THE BONE TRADERS - A CHAPTER FOR FREE

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The four horses have settled into a canter and the riders sit back lazily in their saddles as if in armchairs.  There are sounds of garbled voices being transmitted over their walkie- talkies. The words being broadcast are inconsistent. “…is airborne.” “Do you copy?” “…nine o five is onto a visual” So the chatter continues as the horses’ hooves add dust to a windless air.

It is at this moment that a rider spots the flash of light to the rear of the canyon: a brilliant flicker of sunlight bouncing off metal.

The rider does not rein his horse in. “That has to be him,” he announces. “There, at eleven o’ clock.”

“You want me to call it in?” The rider that asks is the youngest of the four. His sunglasses mirror his youthful eyes.

“Yes. Do it. The man is a murderer.”

The young rider earnestly reaches for his walkie-talkie as his heels dig into the flanks of his horse.

David puts aside the fob watch. He rests it on the rock as he checks the approaching horsemen. He is aware that they have seen him. It was he that ensured sunlight would ricochet off metal. David digs into his shirt pocket. His fingers are trembling as he removes the match thin tube of blue print. It is less than an inch in length. He holds it between two fingers and gently places it under the weight of the fob watch.

The time is now twenty-five minutes after nine.

The vulture continues flying his lazy circle. His head shifts. He blinks against the breeze.

Satisfied that the tube of blue print is secure from uninvited breeze, David again picks up the Swiss army knife. The instrument offers childhood memories but these must remain forgotten now as David wipes the blade on his sleeve. (To character and even at this moment of his life, he is cautious of his own hygiene). David opens his mouth. He brings the blade up and into his mouth. The heat of his breath mists the blade. With his free hand, David pulls back his upper lip into a snarl. He closes his eyes against the sweat that is freely running down his forehead. He bares the lateral incisor to his fingers, to the blade of the Swiss army knife. The flesh on his knuckles has paled.

The first jab of the blade at the base of the incisor causes David to wretch. He spits away the sour bile that has risen in his mouth as he struggles to inhale through his nostrils. A tear forms in the corner of his right eye and it collects dust as it descends. David lifts his upper lip. A thin line of blood stains his gum. He brings up the blade yet again and allows it to hover there as he opens his eyes and looks out across the canyon floor. He focuses on the approaching horses. He thinks only of the approaching horses.

With a deft jab and a twist, David thrusts the blade deep and up into his gum toward the root of his upper, left incisor. He will have to cut at least a third of an inch deep.

The time is twenty-eight minutes past nine.

On the Western slopes, where the bee lays dead and some five miles from the canyon, the three camouflaged vehicles appear in convoy. Above them, its rotors whistling a steady tune, a dark blue helicopter follows. There are flashes of faceless men behind tinted windows. The Border Patrol insignia is again prevalent.  Once on the flatness of the plateau, their bonnets pointed toward the canyon, the vehicles are soon lost in their own cloud of dust.

The riders draw up their horses to the left of the canyon’s mouth. They dismount and tether the horses to an obedient thorn tree. Steam rises off the animals’ flanks.  The riders remove their Glock pistols. The young rider cocks his weapon.

“There’s no need for that.”

“Why? You said yourself he’s a murderer.”

 A rider holds up his cellular phone. A CCV captured image of a harassed David Erasmus about to enter a silver sedan is on display.  “I checked his profile. He’s un-armed.”

“But that was yesterday.”

“Computer is never wrong.”

They approach the abandoned car and a rider quickly looks into the vehicle. Another flips an empty cardboard box, whilst the remaining two riders scan the depth of the canyon. A film of fine dust now smothers their sunglasses.

The lead rider calls out. “David Erasmus?” His voice has a dull, bored echo to it in the canyon. A horse snorts to their left. “There are four of us down here and we are armed. Do you understand?”

David’s mouth is bloody. He has removed the incisor. The pain he is in is reflected in his eyes. Droplets of blood have saturated the lapel of his shirt, blossoming like ink on blotting paper.

David’s response is impeded by the blood in his mouth. “Yes. Yes I understand.” A pink tipped bloody bubble hangs on his chin. David keeps his attention on the four riders as he grasps the roll of blue print between trembling, dusty fingertips.

“Then you know why we are here?” The rider who asks the question moves quickly to his right and deeper into the mouth of the canyon. His intention is to get a better view of David. His riding boots kick up a little dust.

