ASHES OF THE DEAD:
BUCKET OF BLOOD
A novel by
Jake Miller
eBook edition
Ashes of the Dead: Bucket of Blood. Copyright © 2014 by Jake Miller.
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
articles or reviews.
This is a work of
fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (or undead), events
or locations is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by
Andrew Kightlinger.
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Or visit the Ashes of the Dead blog
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The Gunman
The vast wasteland fell in all directions, desolate and lifeless. Dry grass and shrubs dotted the godforsaken surroundings, and the rising sun crept upward on the horizon, bathing the earth in pale morning light. The relentless cruel wind blew in from the North, sucking moisture and life from everything that it touched. Like a sharp blade scraped across the land, it killed everything in its path. A new day had begun, harsh and unyielding.
A rusted shovel impaled the cracked earth, removing the top layer of dry dirt. It swung again, piercing the freshly exposed soil. The man holding the shovel now stood in a shallow hole, shoveling dirt onto a small pile next to him. Behind him, the rising sun moved even higher against the sky, and tormented him with the heat of a day that had only just begun. Silhouetted in an orange halo, he stood there for a moment measuring the growing hole with his gaze. He stood tall. And lean. A lone figure against a backdrop of despair and grief. His gaunt chiseled face had leathered from years of living in the baking sun. His rough hands held the handle of the shovel with an iron grip, strengthened from the life he had lived in this rugged country. He bent over again and continued digging, removing soil from a patch of land that could barely support any form of life. Even the drought-resistant local vegetation had not grown there for a decade. Some said that this land was cursed. That nothing would grow there, except fear and doubt. They were right, and he hated them for that.
The mound of dirt continued to grow as the man removed shovel-full after shovel-full. He pulled out an old worn handkerchief and wiped sweat from his brow, and then slipped it into his back pocket. He rechecked the size of the hole and continued to dig, this time working at the edges to make it a little longer. The hole started to take shape. Three feet wide and five-and-a-half feet long. A small shallow grave.
The blazing sun continued to move even higher behind him, burning his neck and extinguishing any hope he had of passing through the day without the fear of what may come. He speared the shovel into the dirt mound and wiped greasy beads of sweat from his forehead, then turned and disappeared toward a small neglected homestead farther up the hill. An old rectangular fence line marked what used to be a small yard, now broken and in disrepair. Inside, arranged gracefully on the dining table, was a woman’s body wrapped neatly in a stark white bed sheet. He walked over to a small side table tucked in the corner and poured a glass of water from a tall hand-made pitcher. He sat down next to the body, calmly sipping on water and staring out of the window at the bleak landscape that surrounded him. It was a dead world that had festered in his mind, pushed him to the limits of human resolve and tested his sanity. The heat of the day was slowly creeping into the small home, penetrating the thin wooden walls that he had erected so many years ago. The unbearable silence of an empty home weighed heavy on his mind. It wasn’t long ago that she had hoped for children, playing and scrambling across these wooden floors, now worn and cracked with age. Faint outlines of his dirty boot prints marked the floor. But he couldn’t worry about that right now. She had always cleaned the floors, delicately sweeping out the bits of dirt through an open door way, singing as she worked inside the home. Their home.
The man gently picked up the body, cradling it in both arms, and carefully walked back down the hill toward the freshly dug grave. He laid the body down and stepped back into the hole, pausing for a moment to make sure she would fit. A pair of women’s lavender boots stuck out from one end of the bed sheet. Size 8. Recently cleaned and polished. He reached down and covered them, and then picked up the body and gingerly placed it into the grave. He adjusted the sheet, smoothing out all of the wrinkles and any sign of imperfection. The morning she died he had gone into their bedroom and taken this sheet from the bed in which they had spent so many nights together. He had carefully slipped the boots onto her lifeless feet and wrapped her in the bed sheet, knowing that these things had served their purpose, and they would now decay beneath the earth along with everything he had loved.
As the sun continued to beat down upon him, he covered the body with dirt and smoothed the surface with the edge of the shovel. His job was done. Everything that he knew was now lost and buried. He picked up a makeshift cross, fashioned out of cedar branches found in the dry creek bed that hadn’t flowed since last spring. He used the end of the shovel to pound it into the ground at the head of the grave, and then carved the name into it with a rusted buck knife. Jane Marshall.
He walked into the bedroom and retrieved a clean shirt from the dresser and a new handkerchief, and then poured the rest of the water into a clay basin and rinsed his face, cleaning off the sweat and grime from the morning’s chore. He put on a worn pair of leather boots that had seen every square inch of this land. Placing fence posts, tending cattle, and building a life. Now they would take him away from this desolate land and help him seek a new life out west. From the bottom drawer of a wooden dresser he retrieved an exquisitely decorated oak box. Inside, wrapped in clean red velvet, were two Colt revolvers with silver handles. They were perfectly weighted for his hands, a true extension of his arms when he held them. He slid them into holsters that hung at his sides and walked into another room. He reappeared carrying a heavy leather satchel over one shoulder, and then walked out back to a wooden gate where a chestnut horse was grazing peacefully on the last bit of hay that this dead land could afford. It only took a few minutes to tack-up her horse and fit the saddle. He adjusted the straps and cinched them tight around the girth, and then climbed into the saddle and spurred the mare forward. He took off at a gallop and rode hard toward the horizon. A thick cloud of dust hung on the path behind him as he disappeared into a mirage that engulfed his senses and consumed him.
I hope you enjoyed this sample from Ashes of the Dead: The Bucket of Blood. The full eBook will be available for purchase in February 2014.
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