The Saddle
Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.
It was something Shawn used to say to Ruth when she was too scared or shy to do something she wanted — rather, needed to do. She’s pretty sure he got the saying from someone famous, but the man loved horses, so she thought it a fitting phrase for him to latch onto. And she still thinks of it when she’s too chicken-shit to do what she wants to do — what she needs to do.
Sometimes courage has nothing to do with it at all. Sometimes it’s flat-out self-preservation, or common sense. And when those situations face you square on, you may as well take that cowboy saying and toss it right in the toilet, because no manner of courage makes up for being stupid.
Ruth had barely a recollection of how she got there, squatting below the beam of Rack’s flashlight, picking at a mausoleum keyhole, thinking of Shawn. She hated Rack for bringing her there, but he was at least good at finding jobs worth paying a damn in that godforsaken armpit of the world. Worth paying for head doctor bills that a cop’s salary couldn’t touch. She would have seen to it that Rack was sporting orange duds at Hillsborough County, or among the many laying prone just inside, if he wasn’t at least good for that.
She winced as something flared within her brain, then stood, smacking her head on Rack’s flashlight.
“Shit! Why’d you pick this place?” she asked, rubbing her head. “This place.”
Rack threw his hands up. “You picked it, remember? Said ‘something-something Ambrose’ … A big score. Biggest yet. Wouldn’t say nothing else. Maybe you could, y’know, clue me in yourself?”
She shook her head. “No. No, I … How can I not remember that?”
“You better remember. We need this one. Damn place gives me the creeps. How much longer?”
“I dunno. Few more minutes. Now shut up.”
The lock was popped five minutes ago, but Rack didn’t know that. Ruth knelt once again and resumed picking at a keyhole that had already relented, like one would a toothpick digging at a stubborn gobbet. She wasn’t ready to go in.
Saddle-on up, Ruthie.
“Right. Saddle-up,” she whispered.
She supposed having courage had as much to do with it as stupidity, after all. The fact that she still wore her uniform on jobs like these pointed her actions firmly toward the latter camp, but it helped serve as a cover story more than once.
The iron door opened without a sound into the darkness, into the cold, into where only death lay.
“Yesss. Alright, ladies first.”
“No. Go ahead.”
Rack shrugged, lifted the toolbox, and shone his flashlight into the gloom.
“Whatever you say. Officer.”
She hated that Rack felt the need to say that. She could sense his wise-ass smirk as he stepped through the open doorway, as though what lay beyond was nothing at all. It was so easy for him to treat it as just another job, when the clothes he was wearing didn’t serve as a contradiction to the task at hand. Her uniform was all part of the plan: she knew that. Always had been. It didn’t make it feel any less violating.
“Good to be working with you again, Cassidy,” Rack said. “Remember our last job? Shit, must’ve been a year now since-”
Since the last time I was here, she thought. Saying goodbye.
“Yeah, something like that.”
Rack shrugged off the interruption and continued into the cold air of the mausoleum. Ruth followed close behind, her own flashlight lit. The scent of flowers for the dead stung her senses and rattled her already pounding head as she shut the door, echoing off the marble floor and placarded tombs. There was a feeling of finality, of no turning back. If only the proverbial horse she’d saddled onto would carry her forward.
“Jesus this place is big,” Rack said, spinning around. “Must be a thousand of ‘em.”
“Twelve-hundred,” she said.
“Really? Damn.” He shone his flashlight along the marble vaults, its beam catching nameplates as it went. “Alright, so … where is he?”
“Section 8C, row 28. Second from the bottom.” It came to her unhindered, automatic.
She’d last been there so long ago, yet recalled Shawn’s resting place like one would a friend’s phone number. Or a lover’s. She tried to shake the thought away.
Rack flinched, fazed. “You remember it just like that?”
Her head continued to shake. “No. Forget it. Someone else.”
Ruth turned her eyes to her left, toward Section 8C, where along row 28 and two doors up from the floor was a name plate she was sure she’d never cast eyes upon again. Yet there she was, mere footsteps away. And for what? Still, she wasn’t sure, and Rack’s patience with her would no doubt grow thin at the prospect of her not knowing.
“So. Lead the way,” said Rack, with a flourish of his hand.
She scanned the names outside the tombs around her, stacked four high, floor-to-ceiling. Some were clearly older than others: their name plates more tarnished; vases empty of flowers, or containing skeletal, leafless stems. Those more recent had flowers in varying states of decay, or with trinkets and mementos placed at the foot of their stack: notes, toys, more flowers.
