Once were a time on a jackalope when folks kept their thinking to themselves. People lived, and people died, natural-like, in this un-natural place. That was, ‘til the first un-natural death, when nobody kept their thinking to themselves. But that weren’t their fault; weren’t none of their fault. Couldn’t help the nature of the thing that led us to living here. Couldn’t help nature much at all, human or otherwise. And that was a fact.
The first of the bodies got found on a quiet day, just after dawn. Just after the jackalope had stopped running. The body were mangled to tail and back: bloody, face in the fur, all criss-crossed and six-shades of who it were when it was walking on two legs, rather than doing what it was doing now. Being eight shades of dead and twice as ugly.
It’s hell living on the back of prey.
In the gale of the jackalope’s flee, none of us were dumb enough to go wandering out, except maybe this now-dead-fella. Serves ‘em right, though. Even though the mulchers called it murder, I reckoned it was plain old drunken falling down. Had to leave it to Doc to find the actual cause, even if she was going to be late to the party, being too drunk on sporeshine to bother with a body.
Body was still gonna be dead, regardless of Doc’s punctuality.
So, of course one of the mulchers asked my opinion, being that I was the closest thing to a doctor they had on hand, and the mess was on my property. Also being that they’d arrived immediate-like, seeing as all dead things were fertilizer, mysteriously-dead or otherwise.
Unfortunate for me that the particular mulcher who approached was Arlen, a fellow whose convictions ran violent and whose opinions ran to the left side of wrong. Arlen was suspicious on a Tuesday, cruel on a Thursday. Lucky for me this was Friday, and Arlen was running on yesterday’s leftovers.
“So, who did it? You do this, Beau?” they asked.
“No. I ain’t never killed nobody. Thing’s battered to shit like it got thrown about by winds and gale and struck every warthouse on the way down.”
“Or fists. Could’ve taken to someone’s fists, is my thinking. But what do I know.”
“Tend to think you know a lot about fistfights, Arlen.”
“That I do.”
Their smile then was crooked and wrong, like a stab wound. A sneer that made their face hammered flat with their mask pulled down, their gaze hawkeye-sharp even behind their goggles. I weren’t green enough to pull my mask down, and kept my own gaze ignorant and questioning. Learned a lot from my own brand of doctoring, on cows and sheep and all sorts’ve animals before I settled here. First thing I learned was not to let no one think I was smarter than them, though even I was, for damn sure.
“What I’m thinking, Beau, is that you did this.”
“I’m thinking that’s a real convenient accusation, Arlen.”
They poked me then, in the chest. Hard. Their intent meaning to send me toppling timber to the jackalope’s fur. Finger striking between my surgery scars, pushing me stumbling back two steps, then a third. Living off fungus and leftovers had done me no good, and I was older than I’d like to admit. Most old folks are, in my reckoning.
“Convenient, but I’ll see to it that it’s made true. Just wait till Doc gets here.”
“You do that.”
Any confirmation of suspicion would have to wait til Doc arrived. She’d have to identify this mess on my property. Identify the who of the body—when it had a face, when it were more body-shaped—then strike down the gavel on my mood. She’d been good at that when we was married, and had only improved on her skills since.
Doc arrived at my warthouse with twice her share of hair-of-the-dog in her. Swaying legless from sporeshine, mask on, eyes glassy behind her goggles as she held to the door frame in the jackalope’s nightmare. Whole beast was quaking something awful, sending us both to holding on to something. Her to the frame, me to the past, both our gazes to one another.
“You do that? Out there?” she asked.
“No,” I said, then stood, closing the distance between us. “No, and you know it.”
“Course I know it, but Arlen’s over at the distillery saying you did it, and they’re the kinda loud you don’t muzzle. Who do you think did it?”
“Stupidity. That’s who, or what.” Closer to her now than I had been, I could smell the fumes coming off her something awful. She smelled like chemicals and bile. Pulled my mask up and goggles down to douse my expression. “Nothing more complicated than that.”
“So, what’re you gonna do about Arlen, Beau?”
“What I do about anyone or anything. Figure it out.”
“You mean do nothing, like always.”
Her gait sidled, sizing me up the way she always sized me up when she thought she had the upper hand. Both of us were crowding the doorway like a showdown, waiting for the other to act, but she knew I was too chicken. Doc’s eyes narrowed, her malice only punctuated by the sway of her body. She’d been drunk since the second month we got here, and weren’t aiming to slow down.
Just like I weren’t aiming to change my answer.
