TFW CH 14 IRON METTLE

It always comes back full circle, and you know this, my friend.  You have seen it in your own life, haven’t you?

Yup.  Things make sense in hindsight.

But only then.

Wayfaring Stranger   by Jack White  

I backed away from the old, black hearse with the anarchy circle hand painted on its driver’s side door.

I had been here before, I had seen this vehicle, and I knew that this was evidence of a much larger circle of events than I would ever have permission to see again.

It scared the fuck out of me.

If the world was a flat disc, then I would be slipping towards the edge, digging and scratching at that old vinyl, about to spin off into the deep, dark recesses of eternity, never to be seen again.

I clambered out of the rear of the hearse stable/ barn and the sunlight blared in my eyes like the screech from an electric guitar.

I squinted my eyes and saw that old fucker stalking away.  He was slapping his hands off on his long desert duster, and he had his cowboy hat pushed forward.

He was wiping his hands of me.

He was done.

He had listened to me cast Tellesco off my burdens with a dismissive word.

I had called that huge sobbing bastard a weight on my shoulders.

I understood what I had done.

I understood that I was about to be left behind.

Again.

I struggled to run faster in the desert sand, but every step filled my boots with silt.

I could not catch up.

I twisted and turned, and found myself buried up to my waist.

I was stuck, and sinking in my struggle.

The desert is unforgiving.

The desert will dry you out, it will desiccate you until you are a red ghost, chust wandering along the foot hills looking for your own soul.

The dark figure in the blinding light became a tiny glimpse, and then he was gone.

Everything was gone.



There was no horse stable,


there was no barn,


there had never been a black hearse,



there was no cabin in the desert nor on the moon,


and





there was no anything.

Angry Young Girl   by Parlor Mob 

I woke up in my bed, and my littlest sister came into my bedroom, dripping splotches of sweet, creamy coffee on the floor with her little halting steps.






She was holding a large cup, doing her best.

She said, “Weeeeee-ill!  Momma say you need to stop screaming and wake up.  You scaring us.  Please stop!”

Whew.

It had all been a dream.

The End.

Thank you for reading this story all this time baby.

God Help You.

God Help Us  All.

Just kidding.  Ya know...

Joey slapped my face hard.

He was shouting.

He said, “Weeeee-ill!  Wake up!  Weeee-ill!  Stop screaming!”

I rubbed my hand on my cheek as I cleared my head.  I punched his hand away.

What the fuck was going on?

I said, “I was… I don’t know…  Where the hell is that Glinty dude?”

Joey said, “He getting the boys all ready.  Talking about some shit we gotta do.  You OK?”

I struggled up out of the comfy, easy chair in front of the ice cold hearth and wiped my eyes.  What the hell?  It had all been a dream?

I stalked to the kitchen table and poured myself a tall glass of orange juice.

It didn’t taste like anything.

I ate the biscuits and gravy and the eggs and bacon and it all tasted like desert dust.

But I got my belly full.

It made no sense at all.

And then, The Glinty sat down beside me on the long bench before the side of the huge table.

I jumped.  Nothing like a greeting from a ghost cowboy during your morning meal.

He said, “We need to have us a talk.”

I shook my head.  I said, “You fucking drugged me out with that smoke of yours.”

He looked down at the hat in his hands and picked off pieces of sage brush and tumbleweed seeds.  He said, “Nope.  Just tobacco.  But you seen something, I can sense it.  Let’s go outside.  We need some fresh air.”

Well, damn.  I understood. I followed him up and out.

Dance Me a Number   by The Steep Water Band  

In the bright sunshine, I squinted.

I said, “I had some good dreams last night.  But I had some nightmares, too.  I don’t know what the hell is going on.”

He put his hat back on his head and said, “No, son, you done had them visions.  You seen things that are true.  You ain’t dreamt a thing.”

I shook my head.  I said, “I was lost in the desert.  I was buried up to my waist.  I was left behind.”

