are my 
Salvation, but if you wasn't--"

"You'd kill me with my own pierced earrings. Uh-huh. Right." She'd 
begun to tease my lip with her finger. "Walt, you know I love you, 
snugglewumpus. I love your butt...the way you stand with your hand on 
your hip when you bitch out Moldar...mmmmm...makes me so--oooohh, " 
she wriggled. "Kiss me--c'mon kiss me... " When I chuckled but did 
nothing, she reached for my crotch. "Need some help? "

Now I wriggled, blushed when I heard the fellow in front of us clear his 
throat. "Aimee!" I batted at her hands. "Not here, not now."

Luther sighed and turned toward a window of the clapboard studio where a 
photographer's flash had just ignited. "I suggest you kiss the wench before 
apeshit ensues."

"That's right! Kiss me, goddamnit!" she bellowed, leaving me no choice 
but to pinch her chin with my fingers and pull her face up to mine. She 
tasted like hooch and sugar. Made a purring sound low in her throat as the 
tips of our tongues danced. She annoyed me, embarassed me, but this was 
the spontaneous combuster I wanted to preserve. God, I love her. She 
shoves me forward, breaks me out, and makes me respond. I was always so 
good at short-shrifting my loved ones by freezing up, by pushing them 
away instead of welcoming them. I did it to Sculee and she did it to me. But 
Aimee won't let Warren hide behind "strength" and "restraint" that 
disguises an immature terror.

My tongue slipped inside Aimee's mouth, enjoying the warm engulfing 
softness and the gentle scrape of teeth. I pushed my groin against her hip, 
letting her feel what lurked behind my coat's mystery. She growled, 
enticed, but then pulled away with eyes wide. "Sweetheart? Wh-what...?" I 
stuttered, then cringed, horrified, as her mouth stretched back to 
accommodate a scream. A Screamer's scream.

I shook her out of stupid reflex, knowing it wouldn't help. Her pupils had 
fixed and the stain from the hooch made her mouth seem bloody. When the 
need to refuel with air made her horrible sound cease, I heard other wild 
shrieks in the distance.

"They're coming," Luther sounded dolorous as he looked skyward. I 
remember paintings of Jesus with raised eyes and a haunted face like that. 
Beneath my hands, Aimee's body was stiffening, fists clenching at her 
sides, all muscles locking but her diaphragm.

People in the corral were scurrying away, headed for their hovels--as if 
any home was safe against the Things. A few others were spasming on the 
ground, having fallen into fugues. I was asking Luther if we should take 
Aimee into Fly's to wait it out when the ground began to vibrate and the 
air crackled. I felt tickling against my cheek. It was Aimee's hair rising on 
end above her pinpoint eyes and vampire mouth.

Forget it. There was no use moving her. It wouldn't be hours; they were 
nearly upon us. In a moment, everything would painlessly blacken. When 
memory rebegan, we'd still be standing in the O.K. Corral. The poor 
fuguing bastards who'd fallen around us would stagger to their feet, we'd 
all swat the dust from our clothes, then go snooze off our electrostatic 
hangovers.

But it didn't happen that way, Petunia. I swear it took less than an a second 
for it to loom up overhead--an enormous golden blob throwing off a low 
tone that deafened. I covered my hears and fell back a few steps from 
Aimee. Bumped into Luther whose body absorbed the shock by teetering 
like a mannequin. The Angel was gone into unconscious black. I cursed and 
squeezed my head between my hands, adding to the terrible pressure in my 
skull. My skin crawled with invisible electricity. Through squinting eyes, I 
saw Aimee's head tip back and her hands raise as if in praise of the orb 
above. Slowly, she began to rise.

And then, Petunia, my own hands lifted, too....


The sky was dawn pink and something was up there, going higher, leaving 
a double wake like an inverted V.

Gone.

Pebbles under my head and shoulder blades. A sharp one under my ass--
ouch.

