Kilt Too Damned Many

I found this last night in a file folder full of old stuff–I’ve no idea when I wrote it, or why, or in what context, but I sure wish I did.

“A hero, pffft.” Keaner spat, “there’s them to call him that, and you say rascal which is something closer to the mark. A killer is the truth of it—a warlock, a demon, a he-witch and a defiler. He ages just a day for every 40 years and he can’t be kilt no matter what. He’s been cut, stuck, shot, smashed and burned—only the worst of it even scars him. Them injuns he cavorts with say he’s got tree sap for blood, that even if you cut him down at the ankles and cubed up his meat the bastard would grown right back from the stump like a locust and just as thorny. He’s a devil, that’s the bottom of it.”

“Why a devil, Mr. Keaner?” Arlene smiled in her mischief, “Why not an angel?”

“Aw, he’s kilt too damned many for that, little doll-girl.”