 |
I’ve been taking story submissions on this site for some time now, but these
reports document merely the most recent chapters in a bloody saga
spanning the ages. The following is an account from one James William
Tremont. His testimony was submitted to the February 12th edition of Weekly
Arizonian in 1860 and, while not referencing the Tails Doll by name, may be of
interest to the readers of this site.
____________________________________________________________________
Ya'll want to know my story? You want to know how I seduced that innocent young
flower? You want to know how I made off with her? No. Your readers are probably
looking to know how I killed her, and what a rip like me did with her body.
Well, all I can do is tell you the God’s truth.
Regal, Arizona is where I found my ruin. A quaint little town - not much going on. It
was built to be a stop on the new railroad, but as luck would have it the big bugs
changed their plans. Now the iron horse runs some distance away, leaving Regal high
and dry. It’s just a dusty little town full of dusty little people. Not bad folks, mind you.
They’ve just been cut off from the rest of the world with no prospects to be had. When
I first arrived, they showed me kindness and I aimed to do the same. I had no kin and
no job and I was looking for my place in the world.
Then I found it - in the arms of the preacher’s daughter.
Melody was the finest lass I ever set eyes on. Smart, beautiful, and good with horses
to the manner born. I met her after the barn dance and, over the next few days, she
became real keen on me. But with nothing but the plunder in my pack, there was no
way her father would have obliged her hand in marriage. Lord knows, I asked. That
old Gospel Sharp told me he’d have me tarred if he caught me around his daughter
again.
So we ran away.
It was supposed to be like all her fancy books - the two of us gently riding off into the
sunset, kissing like love birds, ready for what life throws our way. What happened was
a might different, on account of the preacher having already warned the sheriff about
my amorous intensions. We hadn’t even cleared Main Street when we were spotted.
Before we knew it, there was a whole posse riding out after us. Our sunset canter
turned into a mad, dirty dash for survival. Melody clung desperately to my waist, while
I clung to the hope that I would be able to survive the night without getting tarred and
feathered, lynched, or both. As the sun set, red as freshly drawn blood on the
horizon, all I could see behind me was a raging storm of dirt, wild horses, and even
wilder men. I knew that they wouldn’t stop ‘till they had tracked us down and torn me to
pieces. The trail just wasn’t safe.
We lost them in the canyons.
‘Course, we got lost, too. That was the problem with deviating from the road most
taken - there ain’t no signs to point you where to go. By the time the men were out of
sight, and the thunder of flailing hooves had faded away, I hadn’t the foggiest idea
where we were. It was night now, and the desert chill was mounting. It didn’t help that
we were in canyon country, where the wind blew extra sharp. Melody was trembling
something awful. Setting a fire would be dangerous, since it meant the posse from
Regal could spot us, but not having one would just be suicide. I kindled the fire and
loaded my girl up with blankets. Somewhere in the distance, a lonely kit fox was
calling to her kin. It was not quite the honeymoon we had been hoping for, but in each
other’s arms, even the freezing, scorpion-infested wilderness felt like paradise.
At dawn, we headed North West. The desert is a powerful dangerous place for a man,
and double for a flower like Melody, but she bared it quite well, God love her. She
kept our spirits high as my old horse trudged onward. Even on the third day, as our
supplies ran low, she kept on talking about the future with a smile on her face. I didn’t
have the heart to tell her that if we didn’t find food and water soon, there would be no
future for either of us.
That’s when we stumbled into Sunshine Valley. It was dusk, so the only light to be
seen was the reddish haze of the horizon and a winding train of lamplight. Lamps
could only mean one thing - there were miners prospecting in the surrounding
mountains. Salvation! Melody and I got a wiggle on and cantered up to them.
They were Orientals.
I don’t have a problem with the Chinese, Japanese, or any other -neses out there.
The way I see it, we're all foreigners in the Frontier. We’re all just men trying to make
it, and when a man is dying of thirst, he doesn’t care if it’s the devil himself offering him
a drop of water.
Eventually, I found one I could talk to. His name was Tan. Between hay and grass, he
couldn’t have been more than fourteen. Grubby from a long day in the mine, he slung
his pitted shovel over his shoulder and approached us. Melody squeezed my hand as
she noticed that his left paw had been mangled in an accident some time ago. His thin
fingers were twisted like brambles, jointed at disagreeable angles. I prayed to the
Lord that this boy could help us. The thirst was wrapping ‘round our throats like a
noose. I told him my fiancée and I had been lost in the desert. We need water and
food, and directions to town.
