I. In the hours following your death the sun bloomed red and later the rising moon seemed composed of blood. And when no priests would attend to your remains your first wife went alone, fending off dogs and gentile children with a shovel. And she did not weep when she brushed the soil from your bruised and bloody face, nor when she cleansed your body entire, nor when she knew how cold and unresponsive your skin, nor when she understood what crawled within, nor when she wrapped you in blankets, nor when she, grunting and sweating and panting, pulled you onto the sled and bound you with rope. Only as she fled did she weep. And only before you in your pine box did she beat her breast, rent her clothing and hair, and cried to no one in particular of what had become of the world she had known.

You were placed in the earth and covered over. A simple marker was erected, and upon this was written the name and birth date you had given yourself and the death date bestowed by fate and gentiles alike. Beneath the red sun, the vocal brother sermonized that these were glad times, and now he gestured to the black mountain only your followers could see, and he said, “Our beloved Preacher is with Him now.”

And now the sun returned to its former hue. Only then did the men and women of the congregation believe you were truly saved.

II. In the days to follow most priests claimed visions or dreams inspired, ordaining them “Leader” and “Preacher,” and your son was amongst these. Now the vocal brother consulted your ledger, slowly thumbing the pages, muttering as if he were reading phrases aloud, before finally he seemed to read: “And when the Preacher does pass this man Young will ascend to his place,” but would allow none to see the text within. And many furious debates were held. And there were those who said your son “contained the blood of the revelation.” And at the moment of the vote the silent brother stepped from the shadows, speaking in what many considered “the voice of a lion,” and such was his booming voice that they believed your hand at work. And he said, “I am no Preacher, but I will be a president.” Now some saw him grown into the shape of the creature of old, no more the bulbous beast of your later days, for now the horror was svelte, now hooves and horns and leathery wings, and many said they scented soot and brimstone upon the wind. So these priests voted in favor of his ascendance while his brother and your son received no votes.

III. And the spurned brother whispered to those who would listen: “I have known this fellow all my life—I tell you we cannot trust him.” And in the hours to follow that brother was found headless by the river.

IV. And following his brother’s death, the president called your wife to his side. “I have ever found you a compelling woman,” the president told her, and now he touched her knee. Over his right shoulder the creature’s eyes gleamed, and so she knew well that lurid look. Afterward, your wife went to your son, telling him to flee. “Only terrible times may follow,” she said. He shook his head. “I will take what is mine,” he said. And when your wife told him the president would come for him your son replied, “That may be so, but he does not understand what I have inside me.” And now your son touched her hand, and he called Samuel and Samuel’s wife to his side, and to them your son said, “Everything will be fine now. You will see.”

And your wife left this land by horse alone. And all said she would return. And all were wrong.

And what of those who have said your wife returned in later days, her second husband with her, as the hour went into night, and the gesture of His hand went across the land?

I will tell you.

She arrived in the town of your death as the sky fled to black and the meteors trailed and lit all the land. How frail she seemed, leaning on her walking stick, and how slow she now moved while her husband waited in the carriage.

How slowly she lowered herself to the dust before your stone. And she touched the stone’s smoothness, lit crimson and orange by the light behind.

And she whispered to the dirt, “Do you recognize an old woman?” and she said, “Are you below me? Have you watched me the days of my life?” and she said, “If I opened the ground would I find you?” and she pressed her ears to the earth, and she heard not your struggle, and she felt not the pulse of your life returned. And when she said, “If I went to the top of that mountain—” she gestured to the black mountain on the horizon. And now it was gone.

V. And you moldered in your box while the president sent a cherry-cheeked youth to the militia camps, proclaiming they were fleeing the land in peace. Now many piled their wagons with chairs and lamps and books and framed portraits and shelves and dried beans and oats and casks of water. And now this mass of followers, who prayed to the ghost and memory of their Preacher each night, drifted ever westward, first into the dying of the trees and the fading of the grasses, and then into the blackening skylines. And when they passed farmers who knew your preaching the farmers and their families hissed and threw sod. And when they continued beyond the regions in which you were known now the farmers and their wives brought pies and loaves of bread, jars of black and red wild berry preserves. And then the coming rains blurred the horizon and your people, bent against the winds, and after the lashing rains they huddled in the mud and the slop. And priests embraced wives, and children bound up with siblings and their young beloveds, chattering and numb for the anguish and the chill. And on they trudged, ever westward, the line of wagons extending miles. And when the snows massed many became feverish and they collapsed, hallucinating, shivering in the drifts, and soon these bodies were shrouded with snow, made anonymous beneath the mound, gone into nameless bone in the spring, become one with a thousand species of skulls, ever moldering and threaded through by much the same wild flowers. Still the president pressed them onward—this president driven by what some feared was madness, warmed through by the blast furnace of the creature’s soul. And wagons caught in the drifts, and dresses caught in the wheels, and now wives were crushed beneath the weight of their possessions. And many fell with blackened feet and hands, coughing blood, starving and caved in, and so these people were crushed beneath the wheels of oncoming wagons, the hooves of oxen, the slow, mindless trudge of their fellow pilgrims.

