Remembering Arthur Mendington

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Silver City, New Mexico

1872

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Is it true? Can such a man exist, so abominable, so frightening, so broad-shouldered as to be invincible? Perhaps most of all, can one wander the rolling fields of earth in a state so stupid, so dumb, so utterly incognizant? Weakness, this is to be forged hard; ignorance, this is to be taught to. But when the oppos’d sisters, strength and stupidity—and her son, madness—combine to enter the fray, we must feel fear, for their accursed spells inflict wildness into unsuspecting souls, and destroy without reservation. It is in this briny toxin that the insufferable and contemptuous Arthur Mendington was first assembled, first slouched off to be born; and in it, he has stewed and marinated for a near two scores. It is said, now for it, that his eyes have turned a putrid cactoid green—their own whites! A towering man, it is said—bigger than any range of standing coyotes on their toes that may exist. His hair stands up, it too is said, for he rubs pomade in it until it is harder than the original helmets of the Conquistadors. All true!—yes, all true! 

Peace, peace now, here he comes…

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I

A Flitting, Prefatory Narration on the Virtuous and Fated Emergence of Arthur Mendington

Our impending tale is one already known in many annals and crevices of the world, most especially to all of the downtrodden and sullen peoples that walk the earth, slim and hueless in search of a savior to deliver them from their always hanging troubles. It is one infamous to those cart-packing napkin snatchers that wander their Tammany halls in search of problems to have hanging, too, the spectacle being disgust! In the various stone and florae mazes among us, yes, you will find him there. All of the details are more familiar than the quantity of canyons on one’s own knuckles—aye, but this is true only for the initiated, the crawlers of the soot houses. For you, my outsider, my ignorant stranger, an officiation remains in order. Your mind must be in the dirt, yes, submerged and electrified in mud, before you can begin to meet my hero, my knight, Arthur Mendington. This we will do.

It must first be related that this Mendington was not borne of the normal passages like you and I—no, too menial for one like him. He was gestated and shot out in a quick, decisive process no greater than the shortest of Februae—that is to say, a matter of three or four weeks; he could not wait to feel the earth and begin its liberation from forces of evil, yes! And so he was born no larger than a fine pebble, and just as smooth (and just as grey). From his first instance alive, he opened his eyes—free and blue—and wailed a triumphant, barbaric battle-cry, howling over the comings-up and trains of the world! Then he stood up, atop his mother’s palm, and began his first march and campaign, first of many. Having just sped out the wound, this babe of Hercules has found war in the air, its fleeting sense, and become infatuated in taste to it. His preeminent object of conquest: the dominion of the insects, inhabiting the casita that housed him. The roaches, like cockle shells in fortitude, how he crumbled them to meal, so quickly that he was not yet an hour old!

And so he grew upon the feasts, spoiling off of his repeated victory, all while his progenitors watched in awe, his father mildly blushful at the cheek, rubbing his legs together.

Before his first yellowmoon monsoon—for he teemed and festered in the north in those days, as only a great protoman could swing amongst the trees there—he had grown a full three feet in stature, and every surface built by the fallible lowlies that surrounded him creaked and groaned at the mere thought of supporting him and his iron flesh. Yet even one as great and busy-bodied as the young, infantile Mendington found time to participate in the loving of his mother, that ever-intelligent Mary, nurturing her in return with great gifts and prizes of unquestioning possession: the heads of bulls and their dismembered horns, trophied and stuffed already!

‘Fore long, the casita and its walls were covered in the vasculars and hides of great beasts, and all were well fed and provided for by the babe. Yet in the stomach of one began the obdurate hate that welled up inside, belonging to the senior Mendington, his own jealousy—a son of mere months stronger and more capable than he! Aye, assuredly an indictment on the man; it could not be helped. And so, in the middle of the darkest night, utterly starless and without blinking, his hatred burst out of his body, and in a great fight Mendington became embroiled. Having seen his own bearer of form reduced to such a state of animalism, our Arthur was revolted!

His father, erupting in tar-like malice, struck his son to no avail and, seeing his own life in flux, Mendington responded in tow—for it was the ultimate act of chivalry and strength to act in self defense. With the effortless flick, only meant to deter, he sent his own father, the man from whose loins he had only sprang some fuzzy year prior, crashing! With the force of a railcar he was hurled, and with such strength that the casita which had long been like the obsequious and overwhelmed burro, fell down in exhaustion. The great collapse of the Mendington estate, in all but spirit! And so, in the great rain-blotted dust clouds that clogged his vision, all was lost! But amidst the intervening, jagged splinters, our great and immutable Arthur was spared a right crushing, and pulled apart the rubble to his own salvation, all with less teeth than digits on his hands.

