On a deserted stretch in the mountains, Josiah lay flat on the ground, his face above a hole he’d just dug, and, staring into the hole, he screamed. Echoes bounced from the banks then died, and all was still. “I leave my guilt here,” he said. “It is done.”
Josiah had learned the trick from an Indian, oh, three, maybe four years ago. You dig a hole and fill it with shouting and tears, hate and sorrow. Then you cover the burdens with earth and walk away. Josiah acknowledged no God, neither his own people’s God nor the Great Spirit of the red man, but he understood the need to travel with a light pack and a light heart.
He dug the hole longer and deeper. Along with his conscience, Josiah had a man’s body to bury. The dead man was a prospector, old and whiskery, with clothing stained and smelling of spit, blood and tobacco. He’d left his claim to seek shelter in town before the first blizzard. A loner. He would not be missed. Josiah picked up the old man’s body. Light, whisper-thin, it hung like a sack stuffed with straw in Josiah’s large arms.
Just the evening before, they’d walked side by side in silence, and they’d pitched camp and built a fire before nightfall. Neither had spoken until Josiah pulled out a well-worn greasy hip flask and took a slow, warming swig.
“What you got in there?” the old man had asked. His head down towards the ground, he sneaked sideways glances at the flask.
“Whiskey… You thirsty?”
“A mite. Just to warm the chill from my bones.”
What’s it worth to you?”
For a moment the old man was silent, eyes shifting back and forth. He spit on the ground and wiped his mouth with his shirtsleeve. Then he fumbled inside his shirt and pulled out a stained leather pouch. After an anxious look over his shoulder, he took out a crinkled square of paper and folded into it a small pinch of yellow dust. “I got gold,” he said.
They sat by the fire passing the flask back and forth, staring at the fire. “Wish I’d set to prospecting instead of trapping,” Josiah said. He fingered the dirty piece of paper containing the gold and wondered exactly how much it was worth. “I’d dig up enough gold to set me living soft, then spend the rest of my days with fancy clothes and fancy women.”
The prospector yawned. “It don’t work that way. Gold’s funny. It’s pretty and it’s yours, and it shines and warms you, then it grows at you ‘till it owns you and it’s God.”
They kicked dirt on the fire, and while they slept, the stained pouch never stopped dancing behind Josiah’s closed lids.
For Josiah, the next morning was only disjointed sensations: the feel of his pistol, death-cold like the November air and the sharp thunderclap sound as it discharged; then the tingling odor of gunpowder, and the old man crumpling to the ground. These were the thoughts he was leaving behind in the hole. Josiah had killed foxes, bears, snakes, wolverines – all kinds of animals – for food and pelts, but he’d never killed a man before. He hadn't expect it to be any different.
Now, Josiah searched the body and pulled out the leather pouch. It lay heavy in his hand. Inside, were coins, and nuggets, and a fist full of dust and flakes – much more than Josiah had expected.
“Ashes to ashes; dust to dust,” he muttered. Josiah lay the old man’s body into the newly-dug grave. Its face grinned up at him as he began to fill the hole with dirt.
While he worked, Josiah jingled the pouch. He thought about Priscilla and the feel of her arm, so soft in his strong hands, and how she’d pulled away from him. “Pa’s waiting. I have to hurry home.” It seemed she was always hurrying away for something. These memories made him angry, but they were the thoughts savor, to hang on to. They were not feelings to leave behind in an earthen hole. He jingled the bag again wondering how many nuggets it would take to buy Priscilla’s body, and how many more to win her affection.
Like most women, Priscilla had shunned Josiah, and he kept trying to figure out why. He didn’t have a pretty-boy milky face. Years of sun, wind, and disappointment – all that time scraping through the Sierras trapping skins – had tanned his face leather-hard. He wasn’t rich either; women always wanted a man with money and land. He should have married long ago. But now he had gold! Now they’d come to him like trout to a hooked worm.
Josiah whistled, throwing the last clods of frost-hard dirt over the hole. Then he covered the mound with rocks, enough rocks to keep the dead silent. He turned his back to the grave and walked away.
