The Man Who Burned Down Littlebuck, Kansas

It had happened years before, so now all he could remember of that night was the smell. At least, that was what he told Carol Anne. The smell, and how hungry he had been, after he did it.

“Of course,” he said, “there was nothing I could do about that just then. Not exactly like I could stick around for a hot plate. But I didn’t live too far out from that town. It was a short enough ride until I got home, where I could eat whatever I wanted.”

“And what did you?” Carol Anne asked.

“Beg your pardon?” the old man said.

“When you got home? What did you eat?”

He looked at her funny at that. Like he never, in a million years, would have expected that to come up. “You know? I don’t remember. Huh. Strange, isn’t it, how you can recall a lack, but not that which fills it?”

“I guess so,” Carol Anne said. She thought the old man had an odd way of talking, like they did in the books her mother used to read to her.

They grew silent, and the air became stagnant. Carol Anne reminded herself to keep her wits about her, as strangers were known to say outlandish things in order to spend time with young girls. She merely desired a quick meal before finishing up in town, not a conversation. But she had been raised to follow etiquette, and that seemed to demand she humor this fellow, at least for the time being. And it wasn’t like what he was saying wasn’t interesting.

Finally, the old man, with something of a glimmer in his eye, cleared his throat and said, “You would like to ask me why I did it, wouldn’t you? Why I set that fire.”

Carol Anne, sheepish, but clearly intrigued, said, “Yes. I mean, if you’ll tell me, sir.”

“Sir,” the old man said. “No need for that. Not entirely sure I deserve it, anyhow. But, to your question, I’m afraid I have to tell you that I don’t know.”

“You don’t know why you burned down a whole town?”

“I wish I did. I’ve asked myself countless times, over the last fifteen years, and I never seem to come up with a satisfactory answer. Except maybe this: it wasn’t up to me, whether I did it or not.”

“How could it not be up to you? Did someone make you do it?”

The old man shook his head. “No, no, nothing like that. I was alone. Utterly and totally alone. Have been since, as it turns out. But what I mean is that I didn’t have a say in the matter. One way or another, I was going to drop that candle.”

Carol Anne looked at him, confused. “I don’t understand. Do you mean you weren’t in control of yourself?”

“In a way, yes, I suppose I do mean that. But it is not quite so simple. I knew what I was doing, and I know that I made the choice to continue. But where that choice came from, I couldn’t tell you. We tend to overestimate our control over things, I think. If the world was something like a big factory, we wouldn’t be the man pulling the lever, but just another lever for the man to pull. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“I think so…” Carol Anne said. She had no idea what the old man was telling her.

“I’m telling you the world is a machine, and we’re nothing but the mechanism that makes it work. We don’t have to comprehend what the machine does for us to do our job. In fact, it’s probably not possible for us to ever know. What I’m saying is that this is the way it always is, every day, for every person alive, but we usually don’t notice it. Sometimes, it becomes just a little bit more noticeable, but catching even a fleeting glimpse is so distressing that we call it madness. Just so we can go back to ignoring it.”

“So, when you burned down that town in Kansas, you…went mad?”

The old man sighed. He wasn’t exasperated, just tired. “Yes, ma’am, that would be one way of looking at it. My life changed that day, and I don’t just mean in that moment. Since then, I have lived a transient lifestyle, never staying in one place for very long, never forging meaningful relationships with other people. For whatever reason, I could not go back to the way things had been before. I’ve relied only upon myself, and I have kept my actions of that night a secret. You are the only person I have ever told this to.”

“Why?” Carol Anne asked.

“I suppose I was afraid.”

“No, sir. What I mean is, if what you say is all true, then why are you telling me about it now?”

“That’s a good question,” the old man said. “I’m not sure. But when I saw you sitting here, I felt something. Something I have only ever felt one other time in my life. I saw you and I chose to tell you. But, where that choice came from….” He trailed off momentarily, then, with re-gained clarity he rose from his seat. “And I’m choosing to tell you this, as well: for the past three weeks, I have been staying in an abandoned homestead several hours’ ride west of here. What you decide to do with that information is out of my hands.”

An hour later, Carol Anne was sitting in the sheriff’s office, doing what she considered to be a poor job of explaining her conversation with the man in the saloon.

“And then he just got up and left. Got on his horse and rode off.”

“Uh huh,” the sheriff said. “And you thought you would come and tell me about this, did ya?”

“Well, yes, sir. I mean, he told me he burned down an entire city. Killed a few folks, and everything. And that he never got caught for it.”

“How old are you, miss?”

“Fourteen,” Carol Anne said. She couldn’t see what that mattered, but when she answered, the sheriff looked like he had just cracked the case.

“And what are you doin’ goin’ around by yourself, talkin’ to strange old men in saloons?”

She sat up just a little straighter. “My daddy’s real sick. And my ma, well, she died when I was just nine years old. Our ranch ain’t much, but it’s all we have, and I’m just about the only one who can keep it going. I ride into town every couple weeks to get supplies, and any food we might need, if it’s a slow season. I’ve been doing it for two and a half years, now. Daddy’s been sick for as long as I can remember, but he’s still with us. And, Lord willing, he will be for quite some time more. But Daddy always says I’ve aged older ‘n my years, on account of my mother’s untimely death.”

The sheriff was impressed. “I can see that, miss. I’m real sorry about all that, and I hope your daddy gets better real soon, but I don’t think I believe your story.”

“Sir!” Carol Anne said, aghast. “Are you saying that I’m lying to you?”

