The Book of Duels by Garriga Michael

Author:Garriga, Michael [Garriga, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781571318862
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Published: 2014-03-16T20:00:00+00:00

The Black Knight of the South (A Gothic Romance): Moran v. McCarthy Jr.

In the Fourth and Final Duel of the Day on Bloody Island in the Middle of the Mississippi River, Near St. Louis, Missouri,

March 23, 1874

Cadet Moran, 14,

Youngest of the Moran Clan

My brain’s a dang swarm of bees and that judge just keeps on a-counting and so I count too: my three dead brothers laid out on cooling boards, the color yet in their cheeks; my first duel ever and his fourth today; one bullet in this one pistol in this one life; and six vultures lazy-eighting on the wind, which is God’s breath come to cool my skin now as I lick my wrist, thin and clammy. My tongue is pruned. My mouth, cotton. My legs are logs on fire. And the river and the smell it carries from a thousand miles north, is pulled past here roaring like a dad-durn tornado and my numbers go all jumbled and I want to dive in the water and be done with this mess but if I ever wish to look my kin dead in the eye again I must be here to defend Sister’s honor and avenge my brothers’ deaths—though I’ve never worked a hard day in my life, instead of these paces I’d rather be walking behind a mule like the tenant farmers who plow our land, or better, digging in the dirt for worms to go cane-pole fishing in Simmons Stream or swimming out there with Jeanette or chasing her through those fresh-turned fields, pulling her ponytail instead of the trigger to this gun that weighs nigh as much as me, but I am here, fingering this cold iron curve, as the judge calls twenty and I stop and spin slow as the seasons change and I see my man and I can’t shake the blasts fired earlier today nor the way my brothers bellowed when their blood burst from their bodies, freckling the sand—I clamp my eyes tight as pickling jar lids and the judge hollers, 1, 2, 3, Vale—

I hear the report clear as church bells but I swear I ain’t even squeeze the trigger. I swear. Yet there he is somehow splayed on top of Sister and she’s a-kissing his face and I fall to my knees hard in the sand and pray that my brothers now may all rest in peace, though I know I never will again.

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