(repost from S as in Stable, Jan 2010)

He's a post in the ground whose shadow stretches on far and close toward her. It was as though he had been standing there many years in that still, slight lean which did not seem to sway even with his breath. The light not in his eyes but still causing him to squint up at her. There was something, perhaps, less approachable about him. He was a fierce, wounded animal who discouraged any from picking over his vulnerable bones and reading them. That an invisible thing can drop behind someone's eyes like a wall and yet be so real was one of humanity's mysteries.

It was not the man he wanted to be. Not with Lilli or the world, and especially Rona. Rona had always been some sort of crutch for him in that respect. She softened him, gathered him up and brought out an easy smile. But he shouldn't have depended on her so much for that smile. It should have been his all along.

He was tired of the deep pattern there between the two of them-- that she should be the fire and that he be the shadow she cast. He thought it was possible that he, too, could also be a flame. But it was a journey a man should carefully consider when he took it and definitely, most definitely, not one that should be taken with a crutch.

Her correction of his writing caused his lips to break in a slight smile for her and it is like dawn came over everything. He tips his head to her in agreement, "Yes, there is still much work to do about that."

He was already looking away, towards the thin bodies of the trees that scattered and bunched together. He question comes thought the air and doesn't seem to be heard by him at first. How did Lilli know that? His eyes turned to her. Yes, where would he go? Tag was strange. Somehow dispossessed and rooted in the veinwork of the world. Could anyone be so far away and yet still feel so perfectly connected?

"I've been asked to help someone. My... little friend," Madi wasn't the little teenager anymore, but he often still thought of her that way. She had wanted a companion, a shadow. Something he had been so many years and had tried to emancipate himself from.

He thought... it was a good chance to step back into his old shoes and ask himself if he had really loved them all along. He could go from there, he could understand these new paths he had decided to take that way.

On long rides, there was no escaping the ghosts. There was no distraction, not even conversation, to keep them from dominating the air. He had known it was coming and though he did not welcome it, it felt like a pain that had to happen. The first voice that came to him was his own, echoing off a not-so-distant moment.

I must go and do what I should have, years ago. He saw the ghost of a palomino horse gallop on the horizon, kicking up a trail of dust as he carried a beautiful gypsy into the sun.

Why did he think he could shake the chains of what had been? They were invisible, locked in his mind but in a place that was untouchable. It was in the story of who he was as a little boy, learning the world. Everything that was him was printed as a book on his back, telling the story that all guards of his order told. They were echos of one another, insubstantial shadows for something greater than themselves.

"The first principle you must know," the voice came from a man crouched behind him. Tag was sixteen, his elbows on his knees, sucking in breaths with every painful jab of the pin and ink into his skin, "is that you are a servant, above all else. Above being a fighter, you serve. It is your place to serve and not to refuse your orders." The line of kanji on the left side of his back started to take shape with each jab.

"Above fighting?"

"Yes," the series of metal jabs continued down his ribs, "you will fight so little of your time. Most of it will be spent serving. You willl help others, mostly you will help your master and you will realize that is your importance."

"Why?"

"Why?" The man laughed, he could feel the sound of it fall over his shoulder and onto his lap. Beads of blood worked their way down his skin as the tattoo continued. It felt like no one had asked him that before. When the dry shake of his laugh stopped he continued, "Because you are the guard, not the one being guarded."

Far away from that day and place, he stiched himself to people as weak reflections out of that sense of purpose. At her edge, as her shadow, he had the sense that he was fulfilling that. That he was serving her, keeping watch over her, not because she asked but because that was who he was. That was what had always made him a person. He had not noticed the sense peace it gave him to be several paces behind her with a watchful eye. How long could he keep being just the guard?

"They used to have a place for horses in the windmills," he said, wondering where he had known that. As a young boy wandering the fields? Or as a man, stepping through places in the world and examining them curiously? He had not recalled windmills on the rice planes, but knew that a mule was usually tied to the work of a windmill because the wind did not always come, though it was expected. His heels dug into the sides of his mare, sensing her into a rolling trot until he was within yards of the windmill, bringing it and all its disrepair into focus.

The lions did not approve, but their speed and grumble in the background did not sway him. He dismounted, relieved that the doors seemed large enough to allow for not just their entry, but their horses. For the trip he had adopted a long brimed hat like man cowboys wore. Man of shadows, in the shadow of it now. Beneath it she must have known that he was looking at her, "There isn't much time."

Lions weren't that polite. Sensing the way the air was holding its breath, he stepped to the door and tried it. At first there was resistance, not because it was locked but because dust and wear had cemented it into place. If he jerked too hard the metal handle might pop from the wood of the door. The application of his shoulder, one hand at the edge and then pressing caused it to give for them. Old dust speaking of the complaints of being forgotten was rolled back by the door. He turned to catch the reins of his mare and lead her inside. Beyond the curves of the creature he watched Madison. Blades of black intercepted his view of her as the mare swished her tail.

"How far along did we get?" He wondered if they would know that, based on old, unreliable maps.

The apology of her eyes was met with a small shake of his head, one that said it was unnecessary. Reaching their destination was the part of what was important to her, the salvaging of a person he didn't know could be. Unless he was held against his will, Tag wondered how well Madi could cleave a person from their beliefs and put them on a different path. Even if the path she offered them was better, they would not know it if their eyes had not changed. Did she have all the right words lined up in her head? He thought about all the people that died for intangible things, for ideas, and how time and experience changed or steeled those beliefs. It had been something he thought was worth dying for.

Were they going to persuade, steal, or force it? He could only imagine her forcing it if she felt desperate. She was desperate enough to take a long path that no longer gave people welcome. The windmill itself did not demand that they leave but spoke of those that had already had to turn and walk away. People did not stay, not anymore.

It had been a long time since he had ridden a horse for so long. His body bowed backwards and then forward in a stretch, his hands dropping to his thighs to massage away the sensation of still sitting in the saddle. He paced in the hopes to walk off feel the horse and saddle beneath him. The air cracked and rolled. The darkness inside the windmill was such that he took off his hat and placed it on a hook bolted into one of the more solid columns. When he moved around the mare, she turned her head to watch him. Their relationship was still new, her wariness of him was reserved but not far from the depth of her eyes. Tag pretended he didn?t see it, he knew the feeling would drift away as they began to understand each other. It was important to let emotions have the lifespan they needed.