“No, ma’am, of course not,” the sheriff said with a chuckle. “I don’t think you’re lyin’ to me. But that old man, on the other hand, well, he’s a beast of a different color.”

“But he seemed to me to be telling the truth.”

“I’m sure he did. That’s how these people are. They’re real convincin’. But that don’t make ‘em truthful.”

“But…but, but, he knew about the fire. He said details about it.”

“Well, of course he did, darlin’. You obviously can’t remember, seein’ as you wasn’t even born yet, but the Littlebuck fire was a big deal. Folks from all around was talkin’ about it. I was just startin’ out as a lawman, and I musta’ got five people a week comin’ in here, sayin’ they knew who did it. All the way down here, in Oklahoma. So, you can imagine what it was like up north.”

“Did they ever catch who did it?” Carol Anne asked.

“No, they didn’t, ‘cause there weren’t nobody to catch. That fire started when a candle fell over in the church. Drafty windows, lettin’ in the wind. It was particularly dry, that year, and they didn’t have enough water to drown the flames before they spread. Whole town made ‘a wood, just caught right up. It was an accident.”

“Oh.” Carol Anne sat there, embarrassed. She had thought she was doing a good deed, telling the sheriff what the old man had said. But now she felt like a fool. A child.

“Don’t feel bad,” the sheriff said. “It was good ‘a ya to come and tell me. You just got tricked, is all. It’s happened to everybody.”

Carol Anne got up to leave. The sun was beginning to set. She could make it back to the ranch around midnight, if she left now, but she was suddenly too tired to consider riding. She had just enough money to pay for a room for the night. That meant going back to the saloon, but she didn’t have a choice. As she approached the station door, the sheriff caught up with her to open it.

“Just to be safe,” he said as she stepped back into the road, “I’ll put up a notice on my wall. Tell people to keep an eye out. How about that?”

“Sure,” she said, “I think that’ll be a fine idea.”

She awoke the next morning still tired. It took everything she had to not fall back into bed and give it another shot. But she had a four-hour ride ahead of her, and she wanted desperately to put some distance between herself and this entire debacle. She still felt the pangs of embarrassment from her visit to the sheriff’s office the night before. Her daddy really did talk all the time about how smart and mature she was for her age, and she had taken most of that praise to heart. It cut deep, to be reminded of just how little she still knew about the world.

Once downstairs, she headed to the man behind the bar to settle her bill. There was another individual, about twenty-five years old, from Carol Anne’s figuring, pestering the barkeep with questions.

“What did he order?” the stranger asked.

“How should I know?” the barkeep responded. “Whiskey? What else is there?”

“Did he order any food? Did he talk to anyone?”

“Sir, I just tend the bar. I don’t make a habit outta listenin’ in on the patrons’ conversations. So I don’t know if--” he cut himself off when he noticed Carol Anne.

“Actually, he spoke with that young lady over there, if memory serves.”

The stranger turned to see where the barkeep was looking and his eyes lit up when he saw her. Carol Anne slowed her gait slightly, uneasy with all this new attention, this early in the morning. The stranger lifted his hands in a placating gesture and took a step back. “Please, don’t be afraid, miss. I’m a friend. This fine fellow here tells me you had a conversation with a man last night. Is this true?”

Carol Anne felt trapped. Everything her daddy had ever taught her told her to run straight for the door and not look back. But she still owed the barkeep her two dollars for the room. She might have been just fourteen, but she was no skinflint. She faced the stranger, reminding herself that she had a knife in her boot, should she need it.

“That’s right,” she said. “I did.”

The stranger motioned to a table (the same one from last night, in fact) and asked her to sit. Carol Anne hesitated, then looked to the barkeep.

“It’s okay, miss,” the barkeep said. “I’ll be right here.”

She nodded and sat down, taking the seat facing the door. The stranger seemed excited. Carol Anne couldn’t see what the big deal was. It was just a conversation with a silly old liar, but it seemed to this man to be the most important event in recent history.

“I suppose I should begin by telling you my name, and explaining my mission,” the stranger said. Carol Anne noticed he had that same odd way of talking as the old man had, the night before.

“Alright.”

“My name is Corben Herodotus Wilmington. You can call me by any or all of those names. My friends call me Corben, so might I suggest that?”

“Well, hello, Mr. Wilmington. My name is Carol Anne MacMillan. I don’t really have too many friends, but people call me Carol Anne.”

Mr. Wilmington smiled. “Wonderful. It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss MacMillan.”

Despite herself, Carol Anne giggled. “Okay, I’ll call you Corben.”

“Good choice, Carol Anne. Now, I’m here because I’m looking for someone. A friend of mine, who I haven’t seen in over a year. I’ve been looking for this friend everywhere. I won’t go into too great of detail, but I have reason to believe he is in this area. And I think--”

“That your friend is the man I talked to last night.”

“That’s right!”

“Why do you think that?” Carol Anne asked.

“Well, this friend of mine, he’s a little…different. He’s a great man, but he never really fits in anywhere he goes. You understand?”

“Yes, I do.”

“So, the first thing I do, whenever I get to a new place where I think he might have been, is I check with the local law enforcement, to see if anyone has reported a run-in with a bizarre fellow. I did just that, only a few minutes ago, in the sheriff’s office, and I saw the notice on the wall. A man going around town, claiming credit for a deadly fire from fifteen years ago? That sounds like my friend.”

“You think that man really did burn down that town?”

“No, I do not.”

Carol Anne deflated. She felt bad, once she realized that she had been hoping the old man’s story had been true, but she didn’t like feeling like a fool. Those people were all dead anyway.