I sat up, stood up. Brushed at the detritus stuck to the back of my naked 
form, shivered, then headed down Allen Street. It was going to be a pretty 
day, but the morning was still nippy, especially for the Moose and the 
Twins who had drawn in tight. Needed to get home and put some clothes 
on.

Wyatt was standing outside Kate's warming his hands with his morning 
mug of coffee. I waved and said I'd be back to do my rounds soon as I was 
dressed. I remember how slowly he blinked. As I kept walking, heard the 
squeak of the saloon doors and Wyatt hollering for Virgil.

Spurs jangled and boots thudded as they caught up with me, hooked my 
arms through their own, and walked me straight to Sanctuary.


When Doc held up the mirror, I turned my head, raised my hands to flex 
fingers and rotate wrists, trying to prove the link between what I saw and 
_me_.

I was so young. Skin pink and healthy, muscles well-defined, 
stomach flat and firm. Dark eyebrows and eyelashes and almost a full head 
of deep chocolate hair.

Wyatt and Virgil told me we'd been gone about a week. Everyone had 
thought our corpses were in the desert, drying out, mysteriously eschewed 
by scavengers and maggots. Virge squatted beside me. "I guess it's rat-butt 
stupid to ask, but do you remember anything?" All I could do was shake 
my head. He smiled dopey and crooked. "Didn't figure."

There was a soft voice behind me. "Walt?" Looked over my shoulder to 
find Sculee in the doorway wearing Newborn white, shiny auburn hair 
hanging just below her shoulders. Perfect milk and honey complexion. 
Beautiful--she was so fucking, fucking beautiful. "Oh my god, Walt, I 
never knew you when you were this young." She came across the room, 
hesitantly reached to stroke my cheek.

I nodded. Long Pause. My voice was flat with shock. "Well...we'll know 
each other now." My brain was still misfiring. When she smiled I saw a 
hundred butterflies.



November 12
10 PM

Just a few weeks ago, I was Mr. Popular, now people avoid me or stare 
agape when I walk the planks along Allen Street. Virge says I scare them, 
or they're envious, but my novelty will surely fade.

I cannot get over how _good_ I feel. I'm limber, agile. Damned fast 
reflexes, too. (The other day I was playing around with my flare gun, 
twirling it in and out of its holster while Aimee cracked up.) And no more 
eye glasses--the world is in focus. During my next alien treatment, I think 
I'll ask for optional infrared. My wife is perfect, too--in perfect shape, I 
mean. Hell, she's just perfect.

Aimee's now serving as a medic at Sanctuary. When she doctors sick 
Newborns and townsfolk, she's all Dana Sculee, but reverts to Elmo's Fire 
Aimee whenever she must shift to routine caregiver. Holliday told 
her she'll never be an Angel, that it requires patience and peacefulness she 
just doesn't possess. But she's a good physician, he stressed, and we've got a 
ghetto full of sickies. Doc is meeting with the governor to discuss founding 
a clinic closer in town--Aimee's own clinic. If this happens, Luther will 
work with her. Boggs is one of Doc's best angels, he says, but its plain that 
he's bound to Aimee; all his previous Newborns were precursors and more 
would be mere addendums.

BTW, while I'm shunned on the street, Aimee is cat-called. I guess it's 
easier to break through fear when one is motivated by one's trouser buddy.



November 14

So you've got eleven inches of snow? It's five degrees? Crap. And I 
thought it was mighty cool here two evenings ago when we dropped to 
forty-nine. Well, its small comfort, but if I was in Goderville, I'd keep 
your decrepit body warm. Since I'm not, you'll have to burn warm 
memories. But damn, Petunia, Becket showed me the picture of Sylvia. 
You don't need memories of me--you've got a luv oven right there, 
scorchin'.

The camp was a pisshole, but I do miss those nights in the tent when the 
four of us were pressed close together, sharing body heat and gentle 
touches. I'd massage your hand to quell the stabbing pin-and-needles. And 
triple fuck your Maker for leaving you hanging so long.... Remember 
Mish-in-the-Middle? What a sweet game you made up to distract her from 
pain. She appreciated it, you know. God rest her and bless you.