VI. And they found many husks of great animals, some frozen in the midst of decay. And within these animals were discovered many birds and creatures of plunder, their mouths stuffed full of meat. And many dead creatures, birds and bison and coyotes, populated the snow, gazing outward with expressions fixed and doomed.

And they erected tents and fires, if the winds and snows allowed, or they slouched against the wagons, covered over with skins, waking buried and impossibly warm and stifled. And they recollected your sayings, your visions, your teachings, your humor, your kindnesses, and they wept until the president said, “He sleeps no more in the dust, for I have seen our Preacher on the mountain, overfilled with life, for there everything stands shining.” And none noticed your son left the camp during these speeches. Gone until the light of camps seemed frail and distant.

VII. Through this time your son remained with Samuel and Samuel’s lone wife. He had not taken a second wife, and he never would. Now nights Samuel’s wife spoke only in whispers and Samuel spoke to her in rough, abrupt commands, in loud voices, while writing out the language he truly meant to express: “I do not trust the president.” And his wife nodded: “I know.” Now they burned the paper and obliterated the ash. Your son, smiling before them in the firelight, said, “It will work out. You will see, Papa and Mother.”

And when a wild dog, snarling and emaciated and wild eyed, ventured from the dark, Samuel raised his rifle but your son said no. And the dog smelled your son’s palm and the dog sat with immaculate posture as your son scratched behind its ears. “You will see,” said your son. “We have nothing to fear.”

VIII. And when your son fell feverish Samuel’s wife wiped his brow and covered him in furs as he rode in the back of their wagon. There your son, pale and barely bearded, something like a man and yet a child always to the citizens of your church, lay chattering and unable to move, his lips cracked and bloody. And carrion birds observed from wagon tops, and many wolves slunk in the outer dark, their yellow eyes fixed upon your son. Many priests too gathered about your son, praying to the Almighty for deliverance. And Samuel and Samuel’s wife stood always with your son. And Samuel placed hands upon the boy. And when he touched the dead icy skin he jerked away. And he wept, and when he tried to stop he could not. Now his wife held him, and so it was she who went to the president, asking him to lay hands upon your son. He refused. “I am no prophet. I am no healer,” he said. “His father was a healer.” And a cry went up until finally the president relented. And now your son’s lids opened. “I know you are a liar,” the boy said. “I am to lead this church.” And only the president heard your son. And then the boy fell silent and his lids closed. And the president announced to all, “It is a tragedy, but our Prophet’s son has gone home to his fathers.” And Samuel’s wife said, “I heard my son speak!” And the president said, “Only the rustling of the wind, I assure you.”

And many fell to weeping. And birds beat their wings with fury, blackening the sky with their flight, and the wolves and coyotes cried in chorus like deranged trumpets. And no man would take up arms against these animals, no matter the president’s commands, for some said your hand guided the beasts, while others said, “The citizens of the forest did ever favor that child.” So they carried your son into the nearby forest, as it began to snow, laying him beneath the shelter of pines, the flakes ever descending and covering. And before the president departed, your son opened his eyes. “He will know what you have done,” the boy gasped. And his eyes blazed: “I have seen Him, crimson in the fire of the light, and He will come for you, gnashing.” And the president soothed, “Sleep now. This is all a dream.” And so the president left.

And the flakes that fell upon your son melted. And the birds and dogs that came to pick at his body sniffed and backed away. From a distance they moaned and whimpered. And like strange planets in orbit, they circled him, fixed by some relation unknown to all, although the theories have been many.

IX. And when Samuel and his wife now woke in the night, they believed the creature had come, breathing brimstone, for they had dreamed the monster’s howl, echoing with the voice of your son, and a piercing light, the beauty and the horror of the creature. And while all else slept, Samuel and his wife went to your son’s body, his figure surrounded by every manner of beast. All animals in mutual silence gazed unto your son’s uncovered body. His body was unmoving, and his body did not breathe, and when they spoke to the body the body did not speak back, but Samuel and his wife gathered your son, loose and heavy, in their arms anyway. At their wagon they covered him with blankets and skins. And they told no one—not the president, and not any of the priests or the many wives. And so they journeyed with the body of your boy, bundled and at rest. And none questioned why so many birds trailed in the heavens, and none wondered why so many wild dogs kept pace along the distance.

