“Then I got off the train in Onion Springs. A beautiful little outpost in the rolling hills,” said Curio. “It was so beautiful that for a while I thought I could make myself a life there, a normal life. Until I met this family of wonderful girls.”
LeDarre stirred and lifted his head. His sleepy eyes narrowed with renewed focus.
“I don’t know where they were from, but the father was gone for a long time. They said he had far away business. I didn’t think much about it at the time.”
The heat was sweltering. Everywhere around them the rocks and sand glimmered and swirled in a blanketing sheen of bright white. There was not a sign of life in any direction. The land was a stove of unfeeling sediment.
“I got to know that whole family, even their mother. They were kind to me and often brought me in for dinner or coffee. The youngest girl liked me especially. She laughed at all my jokes. Always smiling, she was.”
LeDarre began to rock back and forth as though anticipating what was coming next. Curio continued his story, but his words became a blur under the pressure of the heavy air. The tall man shook his head and scratched his ears in an attempt to hear better.
“The day before the father returned, I killed them, one by one. I didn’t want to do it, but I had no choice. Good god, I was so ashamed. After what I’d done, there was no way to leave them.”
“Something isn’t right with you,” said LeDarre, speaking for the first time since the two had stopped.
“How can you be so quick to judge?” snapped Curio in protest. “What was I supposed to do? It’s not my fault that it’s in my nature. I did what anyone would have done. I have enough regret for a dozen lifetimes.”
“You don’t understand,” said the tall man. “There is something wrong here. Something about you and your story.”
“I have no idea what you mean. I’m a harmless man,” Curio said, licking his chapped lips. “I’m only telling you all this because I’m trying to be honest, trying to own up for what I done.”
“Did the father ever catch you?” asked LeDarre.
“Does it look like it?”
“What were their names?” LeDarre was shaking as he uttered the question.
“Hell if I know,” Curio replied. “But I kept one thing from the youngest one, the prettiest one.”
Curio dug through his coat pockets and fished out a small silver necklace with a charm in the center. He gazed at it intently, and kissed it with surprising zeal. Then he threw it to the tall man.
“You can keep it,” he said. “I ain’t got no use for it now.”
LeDarre turned his head from the blazing sun and looked at the necklace he held in his hand. Suddenly, he understood. A tear touched his cheek. Curio saw it and smiled.
The tall man sprung like a flint strike and was upon Curio in an instant, firing a flurry of swift fists to the forehead. Curio’s face split open and blood seeped into his eyes. LeDarre continued pummeling him until Curio’s gasps and yelps became a gurgling mess of spittle and teeth.
LeDarre paused, holding Curio’s writhing body down with a palm to the sternum. He studied the man pinned beneath him for a moment. Then he began his attack again in earnest, this time slapping Curio’s fleshy face open handed with brute force. A foam of pulpy tissue began spilling from the circle of skin that was Curio’s face. Supine and helpless, Curio screamed in agony and resistance as the tall man ceaselessly hammered away at his head in frenzied motion.
The beating lasted for several minutes. Then Curio fell silent. LeDarre encircled Curio’s neck with his hands, pressed his thumbs to the Adam’s apple and squeezed. He clamped so hard that blood vessels began to burst and vertebrae crackled. Curio let out one final, pitiful sigh as his life ebbed away. LeDarre released him and took a long breath.
He straddled a dusty corpse in a red smattered suit. The day grew hotter.
Several minutes passed before the tall man stood, dusted off his hat and continued walking. He walked the rest of the day and all through the night, not stopping once. At first light of the next morning, LeDarre spotted a figure in the distance, a dark speck against the sandy wash. It grew larger as LeDarre gained ground.
Soon the figure became a man, waiting motionlessly in the open. LeDarre approached him until he stood only a few feet away. LeDarre stopped and faced him.
Curio stood alone, staring back at the tall man quizzically. Neither uttered a word. They resumed their march into the sun-scorched distance, walking together, each one close enough to hear the other’s breathing.