Such is then said that, alone and now an orphan, our boy (and eventual hero) lived off the land, a real Walden, a tradesman, an artisan! So virtuous was he, that he grew to a mighty seven meters on the sustenance of only berries, for defenseless animals he dared not slaughter (save for matters of pelt and sport, both within the exception of any well-reasoned and altogether sane gentleman). All of this, for he grew in strength—and degrees of manhood—as a method of resolve, for he saw what the powers of evil, and the dark paints of Lucifer, had reduced man to, and seeing so, would mount his true campaign: one on the offense, against these powers and their ceaseless swayings on man! O! Arthur, be our savior, and be true!

II

A Subsequent Narration of Arthur Mendington’s Righteous Entrance Into Silver City, for Purposes of Vanquishing the Forces of Evil and Attaining the Glory Therein

Even as far West as Captain John and James’ farm, and Chloride Flat, nothing stirred upon the ground or its boards, not a soul. And it was not just for morning, or for a scare-induced raid, or for a brief pause in the shooting and revelries which were commonplace; no, it was for a man, an ingenious man, a very glorious man.

It was Arthur Mendington; his tall tree legs loomed across the sunless, dull blanket of midday horizons, and for this coyoté of a man, there was nothing that could not afford to cease for but a moment, and watch, and bask. For this was a man unparalleled in strength, wit, and altogether prowess, and this we know!

And so our Arthur loomed into town, first encountering up close a striped man—the guard to the north—not just in garments but flesh, for he had a variety of leprous and otherwise rubeolic conditions that morphed him into more raisin than Sapien. He had patches of hair interspersed with pale little splotches, though they were quite lacking in comparison to the swooping, flaxen dunes that rested upon the scalp of that Mendington, as he approached on those legs of his. And so, Arthur opened his monologue to the unsuspecting, uncomprehending man—undeserving of the gentle variety—below him:

“Friend, dearest and unknown friend, dost thou, in me, obtain a glance at thy own fate? There is evil in the streets of this Silver City, unabated by hapless men like yourself! It is this, by royal and divine decree, which I seek to vanquish! As such, I, Mendington, squire and steward of these lands, have come to take thee in my arms as one of my—in lines of many—dutiful subjects, possessing from me all of the protections inherent to quiescence, and the many boundless rewards of submission! For these are not savage lands, I pray, you will have a say in this fate I have chosen for you. Now, answer me thus, dear friend!”

Unthinkingly, the poor, striped man replied, holding his pea shooter as if it were a rod befitting of Aaron: “What? I jist got this here job.”

Arthur paused for a moment, so taken aback was he by this affront to chivalry, this rejection of his kindness and projected mirth, for there were fountains of it!

“Why…only a mistake of the countenance! The beggar sees in his superior the light of the sun, and how stupefying that can be! I am an understanding paladin, my friend. Try again.” Our Arthur said.

“What?”

“Not a yes or no, least not in response to such kindness!”

“Ah! You’ve got mercury in ye, is it? We have a chemist, you know.”

“Ah, again, please!”

“Was your head hit by a mule, or something? It’s a little lumpy on the side, you know.”

Alas, for this guard’s faith, his last try had dawned and set on him yet. ‘Twas a shame, what then followed!

With great animation, our Arthur raised up from his holster a great flinger of lead, a short-tempered scattergun with the top sawed off, unpolished and creaky! And amidst undulating moans it rose from its chambers, in an ellipse from the hip of its deliverer, and with great fury he pulled the chamber, and wrested from it an abundance of pellets! And so the head of our striped-countenance guard burst with red like a squished pulp, and he was vanquished—the first of many treacherous obstacles to our Arthur Mendington to be cleared out with such agility!

***

From there, our figure of central admiration was thus unopposed in his entrance to the main square of his chosen object of salvation, Silver City: a plot of thick tents constructed off of pale linen, unanswered by any kind of road or cart, and only traversed on foot; even so, there was money in it, for veins struck underneath these poor little stick-peaks contained great silver, and in turn great value. Many lines of smoke came from the previously-alluded Chloride Flat, a small little hill up west. Though the place would be bustling with morning speculators and their scatter-feet pockets jingling with coin, upon this perfectly fine and temperate morning there was nothing of the sort to be seen! And why, but for they feared our Arthur and his unambiguous prowess, in all things, not the least looks! In the dew-blocked sun: his helmet-hair entirely solidified by petroleum-jelly, so as to be impenetrable and blond; his broad chainmail torso, too; and a face with the spots and scars of war, so as to make anybody swoon! Very pretty man!

From one of these many unremarkable, sagging tents, there emerged at the force of a violent push a little man, easy to mistake for a little insectoid scarab or grub, how purple and low he was, and on he started to our Mendington. It was with stumbles that his little stubs for legs scurried over, and he put a smile on his face, as anybody should!

And he started, “Ah, Arthur, O Arthur, p-p-please—” he sputtered, “it is great, truly great, to see you here! We have heard much about you, in the way of all transgressional legends. As…as such, we do hope to help you upon your quest, for we can assure you great feasts and bounties—yes!” 