X. And when a shape of darkness passed overhead the president insisted, “It is His mighty creature watching over us.” And he said, “You see how it favors me?” And none would deny this insight.

XI. And they continued. And those families who would wait until the spring months to flee would pass over the skeletons and ragged clothing and rotting wheels and oxen ribs and thinly dug graves of those who passed before. And they would cross themselves. And they would weep. And they would say the name of the Almighty. And they would say your name.

And they continued no matter how many died on the trail. And they continued no matter the apparent aimlessness of their journey. No matter if the structure of a ridge seemed familiar, and no matter if a pile of skulls seemed to mark the grave of priests, none mutinied and none turned back. And no matter how far they traveled the black mountain remained on the horizon.

And after the areas of snows came piñon buckled with cones and the blue and purple bursting of wild flowers. And when natives came to trade the president swapped pots and pans for comely squaws, joking to his closest advisors, “There’s nothing these heathen girls won’t do.” And as the squaws became ever more numerous the president said, “I think I’ll see how many I can have at one time.” His many squaws gathered into his tent, the noises and motions of their crowded play, the giggling and the president’s hee-hawing laughter, while the other wives looked at one another in silence.

And they passed by rock formations illustrated with the pictographs of forgotten peoples. And they passed by the husks of many dead bison. And they passed by carrion birds hunched on rocks and swirling overhead. And some said they saw the shadows of natives on the sandstone hillsides, and some said these were mirages or apparitions. And some said the creature walked amongst them for the hoofprints stamped in the mud and the brimstone breeze that always blew. And now they traveled always under the throbbing of the sun, and the heat pressed deeply into their brains.

And when they came to a valley laden with flowers and mountains everywhere on the horizon, the president motioned for the pilgrims to stop. And now he went into the prairie, and at the edge of the grasses he found a body of water, and he fell to his knees. Geese took flight at his presence, and now his voice was heard dimly on the wind, speaking in a voice of rapture. Finally he returned, his knees heavy with fresh mud and his hair entirely white. “We will call this place Deseret,” he said, “for we have found our land of plenty.”

XII. And all knew His hand had prepared for their arrival, for here they found houses constructed of wood and brick, and doors of wood, and windows of glass. And here they found streets of brick and stone. And here they found buildings for shops. And they found buildings for restaurants and hotels and tithing houses. And when counted there were enough houses for all the families, and houses enough for many of the families of those yet to come.

And within these houses they found no rugs, or furniture, or books, or shelves, or food, or artwork, or portraits. They found only the absence of life, and they found the fulfillment of life that is the dust, everywhere fallen and covering. And when they asked whom these houses belonged to the president said, “They belong to us,” and when they asked, “Whom did these houses belong to?” then the president said, “They belonged to the original peoples,” and when none believed these houses were a millennia old the president shrugged his shoulders and said, “But it is so.”

And all called this land Deseret, which means not “paradise” but “honeybee.” And all recognized this land from your book, although none could recall the page numbers where the land was in this way described.

XIII. And the president moved his wives and possessions into the largest house on the highest hill. This house, hued in blackness, as if the pillars were carved from obsidian and the windows smote with soot. And this house seemed to vibrate with heat. And who did not see the creature, vast and dripping pitch, perched upon the roof? And who did not know this swollen monster, filling the rooms with its corpulence? And who did not see the president conversing with this beast, the flicker of its horrid tail, the pulsing of its reddened eyes? And what man would not call it just and true that his president lived within the largest home and was ever in conversation with the most terrible creature of God?

XIV. And all moved their families and possessions into these ancient houses. And so too did Samuel and his wife. And they moved your son into their home and on a table they laid him, covered with blankets and furs, while the ceiling sighed under the burden of squirrels and birds. There your son lay, not breathing or moving or bulging with gas or decaying. And when they pulled aside the blanket he seemed as always. And when they whispered to him there came no reply. And when they read to him from your book they knew only the absence of his prayer. And in the stillness of his hands, his breast, they knew the love of their daughter. They knew the way the world had been long before any had known of this land. They knew that love once blossomed is doomed to fall into the absence of sound and life. They knew only the voice of their weeping, the agony of their sobs. They knew when they kissed his brow nevermore would the young man beneath kiss them back. And when they clasped his hands they knew only the absence of give in them. And when they brushed his brow they knew only the coldness beneath.