?A name?? He hadn?t thought of her as being nameless until she said it. He wet his lips and approached the mare, unbuckling the saddle and setting it, with the saddle blanket, over one of the sloped railings. His hands pushed down her back and legs, a brief massage that searched for unnoticed wounds or bites. What was her name? He supposed that they would have a one dimensional relationship that could be defined as, ?Journey.? His hand smoothed down the broad drop of her neck as he repeated the name, as if establishing it to the mare, ?Journey.? She snorted, her head dipping down to sniff at the floor that still smelled of grain.

He went on to manage her horse while she looked about the windmill. It would not be long until she worked on bringing fire and color into where they were. Like with Journey, the saddle and the blanket were removed and set aside. The neck and legs were felt over. Both animals were tired but unmarked. That was to be expected. The path carried only certain dangers, the topmost being dehydration. If they had been plodding through the woods there would have been more fear of cracked hooves that come from areas with more rocks. There was just the sun, relentless and indifferent. The evening was more passionate, more expressive with how it felt.

Two fingers snagged the straps of their rolling bags and tossed them at the foot of the ladder. Depending on the condition of things upstairs, they might be safer downstairs. The floor was dry enough to suggest the rain would not floor them. His shoulders rolled to shed his jacket. He paused at the nail in the column, feeling that he had too often been hanging it up, hanging himself up, on the forgotten nails left in buildings. The thick collar of it eased against the nail and then rested without any sort of pretense that another fate could be for it. There should be a hook for him, a place that was his instead of incidently allowing him.

She called him to come see. He turned to look at her and saw that she was haunted by the lightening. It made out all her details with a harsh light which refused to conceal anything. To take this trip he had left Hope in exchange for Journey. It did not seem that Madison had come because things were left behind, but that things were carried, the weight of which spelled a desperation she hide beneath saddle blankets and long brimmed hats. He would need to give up, to let go, to become more. Could she? The apology of her eyes, of her form, was less for him than herself. He could see that she was holding onto it, lamented holding onto it, and may not let it go until the answer was undeniably concluded. He did not want to step up to her at first, the sight of the evening and what it breathed into her felt as though it belonged to her, that she needed the lightening strike.

He stepped to the doorway, the heel of his palm pressing into it as he leaned forward. Light crackled, hammering into the ground and jumping between the clouds. Thunder rolled like the promise of a boulder down the mountainside. The horses must have known this trail, the sounds and feel of it. Their ears worked back and forth, they would snort, but they never whined or cried out in alarm. None of them did. They had all known the storm, had known it well enough to see that it was beautiful.

?They say? lightening doesn?t strike the same place twice.? The lightening tension and the promise that the impossible was real when the conditions of the world were right. When would it strike for him?

Another bolt cracked the ground as if to say not today.

The grass rolled over the prairie like the water moved in the ocean. It waved, cresting into white highlights made by the lightening, eased flat and rose back up again. The prowl of the lions went onward, finding them unsuitable prey and wanting to latch their electric teeth onto something that would have more give to it. If there was anything about the two of them, it was that there was no give. They were hardened stares and long, drawn moments of quiet between them like an indirect staring contest. She had her walls, more obvious as if they wanted to be dismantled stone by stone while he felt his was a simple iron gate at the front of a house, shut by rust and overlooked because of the ivy that had grown over it.

"Do you know the town we're going to? Should I be worried?" He took the sheers and began to clip, "It does not matter when we reach it, I'm not in a hurry."

His eyes were on the field, he felt the heavy sensation of the storm linger on him with a promise.


"I'm scared," the little girl was only five when she had said it. It was the first time she was old enough to know, or understand, that a monsoon had hit. It would last for days, possibly weeks, and at times would grumble as if outright upset with the world. It took him a minute to realize Lord Takahashi's daughter was talking to him.

"Hello?" She stepped closer, "Talk to me!"

He was standing at the doorway, much like the doorway of the mill, looking outside as the rain started to fall and pool away from the porch. When the little girl raised her voice his eyes went to her. The eye contact was a mistake, it made her smile and focus on him more.

"You're always there, shadow-man. Why don't you step out and say something? Aren't you scared?"

He hadn't meant to smile, but he did. This delighted the girl even more, her interest in him overcoming what fear she had of the storm. She was standing only a foot away from him, feeling that he had seen her for the first time. For so long he was like an object, he had felt like an object, but there were eyes in him now and they were looking at her. His lips were smiling, too.

"Can't you talk?"

?I??

?What are you doing?? Lord Takahashi?s wife, in her long silk dress, appeared like a jab in the air. The horror on her face was at her daughter, not him. Unaware of her trespass, the young girl did not shrink back with the guilt of something wrong but became bolder, as if irritated with her mother for not understanding.

?I was just asking him a question.?

?Little one, he is doing his job, which is to guard you and our whole family. He isn?t there to talk to you or play games. You can?t distract him. You understand, right?? Her mother cleared the distance of the room, circling in front of the child so that she was between them. He was struck by how near she was, he could make out the fragile strokes form the brush used to decorate her hair pin and wrap up her long, black locks. He had the impulse to step backwards, but the doorway was pressed at the length of his spin already.

?Couldn?t he?? the little girl was trying to put together the question she wanted to ask, but was struggling. She could only fall back to the idea that had started it, ?It?s the storm going to get him? Doesn?t he get bored standing there??

?The storm does not get men like him. On good days, for all of us, standing is what he does. Come, it is time to practice your writing.?

The girl peeked past her mother to look up at him, ?Goodbye, Mr. Shadow-man.?

When they left the room he smiled, turned his head and watched the storm that rolled sheets of rain along the ground.

The grass of the prairie rolled like the rain. Madison?s observation of his black and white movie would have no knots of pain or yearning for unseen threads, but the return of an old smile that had come with the storm.

Water. The other side of the canteen was gripped and put to his lips. It was easy to forget how dry his mouth was until it was flooded. Sometimes it felt like he was tasting blood in his mouth but that was only the lingering hint of metal a canteen could give water. The left side of his bottom lip had cracked, he was more aware of it when he licked his lips and the salt of his skin stung it. Another swallow, diluting the sting, before it returned to her.