As the first flakes of snow fell, Josiah shivered, pulling his jacket close around himself. He jammed a beaver-skin cap down tighter over his head. Too bad his horse and the old man’s mule had bolted, shying from the gunshot, but it wasn’t more than a few miles into town, and the main body of the storm was still several hours away. It would be a half-hour at most from the mountain down to the flats, and maybe another hour to the warmth of town. He jingled his pouch as he walked. Inside of it was gold enough for women, horses, hotel rooms, and hot baths – as many as he wanted.
The wind picked up, nudging hard at his back, and grumbling, crushing sounds broke through the trees behind him. Josiah turned, his hand on the butt of his pistol. Rocks and boulders, knocked loose by the gathering storm, were tumbling down the mountain’s steeper slopes. What about the rocks on the old man’s grave? Had any of them been knocked loose? Josiah looked up, squinting into the wind.
That’s stupid. Those rocks ain’t budging none. Anyway, that business with the hole was crazy, just superstition. It didn’t mean nothing. He stared up the mountain trying to find the spot where he’d dug the grave.
With an angry howl, the wind shifted, bringing with it more snow, and Josiah set his face against it, working his way towards the town. But then, in a copse to his right, Josiah saw movement – maybe the old dun mare, his only friend, or maybe just his mind tricking his eyes. Josiah turned towards the trees and listened. Hoof beats, he thought, peering through the branches and falling snow.
“Here Jezebel,” he whistled softly. “Come here old girl.” But there was no answering nicker. Josiah watched and followed, straining for a glimpse of his horse. He finally saw it, not the mare, but a four-pointed stag seeking lower ground and shelter from the oncoming storm.
Beast from Hell,” he muttered. He pulled his pistol out and fired at the stag. It reared, eyes wide with fright, then bolted zigzagging through brush and snow. Josiah turned to follow, a stubborn rage dogging his steps. He continued the chase well after the last trace of the animal had disappeared in white confusion.
In defeat, Josiah pushed against the wind once more, heading downhill. Snow fell in large wet clumps now, and the wind whistled furiously, stinging his face. The sky turned from white to gray. Josiah quickened his steps down the mountain. The storm had come faster than he’d reckoned. He’d have to be careful.
Ice was settling on Josiah’s face, no longer melting. Josiah paused to wipe the crystals from his beard and mustache. Deep in thought, he rubbed his hands across his face as he scanned the territory ahead for pathways and landmarks, mechanically circling his eyes, nose and mouth. The habitual motion comforted him.
The wind whistled and Josiah felt as though someone were behind him. He almost sensed breathing, but it was probably just the wind. He whipped around suddenly but saw nothing. Just nerves, he thought. Just nerves. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was not alone, and then he knew why. Tobacco! Ever so faintly, he smelled tobacco. Like the morning after the evening in a whorehouse, the smell was everywhere and nowhere. He turned around shouting into the trees. “Who’s there? Show yourself.” There was no answering shout. Saplings bent; branches waved in eerie patters of light and dark. He peered through the falling snow searching for a different kind of movement.
The wind shrieked. It was hard to find the path now in the deepening snow. And still the odor of tobacco haunted him. “Where are you? What do you want?” Josiah trudged on, wary like stalked prey. He spun on his heels, peering into the murky gloom, perspiring in spite of the biting wind. It had to be just mind tricks. He’d left the old man with his tobacco stink behind him up the hill. He pulled out his pistol and fired four shots – one in each direction. The wind and snow muffled the sound.
He stared at the pistol; then he stared at his hands. Of course! He’d gotten the tobacco smell on his hands when he’d buried the body. That’s all it was. Mind tricks, like he’d known all along. The swirling white snow, the howl of the wind – they could do that to a man. But that was all it was - just mind tricks. He pulled needles off a nearby sapling and rolled them around in his hands, then rubbed the needles on his clothes and his face. “Go away old man,” he shouted into the wind. “Rest in Hell where you belong. You’re dead and I’m not, and there ain’t nothing you can do about it.”
