at a piqued distance
they were hard
edged silhouettes
against
a Magritte blue sky and glacial white billowing clouds
they stood at the edge of the
world
their upper bodies thick
skeins of firesmoke falling up off hardwood coals
burning in the
sacred metalworked bowls of their bellies and loins
incensors
scorching the sky nearest them
machismo
one dark
Mexican
the other lighter
Spanish
squared in profile
facing
each other
approximate heights slender
muscular builds
hung from either of their hips
were holstered six-guns tethered with rawhide
cords to their thighs
above them she thought she heard
the hiss of the thinnest wind then
recognised in it
there were words their words spit between them
she was riding her sorrel mare parallel
to the ridge they stood on
they did not acknowledge her
trying to arrest their
attention she waved her wide-rimmed
work-stained hat in her gloved fist
they began stepping back away from
each other
the
wind dead
their arms went lax to their
sides
their hands their wrists at
the leatherworked holsters
recognising their face-off
she
yanked her hat down roughly onto her head wheeled her pony dug in her spurs
she went at them in a dead run
they never looked
at a sudden they drew their
revolvers
red
flames from the muzzles uplit their faces horribly
revealing
the savagery
exposing the Magritte sky behind where they had been
the bullets howled and exceeded what could possibly have been loaded into the revolvers
the reports thundered
more strips ripped away
where legs had been
torsos
and heads
they did not collapse onto themselves
the strips filled in by the Magritte sky
then
with scant tatters left
the revolvers went quiet
fell onto the yellow sand
the tatters began to coil onto themselves as ribbon
and then faded
and disappeared
when she dismounted the sorrel on top of the ridge
she found only the six-guns
she buried them there
under the bloodless sand and words she learned at funerals
dream from
Day-between-Two-Ts, 17 6. 15
1627, Friday,
19 6. 15