XV. Soon after the establishment of Deseret, five native men with red-painted faces and buzzard feather plumes led two ragged native boys into what was called the town square. The boys were bleeding and bruised and bound at the wrists, and the native leader indicated they were the sole survivors of a rival tribe he had slaughtered. Now they were his gift unto your people as a “token of friendship.” A cry went up amongst the pilgrims, for a man’s life is no gift unto another man. And so now the chief drew a red line across the throat of the taller of the two boys, no peep from him as his head dropped, and his knees, and his body through his knees. And the women shrieked and the men reached for their pistols and Samuel cried from the throng, “I will take the child.” So this solution was agreed upon, but the boy pulled away when Samuel reached for him. And the boy struggled against the rope, gritting his teeth until blood speckled his lips. His eyes bulged and his tendons stood out and his shoulders sagged and his eyes teared, and he continued, the red raw of his hands, and the sobs choking his throat. When finally they reached Samuel’s house, the child fled into the depths, his silent native scamper. They found him in none of the closets, or about the yard, or in any of the bedrooms, or beneath any of the beds, and finally they found the smudged imprints of his feet. Soon they found the boy cowering on his haunches beneath the table your son lay upon.

There he remained, cowering, refusing to emerge for his food, and so Samuel’s wife slid the plate into the dark. And slowly the child emerged. And now he trailed Samuel’s wife as she performed her tasks. When Samuel was certain no outsider would hear he would call his wife the name she was born with, and so the child learned to mimic this sound. And the boy took slow to his bathing, refusing to enter the tub or even touch the heated water. And he bristled at the trimming of his locks, but he showed a good nature and spoke openly in his tongue when Samuel spoke to him. At night Samuel read to him, his fingers tracing the lines, and the boy’s eyes followed along. And when Samuel opened a dry goods shop near the town square now the boy followed at his side, cowering behind barrels of dried beans when customers entered, his black eyes peering. And when they were again alone Samuel opened his arms, saying one of his many names for the boy, and the child ran to him, and in the young boy’s heat, his scrawny embrace, Samuel remembered much of the pain come to pass. And when they returned home every manner of fowl and cat and squirrel blanketed the roof with fur and feathers and silent, watching eyes. And to these the boy pointed and Samuel said, “Yes, my lad. So many creatures come to see your brother.”

XVI. Soon by presidential commandment, Samuel and his native boy led the president and a delegation of a few into the wilderness depths unbroken by light and illuminated by the eyes of wolves alone. The boy was leashed by the president’s command, and so reluctantly he went, until they found the flickering of fires. There natives crouched before thatched lodges and buckskin tents. And here they existed in what they called “peace,” although they held no industry of their own but the raiding and pillaging of other peoples, and in this way they obtained horses, tin pots, knives, and rifles.

And the chief was a man of some width and girth, and to him the president made a gift of your book, and he lectured on how the natives and their savage ways fit into your philosophy, for indeed “when your savage nations have converted this world will then heave its final breath.”

And leather trunks and burlap sacks loaded with plates and pots and candles and utensils were lugged by pilgrim men, and placed at the chief’s feet while he gnawed roasted venison. The gloomy dark of his thatched ceiling, the stink of the meat and the fire smoke, and all the dim-lit faces surrounding, crouched on their animal hides and gazing outward at the president and his fellows. And the chief and his cabinet and his priests wore bird masks and the masks of jackals and the masks of monsters unknown. Now the chief spoke with his advisors, with his priests, and they praised the greatness and novelty of the gifts. That night many ducks and geese and antelope and deer and wild dogs were roasted over this fire, and all feasted on the meat and grease and roasted bones, until the faces of the president and his men were fat slick and smiling. In the next days the president led this chief into the chill waters of the nearest river, and there baptized the old pagan in the name of the Almighty.

And the president called the natives “delightful.” And he enjoyed patting the chief upon his head, and they talked often of the “Great Father to the east” neither trusted, the one they would “someday eliminate.”