This sniveling inferior to our Mendington, only growing more varicose and clotted by the word, quickly refrained out of breathlessness, perhaps in awe or shock at the unmoving stature of the man. 

Mendington returned, “Happily received, dear stranger! It is the marker of a good man, it is said, to be able to receive such a superior—being myself—in a way so kind, and absent of droll, unlike many others! You are too rare, friend, too rare. Now, anticipate my embrace!”

With zeal, our thankful hero took this sputtering man into his arms and up to his mailbreast, all the once ursine in grip and with human love. So much was this love, that from the exerted pressure, this weak-framed, knock knee representative of Silver City began to burst with vermillion  appreciation; this came first from the base extremities and traveled upwards with the bones and throbbing arteries—how much crackling there was, the electricity of camaraderie! He went limp soon after, and lay there in a congruous pool of embrace, bent a little.

Nobody else in the sheltered teepees moved after, and Mendington went in search of his meal.

III

The Simultaneously Occurred, Treacherous Plot to Rid This Earth of Our Fearless Hero, Arthur Mendington

A young woman, a mercenary: “By heavens above, we never thought he’d get here!”

An elk-hunter: “Aye. This Mendington feller, what but a hatter.”

A speculator in weighted currencies: “Where is Truman? We sent him out a quart-hour ago! Did he greet Mendington properly?”

A seamstress: “I heard crunching. I fear the worst—squash! Have we considered a cannon?”

Voices sounded off in unison and repetition amongst frightened misers and protomisers, huddled in veiled, checker-shadow darkness in a tent with plank floors, out of which had previously been pushed that (now ruptured) velvet tick of a man, much to Mendington’s related appreciation. That speculator, uniquely spindly and hawkish, turned up again with a suggestion only befitting of someone so creased: “We must lead him out of here, most favourably to his death. He risks our operations tenfold to his every minute spent! But how! He remains more meaty and with brawn than perhaps any fixture nailed to the earth! A confrontation, of direct opposition, cannot be afforded.”

The mercenary answered in mutters atypical: “That Mountain—Bear. If stranded up there, he’d surely die swiftly, and without repair.” 

That speculator: “I have hate for your rhyming and punning, but there’s merit to your proposal. That mountain is arid, dry like the south Sonora and all the higher…we simply must divert him.” He thumbed a worthless spanish reale, clipped and melted, not unlike scrap for an odd thirteen years.

And so, in that ashbox hued morning, this group of Pompeyan senators, relishing greedily in their underground filing, so vulturous, enacted an effort to topple that unendingly virtuous figure of hope, Arthur Mendington. Its articulate nature, in the sequel, will doubtless be related in such a way that one with the benignity of our figure of central admiration could not resist its scent!

IV

The (Belated) Departure of the Boundlessly Wise, Raunchy, and Sagacious Arthur Mendington

It was by high noon that the despicable cabal, comprised of the most ruthless and extractive scum of the city, fully conceived of their ultimate deception, and—having done so—retired in their blathering to at last find the man and divulge what he was to do for them. How disastrous, how odious!

It should not be omitted that though the nascent Silver City was sparse and primitive in its material circumstances, it was not without the necessities—those especially needed not just for survival, but for distraction and good feeling; the preeminent concern, mainly, being the building of a score-and-one saloons, equipped with brothels and the like for the derivation of pleasure. All of these degeneracies, what trifles to our Mendington, how easily avoided and stepped around they were! But, of course, the Lord, too, partook in that wine drinking, and thus all elevated beings and people, against purported hostilities, must stoop to partake in the vices of the lowly man and his patheticisms.

Knowing this—along with all things!—our deserving protagonist, having discovered the venerable Buckhorn Saloon, made his way to the bar, and ritualistically, to indulge his surroundings, partook in a drink; and another; and another; and another—and so generous was he, so willing to indulge this inferior culture of inebriation, that he continued to drink with generous obsequity and great rapidity. So much so, that upon that not far-removed hour when our troupe of deceivers wandered into that Buckhorn, its seediness and Yellow Jack efficacies so overwhelming and repugnant to the very atmosphere as to envelop and obscure them, Mendington had gone near pale and out! Unable to speak, that currency speculator—a man so monocoled that his skin was beginning to absorb and wrap around it like the living yeast—turned to me, me! (Yes, out of a humble inclination, I have hitherto neglected to mention my longstanding role as Mendington’s hired scribe, as to Jeremiah; it is really no significant matter, in fact, I consider it a service to the beloved peonies for which Arthur toils, and no more—now, on with it!)

“Excuse me, little scrivener you, is this man that you sit with, this…” he paused, as if to resist swallowing his tongue and choking himself with it, “admirable, genial fellow, is this Arthur Mendington?”

Before I could utter any response, I was spoken for by the roused-from-chloroform figure of my writings, who suddenly started, completely unaware of his surroundings, and, half-dazed, rose.