If this rider was to have looked down at his boots at that moment, he would have spotted the small, wax wrapped package attached to the underside of the rock. But he does not as his focus is on David. The wrapping and its contents are of military origin. It is known as C4.

David’s eyes are a soup of tears and sweat as he forces the thin roll of blue print into the cavity once occupied by his lateral incisor. He struggles against the need to wretch as his fingers make contact with his thickened tongue.  With his thumb, he applies pressure to the blue print, forcing it up and into his gum. His small scream is drowned in the back of his throat.

“I asked you, if you know why we are here?” The rider’s voice is suddenly intrusive, its echo sounding like a kettle drum in David’s ears.

With his fingers still in his mouth, David unconsciously nods. He senses dizziness. The blue print is in place, buried in his gum. Like an exhausted marathon runner, David sits down and puts his head between his knees. His chest heaves. He can smell urine. The black sock on his shoeless foot is soaked in his own piss.

“Yes. Yes I heard you.” David’s words are at sea. He tries to regain strength. “Yes. And yes, I know why you are here.” This time he hears his own voice bounce off the canyon’s walls. It reassures him; proves he exists.

 “What time is it?”

David’s question confuses the riders. They glance at one another questioningly.

“He wants to know the time?”

A rider shrugs. “No harm in telling him.”

The younger rider checks his military issued watch. “It is after nine thirty. “

David spits blood. “I mean the precise time. Please.”

“It is precisely nine thirty-eight,” the young rider replies in a patronizing tone.

David checks his fob watch. The instrument reflects the identical time as the rider’s. David pulls out the winding arbor by one movement. The sound of the click is pronounced in the silence; almost like a twig snapping underfoot.

A horse neighs and its ears lay back. A little white shows in the animal’s eyes.

David’s fingers poise over the winding arbor. He steadies his breath.

There’s a quick cackle of static filled voices over the riders’ walkie-talkies; a burst of confused gibberish. A rider tweaks a button, silences the gibberish.

The rider who stands deepest in the canyon calls out. “We are here to arrest you on suspicion of the murder of Nathanial Trader. We are told you are in possession of a document that belonged to Mister Trader – do you have it?”

David sweeps his look over the canyon walls, then back down to the riders. “The document does not belong to him. It never did. But yes – yes, I have it.” His voice rings flat, almost retiring, as if being asked a question he has answered many times before.

“Then we are coming up to you, Mister Erasmus.”

“Of course you must. Come up here, I mean.”

A rider looks behind him, toward the plateau. The approaching cloud of dust tells him the support posse is closing in. The sun glances off the windshields of the military vehicles and the helicopter sits over them like a hovering bird of prey.

“Should we wait for them?”

“No. He’s harmless.  Split up and I’ll take point.”

David begins to turn the winding arbor. He advances the minute hand by two minutes. He doesn’t reset the arbor, he doesn’t SET the time. He simply waits with his fingers on the brass, ridged appendage. The watch now reads forty minutes past nine.

The riders are walking forward using the tapered dusty trails between the boulders; a pair of boots narrowly passes yet another package of C4 that is tucked in a crevasse. An active spider web hangs nearby; a decaying carcass of a moth swings forlornly from its silky veins.

David touches his mouth. The blood has stopped flowing but his lips feel bulbous and aflame. He leans forward over his knees as he watches the approaching vehicles in the distance. Their shapes are becoming recognizable now as they spear through the curtain of heat wave. David reaches for the metallic box, keeps it in his left hand, the fob watch in his right.

“I think it’s about time now,” David suddenly calls out. He remains squatting on the boulder, chin on his knees, rocking in suffering on his haunches. His throat is tight and dry.

The leading rider pauses. He lifts his hand, gesturing for his team to stop. “What did you say, Mister Erasmus?”

“What’s he got in his hand?”

“I can’t see. Can you?”

“Negative.”

“Put it down, Mister Erasmus!”

David closes his eyes. The action squeezes tears; they run freely, trailing recent stale salty paths. He squeezes his ears closed, shutting out the echoing voices of the riders.

“Put it down now!”

David sets the watch into movement. The seconds hand sweeps across the face. He has advanced time by two minutes.

The Vulture, keeping its altitude, glides smoothly over the canyon. There’s a whisper of sound as he adjusts his flight path, feathers against glass.