XVII. And while the men fed, Samuel’s native boy indicated the mountains. And had they allowed him to lead them there, they would have followed ancient winding paths into the dripping mouths of caves, piled over with mossy boulders, while within lay the bodies of the pale-skinned Admiral and his many pale-skinned advisors, and the various men of his court. This man had come from the sea and subjugated much of the land to his indomitable will, and at the hour of his death he commanded all to share in his end. Had the president ordered those caves opened they would have found untold depths, and had they lit torches and gone into those corridors, had they ducked for the dripping of stalactites, had they ventured through the dank and poisonous oxygen, they would have found chambers upon chambers crowded with the bones of men, their golden armor and helmets, their swords and rifles, the rot of their plumes, boots, trousers. And before the counselors and supplicants of the Admiral, the bodies of his jesters, their bronzed bells, their leather motley, and the bodies of their wives, children in their arms, those who died first. And trailing the floors and the walls, the long browned scrawls of fingers clawed raw, ripping at the boulders and the floors, and then their own throats, and then the throats of the fellow nearest, and then chewing at the dead and decaying meat of the fellow nearest. And perhaps one man took a rock from the floor and hefted this into the bare skull of the man next to him, devouring in his last moments this fellow he had known long years and slept by and gone to war with, and then that man, fattened and full, would slowly continue forth into the inevitable. And within the farthest chambers they would have found upon some ancient table the golden-armored body of the Admiral himself, a man become mere grinning bone and dust. These men, who clamored for gold, who clamored for gods, come from lands unknown and forced by native torch and by native spear to their demise. And finally the president stooped to the jabbering boy, saying, “Yes, yes, we have known mountains in our time too.” And to Samuel the president said, “I have heard enough of his braying.”

XVIII. And the president married the chief’s youngest and comeliest daughter, she with the averted eyes and bashful finger to her pink lip. The president named her “Rose Blossom” and gave her the room closest to his chambers. Many nights now he went to her, lingering well beyond the dawn, her youthful hand resting in the tufts of his chest, what he called “the lion’s mane.”

XIX. So went the days of prosperity and grace. Now the president’s wives held many balls within their mansion. And the pilgrims wore the common clothing of their own manufacture in place of the outfits of former greatness, those tuxedos and silk gowns, lost in the course of their many nighttime rides, in trunks fallen and moth eaten and burned. And the earth ran thick and red with the blood of many calves and lambs and chickens and geese and deer and antelope, so the banquet tables could heap with flesh. And the president increased in girth until his belts no longer fit and his shirt buttons snapped, for each night he attended a new ball, or stopped at a pilgrim’s home, commanding “the slaughter of your best calf and lamb” and supping mightily upon these, doused always with the richest gravies.

And men such as Samuel amassed small fortunes, and farmers and orchards and livestock flourished. And travelers and wagon trains here refreshed their goods, for no other city for a thousand miles had achieved such wealth. And the president was heard to say, “Prosperity is earned only through the firmness of the Father,” and he commanded his angels to ransack houses for hints of intransigence or wavering allegiance. Letters were steamed open and read, and desk drawers rifled through, and spies were planted within closets and under beds. And those who suggested the president had not the touch of the divine, or who doubted your word, or who questioned the president when he arrived at their doorstep with his carriage and said their “daughter” or their “sister” or their “comeliest wife” was to become his wife, or become the wife of one of his supporters, disappeared from their beds, or were found in the fields and in the prairies, slit through the neck, or shot through the skull, or filled with arrows.

XX. Evenings now Samuel slid discontented notes across the dinner table—“We should flee” and “He cannot be trusted.” So his wife read them and nodded. He burned these twice over and smeared the ash beneath his bootheel. And always the cats and birds and squirrels, unwavering in their fixation, ever silent and nestled upon the roof and bulging within the trees, while your son remained shrouded within an oak chest, propped open during most days and closed whenever visitors neared.

XXI. Finally then the president visited Samuel’s house without warning or notice, his carriage of gold festooned with ribbons red and blue. Once inside he spoke of the animal stink and the animals, strange in their vigilance. And to Samuel he said, “You know, I bet a good fire would do wonders with those types. Always does.” And he called Samuel’s home “most modest,” while detecting what he called “a certain rot—does some creature perhaps lie dead beneath your floors?” Now he regarded the chest where your son was, touching his brow as if light-headed, and he said nothing. At the table with bib unfurled, he devoured a whole chicken, rich sauce dripping, sucking his grease-slick fingers. And his angels remained in the shadows, arms crossed, their eyes fixed upon Samuel. And the native boy locked himself within the darkness of the pantry, weeping and trembling whenever the president spoke or belched. And when the president finished his feast he regarded Samuel’s wife and he said, “Such a fine meal.” And Samuel’s wife blushed. And Samuel said, “Yes, my wife is a marvelous cook,” and the president sucked on another finger, and then a loud pop, and then he sucked another, his gaze fixed ever upon her while he said, “Such a cook within my home would please me.” And he said, “And to have such a wife within my bed.” And Samuel’s eyes bulged. And he tried to speak but no sound came. Now the president rose and gestured for Samuel’s wife to follow. And by this he meant for her to leave her home without packing or saying a word. And when she seemed not to leave of her own accord the president wrenched his hand in her hair: “You will see how a lion may roar.” And when she only struggled and wept the president continued: “I can make this man disappear as if he never happened—would that make this easier?” Only now did she move, disappearing into the shadow of the president’s girth, and throughout these motions Samuel did not look above his hands, nor did he speak, nor did he shift, until the door closed and the boot steps faded down the walk. Now Samuel gulped for air, while the angels remained with arms crossed and weapons ready. They would kill him if he spoke. Surely he had known these men for many years, risen from the same dust, in the same yard, but he could not recall them. And in the moments after the president and his new bride left, the only sounds heard were the sounds of cats yowling and squirrels scratching and birds picking at the roof.