A long exhale, a click of her tongue, and Doc left. Stumbling rough out of my warthouse on legs unaccustomed to the jackalope’s nightmares. Hands gripping her stick with knuckles white even with the dark brown of her skin. Every strike of the pole sending her steps less steady, my thoughts wondering whether I’d find her criss-crossed and bloody in the sporefarm next door like that body had been found on my property this morning.
Didn’t, but that’s just to make you less nervous.
The jackalope was quaking fierce like a seizure. She’d been doing that a lot in more recent months, her dreams going violent so as to make a hard life harder. Make us all meaner, crueler, angrier. It weren’t the jackalope’s fault, but something was off about her. Was off about us. Doc and me, Arlen, the body. Something was tickling the back of my brain, like a thread trying to connect everything, but didn’t have enough yet to fasten my thoughts.
In a time less fraught with fur and fungus, Doc and I had a stake of our own. She tended to births of babies like I tended to births of calves. Sometimes she helped me with the calves, and I welcomed the effort. Back then we loved one another with lips on lips, both sets, and we said I love you, and we meant it.
Were this a fairy tale, like y’all wanted, Doc and I would’ve been still attached at the hip, loving on one another like nothing had split us apart. Didn’t happen that way, though. Reality done severed us, ‘cause reality is cruel and unforgiving. Reality don’t give two wits about people; it’s got the heart of a predator.
Second body was found same condition as the first, though this time Doc had the sense to be more on time than on her time. Commotion surrounding this one were louder and meaner. The suspicion targeted my way like-to-had bullseye precision. Gossip had been easy currency on that jackalope, but I ain’t one to trade. Or weren’t, then.
Doc had her hands full with the body, in a futile attempt at autopsy while the mulchers circled around her, taking their pick at the body. What parts here and what parts there would make for good spore fertilizer. Weren’t much left, but they weren’t never ones to waste no thing.
Jackalope was dreaming, no nightmare this time, but there was an unease to her breaths that hitched staccato. Like an earthquake rumble under my feet. Made me damn uneasy, more uneasy than being called these names I would never put to myself. I’d been called things like a murderer before, and back then? People meant it. Like to think no one on this damn beast would kill me for a lie, but people before sure would’ve killed me for ‘em, which is why Doc and I came here, to this place where resources were scarce, and the people were scarcer.
Arlen pulled off their gloves, mulchers having marked the body for what they wanted, and Doc still turning over the thing trying to decide the what had been done and how. “Can you account for your whereabouts last night, old man?”
“I can.”
“And? Where were you? Out on one of your late-night constitutionals? Seeing as this one is the same as the last, and you’re the only other folk as medical minded as Doc here, we’re thinking you’re the only other one who can mess up a person like this enough to make it seem like an accident.”
“Wasn’t me, Arlen. Told you, I don’t kill, and ain’t aiming to start now.”
“People can change you know, Beau. High time you realized that.”
Arlen turned, running their hand through their hair. Sun was high in the desert, high enough to make the shadows short and squat under our feet, and high enough to make all of us smell worse, but the body smelled worser. Arlen stunk of corpse and hunger, could smell it on their breath, coming out from under their clothes.
The crowd’s attentions were on me. Gazes fixed like predators, likely waiting for Arlen to take a swing, or for me to cave and admit something I weren’t going to. I had my stick staked in the jackalope’s fur, for steadiness. The situation had me as unsettled as her earthquake breathing, and Arlen’s talk had me near to toppling. I weren’t never one for confrontation. Always was more of one to flee than fight.
As a man now, I weren’t expected to run. Had to stand my ground; never found that easy though. Not then, and sure as hell not now. Glancing at Doc, I found her looking at me, her gaze a concerning thing through her goggles, her mask a mess on her face. She dusted off her bloody, messy gloves on her jeans and walked over, stick and all.
“I got this, Arlen. Y’all can take the body and go.”
Reluctantly, they did. Mulchers took it, meaning Arlen had to leave, and the crowd dispersed slowly thereafter, two by two, then three, eventually leaving only one or two hangers on as Doc and I conversed in low voices about what exactly the hell was going on.
“Something’s wrong with the rabbit,” was what I said.
“You can’t be serious, Beau. Nothing’s wrong with the goddamn rabbit. You’re stalling, looking for a way out like you’re always looking for a way out. I think Arlen did this and they’re trying to put the blame on you.”
“Too complicated a thing.” I glanced around, keeping my voice at a harsh whisper that made my voice gravel thick and rumbling over the sound of the jackalope’s snores. “Rabbit’s sick.”
“Bullshit.”
“I would know, Doc. You know I would know. I’m the best to know.”
