death valley days

7/28/2019 Death Valley Days

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Death Valley Days

a speculative fiction prose poemunder Creative Commons (a)

by Evan Myquest

Sacramento,2013

photos by National Park Service


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Part 1

1. walking among the totems, they cannot see me,cannot hearme speaking, i introduce them to each other for that vague

feeling they will have of meeting somewhere before. each is tall,winged, frightening with merciless predator eyes, visages with-out a promise of compromise they now talk all day of what theywill do to any interloper. this concert gets uglier by the moment,

pray for the whistling mountain man trespassing here

2. nowhere in justice does it say verdicts equal fairness, thereare gifts of cloudless freedom to the undeserving and darkholes for the guiltless yet damned. it is an operating room

where the theater team has too many duties to get to know allthe facts, or wants to, i walk unseen through the auditorium

knowing deeply it will be a bad day on the table today. the godsthat are thought to care dont. stygian gondoliers form a blackparade through this night. pray not to be a stranger in the town

of the missing loaf of bread

3. trailriding is hard on the ass enough without having to gallop

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away from certain death, spurs dig to blood as hooves dig forpurchase, iron shoe traction sparks on rock. when they formed

the posse this morning there was big talk of rope and trees. iwent among them somewhat astonished by the bravado. free

drinks and a fast deputization before the cause and effect real-ity of chasing a frefght gained the upper mind. a little coffee

and half themd stay home. pray not be the innocent through theunscouted canyon chute for men with bottles and guns lay in

wait

4. across the playa a twenty mule team hauls a wagonload of

borax. at this mornings coffee the grizzled drovers were boredto death. their teeth hurt like hell to a man and the sun was

bonewarming early and even the mules were prepared to co-operate to get out of this place, that is, if they were treated like

living beasts and watered enough. but when your teeth hurt youcannot care about an animal with ten times your strength--onlythat it is dependent on your power to beat it to death for your

mood. the frst mule died early and the skinner went to workeyeing that drover for sun madness. but they were all of a kind

that day. pray not to be in the lead and stumble twice when

the whole world is white with the wind blowing salt in your whipwounds

5. the towns watertower is leaking, signifying decay beyondcaring. in a sandy-foored tavern a meeting of the townsfolk

called about repairing the tower comes to affrmative resolve forrepairs, but member after member talks to what should have

been done years ago. in their midst i am baffed at the distrac-tion and name-calling. impending violence is heavy in the room

as these men settle their differences in few ways, ways thatkeep the undertaker and his measuring string busy. i have seen

how fast he works lacking refrigeration in this about to blowaway tumbleweed town. the tower drip worsens. pray not to be

among the few without chairs and tables to duck behind or theworst tremoring old shootist at the table

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6. hot little schoolhouse, emptied for recess, less than a dozenchildren at recess if not in river bluff hookey now. in the middle

of the bigger children I hear plots of merciless sidewinder snakegames on the younger ones. especially the girls. dared into the

collection of a snake for the games, the largest and dumbestfeels around the rock for the animal. it was the best of days to

be among the river rats. pray you never see or feel necrosis asswift as the big one did

7. some old women, not as old as you would think, sit around atable of donated food and whisper how heard tell a lusty woman

could fare well in earlier times, get all the drink she could wantfor rubs. a woman looks out from under heavy lids and repeats

more heard tell about being bruised from teats to toes a coupletimes but that was when business was good and not minded,

come hell high water or the preacher hisself, wranglers drinkbad teeth and all. pray heard tell that alone in the room youhave concealed the right caliber protection

8. youd have to have a lot of money to be the town drunk andgravedigger. no one buys for the old sweat-mudded sexton, at

least not more than a fipped coin tipsworth. too many chillsjust to be around his maundering babble for long, he babbles

on about bullets his customers have taken, imaginary notcheson their weapons. so he buys his own drinks and drinks alone.

i have stood there when a late customer was catholic or polishor irish and its dark late, and no one sees him at the bar taking

free ones on the familys cuff, that is, until he babbles under-taker gossip like the time he saw a high-toned woman squat

and loose her piss on a fresh grave in plain day. pray youre notdrunk enough then to look like you need burying

9. there are towns with promise and some with the name onlyon a warped dryboard shingle. some towns are waystops. some

are terminals. some are about mineral rights dreams and thebest that that brings out in citizens. how the devil must certainly

be amused by those with new in the name. how much magnetic

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expectation! a marauding predators dream--exposed prey. iwalk among the common folk and hear the carping, the demise

of the optimism, creeping realization of their exposure gamble.yes,being on the dry side of the hills the town of New Promise is

something an eagles vantage would deride. only humans wouldco-exist at lizard levels and think themselves as masters of the

foodchain. scree and dive on them. pray never to live wherethere are two inevitable disappointments in the name alone