His eyebrows knit, dark-eyed gaze thrown back out the open door to size up the ocean of grass and lightening that winked with the promise it was far enough away that it could do no harm. Without a fire in the windmill, no one would have thought anyone was where they were. The horses being inside had inadvertently hid all signs of their occupation. That wouldn't last long, though. Madison would spark a fire and from there someone would know a heartbeat was put back into the building. Was it possible that stragglers on the road were drawn to the structure, just as they had been?

"I'll check." A shoulder shove, the pensive guard moved from his priority post to make begin his paces around the windmill.

Lightning struck like a heart attack. He thought he felt the air get charged, then get chalky and dry as the blinding moment passed. It had been a straggling stitch of light, falling from the tail-swish of the lion. He was so surprised that the whites of his eyes were pronounced and worried. Behind the snap was a laugh like birds calling, the smile of a girl-woman who also believed that the storm could not strike the dark man. The old smile came again when he realized that he believed them.

?Do you think it is the sort of night for that?? The smile subdued, he stepped away from wings, taking one of the rocks in her wall with him.

At the time, the idea of a house, a place that was not a warehouse, felt like she was getting away from something, though he could not have said what it was. It was not the town, or what was happening here. He realized then that it was selfish, that it was because he had liked the metal doors, the seclusion and even the sense that it wasn't a proper home. It was much like a tree that a bird had only partly constructed a nest in.

Would he go with her to look at the houses? Yes.

Upon the next night he met with her at the warehouse there was a light bag hanging from his hand. The dark man looked like he expected to be pulled into part of the night, he had on an old black hoodie and black cargo pants tucked into his ebony boots.

"Tag?" Only small surprise there, the surprise that they weren't meeting over an oak bar with drinks but at the groan of her metal doorway.

"Madi." He lifted the bag.

Her hands reached out and took it, carefully, because he could have been handing her anything. A book, a glass figurine. When she parted the handles to see inside it, the contents provided fewer answers. There were circular items, two of them, that looked plain and were marked but on an offhand inspection she could not tell what they were. The third item was a common mirror.

Without an impressive response from her, he motioned, "Sit. Tie your hair back."

Two old chairs in the warehouse were brought around and made to face one another. His hand moved, taking the bag from her gently to set it on the floor. It was one of the few times there wasn't her favorite curtain to dip and hide her expression from him. He motioned that she lean forward, all of her face bared in his direction. The circular object twisted, its cap came off and there was a white cream waiting at the bottom. His fingertips pushed into it then reached, sliding across her cheekbone and then her jaw. It felt cool and thick, then warm as it thinned to being just his index and forefinger against her skin when the makeup ran out. As he painted her face it occured to him that they did not touch each other much, that there were unspoken boundaries defined by curtains, wings, and something else. Her face was mostly white now, his hand gave a gentle fingerstroke down her throat and brushed like a quick afterthought the tops of her collar bones.

"Almost done."

The next round container, black, was pulled from the mouth of the bag. He asked her to hold her breath and abandon just a little bit longer when he spoke, "Shut your eyes."

The pressure of his fingertips slid over her eyelids and to the space beneath her brow. A stroke under so her eye socket was outlined. Carefully he touched her nose, to broaden the look of the nostril with the black. "Stay still, don't more your lips." His fingertip drew downward, in repeated vertical lines, over her lips until it seemed that the ties of a railroad track had been draw against them. Cheeks felt his hands draw into them and lift away.

"Open."

He leaned back in his chair to look at her face, a slow subdued smile appearing that said he was amused when her eyes came open. Reaching into the bag he pulled out the hand-sized round mirror and angled it to her to see.

"Halloween... We'll go as skeletons." On the day of the dead, they would look like many of those that they had left behind. They would be two skeletons picking out a house along the street, wondering which one could keep a tragic comedy, be a fortress and be a place where bones needed to be buried.


The fire in the mill she made was a beacon. Wading through the area around the mill, there had been no sign of people intruding or even wanting to be on the path that they took. The horses added to the sense of ease by looking bored with their heads down. When he returned he was raking a hand through his thick, dark hair, sidelong thoughts that were unimportant roamed his head. It was easy, those sidelong thoughts. He could think about the unimportant things, the trivial things, over and over.

He did not want to think of all the ribbons of color that would be gone, that had seemed to drift. Even the one around his wrist. She was gone. Nor the cowboys and their hats and how they seemed strangely warm and affable. Usually they were also drinking. They were scoundrals of the dust and wind and there was something romantic about that. Romantic. It was easy to let thoughts circle bitterly around the cowboy, to recount Rona laughing with him on the couch and wondering how quickly she had flitted off, seeming unharmed by their separation while it turned into a yawning hole he thought would swallow him up. He had to keep moving, he had to... plod forward into the sun awhile with a hand upon a gun. Even with a cavernous chest, he knew Rona hadn't done anything wrong. That it was short sighted, bitter, to dislike her for not coping in the same way he did, especially since the decision to separate had been made by him.

In the end, though, she was a symptom. The result of some deeper, greater illness. One that would destory everything he ever wanted, and one day himself, if he did not uproot it from inside.

But where was the handle of it? Was there even a thread for him to grasp, to begin pulling so that like a sweater he could begin unraveling it?

Unrolling his sleeping bag and sliding out of his shoes, he sank into a place by the fire. Madison had built it into something that was only half a foot high and sassy. The wood had quite a bit to say when given the means to do so. His eyes followed the flames, how the twigs and bits of hay had become something brilliant, licking upward into the world as warm, pure energy. It made him think that anything could change. His eyes moved to Madi. A girl becomes a woman, branches become the flame.

It was possible.

The windmill felt like the tower of a castle. Unflinching, unapologetic and amused when people tried to reclaim it. It seemed aware they were only visiting, which was acceptable to the stones.

"No signs of anything," when she asked about what he had seen. She would take the first watch, which he showed he understood with a nod. How many people that roamed the prairie wasn't something he firmly grasped, but he suspected that they weren't the only people that knew of this town. If it was attracting a certain sort of person, Madison was probably right to be on guard. He wondered why the boy was important to her, if he had come to symbolize something or if she needed to prove to herself that something that was dingy could be washed clean. Mostly clean. The way she had been. He took another stone from her wall and slid it into the wall of the windmill.

Words echoed down his mind, into dreams that ran like movies he didn't want to see.

"Kusinage," he heard Matsu's voice and turned to look at him. They were on the path into town, one that was dirt and wide enough for a cart to go through. "I need to speak with you."