“Don’t care if it’s true, because it’s not. Rabbit’s not sick; these are murders.” Doc took her gloves off and ran her hands through her thick gray curls. She was sweating under the desert sun. “Murders don’t have anything to do with the rabbit.”
“I beg to differ.”
“Begging doesn’t make anything true, Beau. I would know.” She looked me over then, hard, like she did before. Back before when I told her the truth about me, that I wasn’t a woman. “I can’t do this right now.”
“I know,” I said, watching her leave. “I know.”
Jackalope was sick, even if it sounded baseless and damn right unscientific. At this point in time, I had no evidence to the matter, no truth to my story. Never was gonna win Doc’s respect back going around saying the truth with nothing but notions, not anyways while she was out there doing autopsies on murders.
Weren’t any way around it, by my recollection. To my mind, anyone with half a brain could realize it, but then again, anyone with half a brain didn’t want to notice that the place they’d settled was growing unsettled. Might even say hostile.
Had a few notations to make, some observations to write down. Needed a day or three to do my constitutionals as Arlen had called ‘em, make notes, and make my notions into some actual data. My normal walks were noticeable from ear to tail and back. An old man like me was rare on this jackalope, most folks here were decades younger, but I had always been too stubborn to give up on anything.
Still am.
About the jackalope, I’d noticed the frequency and violent nature of her nightmares. Also too, the weird nature of her regular dreaming. Most folks would write this off as normal—the violence and whatnot—as they’d become accustomed to it in the recent months. Change is a constant on the back of this jackalope, and those settled here sway with change like the cant of her breathing. But in the case of myself, one who once saw to the health of animals themselves, this weren’t normal. Jackalope was sick.
Mulchers and other folk kept calling me the closest thing to a doctor this jackalope had. To her, I was the doctor. Excepting no one wanted bad news about the ground they were standing on. Didn’t want it before, and sure as shit didn’t want it now. Which is why, as the scapegoat in this current farce, I might as well do something stupid.
It was on my third walk on the third day of my notating that I found the third body. The serendipity of this shit was not lost on me. Same manner of messed up as the first two: criss-crossed, mangled, face in the fur. Didn’t hear screams or nothing last night, so once again assuming some odd chicanery. Jackalope was eating, which was significant. First time she’d eaten in two days. Was writing that down when I nearly tripped over the damn corpse, its placement similar to the last two, back by the haunches, and near-to—but not on—the road.
Was smart enough not to get more involved than need-be as I was already more involved than desired. Meant, as which, I had to make myself scarce. Fewer warthouses down tailwards on account of the movement of her back legs and et cetera. Luckily which meant would be fewer folks finding me finding this body. Also meant I had a long walk home.
Couldn’t go home, though; didn’t have an alibi at home.
Doc’s warthouse was even a longer walk. She weren’t gonna be happy to see me this early, but that wasn’t my problem, and I didn’t much care. Now, at least, I had some scientific fucking evidence about the jackalope’s state of being. So I went to walking, leaving the corpse where it were, cause it wasn’t going nowhere anytime soon.
Doc was twice as hungover as I’d ever seen her and stumbling into her pants while the jackalope ate with less compunction than usual. Calling Doc hungover was a kindness. Didn’t think she’d truly slept, and honestly thought she’d spent the night drinking and was still halfway to stupefied. Had the reasons to, that was a certainty.
Was so mad, she spit fury at me, her shirt crooked-buttoned, boots untied. Disheveled in a way I hadn’t seen since we was married. Yet her tone was one I hadn’t heard since the day after she told me she didn’t love me no more. She was serious. Every word meant with the full force of its definition.
“You can’t go with me to the body,” Doc said, every word exiting her mouth slurred and languid. “You gotta stay here, Beau. Arlen’ll be there by the time we get to the corpse, and everyone ain’t gonna believe in the convenience of you finding this thing.”
“But I didn’t kill nobody, and I know what’s going on.”
“Shut. Up.”
With that, Doc set me down on her bed and stared at me with eyes as glassy as her goggles. She hadn’t looked at me like that since she cared to kiss me. Her grip lingered a while, holding onto me with clasped fingers. Thought for a minute that she missed me, which I knew weren’t true. Was just the sporeshine talking.
“Doc, I have notes, I been marking things—”
“No one cares to know the truth, Beau. They just want vengeance for something that fixes nothing. You know how it is. You know how it always is, was. Is.”
There it was. The same old, same old.
Quick fixes to pacify ignorance. Folks think if they can slap enough justice on the backs of their lying, then it’ll obfuscate a reality they can’t face. That’s the world we all live in, a place where justice don’t play fair cause the deck’s stacked with jokers.