“But,” Corben continued, “it is just like him to say he did. A confession is a symbolic act, a false one especially so.”

“Symbolic?” Carol Anne said. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you know what symbols are?”

Carol Anne rolled her eyes. “Of course I know what symbols are, Mr. Wilmington.”

Corben laughed. “So, we’re back to that, are we? Of course you know what they are. Except you don’t their true power. Almost nobody knows that.”

“Huh?” Her daddy scolded her when she said “huh,” but she couldn’t always help it.

“It’s kind of complicated, and not suitable talk for so early in the morning. All I need to know, then I’ll be on my way, is where the man you talked to last night went.”

“He said he was staying at an abandoned homestead west of here. A few hours’ ride. It’s really more like four.”

“He told you exactly where it was?”

“No, but he didn’t have to. I myself live in that general area. I know what place he was talking about. Take the main road west, until you come to a crossroads, then turn right and continue for three miles.”

Corben said, “Did you tell this to the sheriff?”

Carol Anne shook her head. “I meant to, but I forgot. He wasn’t taking me very seriously, so I figured he would have just laughed it off.”

Corben beamed. “Well, I won’t make that mistake. Thank you, Miss MacMillan. You have been a great help. Please, if you have not yet paid for last night’s room, allow me to do so for you.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary, sir,” Carol Anne said. She had the money, and she didn’t feel as though she had earned this man’s charity.

She had expected Corben to insist, but he did not. “Very well. I’ll be on my way, then. Ever westward, or so they say.”

He got up from the table and left the saloon. Carol Anne returned to the bar to pay her bill. “Strange fellow,” the barkeep said.

“Seem to be a lot of those out at the moment,” Carol Anne said. She packed her horse with the supplies she had purchased the day before and set out for home. She was headed west too. Not wanting to encounter the disorienting Mr. Wilmington on the main road, she decided she would take the shortcut following the horse trail through the nearby woods. It made for slightly rougher riding, but it offered anonymity, with the added benefit of being a quicker shot through the valley, as opposed to around the mountain.

Corben trotted west, feeling better than he had in months. It had been quite some since he had been this hot on the professor’s trail, and the excitement thrummed through him like a tuning fork. Of course, the girl did not explicitly name the professor in her recollection, but Corben had no doubt the man she had met was him. Just like Dr. Lewisford, to confess to a crime he did not commit, to a child too young to have heard about it. It was perfect in its message: the past never leaves those of us who experience it, but the future knows nothing and cares nothing for our burden. A simple lie, told with crafty strategy to the perfectly selected listener, revealing deep truths about the human condition. Almost Socratic, in its brilliance.

He was the only one who really understood what Dr. Lewisford had been saying, back at the university. Even Corben’s own father, himself an educated man, could only shake his head when his son tried explaining it. Nobody grasped the central concept. Well, nobody except Corben, for whom it made perfect sense. It had admittedly taken a little while for it to lodge itself in place in his consciousness, but once it had done so he was almost ashamed that it had never occurred to him before. It was so obvious, it was difficult to remember a time before he knew it.

But one student was not enough. Corben alone could not stand against the voices at the university who declared the professor deranged, or misguided, or (most heinous of all) boring.

Lewisford had been a wartime hire, his predecessor having gotten himself blown up fighting the Spanish, and he had played his cards close to his vest, for the first few semesters. Gradually, once every few lectures, he would hint at something beyond the subject matter, something mysterious and powerful. These teases usually went unheeded, so before long he started revealing more and more. Finally, one fateful day in March of 1900, he just came out and said it. Laid his hand on the table, for all to see.

And see they did. Corben had been in that session, and he left that day agreeing with most of his classmates, that the old man had lost his mind, or at the very least was hilariously unqualified to teach. But he was unable to stop thinking about what Lewisford had told them. It kept picking away at him, as if his mind was enveloped in a sort of film, and Lewisford’s lecture had succeeded in ripping up the first corner. Then one day, seemingly out of the blue, the revelation hit, and that film was torn off, discarded like a dead snakeskin, and a new version of himself had emerged. Not only was the professor not deranged, he was in fact the only sane mind in the entire university. The entire region, perhaps.

But the dunces had their way, nonetheless. Lewisford was fired and subsequently laughed out of town. Corben argued furiously with anyone who would listen that they were making a mistake, that by dismissing the professor they were throwing away the most beautiful gift they were ever likely to receive, but they would not listen. It had taken almost no time at all for disdain towards Lewisford to spread like a disease throughout the university, and once everyone else was infected, they became immune to logic. So in solidarity Corben left the school as well. It was, after all, a place of learning. If they denied him the chance to learn from this man, he would have to do so on his own.

“I’m going west,” Lewisford had said, when Corben asked him what he was going to do. “It’s really the best place for me, once you think about it.”

Corben had thought about it and realized the old man was right. “It is! What could be more symbolic?”

Lewisford had smiled, and Corben never forgot what he said next. “Exactly. The American west is the only remaining location where simply existing still means something.”

The professor left the next day, thinking nothing of getting his affairs in order. Corben did not have this luxury, so it was a few weeks before he was able to move out of his university dormitory. He knew he was going to follow Lewisford west, into the still wild country, but he had no idea of how to find him. For the past thirteen months, funded by his supportive father’s publishing fortune, he had been travelling from town to town, interrogating citizens and investigating odd occurrences. With every step towards the Pacific, he shrugged off another piece of the civilization he had known, like a dancer in a burlesque, a glove here, a scarf there. And with every step he felt a new meaning, a stronger purpose.

