Ain’t no Scarecrow

Somewhere in the disputed lands between the Republic of Texas and Mexico...

A thundering crack echoed across the expansive plains. There would be many more sounding just like the first shot until only silence followed.

One foot after the other. “Keep walking…” That was all I needed to do.

Within the next few steps, I went into a strong enough coughing fit to reach out for support. I paused for a break, leaning on a large rock. Leaning on it was a relief, but I got too comfortable for my own good.

Any strength my legs had left just slipped away right out from under me. I collapsed onto my knees and upchucked something gruesome. Thanks to me, the ground blossomed a rosy red.

I turned and took a seat on the dirt, right next to my recently painted red decor on the lovely earth.

The plains stretched out endlessly before me, but the warm and still bodies were my focus.

Lifting my unsteady hand, I pointed out each body and tried recalling where they were from.

“West Texas -- eh, red?” The man had a nice red shirt, silk.

If I recalled correctly, Red was formerly a cowboy. He’d gone and got himself into trouble one too many times before one of our own smacked some sense into that thick head of his.

He’d wanted to go back to ranching with his friends. We gave him an opportunity to be an additional pair of eyes and hands.

“Pecos River, right? Heard you left behind a good life -- sorry about that.” The big man had conditioned his smooth and glossy black duster. He stood out among us rangers, quick hands...

I had convinced the man to join my posse. First time with us, last time to hear crap from our lot too. Lots of folk called him a Mexican for fighting on the wrong side. But he was born and raised in Texas. Nobody was gonna give him a hard time who he was anymore, now he’d joined us Texans in death.

“Oh, you’re from the Bell, aren't ya?” An old bush-bearded mountain fellow who could tell anyone a long winded story. Must have been lonely up in the Bell.

He’d heard good things about where we were heading and decided to tag along. He’d brought with him a carbine, so I wasn’t gonna say no. Shame he didn’t go mad like the rest of us before a shot was fired... I wasn’t sure where his head was, but I wasn’t gonna judge him for losing it after encountering that monstrosity.

The others were from the hill country and thought they could do a good deed before trying their golden luck beyond here at the Caballo Mountain. They should’ve gambled their prospecting lives away at the Wichita rather than passing Llano Estacado with me.

What had happened here?

Everything started a week ago.

At first, we thought the Comanche were hornswoggling us. But to be on good terms with the tribe, for President Houston’s sake, we listened.

One of their own brothers had decided to invite the Devil.

I jokingly said I’d faced a few of those in Coahuila, and my major was well aware of my reputation for being a sharp shot. Me and my big mouth...

The major ordered me to scout. I thought if I brought with me my own posse of men, I’d have the situation in hand.

A handful of regrets. Twelve of them.

Twelve…

Twelve good men took on that abomination and I was the last man standing… sitting. I had to laugh. I laughed for a second or two before I had another bloody coughing fit.

“Jus’ need to clear my throat…” A smoke. That was all I wanted right now. My fingers pulled a clip of corn shucks out from my pocket, but I lost control of my grip and the shucks blew away with the cool autumn wind. “...Figures.”

My hand trembled. That wasn’t good. I gripped it in my other shaking hand. When the tremors wouldn’t stop, I dropped and pressed my hands down in my lap and waited.

I straightened my back and sat up as tall as I could against the damn rock behind me. That felt like it had resolved my itch to cough. In that case, I dried my lips off on my duster’s shoulder.

What I saw beyond my own men were the other corpses. We’d interrupted some kind of ritual… then we went crazy.

Everyone was out of their minds! Even me...

“Has anyone ever told you a company of thirteen is bad luck?” Startled by the voice, I groped desperately for my gun. My hands shook too much to load it properly...

Reloading can be a bitch.

When the speaker rapped his knuckles off the rock, above my head, he smiled down at me. “I’ll give you credit for trying, but don’t push your luck.” For a Comanche, he spoke fluently in English. In fact, I could detect an accent that was far from being native, let alone not local.

With me returning a bloody grim smile, I felt presentable before death arrived around the rock. He was kind enough to put me in its shade. “What took ya?”

Despite not being loaded, I aimed at him.

