A Darkness Sweeps the Valley
By
Conor O’Brian Barnes
The victims were struck from behind as they idled on their motorcycle just as the light turned green. Grainy footage from the gas station at the intersection shows a man in the flatbed of a dark Silverado swinging a long 4 by 4 and striking the individual at the rear of the motorcycle on the back of her head as the truck sped past. The oak 4 by 4 fell to the earth and was retrieved and checked for fingerprints, but without success. There were plenty of dark Silverados in the Eastern Sierra town of Lone Pine, and plenty more passing through.
The individual at the rear of the motorcycle, Inola Romero, 22, a Paiute-Shoshone Indian from the Big Pine Reservation, was struck with such force that she died on impact. The individual driving the motorcycle, Kelly Bosworth, 29, of Lone Pine, is in critical condition, but her prognosis is grim. Inola’s forehead slammed so hard into the back of Kelly’s skull that the doctors say even if she survives, she’ll be a vegetable.
Cousins Earl and Vernon Taney parked at the Fr. Crowley lookout, their favorite spot in Death Valley, and climbed over the rail and followed the trail to an isolated outcrop of stone that jutted out like an eagle’s beak over the abysmal canyon. It was mid-April and the weather was pleasant. Earl took a bottle of Gentleman Jack out of his backpack and the cousins shared it as the dusky sun painted the canyon in varying shades of maroon.
“It’s like all the devils of hell are out to get me,” Vernon said. “It was my curse to have to love her, a lesbian who’d never love me in return.”
“What’s done is done,” said Earl. “Them lesbins are gone, and they ain’t comin back. We can’t do nothin bout it now. Shouldn’t uv made us mad. That’s what happens. Lesbins shouldn’t make drunk men mad, not if they know what’s good for ‘em.”
On the night of the attack, Earl and Vernon met up with Inola and Kelly in the parking lot of Diaz Lake. Vernon had been in love with Inola since she came to work for him as a maid at the Comfort Inn. He was the Assistant Manager and lead maintenance man. Her long, luxuriant hair reminded him of the desert night, jet-black but shimmering with flashes of heavenly light. Inola knew Vernon was sweet on her, and she wasn’t above flirting with him to get what she wanted. She knew that if she kept him intrigued, every so often he’d give her and Kelly free speed.
Long after midnight, in the back of the dark Silverado in the parking lot of Diaz Lake, Inola and Kelly took hit after hit on the glass pipe as Earl and Vernon got drunker and drunker on their Johnny Walker. Under the blanket draping the quartet sitting in the flatbed, Earl reached over and grabbed Kelly’s thigh, squeezing it tightly and slipping his fingers down to her crotch. When she looked at him in shock, he swept his hand up to her breast and twisted her nipple between his index finger and thumb.
“Ouch! What’s your problem!” Kelly roared walloping Earl. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Speed ain’t free, baby,” Earl said grabbing her by the throat and pushing her down to the flatbed. When Kelly tried to fight back, he punched her in the stomach and rolled over on top of her.
“What are you doing, man?” Vernon said as Inola dropped the glass pipe.
“What’s it look like?” said Earl. “That one’s yers, and this one’s mine.”
Like a coiled snake Inola suddenly struck, springing across the flatbed, and punching Earl’s face. Kelly struggled beneath Earl’s weight and Vernon grabbed Inola from behind and held her arms behind her back. “That’s enough of this bullshit, Earl,” he said. “Come on, man, what the hell are you doin?”
“She’s gonna give me what I want,” Earl said squirming on Kelly. “Git some from yer girl while I’m gittin some from mine.”
Inola glanced back and saw a dark madness sweeping over Vernon’s eyes, like a sandstorm rolling in from the horizon. “Please let us go, Vernon,” she cried.
“This one’s mine, and that one’s mine too if you don’t do what I tell you to,” Earl said to his cousin, putting his hand over Kelly’s gasping mouth.
Vernon wrestled Inola back down to the flatbed and straddled her as he drunkenly fumbled with the buckle of his belt. “Wait, wait just a minute!” Inola said. “Be patient, both of you, we’re gonna give it to you. But you guys gotta take it slow.”
“That’s right,” Kelly said when Earl removed his hand from her mouth and reached for the button fly of his jeans. “We’re gonna give it to you. Just let us help get your pants off.”
Earl rolled off Kelly and leaned back as she pulled his jeans down and massaged his balls with her fingers and palm, and Inola unzipped Vernon’s fly and reached for his scrotum. “Crush his balls, Kelly! Crush ‘em!” Inola yelled, and the women squeezed the men’s testicles, holding tight to the leathery sacks for a good eight seconds like brave riders gripping the reins of angry bulls at the rodeo. Earl and Vernon recoiled in agony in the flatbed after Inola and Kelly released their tortured balls, and the young lovers leapt from the truck, hurried to their motorcycle across the lot, and sped off.