That elk-hunter, drawing from the rabble, cloaked in skins which he muzzled with his gruff chin, delivered the invocation to a rousing quest, “My Mendington, seems to me that a quest is what you need, one in Nay-ture and its boundless azure. We confess, we have been recently plighted by no small dra—”

Having grown quite annoyed at that hoarse buzzing that disturbed him from his cups, the restrained and mannered Mendington flapped around his sawed-off deliverer, and blew through the thick, wiry chest of that elk hunter in a manner which sent him flying out of the Buckhorn, past his observers and due witnesses.

All went silent and still, for even in a state of not ample teetotality, he smited, perhaps unwittingly, his kissing Judas. O!—an unintentional, humble genius, truly! Stumbling off the hard settee, made of little more than unprocessed bark, he grunted slowly as to inquire, or implore that eminent speculator, who now stood trembling, a small puddle of his fear beginning to pool underneath him. Thus, against all instinct, our speculator: “W-we are troubled!”

Mendington groaned inquisitively.

“Yes, troubled, indeed! Across our roads and atop that ever-present mountain—its stature having been witnessed by you, I’m sure—we call it Bear Mountain, there lay a formidable beast, a terrible dragon! It rests in intermittent slumbers and slaughters, and just soon it will come down to rain fire, not again! ‘What is to be done of this?’ We often wondered thus, knowing ourselves to be sorely lacking in the kind of hero now standing (er, stooping) before me. We implore—no, God—we beg you to rid us of this evil, this slayer of men which troubles us and turns us away from the bountiful gifts of the Lord!” Our speculator went on his knees now, and with supernatural control our Mendington, perhaps impressed by the ode, drove that dingy (and questionable) ethanol out of the vasculars entirely, at once restored to a sober and virtuous sort, his true state!

Having lightened up a good bit, our Mendington responded to the now-vibrating miser in tow: “Dearest informant, I am pleased to see you address my scribe! Please understand—he is not permitted to speak unless I formally release him from his vow—you understand. As for your query, your pitiful query, I have been predestined to accept! It is very well that I will smite your dragon, very well indeed; I will return with its limbs!”

In reply, our speculator: “Rejoice not quite, my admirable and ingenious sir, for there is a quibble, a wrinkle; no foodstuffs or refreshments must follow you up the mountain! The scents of the dragon are delicate, and, if roused prematurely, its wrath multiplies tenfold, and us toilers below will surely die! Travel light, friend, and forgo all sustenance.”

This being met by the valiant traveler, and in turn his scribe, myself: “Bah! I brought none anyway!” This was quite true! I had never seen, in my moons and cycles and almanac-pages leaved through, a man eat and drink so little as that famed Arthur Mendington, and yet become so brawny and wide with muscle as he, so ample in strength and manhood as to be like a Wall! Our figure was no braggart, no diddler, no swindler of confidence.

And so, Mendington and I, propelled by destiny and hirsute (Mendington was so, like the golden fields of Iowa at their tips) obligation, burst forth from that drab and unremarkable, and now blood and golden-fear-extract laden, Buckhorn Saloon, and off to the ultimate sally! Ultimate, though laden with deceit.

This deceit came not just in the superficial aspects hitherto related, but was present in strata unanticipated to both our dear Arthur and those who wished to rid themselves of him; it was that mercenary, that woman, who, being behind our so wide and matriculating speculator, said and did nothing, this was the real underhand, and I knew it, and nobody else did, because nobody paid any great attention to her. And for this remission of my existing humility as scribe, I am sorry, but it really is imperative: she had venom in her, real loathing of the true kind, not of the evil kind. For she hated so, in that dilated pupil, that it had truly gone distended and detached, so fattened with that malice, that it had turned perpendicular and angular, like those goat-headed ones. And perhaps there is an inclination to call her evil, but it would be a swindle to call it that, because it was not predatory. It was just that, an unfiltered malice, driven in bending shapes only to obscure itself behind flesh; only, a little had just betrayed itself, in front of me—the cloud having lost fit of the azure. She hated like the sun kiss’d and burn’d flesh, unthinkingly, and without better; us simply being the adverse, the supplicants. And I realized that maybe there really was a monster atop Silver City, and we didn’t see it. 

She was cracking a filled in craze-grin, too, with one bovine tooth. She had a skin disease. Leprosy. Little stripes, you know…

V

The Main Body: The Ascent of Arthur Mendington Upon That Bear Mountain to Vanquish Some Monsters or Other

It was a very silent and unremarkable little trek out of Silver City that our Mendington made, how focused and determined he was upon that goal of unburdening this little town of miners and misers. He puffed with every step, his corduroy fashions and their little buttons flinging and banging around his robust chainmail (forged and linked in Yucatán, so it is said), and we eclipsed in step some odd tents and places and boards and people, most of whom were self-miserable and a little aimless, until, of course, they saw our figure of admiration! Let’s get a start on our feet, though, as in the lovely maxims of Mendington, and to the foothills!

