Hell and Gone

by Tal Bauer

All rootless things are grabbed by the wind, and so was Everett Dawson.

Mountains jutted for the sky, jagged teeth screaming at the sun like a drowning man gasping for air before he was pulled beneath the waves.

“You ain’t from ‘round here.” Lawrence said, one casual wave of his fingers calling Everett to the corral. There were canyons between those vowels, lingering spaces where Lawrence’s voice lengthened and spread like warm honey. His accent was as thick as the forest on the mountains and rolled like the wind, on and on.

One sip of coffee and Everett’s throat spasmed, clenching around the bitterness, the oil-slick tar that filled his mouth. He coughed, rolling to the side in case he couldn’t keep it down. Laughter hit him. Lawrence, brushing the horses. Trigger preened under his touch, shaking his head. “Cowboy coffee,” Lawrence called. “It’ll peel paint off a barn. But it will also wake you up, get you goin’.”

“He’s a wild bronc. He’s got a fight in him that can’t be tamed, can’t be broken. Not by nothin’. He’d charge Hell with a bucket of water, cussin’ all the way, and then blame the Devil that he got burned.”

Everett’s stomach seized. He couldn’t breathe, and his skin felt too tight, squeezing his insides down to nothing, to his basest, raw particles. Until he couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. The half-moon’s glow outlined his body, carved Lawrence out of the night. Muscles swept in and out of shadows and stars.

Meeting Lawrence was like meeting an immoveable force of nature. He was the mountain, the peak, the steadiness. And Everett had blown up against him, wind-torn and ravaged, a broken thing thrown away, discarded from life and everything he’d hoped for.

He looked at Everett like he was something worth looking at. Like he was something Lawrence wanted.

His lips found his ear, and Lawrence whispered, “Let go, Everett. I got you.” That warm voice, layered in wood smoke and honey and mountain air, summer days and fire-lit nights.

“Please, God.” “M’name is Law,” he teased.

Everett calmed the inferno of his temper. He was the whistling wind cooling his soul. Kept him alert. Kept him focused. I won’t let you die. I swear it.