“Let’s get ‘em!” Vernon said crawling out of the back of the truck and stumbling over to the driver’s side door. “Let’s get ‘em, and get ‘em good!”
Vernon started the truck and took a hard left on the 395 while Earl, still hunched over in the back, slowly rose to his knees, and wrapped his brawny hands around the long 4 by 4 that was pressed against the edge of the flatbed. A little way down the road the women came into sight in Lone Pine, idling on their motorcycle at a red light. When the light turned green, Vernon continued to accelerate, thinking he’d terrify the women by speeding past them before turning around and chasing them down, but Vernon just kept going after Earl swung the 4 by 4, for he could tell by the terrible thump that the women had been badly hurt.
In the days that followed, Vernon lived in terror that the sheriff would come knocking on his door. He stopped taking his truck to work, and when news of Inola’s murder spread around the Comfort Inn, no one suspected him. Most of the maids thought the killer was Inola’s ex-boyfriend, evidently the jealous type, who she’d dumped before leaving the Reservation to move in with Kelly in Lone Pine. The cops came by on one of Vernon’s days off, but they didn’t ask the Manager any questions about him or his truck.
After several weeks, Vernon felt confident that he and Earl weren’t on the radar of the police, but the dreams he had night after night of Angels of Vengeance with flaming swords keeping him out of Heaven grew increasingly intense, and no matter how he tried to justify what had happened -- that Earl had killed the women, he hadn’t -- he still couldn’t get any peace. He wondered if he was insane, or if it was real, when one of the avenging angels that haunted his dreams told him: “This world’s not the blink of a gnat’s eye in the expanse of God’s eternity. Every hair on your head is counted, Vernon, as is every one of your sins. Confess, and repent! Ask God to forgive you! It’s better to confess your crime and spend your mortal life in a prison cell, than to conceal it, and burn forever in fiery hell!”
Earl knew that Vernon was more susceptible to the scare tactics of old-timey, fire and brimstone religion than was he, so he invited his cousin to their favorite spot in Death Valley so they could talk about what was troubling him over a bottle of whiskey.
“It’s like all the devils of hell are out to get me,” Vernon said. “Them devils are just in yer head,” Earl replied. “Ain’t nothin above, ain’t nothin below, there’s just what’s here and what’s now.”
“You don’t think there’s gonna be a punishment for us, you don’t think we’re gonna have to pay up? You don’t think when we’re dead we’re gonna have to face up to those women, and to God?”
“We won’t have to face up to nothin but the dirt above our noses that we’re buried in. Ain’t nothin gonna happen to us when we’re dead, cuz when a man’s dead, a man’s dead, and that’s it.”
“I hope you’re right, Earl, but I just don’t know…”
“Watcha bin thinkin bout, Vernon? Clearin that conchiss of yers by tellin the coppers bout what we did?”
“I’ve thought about it, thought about it a lot, but you know I couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t be fair to you.”
“Damn straight. That conchiss of yers ain’t worth goin to prison fer. Yer conchiss aint nothin but a preacher’s trick they put in you to keep you down when they ain’t round to keep you down thimselves.”
Vernon took a big swig from the Gentleman Jack, gave it to Earl, and stood up to take a piss off the cliff. Earl stood up with him and wrapped his arms around his cousin. “I’m always round if you got problems you wanna talk about,” he said hugging him firmly.
“I know that Earl, thank you,” Vernon said turning around and unzipping his fly to relieve himself. As the little yellow waterfall descended to the world below, Earl looked around to see if he and Vernon were alone. Seeing no one on the trail or in the canyon, he lunged at Vernon like a linebacker and knocked him off the rock with his shoulder. Only the faintest, most astonished gasp emitted from Vernon as his pissing body tumbled like a ragdoll into the darkening abyss.
“That’s what ya git fer havin a conchiss,” Earl said.
As dusk was giving way to night, and the stars were growing brighter in the zenith of the sky, Earl finished off the whiskey bottle and followed the trail back to the empty parking lot of the Fr. Crowley lookout, where he climbed into Vernon’s dark Silverado. Starting the engine and rolling the truck out of the lot to the 190, he turned to the left and drove deeper into the darkness sweeping the Valley of Death.