“Perfection takes time.” The inhuman tribesman casually lifted his wrinkly red hand and called my bluff by relieving me of my weapon. He inspected the craftsmanship with admiration. “My craft shall be made absolute after I’ve practiced it on you.” Completely black, his eyes shifted from the firearm in his hand and gazed on my boots. He gradually drifted those dark orbs up to lock with mine. He looked angry. “Had you not interrupted --”

“Ah, shut it. I gave ya a fair fight.” And I did too. I saw the holes I gave the rogue Comanche with my point fifty-four cal., nine dollar Johnson. It was something to boast of to have shot him up more than once with that flintlock.

“No.” He squatted down and leveled his inhuman gaze with mine… at least, I thought he did. My vision was getting blurry. “Between us, we never met as equals. You live. I exist.” His sagging red face leaned in close enough to my leathery hide for me to see the white roots on his scalp. “You will learn the differences, Captain Bonham.”

“Pshaw, Captain?” Since I didn’t have a troop anymore, who was I gonna command? That thing made me a lone ranger. “Call me Bonnie. Everybody else did.”

“They still do, Bonnie.” My eyes must have been deceiving me or I had witnessed the Comanche losing a few teeth as he spoke. “I hear them calling you.”

He glanced back at my dead men. I was going to rudely remark at his morbid sense of humor, but my coughing fit came back with a vengeance.

“Relax, Bonnie.” The look on his wrinkly face gave me the impression he was worried. “Tension between us isn’t good for you or me now. Just relax.”

“Ya know what they say about old dogs?” He quirked up an ash-white eyebrow. “Can’t learn new tricks.”

“No trickery. A lesson, for you to take to the grave.” He stood and walked away to loot something off of the dead.

The disrespect infuriated me enough to fully clear my lungs. “Hey! Get yer hands off!”

Glancing back, he sneered at me. “Hey?” He tsked and wagged a naughty finger at me. “That’s not my name.”

I spat red and reminded him of our equality. “Pardon me for being at a disadvantage here.”

As he returned to me, I watched his muscles irregularly twitch and spasm. There was a creepy sense he had crawlies under his skin.

In front of my face, he directly introduced himself. “Call me Mishotunga. Everybody else did, and now I’m here.”

At his breath, my nose wrinkled instantly. Something was rotten, and it was painfully turning my stomach worse than the hole in it.

“Ya know, if you travel south, jus’ keep going down, you’ll cross an Irishman. They chew their tobacco with mint.” The devil snorted a laugh at my directions, and I advised: “I highly recommend it.”

His lips peeled back to display those bloody gums. “I don’t chew.”

And to foreshadow my fate, he flashed one of my ranger’s knives before he carved me up. Just as I was about to fade to black, I caught a glimpse of his toothless mouth opened wide in impatient hunger.

An unnatural and endless hunger. A true horror’s insatiable desire to be what it isn’t…

A century later...

My memory was in confusion. I remembered I’d woken up and discovered I hadn’t died.

But my sense of hearing was all that remained. I couldn’t see or move.

Nothing, except the sound of someone digging… then the splattered thud of thrown clumps of dirt.

A long time had passed. Long enough to have reconsidered my situation. My condition.

Maybe I was dead? Was I in the afterlife? Pretty damn dark and empty…

After awhile, I would hear noises. Scuffling noises above me.

Always like someone was walking right over my grave.

Then one day, a scrabbling one piqued my interest.

Some rattling noises later, a gasp of surprise had me worried.

It sounded like a kid. I didn’t like the idea of a kid being around here.

A little bit of light was shined on me.

...I could see?

“Anthony! Over here!” That voice disturbed me as it confirmed my suspicion: a kid.

Darkness enveloped me once more.

I had great hope that Anthony, whoever he was, was a grown and responsible man.

“What did you find?” Another youthful voice sunk me further into despair. The light came back, and another gasp. “Manny? Is that what I think it is?”

A pair of kids. Kids are not supposed to be walking around the Staked Lands.

“A bag of old bones!” Manny’s announcement grabbed my attention.

Bones?

“We have to show Pa.” Anthony sounded like he had a good plan.

Some kids finding bones, especially if it was human remains, should immediately alert the owner of the property. In response, the alerted landowner should’a alarmed the authorities.