Ah! The foothills. Little places of green amongst sand, clamboring up the peak in a pilgrimage. Very lovely sight, yes, made the little less lovely by yet another approaching guard of these places, though this time with an additional queerness, for it was adorned in the odd royal purples, and altogether ample in felicities, though large, too large, surrounding us in its width quicker than a hare, so we could not escape!

It spoke not kindly, and with great reluctance, and a lifetime of disuse: “Get yer gold and silver from your annals and into my hands, kindly now. Quickly, too.”

And, graciously beyond any sort of compare, this guard turned robber was now possessed of our Arthur’s linked mail, and in a period quicker than any I had seen! But what good man indulges the vices of others? The best, aye, the best! Don’t fool yourself otherwise.

And, having been so generously robbed, our Mendington proceeded upwards upon the foremost rocks and gravels of the mountain, and for the first time, got a real look at the thing, the object of his quest, that path to further glory and benevolence! 

It was quite lumpish and green, a little like a mistreated cyst about the vertebrae, and all the more green for it! We would camouflage in it shortly, how naive we were to its natural inclinations, and the electricity of sand unabated by hydration!

So, into those patchwork forests of squat mulberry we went, all alone, and they were flush with fauna, orange, red, yellow, dancing and playing about the eye as in the plains of Cairo, removed from deserts. This density of life, the playful base kind, all full of geodes and tricks of the light, came further at the golden hour, and our steps filled with tire. Then, just by our stomps, a violet! So tranquil—broken just as quick by a pipsqueak screech from someplace, Mendington! Holding himself like a child in the face of the violet! A step, and then another, and before long, he had come across a full field of the stuff. I didn’t speak, of course, because I was not to, but perhaps I thought something like: why do you recoil from the innocuous and candy flowers? And he says back, though I could only begin to ascribe to this and never verbalize it, that he was afraid! Was this the same Mendington that had so courageously slain the miscreants of the globe; yes, you will see!

He then addressed me, ostensibly lovingly, bending down to my low level: “My friend… you’d agree, yes?” I agreed—he continued, “Well, having seen the field, and seen my repulsed movements, would you be so rational as to agree, by science, that I am just in my revulsion?” I agreed—he continued, “then, you must agree that it would not be irrational for me to step upon your shoulders, and you, who are not high enough to commend this revulsion that afflicts me, would carry me across this small field we have before ourselves—and if done, this would not be recorded in any of your writings, yes?”

I nodded.

“Then do so!” He commanded me.

I, at his behest, of course volunteered my stature for the deed! He then hoisted upon me, knees at the ear, groping my hair like the horn of the saddle, and whipping and whooping me according to the steed, and so I started! Galloping, we went, bounding across the field, much to the sound of his own yawps, a little bit barbaric.

And so we ran across that field, charging and going up and down, all the very victorious, indeed! It must here be remembered that our Mendington had consumed a blasphemous amount of drink earlier in the day, of all kinds (in a manner most indulgent and understanding to his surrounding cultures, of course, but the fact remains) and the effects, having passed through the brain, had gone to the stomach. As we trampled down those little flowers, rhythmically in the gyre of motion with me running, and his wild looks and whoops, the effects to the stomach began to crescendo, upwardly, out of the chamber and into the world…in rather large chunks. And so our figure of central admiration spewed the contents of his stomach (mostly liquid) across my shoulders, down the spine, and on my own countenance.

In shock, our Mendington was thrown down from his hoisted high-horse, into the violets, out of convulsions. Such a thing could never have been done voluntarily, of course, but as it now stood (or didn’t), our Arthur lay writhing amongst his newfound enemy, the violets, and me, covered in his internals, tripping on them. But glorious, still! Any hero not willing to get dirty, to feel fear, what hero are they? No kind, as far as Mendington or anybody else would be concerned—no kind at all!

“Oh! Oh! Ugh, ugh! Mean, mean, blasted things!” He would say, a little over and over again. And, just when the Fates had not yet punished our virtuous assailant enough, they sent upon him an even more dastardly enemy: goblins! (Well, not so much goblins as of the hairy, springy kind—jumping mice, to say, little mean five dollar pieces of work.) There were thousands of them, surely! Jumping and roving all across the fields of violets, their deceptive lairs! And in such moments, you must realize the prudentiality and prescience of the great Arthur Mendington, to fear something simpler men would never doubt! And even, then, in vomit, it was quite obvious—but discard that, now, our man is suffering!

In his emotive and wrathful rage, immobilized, he could, for about every dozen goblins (jumping mice) send one flying via the fist into the trees or that big sky, with so much moral strength!

And in a similar moral strength, Mendington found himself dragged out of that final stretch of violet pandemonium by that humble self-effacing scribe, myself! With a pull, one more, yes, another, he was expedited to safety! Very good news, very! And he huffed, and puffed, and though greatly subdued, hulked himself up. What a man! From the lowest, slingshotted to the highest, then and there! I wiped some more vomit off my shoulders.