An hour later, he‘d made his way down to the flats. The town was a shimmering mound, all but hidden by the falling snow. He looked carefully, got his bearings and began walking towards it.
White snow burned his eyes. The wind whistled steadily, “Siah, siah, siah, siah,” nibbling around the edges of his mind like a rat. Josiah pushed his cap down low around his ears to muffle the sound.
The wind shifted; the afternoon sky grew dark. Josiah took care to keep walking straight, as the town and the mountains were now invisible in the swirling snow. A sharp crashing noise broke behind him. Just the wind, thought Josiah. All the same, he turned towards the sound in reflex.
“Don’t spook now,” he told himself. “You left all that buried in a hole.”
“Siah, siah, Josiah, siah, siah, siah.” Just the wind playing tricks.
Snow swirled, dirty gray-white like the old prospector’s beard. He searched the horizon for a sign of the settlement, but there was only biting wind, now blowing in circles and sheet after sheet of snow. Without a landmark for bearings, he could only pray his way back to the village, but prayer stuck dry in his throat like rocks in a summer’s gulch. Josiah made his best guess at the direction of the town and bent his face into the wind toward the hope of warmth.
“Siah, siah, Josiah, siah, slayer, siah, siah.” And the wind blew, whistling an elegy clear through to his soul.
A wolf howled in the distance. Another answered. “Atone, atone.”
The white stung his eyes and the wind hissed steadily. “Siah, siah, siah, Josiah siah, siah repent.” The words rasped in his head. His heart and gut twisted like old, gnarled tree roots. His face turned hard. His mouth set, grimaced. He saw the old man’s face, an apparition in the icy air. “Your fault, you ghoul, you dog! You let me see your gold. No man is such a fool. You planned to take my life all along, my life and my soul, you demon.”
“Siah, siah, repent, repent, siah.”
“You were old, old man. Your life was nothing more than dust, tobacco, gold and whiskey. It was a kindness to kill you. The fox whose head I twisted in pity was more worthy of life than you.”
“Siah, siah, what have you done, Josiah?”
The white glare half-blinded him. After-images appeared riding on the snow – visions of the old prospector, head bent low with the weight of toil and loneliness. He reached his hand forward. The apparition seemed so real. Josiah felt an urge to put his hand on the prospector’s shoulder. “Old man, fellow traveler, our burdens are much the same. You’ve poured your life into a sack of gold, and I’ve taken it all, your gold, your life, and every chance you had left to you.” As Josiah knelt in the snow, his tears froze on his cheeks.
The buzzing in his head quieted. The wind died, and a sliver of moon shone low on the horizon against a coal-black sky. Lights! Josiah saw them waving at him, dancing a ways to the right of the path he’d been walking. He corrected his bearings and his feet marched in strong, purposeful steps through the silent snow.
“Siah, siah, siah,” sand the wind to him, a lullaby, a chant, a mantra. “Siah, siah, siah, leave the gold, Josiah, siah, siah.” But this couldn’t be real. Just his mind. “Siah, siah, leave the gold. It isn’t your to keep.”
“It owns you, and it’s God.” That’s what the old prospector had said about gold. Give up the gold? When he was so close to town? “My head’s gone crazy. That’s all. It’s just that the wind and the cold, they’re making me crazy.” He fingered the pouch under his jacket. He pulled it out to look at …
“Siah, siah. Leave the gold. Empty the pouch. Throw it out, nugget by nugget, flake by flake. Throw each piece strong, with your back and shoulders hard behind the throw. Then fling the dust as far as you can, and turn the pouch inside out, and rub it clean in the s now.”
Josiah stared at the lights of town and knew he could walk the distance. It was no more than half a mile away. He put the pouch back under his shirt, and his muscles twisted with pain because of the load he carried.
In the following spring before the snow had completely melted, two ranchers found him – at least they found his body. He was holding an empty leather pouch, turned inside out and rubbed clean. “He sure do look peaceful,” said one. “Hell, I ain’t never seen him smile like that when was alive.