The heat of Summer was relentless. It had been coupled with days that seemed longer than usual and less giving of rain. Small bugs buzzed over the sweat of his skin at the back of his neck. A hand waved to ward them off, "I'm here."

"It's fine if you disagree, I just want you to tell me you won't speak of it if you do."

His eyebrows came together. The conversation was starting off with the intention of being veiled. He knew Matsu through their years of training, prior to being assigned the individuals and their families that they would guard. His talent hadn't been with the sword, or speed, but with his mouth. Matsu had a way of getting people to listen, he had that intangible, strange quality that people called charm. Even he was convinced by Matsu's since of urgency that he would listen and keep a silence about it if uninterested.

"Times are changing, Kusinage. People can't keep living like this, in these perfectly defined rules with severe punishment. I went with my master on a voyage and we saw... places. I saw that people could pick the job they worked, who they married and even the clothes," he pinched the front of his garb, giving it a wiggle, "they could even pick out their own clothes, in any of the colors that they wanted. What's happening here is... it's extreme, people can't live like this."

"If people had that much freedom, it would be chaos."

"That's what we've been told for ages but it isn't true. People get to... have real conversations, they get to have all the choices that they want and I--" Matsu's shoulders drew back, "I'm going to get those freedoms. Kusinage, I'm going to... fight back. It was never easy for you, you were half. But you're taller and stronger than most of us for it and I feel like if I'm going to do this that I'd rather have you at my side."

"I don't think I can." He toed at a rock, kicking it and sending it scattering down the path to town. The image of his master's little girl smiling at him during the rain came to mind. Mr. Shadow-man. In war, could he really take her parents away from her? If she died, could he cope with it?

"Think about it. If you still want to say no... fine, just don't blow the whistle."


Madison saw that he was an overgrown gate and began to unwrap the green tendrils from around his boards. When he woke up the sky was still heavy with darkness. It might have been three or four in the morning. The feeling of standing in the middle of the road and talking to Matsu, just before the world tumbled into battle, hung in the air. Matsu had wanted to over throw the current regime.

He sat up in his sleeping bag, pulled his legs out and put on his boots. She was going to need sleep, too, and he wasn't sure that he wanted to have any more of it. He put a few sticks she had set aside on the fire to held rebuild its life from the quiet crackle it had become. The night time air held a surprising chill to it, the sort that slid its fingertips into the bones and held them. Once he was on his feet he plucked his jacket off of the bent nail and called, like he was concerned that he would be heard, "Madi? It's your turn to rest."

Matsu had wanted to win against something he thought needed to change, something that was bigger and had been around longer than he had. It came with its own traditions, with people that believed in it. With people on both sides of the system, ready to die for it. Was Madison doing the same?

"The answer to both, dark man, is yes."

"What will you do, when you find a house?" The drawing of teeth over lips bit into a bright green apple. She was there for the first candied apple he ever had. He had seen them, bobbing in the night along the road in the hands of adults and children alike. The apple was bitter and crisp, followed by the gooey sweetness of the caramel. That was why they were paired together, right? Because they were different, emphasizing the nuances of one another that might otherwise be lost.

The make up wore at his lips. A brush of white-black to his shoulder half cleared his cheek. As the evening went on, bones disappeared back behind flesh. The darkness in the orbs of his eyes promised her something. It made his eyes look earnest and worried. Was it the strokes of the makeup, or was that his expression? It disappeared, somehow, behind the moment. Something was turning over in his thoughts but it never went past his lips.

The water at the fountain in the market gurgled. His eyes were on her then-- he smiled, "What houses did you want to look at?"


Often, he thought he understood the world through the sun. It was harsh and warm. Sometimes it withheld that warmth. It colored the world and didn't allow for much in the way of secrets. The night allowed for illusions, for people to be mislead and enjoy it. The daytime spoke of the things that had to happen. It was brutal, more honest than he sometimes liked and only promised sweat beneath brilliant colors.

"Disguise?" He said the word like he didn't know what it meant. He looked further up, from the clouds to something sharper, something more vertical than the scenery. As if looking at the tips of his black hair beneath the brim of his hat, "I suppose we could shave my head." How much of a disguise was that? It was a difference, but perhaps not significant enough. His skin beneath would be pale, it would be clear he had shaved his head recently. Attention diverted to her, wondering what the story of her transformation would be.

"Who will you become?" Knees cracked when he stood up, twisting his shoulders left and right to send the bones into a chorus. The sun was not in its height, it had barely met the belt line of the sky. These were the hours that the horses would be grateful to carry them. Before sweat and blistering heat.

Lofton. The make believe town was becoming not-so-make-believe. It threatened to be real, to carry bullets. He unholstered his gun and examined it as though the evening might had edged changes into it. A few metal clicks and it was back in the holster. The blades, though, those were strapped to his other hip. Two knives, one longer than the other. His left hand drew back, resting on their hilts as he thought about the lighting of the sky. He turned his back to it and started for the inside of the windmill. The horses would need to be lead out, soon.

Somewhere in the stream of dust, of bending grass, he thought about a little girl with dark eyes smiling up at him. You're always there, shadow-man. Why don't you step out and say something? Aren't you scared?

What would he have told her?

"Let's become someone else. It's about time." The corner of his lip caught in a smile. It was time. Time had been served, had been poured and given and now there was the sun and the wind. He could be anything that he wanted.

"Mamoru," she said, putting her hand on his chest. It was dark, he could make out her face in the poor lighting of the evening because the moon was that bright, "it is a shame you will never be a father. You would have been a good one."

In all the world they had, did there need to be any room left for shame? Couldn't they just show their bones and step forward? A child simply couldn't appear because he had wanted one, because he had been deserving. It took two people to bring a person into the world. Rona's place beside him was getting cold and it seemed that it would always be cold. Perhaps that was the way of it, the sort of thing that happened to men who were displaced from their homes, their culture, and everything they knew. The way they connected and touched others flickered and broke. Did the room next to his have to be empty... though? Could there not be some bed constructed, some change made and papers signed?

Did it... have to be a shame?

"I'll get the horses ready." He turned from the horizon that wanted to rest lazily and tell him everything, but it would only give him one thing. Lofton. Before the light became heated and peeling, they would need to hit the road. They would need to eat and find a way to manage their appearance. He took off his hat to clap it on the side of his leg and then righted it back on his head.

When he spoke it wasn't exactly a question, but a musing that went under the skin, "How do we disguise ourselves?"