He would find the professor, and together they would educate the world.

That horse could really move, when it wanted to. The problem was that his moods rarely coincided with Carol Anne’s. There were times when she would try everything her daddy had ever told her to get it going: whipping at the reins, squeezing with her hips, making that funny clicking noise with the side of her mouth, and he just refused to budge. Then there were times when he would jolt off like a flash of lightning, making no consideration for his rider’s whereabouts or well-being. Carol Anne was no slouch in the saddle, but she wasn’t always a match for the beast’s ferocity. So now here she was, traipsing on foot through the rough trail, screaming her head off, trying to at least see where the demon had run off to.

Once she made it through the thickest part of the woods, she was able to take in a better view of her surroundings. The main road was in front of her, with the mountain directly to her right. She allowed herself a quick glance behind her, but she knew that if Jelly Bean was anywhere, it wouldn’t be back in the trees.

She was going to need help. With the speed at which he ran off, there was no way she was going to be able to catch up on foot. Fortunately, as she finally got herself situated along the dirt road, she saw the figure of a rider quickly approaching. Remembering, once again, the knife in her boot, she threw a smile on her face and her hands in the air.

Corben slowed his horse to a saunter as he saw the person attempting to flag him down. From this far away, he couldn’t be entirely sure, but he thought it just might be the girl from the saloon, Miss MacMillan. He shook the notion off, disregarding it as too coincidental. Wouldn’t that be something, though? At least it would make for an interesting story.

“Oh, lord,” Carol Anne said to herself, as she realized who she had been waving at. The one person she had been trying to avoid, in the whole world, was the only person around for miles. Well, there was no use in complaining. That wouldn’t bring Jelly Bean back. She tried her best to hide her disappointment as the man from the saloon, Mr. Wilmington, rode up beside her.

“Miss MacMillan?” Corben said. “Good heavens, it is you! What a coincidence!”

“Yes, truly a marvel.”

“What in the world are you doing? Don’t you have a horse to ride?”

“Well, yes and no, Mr. Wilmington. Jelly Bean took off. Got spooked by something on the trail and went wild. He tossed me and shot off I don’t know where.”

“Oh, no! Do you want me to give you a ride back to town?”

Carol Anne sighed. “No, thank you. I’m fairly certain he knows his way back home, at least in a general sense, so we might as well start heading in that direction.”

“Very well. Hop on.” Corben extended his hand. Carol Anne took it and climbed on behind him.

“Just keep going down the road this way,” she said, “I’ll keep an eye out for that darn horse.”

“Of course.” They sped to a slow trot, and were silent for a time, each taking in the oddity of the moment. After several minutes, Corben said, “How exactly did you get so far ahead of me? I left the saloon before you did, but it looks like you’ve been searching for Jelly Bean for some while now.”

“There’s a trail, passes through the valley. A shortcut. I was anxious to get home, and I…” she trailed off.

“You wanted to be alone.”

“Yes.”

“I understand the feeling. I myself have been alone for most of the last year, and usually, I find it preferable to being among others. Sometimes, you crave a crowd, but sometimes it is the last thing you want.”

“Yes, sir,” Carol Anne said.

“Corben,” Corben said.

“Yes, Corben.”

“Anyway, I’ll stop talking now, if that’s what you want.”

“No, it’s fine. I won’t stop you.”

“Good. If I think of anything to say, I’ll be sure to say it.”

Carol Anne laughed. She looked in every direction for Jelly Bean, but could see no trace of him.

“Now, I’ve told you five times, Daniel. You’re barkin’ up the wrong tree, here. There’s nothin’ to that man’s story.”

“And I’ve now told you six times, Sheriff, that I didn’t ask for your opinion, just where the bastard went.”

The sheriff shook his head. He had had a notion it would be a bad idea to hang that poster, but he could not have predicted it would cause him so much trouble, in so little time. Already, that foppish dandy intellectual had come in asking all sorts of strange questions, and now he had Daniel de Havilland doing his best to rile up a posse. All over a fire from a different state over a decade ago, and some loon who claimed to have started it. He glanced at the clock, wondering just where in the hell Tyler was, then sighed when he remembered that Tyler was still in the infirmary, recovering from that snake bite. “I don’t know where he went, Daniel, like I said, because I never met the fella. You’re gettin’ all worked up on account ‘a the words of a fourteen-year-old girl.”

“I don’t care if you heard it from the ghost of John Wilkes Booth,” de Havilland said. The three other guys behind him laughed at that. “You’re gonna tell me what I wanna know, Sheriff.”

“Why are you so angry at this man? What’s so special about him?”

Daniel de Havilland leaned in real close, over the sheriff’s desk, until their faces were only a few inches apart. The sheriff could smell whiskey on his breath. And not even yet noon. “I ever tell you my mother died in the Littlebuck fire?” Daniel said.

The sheriff scooted his chair back a few feet. “No, you never did.”

“Well, she did. Burned up right in her bed. Never even had a chance to make for the door.”

“Jesus, Daniel, I’m sorry.”

“Nothin’ for you to be sorry about, sheriff. You didn’t do it.”

“Daniel,” the sheriff said, “nobody did it. It was an accident.”

“Horseshit!” de Havilland screamed, flailing his arms and knocking all the papers off the sheriff’s desk.

In a blur, the sheriff stood up and placed his hand on the gun at his hip. He stared in de Havilland’s eyes for a few seconds, then softened. “Now, Daniel, I’m gonna let that slide, on account ‘a what you just told me, but you know better than to be startin’ somethin’ in here.”