Glinty said, “That’s all up for grabs.  Only thing I know is this:  Them dream things are fears.  Consternations. Worriment.  That’s what the lady folk do to pass the time.  Now, Visions are another sort of thing.  You have to find the difference between the two, boy.  Ya see, we men, we fighters, well, we got to face them fears head on.”

That there, my friend, showed to me the chink in the armor of The Glinty.

I thought about two ladies.

One had died in the ocean, and one had died in the desert.

Both had come back.

One showed me the way.

And one had such anger that she could freeze a room when she walked in.


I thought that this old cowboy preacher should meet them.  It was obvious that he hadn't.


Maybe he would.


Why had they come back; just to help me?

Or was something much larger going on?



I held back from telling him these thoughts I had.  Some things can't be told.  They chust have to be seen.

I looked from him back to them other young men using the out house, and I shrugged.


I turned back to him and said, “What about those guys?  We can’t be dragging them along to the Ugly, or whatever you mean by that.”

Glinty looked at me all silent.  He pulled his hat low and bent forth.

He said, “They know they in for a ride.”

I said, “Hah?”

He said, “You ain’t the only one who been screaming in they sleep like a frightened babe.”

I said, “I don’t want anything bad to happen to my friends.  Fuck this.  Let’s just all drive off.  Let’s chust head east.”

He looked over at them boys taking turns in the out house and said, “You done asked about that clown boy.”

I stepped back.  I didn’t know that he had a clue.  But he did.

He stalked closer to me, nodded and said, “No don’t go spreading this out there.  But you got a clue, I can see it.  I don’t let on any more than I have to, but it’s time.  Can I get an Amen, you young Red fella?”

I nodded up at the long-dead cowboy preacher who stood close and towered over me, and I could see the reflection of my frightened face in the lens of his old spectacles; the one unbroken lens.

He nodded and took a handkerchief out of his back pocket and cleaned his glasses.  The hollow socket of his shot-out eye creeped me the fuck out. 

He said, “We tied, that ugly clown boy and me.  But he got loose from us.” 

He set his broken spectacles back on his dried-out face and then he smiled.  He had no teeth, and that was gross.

He said, “We need to bring him back to us.  He be a mean, ugly freak, but you need to listen here, boy.  You got your ears on?”

I gulped and nodded back up at him. 

I said, “That Fat Jerry, is he dead like you?”

Well mister, that old cowboy took his own step back.  Guess he didn’t figure that I could do some math.

He surmised the shitiation.  He considered things.  Then he said, “You Red folks sure be wily.  And that’s a good thing.  Guess you done learned how from us whites.”

I shook my head.  I said, “Nope.  We got it all along.  Just been waiting for you.”

That was when he began that creepy laugh that he had, and he tossed his head back, and his hat fell in the dirt again.

The others looked over to us in the sunshine, and then turned back.  I guess they were about done with this weird fucker, like I was. 

But he was sharper than he smelled.

He settled back down, blew out a couple of snot rockets (swear to Gawd, I thought there was bone fragments) and then he continued.

The Glinty said, “Well, I guess you really do got that loyalty thing after all.”

He saw my puzzled face and smiled.

Hah? 

The dream thing?

He said, “It might be a good thing if we can summon that bastard back to us.  You see, we gotta fight Ugly with Ugly.”

Now I really didn’t have a clue.

Broke-ass Injun in the desert far away from…

…my Island

…my River.

I chust wanted to get back home.

Yet…

Sometimes, you might have to go through Hell chust to get back home. 

Sometimes, you gotta dig your way out of a grave in the desert silt to rise up into the sunlight and fresh air.

My friend, I knew what he was saying.

Fat Jerry was gonna be showing up real soon, and that would be ugly indeed.

But you knew that the ugly clown would come back.

Didn’t you.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

Ocean Breathes Salty   by Modest Mouse 

TFW CH 13 Advice

The Antlers  by Crest  

The Glinty beckoned me to follow him to the barn while the others used the outhouse.  I knew to where he was leading me, and why.