***

We traveled but a few steps further, finally both on our feet, before arriving—at the golden hour—at our desired place of sojournment; a fire was not to be made, much too dry for that, and I, much too tired! Mendington, still with crusts of extracts on his lips, like any wizened warrior, requires rest, after all. And I the more, the lower. Little stray leaves and pieces of branch, fragments from gnawing and wind, snapped and moved and shuffled—there was nothing.

It was in that approaching darkness, unmitigated by camp or flame, that I saw that heaving form of Mendington, so sulking, so distant, across from me in his ambiguities, ten million fathoms across. Alone, half the trail up Bear Mountain, the cold set in, too; sleeping on the hardening mattress of dirt and pinprick needles, what then?

What is Arthur Mendington?

***

By and by, through trips in that land of Nod, morning came to us!

It was then that, as was usual in the folly of the powerless flesh, the season upon which we sat on the earth began to be regretted—Mendington, of course, displayed no such apprehension. But that summer air had no such reservations in expression, bearing down upon our figure of admiration in a way almost malignant. By the rise of the sun atop the meridian, we were quite close to being roasted alive, and in such thick and heavy rags, we could only begin to walk.

It is almost not worth remarking that inciting stretch of morning, for it really was quite acceptable, save for that clime, which we would surely survive and prosper in!

We were then, at last, interrupted by the intervening and thumping footsteps of—unbelievably—other humans. One here, another there, and before long they appeared at our gaze, two thin and stickly little people, one woman and one man, both as sane as they were well-fed, the ghosts in both of them. Behind them lagged a groaning wheelcart about the size of a small house. In their madness and melancholy, they would have strayed just past us, if not for the calls of our Mendington, seeking to restore them with aid and generosity: “Please, don’t depart so soon, prospective new comrades!” He stepped over a wandering finch and made it paste as he approached, “But stop and listen, new friends!” This at last captivated their attention, and the two figures, much to our later dismay, stopped and stared up at the towering man.

The woman, near balding with little strings for bangs, called out: “Do not stop us! We are on the pilgrimage up to the peak. Your worldly concerns, whatever they may be, don’t matter much to us!” An English country accent, astounding!

“And what would your purpose be atop Bear Mountain? Me and my humble scribe are on a campaign to vanquish the evil beast which rests there!” Our Mendington called back.

The man butted in: “Why, to build the first temple to Pluricordivelveteenism, of course. You didn’t know? Look at the cart, man!” Much the same delivery.

“What’s that? Pluricordivelveteenism? Paganism? Do you not know of the eminent threats to all living beings upon the top of that mountain. A dragon! You can’t go up there!” Our Mendington pleaded, wanting always to ensure the safety of his fellow man.

“Well what’s he on about? What Chaucer drivel is this?” Our woman went back.

“Don’t quite know, dearie…let’s just march on and join those other Pluricordivelveteenists at the top of the mount, waiting for us to start the construction of the temple.”

Our Mendington thus replied, “What is this Pluricordivelveteenism, my friends? I must stress my needing to obtain this information, for your fellow pagans may likely be dead, fried to crisps by the dragon which we seek to smite.”

“Pagans? You’re the pagans! Pluricordivelveteenism is the largest faith dedicated to the worshipping of corduroy that is offered in the world! It’s not my fault you can’t understand it—” the woman paused, “but what is that corded material which you’ve adorned yourself in? My god! Corded velveteen! Corduroy! Strip him!”

Posthaste, the two pagan Brits started at our Mendington, ready to strip him of all the corduroy he was worth! Seeing the two pallid and drab figures darting at such a speed struck great fear in my heart, but not for Mendington! 

It must now be related, at last, that Mendington was in possession of a broadsword. A rather sharp and metallic one, at that, and so formidable was the sword that it must be kept behind his back, under his shirt and trousers always; it was because the current circumstances, where the dispossession of said articles became very likely, that Mendington thus saw the drawing of his broadsword to be wise, against those shamefully antisocial heretics.

And so they came, not heeding the drawing and flashing of the sword! First, the woman, who—in the midst of getting her hands on some fabric to rip it off—Mendington courageously took the sword to and sliced up in two halves, each staggering and hopping for a moment before falling, both parts opposite and perpendicular to the whole. What a sight!

Her counterpart, witnessing the sudden rip of gore, turned back to his cart, presumably carrying the articles of many like our Mendington, and dragged it fast as he could through the unmarked, untouched, low fauna! Our Arthur, so magnanimous, put down any desire to chase the man, and let him be!

