20070116

The wind’s creeping around out there like a lonely ghost. I can hear it whispering down the mine shaft at me, asking me to come on out. I can hear it slipping through the pine trees, shaking them gentle like, and every once in awhile it picks up some and laughs, a hollow, thin laugh that dies away but keeps coming back.

I wish Jeb were here. He’d know what to do. I’m sure he wouldn’t be afraid of no wind. He’d lean back on the back two legs of his chair, big ol’ boots up on the table, and tell me that the wind can’t do nothing to do hurt one, it’s just the wind, is all. I’d probably laugh and bob my head and feel a right fool, but Jeb ain’t here and it’s awful dark and I’m surrounded by dead people and then wind, it’s out there, it’s whispering and calling down to me and I’m scared I may go on out to it.

Rob and Nate and Petey are all dead. They’re down here with me, legs kicked out, hands open and fingers curled in like crab legs. They’re all quiet and cold and they don’t hear nothing or say nothing. No life in them, no movement. They’re dead, and they ain’t never going to go down to the Iron Horse Saloon again and order themselves a drink of whiskey and sit down to play cards. Who’d a thought their lives would end here? At the bottom of this dark hole? Did their momma’s think that’s where they’d end, when they held them in their arms when they were just little babes?

And the fool thing about it all is that there’s no damn gold in this mine. The vein’s all mined out. I don’t know what Rob and Nate and Petey were playing at. There’s no gold here, none, the mine’s as dead as everybody said it was. So why’d the three of them jokers let on that they was scooping up the yellow rocks by the handful? I’ve searched the walls and cracks and their packs and buckets and ain’t found a thing. Not a sparkle, not a glimmer, nothing.

I didn’t want to do it. I sure didn’t. Not that I thought Rob and the others were good fellas, nor that I’d let their teasing drive me to this point. This was business. This was cold business, and as Jeb always says, when it’s business, it’s business. They should of known that. I tried telling them as much, but they didn’t take me seriously, didn’t listen, and now they’re dead and growing cold. But there ain’t no gold here, and I’m grown too scared to step outside.

I know the wind can’t last forever. It’ll be dawn soon, and then the sun’ll come out and it’ll be ok. I’ll be able to leave then. Won’t be no wind to scare me or ask me to come out and dance under the moon. But I just don’t know what I’ll do. I won’t be able to get on the train without the money, and I can’t stay in town with blood on my hands. I have to get out, but I don’t know how, and I’m deep in a shit hole, as Jeb would say.

Maybe I could explain it all to him. Show him how it wasn’t my fault, and how Nate shouldn’t of tried to grab the gun, like. That just wasn’t going to be allowed. Business is business, and they should of understood that. Would Jeb understand? I guess he wouldn’t. He’s a stand up guy, and killing ain’t in his books, even if it was ‘cause of business.

I feel so lonely and scared right now and I just don’t know what to do. I got to get on that train and get out to California, but now that ain’t happening, and I know they’ll come hunting for me if I just run off into the mountains. They’ll hunt me down like a mangy dog and hang me for sure. They got the law here now, and the sheriff ain’t no fool. They’ll laugh and point at me and watch me hang. Even Jeb. Lookit the fool, they’ll say, lookit him dance.

I just don’t know what to do. I sure wish the boys were alive. I wish they weren’t dead and staring like they are. I wish the wind would stop. I wish the wind would stop calling for me to come out. Telling me there ain’t nothing to wait for. That it was all for nothing. That I can’t never do something right. That I done messed it all up again. But this time I done messed it up bad. I’ve killed people, and I’ve got blood on hands, and they’re going to string me up and make a day of it.

If I had any more bullets I’d shoot myself. But I used them all up on the boys. Even when they was dead I wasn’t sure and I shot them and shot them again till I was all out. Guess that’s their funny revenge on me, sure enough.

The wind’s calling to me. I can hear it, like a voice in the next room, just asking me to come out. To step out and drop all my worries, and leave the dead and the gold and California behind. I’m so sick of it all. I’m so sick of being laughed at and messing up and now they’re going to hang me and I just want to be done with it all. Maybe I’ll go up the ladder and step outside. Maybe I’ll see what the wind has to say. Maybe I’ll dance with it a little, under the bright moon, and see if it takes me over the cliffs and into the arms of the Lord.