Conor O'Brian Barnes was born in Berkeley and raised in Denver. He spent most of his early adulthood in the Los Angeles area and Boston. His story "The Last Dance at the Bunny Ranch" is featured in the 2025 anthology Satan Rides Your Daughter Again from HellBound Books. He currently lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
By
Conor O’Brian Barnes
The victims were struck from behind as they idled on their motorcycle just as the light turned green. Grainy footage from the gas station at the intersection shows a man in the flatbed of a dark Silverado swinging a long 4 by 4 and striking the individual at the rear of the motorcycle on the back of her head as the truck sped past. The oak 4 by 4 fell to the earth and was retrieved and checked for fingerprints, but without success. There were plenty of dark Silverados in the Eastern Sierra town of Lone Pine, and plenty more passing through.
The individual at the rear of the motorcycle, Inola Romero, 22, a Paiute-Shoshone Indian from the Big Pine Reservation, was struck with such force that she died on impact. The individual driving the motorcycle, Kelly Bosworth, 29, of Lone Pine, is in critical condition, but her prognosis is grim. Inola’s forehead slammed so hard into the back of Kelly’s skull that the doctors say even if she survives, she’ll be a vegetable.
Cousins Earl and Vernon Taney parked at the Fr. Crowley lookout, their favorite spot in Death Valley, and climbed over the rail and followed the trail to an isolated outcrop of stone that jutted out like an eagle’s beak over the abysmal canyon. It was mid-April and the weather was pleasant. Earl took a bottle of Gentleman Jack out of his backpack and the cousins shared it as the dusky sun painted the canyon in varying shades of maroon.
“It’s like all the devils of hell are out to get me,” Vernon said. “It was my curse to have to love her, a lesbian who’d never love me in return.”
“What’s done is done,” said Earl. “Them lesbins are gone, and they ain’t comin back. We can’t do nothin bout it now. Shouldn’t uv made us mad. That’s what happens. Lesbins shouldn’t make drunk men mad, not if they know what’s good for ‘em.”
On the night of the attack, Earl and Vernon met up with Inola and Kelly in the parking lot of Diaz Lake. Vernon had been in love with Inola since she came to work for him as a maid at the Comfort Inn. He was the Assistant Manager and lead maintenance man. Her long, luxuriant hair reminded him of the desert night, jet-black but shimmering with flashes of heavenly light. Inola knew Vernon was sweet on her, and she wasn’t above flirting with him to get what she wanted. She knew that if she kept him intrigued, every so often he’d give her and Kelly free speed.
Long after midnight, in the back of the dark Silverado in the parking lot of Diaz Lake, Inola and Kelly took hit after hit on the glass pipe as Earl and Vernon got drunker and drunker on their Johnny Walker. Under the blanket draping the quartet sitting in the flatbed, Earl reached over and grabbed Kelly’s thigh, squeezing it tightly and slipping his fingers down to her crotch. When she looked at him in shock, he swept his hand up to her breast and twisted her nipple between his index finger and thumb.
“Ouch! What’s your problem!” Kelly roared walloping Earl. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Speed ain’t free, baby,” Earl said grabbing her by the throat and pushing her down to the flatbed. When Kelly tried to fight back, he punched her in the stomach and rolled over on top of her.
“What are you doing, man?” Vernon said as Inola dropped the glass pipe.
“What’s it look like?” said Earl. “That one’s yers, and this one’s mine.”
Like a coiled snake Inola suddenly struck, springing across the flatbed, and punching Earl’s face. Kelly struggled beneath Earl’s weight and Vernon grabbed Inola from behind and held her arms behind her back. “That’s enough of this bullshit, Earl,” he said. “Come on, man, what the hell are you doin?”
“She’s gonna give me what I want,” Earl said squirming on Kelly. “Git some from yer girl while I’m gittin some from mine.”
Inola glanced back and saw a dark madness sweeping over Vernon’s eyes, like a sandstorm rolling in from the horizon. “Please let us go, Vernon,” she cried.
“This one’s mine, and that one’s mine too if you don’t do what I tell you to,” Earl said to his cousin, putting his hand over Kelly’s gasping mouth.
Vernon wrestled Inola back down to the flatbed and straddled her as he drunkenly fumbled with the buckle of his belt. “Wait, wait just a minute!” Inola said. “Be patient, both of you, we’re gonna give it to you. But you guys gotta take it slow.”
“That’s right,” Kelly said when Earl removed his hand from her mouth and reached for the button fly of his jeans. “We’re gonna give it to you. Just let us help get your pants off.”
Earl rolled off Kelly and leaned back as she pulled his jeans down and massaged his balls with her fingers and palm, and Inola unzipped Vernon’s fly and reached for his scrotum. “Crush his balls, Kelly! Crush ‘em!” Inola yelled, and the women squeezed the men’s testicles, holding tight to the leathery sacks for a good eight seconds like brave riders gripping the reins of angry bulls at the rodeo. Earl and Vernon recoiled in agony in the flatbed after Inola and Kelly released their tortured balls, and the young lovers leapt from the truck, hurried to their motorcycle across the lot, and sped off.
