You’d think that after such a strong reaction to a practically deserted desert highway, Las Vegas would trigger a reaction along of lines of a series of violent seizures. But, it was like Henry’s heart had exhausted itself. It had tirelessly pumped massive amounts of adrenaline through his body, and now it slowed, and he was calm.

According to the website medicalnewstoday.com, the average resting heart rate of a person over ten years of age is in between 60-100 beats per minute. Henry was younger than ten years old in dog years, but much older in human years. I think it’s safe to assume that medicalnewstoday.com is speaking in terms of human years. He also wasn’t resting. He was riding a horse. His heart rate was less than 60 beats per minute. According to the website whalefacts.org, the average heart rate of a blue whale is 10 beats per minute. I don’t know how old Henry was in whale years, but I do know he definitely wasn’t a blue whale. His heart beat also wasn’t 10 beats per minute because he would be dead.

Henry was in a new, serene state. His shoulders were slumped, and bobbed with clop Sparky’s heavy hooves on the road. He rode on, and on, and on, until the flashy signs, palmettos, and greasy men in suits were far behind him. The desert night sky was inky. He took a breath of cool, clean air. When he looked up at the sky, the billions of stars reignited a warm glow in his eyes. The endless expanse was unadulterated by human generated din. As the crickets chirped and the brush rustled, he felt his head clearing. Henry felt at ease. He straightened his back, adjusted his bandana, which had fallen around his neck during his wild rampage, and sat back in his saddle. He moved the the velvety night like a knife through rich butter. He began to tire. When he yawned, tears swam in his eyes. His eyelids drooped. So, when he saw a small yellow light not far in the distance, he resolved to stop. The light turned out to be a decrepit truck stop. The only signs of operation were a neon yellow sign that read “Gas and Food” and an old white pick-up truck with a license plate frame that spelled out “Daddy’s Girl” in rhinestones. He tethered Sparky to a post and walked towards the cashier’s office. His hands began shaking again and his palms were sweaty. He pulled his bandana down around his neck and swiped nervously at his hair. He stopped and wiped his hands on his jeans and took short, raspy breaths. The attendant must’ve noticed him because the door swung open. The sound startled Henry who began to retreat into the darkness.

“Who’s there?”, the man called out in a gruff voice.

Henry whimpered.

“Come out.”

Henry crept out from the shadows.

“Oh come on yer a full grown man!”, he exclaimed, “Thought you were a puppy or a lil’ girl or somethin’.”

“Sir, could I fill up my canteen and maybe have a place to stay for the night?,” Henry managed to croak.

“By God yer pitiful,” the man chuckled.

Henry squinted at the small badge pinned to the man’s shirt.

“....Chuck, please I have no place to sleep and me and Sparky are beat.”

“Sparky?”

“My horse, Sparky.”

Chuck raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah alright, come on inside.”

They entered the small office.

“You want water?”

“Yes please, sir”

Chuck handed Henry a plastic bottle of water from the old glass doored fridge. Henry took the bottle, his hands still shaking, bewildered. He ran his fingertips over the bottle’s ridges feeling the condensation. He twisted the top off and drank. Meanwhile, Chuck picked up the telephone and dialed a number.

“Yeah Darlene, it’s Chuck.”

Henry stood still, his eyes wide like a deer caught in the headlights.

“I got a guy here, uh.. thinks he’s a motherfreakin’ cowboy or somethin’. He needs somewhere to stay.”

“I am a cowboy, Wild Western Willy.” Henry whispered
Chuck rolled his eyes.

“Ok, ok, yeah, I’ll bring him right over.”

“Bring me right over where?”

Chuck ignored him.

“Thanks Darlene we’ll be right over.”

Chuck put down the receiver.

“What’s that?” Henry asked, his mouth still agape.

“You never seen a telephone before, boy?”

Henry shook his head, still confused.

Chuck shook his head.

“What on God’s green Earth have I got on my hands,” he muttered.

They walked out the door and behind the gas station. There was a stucco building. It looked like a shoe box. Very flat and rectangular. Another neon sign. It read “Houdini’s Gentlemen’s Club”

“Isn’t Houdini that magician guy?” asked Henry.