10. all the fourth of july bunting in the closets of new promisewould not cover its most powerful citizens shame. when the tote

is calculated on the cemetery hill the winners and losers seeno balance. they are both dead beneath the darting lizards. no

component of justifcation for the name of new promise. newpromise is complete and fulflled. it is about keeping its appoint-

ed destiny. pray citizens i love, it is too bad you cannot see meand right yourselves before i see you

11. smoke comes from a burned out house. not a burnedouthouse but a family home where i heard the nervousness in

the fathers voice about the bandidos operating in the area.the more those marauders banded together the harder it was

to feed them all, with keeping stolen women, and so the bolderthey schemed, extorting ranches and whole waystop towns, for

food and legal invisibility. but not this man. not this family. closeenough to new promise not to feel apart if they came. he had

not fgured that new promise thought his familys screams weretheir early warning system. pray when the sound of hooves thun-

ders, it thunders past where you hide

12. they found the remains of a skull in the desert. no onewould have cared except it was four feet across and had a six

inch attackers tooth still in the snout. some people from theeast came out to see it. i heard them talking about the fnd, ex-

cited over their parlor drinks and cigars. they did not make it tothe site. a bad wind came up and killed them all (with help from

a cowardly and duplicitous guide)--this despite their amazon

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and asian jungle experience. no one else came then for years.pray paleontologists do not fnd your home and neighbors too

primitive to research

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13. law n order joke. two cross holstered gun toughs walk intoa bar. i chuckle as they walk through me singing something

close to I shot the sheriff. in the sheriffs offce the carnage is

not pretty. that movie head side shot with the little bullet hole inthe forehead and the open eyes, not here, this valley is not themovies for another century or more yet--there are no small cali-

ber guns. no tiny bullet holes. the toughs also shot the deputy.these toughs do not like being interfered with when they wakehungover in a joke of a cell. a smart sheriff would have let themsleep it off. jb just had to wake them and push them out of the

cell. he might have just as well put his hand in a snake hole.volunteer sheriff. forever and ever is a long time to be dead andstupid

14. every town has a whore with brains and a good heart. notnew promise. it has two of them, paulette and jane. paulette

and jane run the upstairs rooms back of the frehouse. bothrooms. no lack of customers. volunteerism is rampant. wives

always know where their husbands are. the mine foremen knowwhere their employees are. i hear the wives and foremen swear-

ing at the absent men. they are at the frehouse of course, oncivic watch duty. or jane. or paulette. forever and ever it is the

sweetest and smartest of setups unless your house or businessis burning

15. sadness in new promise is reserved for the diseased. peo-ple are unusually healthy until they are not. here twenty some-

things are middle-aged, expectancies beyond this hump age areladen with surrender, denial, and visibly dim, lack of optimism

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of continuing gain is the tipping point. only the drunks have asense of the humor of life. the weight is on which side tragedy

will strike from, not if. i send warriors down from my totems tomurder the less vigilant. forever and ever is when you win one

less time than I do

16. bony sleeping dogs lie in the heat of new promise. shud-dering orgasmic dreams get left behind to kicks from impotent

men. in the size up its the size of the gun and the way its wornthat determines right of way on the planks across buidling gaps-

-unless the pistole is in a garter. exploring hands often fnd more

than bargained for. some pistoles are bigger than others andsize is not always trump. a derringer against the ear is trumpof a kind. forever and ever is the time between a mistake of a

punch and hearing the cocking and hammering home

17. emaciated horse's asses in corrals look like shovels under ablanket. i hear handlers say their hands are tied to feed costs

without much regard to the animals living or dying. the butchersells more asino than cow these days. the sky hints at relief

at the grounds worst cracking dryness. thunder sounds in thehills and prayers ask for it to come down this side of hell for achange. forever and ever is a long time to eat donkey haunch.

