Free Wicked Prayer by Norman Partridge

fragments all that remained to mark their place in the sands of time.
    Just north of Yucca Valley, Raymondo told Johnny to take the next right. The next right turned out to be an unmarked dirt road. It wasn’t much more than a rutted trail, really. Judging by the potholes, Johnny figured it hadn’t been traveled since the days of Wild West stagecoaches and goddamned stinking mule trains.
    The Merc bounced over a wooden bridge spanning a dry arroyo choked with stones. Crumpled beer cans glittered in the starlight. The road wasn’t any better on the other side of the bridge—the whitewalls kicked up clouds of dust that hung behind them like dirty shrouds. Johnny clicked on the high-beams, saw nothing ahead but dirt road and a whole lot of wide, wide lonesome.
    He wondered if they were headed for a cemetery or something, maybe even a boot hill from the old days. That would be cool in Johnny's book. They could deep-six the Injun chick and her cow- boyfriend in a patch of unhallowed ground, cover them over with the bones of some serious outlaw badasses who would keep them in line. Imprisoned beneath jailhouse ribcages that had once contained the hearts of the Clantons and McLowrys and their badass brethren, Johnny figured that Hardin and Cody wouldn’t be escaping their earthly bonds anytime soon.
    Not even the Crow could do anything about that. If the black bird so much as tried to mess with the grave, those same outlaw badasses would dig their way out of the ground, cut down the fine- feathered fuck with their six-shooters, then eat themselves a little Crow . . .
    Oh, yeah. Johnny pictured the scene as the car bucked over the dirt road. He didn’t have a hard time doing that, because there were only two things in the world at which Johnny Church excelled.
    Killing . . . and dreaming. Mrs. Church’s only child had always dreamed to hit the sky, but most of the time reality had an ugly way o f shooting those dreams down . . . just like those imaginary gunslingers slaughtering the Crow.
    Just like now. Because even though Johnny couldn’t see his destination through the Merc’s dusty windshield—he could smell it.
    And no boot hill cemetery smelled this bad. Johnny wrinkled his nose. “Jesus, Raymondo, where the hell are we going?”
    “We’re going to get rid of some trash.”
    Johnny grimaced. Man, the dead head’s creepy-crawly voice always got to him. Part cheesy sci-fi theremin, part all-too-real seance . . .
    “You know about trash . . . don’t you, Johnny?”
    “Yeah, I know about trash, ya dumb little—”
    “And you know where you take trash, don’t you, Johnny?”
    What a stupid question, Johnny thought. Shit, everyone knows where you take trash.
    Johnny was about to tell Raymondo where to get off when he caught the smug look on the shrunken head’s face. Instantly, he knew that the head was going to make him look like a moron again. It wasn’t exactly a rare event, and the most perplexing thing about it was that Johnny could never seem to do anything that would stop it from happening. He could never fucking win: no matter what he said, Raymondo would figure a way to make him look like a moron.
    So, really, there was only one thing Johnny could do.
    He raised the middle finger of his right hand, and thrust it in Raymondo’s face.
    “Johnny Church’s patented postmodern peace sign,” Raymondo said. “I’ve seen it before and I’ll see it again . . . but it doesn’t answer my question.”
    Johnny kept his mouth shut. This time he wouldn’t say a word. He wouldn’t get mad, he wouldn’t—
    “Maybe you don't know where you take trash, Johnnyboy,” Raymondo said. “Maybe your kinfolk never learned you. Maybe Ma and Pa Church liked their trash.”
    Johnny wanted to slap the little bastard, knock his head against the windshield like an egg, see his brains running down the glass like yolk—
    Raymondo charged on: “Maybe around the Church hacienda, trash was something that wore a see-through