To answer your question: I'm still blank on Curly Bill. I really think 
Aimee is too, or if she does know his name, she'll only tell him before he 
pokes the next person who makes the worm of his memory turn. And 
knowing my Aimee, whatever name she tells him will be a lie....

Supposedly, we're going to see a little gang activity soon. My, it's nice 
being in the loop....


Gotta go. Wyatt needs me.



8:15 PM

Remember when I heard Papa Bear tell Baby Bear that the Feds were 
sending "second-line prototype-A Clones" to Cochise Ghetto? Well, they're 
coming tomorrow. The governor called us to his office say he'd received a 
dispatch to that effect. Said we'd need to effect biohazard procedures in 
case some of the Merchandise was "toxic."

As we crossed the dusty yard, headed back to town, Wyatt said it really 
roughed his rectum when Chancellor used dumb-ass FEMA euphemisms. 
Christ on a Q-tip, he grumbled, why not just be plain--we needed 
biohazard suits because some of the poor sonsofbitches inside the boxcar 
might be bleeding. "They don't usually get 'toxic' on their own, do they?" 
Wyatt asked, then spat on the ground.

(No guess what a Q-tip is. Virgil doesn't have one either, although he's 
pretty sure that's the way to spell it.)

When we got back on Allen Street, Wyatt slapped through the saloon doors 
of the Occidental. "Don't mind him, Warren," Virge urged me on. "Go get 
your shave." We walked a few doors down to the barbers and I took a seat 
in the chair on the porch. As the barber lathered me up, Virge scanned the 
afternoon chaos of the main street from a kingly rocker. Shook his head in 
disgust when a rollerblader collided with a vegetable cart. Then the straight 
razor swiped me a bit too close, and I jumped and cussed. Virgil looked 
toward me squint-eyed sideways as I wiped pinkened soap from my face. 
The barber apologized slavishly, but I wasn't listening. I'd just realized that 
I understand jack about Clones except never, ever go at one with something 
sharp. Oh, and I've heard the prozzies say that they've got to make them 
pull out because clone semen makes their insides itch. Yup, that's the extent 
of my education on Clones. Maybe I ought to learn something.

This razor-induced reflection led Virgil and I to discuss what Clones 
remember of the World Before. Virge said he can only speak for himself 
and the Clones he knows, but their memories are more wispy than most 
humans'. Virgil has a fixation on Chancellor's computer--when he 
sees it he remembers entering data, fingers tapping away, and that he felt 
happy doing this, as if it was what he was made for. When he's in 
Chancellor's office, he wants to pull the keyboard toward him and get 
started, by golly. Virgil also said that neither he nor Wyatt remember each 
other before they awoke in the same molding room at Cherry Hill Factory. 
He never recognized anyone at Cherry Hill, nor in camp, nor, to date, in 
all of Cochise Ghetto. Virgil's eyes lost their light when he said that. Head 
hung a little. Not long ago, to see him so would have frightened me, now I 
wanted to give him a bear hug.

Virge told me that he takes solace in the Holy Day message. He says he 
cannot believe that the Things are outside the great scheme of spiritual 
evolution--they must turn on the Karmic Wheel as we do, headed for 
reunion with the Godsource. Said that he, Wyatt, and Josie will sit on the 
hacienda roof some nights and stare up into the universe, trying to 
communicate with their alien progenitors. Apparently, Wyatt went into a 
trance state up there one night and saw a vision of the Things, the humans, 
and their hybrid children living together, thriving. Wyatt thought it was a 
scene from the future--maybe from another world. Virgil said it made 
Wyatt understand that the perfect tomorrow must put out its first tender 
roots now.