"Halloween."

He said it like it wasn't something annual and had only happened to him once. He didn't know that there would be a little girl who would want to dress up and seek out her claim of the offered candy. What about Halloween, for him? How could he forget?

So far it had been a singular celebration, a moment where two skeletons grinned, even when they weren't grinning. It was the first time he had seen Redemption and from that point on there would be a gaping void, one that would force him to forget the details and smell of it. It wasn't until much later that he actually stepped in for the first time instead of just surveying what its face had to say. Halloween was a moment where he had felt he had seen her, and her him, and they had not turned away from each other but instead took another bite into the apple.

Halloween. It would always be skeletons, princesses and caramel apples. He didn't often have the inclination to celebrate holidays, mostly because he wasn't sure how he felt about them. Not every year felt like Halloween, but that year it had been especially so. Smearing white over her cheekbones and black into the hollows of her eyes had been right. It was her smile she had now, the shine of it, that told him she felt the same way. He didn't often get to feel the same way about anything with someone else. The loss of Rona had made that a violent realization. Often people placated each other, forced smiles and held their breaths mostly in anticipation for the moment that they wanted, or hoped, would happen next.

As people often pressed, with overstated and unfollowed advice-- it was about the journey, not the destination.

Halloween.

The pause was long, but not too long that he couldn't continue, "I remember. For being small, you were still a frightening skeleton." His half smile caught then threw itself away into the wind. Time was starting to slip. Lofton wasn't going to wait forever.

To the doorway, in preparation for saddling Journey, he paused like there had been a knife between them. His hand braced itself on the doorway, "There's no one to tell." The answer was absolute.

No one. Not anymore. Not family, not country, and certainly not bride. There wasn't even Hope, anymore. She was boarded and would spend her lazy days with kids until he returned. The house had become a tomb, he knew that. In preparation for his journey, sheets had been caste over his few belongings. Would he ever go back? Would dust collect and people begin to wonder who had once lived there? Weeds were already starting to creep into the gardens he had loved so much.

What was the point, exactly, in owning a home anymore? When it was only him, echoing inside its skeleton, why should he own it? He might have been the heart, but where was the mind? The liver? All the other pieces that would make it an organism and not a tomb? With only him, it could only become a dead body.

He wished for the impossible when he continued his steps, fitting the saddle back onto the horse and checking her hooves again. He wished that Madison had seen the orphanage. That she could have known for one moment what it was like to have a family racing through the veins of a house. She might have understood, then. She might have known what he meant when he said that he was empty without a child, without a family. With her youth, with her disjointed life, he wasn't sure that he could have said anything. He did not want to inspire pity from her, that was unacceptable. Yet one could not talk about the gaping holes within themself without that being the case. It was better, momentarily, to say nothing. She was sharp and seemed to know him, his brief answer would give her more to know than a monologue about what had happened though the details would be lost.

"Your husband is waiting, isn't he?" All he knew about the husband was that he was a ghost and that his appearance had seemed like a betrayal. Not just against him, but Madison. They had existed in some sort of carefree bubble until her sudden ascention into being a woman. Then she had to cope with being married and that had felt to him much like someone else's life had been thrown at her.

Or was he just the vestiges of what had been her daydream of a different life? Would she be better without him, slipping into the skin of what had been her?

The orphanage with five bedrooms was now just as empty as his own home. Everything felt as though it was going away and becoming less. Was that just what it felt like to get older? Did everyone feel like all that was faded and would become nothing was not a monumental as what was?

If only there was a fortune teller to reassure him otherwise.

With all things packed and ready, he drew Journey to the prairie and mounted her. His heels were ready to dig, ready to send to to a trot. The sunrise was sending warning to them that its birth would be soon.

"Ready?"

It was said like a question, though they both knew it wasn't.

"No," he met the arch of her brow, the question in her eyes. Then he repeated it, saying it more softly and as though speaking to himself, "... no. There is only the house that waits for me."

It sat with a modest porch and a white bench swing he would need to paint again soon. It sat empty and expectant. Lately, it had seemed to be asking him whether or not he believed he could fill the home by himself. The empty room there was asking for a purpose but he wasn't sure what to tell it. There would be no gypsy sitting at that three-chair kitchen table pressed against the side of the wall, twirling her fingers through ribbons. The chairs were tucked in neatly and the last, lingering reminder of her was a ribbon that hung off his wrist. It said Remember.

Remember Rona? Remember that it takes more than keeping someone safe to create happiness and fulfillment? The red ribbon told him to remember, least it all repeat again. He would always have a shadow, but it needed to be caste off of him instead of being who he was. His hand tightened on the reins. The sun of their journey was relentless, it wanted to burn him up because there was something there to burn up. He was there, hammered into flesh by the sun. A shadow-man could not have survived it.

Squinting at the light ahead of them, he smiled. It wasn't a warm smile, more like a cringe in the day's brightness, but it was a smile. It had felt like neither of them had smiled in a long time and that he should do it because the absence of it was starting to weigh on him more heavily. He tugged the brim of his hat upward as he looked ahead. Did he expect to see the sun glint off metal as a precursor to what would happen?

The path stretched out ahead of them, disappearing in the dip and then at the foot of the trees her words pointed out. He thought he saw the path weakly outlined in the direction they would go, like the ghostly half-paths that deer would forge in the woods. Leaning forward in the saddle, he licked his lips and tasted his own salt. His heels dug, urging Journey to take the hiding path at a brisk pace. Perhaps he was hungry, it wasn't likely that he was impatient. Tag could watch paint dry or the clouds crawl slowly across the sky with no sense of urgency.

Something in the air brushed in the opening of his jacket sleeve and up his arm. Deceptively cool fingers of air, smoothing past the collar of his shirt and along his clavicals. It felt as if someone were trying to sooth him, the way a cow is soothed right before it was shot. The powerful stretch of sun overhead, the scant but scenic surroundings should have been something he enjoyed more. It was Lofton, though, and the knowledge of that would not let him see the town with ease or feel that the wind was not some mistress sent to distract him.

Only once they were at the foot of the trees did he pull up on the leather straps of his horse's harness and dismount. He could feel the tension in his legs and wanted to walk it off. Beyond that, the shadows of the trees would give the horses some reprieve. He swallowed and then tipped his head back, looking up at Madison with the question before he said it, "All this growth... is there a creek nearby?" His hand passed along the broad side of Journey's neck, feeling the dampness there which he had no doubt was similiar to his own.