Shawn had a plastic Appaloosa under his, she recalled. She had left it, then, before walking away for what should have been forever.
“Hey Cassidy,” Rack said.
The pain in Ruth’s skull surged as she snapped out of her thought.
“What do you call these things we’re looking at, on the graves? The things the names are on. Doors?”
“They’re tombs. Graves are outside, in the ground.”
“I think they’re, like, seals or something. Can’t call ’em doors, right? Ain’t like anyone’s opening them all the time, y’know? ‘Cept us I guess.”
“Yeah. Well. Some doors are meant to stay shut.”
“Not tonight they ain’t. Not all of ‘em.”
What kind of job was it, really? Parting the overly wealthy, the exceedingly fortunate of their over-abundances seemed an entirely different sort of job than relieving the dead of precious items left to rot alongside them. But was it so different? Were they not merely indulgences left to waste? Perhaps a more honorable thing was to see them do some good in the world than have them forever sealed away? Perhaps, she thought, that was reasoning enough to get her to find this “job,” as loose as that term was for it. It still didn’t put a veil over what kind of place it was, nor who took residence there.
If not Shawn, who was she looking for? She may have had a hand in putting some of the bodies there over the years, but names tended to wither away like the petals littering the floor. She chose to keep those names locked away in the mausoleum of her mind, with doors that are forever closed. Closed, perhaps, but apparently not sealed, with an occasional issuance that served to drive her mad.
“C’mon, Cassidy, which one?” Rack’s tone bordered on annoyed. “Just blurt it out. Come on. First name that pops in your head. Tick-tock, tick-tock! Go!”
Shawn. No!
“The blacksmith’s son,” she said, though not knowing why. “The blacksmith’s son. That’s all I got.”
“What? Blacksmith’s son? That’s not a name. That ain’t gonna be on the front of any of these doors.”
Ruth stepped forward, reading nameplates as she went.
“Maybe you’re wrong,” she said. “There’s more than just names and dates on these.”
“Yeah, alright. But ‘blacksmith’s son’? I dunno. Don’t you have a name? Just need a name. C’mon, think. That’s what you cops do.”
What did he think she’d been doing the moment they’d arrived? And before that? And what did come before? She presumed a car ride, a phone call. All of that lost now, and none of it made sense.
“How did I tell you about this job?” she asked.
“What do you mean ‘how?’ You called me, remember?”
“No. What did I say? I didn’t tell you a name or anything then?”
“Naw, you just said it was in Saint Ambrose’s and it was enough of a score we’d be set for life.”
Rack averted Ruth’s gaze. He suddenly didn’t look so good. Her cop’s intuition fired.
What are you not telling me? she wanted to say, but was stopped short as Rack’s flashlight flickered out.
Ruth turned her own light toward Rack, but he had disappeared as fast as his light had gone dark.
“Rack?”
Her flashlight sputtered out.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
The hairs on her neck and back sprung lives of their own, standing at shaky attention beneath her uniform. The pulse within her brain beat in rhythm to the reverberating sounds around her. She fought the urge to double-over in pain as her hand flew to her sidearm.
“Rack?!”
THUD! THUD!
The sound of a match being struck, then a soft glow from her left.
“Hey,” a male voice said.
She threw the latch off her weapon and drew it, wheeling about. It was not Rack.
The man stood twenty feet from Ruth at the center of the hallway. Along with the cigarette that hung sideways from his lips, the stained-glass-colored moonlight barely illuminated the contours of his pale face in the dark. He was young, well-dressed and, despite his submission with one hand raised, unafraid.
“I’m a cop,” she said. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing in here? Put your other hand up!”
Slowly, he complied.
“I know who you are, Officer Cassidy. Thought you’d be happy to see me.”
Her pistol remained drawn and ready, safety released. There was nothing good about someone lurking in the dark of a place like that, no matter their business or intentions. She resisted the urge to call out to Rack again. She could explain a uniformed cop’s presence just about anywhere, but not with her slime-ball partner-in-crime in tow.
“How the hell should I know who you are?” she asked. “I can barely see you.”
He remained still, with only the movement of slender tendrils of smoke rising from his silhouette. An occasional auburn glow from a cigarette inhale gave hint to the bemused smile that held it. Something about it became at once somewhat familiar to Ruth, but only just.
“You work here?” she asked.
A drawn-out exhale. “Something like that, Ruthie.”
A realization struck her, and she did all she could to stifle a cry.
“Sh-Shawn?” Ruth whispered.
At that, the man began lowering his hands.