But you've heard something similar from Sylvia--right? Virge says she had 
the same independent vision, replete with details that Wyatt also recalls. 
When I told Aimee about the shared vision she smiled wistfully, said all 
new religions begin with someone's hallucinations. If cohabitation comes, 
it'll be reality borne of shared fantasy, a self-fulfilling prophesy. I 
reminded her that she'd thought Moldar was delusional, too. Aimee tucked 
rusty-orange hair behind her ear and frowned. "You know, he was a 
prophet who based predictions on actual science. No one gave credence to 
his hard evidence any more than they accepted his intuitions. Not even me. 
I couldn't go where science led. I just couldn't believe."



November 16
11:20 PM

It seems that every time I write you something stupendous has happened. 
No exception now. The scene was Tombstone Station, today around 12 
noon. Because we knew that Clones were coming, we were not only suited 
up in our powder-blue extra skins, but had cleared everyone out of the 
surrounding town block. Young Major's men made a ring around the 
station to keep away the over-enthusiasts who couldn't wait to see new 
Merchandise listed on the chalk board. Don't know what snappy marching 
drill this arrival disturbed--maybe it was cherry pie desert. Anyway, 
George, Jr., sat petulant in his hover car just off to the side of the station 
platform.

The train came as a flash in the distance, then slowly emerged as one 
different from any we'd ever seen before. Its cars were clean streamlined 
silver, each with an upturned receiving dish on its roof. Only four cars in 
all.

When the engine cut back we could hear humming from some kind of 
generators attached to each car. Everyone was cocking eyebrows, peace 
officers and Angels murmuring amongst themselves. Wyatt walked to the 
edge of the platform to lean down and ask Young Major if he still wanted 
us to open the cars, as these were so different from all previous shipments. 
A languid black-armored wave sent us up to the doors. There were no 
visible locks or levers, just an emerald button.

Beside me, Aimee shifted nervously. I heard raspy breath through her 
helmet's speaker. This was her first attendance at a Delivery, and she was 
afraid she'd fugue if the boxcars opened to reveal great suffering. I 
squeezed her hand through heavy gloves. She nodded and tried to seem 
ready.

When I hit the button, a lock clunked and the door slid automatically to the 
right. I expected hot stench, but the wave of interior air came over me cool 
like the governor's house and smelling lightly of menthol. I climbed the 
two steps into the car and turned to look down its length. There were no 
sick, naked bodies crammed together, no corpses piled in one corner and 
overflowing buckets of excrement in another. No pleas for help and no 
cries of pain.

The softly lit white interior held two rows of little bassinets. "Oh my god." 
Aimee pushed up against me, squeezed by. She ran down the center isle to 
peer into each crib. "They're alive, Walt! Oh fuck a duck, they're all alive!"


The Angels and medics disconnected slender catheters and feeder tubes, 
then we carried each small life to Sanctuary. Of course, the news had 
spread and the whole town's population was peering restlessly from behind 
the line of Bluttos. Wyatt had spurred his horse down the road, hurrying 
off to Chancellor to ask what the hell to do with them--I mean, if they're 
staying, how do we divvy them up without causing a riot? Supposedly, 
Wyatt and the governor are working on a scheme right now.

I'm sitting under the Sanctuary loggia writing this. Most of the babies are 
still drugged out, but a few have opened their eyes to peer at us groggily. 
Then they take a big dump. The search is on for diapers.

There are seventy-three infants, all ranging in age from about one month 
to a year. Fifty little girls and twenty-three boys--all with full heads of 
brown hair and round dark eyes. We think there are only two models--that 
all the girls and all the boys will grow up identical.

Beside me, Aimee is rocking a fussy one. He's about six months old. The 
baby's stopped crying, but his little hands are tangled in her hair and he's 
sulking. A moment ago she said to me, "He had an animal name, didn't he? 
I know it was an animal, but I can't remember which."

I told her not to christen the baby yet. We don't know if we can keep him, 
or any of them. But we will. We _are_. I'll have to suck up the terror of 
losing him like we lost Draper and live for the day.

Luther Boggs just came over to sit on the ground beside Aimee and the 
baby. His head is resting against her thigh. The stars are bright tonight. 
Luther says the sky's as wide as heaven.


Yours,

Walter



End of Book I