They would’ve called someone like me..

“I’ve a better idea.” ...I had a bad feeling. “Cornfield?”

Cornfield? And darkness, my old friend, returned. I was getting the impression I was the one in the bag.

Did that mean the rattling bones were me?

“What do you mean?” Good question, kid. Sounded like I wasn’t the only one in the dark here.

“Come on. I’ll show ya!” The rattling noise picked up and I knew Manny was taking Anthony and me to a cornfield. “Come on, slowpoke!”

“I ain’t slow!” The kid was huffing hard enough for me to hear. “You’re too fast!”

From how loudly my old bones clattered together, Manny was giving me a bumpy ride.

“Get faster! Or lose weight!” Manny gave me the impression Anthony was big-boned.

A moment passed before I heard a very loud clatter and lots of hard breathing. Contrary to the recently mentioned finesse, I supposed Manny had dropped my bag of bones on the ground in exhaustion.

“This’ll keep Pa happy while we’re away.” Manny had me confused how a bag of old bones was going to make their old man proud.

Light came back in. Then I saw more as the boy -- maybe a teenager -- Manny dumped me out onto the ground.

The young man had no respect!

“Manny, I don’t like this.” My sight wasn’t normal. I couldn’t make out the brilliantly colored outdoors yet, but I could distinctly pick out who was who by their voices. That was Anthony with a cracking-shy voice.

“You’ll like it. Trust me on this one. It’s perfect for the crows!” That was Manny with a youthful visionary’s dreamy and sure-fire voice. The kid sure sounded like he had a bright idea.

My abnormal sight appeared to be a sense of imagination. No little details. Only a vague sense of their existence. I pictured who and what, but I truly had no sight. It made sense if all I had become was a bag of old bones.

But the more they spoke, moved, and carried on, the more clearly I perceived their characters.

“Is that gold?” After a moment of hearing my bones clattered around, I heard Anthony let out another gasp. “It’s a badge! Manny, we have to tell Pa.”

“Let me see that…” Hopefully Manny would see the moral compass and take the right direction here. “Anthony, this is a smashed gold peso. It’s a phony.”

What did “phony” mean?

Then Anthony answered my unvoiced question. “That’s not a fake. I’ve seen them in the Ranger’s office.”

“You’re gullible if you think this is genuine.” My sight wasn’t the best, but I caught the outline of the two as they argued.

“I’m not lying. I saw -- Manny, give it to me and I’ll bring the badge to the office if you won’t.” I saw the big boned Anthony hold out his hand --

-- and watched in horror as Manny flung my identity away.

“Manny!” Anthony shoved him and ran after my badge. The big kid sounded angry.

Manny got me angry too. Him calling my badge a fake was calling me a fraud, and I wasn’t going to forget the treatment I was receiving here.

“Grab some stalks before you come back! Good ones! We’re hanging it up.” I assumed Manny used ‘it’ to refer to me here. 

At that point, I watched in horrified fascination as Manny strung me onto long and thick corn stalks. “Anthony, go back to the house and grab a couple of boards.”

After Anthony came back and Manny set the second stage of his idea in motion, I had a mental image of how I looked: crucified.

“Pa won’t let someone’s bones be a scarecrow.” ...I was a what!? Thank you, Anthony, for telling Manny what a grown man would do.

“You’re right. The coat covers most of it, but the skull…” Manny picked up the bag and sacked my head. There was darkness for a few seconds. How did my sight work?

I figured it revolved around my imagination. If I knew what was coming, I’d expect to see only the dark here. If I saw people, I’d picture what they must look like and my strange sight would fill in that blank. Same went for shapes and colors, objects and animals, weather and seasons; I knew them, or got to know them, I saw them.

I dreaded my return to my familiar dark world for only a moment. Then the bright light returned when one of them tore two holes through the bag. And a gash where my jaw was probably hanging.

They’d given me a face.

Both of them propped me up and left me staked to the ground. Sadly both admired their handiwork.

And here I had hoped a big kid like Anthony would have been made of sterner stuff, but I guessed he was all fluff. Their hide needed tanned a bit longer by that Pa of theirs.

Soon enough, they ran off and through the thicket of corn. I didn’t see much except the shoots, a house, and the endless sky above the cornfield.