XXII. Each day all filed into the temple, and there the president alone stood at the fore, preaching, “I wish to save life and have no desire to destroy life,” and “I do not have one single feeling against any man or woman on earth,” and “Love the Almighty. Love each other,” and “A woman is the glory of man, but she was not made to be worshipped by him,” and “The man who abuses or brings dishonor upon the female sex is a fool and does not know that his mother and sisters are women,” and he said, “Absolute tyranny never can produce happiness,” and “I would rather have the Almighty as my friend, and all the world enemies, than be a friend with the world and have the Almighty as my enemy.” And Samuel watched from the middle pew and he sang, and the native child sang, and their hearts were filled with what they called “glory.” And when the boy saw Samuel’s wife with the president’s other wives he scampered to her, and Samuel’s once wife was made to push the boy away—the boy’s arms at her waist, and the president’s new wife struggling to not cry. “Blessed are the children,” said the president from his pulpit, to the laughter of all. “Even this one.”

XXIII. Now some families received permission to return to the trail. There they would exhume their dead, so those bones too would know the land of Deseret. They set out in carriages, entire families in tow, and along the trail they found only opened graves and bones scattered. And where they had left the thinly buried bodies of their lost loved ones marked with stones, now they found skulls cast about the prairies, exploded with purple flowers and thistles. Now those families wept in ways forbidden all those months. All bones now dealt into a deeper grave, the bones of animals mixed with the bones of man. And who could not wonder if at the moment of the resurrection these beloved would walk again the earth as confusions of nature, their skulls the skulls of wild dogs and their faces deformed with monstrous horns, while the wings of carrion birds protrude their backs. And over the fresh soil mounds the living read prayers from the pages of your book, and they sang from the hymnal of your wife’s construction.

When the last words fled their lips, they shut their eyes and shielded their brows for the prairie winds gusting, and some families returned to their homes, and some fled back eastward. And for those who fled, the president summoned his angels, those riders lashing the range, their snorting horses, the bulging eyes and foam, until such a moment when the dust of the fleeing travelers bloomed on the horizon, and soon then bullets seared into the wives and children, while the husbands and fathers were bound with rope and made to see the blood leaking into the earth, the brains rolled with prairie dust. Finally the fathers were pressed to the dirt and axes dealt through their necks. These new dead too remained until such a time when weather, or animal, or insect, consumed the flesh, and cast the bones hither and thither.

XXIV. And when one of Samuel’s neighbors suggested he should “manufacture some relatives,” Samuel shook his head in a vague, wary way. “She will return, eventually,” he said. The neighbor looked at Samuel blankly and now the boy said her name. Samuel’s voice broke: “I can’t leave her, you see.” Finally the neighbor indicated the black mansion, how it shimmered and vibrated on the hillside. “What if—” he began. “Forgive me, Brother Samuel, but what if she likes it there?” Now Samuel returned indoors, the boy scampering behind him, and then the door closed.

XXV. No matter, soon the president forbade any travel in or out of town, and instead he held services for the souls of all those who perished on the trail, calling the soil where their remains moldered “as good as consecrated.” And his angels were posted on every street corner. Their silence, their shifting eyes, the dark suspicions they housed toward all.

And the president sent his angels to the homes of every male over the age of ten and beneath the age of forty, commanding them to prepare for the coming of a great many enemies into their midst. And he sent many of these men to the native chief’s camps. How many tents burned and warriors shot through the skulls, necks, chests, grasping wounds and spitting blood, and yet continuing to fight while they drained into the soil, while they sloshed around. And how many women were shot through the skulls or slit across the throats. And how many infant children were bashed with rocks or stomped into oblivion. And how wretched was the sky, black with smoke, the black of tents and bodies burning, while horses thrashed and stampeded the mountains, and wild dogs watched from the forest, ravenous.