De Havilland appeared almost startled by what he had done. He looked down at his hands as if they belonged to someone else. His head sagged and he began to cry. The sheriff and de Havilland’s three friends shared surreptitious glances with one another, each too embarrassed to move.

De Havilland muttered something too silently for anyone to hear.

“What was that, Daniel?” the sheriff asked.

De Havilland sniffled. “I said, it was my twenty-seventh birthday.”

“What was? The fire?”

De Havilland nodded. “I had gone out huntin’ with my friends, and when we came back, the whole town was up in flames.”

“Jesus.”

“I made her somethin’. A turtle, carved outta some wood. I used to be good at that sorta thing. She never got it. It’s still sittin on my fireplace.”

The sheriff was more than a little unsettled by de Havilland’s demeanor. Here was a man he had known to be a pillar of the community, reduced to a pathetic child, at the single mention of this event from the past. But the main concern right now was getting him out of the station and into a bed to sleep his condition off. He motioned silently to de Havilland’s would-be posse, and they led their friend out the door by his arms, like a woman in church, overcome by the holy spirit.

After over two hours of nothing, Carol Anne finally caught a glimpse of Jelly Bean making his way up a steep hill, several hundred yards ahead of them. Corben had to squint in the direction she was pointing, and even then he could only make out a vaguely horse-shaped smudge inside the borders of his glasses. He sped their trot to a slow gallop, and trusted in the girl’s sharper vision.

When they made it to the top of the hill, Jelly Bean was waiting for them, as if he had never even bolted to begin with. Despite how angry she had been at the horse, Carol Anne smiled when she saw him. It wasn’t his fault she was too tiny to reel him in. She liked him the way he was, still all excitable, like a foal. She didn’t really want him to change; it gave her a chance to better herself. To catch up. She hopped off of Corben’s saddle and grabbed Jelly Bean’s reins before the silly creature decided to bolt again.

But instead of climbing on to him, she removed a tent stake and a six-foot-long length of rope from her saddlebags. She tied one end of the rope to the horn of her saddle, and the other end around the tent stake. Picking up a rock, she hammered the stake into the ground, securing Jelly Bean in place. Corben looked on in astonishment at the quiet skill of this maneuver. This was clearly not the first time the horse had run.

Carol Anne smiled up at Corben. “Thank you, Corben,” she said.

Corben tipped his derby hat like he had seen people do, and said, “My pleasure, Carol Anne.”

“I don’t have any money for you--”

“Not another word on that, ma’am. I was happy to help. Truly.”

“Sure. But I do have some food. I don’t know about you, but I’m mighty hungry, after all that. I’m more than willing to share.”

“Why, that sounds lovely!” Corben said. He dismounted his own horse, Homer. He didn’t have a means to hitch him to the ground, as Carol Anne had so deftly done with Jelly Bean, but Homer wasn’t much of a runner, anyhow.

They sat in the soft grass and began to eat. Corben had some crackers, and Carol Anne had some dried beef she had purchased in town. She offered some to her companion, but was denied.

“I don’t eat meat,” Corben said.

Carol Anne’s eyes nearly bulged out of her head. “You don’t eat meat?”

“No, I don’t. It…disagrees with me.”

“Like it makes you sick?”

“Yes, that’s right. Though I theorize it is a manifestation of my ideology, made tangible in my stomach.”

“Um…what?” Carol Anne said.

Corben smiled. “Forgive me. I sometimes forget that I’m no longer at the university. What I mean is that I have a moral objection to eating something which can feel pain, so, when I happen to eat, say, some dried beef, my mind punishes me by making me experience some of the pain of the animal.”

“Wow! Is that really possible?”

“Simply a theory. But I find it makes a certain amount of sense, don’t you?”

“I guess so. Oh! Do you mind if I have some? I don’t want to be rude.”

“No, no, by all means. I would never impose my ideals upon another person, especially when I myself am so often less than diligent in my own adherence.”

“You talk like him,” Carol Anne said, without even thinking. She had hoped to avoid talking about the man from the saloon, but their similar speech had been too obvious to ignore.

“You mean like my friend, who you had the pleasure of meeting, last night?”

Carol Anne nodded. “Yes. You both talk funny.”

Corben smirked. “Funny?”

“Oh, Lord! Not in a bad way! Gosh, I’m sorry!”

Corben Laughed. “Calm down, Carol Anne. It’s perfectly fine. I know I don’t speak exactly the same as most people this far west. But, interestingly enough, where I’m from, we think that you all…talk funny.”

“Where are you from?”

“South Carolina, though even that is not accurate enough. My parents are both educated, and I was enrolled in university, until about a year ago. I am very much like most of my friends from back home, but we were nothing like the population at large. I guess wherever you go, you can find people who are like you, and people who are different.”

“Yes, that definitely seems to be the case. Is that why you’re looking for your friend? Because he’s like you?”

“Very astute, Carol Anne! Yes, I imagine ultimately that is the reason. He and I are alike, though while I am like a mere portion of him, he is like me and so much more.”

“What does that mean?”

“He was my teacher, back at my school. He’s the smartest man I have ever met.”

“Really?” Carol Anne said.

“Yes, really. Why, did you not find him to be all that intelligent?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that. He surely knew a lot of big words, so I could tell he was smart. But he confused me. When he talked.”

“How so?” Corben asked.