On the bright side, I guessed my current station had the ditch I was buried in beat...

Later that year...

Over time, I gained a knack at being spooky to the crows. Quite a tiring occupation too, considering it consisted of just hanging around and doing nothing.

I could phase out into a slumber, but the tiniest noise would wake me right back up. The fluttering of black feathered wings was enough. A very mentally exhausting existence.

Then a name kept me awake for the rest of my tortured existence.

“Hello, Bonnie.” Down in front of me was Anthony. But that wasn’t his nervously shy voice.

He smiled up at me. Big and wide. And showed me his toothless maw.

“You’ll excuse me. You were practice.” He shrugged and walked away. His voice faded, but I heard: “I learned from my mistake. There won’t be a second like you.”

I did what any other in my position would do -- nothing...

Over the decades…

That day I’d seen Anthony, I had wondered what all happened. I had no idea what had became of the real Anthony, Manny, or their family.

For all I knew, they were dead...

Every year, I saw the seasons change. A gap between the years, I’d sometimes see new faces. Domesticated animals would pop up here and there -- like a dog or horse. The corn was apparently here to stay.

But the devil, Mishotunga, always came back. Always in Autumn.

He’d come, greet me, smile, and sometimes he’d put on a display of his new form. The stolen life and identity of the people he’d murdered, consumed.

On rare occasions, he’d visit me completely covered in an off season. Just like me, he tried to hide whatever lay under those rags.

He showed himself to me. Over a year, the body he’d consumed would perfectly mold over the old rotted carcass before it too decayed.

He had one year before he could find a fresh new person. Always on a specific date.

The day we’d found him and his band of rogue Comanche. He explained their desperation to fight off both us Texans and Mexicans. That the Comanche were not numerous enough after disease had nearly wiped them out.

And obviously the rogue Comanche were not thrilled about being allied with other tribal nations. These Comanche wanted the land for themselves, and if they couldn’t keep it…

Selfish bastards.

That made me appreciate the Comanche who’d came to us for aid. Those who did see the right from the dead wrong.

One of the mysteries that had bewildered me was the day my gaggle encountered him and his rogue Comanche: we’d gone mad and shot each other up.

Eventually I did get to hear what happened by listening to people talking about one of his victims. He was almost caught red handed. But he could create a special blend of confusion. So long as there was a crowd, he could sow disorder, mayhem.

Another mystery he unfolded was how he dealt with his victims. He ate everything, and that would transform him into the victim. He went so far to grind the bones to dust. But like them, he was truly alive and naturally the flesh degenerated over time.

What really blew me away was how he got away with murder. Everyone used reason to blame someone rather than an impossibility: ‘The Devil did it.’ If someone pointed fingers and claimed they saw Mishotunga, the bedlam he’d created had caused the witness to interpret the Devil as a border hopping lunatic.

Mexico, a place the State of Texas had no jurisdiction to go on a manhunt. Every year, Mishotunga would hide out south of the border… I wonder if he ever took my advice and got some mint?

Other than that macabre cycle, he’d speak and tell me of the changes the world had gone through. Update me on every little thing he’d discovered.

I listened. Despite how much I loathed him, I had nothing better to do as I helplessly hung around.

The topics he spoke about held me in disbelief, but I was interested. Even if what he told me were tall tales, I listened.

And I wanted to believe the world had progressed. That there were boundaries made for everyone and everything. Laws that no one was to cross without consequences. No matter how powerful an individual had become, or how long they held that position; justice caught up. That justice may have been delayed for a very long time, but when the day came, justice came with a vengeance.

A scarecrow can dream…

For many years, I’d wondered why Mishotunga spoke to me. After many, many more years, I figured he’d become lonely. That and the intended purpose of him being called into his existence would never be fulfilled.

Comancheria was gone. And there were far too many other nations taking residence in Texas for the devil to keep out.

From my perspective, I found his situation remarkably funny in comparison to what mine was. Now he knew how I felt about Mexicans and Americans coming here, trampling over my Republic’s constitution, with some fancy imperial vendetta or illicit confederacy.

If my existence was to be damned, so was his...

Sometime in the twenty-first century...