Josiah had learned the trick from an Indian, oh, three, maybe four years ago. You dig a hole and fill it with shouting and tears, hate and sorrow. Then you cover the burdens with earth and walk away. Josiah acknowledged no God, neither his own people’s God nor the Great Spirit of the red man, but he understood the need to travel with a light pack and a light heart.
He dug the hole longer and deeper. Along with his conscience, Josiah had a man’s body to bury. The dead man was a prospector, old and whiskery, with clothing stained and smelling of spit, blood and tobacco. He’d left his claim to seek shelter in town before the first blizzard. A loner. He would not be missed. Josiah picked up the old man’s body. Light, whisper-thin, it hung like a sack stuffed with straw in Josiah’s large arms.
Just the evening before, they’d walked side by side in silence, and they’d pitched camp and built a fire before nightfall. Neither had spoken until Josiah pulled out a well-worn greasy hip flask and took a slow, warming swig.
“What you got in there?” the old man had asked. His head down towards the ground, he sneaked sideways glances at the flask.
“Whiskey… You thirsty?”
“A mite. Just to warm the chill from my bones.”
What’s it worth to you?”
For a moment the old man was silent, eyes shifting back and forth. He spit on the ground and wiped his mouth with his shirtsleeve. Then he fumbled inside his shirt and pulled out a stained leather pouch. After an anxious look over his shoulder, he took out a crinkled square of paper and folded into it a small pinch of yellow dust. “I got gold,” he said.
They sat by the fire passing the flask back and forth, staring at the fire. “Wish I’d set to prospecting instead of trapping,” Josiah said. He fingered the dirty piece of paper containing the gold and wondered exactly how much it was worth. “I’d dig up enough gold to set me living soft, then spend the rest of my days with fancy clothes and fancy women.”
The prospector yawned. “It don’t work that way. Gold’s funny. It’s pretty and it’s yours, and it shines and warms you, then it grows at you ‘till it owns you and it’s God.”
They kicked dirt on the fire, and while they slept, the stained pouch never stopped dancing behind Josiah’s closed lids.
For Josiah, the next morning was only disjointed sensations: the feel of his pistol, death-cold like the November air and the sharp thunderclap sound as it discharged; then the tingling odor of gunpowder, and the old man crumpling to the ground. These were the thoughts he was leaving behind in the hole. Josiah had killed foxes, bears, snakes, wolverines – all kinds of animals – for food and pelts, but he’d never killed a man before. He hadn't expect it to be any different.
Now, Josiah searched the body and pulled out the leather pouch. It lay heavy in his hand. Inside, were coins, and nuggets, and a fist full of dust and flakes – much more than Josiah had expected.
“Ashes to ashes; dust to dust,” he muttered. Josiah lay the old man’s body into the newly-dug grave. Its face grinned up at him as he began to fill the hole with dirt.
While he worked, Josiah jingled the pouch. He thought about Priscilla and the feel of her arm, so soft in his strong hands, and how she’d pulled away from him. “Pa’s waiting. I have to hurry home.” It seemed she was always hurrying away for something. These memories made him angry, but they were the thoughts savor, to hang on to. They were not feelings to leave behind in an earthen hole. He jingled the bag again wondering how many nuggets it would take to buy Priscilla’s body, and how many more to win her affection.
Like most women, Priscilla had shunned Josiah, and he kept trying to figure out why. He didn’t have a pretty-boy milky face. Years of sun, wind, and disappointment – all that time scraping through the Sierras trapping skins – had tanned his face leather-hard. He wasn’t rich either; women always wanted a man with money and land. He should have married long ago. But now he had gold! Now they’d come to him like trout to a hooked worm.
Josiah whistled, throwing the last clods of frost-hard dirt over the hole. Then he covered the mound with rocks, enough rocks to keep the dead silent. He turned his back to the grave and walked away.
