Currency of Souls

“Shit.” Instinctively Brody ducks, arms covering his head, and swivels on a heel to see where the hidden shooter is. He scans the house, then the yard, and it is here his gaze halts. The blood drains from his face. Somehow, the deer are closer now, almost level with the Dodge, and one of them has mounted the hood like some unfunny parody of a hunter’s prize. It stares at him with black eyes, head cocked a little to the left, thick antlers like a bleached tree branch reaching for the stars.

Brody feels the air change, a sensation he is accustomed to only when he is presenting the threat. But to feel it now means there is a very real danger here, and that mystifies him, until he recounts the events of the past few hours and realizes that nothing should, or ever will, surprise him again.

This belief continues for a few moments more, until the deer on the hood of the car begins to speak. “Come out Blue Moon.” The voice is a croaking whisper much like Cadaver’s, but stronger, and its lips don’t move. Nevertheless, despite how insane it makes him suspect he might be after what he’s gone through, Brody has never been more sure of anything in his life.

The fucking deer is talking.

Behind him, there’s a sound like a stick swishing through air and then a thump and clatter as the deer on the Dodge tries to keep its balance, then crumples and rolls, hooves beating a tattoo against the metal. Blood smears the hood, and now the creature is making all-too-normal animal-in-pain sounds, which surprises Brody, who almost expected to hear it scream in a human voice. The deer hits the ground, still moving, and Brody can see there’s a long stick protruding from the side of its neck. An arrow.

“Stay down, boy.”

Brody does, but looks over his shoulder.

The formerly inanimate cigar store Indian pays him no mind as it thumbs another arrow into its bow and draws back the string.

Brody breathes disbelief, and pushes himself away until he collides painfully with the porch railing. “No way in Hell.”

The whispering has spread, pouring from the unopened mouths of the deer herd like a breeze through the canopies of leaves overhanging them. More sharp reports as hooves meet metal and Brody is forced to resign himself to the incredible reality of the situation: In the yard, there are talking deer. Pissed off talking deer, and all that’s keeping them at bay, for the moment at least, is a wooden Indian whose every move is accompanied by a creak as flakes of dead wood fall like dandruff from his shoulders.

“Jesus.”

“Just stay d—”

“Yeah, I heard for Chrissakes. What the hell is happening here?”

The Indian lets his arrow fly. It hits home; another deer stumbles and falls.

“The short version: Long time ago my father and his friend made a mistake that got a lot of their tribe killed,” Blue Moon tells him from behind the door. “They stole somethin’ precious from a rival tribe. A statue of a deer, made from obsidian and wood, supposed to contain the spirits of every animal the tribe had killed. When caught, they put a curse on Red Cloud. They turned him to wood. My father escaped his bonds and stole a horse. They never caught him. Days later, the rival tribe attacked my father’s people, massacrin’ them for the theft of a sacred statue.”

Brody’s eyes drift to the wooden Indian. Grim-faced, time-roughened joints creaking, the creature loads another arrow.

“My father spent the rest of his life runnin’ from his tribe in their various guises: coyote, hawk, cougar… deer. When he died, the curse was passed on to me. They’re punishin’ me for his crimes. And they’ll punish you if you get in their way.”

Brody looks over his shoulder. Incensed, the herd pours over the Dodge on a wave of frantic whispers. The sound of them now is deafening. He scrambles away from the railing, puts his back to the door, wishes he had his knife, or better yet, his gun. He has never felt so vulnerable, and in truth, afraid, as he is at this moment. Sweat trickles into his eyes; he blinks it away. But, Death by deer, he thinks, and splutters a laugh. No one will ever believe it. He elbows the door.” Let me in, man.”

“I can’t.”

“Then toss me out a weapon or something. Anything.”

“You don’t need one. In protectin’ me, Red Cloud will protect you too.”

Helpless to do anything but watch, Brody draws his knees up as the deer that have made it onto the Dodge leap toward the house only to be struck down in mid air by the arrows from the wooden Indian’s bow. Red Cloud’s feet haven’t moved from his small rectangular pedestal; only his arms look alive. They reload the bow, faster and faster, until they become a blur, and above them, the Indian’s painted eyes are narrowed, mouth down-turned in a grimace. The wooden points of the arrows cleave the air, thudding into the hides of the seemingly endless ranks. As they fall, the deer turn to clouds of dust, which in turn swirl upward as if caught in a vortex. And in those miniature twisters, there are screaming faces.

Time draws out, and Brody is desperately aware of every second that’s lost to him. Any moment now he expects to hear sirens, drowning out the screams of the dying deer. Should have kept walking. Nothing but bad luck in this goddamn town. Should have just kept on walking. He imagines the faces on the cops as they jump from their cruisers, pistols trained on him, ready to bring him down, only to find themselves watching a wooden Indian pegging a bunch of homicidal deer.

“Every day it’s the same,” Blue Moon says wistfully. “And will be until they force me to take my own life, or step outside to meet them, whichever happens first.”

“Then why not make a deal with the old man? The guy who makes the deals.”

“Because I have no interest in the kind of peace he has to offer.”

More arrows tear flying deer from the air, their bodies thumping down hard on the car, making it rock on its wheels, denting the hood, the roof, decorating the pale blue metal with dark blood. Brody watches, mesmerized, until the death of the animals begins to feel monotonous, a tiresome display of a hunter’s brawn. He’s even starting to feel a bit sorry for those poor bastards. He stands, brushes splinters and dirt from his already ruined suit. “I’m leavin’. I have to. Pissed away too much time already in this freakshow of a town.”

“Better wait, boy. Won’t be safe till they’re gone.”

Brody puts his hands on his hips, glances at Red Cloud, who ignores him. “Tell me something, Blue. If you’ve got your goombah here with his endless supply of arrows, why can’t you come out, at least as far as the porch? That tribe of yours don’t seem to be bothering me none. Not up here.”

To Brody, it’s a short forever before he gets an answer, and when it comes, it is in the form of a door easing open and not a voice. Brody peers at the widening crack between door and jamb. It is dark inside. Low to the ground, as if Blue Moon’s been sitting on the floor all this time, the old man’s hand emerges from around the door. In it is held an old-fashioned revolver, which he sets on the porch. Then the hand withdraws and the door is quickly shut.

Brody stands there, staring at the grooves in the door, at the memory of what he thinks he has just seen.

“Take it. It’s loaded.”

Brody nods, but doesn’t reply. Instead, he stoops, collects the gun and checks to see if the old man is pulling a fast one on him. It’s an old Colt, but it’s fully loaded and looks serviceable. “Why are you helping me if you know so much about what I’ve done?” he asks at last.

“Because I’m no judge, boy, and I’m certainly no better. I know there are always two roads, but the right one ain’t always necessarily the good one. I’ve traveled both, and I still can’t tell ’em apart.”

“All right then,” Brody says, feeling dazed as he slips the gun into his waistband and slowly descends the porch steps. Arrows cut the air over his shoulder, but he doesn’t flinch. Deer rain down on the Dodge, smack hard against the ground, kick and protest imminent death. The gun is cold against his belly, as cold as he imagines the old man’s hand was. They stole something precious from a rival tribe. A statue of a deer, made from obsidian and wood.

Obsidian and wood.

He wonders how many nights his sleep will be plagued by what he has seen in this town, how often he’ll be dragged out of his dreams by the wooden Indian, the tribe, and the old man’s hand. He stops short of the car and ducks low as a deer launches itself up over the hood, watches it jerk back at the behest of Red Cloud’s arrow and