“It was like he wasn’t really talking to me, if that makes sense. Like he was really talking to himself. I don’t know, you probably think I’m stupid. Daddy always tells me I think too hard about things. He says if I think any harder, I’m liable to pop something.”

They both laughed. Corben took the time to wipe his glasses on his shirt. When he put them back on his face, though, he got serious. “Don’t you ever let anyone, not even your father, tell you to stop thinking hard. It’s a precious few of us who can even do that, already. We can’t afford to lose any more of our number to negative influence. I’ve been thinking hard all my life, and everything I have is as of yet un-popped.”

Carol Anne couldn’t explain what happened to her, when Corben said this. She felt a tingling, on the back of her neck, and the little hairs there stood up on end. The boundaries of her vision became fuzzy, but somehow she knew she would remember this moment for the rest of her life. Having no idea how long she had sat silent and motionless, she finally managed to say, “Alright. I’ll try.”

“Good. That’s all any of us can do. Anyway, what did he say (either to you or to himself) that confused you? Perhaps I can better explain it.”

“Well, he told me he burned down that town. But you know that already. That didn’t confuse me, but it scared me a little. And now that you and the sheriff both say he was lying, well, I guess it is confusing, all over again.”

“Yes. And don’t worry, you’re not alone. He’s confused almost everybody he’s ever come in contact with. Even confused me, at first. But I’m not confused anymore.”

“So why would he lie to me about the fire?”

“He wasn’t lying to you as much as telling you a story,” Corben said.

“What’s the difference?”

“Well, you lie to someone when you want to get away with something, or somehow hurt someone else. You tell a story when you have something to say.”

“And what did he have to say, by telling me he started a fire I had never heard of?”

“That’s for you to decide. What do you think he was trying to say?”

Carol Anne thought for a moment but came up with nothing. “I don’t know.”

“That’s perfectly acceptable,” Corben said. “There’s no deadline with things like this. Maybe it’ll come to you later. Besides the story about the fire, what did he say?”

“He said that he had to do it. Start the fire. That he didn’t have a choice.”

Corben perked up at this. “Fascinating! That’s something to consider. Fate, and all that.”

Carol Anne said, “Well, I asked him what he meant, and he said that the world was like a big factory, and even though we think we’re the boss, we’re more like…oh, what did he say….oh! He said we’re actually another lever for the man to pull. What did he mean by that?”

“He meant that we’re all characters in a much larger story being written by someone else.”

“Who?” Carol Anne asked. She was interested, now.

“God, maybe, or somebody no one’s ever heard of. But his point was that we are more helpless than we like to think. We are not in charge of things. But I’ll let you in on a little secret: there are ways to change that. To take charge, so to speak.”

“How?”

“By doing exactly what he did, with you.”

“By lying? Or, telling stories?”

“By participating in symbolic acts. If the world is a big story (and that’s the real secret, here), it makes sense. Stories congregate around symbols. They rely upon symbols and other rhetorical devices to make their point. In most cases, the prevailing symbol of a story overshadows everything else, even most of the plot. So, it stands to reason that if we are living inside a story, we can gain control over it by…becoming the prevailing symbol.”

“I don’t understand,” Carol Anne said.

“No problem. Let me try to explain it another, more straightforward way. For several thousand years now, people have recorded the grand events of history. But sometimes, the person writing down the account changes it, to make it, say, more interesting, or to assert an argument. What we now have is this strange combination of fact and fiction. Some of those things really happened, some didn’t, but it is often very difficult to determine which is which. So, when people start basing their lives on these histories, when they start letting them influence their thinking, they are creating a mindset built upon equal parts truth and fantasy. Are you with me so far?”

“Yes, Corben. I think I am.” And surprisingly, she was.

“Excellent. Now, when you have this mindset, you are conditioned to perpetuate it. To keep it going. So, if you are given two choices, you are likely to make the one that seems more aligned with the events from the histories you have read. You pick the fantastical, and it becomes real. With each instance of this, our world has become more like the stories. This has happened so many times, over the course of so many years, that now our world actually runs on the literary rules generally applied only to fiction. We have made the truth false and the false true. Therefore, those who understand those rules have become those most likely to exploit them, and by doing so, they gain power.”

Carol Anne cleared her throat. “So, it’s really just another way of looking at the world. That doesn’t seem so ridiculous.”

“Precisely! If only those buffoons at the university were as smart as you!”

Carol Anne blushed.

Corben continued. “But that explanation is merely a layman’s justification for a concept which I consider much more difficult to understand. Where it gets confusing, even for me, is when I consider whether this truly is a result of human storytelling, or if it is the innate state of being.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve been considering the idea that these stories exist in potential, even before we write them down or put them into action. Maybe, instead of us allowing them to simply guide us in our decisions, maybe they create the circumstances that allow for them to become real. Is it a mere coincidence that red blood splattered on white marble is the perfect image to represent the fall of Rome? The chaos, encroaching upon the clean order? What are the odds, that that perfect image can converge with reality? Sometimes I wonder whether we are writing the stories or if the stories are writing us.”

“Get up, lunger,” Daniel de Havilland said. “I ain’t gonna hurt you. Christ, I’m only asking you a question.”

The man was practically an invalid, unable to move without outside assistance. But when de Havilland and his friends barged through the door, the sick bastard shot out of his bed like a jackrabbit, ran for the shotgun mounted above the mantle, and promptly fell down, exhausted. Now he was wheezing loud enough to raise the dead and shaking like a drunk after two days dry. De Havilland reached down to help him up, but he only jumped at the touch.

“Fine, have it your way. Stay down there,” de Havilland said. “Like I said, we’re only talkin’ here. Now tell me, when’s the last time you was in town?”