This was her domain. He had made camp many times before, fixing stakes and cloth into place with a surgeon's skill. Generally, he let her guide and indicate where she wanted things set up and he would follow her instruction as though he were her lieutenant. When they were in the shadows cast by the trees he took off his hat and used it to fan himself twice, then hung it on a broken stub of a tree branch to let the sweat cool and dry out of it. Sweat made his dark hair look slick and sharp, as if all the black locks were being sharpened into points.

More about the gypsy. He had heard her and nodded when she asked, but his face was as giving as the statues on Easter Island. These were difficult things to put into words. For a long time he would have never put them together and then given them to her. It was difficult... to feel that they were not still waiting at that bus stop. In their journey she had gotten on the bus, only to return to see him sitting at the bench, waiting for her as though she'd never left. She changed, sometimes drastically, but he always recognized her and never seemed unhinged by it. He waited for the next time she would leave and then return. No ticket she purchased felt right, and so he was compelled to wait. No one should have to arrive alone at a bus stop after a journey. Every time she came back a little different and every time he recognized her.

What about the bus ticket he had, what about that journey he had taken? She had seemed to know that, he thought, when he introduced her to Rona. It left that same sense of departure, where they were looking at each other but seemed to be in different places. Or... the strangeness of how close he could feel to her, just waiting for her bus to arrive. They were asking about the details now. Why little things had changed and where they had gone instead of picking up blindly, saying nothing, and moving forward. What about that trip, Tag?

With the tent up and the horses tied off by the water, he looked to start a fire so that they could boil the water and refill canteens. It gave him something to do. The time doing it had given him what he needed to get the words situated. He was laying on his side by the dried sticks, working on coaxing a flame over them as he spoke. Orange and yellow lit his face in moments where the flame seemed to begin to triumph.

"She didn't mind that I was quiet. A lot of women do," the flame was catching and he rolled to his stomach, doing a push-up motion to regain himself to his feet. He was dusting himself off as he spoke, "and for all the world she had traveled, for all the things she had seen, I interested her... and I couldn't understand why."

He grabbed a small handful of sticks to feed the flame a bit more. He was crouched when he fed the fire the sticks, "I have thought sometimes about a lion that was in captivity. How the abuse of its situation made it behave strangely. The lion was trapped in a small cage for years and was set free by someone who pitied it. He would still pace in a tight circle and confine himself to a small space even after being free because it was what he knew. I feel... like I did that." He stood up and smiled, but it wasn't a warm smile. It felt apologetic, like he had spoken too much and a small hint of embarrassment caused his lips to press together in a line.

The dryness of the day but a rasp in his voice. He cleared it and then continued, "It seems more like..." he paused and his dark eyebrows knit, his smile gaining something more genuine and well-meaning as he used her language to say, "that the sh*t is at home, and not the horizon."

She told him the wind was a messenger and he believed her. He thought about the air bringing things to him but, as it often is with other creatures, it had no eye for what to tell him and what to leave behind. It would simply bring things, and though the somewhat random and fickle nature of the wind would never change, he would. One day he would care for hints about the world around him just because he liked to know instead of it being about need and information. There would be other days, too, where the wind would neglect to bring something useful. The wind promised nothing except that it would come.

In the dark it felt like there was only black and orange and yellows between them. The night brought with it a stunning cold which seemed nearly impossible in contrast to how bright and unforgiving the sledgehammer of the sun could be. He hugged his coat in close and realized that he did feel at home, but he could not determine why or put it to words. Little stories came, here and there, as the night grew dark. It was when he was laying in his sleeping bag that it occurred to him. The familiar little sounds of her voice was home. He had enjoyed when Rona lived in the house because the music her voice and the stories she would tell. She had been a songbird, but Madison was not. Madi was a vintage record player that had the serial number scrapped off and a few scratches that interrupted her recordings. The scars and skip marks in Madison's voice gripped his ear better and he wished the words would hold on longer than they did.

"I don't know if sorry is the word," he looked from the fire up at her after she said it, "It always seems that when that word is used that it implies something... I can't put it to words." Would he stay on the road? Could he go back to that home? The entire sockets of his eyes were dark with shadows, lips relaxed for a moment until he spoke, "I will know when I return if I should stay or go. I don't think I could know right now. Selling a home is strange, I've never done it before. I imagine all the parts of me it will hold onto until the other person has stripped those parts of me out. I don't know if it will hurt to see that. Perhaps they would buy the home, only to tear it down like it never existed."

There was a long pause before he shut his eyes, "But it did exist."

The fire was a good thing. On his left side he could feel cold fingers of the evening slide under the collar of his coat and grip his side and shoulder. He rolled over, the entirety of him in the sleeping bag facing the beacon of warmth. Journey shifted to a different position, her hooves making a muffled pat on the ground. He felt as if the evening had turned him so that he would look at her, really look at her. More than before, more than in passing. It dawned on him then that she was, in fact, handsome. There had been plenty of times that she was attractive, but he did not dwell on them long or absorb them. Usually he tried to look past it, to watch her mouth and figure out how long she would be lingering until the next bus stop and if she was aching. He allowed himself a moment to see her, then, as a man who was not acquainted with her would.

It felt like looking at a different person. She lost history, she lost the wind and the way her smile felt. She became a severe, but attractive, woman. He had seen attractive women before. The longer he observed her in that way, the more he wished that he hadn't. Something about her was lost when none of the mythology between them could follow. What was the purpose of a face, of a body, if it was attractive and had none of its stories? He reminded himself of things that had happened. That there would be Halloween. That there were coins and stories, musings between them and a wonderful, disjointed sense of time.

"Goodnight, Madison."

He was unsure if Madison knew that he struggled with reading and writing at first, but she spoke casually and not with anything pointed to her speech or gaze. He could tell she had not anticipated that about him, had forgotten, or simply had not known. He'd been illiterate most of his life, recognizing only the most obvious of communication. Bathroom. Exit here. Yes. No. He had known them in Kanji and just learned it in English as well. It was the basics, what one needed to survive.

He had started to gather those reading and writing skills, Lilliana had been honing them with him and it had all been for the purpose of those marital vows. He had needed to write, to read, and perhaps to exchange. There were no longer any vows waiting for him, but he had stayed with it. Something about it had felt important and he was given the false sense, sitting with Lilliana in her caravan with the gypsy children around him, that he was part of a family again.