“You know who Houdini is but you don’t know what a phone is,” Chuck shook his head and said matter of factly, “It’s not that Houdini, though. About 40 years back there was this nut who came in and bought a whole bunch of places around here. He was around for ten years or so until he killed his wife and kids. Called himself Houdini,” explained Chuck.

A little bit on Houdini: The police found Houdini in his home two days after the brutal murders had taken place. He was standing in the middle of his blood covered kitchen feeding the cat. His wife’s mangled dead body was only a foot away. Houdini was the last person in Nevada to be killed by the death penalty. He chose to die by firing squad. But, as he stood there awaiting death, his smile was so unnerving, the firing squad couldn’t shoot. He was then put in the electric chair. His last words before he was fried were “Imma escape this bi*** easy anyways.”

As they drew closer to the building Henry’s hands began to tremble again. His breaths quickened.

“What’s wrong with you boy? You nervous or somethin’?”, asked Chuck.

“Nuhuh,” Henry managed to squeak out.

Chuck pulled open the large wooden door. They were hit with the stench of multipurpose cleaner, old maple syrup, and sweat. The red vinyl booths were empty except for one. A man in work boots and a flannel sat eating chicken and waffles. There were three brass poles on carpeted daises. A bored looking middle aged woman wearing what looked like a children’s bikini spun around on the pole in front of the man. He didn’t so much as glance up. He looked like he just wanted to eat his waffles. Henry was mesmerized.

“Oh so you’re nervous and a perv?” asked Chuck.

Henry, startled, quickly averted his eyes and put his hands in his pockets.

“No,” he said.

“Darlene,” Chuck hollered.

A woman with graying blonde hair who looked about Chuck’s age emerged from behind the faux velvet curtains in the back of the club. Henry’s heart rate began accelerating and his palms were sweating again.

“Well look what the cat dragged in,” she drawled, “I got a couch in the back, you’ll have to share with one of the girls though.”

“Chuck, you owe me one,”

“Yeah, yeah ok. Thanks Darlene, I ‘ppreciate it.”

Chuck waved at Henry.

“Don’t worry ‘bout Sparky, I’ll tie him up at my place. We’ll be across the street if you need me.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Henry waved back nervously as Darlene gestured for him to follow her through the curtains. The narrow hallway was dim and the smell of mothballs hung in the air. A faded Dukes of Hazzard poster was taped to the wall. Darlene knocked on a door with a sign shaped like a clapperboard tacked on it that read “Star”. Underneath, in handwritten letters, was the name “Maisy”.

“Come in,” said a muffled voice.

Darlene pushed the door open. Inside, a young woman was sprawled out on a worn floral sofa. She exhaled cigarette smoke and arched her right eyebrow.
“Who’s this,” she smirked.

Her interest appeared to be piqued. We must not forget, Henry is extremely good looking. But, his nerves were absolutely fried. He’d rode through a city on horseback and met three new people. He wasn’t sure if he could handle another introduction, but he also thought she was very pretty, so he gathered himself. He took a deep breath and stuttered.

“Hi miss, my name’s Wild Western Wil-...Henry.”

“Henry,” she repeated, twisting and stretching the syllables in her mouth, then spitting them back out.

Henry liked how she said his name. Darlene, who was leaning against the doorframe, straightened and rolled her eyes.

“I hate to interrupt whatever this is, but I’m going to head to bed. ‘Night.”

“Goodnight, thank you ma’am.”

Maisy sat up and scooted over, beckoning Henry to sit down next to her. She could tell he was anxious. His eyes flicked quickly from side to side, examining his surroundings. The glass coffee table she rested her feet on was covered in an array of illicit substances. Ashtrays overflowed with twice smoked cigarette butts. A small plastic bag of coke and a much larger bag of pot sat in a “Native American” basket with the little white “Salvation Army” tag still attached. Two “Houdini’s Gentlemen’s Club” business cards had white powder on the edges. One half formed line was left next to what looked like dirty needles. Maisy grabbed a half empty bottle of strawberry vodka off of the side table and offered it to Henry.

