Sanguinis Memoria

Hebrews 11:38

“Of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” 

It was cold, even for being this deep into the mountains. The skin on my knuckles cracked every time I flexed my fingers around the reigns in my hand and I could feel the chill settling into my bones. This particular trip had taken me through the sierra nevadas and into the sonoran desert. I had never named these particular ranges on the map tucked into my bag, but I had visited them often enough to know exactly the caves I was looking for. 

My own thirst for revenge had brought me out to this desert many years ago, looking for a different woman. The man who I had found instead had stood over my wife’s lifeless body and promised me the ability to exact revenge on my terms. He gave me the names of the men that had killed her, and told me that in exchange for enacting his revenge for him, he would ensure her killers would not die until they had suffered by my hand. 

I saw the glowing of a firepit up ahead and spurred Omen to pick up the pace. It had been years since I had been back around here, but the beast that claimed ownership of a place this deep inside a mountain range never changed. There wasn’t a chance I was going to miss tonight. My soul had been stained with enough blood that wasn’t the ones that I sought revenge from. If I could still be cleansed, this was the night that would begin it. 

Find a singing woman. That had been the task. Red hair, eyes as dark as the sea itself, and a voice that would convince the most pious pastor into sin. She would be found easily, I was told. She was just a little slippery, but nothing I wouldn’t be able to handle. Find her, and deliver a letter. Make sure she opened it in front of me, and then I would be able to wander as freely as I wanted for as long as I wanted. This siren seemed to be always one step ahead of me, leaving moments before I walked through a door, or leaving little notes for me if she knew I was a few days behind her. 

Tracking her had become the only thing that mattered to me in the last few decades. I had to be released from this singular hell of the same landscape for fifty years. My most recent lead told me she was getting restless too. Kept talking about wanting to see her family and friends again, how much she missed the spray of the ocean. The call of the wind at night. Hunting boats. I could understand her want to be back where she belonged,  but any true empathy for this siren had long since left my mind. I blamed her for keeping me out here, trapped along the edges of the west coast, waiting to hear a landlocked song in the dead of night. I had been ready for the certainty of where she was for so long. Her last taunt sat right above my heart, her lipstick stain sealing it shut. Writing so dark red I almost couldn’t tell whether or not that was her lipstick. 

You gonna man up or lay there and bleed, cowboy?

She had to know what I had become. Someone had to have told her what kind of shadow had been following her around all this time. I hadn’t been able to bleed in more than fifty years. Hadn’t been able to do much else other than keep on throughout the mountains. Spent dark, frozen winters along rivers whose names changed depending on the person you asked. Summers spent sweating through every piece of clothing I owned, and praying to an unlistening god that I would find water. Hadn’t been able to do anything  other than sleep during the day, and travel when the moon rose high in the sky. The moon sat full and bright in the sky as I hurried Omen along the path, almost too eager to finally be able to put an end to my current torment. 

However she had found it out, she knew that name I used to inhabit. Only way she knew enough to kiss the letter. She knew enough to only refer to me as “cowboy” in all of the notes she had left. I had heard the rumors of the siren who was banished from the seas and doomed to walk the new world hundreds of years ago. Every bartender who had met her told the same story of how she would charm the entire room with her voice and then spend the rest of the night talking to the lonliest looking man. They would disappear together and then she would come back into the bar to grab her things, alone. That is, if she had found them interesting enough in her own way.

Getting information from the people who had spoken with her for a short period of time was like trying to wring water from a cactus. They all had the same glazed look in their eye, sometimes for days afterward. As much as I sought the peace that would come from handing her the letter that resided in my jacket pocket, I did not want to be left a drooling mess by a creature banished from her home. There had been more than one occasion where a man would get to talking about her and work himself up into a frenzy, only to beg me to put him out of his misery. The realization that they would never see her again, never hear her voice or touch her hand was enough for them to want to be released from their bodies. I had been more than happy to oblige. 