18. lightning strikes in the hills. the town citizens assume butbeg not to let it be another bunch of dry fashes this time.

streaky clouds even at that distance say it is not. they see thetelltale foam. a massive head like a fresh beers is growing in

the distant desert. i hear people panic shout for children whojust want to watch in awe. not knowing. not remembering the

arroyo danger. they dont remember that the delicious drops on their faces now can also kill. they see only the reward of a cool

throat for once. plunking drops on dusty faces. streaks in dustfor once not sweat. men run with shovels and bags to divert the

rush of knee deep water that can wash the town away like it wasdust born and formed. forever and ever is just time enough to

remember the last rain toll

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19. there is a worn trail from the gambling table to the rear ofthe frehouse for the winners. loser consolation is the drunk

tank for liquor is more preferable to the mineral stink to the

towns brackwater. a tar patch on the water tower attests to thelength of the drought like a battle medal of desperation. the rainsignals to the wary that the canvas dust cover should come off

the tower if it can fx to rain some. takes three men to roll thecover to one side and down. cheers greet the frst drops of rain

when people actually believe it is felt. forever and ever is justthe length of time people can be pessimistic

20. the town of new promise smelled better after the washout.once the streets dried back and became passable a person

could take a whiff of town air without getting a nostril stingingmethane burn. a person could walk in a line without zigzag-

ging animal waste piles. but it did not pay to become used toclean air days. the streets and sanitation department was a half

century away and whatever building had the hitching post hadthe duty. if it cared. forever and ever was the time until church

social cleanup

21. kill or be. killed. nameless wagon-top newhire kid died stunga dozen times by fushed out ground wasps because of his

allergy to them. natural overkill since the frst two stings weresuffcient for the result. swatting at the wasps and almost kill-

ing the veteran wagon driver with the reins as the kids shotgunwaved around following the old man like it was stink guided. old

krebsie thought the wasp attack on the kid was funny until thegun waving. but then the kid swoll up in the throat. gasped big

and went bug-eyed. then keeled off the wagon. forever and everis from the time you fnd out youre allergic and the next time

youre swatting at buzzing death itself

22. new arrivals in town. gambler. preacher. dentist. thank thelord, oh thank the lord everyone thought, a god sent dentist.

keep your godservants. let the announcement go forth the town

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council had an answered prayer. the doc got out of the coach forhire rumble box and from the top step looked around and won-

dered where the quaint valley in the letter had ended and thisdry heat furnace had begun and why the coach had continued

on into the innerworks of it. somewhere back they must havemissed the oasis of plenty turn and pursued the offramp of

the eye of hell itself. i milled among the gap smiled welcomingcrowd and lone trumpeteer. we whisked that man to his offce

before he could speak. the waiting room was full at the soundof the trumpet. forever and ever is the time it takes from wel-

come pleasantries to a cocked lap pistol while doing a bandidos

extraction

23. superstitious people can get a cat killed faster than a roach.but it does not get it buried until the smell overcomes the town

air in a one up battle for layered putrescence. forever and everis just that long

24. wild horse desert stampede dust storms are a sight. so isa camel getting up off the ground in horse and mule country.

totem spirits of reinvention and innovation are not strangersto the desert. too bad drunk pistolero eduardo woke to a long-tongued monster vision in his face. he said it stepped on him

was why he shot it. but all knew it was the wake up shock ofthe joke by the camel thieves, eds gang, were playing. waking

to those nostrils and that bleat took a few years off eduardothat he could not spare for the business he was in. loaded guns

and inevitabilties go hand in hand. forever and ever is explain-ing that to the army brig guards heaping camel shit in your cell

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Part 2

1. blazing sun casts the darkest of shadows. we have a witnessin any badge holder of new promise. the sheriff for one. jb did

not live to see his shadow outside of the jail offIce when the

Walkers stepped over his body on their way to the saloon. thebalance of light and shadow became his defcit. from the shad-ows i watched the elder walker, sam, avoid getting jbs blood

on his boots. i watched as the twenty year old tousled headeddeputy opened the door and occupied the wrong spot at thewrong time. out of the shadows he took a bullet fusillade thatpropelled him backward like he was jacket wired to a slingshot

cable. in the absence of witnesses legends grow

2. sun madness is when the white shimmering heat makes a

fata morgana lifelike enough for a mule driver to steer around it.these days after the food a detour can mean burying the wag-

onload and several mules haunch deep in a sucking mud justunder the cracked dried white surface of the desert. a desert

layer which looks exactly like the months before the mountainstorm. some mules will be left behind where they lost their bal-ance in the quickmud. they bray until the desert claims them. in

the absence of witnesses, bones talk of mirages

3. out of sheer tiredness for food cleaning it was deemed nec-essary to move the town one mile north. a bit higher ground in

lieu of mountainside embankment dikes familiar to most playasettlements. the deciders did not favor the hemmed in feeling ofdikes limiting any forthcoming town growth. it was easy enoughto lever the wooden buildings onto rollers. the model for it hadbeen around since the Egyptians. it wasnt like anyone had to

