Blackthorne Episode 136

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 Blackthorne 

Cinemagenic 136

Death Song

“To the well organized mind, death is but the

next great adventure.”--J.K. Rowling.

1(sound cue) the Bukkehorn (ghost horn) Viking

War Horn.

2(close-up) the flames danced across Buck’s

raw retina; his eyes becoming fire, his cones

glowing hellish red, from the wounded core of

him, and still he did nothing.

3(sound cue) violins and French horns.

4(medium wide shot) He watched the long

bunkhouse burn, knowing it was the last

structure, the last vestige of a dream that

his father had created.

He watched the brigands put up the wide

tailgate on the lumber wagon, and ride off to

the north, their foul flesh swirling into pale

shadow, then submerging beneath the rim

above the ranch--Antlered Buck that was no

more, replaced by piles of hot ash, like the

brimstone foyer to Hell.

5(sound cue) branch flute and cello.

6(medium close up) He rested his sweaty chin

on his crossed arms, allowing leather’s sweet

pungence to chase away all others. He closed

his eyes, extinguishing the flames of wrath. He

watched the sun through his eyelids, letting a

cornucopia of colors, wild chive green, pond blue,

mustard grass yellow, blood clot red, and angelic

white spots frolic before him, drifting like 

cottonwood spirals on the breeze, the afternoon

sun hot on his neck, floating, weightless, flying,

before settling into a pool of darkness, a honeyed

abyss, an ebony stillness where he might find

temporary harbor, succor and rest. Floating more

than falling, with the wind in his hair, intensifying

as he descended, yet still a soft whispering wind,

wounded, mournful, into a nothingness of ink,

black blood without flesh, falling fearless for the

first time, faster, faster--then suddenly a deep

chill, and someone calling his name,

7(sound cue) Buck, B U C K !

frighteningly clear, and then for an instant,

his mother’s face, Buck,

and then a sweet voice calling to him from a

great distance, Buck, clearly Buck,

and then a cavalcade of faces, his dead wife,

his dead father, his dead brother, and again

his mother, and the visages of the hundred men

he had slain, all dead, all beckoning to him

as he was a dervish in the darkness,

accelerating toward a powerful pinpoint of

light a hundred thousand miles beneath him,

Buck, bombarded by a bluish light, brilliant,

blinding, seeming to sear the flesh from his

bones, until the bottom, all the way down,

serene, at One at last.

8(one shot) a gentle breeze churned the grass

and embraced him.

9(sound cue) birdsong and insects over a seed

rattle.

He awoke hearing voices. The Thunderer leaped

into his right hand. Bristling with alacrity, he rose

and looked around. Four people sat in a circle in

the grass near the family graveyard. They sat quietly,

their eyes twinkling, all holding hands, staring right at

him; a beautiful fair-haired woman, a fragile tow-

headed boy, a thick shouldered older man, and a lean

well-muscled Indian--they were there, and then they

were gone.

10(sound cue) timpani drum and coronet and cello.

12(close-up) Buck’s eyes, weeping...Johnny, Johnny.

Buck stood up straight, and raised his arms and 

clenched fists to the sky...the Eagle has fallen.

13(wide shot) the sun of blood was setting over th

top of the trees to the west. Night shadows began

snaking off of things. Faint gray-blue smoke curled its

up into a red sky from the smoldering bunkhouse.

From the ashes, hot coals blinked like fireflies.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at  d'Verse Poet's Pub OLN