She had frequented only one place over the years. A cave that had become a place to spend a few nights had been the only place she had sung more than once. If she was getting as restless as I was for all of this to be over, then she would want to return to the spot where this all started for her. She often spoke of the woman she expected to come for her, to set her free from her binds to the earth. The bartender in Pasadena had said that she sounded almost drunk talking about her, like some lunatic in love. Being the final heartbreak of her life was the one thing that I looked forward to in finding her. 

The pit in front of the mouth of the cave had a fire roaring, big enough to illuminate the entirety of it. It was just as barren and rocky as I remembered from the last time she made her way here. Cacti were scattered as far as I could see, casting long shadows up the side of the mountain. I tied Omen to a tree right outside the opening to the cave, close enough to the open fire pit in the ground so he would stay warm. 

“She’s been waitin’ on you.” one of the tallest men I had ever laid eyes on leaned against the opening to the cave. He lit a match and held it to the end of the cigarette in his mouth. 

“Not much of an audience if she’s waitin’ on the likes of me.” he shrugged. 

“All I know is that she’s been so excited she picked out a new dress just for you. Learned a whole new song too.” he took a long inhale from the cigarette and stood up straight, “She even made sure the bartender had your whiskey all ready for you.” 

“Who am I to keep a woman waitin’ on me like that.” I was unaware that she had been keeping a man with her. She had always traveled light, kept single bed rooms, and only ever booked one ticket. I nodded to him as I walked into the cave. 

“Be careful with her. She’s more unstable now than she’s been in a long while.” he said over his shoulder. I picked up my pace. Walking through the barely lit pathway carved into the side of the mountain, my heart rate began to quicken. 

It was different than I remembered. The bar that lined the back wall was bigger now, and the stage had more rugs scattered over it with a singular stool in the center behind a microphone. The mood hadn’t changed at all, and neither had the bartender. A quick look around made me think the same men that had been here last hadn’t moved once in all that time. The bartender nodded in my direction and went for a bottle tucked under the bar. 

“Just for you.” He slid a full amber glass across the bar and I nodded. He pointed to a table in the back with two empty chairs and a letter on the table. I could feel my heart constricting more as I sat down and saw a pair of lips on the back seal. I took a sip of my drink and pulled the note out of the envelope. 

Relax, cowboy. I won’t run this time.

She appeared in a short, black dress on stage. Her hair was more red and wild than the pictures I had seen, and her smile made the room just a little lighter. I was expecting an unruly looking woman, but she was immaculately put together. Her eyes shone under the warm lights that lined the ceiling above her, and she moved like she belonged nowhere else than this moment. She seemed relaxed as she looked around the room. Her eyes stopped on mine and I raised my glass to her. Her lips twitched at the ends as she really took me in. She set her guitar down on the small stage and came right to me. 

“Well well, if it isn’t my pretty shadow. How have you been enjoying the show?” The bodies that littered alleys and rooms flashed through my mind as a genuine smile crept across her features. 

“A little violent for my liking.” 

“I’ll take that as a compliment from you, beautiful.” she winked. 

“Didn’t mean it as one.”

“I’ve heard the stories about you, you don’t have to play coy with me darlin’. I saw your work out in California – now that was violent. Never seen so many decapitated bodies in one place before. I also heard about your time in the Dakotas.” she tsked at me, “Now if those rumors are true I really don’t stand a chance of making it out of here alive, do I?” 

“I wouldn’t hurt a woman like that.” She shook her head. 

“True. Haven’t heard much about you killin’ anyone other than men. But you and I both know it just takes one good woman to get you addicted.” her blue eyes flashed and she smiled wide at me. I narrowed my eyes at her and tipped my drink around in its glass. Clearly I had been making too much of myself known if she had been able to keep track of me like that. 

“Can I tell you another little story I heard concerning you?”, she leaned in a little closer and dropped her voice, “Heard tell that there’s some old cowboys holed up in a cave that aren’t allowed to die until you get your hands on all of them. That the devil himself strung them all up there ‘bout twenty years ago and is keeping them there.” I shifted in my seat, leaning a little more forward to get closer. She smelled like the sea after a thunderstorm, all wild wind and sea spray. Her eyes were so dark blue they were almost black. I didn’t know how she had heard that, but that meant that someone had discovered them while I was tracking her. The siren sniffed the air between us and grinned. 