As the first flakes of snow fell, Josiah shivered, pulling his jacket close around himself. He jammed a beaver-skin cap down tighter over his head. Too bad his horse and the old man’s mule had bolted, shying from the gunshot, but it wasn’t more than a few miles into town, and the main body of the storm was still several hours away. It would be a half-hour at most from the mountain down to the flats, and maybe another hour to the warmth of town. He jingled his pouch as he walked. Inside of it was gold enough for women, horses, hotel rooms, and hot baths – as many as he wanted.
The wind picked up, nudging hard at his back, and grumbling, crushing sounds broke through the trees behind him. Josiah turned, his hand on the butt of his pistol. Rocks and boulders, knocked loose by the gathering storm, were tumbling down the mountain’s steeper slopes. What about the rocks on the old man’s grave? Had any of them been knocked loose? Josiah looked up, squinting into the wind.
That’s stupid. Those rocks ain’t budging none. Anyway, that business with the hole was crazy, just superstition. It didn’t mean nothing. He stared up the mountain trying to find the spot where he’d dug the grave.
With an angry howl, the wind shifted, bringing with it more snow, and Josiah set his face against it, working his way towards the town. But then, in a copse to his right, Josiah saw movement – maybe the old dun mare, his only friend, or maybe just his mind tricking his eyes. Josiah turned towards the trees and listened. Hoof beats, he thought, peering through the branches and falling snow.
“Here Jezebel,” he whistled softly. “Come here old girl.” But there was no answering nicker. Josiah watched and followed, straining for a glimpse of his horse. He finally saw it, not the mare, but a four-pointed stag seeking lower ground and shelter from the oncoming storm.
Beast from Hell,” he muttered. He pulled his pistol out and fired at the stag. It reared, eyes wide with fright, then bolted zigzagging through brush and snow. Josiah turned to follow, a stubborn rage dogging his steps. He continued the chase well after the last trace of the animal had disappeared in white confusion.
In defeat, Josiah pushed against the wind once more, heading downhill. Snow fell in large wet clumps now, and the wind whistled furiously, stinging his face. The sky turned from white to gray. Josiah quickened his steps down the mountain. The storm had come faster than he’d reckoned. He’d have to be careful.
Ice was settling on Josiah’s face, no longer melting. Josiah paused to wipe the crystals from his beard and mustache. Deep in thought, he rubbed his hands across his face as he scanned the territory ahead for pathways and landmarks, mechanically circling his eyes, nose and mouth. The habitual motion comforted him.
The wind whistled and Josiah felt as though someone were behind him. He almost sensed breathing, but it was probably just the wind. He whipped around suddenly but saw nothing. Just nerves, he thought. Just nerves. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was not alone, and then he knew why. Tobacco! Ever so faintly, he smelled tobacco. Like the morning after the evening in a whorehouse, the smell was everywhere and nowhere. He turned around shouting into the trees. “Who’s there? Show yourself.” There was no answering shout. Saplings bent; branches waved in eerie patters of light and dark. He peered through the falling snow searching for a different kind of movement.
The wind shrieked. It was hard to find the path now in the deepening snow. And still the odor of tobacco haunted him. “Where are you? What do you want?” Josiah trudged on, wary like stalked prey. He spun on his heels, peering into the murky gloom, perspiring in spite of the biting wind. It had to be just mind tricks. He’d left the old man with his tobacco stink behind him up the hill. He pulled out his pistol and fired four shots – one in each direction. The wind and snow muffled the sound.
He stared at the pistol; then he stared at his hands. Of course! He’d gotten the tobacco smell on his hands when he’d buried the body. That’s all it was. Mind tricks, like he’d known all along. The swirling white snow, the howl of the wind – they could do that to a man. But that was all it was - just mind tricks. He pulled needles off a nearby sapling and rolled them around in his hands, then rubbed the needles on his clothes and his face. “Go away old man,” he shouted into the wind. “Rest in Hell where you belong. You’re dead and I’m not, and there ain’t nothing you can do about it.”