The lunger muttered something unintelligible and shook his head “no.”

“What’s that mean?” de Havilland asked. “A couple ‘a days? A week?”

“Y-y-years,” the man managed. “Water.”

“What?”

The lunger tried, but he couldn’t repeat what he had said.

“I think he wants some water, Dan,” one of de Havilland’s friends said.

The lunger nodded.

“Well, then go get him some, Joseph.”

To the lunger, Joseph yelled, “Where do you keep your water?”

De Havilland flinched. “For God’s sake, Joseph, the man’s sick, not deaf!”

The lunger pointed to the nearest window and rasped, “Well.”

Joseph went outside for a minute and returned with a bucket of water. He crouched down and handed the ill man the ladle, letting him drink. After a few gulps, he was able to speak a little better.

“I haven’t been in town in, oh, about two, two and a half years.”

“You been sick that whole time?” de Havilland asked.

The man nodded. “Just can’t seem to break it.”

“So how do you get supplies? Food? This ranch don’t look like it gives you shit.”

“Daughter.”

“And where’s she, right now?”

“Town.”

“Well, damn.”

“Why are you here? What did you wanna ask me?”

“There was a fella in town, just yesterday. I’m lookin’ for him. Barkeep’s a friend of mine, and he told me he overheard the man tell some fine young thing he was stayin’ in an abandoned homestead in this area. Then imagine my surprise when I make it all the way out here, and here you are, all by your lonesome, with some excuse about bein’ sick, and your daughter just happens to be out.” De Havilland raised his rifle and primed it.

The lunger shook his head. “I swear! I’m tellin’ you the truth!”

“Bullshit,” de Havilland said.

“God’s honest! Does this place look--” he coughed for a few seconds-- “abandoned to you?”

Joseph looked around the house. “He’s got a point, Dan,” he said. “It does seem like someone lives here.” De Havilland turned and glared at him.

The lunger threw his hands up to his face. “He probably meant that place a few miles north of here, on the ridge! It’s stood empty, ever since that German family left.”

“German family?” de Havilland said. “What was that?”

“Yes. Fitzle…Fitzleheid--somethin’. Only met them just the once, when they first moved to the area, about around four or five years ago. But my daughter heard news that they left, a month or so back. So their place is likely empty.”

“Could be our man is hidin’ out there, Dan,” Joseph said. “That turnoff we passed led to the ridge.”

“Yes it did,” de Havilland said. “Come on, let’s go check it out.” He turned to leave, then turned back and raised the rifle once more. “But if I find out you was lyin’ to me, you son of a bitch, I’ll tie you up and feed you to the wolves.”

The posse departed, leaving the broken fool crumpled on the floor.

It had been a somewhat quiet ride down off the hill. Corben seemed to have retreated into himself after their conversation, and that was okay with Carol Anne. She didn’t understand what was so controversial about what Corben’s teacher had told him; it didn’t make any sense that a man would lose his job for saying it. Actually, Carol Anne always used to pretend she was in the books her mother used to read her, growing up, as she figured everybody did, at one point or another. It seemed to her that there were crazier things to believe, than that the world is a big story. But people in universities had their own ideas of what was crazy, she supposed, and she would probably never get to hear them.

It was childish, she decided. Corben’s theory. And that was probably what got all those other people so upset. But there were crazier things than being childish, too. The things adults believed didn’t always make any more sense. But adults didn’t like feeling childish. Lord knew she didn’t.

After another hour, they arrived at a crossroads.

“Well,” Carol Anne said, “my home is to the left, just a little bit down the road. To the right a few miles is the place he told me he was going to be.”

Once again, Corben tipped his hat. “And this, Carol Anne, is goodbye, I think.”

Carol Anne smiled. “I guess so, Corben. Good luck. I hope you find your friend.”

“Oh, I have no doubt I will. After all, that makes for a better story, don’t you think?” And with that, Corben trotted away, into the already setting sun.

Carol Anne found her daddy on the floor, struggling with all his might to make it back to his bed. He had expelled many days’ worth of energy when he ran for the gun, and it showed. Carol Anne hadn’t seen him this bad in quite some time. She helped him back to his bed and demanded to know what happened.

“Some folks from town,” he managed, his raspy voice nearly gone.

“My lord! What did they want?”

Her daddy motioned to the half-empty water bucket on the floor. She got it and scooped some water into his mouth. “Lookin’ for someone,” he said.

A chill ran up Carol Anne’s spine. She couldn’t explain how, but right then she knew that the person those villains had come searching for was none other than Corben’s friend. “What did you tell them?” she asked, though she had already guessed the answer.

“Told ‘em the only place they’d be liable to find anyone around here was the homestead up the ridge. Where that family had lived.”

Corben could see the smoke before the house. His first thought was that the homestead must indeed be inhabited, if there was smoke coming from the chimney. But then he reconsidered what he was seeing. What had started as a thin stream soon became a thick, billowing cloud, and it had turned shade, from the pale gray of a cooking fire to something more heavy and opaque. The house was on fire.

Once atop the ridge he kicked Homer into a gallop and rushed ahead, unworried about the slippery terrain or the lack of visibility. There was no question that Dr. Lewisford was inside the burning building. It was far too ironic; the universe would not miss such an opportunity.

Once he got within fifty yards of the fire, he saw, for the first time, the silhouettes of of several people, climbing on to their horses. Why weren’t they helping the professor? No matter, he would fly right past them and save Dr. Lewisford himself.