“Anyone ever tell you you smell like lavender, cowboy?” she whispered. 

“You have taken more than you were supposed to, siren. You know your time is up.” she leaned back in her chair. 

“Haven’t been given what I was promised either. But that’s what happens when you make a deal with a devil.” she waved her hand at me. “Ain’t nothin you don’t already know though.” The bartender appeared next to her and whispered something in her ear. She sighed and nodded. 

“Small piece of advice before my final set, gorgeous. Don’t leave more witnesses than is necessary. Ruins the mystery a little. Maintain your tale a little better.” She stood up and walked up to her rightful place on stage. She was probably right. I had been sloppy in my old age, and I had let more than one person run free when I shouldn’t have. 

A figure slipped into the chair next to mine. 

“Cheers, partner.” my hand froze around my glass. It had been years since I had heard that voice. He chuckled, tapped his glass against mine, and took a sip. He looked different in this light, almost human. Almost like any other man in this bar. His black jacket and trousers looked dusty from the road, and his eyes shone as bright red as they did in my nightmares. He put his hat on the table and looked me up and down. 

“I ain’t fulfilled my end of the bargain yet.” my grip had reflexively tightened around my own drink. He took another sip. I had to be the one to deliver the letter, he had made that abundantly clear when we had met that night. 

“I’m aware. If I’m being honest, I thought it would take one of you two longer to crack and I definitely didn’t think it was going to be her.” he leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. “I’m just here for the show. Haven’t heard a proper siren sing in an age. You look a mess, by the way. When was the last time you bathed?” In all the time I had known him, he had never done anything unless it got him closer to whatever goal he had in mind. His body may be relaxed, but he had a grin stretching ear to ear. The siren strummed her guitar, pulling my attention from my captor. She smiled big at all the men in the bar and a hush fell over the room. 

“Evenin’ y’all.” Her voice was deep and sultry. Her hands began to move over the strings like water as she started to sing. I had only ever seen her sing one other time, and the room was much the same now as it was then. Every man had his eyes glued to her, almost as if they were connected to her by some invisible string. With each passing song about love and loss, she tightened it like tuning the invisible seventh string on her guitar. The poker table in the back went silent and each man at the table seemed not to mind that his whole hand was facing towards his opponents. The bartender spent the entire time cleaning the same glass with the same dirty rag, enraptured by the creature on his stage. 

I looked over at the man sitting next to me, who had a smile plastered ear to ear. Even he was not unaffected, no matter how long it had been since he had been a real man. They were all powerless to the immense pull she wielded. I sipped my drink, watching everyone in the room inch closer to her in some manner, unable to stop themselves.

“This last one goes out to my shadow.” Her speaking voice pulled my attention to her as she winked at me and began to sing: 

The range’s filled up with farmers and there’s fences ev’rywhere

A painted house ‘most ev’ry quarter mile

They’re raisin’ blooded cattle and plantin’ sorted seed

And puttin’ on a painful lot o’ style

There hain’t no grass to speak of and the water holes are gone

The wire of the farmer holds ’em tight

There’s little use to law ’em and little use to kick

And mighty sight less use there is to fight

There’s them coughin’ separators and their dirty, dusty crews

And wagons runnin’ over with the grain

With smoke a-driftin’ upward and writin’ on the air

A story that to me is mighty plain

The wolves have left the country and the long-horns are no more

And all the game worth shootin’ at is gone

And it’s time for me to foller, ’cause I’m only in the way

And I’ve got to be a-movin’ — movin’ on.

The air shifted, and I could smell the creosote on the wind after a storm in the desert. Those heavy nights under the stars, grateful that the storm had passed, and anxious about the flooding we were sure to find any lower than we already were. Silas had always had the best voice. Always made the men we traveled with cry when he sang. 

