Tintype Dream, Chapter One
That One Time When… The Crew Lynches Lynch. Medicine Man Finds him. Lynch gets drowsy, starts to notice things. He falls asleep, exhausted by hanging.
They chose a crooked, sideways branch that made a rocking chair noise in the wind. The rope creaked in the dark. Rain smelled of dust. Bit by bit, he blacked out. When it was done, Boss spiked his cigar into the ground. It bounced once and he stepped on it. “Ride out.” He never knew you could hear ‘em ride away when you were dead. But there was a lot he didn’t know. Loud noise, blistering heat. Hell on the way, come to claim its own. He could hear the souls roaring, and something touched his foot. Red on his eyelids. The thing touched his foot again and stayed there. He faded more. This deal was done and so was he. A bee stung his neck, waking him. He’d lived somehow, and he was touchin’ the ground. Pressing his toes, he tried to take some pressure off his neck. He’d forgotten he was wearing Cavalry boots, not pointed-toe cowboy boots. These boots had a square toe. He turned his ankle, touching the boot’s toe at its corner, and he rotated in a slow spin, then back the other way. His eyes opened, just a crack. The tree was on fire from a lightning strike, and the branch was split off the burning tree trunk somewhat. So, it had been a flying cinder that stung his neck. He waited. He was standing like a man, when his eyes opened again. His hands were only wrapped, not really tied. He found the tail of the rope and worked it loose, unwrapping his hands. He grabbed the noose and swung his legs up, got ‘em around the branch and it fell heavy to the ground with him, bruising his knee. He worked the noose over his head and he was out. He sat there catching his breath. They took his brand new ten dollar hat. He faded to black.
He wakes, finding himself some distance from the burning tree. He… musta staggered away and passed out. Lying there, looking back towards the tree, he can see there’s a stranger in a top hat, sittin’ at a small campfire close to the burning tree. Lynch draws closer, crawling on his hands and knees. It’s an old man with long stringy gray hair and he watches Lynch. The old man reaches over and turns the rabbits on the fire. He’s got a long Sharps rifle leaning next to him, against… It’s a wagon. Lynch can see part of a wheel. The old man draws a Navy .44 and lays it on his lap, then he beckons to Lynch, nodding. Lynch sits. The rabbit meat is hot, greasy, dripping onto the sandstone between his boots. His stomach growls, but he doesn’t eat yet. His left leg feels heavy, a dull rhythmic heat pulsing inside the leather, right against the meat of his calf. Maybe he’s got a cinder in there. Lynch sets the meat down on a log. He reaches down, works his thumbs into the top of his tall left boot and pulls. The leather resists, sticky with sweat and old dust, but it finally comes off with a sweaty chill. He finds an oilskin packet in there. Pulls it out into the firelight. It’s lined with stiff, yellowed parchment. There’s a parchment page inside. He already senses what it is without reading the archaic, angular script scratched across the surface. He can feel the hum of it through his fingertips. A deep vibrating sting, matching the frequency of the lightning strike that restarted his heart. He studies it with squinting eyes against the cloudy blur of his hanging, not fully recovered yet. It’s a language he’s never seen before. Lynch remembers seeing a picture in a book, a tracing of hieroglyphic symbols. These are similar, but nothing he recognizes. He looks at the back and there’s some cursive he can’t quite make out, not sure if it’s English or another Western script, French maybe. Squinting doesn’t really help. The old man watches from under the top hat. A slow, toothy grin splits his gray beard. He doesn’t say a word, just reaches out across the coals and his long, yellow-nailed fingers make a small, twisting gesture in the air. Quick wiggle of the knuckles… Ffft. The oilskin doesn’t really catch fire. It dissolves, flashing into a puff of grey dust that smells faintly of old grease and copper. Then blows away into the creosote, before it’s even able to hit dirt. Lynch’s hand is empty. His fingers are still curled, but wrapped around nothing. “Didn’t think I’d letcha keep it, didja?” Medicine Man cackles a dry, rattling sound. “Naahh… don’t think so, brother. Not for you.” The old man reaches to his side, hand disappearing into the deep shadow by the front wheel of the wagon. He grabs a flat leather courier pouch, greasy and cracked at the corners. He tosses it over and it lands with a heavy slap against Lynch’s bare leg. “That there’s whatcha need, son,” the old man says, nodding toward the leather. “Just whatcha need.” Lynch opens the brass clasp and pulls out another oilskin, this one thicker and lined with the same ancient parchment. He spreads it across his thigh. It’s a map, or something like one. Black lines cut across the page. Jagged, impossible geometry twists around landmarks that don’t match any territory he’s ever seen. He blinks, trying to focus, but his eyes just ain’t right yet. The lines crawl and shift like a nest of garter snakes on the parchment. He can’t make it out. He folds it back up, hands heavy, and passes it back across the fire to the Medicine Man, who snatches it, sliding it back into the pouch. “I’ll keep it good, boy,” the old man says, voice settling flat. He hands a cold canteen of water over and Lynch drinks deeply, greedily. Medicine Man picks up his knife again. “Time fer vittles now.”
Lynch has a couple sips of whiskey, good quality, from a tin cup passed over the fire by Medicine Man. It warms him in the chill desert night, stars bright and plentiful across the vast expanse in which they sit, feeling close and small. Just a circle in the black of desert. The fire’s warm and so is the whiskey. Medicine Man brings a blanket and drapes it on his shoulders. Lynch gets drowsy, starting awake whenever he remembers the hangin. He finishes the whiskey feeling peaceful warm, grateful to be alive in this circle of light among a vast dome of endless stars. He wakes when he hears his own soft snoring. The crimson lady painted down the side of the coach is watching him. He’s certain, looking in her eyes. That he knows her. She winks at him from beneath the parasol, lying relaxed and he wakes himself snoring once more. Medicine Man’s wise eyes are knowin. Time to put Lynch to sleep. He gently lifts the blanket off and takes the exhausted man by an elbow, leads him to the stairs at the back of the coach and tells him, “Her name is Traveller.” He holds the door open at the back of the Medicine Wagon and gestures inside. Unable to remember climbin’ the steps, Lynch looks at the Murphy bed folded in the wall, but don’t ask about it, because some questions about this Medicine Wagon don’t have answers. Old man pulls down the Murphy bed. Lynch sits on it, tryin’ to look around the too-big interior, but just too tired. Books, tables, shelves, chairs. Wood stove. He falls back on the bed. Medicine Man is already outside, doing whatever he does before Traveller moves. The bed sets solid under Lynch’s weight with a gravity that feels older than it ought to. The interior smells like old wood and something else he can’t name. Road, or distance, miles maybe. He’s asleep before the first wheel turns. Black and white dreams. Nightmare vision of an adventure story that’s also… actual travel. Traveller going where she needs to go, as Lynch’s sleeping mind processes the road. Fires and ships, coyotes and train engines roaring in the night, smoke streaming behind. Night sky, stars streaming, faces laughing. The Lady, red hair with blue eyes, smiling kind. His heart breaking. He never remembers her face. He arrives having dreamed the destination, before he sees it with open eyes. They don’t really travel to Canyon Diablo. Lynch dreams his way there. Fitful bright, black and white nightmare vision, his only access to Connor Lynch before the rope. Except this time the dream don’t dissolve when he wakes. He opens his eyes, and the canyon is there, the camp is there. The smell of it, woodsmoke and whiskey, unwashed men and desert cold, is absolutely present. Adventures he don’t remember livin, a journey he can’t account for, always in a black and white tintype of someone else’s life. This ain’t a dream, it’s navigation.
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