A shot rang out. Reflexively, Corben yanked on Homer’s reins and came to a stop. It was hard to see, with the fire burning behind them, but it looked like one of the men was pointing a rifle right at him.

“My word, what is going on?” Corben yelled.

“Justice,” the man said. “I don’t know who you are, but you stay right where you’re at. I’ve been waiting fifteen years for this moment, and you will let me have it.”

“What do you mean? There is a man in there, dying!”

“Yeah, that’s kinda the point. Wanna join him?”

Corben tried to get Homer going again, but one of the other men pulled his own gun and trained it on him. “Was you not listening?”

“You have to let me pass,” Corben said. “There’s been a misunderstanding.” There was the loud shattering report of a window breaking. The professor didn’t have long.

The big man in the middle laughed. “No, I understand just fine.”

Behind the posse, Corben could just make out the figure of a rider-less horse, running around the burning house like a stallion gone mad. He couldn’t be exactly sure, but… “Jelly Bean?” he said.

“Just what in the hell--” a shot rang out, this time from behind Corben, back on the ridge.

“Daniel de Havilland!” a voice yelled. “Give it up! Let the dandy go! We got you and your friends surrounded!”

“Aw, shit,” the man, presumably the one named de Havilland, said, lowering his rifle and whipping at the reins. The four men ran past Corben like a gust of wind, leaving him alone to watch as the flames finally started to bring the wooden house down. Though he wasn’t alone, because if Jelly Bean was here, that meant….

Carol Anne thought she was going to go unconscious this time. When that man let loose with that rifle crack, Jelly Bean practically jumped out of his own skin, and she fell farther than usual, landing with a powerful “thunk,” almost all of her weight on the back of her head. She would have a lump there tomorrow, that was for sure, but now she had to get to her feet and find a way inside the burning house. There was no back door, and she didn’t want to risk going around the front and being seen, so she decided she would smash through one of the windows on the side of the building with a rock and climb through. Once she did this, the flames took on a greater intensity, like they had been wanting all along to get outside. She waited a second while a huge burst of smoke shot out then gathered herself and hoisted her way through the window.

Her dress got caught on some of the broken glass, but when she kicked her second leg over the sill, the fabric tore loose and she was able to drop to the ground unhindered. It was a small cabin, only one room, and it was as hot as she knew anything could get. In the middle of the floor was the man from the saloon the night before, gagged and hogtied, flopping around like a fish out of water, now that he had noticed Carol Anne.

Something was happening outside. She heard another gun shot, and now a man was yelling words she couldn’t make out. She prayed nothing had happened to Corben.

She didn’t know what to do. Her hope had been that she would have been able to help him out, to support some of his weight on her shoulder while he walked, like she always did when helping her daddy. But she wasn’t strong enough to pick this man up, and there was no clear path drag him all bundled up like that. She felt defeated. It had been a good story, up till now, it just didn’t seem fair that it would end like this. She considered her options and became mortified at the realization that she was going to have to barge out the front door, leaving this man to burn to death inside. But what else was she going to do? It wasn’t like she was going to give up the fight herself. She was only fourteen. A little more mature than she had any right to be, sure, but still so young. She was not going to let herself die here.

She looked down at the man and said, “I’m sorry.”

His eyes bulged, and he started flopping around all the more furiously, now making a screeching moan through his gag that was sure to give Carol Anne nightmares for the rest of her life. She turned towards the door and felt something rub up against her foot, inside her boot. It took a second for her to realize what it was, and once she did she felt like an idiot for not thinking of it right from the start.

The knife in her boot.

She kicked her boot off and reached in to grab the knife. She dropped down to the man from the saloon and began sawing back and forth on the rope binding his hands to his legs. After several seconds, she broke through and the man was able to stand up. Without even glancing in Carol Anne’s direction, he burst through the front door and collapsed in the grass. Carol Anne joined him, and was relieved to find that while the four men who had attacked her daddy were gone, Corben was still there.

Corben dismounted his horse and ran to the collapsed man. Without taking the time to do anything else, he started dragging the man along the grass until they were a safe distance from the fire. In all the tumult, he hadn’t really allowed himself to consider the fact that he had done it. He had completed his mission. He exhaled and looked down.

Into the face of a stranger. This man was not Dr. Lewisford. Corben had never seen him before in his life. A number of thoughts ran thoughts ran through Corben’s mind, culminating in the realization that Carol Anne had in all likelihood actually rescued the man who burned down Littlebuck, Kansas.

He wanted to be angry at this development of the plot, but he found that he could not. He simply found it interesting. This story was not over, after all.

Carol Anne hobbled up to him, wearing only one boot. “We did it,” she said.

“No, you did it, Carol Anne. All I did was get held up. What are you even doing here?”

“Those men questioned my daddy before they came this way. He told them about this place, just as I had told you. I knew you were headed into trouble.”

“So you came to rescue me?” Corben said, smiling.

“I don’t know if I thought that far ahead,” Carol Anne said, “but I couldn’t just do nothing. I mean, what kind of story would that be, anyway?”

“A very bleak one, it’s true.”

Carol Anne looked down at the man from the saloon, who was still unconscious. “Is your friend okay?”

Corben burst out laughing. “I don’t know.” He turned and walked to his horse and climbed on.

“What’s so funny, Corben?”

Corben rode up to her and extended his hand. Still laughing, he said, “Hop on, I’ll explain on the way.”

“The way where?” Carol Anne asked.

“To track down that darn horse of yours, of course.”

They rode off, letting the fire light their way.