“Keep your hands up!” Ruth yelled. “Wh-What the hell is going on? Who the fuck are you?”
“Ruthie,” the voice said with calm reassurance. “Ruthie, it’s me.”
Ruth released the dead flashlight, letting it clatter to the floor, as she drew the now freed-up hand to steady the first. Her finger teased the safety on her pistol as she fought back tears.
“Shut up! He is dead! Shawn is dead! What kind of sick fuck are you, calling yourself Shawn, huh? Who are you?!”
The man dropped the cigarette, then took a careful step forward, into a shaft of moonlight that illuminated his face in full. Ruth’s tears released.
“Hey partner. Good to see you again.”
Through a watery veil Ruth saw that before her was indeed Shawn, just as she’d last seen him. It did nothing to make her lower her weapon; as much as such a vision brought her joy, innate intuition kept her in check.
“No,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “No no no.”
Shawn sighed. “I know. Sorry to drop in on you this way.”
THUD!
Again, to Ruth’s right. Again, her head. She snapped-to and spun around, her gun now pointed in the direction of the sound.
“Rack?!” she called out.
“Rack’s gone, Ruthie,” said Shawn. “It’s just you and me right now. He’s not coming back.”
“What do you mean ‘right now?’ Who else is coming? My dad?!”
Shawn chuckled nervously. “No, not your dad.”
THUD!
“What the fuck is that?” she said. “What’s going on?”
Shawn stepped closer. Ruth kept her gun pointed down the dark hallway, where lay what sounded like imminent threats. The man before her — the person who had to be Shawn, but couldn’t be — was no threat in that place. As her tears continued their descent, Shawn gently placed his hands on her shoulders.
“I’m sorry, Ruthie. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be there for you anymore.”
He gently placed a hand to the back of her head, then into the light. Blood flowed from his fingers and glistened in the moonlight as it fell in large droplets to the floor.
Ruth resisted the urge to reach back, to search for a phantom wound she could not feel; that she would not let herself believe to be any more real than this man standing before her. To reach out for either of them meant to bring a reality to the nightmare: that her mind, like Shawn, was lost.
“It’s why he was able to take you here,” Shawn said.
“He?” she began today, before another round of THUD! THUD! THUD!
“He’s coming. Ruthie. You have to remember now.”
THUD!
Ruth jumped, her nerves shot. The sound was louder now, closer, more threatening.
“This is crazy. I really am going crazy. I-I-I don’t know what you mean. Remember what? What is that? Who’s coming?”
“Shhh. You’re not crazy. The name, Ruthie. The one you came for. It’s important.”
THUD! THUD!
Ruth tried to adjust to the darkness down the seemingly never-ending hallway, from where the approaching sounds came.
Shawn turned Ruth to face him and put his hand on her wrist. She complied as he slowly helped her lower her gun.
“It’s time to saddle-up, Ruthie. Don’t be afraid. Come on. You said something about a blacksmith.
“A … A what?”
“A blacksmith’s son.
“Son of a blacksmith.
“Son …
“Son-”
“-of a bitch!” Shawn cursed, gagging, and barely able to keep his composure and late dinner down while facing the grizzly scene. His partner and girlfriend, Ruth, had seen much worse during the war, though that did little to help quell her reaction.
The officers’ target stood before them, a mess of stress and sweat, blood and gore, the latter being much less his own and more that of the slain strewn across the floor. He didn’t look up as he spoke, his head hanging low in a display of shame and bewilderment, face caked in maroon filth and his own hair. The boy in his teens stood behind the church altar, naked but for a pair of blood-soaked boxers. In one of his outstretched hands was a sword the likes of which might be seen possessed by a medieval barbarian, and just as bloody.
The boy’s chest heaved as he stood otherwise motionless, facing the two officers. His victims — old churchgoers, Ruth’s guess — were positioned in supplication before him, most sans heads or hands. The pools that had flowed from their missing limbs congealed along the floor at the boy’s feet in a neat, shimmering pool. The stench of copper and the soiled garments of the dead was overwhelming.
“Kid!” Ruth called out, tears of strain blurring her vision. “Kid, put down the weapon. I don’t want to have to drop you.”
Her voice was steady, relaxed, her sidearm poised atop her outstretched hand. He was a kid; barely sixteen from what she could tell. So, no: though the horror he’d clearly unleashed was inhuman, she did not want to have to put a bullet into him. He was sick, and, despite the grizzly scene, not completely removed from getting help, she hoped. Death wasn’t yet his only option.