You see, my friend, it always seems to come back full round.  Full round, like a circle, like a red moon sailing high in the night’s ocean of stars: Death would come full circle when the light of the angry sun above had finally dissipated.

  

He stalked to the rear of the barn and went around the corner.

I hurried to catch up.  Always left behind, never knowing what lied ahead.  As I rounded the corner of the barn, I saw that the rear door stood open, and there was a busted lock on the ground.

I had been here before, and I knew it.

Inside, it was not a barn.  It was a stable.

Of course.

Glinty said, “You asked me about the hearse.  You want to know.  I think that it’s time you learned, young whippersnapper.  Foller me.”

The glare of the hot sun made the interior look black.  As my eyes adjusted, all I could see was the image of the saguaro cactus from outside on them hills.  It was in negative color, it was a bright blue.

As the afterimages faded, I saw a long, wide vehicle underneath an old, decrepit tarp.

One side of the tarp had been torn away.

It revealed a sleek hearse built a long time ago, and there was a hand-painted anarchy circle on the driver’s door.

Indeed, I had come full circle.

Glinty stopped and turned back to me.  He said, “We don’t got much time, so there ain’t much to say.  But you can be sure of one thing.  It is this: I know that you from the East, and you from an eastern tribe.  You a red man.”

That creeped me the fuck out.  How the hell did he know that?

He continued.  “Now is the time when them blue folks be looking for escape.  Lot of them old cowboy ghosts wandering about the desert, looking for they souls.”

I had no idea what in thee hell he was talking about.

He said, “That boy Tellesco, the one you boys call ‘No One,’ well, he ain’t got a clue about what it is he has to do.”

Hell, neither did I.

He said, “This is important, so you hafta pay attention here.  The ugly is coming.  It’s gonna be bad, young fella.  But you boys have something that no one on the other side of this fight has.  Oh, they had it, them Purple Robes, but it was lost along the way.  Now they all fighting amongst themselves for the power.  That is why they lost they power.”

I said, “What do we got?”

Glinty leaned back on the sleek hearse and rubbed his hand over the curve of the fender.  It was made from iron, like an old stove, and enameled as well. 

He looked back up at me and said, “You got that loyalty thing going on.  You boys are tight.  You been through some crazy shit together, but you ain’t been torn asunder. And that is a fucking fact.”

Well, I hadn’t heard him swear like that before, and it made me chuckle, from unease, I suppose.

He stood right the hell up.

He stalked forth to me in his boots and glared down into my eyes.

He said, “This ain’t no laughing matter, boy.  Some of you gonna end up dead.”

I stepped back from his glare.  I hadn’t meant to piss him off.  My heel kicked something lying on the floor behind me.  I caught my balance this time.  I didn’t fall and get desert dust in my eyes.  I didn’t go running off with dirt in my eyes for Glinda the good model.

I wasn’t a Violinist anymore.

Glinty grabbed me by the lapels of my leather jacket and pulled me up close.  He said, “You gonna have to help that Tellesco find his way.  Else-wise, there ain’t no way outta here for any of us.  It all depends upon you boys now.”

I pushed his bony hands away from me and stood straight up like an impertinent child.  I said, “I’ve been watching over that fucking whiny, crying loser ever since I met him.  I’m friggin tired of being his baby sitter, you old fuck.  Back off!”

This time, I did indeed stumble.

Again.

I turned and rolled before my head smacked the cement floor of the stable.  I closed my eyes before the cloud of desert dust that would make me sneeze.  I didn’t want to be blinded again.

I wanted to see things straight.

I sat up and sneezed.

I looked around.

I was alone.

Where the hell was Glinty?

What had I done?

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

From Nowhere  by Dan Croll  

.

TFW CH 12 Territory

Heart Broken, In Despair   by Dan Auerbach 

We three young men, one stranger, and an old cowboy dozed before the fireplace in his darkened cabin.  A war awaited us, and one must rest in peace before death.  The chairs nestled us deep with cushions that held the scent of sagebrush and leather.