“If you don’t mind me asking, why’s it that color,” he asked timidly.

“You tell me,” she answered, a smile playing at her lips.

Henry looked down at his boots and smiled. He took the bottle, his hands still shaking. He took a swig and winced, shaking his head once. Maisy laughed and took the bottle back. A long, wavy curtain of dark brown hair fell over her shoulder. In, the deceiving glow of the lamp, Maisy’s skin glowed, her freckles like fireflies. She took another drag of her cigarette.

“So, what’s your deal? How the f*** did you end up in this sh**hole?”, she asked Henry.

“I don’t know where I am.”

“You’re just outside of Vegas,” she told him.

“We’re still in the Utah Territory, right?” he asked, very puzzled.

“You mean Nevada the state right?”

“No, territory,” he said.

Here is where you will finally get some answers. For the past 6 pages you may have been asking yourself, what is up with this handsome, nervous “cowboy” who doesn’t know what phones, food coloring, and cars are? He also doesn’t know that Nevada is no longer part of the Utah Territory. What is he stuck in 1848?? Well yes, he very likely may be. See, six months earlier, Henry had just graduated from the University of New Mexico. The summer after his graduation, he traveled to Nevada having been offered a job at an investment banking firm in Henderson, Nevada. According to geonames.org, this is the second most populous city in Nevada. Over the summer, he took a job at Pioneer Paul’s Silver Rush and Petting Zoo. Besides the leather chaps he had to wear over his jeans everyday and the bandana he had to keep tied around his face when he wasn’t talking in the sweltering Nevada heat, it was a fun job. He dated the girl in charge of the goat pen, an anthropology major named Zoe. Four times a day he gave a talk about pioneer history dressed as a character named Wild Western Willy. This talk included a particularly gruesome segment about the Donner Party. In fact, this segment was so gruesome that a particularly concerned mother threatened to sue Pioneer Paul’s Authentic Nevada Silver Rush and Petting Zoo Experience. It was not because her child was especially disturbed, no little Timmy was just fine. It was because after listening to the talk, she was too scared to ride in the car with her family. She was worried that if they got stranded one of them would eat her. For the past few nights, Henry had been having terrifying dreams about various pioneer tragedies, the most vivid being the tale of the Donner Party. He had chalked it up to have given the talk so many times. But, on one sweltering Wednesday afternoon, Henry’s eighth week of employment, he began feeling very peculiar. Nothing looked quite right. He had begun hearing voices. The voices of the Donner Party? I don’t know. But the voices soon morphed into another noise sludge. It sounded like a terrifying amalgamation of the voices of his parents, his clingy ex-girlfriend in New Mexico, a rousing saxophone solo, sped up clips of The Exorcist, and music from Jaws. (He had done a brief stint in his high school jazz band playing the saxophone. Jaws and The Exorcist were his favorite movies as a teenager.)  Henry took a deep breath and took a drink from the bottle of water that stood on a small wooden stool next to him. The eyes of his eight person audience watched him expectantly. He continued his bit on pioneer cookware and clothing, pulling out pans and dresses from a leather trunk. Suddenly, he sank to his knees. He attempted to steady himself by grabbing the edge of a bale of hay, but he was seeing double. Henry fell to the ground. He couldn’t hear the frantic cries of the audience over the deafening sounds in his head. He blacked out. He had no idea how long he was out for, but I do. It was a fainting spell of 3 minutes and 42 seconds, about the length of the average Victorian woman’s. When he awoke, he jerked upright abruptly. He then promptly vomited in a large “genuine” copper pioneer pot. He rose to his feet and swayed for a moment before stumbling quickly towards the animal enclosure. He couldn’t hear Zoe calling to him from the goat pen. Henry turned inside the open barn where “Sparky; The 25th Largest Horse in Nevada!” was housed. He took the saddle and bridle displayed for decorative purposes and tacked Sparky up. He tore out of the barn, still dressed in his Wild Western Willy ensemble. The voices continued to torment him. They did not begin to fade until he reached open desert. Pioneer Paul’s Authentic Nevada Silver Rush and Petting Zoo Experience had broken him.