“Let’s get ‘em!” Vernon said crawling out of the back of the truck and stumbling over to the driver’s side door. “Let’s get ‘em, and get ‘em good!”
Vernon started the truck and took a hard left on the 395 while Earl, still hunched over in the back, slowly rose to his knees, and wrapped his brawny hands around the long 4 by 4 that was pressed against the edge of the flatbed. A little way down the road the women came into sight in Lone Pine, idling on their motorcycle at a red light. When the light turned green, Vernon continued to accelerate, thinking he’d terrify the women by speeding past them before turning around and chasing them down, but Vernon just kept going after Earl swung the 4 by 4, for he could tell by the terrible thump that the women had been badly hurt.
In the days that followed, Vernon lived in terror that the sheriff would come knocking on his door. He stopped taking his truck to work, and when news of Inola’s murder spread around the Comfort Inn, no one suspected him. Most of the maids thought the killer was Inola’s ex-boyfriend, evidently the jealous type, who she’d dumped before leaving the Reservation to move in with Kelly in Lone Pine. The cops came by on one of Vernon’s days off, but they didn’t ask the Manager any questions about him or his truck.
After several weeks, Vernon felt confident that he and Earl weren’t on the radar of the police, but the dreams he had night after night of Angels of Vengeance with flaming swords keeping him out of Heaven grew increasingly intense, and no matter how he tried to justify what had happened -- that Earl had killed the women, he hadn’t -- he still couldn’t get any peace. He wondered if he was insane, or if it was real, when one of the avenging angels that haunted his dreams told him: “This world’s not the blink of a gnat’s eye in the expanse of God’s eternity. Every hair on your head is counted, Vernon, as is every one of your sins. Confess, and repent! Ask God to forgive you! It’s better to confess your crime and spend your mortal life in a prison cell, than to conceal it, and burn forever in fiery hell!”
Earl knew that Vernon was more susceptible to the scare tactics of old-timey, fire and brimstone religion than was he, so he invited his cousin to their favorite spot in Death Valley so they could talk about what was troubling him over a bottle of whiskey.
“It’s like all the devils of hell are out to get me,” Vernon said. “Them devils are just in yer head,” Earl replied. “Ain’t nothin above, ain’t nothin below, there’s just what’s here and what’s now.”
“You don’t think there’s gonna be a punishment for us, you don’t think we’re gonna have to pay up? You don’t think when we’re dead we’re gonna have to face up to those women, and to God?”
“We won’t have to face up to nothin but the dirt above our noses that we’re buried in. Ain’t nothin gonna happen to us when we’re dead, cuz when a man’s dead, a man’s dead, and that’s it.”
“I hope you’re right, Earl, but I just don’t know…”
“Watcha bin thinkin bout, Vernon? Clearin that conchiss of yers by tellin the coppers bout what we did?”
“I’ve thought about it, thought about it a lot, but you know I couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t be fair to you.”
“Damn straight. That conchiss of yers ain’t worth goin to prison fer. Yer conchiss aint nothin but a preacher’s trick they put in you to keep you down when they ain’t round to keep you down thimselves.”
Vernon took a big swig from the Gentleman Jack, gave it to Earl, and stood up to take a piss off the cliff. Earl stood up with him and wrapped his arms around his cousin. “I’m always round if you got problems you wanna talk about,” he said hugging him firmly.
“I know that Earl, thank you,” Vernon said turning around and unzipping his fly to relieve himself. As the little yellow waterfall descended to the world below, Earl looked around to see if he and Vernon were alone. Seeing no one on the trail or in the canyon, he lunged at Vernon like a linebacker and knocked him off the rock with his shoulder. Only the faintest, most astonished gasp emitted from Vernon as his pissing body tumbled like a ragdoll into the darkening abyss.
“That’s what ya git fer havin a conchiss,” Earl said.
As dusk was giving way to night, and the stars were growing brighter in the zenith of the sky, Earl finished off the whiskey bottle and followed the trail back to the empty parking lot of the Fr. Crowley lookout, where he climbed into Vernon’s dark Silverado. Starting the engine and rolling the truck out of the lot to the 190, he turned to the left and drove deeper into the darkness sweeping the Valley of Death.
Conor O'Brian Barnes was born in Berkeley and raised in Denver. He spent most of his early adulthood in the Los Angeles area and Boston. His story "The Last Dance at the Bunny Ranch" is featured in the 2025 anthology Satan Rides Your Daughter Again from HellBound Books. He currently lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