An hour later, he‘d made his way down to the flats. The town was a shimmering mound, all but hidden by the falling snow. He looked carefully, got his bearings and began walking towards it.
White snow burned his eyes. The wind whistled steadily, “Siah, siah, siah, siah,” nibbling around the edges of his mind like a rat. Josiah pushed his cap down low around his ears to muffle the sound.
The wind shifted; the afternoon sky grew dark. Josiah took care to keep walking straight, as the town and the mountains were now invisible in the swirling snow. A sharp crashing noise broke behind him. Just the wind, thought Josiah. All the same, he turned towards the sound in reflex.
“Don’t spook now,” he told himself. “You left all that buried in a hole.”
“Siah, siah, Josiah, siah, siah, siah.” Just the wind playing tricks.
Snow swirled, dirty gray-white like the old prospector’s beard. He searched the horizon for a sign of the settlement, but there was only biting wind, now blowing in circles and sheet after sheet of snow. Without a landmark for bearings, he could only pray his way back to the village, but prayer stuck dry in his throat like rocks in a summer’s gulch. Josiah made his best guess at the direction of the town and bent his face into the wind toward the hope of warmth.
“Siah, siah, Josiah, siah, slayer, siah, siah.” And the wind blew, whistling an elegy clear through to his soul.
A wolf howled in the distance. Another answered. “Atone, atone.”
The white stung his eyes and the wind hissed steadily. “Siah, siah, siah, Josiah siah, siah repent.” The words rasped in his head. His heart and gut twisted like old, gnarled tree roots. His face turned hard. His mouth set, grimaced. He saw the old man’s face, an apparition in the icy air. “Your fault, you ghoul, you dog! You let me see your gold. No man is such a fool. You planned to take my life all along, my life and my soul, you demon.”
“Siah, siah, repent, repent, siah.”
“You were old, old man. Your life was nothing more than dust, tobacco, gold and whiskey. It was a kindness to kill you. The fox whose head I twisted in pity was more worthy of life than you.”
“Siah, siah, what have you done, Josiah?”
The white glare half-blinded him. After-images appeared riding on the snow – visions of the old prospector, head bent low with the weight of toil and loneliness. He reached his hand forward. The apparition seemed so real. Josiah felt an urge to put his hand on the prospector’s shoulder. “Old man, fellow traveler, our burdens are much the same. You’ve poured your life into a sack of gold, and I’ve taken it all, your gold, your life, and every chance you had left to you.” As Josiah knelt in the snow, his tears froze on his cheeks.
The buzzing in his head quieted. The wind died, and a sliver of moon shone low on the horizon against a coal-black sky. Lights! Josiah saw them waving at him, dancing a ways to the right of the path he’d been walking. He corrected his bearings and his feet marched in strong, purposeful steps through the silent snow.
“Siah, siah, siah,” sand the wind to him, a lullaby, a chant, a mantra. “Siah, siah, siah, leave the gold, Josiah, siah, siah.” But this couldn’t be real. Just his mind. “Siah, siah, leave the gold. It isn’t your to keep.”
“It owns you, and it’s God.” That’s what the old prospector had said about gold. Give up the gold? When he was so close to town? “My head’s gone crazy. That’s all. It’s just that the wind and the cold, they’re making me crazy.” He fingered the pouch under his jacket. He pulled it out to look at …
“Siah, siah. Leave the gold. Empty the pouch. Throw it out, nugget by nugget, flake by flake. Throw each piece strong, with your back and shoulders hard behind the throw. Then fling the dust as far as you can, and turn the pouch inside out, and rub it clean in the s now.”
Josiah stared at the lights of town and knew he could walk the distance. It was no more than half a mile away. He put the pouch back under his shirt, and his muscles twisted with pain because of the load he carried.
In the following spring before the snow had completely melted, two ranchers found him – at least they found his body. He was holding an empty leather pouch, turned inside out and rubbed clean. “He sure do look peaceful,” said one. “Hell, I ain’t never seen him smile like that when was alive.
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