Chris G R Webb [Webb - Redemption’s Blood

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You see, a man only thinks he's changed, yet deep down inside, he's still that nasty son-of-a-bitch that gets a kick from all the blood and guts he gets to spill.

Jensen Hills.

C herokee Outlet - Arkansas River 1848 31 years ago.

AYVITA, sat by the creek, with her tribes teepees cradled in the rolling plains behind her. The seventeen-year-old squaw had known more sorrow than most. When but a child, she had lost family on the Trial of Tears," with little time to mourn their parting. That blade of hurt that haunts her dreams could not compare to the pain she feels now. Her arms embrace a still lifeless baby, barely moments old. The medicine man had promised the Chief, his wife, Ayvita, would bear them a brave, a brave that would change the destiny of the afflicted Cherokee nation. All she has is this mass of flesh, like stone to the touch.

She touches a tear saddled on her cheek; it rides over the crest of her fingertip, and traces it around the arrow-wound birthmark, on the childs chest. She glances to the bubbling, cascading water of the creek.

She baptizes the lifeless body and plunges it in the cold wash. Its what the Cherokee do, every day till a child can ride; it strengthens the spirit and young bones. As the lifeless child's head remains under the lapping, Ayivta feels she's being watched. She glances up. On the opposite bank is a raven, whos head is held in noble bearing, its sable feathers drink in the days shine.

Disturbingly, the raven's beady blacks, eyeball Ayvita. With a look that demands a response.

Well, do something. She spits in anger.

The Raven stares into Ayvita, she has to look away. As she does, the child's body nearly slips from her hands; the current is trying to carry it.

No

The child in her hands starts to kick his legs and flail his bunched up fists, twist and flex his torso.

Hes alive

Ayvita snatches the boy into the air, out of the cold, she's met with bawling indignation. Wrapping the warming body in the skin of a young buck, she starts to coo to the child, and notices that the young ones birthmark has a pearl of crimson emission.

She dabs at it and washes it into the river.

She looks for the Raven, who has gone. Tears still fill her face, they ride her cheeks to smiling lips. Her son, Marujo, would make her proud.

879 Colorado State.

EBONY

Crimson

Amber

Yellow, the rousing dawn stokes the land to life. This morning is no different to any other, nature celebrates and embraces its own. Butterflies unfurl, grassland birds warble, the black-tailed jack rabbit furrows in the clusters of brown sprouted grass. The ocean blue sky floods from the circumference of the worlds lip. Each life and death has its purpose it is part of the whole.

On the edge of the untamed, like a solitary blister on Gods finger, a shack. A shack, cobbled from misshapen, unfitting stones and twist lumber. A shack, that is eroding back to the substance of its surroundings. Bottles of half empty liquor sit proudly on any surface that will hold them. Flies maraud a few empty cans of long forgotten food.

Adjacent to this forsaken single roomed shelter is a basic animal pen, uneven, ram-shackled as if built on the Chinese whispers of hearsay, a rumor of what a shelter should be. It would seem abandoned except for the pigs, chickens, and goats that are clustered together.

As the noon day sun breaches the gaping grin of the shacks' wooden slats, there's stirring from inside/ A throaty awakening from a thumping liquor slumber. A crash is accompanied by a mumbling curse, not in anger, mores the way to greet a morning.

The door on the shack rattles as if being tested for strength till - Crash- it bursts open with a forceful shunt. Out stumbles a man, large of girth, half awake, half dressed.

He holds his arm up to the sunlight to dissuade the stabbing in his sockets. He runs his slab of a hand through his greying beard, scratches, snorts, and yawns. Hes greeted by a chorus of grunts, bleats, and clucks.

A hand snatches up a bottle, with a wash of liquor remnants remaining, and pours a dose into the animal drink, before turning the bottle on himself and disarming it in one fluid action.

A shoveling palm scoops animal feed and flings it across the pen, it bounces indigently off the heads of his livestock. They dont pay no mind as they bury their muzzles into the earth in search of the bounty.

Two pails, tilt and sway, spilling their cool contents to the ground, dancing translucent globes glide over the dust, till they are drunk up by the parch. The burly figure waddles with the two buckets, to a disheveled vegetable patch. Slosh - spewed contents cascades, slapping into the vegetables. The next pail is taken to the animals' trough, it's swung with an expectant crash of colliding bodies of water, all that remains is a drizzle.

The pail is held aloft for inspection and a burrowing finger, worms through a guilty hole.

He flips the bucket's maws to dirt, and the figure sits his ample behind on his new stool, the shack creaks as he leans against it, he darts the shack a suspicious glance, then nestles into place. With his chores done for the day, he aspires for a well-deserved rest. He looks around his land, at the bottles, cans, overgrown plants, patches of dry dirt and decides; he'll tidy one day.

Maybe.

Coarse callused fingers gently knead tobacco from a pouch, to cluster the tinder together on a paper and rolling to completion. The newly formed smoke finds lips to nestle on, but before it can be fired up, the man slips into a slumber.

Breathing itself seems a burden as if each throaty exhalation will be the last, till a sawing inhalation continues the cycle.

In

Out

In

Out

As the smoke hangs from his lip, another pair of lips attempt to pucker it for themselves. These lips are bristled, underscoring a soft wet patchy-nose of a curious goat. The man wakes at that point when lips collide, to a moment of indignation and curiosity. The mans jade green eyes are locked in a traction with the goats elongated pupils. He splutters in protest, then pushes the goat away spurning the nuzzle of friendship.

The goats cohorts are roaming free, feasting on vegetables and meandering around. It is peaceful until the man thrusts to standing and wails in protest, then the animals make a break for freedom.

He pursues the pigs and goats, who have the whole Savannah to passage, yet decide to simply cannon around the hut and pen. Some one way, the remainder the other, in near perfect circles.

The game is afoot; his brawny frame rampages after his beasts, he is torn one way then the next. His large hand swings to grab, control or at least touch the evading prey.

"Com' h're."

With a twist and turn that belies his size, the man dives for a passing pig, a miss, a plummet into freshly laid pigs shit. Splat - sullied in shit, the man is partly angry yet mostly embarrassed. The animals break formation again, as the man, with renewed vigor, charges into his shack. Before the door can creak to a close, his booted foot kicks it open.