And when his squaw wives protested his butchery the president thrashed them with coils of rope until they fell, weary and rope reddened. And when they refused him in the hour of his longing he bound them with rope and cord, and now they were made to love him again. How he told his fellows the next day, over meals of goose and suckling pig, “These young squaws do call out,” and “They resist at first, but once they get a taste they reveal their true natures, as lusty as any raised by whores.” And all laughed, agreeing that a woman may feign reluctance or indifference, but the application of force will ever achieve the return of desire.

And how swollen was the night with the sounds of coyotes and wild dogs and hyenas and jackals, howling at the feast of a thousand bloated natives. And when the wind gusted now the waft of the decay. And carrion birds ever circled. And when the creatures at their feast bellowed, their throats choked with rot, now children in their beds woke and could no more sleep for their trembling. Fathers with rifles readied scanned the forest dark for yellow eyes, and women stood in the kitchens, or in the pantries, or over washtubs and boards, listening to the horrors without number. They could build a thousand temples over those graves, but never would those sounds end.

XXVI. And Samuel lay awake beneath the hundred, hundred squirrels and birds upon his roof, while the eyes of the wolves and the coyotes speckled his yard in the dark. And the native child slept on the chest except when Samuel peered within, and there your son, ever as before. And when they left for work and when they returned at night, the animals watched and waited. That never familiar sight. The anxiety always, and to see them anew the child’s chest pulsed and his breathing rasped and Samuel held the back of his head, the soft black hair, the warmth of the skull, and he said, “Yes, I know.” Ever the endless rows of black eyes and yellow beaks, wings and claws. And then the day they returned to find the kitchen window punched out and feathers and fur and blood trailing into the house. There a red fox asleep upon the chest, and then the beast awoke, snarling, and scampered past Samuel through the open door, blood trailing.

And as the hours passed the animals gathered in ever greater numbers, the sun gone absent, the windows blotted black but for the glow of their eyes. And so the air within the house was pungent with their feces and blood and fur. And now wild dog sat haunch to haunch with wild cat and wild bird. And more arrived from fields of dead natives, their bellies inflated with the raw meat of the murdered, bloodied beaks and maws and smeared red muzzles. They massed in the yard, rows upon rows of eyes and snouts, and gazed through the windows or into the walls, as if they perceived somehow the boy in the shadows and Samuel in his chair and the son of the man you were within the chest.

And then one dawn Samuel woke into a terrible vacuum, for no animal chirped, or yowled, or howled, or moaned, or snarled.

And this day the native child refused to leave the house. And when Samuel pulled him the boy shivered and wept, and when Samuel carried him the boy was sick upon himself. And finally the boy let out such an awful wail that Samuel left the room, and in the next room Samuel covered his ears for the horrid cry his child made and the terrible stillness of the animals everywhere.

XXVII. And those animals stirred not when armed riders stormed the road, nor when carriages stuffed with militia approached, nor at the firing of rifles into the sky, into their mass, nor at the plummet of their fellows, faces fixed in death grins, bloody fractured incisors, nor when these militia with rifles and pistols at the ready moved through their throngs, over the bodies already heavy with flies and ants, nor when these men rapped at the door, nor when they shouted Samuel’s name, nor when they jolted the butts of their rifles into the door, nor when the door finally swung open. Samuel there with glazed expression, hair wild and whiskers long and unkempt. He spoke only in low moans, a gasp, and then, “What?” And those militiamen said, “Get your shovel. There has been a massacre.”

Samuel went to find the boy and he found only trembling and screams. The boy somehow lost in the shadows. And Samuel wept. And finally he departed.

And the militia: their carriages, their horses, and Samuel gathered his horse from the barn. The horse would not move. It would not stop gazing at the house. How he lashed this beast, the blood glistening across the flank, before he could lead it through the throng of a thousand animals. And all his soul longed to remain, to hold that boy in his terror. But he did not.