Over the course of many more years, I came upon a discovery. One that I don’t believe Mishotunga recognized.

Halloween was the day he feasted. And on that day, he became confused when encountering the costumed youngsters.

The holiday didn’t exist when I was around, but I learned of it and saw the kids visiting the abandoned house in their various costumes. They dared each other into the uninhabited home.

If I could, I would’ve laughed when I saw the confusion on the Devil’s face as he took in the crowds of disguised kids. But I wouldn’t laugh long -- he always found a victim.

Then one year, the once abandoned home became inhabited again. Remodeled and nice looking. A family lived there again.

Instead of brothers, like Manny and Anthony, they were sisters who ran around the farm. They were warned not to go into the cornfield. Apparently the excuse was snakes or something like that would bite them. If they only knew what tended to lurk in here…

I’d witnessed many victims over the years, and I hadn’t any desire to learn of their names. But I heard theirs...

Their mother called out: “Vera! Zoe! Lunch!”

And after lunch, I watched them play on the outskirts of the cornfield. A watchful Vera who kept one step ahead of her younger sister Zoe in a game of tag. After learning much of the world, in an age of digital doohickies, what the sisters were doing to entertain themselves would’ve been a rare sight.

As I regularly had done, I hung around and watched them have fun.

Almost every day, I watched…

Then one day, Zoe discovered me.

She stood, transfixed, and gazed up on my appearance with a mixture of disgust, fear, and wonder. I’d only ever caught her make that face once when she tried the corn. These were not the yellow corn on the cob variety, but she learned that mistake and spat.

“Zoe! Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Vera wasn’t in the cornfield yet, but I sensed it wouldn’t take long before the older sister would investigate the overpopulated crop.

Zoe appeared to have sensed that possibility and ran away. I watched the line of disturbance in the cornfield until she popped out of the border.

The younger sister visited me now and again. Always quietly inspecting me before she ran back out of the field to Vera. I wasn’t aware of what she found fascinating about a scarecrow.

Unless the clothes and bag I wore had deteriorated over time? As young as she was, would she know to tell someone about me? Or was she frightened of being in trouble for exploring in the cornfield?

That had been a concern of mine for a month or so, but not after the Devil paid me an early visit. In his rags, he mentioned the new discoveries in medicine. Boring stuff with too many technical terms…

The reason he went on about that subject was because the possibilities excited him. He thought of the probability that someday he’d have no reason to kill. That his last victim would truly be the last he ever would need.

No more death and decay.

As he left me, I thought about what he said. If he happened to encounter the day, what would become of me?

I knew the answer. He would find freedom and I’d remain as I always had been since that fateful day. That was why he had told me about our inequality.

He existed to be what he was not, but science could change that. I only lived as I was, and I doubted the world would change me.

Lesson learned…

“Bonnie is a pretty name.” An angrily confused Zoe came crawling out of the corn stalks. As she stood up, she claimed: “You’re not pretty.”

She waited in silence. Was I supposed to say sorry?

I was concerned with the fact that she knew my name. That meant Zoe was hidden and overhearing Mishotunga.

That wasn’t good --

-- and so wasn’t Zoe pulling me down! What the Hell!?

With a thwump, I fell over onto my face. Hello dirt, it’s been awhile…

I don’t know how long I was like that, no way for me to look up and tell the time of day while grounded.

But Zoe came back!

...And she brought clothes?

After she broke the rotted bonds, I was forced into dresses. My old duster was tossed away on the ground. I was filled with an overwhelming desire to question the girl’s motive. Wasn’t she disgusted to touch a long dead skeleton?

Zoe asked me a queer question. “Bonnie, do you like your new dress?” She smiled down at me and all I could’ve done was grimace a smile back in return. In afterthought, she lifted a finger in the air and exclaimed: “Sunglasses!” She ran off for one aesthetically cosmetic item after another.

When she finished with me, for today, I was strung on new stalks, back on old boards, and propped back on up all nice and pretty. What she had done was cute, but weird. I came to a conclusion that day: Zoe was a very strange girl.

Over the years, I may have endured a manner of Hell, but I’d always reflected on the good life I once had. And no woman ever left me hanging. But today was the first time a little lady stood me up and left me to hang in Texas…