Winchester Apocalypse
submission from our July Flash Fiction Contest
I waved out the window as I rode past the hardware store. My mother was standing by the door taking stock of the plants they had for sale. The July sun had things warm, even in the shade. The truck rattled on the rough road, and I reached to steady my Winchester next to me. With the air conditioner out, speed was the only thing keeping the heat bearable. I was almost home.
I pulled in my driveway and rumbled down the old road bed that leads to my house—past the bee yard, past the run for the ducks and the geese, past the garden. As I got to the house I was looking across the creek to a hillside in the front pasture. My flock of sheep huddled in the corner, and the dogs were bristling. I parked the truck, grabbed the rifle, and made my way through the trees to the pasture gate. The flock let out some concerned bleats.
Entering by the gate, I made my way up the hillside. There at the summit I stopped and surveyed the land. I scanned from west, to southwest, south, southeast … and there he was. A coyote. A brush wolf. He stood at the tree line, maybe two hundred yards down the back of the hill. He was standing still, looking, listening, nose lifted, but he hadn’t seen me. I made a slight move to glance back down towards my sheep and took in their frightened mass. I saw my dogs standing guard. I wasted no time. My decision was made. I turned back towards the coyote and raised my rifle. I drew a bead on him, stilled my breath, and squeezed the trigger.
And in that instant, I knew the quality of Speed.
If I had been the subject of his thought, I have no doubt I would have fallen to my face in fear. As it was, I was not seen, but saw. No, not quite. I heard? Participated? I partook of the true operation of swiftness. Whether Hermes himself or some other, I don’t know. I’m no Aereopagite. But I knew the quality of Speed in the crack of the rifle.
The angelical who is the principle of swiftness was in the flash of the fire from the muzzle, and in the flight of the bullet as it careened towards its mark. And in him were united all acts whose principle was swiftness. Though my body was still, I was caught in the fleet work. Thought flashed fast as light, and was light, showing the meaning in the bullet—history hastening to its End. A gale was in my ears as the wind rushed from its seat in the east, traversing the many miles of land and sea from the sunrise. In all the winds ever blown, this was the Wind. There came the root of the race of horses, Speed in flesh, as they answered the call of their Lord Adam with unhesitating immediacy. In them he saw the truth of the higher creation and revealed it in his naming. I saw the living creatures run and return as the appearance of a flash of lightning. Exitus. Reditus. Flicking back and forth from and to the Throne. The arrow of history hurdled to its End. There was the snap of the sling as Jesse’s son launched his stone missile. There was the clever quickness of an unknown housewife’s fingers as she sewed some antique garment, hands making fact the meaning of her thought. Burdened Aeneas fled the fires of Troy and foundered before the fleet winds of heaven. His sluggishness was the loss of the old mastery of the principles of creation.
“Make peace with thine adversary quickly.” The Scythians fly across the Steppes on their mounts and loose their arrows. The English longbowmen carry the day at Agincourt. The Hussars turn back the Turks at Vienna. In Agua Fria the ranger’s swift draw deals death. “For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” Through blinding wind and snow, dog-teams dash—the light of Nome growing in their minds’ eyes, emanating, hardening, piercing—until the City speeds to them. History hastens to its End. “Come quickly, Lord” The spheres revolve around straight-shooting rays, always to and from the Center. The intelligences of the worlds rush from and to the Throne. Immediate Obedience is their glory—distance bridged and time spanned in their swift, speeding intention to be and to do what they are and will. Speed makes co-inherent what is otherwise by trespass separated. Judgment and Salvation married, united. Grace charged with Law and Law suffused with Grace.
The pull of the trigger was at once Judgment and Salvation. The flash, the report, the smoke, the smell. Appearances of the Decision. For sheep and dog and child, peace, sanctity, and life. For offending beast, grief and final exile. A double-edged sword, swift in its swing. The coyote fell dead.
I crossed the pasture. The instant of the beast’s death was the instant of my sheep’s life. There are hardly any faster unions than this. I began dragging him to the barn.