“I …” The teen’s voice trailed off, as though he did not believe the next words that would leave his mouth.
“God dammit! Drop it!” Shawn commanded. He stood beside Ruth with a disposition much less sure.
“We’re not gonna say it again,” Ruth said. “Drop the sword. Now!”
The kid looked from one hand to the next, locking on the blade as though seeing it for the first time. As he did, he spoke in volume and intensity as if to an unseen audience of many.
“The hammer strives not to win wars, but to smother the fire of life!”
Ruth and Shawn shot each other a look. The boy went on.
“Smother … the fire of life.”
“What the hell is this he’s yelling about?” Shawn muttered from the side of his mouth. “We’ll take him down on three.”
“Shawn-”
“Look at this place,” Shawn said. “Listen to him. Time to saddle-up, Ruthie — there’s no other way this can go.”
“Only the nail!” the murderer continued ranting. “Only the nail the hammer seeks!”
With that, the boy set his sights on the only other living souls in the church. In one quick motion, he leapt from his position behind the altar. He was airborne but for a heartbeat before Ruth’s bullet found its mark, and the boy crumpled back to the floor with only half of his head intact, the sword continuing forward, relinquished. Scattered bits of him littered the floor-to-ceiling stained-glass windows, bringing blues to purple, yellows to orange, and anything else to a very deep, dark red.
The gunshot’s report seemed to last an eternity. Ruth’s finger remained fully depressed on the trigger. The air aromatic of sulfur and copper, of spent gunpowder and blood.
Ruth turned. Time slowed. She stared at her partner — her lover — and lowered her gun.
Her eyes left him and scanned over at the bodies surrounding the altar for what seemed like the first time. They were without rejoice or relief. Without judgment. Without life. And now joined by the one they’d been poised to worship and, too, Shawn, another reluctant addition to their gruesome flock.
The blade had sought and found its intended target. Shawn’s head lay open upon the altar, split so evenly as to travel the length of his septum.
The silence of the moment ceased as the large blade that was lodged within her boyfriend’s skull clattered to the thinly-carpeted floor at her feet. With it, her troubled mind resumed its spiral downward, a direction she’d long sought to reverse with the help of professionals, and that Shawn had since displaced. Her sanity was no match for his absence.
Upon the center of the sword’s guard, crossed hammers beside the face of a lion, blackened by ages of soot and blood. Below that, in intricate script, the name of its creator.
Ruth felt the world leave her as she fell to her knees. The chaos and static deranging her mind was joined but not interrupted by a sound familiar to her, but one she couldn’t care less about then nor ever again.
Officer Cassidy, do you copy? the radio at her dead partner’s side blared.
We have an ID on the suspect. Name is Brian-
“MacGowan.”
Ruth’s eyes widened and the flow of tears ceased, while a calmness began to wash over her. She realized then what she’d missed most about not having Shawn in her life: his reassurance that she could do no wrong, even when that was all she felt she ever did.
He also had a way of giving her a nudge when she needed it most.
“Right. MacGowan,” he said with relief. “Scottish. Son of the smith.”
Ruth’s world slowed as she dropped her gun and let herself fall into Shawn’s arms.
“You did it, Ruthie,” he whispered. “Way to saddle up, girl.”
He held her there, saying nothing more.
She still had no idea why she was there, how Shawn was there, or why such a name was so important and so difficult to muster. All she cared for then was the unlikely reunion. To feel for once safe, and with a tortured mind finally at peace.
Retired Officer Ruth Cassidy remained sedated in the dirty laboratory bed, an array of sensors covering her wounded head. Doctor Roland hobbled over with his cane once again to the set of monitors, still displaying the computer-generated interior of the Saint Ambrose mausoleum.
THUD! THUD!
He cast a glance over at the woman in bed, with puddles of sweat and tears soaking the sheets by her face.
He turned the monitors off, retrieved a cellphone from beside them, and typed out a call.
“It’s Roland. I finally got that name for you. ‘MacGowan.’ Yes, right. Yes, glad we didn’t have to resort to, well, more dangerous means. She’s lucky. A woman in her mental state, the brain damage … she might not have survived the next phase.
“Strange thing: it worked even when your avatar malfunctioned and blipped out of the simulation. The names in there didn’t seem to matter. She just sort-of told the name to … well, nobody. Just out of the blue.
“Anyway, payment’s due tomorrow. Hope you find what you’re looking for, Mr. Racksmith.”
The doctor ended the call.
Behind him, Ruth quietly woke and saddled up once more.