It was false, though. At the end of the day the gypsies packed up their things and they left without him. Perhaps they did not offer because he would have said no. Perhaps they thought he he would have told them to go on ahead, that he was not a potted plant that could be moved over and over. They would have been right. He did not want to be transported, transplanted, repeatedly. Parts of him would die if he did and he was not sure that they were parts that he wanted gone.

There was the possibility that fatherhood and marriage were not suited for who he was. A displaced man in a different culture who still coined the name "shadow man" or "dark man" because of his quiet loyalty. Everyone else was important and would need to be protected. He would be a shadow and his life, whatever thoughts of wife and child, were distant and would not materialize. In a world of flash and charm, it was flirtation which dominated the hearts of women. It was that skill which made them open up their hearts and beds to men and the grounds by which a family could begin to be created. He was not... particularly gifted at flirtation, nor was he sure that he wanted to be.

He thought about Lilliana in her gypsy caravan, packing up to move on. Leaving him with books and writing utensils and the reminder that he was loved but that he was not family. Not-family, but loved. It seemed like a label that etched itself on his lips.

Yet he was sitting in a saddle now, far from where his roots had spread under the house and was now in the dry world of the West, with Madison. A place where the wind didn't stop talking. She was asking him to do the one thing he was not entirely confident in-- look at the books. It won't be hard. Just look.

If anyone goes out of town for an expedition, a ride of any kind, they usually check their name, horse, purpose in case they don't return... there's a book. Many a fool's bones in the hills. I'll go set us up at the hotel if you wanna check the books in there. He'll either go by the surname Grace or Garth. If the books yield you nothin', ask the clerks. They know more than they let on most times.

"Alright." It was all he said to the objective. The dark man bowed his head to her and leaned forward to take the bills, tucking them inside his leather coat before he dismounted. There was a wooden pole near a watering trough that he tied Journey to, letting her drink her fill of the sun-warmed water. Madison's voice filled the air and welcomed him to the West. She told him of a hotel and how to reach it. He wondered if the attempt at being private and going around back would really work in such a small town or if the only people fooled were the inattentive or the newcomers. She must have done this before. It must have helped, enough.

He could only think to mirror back the way they said 'see you soon.' They said it to each other with the word, "Goodluck."

His dark eyes peered up at the building he was facing, not watching her work her way along the path she needed to go. He looked at the post and reached inside he coat, feeling the worn corner of the photo that was inbetween the bills. Grace. G. R. A. C. E. He reminded himself of how it was spelled and then thought of Garth. G.A.E.R.T.H. Or maybe G.A.R.T.H.

Shermans. S.U.R.E.M.A.N.S. There were double meanings and silent letters. Don't get discouraged. Sound it out.

His eyes looked back up to the front of the post building before he pushed on through and inside of it. It would be best, probably, if he just appeared less compromising and stern. The book with pages riddled in a hundred different types of handwriting loomed on the desk. The man with the crisp black handlebar mustache behind the counter looked up at him and didn't seem surprised at all. He must have expected men like him all that time.

He licked at the dust on his lips and said with a scratch in his voice, "I'm looking for someone. I think he came through here." There was a nod to the ledger, a clear indication he wanted to look through it. The man with the mustache hesitated-- but then Tag did as Madi had directed. He put a life-scarred bill on the counter. The man with he mustache smiled and nudged the largest and most daunting book he'd ever seen in his direction.

Don't get discouraged. Sound it out. G.R.A.C.E.

Was the boy in trouble? Tag paused and wet his lips again, tasting not just salt and a cracked lower lip but more dry dirt. It was uncomfortable and gritty enough that he pushed the edge of his jacket sleeve over his lips to wipe the slate clean before speaking, "I don't know. Maybe." That was all he could say to the man, really. Tag didn't know if he was genuinely concerned or serving another purpose. Anyway, his answer was honest.

He had stepped away from him, information pinched in his brain and one hand slack in the pocket of his jacket now when the offer of a woman was made to him. He smiled, just distantly, as if offered the one food he was allergic to. True enough, he was a man, with the needs of one but the hole in him echoed so deeply that a full breasted woman would not have filled any want that he ached for. She wouldn't have even been a person to him. She would have been a pulse, something warm, wet and breathy-- but not a person. That was the problem. She was a person and even in his fresh solitude he could not see how it was okay to just to strip a woman of her humanity, to give and take of her like a object, and still feel decent about the interaction. The offer felt like something that would only hollow him further.

"The ride was long... but thank you." The decline was met with the bow of his head where he touched his brim with one hand. The man with the mustache thought he was odd for the refusal. He knew it by how his eyes clouded over. Then he crossed over the street, to back roads to... where was it?

He mouthed the words. Take your time. Spell it out. SHUREMANS. SHERMANS. That was it, not SUREMANS. He could see it now, hear it, and the short lived panic of incorrectly recalling what she said was pushed aside as he went out the steps in the back and to the room.


After bringing up their belongings, Madison decided to wait for Tag in his room. When he opened the door, he found her sitting on his bed, elbows were on her knees and her eyes straight ahead, the rectangular slice of light from the hall illuminating her shadowy face and the line of her mouth. She rose and the bed groaned as her weight left it and she tilted her head towards him. Her hat was to the side of where she had sat, still dusty, despite the beatings. "So, how far did your luck get you?" There was warmth that spoke of humor in her voice, as if some part of her long ago had stopped recoiling at the urge to laugh because even in the deepest deeps there was a reason to kick your legs, even in bleak days. Even these.

Madison reached into the back pocket her jeans and presented the dark man in his dark hat a key suspended by a worn rope string. It swung back and forth like a medallion. "This is for your room, that door there", she looked towards the one that was still open from her walking through it, "goes into mine. Knock three times if there's danger. Don't knock at all if there's guns."

"I ran into someone I know so we will have to keep ourselves scarce today. She's a good woman but her mouth gets ahead of her feet. Just to be sure. Think tonight we will go downstairs and mingle a little if it seems okay. Did Clemmons have any news we ought to know of? Man's better for news than openin' a paper."


"I'm lucky," he said to her, taking off his hat. Even with short hair, the impression of where the hat had rested on his head was in the black glass. He set his hat atop the dresser and raked his hand through his hair as if to scratch off the feeling that the hat was still crowning him and scare away the ring it had made in his hair. Seeing her there, in that moment, made him especially glad that he had turned down the offer of a full breasted woman for the evening. That situation would have left them horrifically awkward. Or maybe just him.