The tobacco from his pipe helped ease my mind, and because of this, I slipped into a deep sleep.  I dreamed of my homeland, back east.

An Island in a large River beckoned me.  The sun crept up behind the trees reaching for the sky over the eastern branch and its reflection glistened in the morning waves of my River, my home.  I could smell the cedar trees in the crisp, clean breeze.  My River is my home.  I could see the sun and the glinting waves through the trees. 

Birds chirped and sang their daily declarations of their territory, and dogs barked from being left outside.

I walked down the Oak Hill to the riverbank and greeted the sun.  Its light warmed my face.  Oak Hill always has the fattest squirrels on the Island, you know, and they work to protect their own territory against invaders.

I was finally home and my world, though small, was much larger than any dust hole of the western deserts.  My home is one third of what is now known as the state of Maine.

I turned the canoe over and slipped it into my River.  In the brisk morning air, I would slip up this silky River without a sound, using the hunter’s stroke from my paddle.  Push, turn the paddle straight and glide it forward, and then twist and push again.

Birth and Death may be violent, but hopefully not for you, my friend

Such entrances occur to us each in a quiet moment while the world rumbles, screeches, explodes and makes much ado about nothing at all.

We may enter and exit screaming, but we never remember those parts, baby.

Ours is a silent glide along the silky water of our River. 

Glinty kicked my foot and awoke the others in this way.

Dayam.

A New Day   by Volbeat 

I jumped up out of the chair with my fists out.  Glinty laughed.  He said, “Well there’s a cock crowing!”

He set to laughing, and I rubbed my eyes.  Awful way to wake up.  I had been somewhere peaceful, but the images faded in my head while I grasped for them with clenched fingers, digging in the dust of the ugly desert.  Dry.

Big Bryan awoke in the same way as me, but Tellesco only pushed Glinty’s boot away with his bare foot.  He was sucking his thumb.   Hah?

Joey had his knife out.  Well, he was the little Lion Man, you know.

Patrick Till-Bury snorted and sat up slowly, like he was rising from the grave.

 Glinty clapped Bryan on the back and nodded at the table.  There was bacon, biscuits and gravy, and eggs all set there with orange juice in tall flasks.

He said, “Now after we have some coffee, you might need to use the shit shack out back.  Don’t mind the noise you make from last night’s supper. The vultures will crow and the coyotes will howl, but they’ll just be laughing at you.”

He made no sense at all, and the food tasted like nothing.  Again.

But we needed to get ready for the day. 

Joey said, “Weeeee-ill.  I don’t know about you, but I sure could use a toothbrush.”

Glinty nodded.  He said, “Ya don’t think I’m uncivilized, do ya?  There’s a basin and such yonder.”

Hell, I’d never used powdered toothpaste before. But it worked.  It was odd to see how folks lived back a hundred years ago, but not as odd as being served food that tasted like desert dust by a long-dead cowboy preacher.

He had come to help us in our travails.

He had come to help us engage in war.

It was a war that had been brewing for quite a long time, between the Purple Robes and the Blue King.

Somehow, it had come to involve the rest of us. 

We just didn’t know what the hell this meant.

Yet.

God Help You.

God Help Us all.

---willies out

Dead Man’s Shoes   by The Virginmarys  

TFW CH 11 TRVTH

Going Out West   by Tom Waits 

Sitting on the huge hearth, Glinty tamped his pipe with tobacco and then reached for a tinder from a tall box of them nearby.  He pulled it out and lit it in the blazing fire and put it up to the pipe. 

The tobacco caught, and its ember glowed in the lens of his broken spectacle.

As he smoked from his pipe, he looked over at the men in their large, comfy chairs, with their legs upon the low table before the fire. 

He nodded at me, because I was the only one watching him.

Food is sustenance, and hungry men will eat until they get their fill, no matter what the food tastes like. 

Or doesn’t.

Glinty nodded at me and arose.  He stalked across the bear-skin rug and sat down in the remaining chair to my right.  He eased back and settled in, and then offered his pipe over the arm of the chair.

