The Night Listener and Others by Chet Williamson

hideous parody of a woman’s dugs, and his organs of regeneration had been detached from his body and lay on the dirt floor amid his scattered teeth. His heart’s blood was everywhere.
    “Is there any way he’s gonna live?” one of the older deputies asked the doctor, who shook his craggy head.
    “He’s lost too much already. Best I can do is make him comfortable,” and he drew from his bag a vial and a needle.
    “He vanted to be a vooman,” Olaf began to say, but the youngest deputy brought up the butt of his shotgun and broke the Norwegian’s jaw, knocking him to the floor.
    “Sorry, Sheriff, Doc, but d_mn it…”
    “Never mind,” said the sheriff. “Take him outside. And keep him naked.”
    “And get Mr. Sanders some water,” said the doctor, who pulled a blanket over Eustace while the deputies conveyed Olaf outside, where two remained with him while the third got water from a bucket that stood next to the stone stoop. The doctor trickled water into Eustace’s mouth until he regained enough consciousness to begin screaming.
    “All right, son, all right,” said the doctor, stabbing him with the needle. “This’ll make you feel better.” The doctor shook his head, looked at Olaf, then at the sheriff as the screaming subsided. “I can’t believe you’re gonna waste a trial on that son of a b_tch. I sure as h_ll don’t want to testify about this.”
    Sheriff Dorwart nodded sagely and examined the lined and leathered face of his eldest deputy. “What do you think?”
    “If the doc don’t say nuthin’, I never will.”
    The sheriff looked again at Eustace lying on the bed. “Any man does that to another doesn’t deserve a trial. I can’t be party to it, neither can the deputies, we took oaths. But nobody’s to stop you, Doc, from swattin’ a horse’s _ss.”
    The doctor smiled grimly. “I’m game for it.”
    “What about Hippocrates?” the sheriff asked.
    “Hippocrates would’ve cut the b_st_rd’s throat himself and laughed about it,” the doctor said.
    The sheriff sat rapt in contemplation for a long time before he spoke. “Get him ready, Dan.” The deputy left the cabin.
    “Whe…where…” Eustace called from the bed. His eyes were open, and he was attempting to raise his head as if to look about the room.
    “Just take it easy now,” the doctor cautioned.
    “Where…” said Eustace through his toothless gums. “Where…Olaf?”
    “He’s outside,” said the doctor. “He won’t hurt you again. He’s going for a little ride in a minute.”
    “Take me.” Eustace said through bloody froth. “Want to…see.”
    The doctor looked at the sheriff. “Why not?” Sheriff Dorwart said. “He deserves to see it if any man does.” Then he whispered to the doctor. “Will he ever tell?” The doctor shook his head.
    When the deputies hauled out the bed on which Eustace lay, Olaf Brogger was saddled naked upon his horse, and a rope trailed from around his neck over the branch of a large tree down to the trunk, where it was firmly tied. The deputies put their strong hands beneath Eustace’s shoulders, raising him gently so that he might more easily see the tree, the rump of the horse, Olaf ‘s bare back.
    The doctor walked up to the horse and gave it a resounding blow upon the left flank. It whinnied, reared, and bolted, its involuntary rider remaining in the space it had just deserted, his legs jerking, shoulders twitching, the rope twisting so that his choking, swollen face turned toward Eustace, who remembered:
    “He turned his face toward her as his horse galloped into the dawn.”
    Eustace found just enough strength to raise an arm, and, like Maria
    Prescott, like the Eustace of the painting, wave farewell to his handsome, Western lover.
    There is nothing that dies so hard as romance.

The Confessions of St. James
     
     
    Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you …He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in