The horses react as if stung by hornets or bees. The grey, a mare, rears, snapping her reins, her rump slamming into the horse beside her. A black stamps its feet impatiently, tossing its head left and right, nostrils suddenly flaring and showing a purple panic. Two horses break free from their tether. They turn toward the plateau, loose stirrups slapping against saddle leather. The grey follows, her mane wild as she tosses her snorting head.

“The horses - what’s with the horses!?”

“Put it down, Erasmus!”

Fingers search and grasp for the winding arbor. His vision blurred by pain and panic, David now re-sets the time on the fob watch. He retards the time by sixty seconds, allowing the minute hand to sweep backwards across the ornate face. The winding stem feels pathetically small in his fingers.

The lone horse stands shivering on the spot, its flanks pulsating. Its head is dropped toward the ground as if committing to a race already lost.

Nine thirty nine. Time is retarded by one minute. Sixty seconds of lived in time, stored, archived amongst cogs, ratchets, pinions and arbors. Preserved and locked away in a fob watch.

The Glock pistol has a standard magazine of seventeen rounds.

The down thrust of the helicopter’s blades adds a petticoat of dust around the travelling vehicles. The effect is almost embryonic. Shock absorbers soak in the unbalanced terrain as reinforced tires turn rapidly.

“Put. It. Down.”

“IT IS ONLY TIME!” This is David’s voice; it is guttural; disembodied.

David’s eyes suddenly open like a man a rudely awakened. A slight moment to focus, then a calmness, an inner peace, washes over his eyes. David turns his head to the left and looks into the empty space beside him. He smiles. He smiles at a-nothing; emptiness.

It is the smile a father offers his son after a term of absence.

The Glock’s firing mechanism has a spring – loaded firing pin that is cocked in two stages. When the pistol is charged, the firing pin is in the half-cock position.

Nine forty.

“Hello, Joseph.” David tells the empty space on his left with a slight, nervous smile. “I’m glad you came.” David’s voice is rasping.

The Glock’s 9mm round slams into David’s right shoulder. His body twists spasmodically as the bullet enters muscle and flesh and exits cleanly. He rights himself. A half open smile of aloofness hangs off his bloody lips. His right arm now lame, David barely manages to hold the fob watch.

He remains focused on the vacant space. He frowns as if being asked a question. “Of course it’s me, Joseph,” he responds a little impatiently.

The rider, who fired the shot, settles after the recoil. He senses members of his team drop defensively to the ground either side of him. He digs his boots deeper into the soft, grainy sand. A high pitched electric squeal shouts over his walkie-talkie, its origin or language unknown. A new cartridge slips into the chamber.

“What’s he saying? He’s saying something?”

“Put. It. Down. Now.”

David Erasmus holds the fob watch in his right hand. In his left hand he grasps the metallic box, its green eye blinking. He sits on his haunches, leaning forward, his head, though on his knees, turned toward an empty space on is left. His injured shoulder is at an obscure angle. In defiance, a slow drop of blood oozes from his gum onto his lower lip. He can feel the urine wetness of his sock.

“Joseph – you must make it right,” David tells the space. “The answer is in my mouth. I love you.”

Faceless shapes of men in a vehicle with an amber blue dragon flying overhead.

A youthful rider lying prone with dust on his sunglasses and eyes filled with alarm.

Wax wrapped CT4 explosive beside a riding boot, the pencil shaped detonator visible.

David brings up the metallic box.

The Glock fires:  The whistle of its second bullet cleaves the hot and humid air.

David presses the red-tipped rubber button on the metallic box.

My name is Dog.

I am a simple creature: I eat from a simple carcass. I ask for no more or less. I am good.

I fly your sky. From a height I witnessed the beginning of the end.

In my simplicity I do not profess to know your sciences, your mathematics, your nucleus, atoms and fission.

 From aloft, riding a thermal, I experience the detonation.

My wings are buffeted by the shock waves that precede the wrath.

My body is pummelled.

I close my eyes to the whiteness of the light before I begin to spiral away.

Toward what and where, I do not know.

Only time will tell.

A time left recorded in an inscribed fob watch.

On your wide-screen television set, there is an image of an over brilliant sun. Then your television shuts down.

On your iPod there is an image of a mountainous section of an iceberg collapsing. Then your iPod goes blank.

On your mobile phone, whatever the make, there is an image of a wind generator. It crumbles like an autumn leaf underfoot. Then your mobile phone goes blank.

On your computer screen there is an image of dead cattle on a ravaged land. Then your computer shuts down.

Through your window you see the dust as it advances like a Tsunami. Then you can see no further.