I took it.

The smoke was quite welcome.  How long had it been since I’d enjoyed the flavor of tobacco?  It felt like a thousand years.  I knew that the sun would be up all too soon.  I could see the edges of the deer and caribou hides slung across the windows on them gilded curtain rods.  Them skins might keep the light of the angry sun at bay, but the edges were the cracks in the façade.

Even the roaring fire cast no heat.

It was the heat of the desert sun that had made the huge cabin hot, continuing throughout the chilly desert night.

The fire in the hearth had no spirit, you see.

I smoked, and felt the rush of the tobacco.  It felt like a ceremony.

Glinty waved his bony hand at me as I offered the pipe back to him over the arm of my easy chair.  He said, “You hold onto that for a few minutes.  I got some preaching to do for ya.”

Oh.

Shit.

Not now.

I was tired like a ghost cowboy what’s been wandering along the desert dunes, looking for his own soul.

But I didn’t say a damned thing.  It was all done trying to make a point about anything.

He nodded at me and slunk back deep into his own plush chair and exhaled.  It sounded like the breath from a grave.

He said, “Now I gotta tell you something young fella.  You just listen, and don’t say a word.  It’s something you might not want to hear.”

I exhaled the sweet smoke of the tobacco, and I just nodded.  Fuck it.

Glinty sighed.  Then he took a deep breath and he went on.

He said this:

“Me and that boy Tellesco, well, we are connected.  The Normans were the pirates that invaded that island a thousand years ago, across the seas.”

I had no idea what in thee hell he was talking about.  I began to nod off.

But do ya ken, he continued to speak, and his words became ingrained into my mind while I dozed before the cold fire in the mighty hearth.

He continued:

“That fellow you call No One, well, he hails from a long line of Kings.  The McGlinty Clan arose from them pirates. That boy and I, well, we are kin, from his pa’s side of the family.  We are connected.”

I heard his words as I dozed, and I thought of pirates and fighting peasants.  I had no base to imagine any of this, but for some reason, I could see it all.

He went on.  He said:

“His momma, well, her family came here in this desert hell hole from another country.  She is what you might call a Purple Robe.  That boy is the mix of them Purple Robes and them Pirates of Normandy.”

I had no idea what the hell he was talking about as I fell deeper into sleep, like a pebble drifting down into a deep well of bees honey.

 I was down and out for the count.

But it stuck with me.

I would find this out when it truly mattered.

It’s just that we had Death to face in a few hours.

I had my two little sisters and my momma.

Tellesco (No One) had only Sean now.

Sean, well, he was the one we had to face.

How can your savior be the face of Death?

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

 Circle  by Big Head Todd and The Monsters  

.

TFW CH 10 CONDEMNED

There is no such thing as “Left Behind.”  That is an evil idea thought up by some foolish, angry men.

No Loving God would ever condemn anyone to eternal hell.

Yet,

You can condemn yourself.

I Appear Missing  by Queens of the Stone Age 

Bryan and I hopped out of the white utility truck as Glinty went and barred them cattle  doors to the huge barn.  He stalked back to us, that old cowboy preacher dead for a hundred years.

He looked me up and down and adjusted his broken spectacles.   He bent forth at me and said, “You got a screw loose, young fella.”

My hand reached to the broken screw head in my pocket, and he smiled while he watched me do this even before I knew I was doing it.

He tilted his head back and laughed loud, toothless mouth wide open, and his preacher hat felt off into the dirt behind him.

Fucker. 

I held up the screw head and shoved it into his face.  “What the fuck is this fucking shit?!”

I whipped it at his face.  “What the fuck is up with you and all them hearses and that asshole punk with the clown face?!”

Well, I tell you mister, he shut right the hell up.

He didn’t even grab his hat off the dirt to shake off the desert dust.  Nope.  He stalked right up and got into my face. 