And the farther Samuel rode the less reluctant his horse. And deeper into the desert, the lizards and rabbits scurrying, the misshapen birds circling, until now the clouds of dust and the canvas of a hundred wagons, the milling of men, their rifles, and beyond them the figures of gentile men and women and children, in postures of surrender, the silent weeping of the children, the shushing of their mothers. And when Samuel neared they rode to him, calling out, “Where’s your gun?” and Samuel said, “I don’t need a gun to bury bodies.” They called him now a “fool” and an “imbecile.” They spat onto the dirt, and they told him to return home to the rest of the milksops. And the stark expression of gentile men and women and children led into wagons, and now gunshots and screams following on the wind as Samuel returned along the plains. The spray of the blood and brains against the canvas, and the flight of women and children and men into the dirt, dispersing across the prairie while men stalked with rifles, the women flowering with blood and the second shot into their skulls, and a third, the children clubbed with rifles butts, and once they fell, bloody and limp, then they too were shot through the skull, while distorted birds circled, and hyenas and jackals peered over the rocks—soon now, this their kingdom. And the gentile men who fought back were beaten to the ground and kicked in the bellies and bludgeoned with rifles, and then shot through the skulls. And when children hid behind rocks they were found and they were shot through the eyes, or they were led quivering and weeping into carriages to be “redeemed.” Soon the blood pour. And when women scampered behind trees or over the hills they were caught and dragged down by their hair and slit across the throat, or fucked screaming and then murdered with rocks punched into their faces. And when men scampered they were shot in the backs and fell blossoming blood and then set upon by two or three men at a time with knives and rifles, hacking and firing and cursing and spitting. Blood and flies and mounded dead, this city of murder. And when all were dead save a few children, now the pockets of the dead were rifled through and jewelry snapped off and pocketed, and so all the possessions reattributed to the living. And soon living women were seen in the streets, attired in the clothing and jewelry of dead gentile women. And what man would not wish to be known in the outfit of the gentile he stalked and shot, and bashed into bone and guts, and spat upon and stripped nude, and left for the flies and dogs and carrion birds to pick apart?

XXVIII. And Samuel returned home to the absence of animals. Now there remained only blood and feces and fur and loose teeth streaking his house. And the doors had been torn off their hinges. And the windows were burst in, the shards streaked with blood and clumped with fur. And paw prints scattered in blood and mud and feces. And feathers and tufts of fur drifted the hallways as if drifts of winter snow. And here the intolerable musk of gore and frenzy. And here the flies, constant and without number. And here the corpses of those animals killed in the rush were strewn throughout the rooms, half eaten and covered with flies.

And the native boy’s head lay in the parlor, the eyes and cheeks and tongue eaten out. And what remained of his torso was slopped in the sitting room. And the half-eaten remains of a leg and an arm were in the yard. And the shroud that once wrapped your son was red with gore and strewn throughout the house. And the oak chest was torn to pieces. And no aspect of your son remained, save his footprints, stamped in blood upon the floors and out the door.

In Samuel’s familiar chair rested already the half-eaten carcass of a small dog and one of the native child’s limbs, so instead he went to the dining table, and there he rest his elbows, and now his brow, upon the blood- and feather-filthy surface. And from afar came the sounds of gunshots yet echoing, or perhaps the throbbing in his ears, and then only the silence of the world. And how deafening now the absence of the animals, how riotous the buzzing of flies.

XXIX. And perhaps in a dream and perhaps in the night hours, Samuel rose from his sleep. Through the mist of the yard he went, along the path of the blood tracks, and here in hordes of hundreds lay the dead, the serene and blood-stiffened faces of birds and rabbits and wild dogs. This trail of dead now Samuel followed. And he followed them into the forests and he followed them out of the forests. And he followed them along the stretches of vast open land, the dead land of the deserts, the gray emptiness of rocks and cacti and ruin.

And he followed them through the misted field. And he followed them across the desert stretches of skull and rib and femur.

And he followed them to the moment when the black mountain loomed and seethed on the horizon. And he followed them through the forests of suicides, the swinging bloat. And he followed them to the base of the black mountain. Here the rocks and dust and outcroppings of weeds, vibrating. Here the carrion birds circling overhead seemed to shrivel within the hum. Here your son’s blood tracks continued, and the clumps of fur, and the feathers, yes, ever up the mountain they went.

And so Samuel climbed. His fingers raw and warped and his arms numb and his throat constricted. And he continued through the swirling cloud and the noxious shimmering atmosphere. In the vast night, stars flickered and strange fires burst and smoldered and trailed the skies. And for a time all seemed lit below.

And here the skeleton of a man, fallen against the black stone. And here the skull. And here another man’s rotten costume, the canvas clothes and no bones within, perhaps scorched to dust, perhaps blown away. And here an obsidian rock rubbed crimson. And here another stone bore the name of a man, or perhaps a message, carved into it, the lettering long obscured and distorted by time.

And Samuel continued beyond the moment of sense, through the ways of endurance, until he reached the peak. And here he found the ground leveled out. He seemed to sway in the gusting and swirling winds, the wrapping mists. And at the outer edge of the peak was a copper telescope. And at the opposite edge stood a cabin painted black. And the windows were of glass and shining, though no light shone from within.

And the building did not shift or seethe or vibrate. And there was no sound from within. And no man came to the door, but there was a door, and it had a knob, and the knob was the color of night.

And in the moment he waited before this cabin, Samuel witnessed the scenes and movements of all he had ever known. And then Samuel opened the door, and he went inside.