***

The sun continued to rise past noon, and the collective confidence of our campaign concurrently dwindled. That summer heat only grew, until the air itself was as slow and thick as molasses, and as unbreathable, for every spasm of the lungs brought about such burning in our troupe! And Mendington, in some ripped tatters and now lugging around the sword, carried on; I, on the contrary, began to feel the pangs of both hunger and dehydration, since we had nothing to rectify either! My tongue was like shriveled bank notes, entirely coarse, and the peripheries of my chest were aching as if rusted over with dried blood, unable to remain viscous without liquid. His pace never ceased or faltered, and I, admittedly stubby, was beginning to fatigue myself. Worst of all, I could not make a peep of it as we went up, up, and up the mountain—I was not to speak unless spoken to, if you can remember.

As the day sloggingly progressed, the heat only increased, the natural scenery becoming a scratched out daguerreotype of itself—grey and blurry, lost to me, only the steep incline registering, until we were only a few more climbs from being roasted alive and I, with eyes so pitiful and wet with tears of exhaustion, gazed up at our figure of central admiration. He looked down at me, and for the first time his suffering became obvious, and I saw another in his eyes, a pantheon of alternates swapping in and out of each other, and this time one of sorrow and pain, and alas, I noticed! People have a way of betraying themselves to me, it seems. Stunned, I let it out, that shameful “Ah!” Immediately upon this uttering of my voice, he contorted in revulsion at me having done so out of turn, it seems.

His hand, still adorned with rings and little plates, came down on me in the form of a hard smack. It skipped through my nerves, how righteous it was? Who is Arthur Mendington?

It was righteous, I say to myself, it was righteous.

The heat worsened. My stomach rumbled with the fury of a thousand wars, not to be outdone by that of Mendington’s gut, which was still reluctant due to its previous outburst, but nevertheless craved.

A parade of visitors popped out of those indistinct, identical bushes, one after the next, so as to be America in its myriad of faces and places and people. And they shuffled around me, all lost and ready to depart on some fideliac down the river, holding hands and glad, and I’m surrounded! Little warmen, too, grey and blue, and studded in little golden buttons and cheekbones harder than rifle butts, too. A whole elephant! Moo. They passed through me, I swear! And they’re all smiling. I must have been in that crowd for three moons and suns and lunches and dinners—lunch, my God, some Lunch! My tongue may as well be cottonwood. Some damned lunch in this place. They’re all passing through me, and nobody can quite see me—I think. Mirage? Mirage, yes. And what of it? I put my scrolls away for a bit.

Mendington then stopped, as if hitting some figmentary wall! He called out: “You, there! Stop!” I looked ahead, into the unfeeling grove, thinning with the altitude: nothing. “Stop there! Is it Mary? Mary!” Again, nothing, nothing at all. Ether-borne conjurations, little tricks of the mind, maybe? Again: “Mary! Stop walking, damn you!” At this, he covered his mouth with those same striking and killing hands, and I believe him to have softly wept, for I saw wealth tears dropping from out the filter of his palm, slowly, and then all at once, turned and hunched, his clothes ripped, and he himself pulling at their tendons and unraveling them. And repeated little utterances of Ah! and Oh! as if he was continuously surprised at himself, and in his own revulsion, too.

And I am saying it to you. I’m going mad too, to tell the truth. My stomach pounds, pounds like an aneurysm!

Mendington is crying pure magma, and it trails off and hardens into a path back to the Buckhorn, and that fat little speculator and the elk hunter (hole bleeding into his trousers), and they’re all waiting for me, they say, and they serve up the fattest barrel-full of spring water I’ve ever seen in my servitude-plagued life, and they say for you, you little rosy-dimpled fool. And I take a big swig, and it’s all sand.

We’re going crazy, drinking sand together, me and the figure of central admiration, and I can see his little weeping form, and I remember this to be the first time I have seen him strike me; what is Arthur Mendington? 

We’re dragging each other further up top, now.

VI

What is Arthur Mendington?

Night approaches again—though I cannot begin to fathom how many days it has been since we started starving and drying out. Worst of all: we’re almost at the top, breathing wildly, barely living, and with a nondescript plink, my scrolls are dropped, falling from my waiststrap, which girdled my hips quite nicely in leather, I might add. 

In his foremost act of kindness, Mendington, ever courteous, retrieved them for me, in such generosity! Not, however, without resisting the temptation of a glance here and there; upon doing so his face, blonde and perhaps dumb, contorted, his putrid green eyes turning red with veins. 

“What! Drinking, vomiting, fear, cowardice, your own first person? What do you think you are, the Lord?” He barked the words out, choking them out from the lesions and tangles that mangled his cords. “You! I should have known—you insubordinate scrap of man. This blighted quest, this blighted dragon! Tricks from its machinations, I was sure, but you! You are in its pocket, I swear it—I know it!” He drew the broadsword in front of me, and upon its reflection I could see his teeth, bared, and almost as dry as a desert skull, left out to dry! My God! My end? No! I reached out, quick and mouse-like, and snatched those curs-ed scrolls back from that man, that simple man, and took myself right up the last stretch of hill that would lead to the peak! Much rather die to the dragon! 