His black eyes were on her and they looked deep and inquisitive. His iris was so dark that it was as if he had the eyes of an owl, pushing against the low light and mapping out the details of her face with ease. The tick-tock key was taken when he responded, "The clerk had some information on Grace." He reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a piece of paper with was unevenly scribbled words for reminders. Dates. Times. That sort of thing. He passed it on to her in exchange for the key.

"If there are guns?" He paused at that and wondered at her meaning. Would she be ready if the door just threatened to open on her instead? She mentioned mingling and he frowned, thinking of the woman offered before and wondering if that was the sort of thing he'd be expected to do. Not from Madison, but from the locals. He cleared his throat, "A bath would be good."

When he spoke those words, about luck, it made her mouth twitch with a want to argue the case, being that he was here, in a sad, too-big room with the threat of gunfire as constant as the wind. Instead, she took hold of the paper as they swapped items and peered over it. She ducked over to his dresser to flick on his lantern and sat back down on the bed, looking over the details closer. "So three days ago he took a horse out to Lightning Point." She ticked her eyes to the ceiling in thought before looking back at the paper. The only relevance to her was that last entry the man had told Tag of, until it wasn't and they would have to work backwards up the list. If it was, that he had taken a horse it wasn't for a ride out because he felt like he needed some air. "Lightning Point.... it's where they place watchmen. Michael was likely placed there for that purpose but if that ledger is right and he hasn't returned, he's still out there. It's not too far but I none to like the premise of goin' out there because there will be others. We need to get him while he's alone... little fuss as possible. Problem is, you and I can't sit in a room all day watching the street and he could be comin' in from any route, there's four of them, and many streets in and out of this city."

The precious note was folded carefully and tucked into her pocket along with the rest of the dirty, folded bills. He mentioned bathing and she nodded with a broad smile that pealed bright and clear on her dirty face, as if the mere thought of running water at all was a respite from the grim heat and the omnipresent dust. "I think you're onto somethin', dark man." Madison regarded him then, properly, in the dim of the room - hat-creased hair and looking as he did so often, thoughtful. "Somethin' on your mind, Tag?" A brow inched up as did the rest of her from the bed's edge, making the springs of it moan and squeak again. She turned to pick up her hat and wiped the quilt clear of the impression of a woman.


"I can go get us a feed if you want to freshen yourself up. My stomach is starting to protest."


As she spoke he shed his jacket, hanging it on the first hook that he could find. He reached at his throat to unbutton the topmost one at his collar but his hands didn't follow through with any others. Instead he sat on the edge of his bed, carefully untying his shoes as she talked. Lightning Point. It make him think of an enormous oak tree that had been split down the middle and charred with lightning. He'd seen the tree when coming to Rhy'Din and wondered if ti was ominous or lucky.

He was wondering the same thing, now, and still didn't have an answer.

"How will you know when he's alone?" He slipped off his socks and balled them up, shoving them into the mouth of his shoes before he set them neatly aside. Somehow his shoes had harbored the heat of the sun and it felt like he could finally cool off now that they weren't on. The dust and grim on him gave the strange sensation of being like some forgotten artifact in a pyramid.

"Just thinking of... all of this. I'd like to bath and perhaps we'll eat and have a drink downstairs, like you said. Be a little more social." Maybe over a drink. He didn't do much drinking, let alone with her. It felt like doing something wrong, for some reason.

"I don't know the answer to that." She was thoughtful herself, then, turning to look towards the drapes of his curtains and the shifting day outside. "It may be that we risk a lot to approach him regardless. It may be so." By the door through to hers, when he answered her again. "I think that's a good idea. Take your time... my stomach can wait some more. It's had to learn to have the patience of a saint." She went to pass through into hers, and paused. "Also, while we're here... no such as thing as too cautious. Take the chair over there and push it against the door. Keep your gun in the bathroom with you. And yell if you need me." A smile that was haunted and she passed into her room, closing the door behind her.

In her own space, she began to undress, walking a chair to press against her door as she unbuttoned her blouse.. Arms out straight, she clicked free the buttons on her sleeves and threw the shirt to the floor. It was ruined with sweat and dust anyway, no point with reverence here. She took a seat on a chair to kick off her boots, her socks.. which gripped to the perspiration of her feet and the dirt that always made its way in and then stood to peel away her jeans and underwear. As she showered, she watched the water brown and spiral at her feet and was surprised at how long it took for the water to run clean again. The stuff caked up on the skin and the musk of the road and sun made her turn her nose. The soap scrubbed roughly over her palms, her feet, all over and a brush taken to the dirt underneath her nails.

When she was done, she padded back out in her towel and ... paused. The handle of her door was being jiggled and turned from the outside. Creeping back into the bathroom, she took the pistol from the toilet seat and snuck back around, holding the gun to the door and watching. With her other hand, she rapt across the dividing door between hers and Tag's, three times. Engaging the chamber she leveled her eyes along the barrel.

Guns in the bathroom. It sounded like adage that people said jokingly to one another. Maybe in the West, it was. Chair to the door and you'll want for no more. The door shut and he sighed outward, rubbing his face with his hands as he tried to relax some. He lifted his foot with the bear-trap scars and rubbed on it, wishing that the ache could feel further off than it did. After a while he undressed carefully and like her, watched the water go brown and then an almost-clear brown as it ran off his body.

He whispered the word Sherman and then spelled it aloud, "S.H.E.R.M.A.N." Sure. Sher. They sounded the same, didn't they? He lathered up the soap over his chest and body and felt like it leeched the sweat off of him. Finally, his skin had catch and not sweat-slipping salt on its surface.

Once he was scrubbed down, even under the toenails in the lukewarm-to-cold water, he toweled off with something that felt not unlike burlap. It was softer than burlap, but only slightly more. With new clothes on he picked his gun off the bathroom counter and slipped it into the holster he had at his hip. They had been on the road for days and it was only with the clean-up that he felt relieved. His skin just didn't seem to be aching like it used to. There were three knocks which made him move over and hurriedly knock his knuckles to the door before she would think it was the absence of a knock. He moved back to the bathroom to look int he mirror as he carefully brushed his hair forward and then checked under his nails. He was careful, meticulous, about how he did things. He always had been.