So, I stayed put at Doc’s place, because the look she gave me was the same one she gave me at our wedding when the pastor said, Until death do you part. I recalled that, how her breath shuddered and she nearly cried, grabbing my hand so hard it hurt. That memory echoed back at me, Narcissus-like, as Doc turned her back and walked out the damn door. She weren’t ready to let go of me. Not yet.
Thing was, it was time to let go of her.
Was a while before the jackalope when Doc couldn’t touch me, changed as I was, though she always said I were the one afraid of change. Whole world was changing around us at hurricane pace, so it was a silly thing for her to say. A person only says that when they don’t got nothing else worth saying.
We were both of us still married when everything went upside down and we fled to the back of this beast. Pieces of paper don’t do no good when skills are currency. Took to our separate warthouses, where Doc was the useful one. I was useless and proved my worth by staying out of trouble.
Have long run out goodwill on that score.
After the autopsy, Doc didn’t come home.
She went up with the rest of ‘em, could hear them still making noise at the distillery. Thought about joining the crowd, heading thataways through the door. But the collected noise alone would sure as shit pound me identical to the third body I’d found. Doc was in there. Knew it the same way I knew she’d kill me if she knew my intentions.
The mystery weren’t a mystery to me no more.
So, I took Doc’s rifle. Slung on my back with enough shot to get me through this hair-brained idea. Stuffed my pockets with some ammo, and as a final goodbye, I took her best hat. Still fit me, so it might as well be mine. With all this, I set out on the last of my constitutionals. Figured my odds were death, dying, or worse. Seeing as I everything I did was regarded as suspect, me solving this shit didn’t look good for my resume.
Was starting out earwards, so had to make my way tailwards. Slowly, though, cause I wanted to be seen doing what I was doing: being a big dumb idiot. That way when folks found my body the next morning, they could identify it. Beau, the sonofahare who didn’t kill nobody but his damn self.
Noise from the distillery faded in the jackalope’s earthquake breathing. Weren’t nobody out tonight, moon shone at hardly a fingernail, and the horizon was split between prairie grass and clouds showed off with style. Meant that it was dark. Dark and screaming with other megafauna out there bigger than me and bigger than the jackalope I was standing on. Screaming so loud it sounded downright natural for my last night alive.
Anyway, the screaming was why I didn’t hear the footsteps. A fella didn’t have to be quiet when the whole night was alive. Down by the jackalope’s haunches, the road was less lit. Abandoned. Fewer folks to bear witness; fewer folks to notice a thing at all. Perfect place for an ambush, killer must’ve thought, cause their stick hit me with a kind of hateful ferocity that knocked me to all fours. I struck fur rifle-first and heard the heavy wheezing of someone who’d been running like hell had their number.
Two’ve us were caught between the three bloody body marks, awful convenient. Even with night’s yelling, I could hear the stick whistling through the air as a killing thing. But that weren’t how the other murders got done. The other bodies hadn’t been beat down by a walking stick. No, someone was out here to get me, personally.
So, I rolled, and the stick struck the jackalope’s back. She twitched, and I aimed Doc’s rifle up at the bastard. Arlen. Their mask was wet with spittle, and their goggles were fogged. Likely couldn’t see nothing, and were striking wild. But they sure as hell did turn their damn fool head when I pulled back the hammer on the rifle.
Whoever you are, that’s a sound you sit up for.
“Don’t.” Was all I said. Least at first. “Don’t. You know I’m right about the rabbit. You know I’m right, and you’re just up here riding out the inevitable like a scared little thing.”
“Ain’t scared. I just need you to shut the fuck up about the damn rabbit.”
My finger on the trigger was shaking. I was nervous, cause I ain’t a fighter. Never have been a fighter. Was out of my depth and didn’t know the rules. Still don’t. Worse’n that, the jackalope’s breath had gone to a nervous rat-a-tatter, and I could feel her shifting under my feet. While I didn’t want to kill Arlen, the jackalope was sure ready to kill us both. She was fixing to take off running.
So, I had to keep this calm.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“You start talking ‘bout the rabbit being sick, and you’ll start a panic like we had ‘fore everyone came here. We only had three murders. You want more? You want everyone on this damn bunny to die? That what you want?”
“They’re all gonna die, lest they move.”
“It ain’t that easy, Beau, and you know that.”
There it was, the point Arlen couldn’t make ‘round their friends cause it would show them up as smarter than they played at. No one liked a smartypants, ‘specially a smartypants who could bust jaws.
Arlen raised their stick again, meaning to end me. Their silhouette was shaking and wrong. They didn’t want to do this, but they knew someone had to get it done. There weren’t no one else with enough of a violent reputation on the jackalope but them.