It went on for long, the chase, and as I ran, Mendington’s towering, wolfish heels not far behind my own, I began to flick around the words again: what is Arthur Mendington?

Mendington is a drunkard.

Mendington is a madman.

Mendington is a murderer of the innocent.

Mendington is a plunderer of the undeserving.

Mendington is a dumb brute, blonde and hard-headed with pomade, the damn pomade!

Mendington is a conquistador, truly, a pillager, a self-aggrandizing pillager!

This figure of central admiration, what of it—

Tripped. Tripped! Upon a porous volcanic chunk, I did! I’d done it now, surely, now my end was upon me, and so was Mendington. The tail end of the sword, thinner than hair, pointed directly atop my eye, almost inserting into it.

My life nearing its end, certainly from starvation, I began to fear, until—yes! A crack, a barbarous crack, originating from a little down the hill, only coming from a chamber that has not seen a good oiling since the Confederates passed through Albuquerque. I turned: the mercenary! Mendington clutched his foot, and fell from his position to the ground to my right, overcome in pain! She advanced, slowly, holding what I then saw was a slender remington, hooked to a frame. And I saw her striped countenance, ravaged by some kind of the mumps, seething red with rage, and eyes like the uncaring man-hater.

She started, “You! You worthless bastard. I’s been tracking you through this pathetic hill for two days! Two full days! You sad, sad sack of flesh! You and your corduroy, your shit-brown clothes, what kind of man are you? No man at all! You tormentor! You worthless, despicable flatulence-huffer! What kind of strong are you? No strongman at all! You fear violets, you fear the conflicting narrative! You simpleton! You puddle of slime, so wretched and light-opposed that your flesh melts with it, that yellow grease you call sweat! And now, the simple masquerade of a dragon atop this damned hill is all it takes for you to kill yourself? No! I will curse you to death, me!” And, reacting like a dagger-stab to every word, Mendington recoiled and drew aback in the dirt.

She cocked the piston on the remington and practically beat him with it to the head—not before Mendington could wail his own reply: “Wait! Please! What do you say of this fabricated dragon? Have we come up here for nothing?”

“Of course you have, you stupid, stupid murderer! Those finger-wringing greeneyes down in the City were terrified of you, and sent you up here to die! All they had to do was make up some quest, and they knew you’d buy it!”

“T-t-terrifed?” He trembled.

“Why wouldn’t they be! You killed three people within two hours of your arrival! Some do-gooder you amounted to; the first victim you claimed was my brother, god damn it!”

“Well…”

“Well nothing! You expect people to love you when you kill them, worship you when you liberate them from nothing but their own loved ones!” Facing this grand contradiction, our figure of dubious admiration, at last, wailed and cried like he failed to do as an infant, babbling and punching the ground as he pleased, kicking and screaming. She was disgusted: “Aw, Jesus and Mary, is this how you want to die!”

Mendington: “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! We’ve been starving for days, hallucinating, and everything else! Only spare me! Please, I can make it right!” He pleaded! A metamorphosis more surprising than any scroll could’ve captured.

And she beat him with the pistol again, slamming it into his ribs, but, alas, did not fire that conclusive shot to extinguish the last vestiges of heroism in Mendington!

“Damn you! What are you doing? I can’t kill ye, and why not! It’d shut you up from all this crying. My brother! My brother! I leave you be, if only you can make things right, Mendington.”

And so she departed, silently, and without ceremony. All were silent.

VII

What is the Scribe?

After momentarily walking the half-mile up to the true peak of Bear Mountain, and seeing, much to my flabbergasting, the foundations being laid for the construction of the very first Pluricordivelveteenist temple, and fifty or so of its worshippers, and that very same cart carried by that dreadful English fellow, Mendington and I began the descent down Bear Mountain, wordlessly. This void of speech was, after an hour or so, shined through by Mendington’s still snotty voice: “You know, my scribe, perhaps you are a human being. Perhaps you can speak unrequited, even if I do not permiss you. I ask but one thing.”

“What?” I said. I said it.

“Remember Arthur Mendington, please? Record it, for me.”

Night snuck upon us quickly as we descended, and before long we were completely enveloped in black. We had no desire to stop or set camp, for if we did not act hastily we would still surely die from lack of water. The light of the city below, perpetuated by leviathan oil and that dreaded coal and silver, peeked up at us, and gave us some semblance of light. And in it, as I nearly tumbled down the hill, holding my papers, holding my thoughts, holding myself, I would turn to Arthur, Arthur Mendington, that bastard drunkard with the metal hair, the stooping figure, that gullible inclination, and I would see him betraying to me a grin. From beneath his thin lips, his black and green teeth had been made to slip out, and I could see them, and I could see his eyes, black and motionless, unthinking. What was Arthur Mendington? 

Where is Arthur Mendington?