The malaria is a sickness that even the dead must feel. His head in a vise. A pain like needles coming up out of the backs of his eyes. Even the sweetest smells become the stink of shit. A freeze inside and out, chilling the mettle out of you, clamped so hard you couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream. You lie under old running claws, and shiver, your bones stabbing hard-frozen flesh until you know your bones will any minute snap. You cry for blankets, for the house to be burned down on top of you, for your body to be thrown into the mouth of a spewing volcano — or would if you could cry out, if you weren’t so frazzled. You’re so cold every whimper’s iced. And then it turns hot again. Fire claims everything. And nothing fits.
At this time he would confess any crime. Any deepest secret or falsity that could be shoveled into the light. But nobody asks. There is nothing he could reveal or explain that matters in the least to any of them. Let the shine rave. The disease ran him over like a pulpwood truck. His head crushed on the stones. His bones cracked open and hot lead poured into the marrow. Day after day the same, the rank peculiarities, the ugly sporting propositions, the malicious conversations played out interminably in his head until he tries with all his sapped might to give back whatever they want. I have stolen and killed. I have raped and degraded. He confesses himself hoarse or would have if he was actually speaking. Sorting the wind was all it is. A seepage.
Anyway, it is too late for spurious confessions. He is already gaveled.
Slowly the dog moves through him. Out the high screened windows he can see the shadows of live oak leaves shifting in the breeze. He hears the shouts of the men. The world, tapping, hawking and shuffling, returns. He hears voices he recognizes, familiar convict voices explaining or evading or shifting the dices. He hears the rats moving around underneath the floor at night and arguing amongst themselves. Gradually his dreams become less filthy. Less often he hears the sound of horses running down the hard road. Less often he hears the big black scorpions sharpening their claws in the dust.