“Thank y’all for bein’ such an attentive audience. Behave yourselves tonight.” Her voice snapped me out of my reverie. She propped her guitar up against the stool and made her way to our table, to the dismay of every man in the front row. All the eyes in the place followed her walk up to our table, only to hastily turn away when they saw who was seated, The man next to me tapped my foot with his. 

“You gonna be a gentleman?” I stood up and offered her my chair as she approached. She sat down and looked at the both of us. The room seemed to freeze, men uneasily going back to a ruined poker game or drinks that hadn’t been touched since getting them. 

“Did you like my song for you, cowboy?” the siren looked at me expectantly. The man looked between us, eyebrow raised. Somehow she knew too much and if I hadn’t been tasked with giving her this letter and ensuring her death I would have killed her right where she sat. I took the aged letter out of my jacket with a slight shake to my hand and handed it to her. She turned it over in her hands a few times and sighed. 

“I’ve been waitin’ so long.” she murmured and opened up the letter.  The moment she touched the paper, a blackness began to spread across her body. Her arms cracked open, showing glowing red embers underneath her skin, her fingers gripping the letter as best she could while they turned to ash. Tears stained the table beneath her, and each time one hit her arm there was an audible sizzle. The smell of sea salt was replaced with searing flesh and fire as her hair began to smoke at the ends, and her chest was heaving from the strain of having to breathe. Each moment she spent reading the letter, clinging to it, fire took more of her body. Her porcelain skin fell like early snow around her. 

I stood frozen in place, watching the siren get burned alive from the inside as she cried harder. My heart was beating out of my chest. What had he done to that letter? How long had I carried that thing around in my chest pocket, feeling its edges to remind myself of what I was supposed to be doing? My hand instinctively went to the pocket it had set it, trying to feel for something there that I hadn’t noticed before. It was empty. As the blackness spread up her neck and closer to her face, she looked at the man with more venom than I’d seen from any woman in my life. 

“I will find her in the next life.” she ground out as more ash from her body fell to the ground around her seat, “We may not have been able to be together in this one, but I swear on her grave I will seek out her soul and we will be together for whatever time we can steal.”  

He showed her all of his teeth and hissed, 

“I’d like to see you try.” 

Her eyes flashed a last time as her head hit the table as the letter fell to the floor and her body returned to normal, if not more pale. Smoke lingered over her body. Her dark eyes were open and empty, and her fingers were burned completely off. 

The bartender eyed uneasily, and the rest of the patrons seemed to have forgotten that she was even here. One of the men in the front seemed to realize there was a piano along the far wall and made his way over to begin playing something slow and sad.  The low discussions that had been going on prior to her being onstage picked right back up, and some patrons made their way to the tables closer to the piano to listen better.

 In all my years, I had never seen a room turn away so quickly from something so grotesque. It was almost as if nothing had happened. The man laid a finger on her temple and nodded, as if he needed more proof that the woman in front of him was dead. 

The man slid  a tiny rectangular white box across the table to me. I took the lid off to find a rusted key. 

“What the hell is this?” He made a sweeping gesture with both his hands. 

“It’s your next assignment. I knew this one would take you a little while and I needed to know that you were going to be up for a challenge.” he chuckled to himself. My heart stopped in my chest. Next assignment? What in the hell was he talking about? I had a final man to find, and he had proven to be difficult to track. There was only so much time I had to find all of these men, and there was a chance that he had died. I needed to get out on the trails. 

“What the hell are you talkin’ about?” he leaned forward on the table and looked me dead on, eyes narrowed. 

“You have been free to travel around for nearly fifty years. You haven’t aged a day, and you have been unkillable in all that time. Did you really think I was going to bestow that kind of power and not utilize it? Did you really think that this was going to be the only time I asked something of you?” He shook his head and sat back, pulling his glass along the table towards him. 

“You sold what little soul you had left for revenge, cowboy.” He threw back the last of his drink, “You never specified that it had to be only your own.”