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change a zip code. in the absence of witnesses, the wind canquickly cover the deepest tracks made by a twenty mule build-

ing caravan

4. Paulette and Black Jane have this performance they put onfor a hefty price. the women wash each other in a shower and

invite the client in to rid himself of his layer of desert and protec-tive cover. guns off. the participants partake of scented oil rubs

from the East. the town snickers at sweet smelling clientele af-terward. jasmine and horse manure are aromatic counterpoint.

in the absence of witnesses, a lingering aroma can inspire hilar-

ity

5. while friends and family of JB got to together to load theirshotguns with shards of beerglass smashed in cloth sacks, the

Walkers resumed drinking away the rest of their lives. the menlaid in wait for the drinkers to come out back of the saloon forpissing. the shotgun blasts took the skin and clothes clean off

the Walkers--whose last words, with members in hand, werenot yet. in the absence of witnesses, the master says, if one

does not fear the dark one lacks imagination

6. once a man named Josiah crossed the local snow mountainsin just his underwear and boots. he free climbed down cliff

faces of ice and snow. he did all the right things to balance outsurvival against death from the elements. out of the mountains

he told of sights or visions of frightening totem poles and burialground platforms where no known local tribe was known to have

used them. nor could have due to the frost line height. somesaid the cold got his mind before the visions but in the absence

of witnesses, the storyteller citing monsters is credible to theexclusion of daylight fact

7. a native american belief local to New Promise told of a moun-tain dwelling civilization with large eyes and short stature.

these people lived in ice caves impervious to hypothermia be-cause they had a glowing aura of cold electric fre to them. if

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you could bring down and construct a suit of burgundy St.Elmosaurora borealis you would also have seen the upper sections of

Josiahs totem visions. citizens of New Promise begged Josiah toshow them the way back through the hills. it could not happen.

because, in the absence of witnesses to help him, Josiah hadzero memory of his path except its common valley and moun-

tain features

8. how does a mountain man lose all but his underwear thetownsfolk asked Josiah any chance they could get. Josiah with-

out a memory in the world could not say. only I could as I few

alongside Joe. this time in the shape of a raven with ratherlarge eyes. of all my shapes, the fying shapes give me the mostpleasure. it is easy enough to be a dog among tavern groups or

street groups of people in New Promise. one must remember tobe quite anemic and emaciated in choosing an invisible blend-

ing shape. I few along with the mountain man because thetotems told me that Joe was trespassing and saw things he was

not meant to. like burgundy auroras around totems above thesnowline cold. it was a gift on the part of Joe to leave his clothes

and walk away. so he thought. in the absence of witnesses, I as-sumed a shape pleasing to Joe to make Joe give up the warmthof his clothing.

9. I walk among them that they might lull and wag their tonguesinto informing me of their affairs so I might inform the totems.

they mostly talk of dying and death though. perhaps their civili-zation is not suffciently advanced to predict their own longevity

through their genetic code. a most fascinating dumb animalexistence with the violence and primal sense heightened. in the

absence of witnesses, they call themselves out in prayers forthe needs and desires they choose not to sacrifce themselves

for

10. to swoop and run is to play in this world. I want to believe Inever intervene. but so many of them encroach that small pen-

alties must be inficted. a storm and food. a native moun

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tain woman succubus. eery glows. nothing I would not do for myown children to set boundaries. I am no trickster. even allowed

just to watch I could not help but double over with their self-in-ficted classical drama. with their weekly ritual wishlists read out

to hymnal rhythms. in the absence of witnesses, they believe Iintervene in their lives far far more than I do

11. I do not paint their sunsets nor color their rockscapesthough they may certainly dazzle. their seasons come and go

without my help. I spare them none of my science and I letthem take their measurements of their world and hold no sway

in their progress. what they mix and believe happens is not myconcern. only the mountain. only the particular crevice valley

and my dead. in the absence of witnesses, I could do thingsbut those housed in the totems bear all-seeing witness to my

means of caring for them

12. increment by increment, I see them gain hold where they

should not. they have taken to the air and can rain destructionat will upon each other. still it is not for me to intervene. theirrituals grow names like experiment and double blind test. their

politics and their bellies consume them and their environment.acid is as acid does I would tell them if I were the interventionist

they take me for. they now believe in the absence of witnessesand counterbalance to their mirage of self-importance

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Evan Myquest

Midwest born but succesfully negotiated the US route80 trail over the Donner Summit to his life in thefoothills of Northern Californias Sierras these pastyears.

He is old, married, has one daughter and onegrandson in north central Ill

For more information and poetry seemyspace.com/myquest or mmw50.com. ~m

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