He said, “Now you listen here, boy.  You never mind about that kind of sass.  You boys are in a lot of trouble here.  This mess you got yourself into, well, even I don’t know what lies ahead for us all.  But you should never doubt that I have been at the trigger, waiting for something like this to happen.  Now that it has begun, it won’t stop, until it does.  Then we’ll see what happens next.  We’ll see what happens to those you hide deep inside you.”

I faltered.  I stepped back.   Looked down from his glare.  My anger turned to fear, and I couldn’t hide it.  Images of my two little sisters and my mom flashed in my mind, and I wondered how they were doing in the city-wide black-out.

Then I stuffed them pictures and worries back down.  I was good at that, you know.  How dare he?  How dare he make me falter?

I said, “I didn’t ask for this shit!  I don’t know what the hell is going on here.  I just want to leave this hell hole and never come back!  I didn’t ask for any of this fucking shit!”

Glinty’s angry grimace softened a bit. 

He stepped back.  He said, “No One did.”

He walked back to his hat, bent and picked it up, and he dusted it off, slapping it across his thigh.  He placed it back on his head and turned around.

Bryan said, “I got family, too.”

Glinty nodded, looking from Bryan’s face to mine as he did.

He said, “We all have family here.  We all have folks who just want to get back home.”

I looked over at Bryan and caught his eyes.  He shrugged his shoulders, shaking his head at me slowly.

I nodded. 

Then I said, “It won’t end ‘til it does?  What the hell are you talking about?”

Glinty said, “That means we got two choices.  One is that we die cowards.  The other is that we die facing our fears head on.”

Hah?

What the fuck did that mean?  Death was our only two options?

Glinty watched me falter again and then he said, “Ain’t no easy way out, you two young men.  You gotta face Death to overcome the fear of it.”

Tomorrow Never Comes   by Big Head Todd and The Monsters 

At a funeral wake, you may have noticed a plate of food set aside for the dead.  That is proper.   This is to sustain them before their path to the end.  In some of our indigenous cultures, after the wake has ended, it is customary for each of the living to take a bite of this plate, until the remnants are finished.  If you have ever done this, then you know that the food tastes like nothing at all.  The spirit is gone.

We entered the big log cabin and saw those boys at the table.  Joey and Tellesco were eating, but they were quiet.  They turned when we came in and stood up.

Joey said, “Thank you for feeding us, Mr. Glinty.”  He was polite like that. 

Tellesco said, “Sure could use some canned beans right now.”

Bryan walked right over to the table and sat down on the long bench.  He piled his plate high from many dishes and set to chowing.

I said, “What’s going on boys?”

Bryan spat his mouthful out on his plate and stood up.  He said, “Cardboard!”

Glinty said, “Now you boys don’t mind that.  You need to eat.”

Joey said, “But, excuse me sir, it’s just that it doesn’t taste like anything.”

Glinty said, “It’s probably all that desert dust you been eating all night.  You boys been eating nothing but dust.  Got a big day ahead.  Now feed your faces and drink the wine.  The morning will be here soon enough, and you need your rest.  I want you young fellas to sleep as much as you can before we head back out.”

From the chair in front of the hearth, Patrick Til-Bury burped big.  He said, “I got me a belly full.  Now good night, you men.  Keep the noise down, if you would be so kind.”

I understood.

I got my belly full at that table.

I had been at many funeral wakes before.

This one was ours.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

.

TFW CH 9 Leaving Phoenix

We had found the key in Phoenix, the golden car that had been drowned in the desert.  And now, we found ourselves approaching an old cabin in the desert. 

Move It On   by JJ Grey and Mofro  

Patrick, the driver of the huge, white utility truck who now sat in the rear of the crew cab with his face staring out of the window, was the first to say something. 

He said, “What the fuck is that?”

Indeed.

Under the light of the huge red moon setting in the west, it was a monstrosity.

We had taken many turns to get to this place, guided by the Glinty dude.

The new Sun would rise up in another hour, and already the stars began to wink out and go to sleep in their brightening blanket of deep blue.

Bryan stopped and climbed out from behind the steering wheel.  Glinty was next.  He had been sitting bitch, you know, but no one told him that.  All along the drive to his cabin in the east he had been marveling at all of the controls to the big truck.  Bryan answered his questions like a gentleman.

