Zeke drew a long, gasping breath, eyelids dragging open. He could feel the chilly night air on his face but nothing else, save for a dreadful heaviness, as if his body had been submerged in fresh cement. His breaths came at long intervals, wet and ragged, each of them a chore. His mouth opened and closed and he forced himself to take a single breath through his nose.
The copper stink of blood filled his head and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to clear his vision, only to discover that the blurriness and the blackness that seeped in at the corners of his eyes would not go away. The stars above him were dimming, the moonlight fading. A rush of sound filled his ears and he felt himself flinch, but when he took another breath, he realized the barrage of thunder was nothing but the memory of gunfire, that the bullets were now only ghosts, their voices echoing across the desert.
Dying, he thought, the cold weight on his chest heavier. Zeke strained to move and succeeded in shifting his body just enough to feel things tearing inside him. He didn’t have the strength to scream.
Savannah, he thought. My baby girl. I’m sorry. I hope you’re with your mother now.
The cold weight of his flesh began to lift and he felt a lightness spread through him. His head lolled to one side, the shadows that veiled his eyes deepening. Yet he saw the bodies that lay around him and recognized the long bone pipe clutched in one ruined hand. The blood smears originally painted onto the pipe had been obscured by a new flow of blood, and the hand-carved pipe seemed to soak it in.
So much for the hoodoo man.
But then the bloody hand twitched. Enoch had been torn apart by bullets, body a blood-soaked mess, but now his fingers gripped the pipe and he sat up. Through darkening vision, Zeke watched Enoch bring the pipe to his lips. A portion of the little man’s skull had been obliterated, but his eyes glowed with bright golden light as he began to play a variation on those same ugly, powerful notes.
Zeke felt nothing.
He did not close his eyes, but they went dark, nevertheless.