I didn’t want to kill them either, but we never get what we want. Least I’d left something behind for Doc to remember me by. The notebook, with all the data and notating about the jackalope’s illness. Left it at her bedside as a final I told you so. So she’d know I was right, she’d know what I knew.
This was my legacy, the final nail on my cross to hang me with. Had to bank on one thing, that Arlen’d been drinking with Doc tonight, and she told them ‘bout my ridiculous theory. Which was why they were out here, now, trying to erase me from the jackalope. Make me criss-crossed and bloody. A mess in the fur.
Had to keep this calm.
“You see Doc tonight?”
“Shut. Up.”
“You drinking with her ‘fore you came to kill me?”
“I said shut up, you stupid old man.”
“Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing? This don’t solve nothing. Doc knows the truth, and she’ll still know it whether I’m dead, gone, or a goner.”
That was enough for Arlen. And eventually for me and the jackalope, cause three things happened, and fast. First was: Arlen brought down the stick, harder and more furious than before. Second: I took my shot, but missed. Shot hit sky, splitting the screaming night into silence. Third was: the jackalope—instant the shot fired—took off running. She set into a gale that threw Arlen and me off her back, and we tumbled down her haunches onto the packed ground below.
When I hit the dirt, I took inventory. Lost the hat, lost the stick. Rifle was still slung round my body, but my ammunition was dead to gone. Had enough for one more shot, ‘sides the one that was in the gun already. Arlen was ten yards away and bloodied in their breathing, could see in the flattened prairie grass from where the beast had been.
Had been, and was now doubling back.
Arlen’s breaths were labored, a rat-a-tatter of a thing. Their stick had pierced through the left side of their shoulder as a killing thing. Mask was even darker now even with all the blood they was coughing up.
The jackalope was returning to us, her gait loping and wrong. Her back covered stalagmites of warthouses, body thin and ravaged with missing fur and the bloody marks of her murders. Her mouth had long horns growing out from it, making her look more like a beast than a bunny.
She was a yard away when Arlen reached for me, their hand shaking.
“How’d she do it? The jackalope? Kill all those folks?”
I took Arlen’s hand, holding it as the jackalope neared closer. She was sniffing around, looking for food. Thing was starving, poor wretch.
“Her foot.” I glanced at her as her horns pushed closer to Arlen than to me. “She bashed all those poor folk bloody with her foot.”
She had, from my recollection. Only way to do a thing so silent and quick. To mangle those bodies so they lay crooked and unlucky on their way home, or out for a nice walk on what used to be a safe place to live.
Ain’t nowhere safe no more.
When I told them, Arlen laughed, then coughed. Their mouth and wound bleeding something fierce and smelling fresh. They weren’t long for here, that was certain. Also gonna attract bigger things than the jackalope. That was even more certain.
They turned their head to me.
“Kill me, Beau. Please?”
That was one hell of a request, but we were both dead either way, and Arlen was the lucky one. So, I stood over them the way I once stood over a sick sheep, or a dying goat. I pulled back the rifle-hammer, and fired.
That turned the jackalope’s attention to me, and by this way now she had between the horns. Sniffing. Death on her breath as she took in scent of me. Took in the scent of Arlen. I took a step or three back to load the rifle with my last shot, as she tried to eat the bloody prairie grass. Tried, then failed, then tried again.
Never did hear a sound like that jackalope did make when she turned her attention on me. Her eyes starving blue, her face so thin and her back lit up like a shop window. This jackalope had been my home a decade, now she was a begging pleading thing as she turned her enormous face to me. As she opened her horned mouth, I felt what she was gonna do, could feel it in my bones the way all of her sagged down to the packed and bloodied ground.
She lift up her face and horns to the sky and we screamed. Together. The whole world screaming. She was screaming; I was screaming. The righteous indignity of survival at the behest of and the grace of another is such a shit deal, and so I yelled. Weren’t much else to do about it.
Had one shot left in the rifle. Might it’ve been a kindness to kill her? Yes, but some kindnesses are too small to make a damn bit of difference. They only open up wounds we ain’t capable of closing. So we yelled, until she walked away.
She abandoned me standing next to the one person who’d once meant me harm, leaving me with nothing to offer except one shot in a rifle and not a fighting chance in hell I can use it right.
Ain’t nowhere to run that’s safe, or safer. Ain’t nowhere to go that’s better than anywhere else. With some folks wound so tight their hearts can’t ever spring undone, and others who got a moral core that can be wound around a tainted middle finger, I reckon it’s better to lean toward the former. Still time to change my mind, though.
World ain’t done with me yet.
Content Warnings: murder, animal death