“Yes, sir, this is like the wheel at the helm of a boat.”

“Yes, sir, this is the clutch to the wheels of this ‘big carriage’.”

“Yes, sir, that petal on the floor is for the brakes…”

Bryan was the tour guide, gawd bless him.

The rest of us weary bastards clambered out and stood in the sand before the huge cabin.

Joey the Lion Man, said, “Weeee-ill.  This is where you drove that black model chick?”

I said, “Well, Joseph, it didn’t look like this at the time.”

Tellesco didn’t say a damned thing.  He just helped Patrick out of the back.  Patrick, however, had some choice words.  He said, “Now I know this is really all a dream after all.  None of this is real.  Good.”

You know, my friend, we all have our own way to navigate uncharted waters.  All is well, and well is all, for all.

Glinty pointed to the rear of the huge cabin in the desert.  He said to Bryan, “Let’s get these boys some food and water, then we put this mighty vehicle in my barn.  Sound good to you?”

Bryan only nodded.  Maybe he was thinking, hoping that this was a dream after all, like Patrick was busy doing.

Well, we made our way up the steps to the veranda.  Huge doors awaited.  The steps up to it were crafted from old iron wood, and they looked to be a hundred years old.  The scorch of a hundred years of desert sun had only made them harder.

It was indeed hard to walk up them steps.  We were beat.

But not beaten.

Stars   by Switchfoot  

Glinty paused before the massive old doors with black iron hinges and hardware.  He said, “This is our safe haven, our base.  Welcome to each of you.  Please enter and let us have sustenance and rest.  Rest your troubles on the hat hooks inside.  We are a family now.”

Then his old, creaky fingers wiped across the door handles with blue sparks as he whispered a few words to himself.

The bolt clicked with a loud ring.

He pulled them doors out wide, and before us we saw a warm interior, lit by hurricane lanterns on the walls and a fire roaring inside a huge hearth to the right.

Many large, cushy chairs surrounded that field-stone hearth, and to the left, a long wooden table held pitchers of water and gleaming plates and silverware.  Pots of stew and Dutch ovens of slow roasted meat lined the middle of the table.  Among them were bottles of old fine wine, and pitchers of well water.

Glinty turned back to me and Bryan as them others went for the table.  He said, “let’s hide that vehicle out back in the barn.  We got some work before you two set your teeth to eating. This agreeable to you young men?”

Well, how could we refuse?

But I could smell the food all hot and waiting, and there was even fresh fruit all about the place settings.  A true feast awaited, but there was more work to do.

Dayam.

Bryan and I climbed into the crew cab of the utility truck as Glinty stalked over to the big barn.

Bryan looked at me and said, “This is all a dream, isn’t it?”

I looked out the windshield at the old ghost cowboy walking off ahead of us. 

It wasn’t a dream. 

It was a fucking nightmare.  

I turned back to him and said, “Bryan.  Whatever you want to think, that’s cool.  Whatever helps.  Right now, let’s not think about it too much.  Let’s make an agreement that we will go back inside and eat, after we hide this giant bitch.  Cool?”

Bryan laughed.  That was good to hear.  He said, “OK.  Will, wherever you lead I will follow.”

Dayam.

Why did he have to say that?

Who in the hell was I to do any leading?

All I said was, “My friend, wherever we go, we have to stay true to each other, and them others.  That’s all we got.  Leave no one behind.”

He nodded, and that was good enough for him.

God help him.

Glinty led us to the giant barn and he opened it up.  The entrance was wide and tall enough for the white utility truck to enter.  Glinty closed the barn doors behind us as Bryan shut that beast down.

Food and drink awaited us, and it was going to be damn fine to eat, drink and be merry, before sleep.

We would sleep like the dead.

Of course, Glinty had some words to tell us before we left the barn.

Of course.

Nothing was ever easy for us.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

From Nowhere   by Dan Crall 

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