The boy smiled, revealing dust-blackened teeth. He explained that he and his family
traveled from a nearby camp. This was their mine. Listening to our plight, Tan spoke
to a few other men in that funny language of theirs, twittered back and forth like birds,
before coming to an agreement. When he returned, smiling his dusky smile once
more, he offered to let us camp with his people.
They took us to a cabin not far away. It was fairly large, though not large enough to
comfortably fit all the miners. They were packed like sardines in there, though it didn’t
stop them from offering their hospitality. They fed us noodles and some strange stuff
Tan call “Toe Food.” I’ll tell ‘ya, when you’re starving, it is the sweetest meal in the
world. Poor Melody drank enough water to float away.
Some of Tan’s people were a little skittish around her and I noticed that there were no
women folk in the camp. They didn’t approve of bringing gals out into this harsh
country. Looking at Melody, so soft and frail, I couldn’t blame them.
As the night wore on, the men started playing games. Some were sitting at a kind of
queer dominos game, while others took out decks of cards. I’m not a professional
gambler, but you can’t make it in the west without a passing interest in cards. I
peeked over at one of the nearest games. It wasn’t any type of Poker or Blackjack I’d
ever seen. The familiar clubs and diamonds had been replaced with sissy flowers and
trees. I asked Tan why there were leaves and poesies on their cards. He said it was
some kind of Japanese game. Hanafooder, he called it.
Melody was staring at the cards. She seemed to be fascinated by the frilly game. Tan
laughed and asked if she wanted to play. I looked at Melody. She wasn’t one for
games of chance – being a preacher’s daughter and all – but she seemed absolutely
entranced by the cards. After all she'd been through in the last three days, she
deserved to have some fun. I told Tan that we were up for it.
Tan nodded and ran to the small, scuffed chest in the corner that contained all his
belongings. He returned with a deck of cards, wrapped in a worn cloth. “Very special
cards,” he called them. They belonged to his grandfather. He held out the cards and
gestured for me to shuffle through them. They were full of the same pastoral imagery,
yet this deck was different. Each card had funny, colored animals painted on it.
There was what looked like a blue porcupine, a yellow fox, and a bunch of other
critters. This seemed to delight Melody to no end.
Tan gave us the run down on the rules. It wasn’t easy playing a game written in
another alphabet, but I suppose there’s plenty of card sharps what can’t read English
neither. To my surprise, once the game got going, Melody seemed to win the most
hands that night. My bride-to-be was full of surprises.
It was nigh on midnight by the time we turned in and my head was fuzzy from focusing
on those funny cards. The rest of the men had gone to sleep and the cabin was full of
snoring Chinamen. Tan led us through the maze of sleeping bodies and put out a
straw mat for us in the corner. We thanked him once again for his kindness and laid
to rest. Melody was still saying her prayers when sleep overcame me.
I woke up in a cold sweat.
Melody was gone.
I threw off the blankets and looked around the room. Tan and his people were
sleeping and no one seemed to notice me. Trying not to trip on the sleeping bodies, I
stumbled out the cabin and into the icy night air. The stars shone bright and moon’s
pale glow gave the land a ghostly pallor. I called her name, softly at first. If she was
nearby, I didn’t want to wake our hosts, but when my girl didn’t respond, I began to fret
something awful. Had she got lost on her way to the outhouse? Had an animal
attacked her?
Had she been kidnapped?
It wasn’t safe for a woman along in these parts. Tan’s kin seemed nice enough, but
could one of them have made off with her? What if it was one of those polecats from
Regal? No. It couldn’t be. Supposin’ someone had been tracking me, they would’ve
dragged me back for a proper lynching.
That’s when I noticed a red light on the horizon. It looked like someone was carrying a
lantern as it bobbed and weaved into the distance. Was it a search party? No – there
would be more lights scattered all around and nothing I knew could have made such a
shade of light. Whatever it was, it was quickly fading out of view. If Melody had been
taken, catching this feller might be the only way to get her back. I skedaddled to my
old nag and in two shakes I was off, chasing the light. Bobbing and weaving like a
drunk, the ruddy glow was making its way towards the hills. No - not the hills.
The mine.
I tried to calm myself and think clearly as the red light dipped into the mouth of the
mine, vanishing from my sight.
When I was two whoops and a holler from the entrance, I heard Melody’s voice. She
was crying and I could hear her voice echoing from within the craggy mountains. My
beauty was sobbing, pleading for her life.
Only a fool would bring a horse into a mine, so I dismounted in a hurry - not that my
mount would even set hoof more than thirty feet from the cave. Her eyes were wild,
mad, and yet, her muscles were frozen in fear. Mustering my courage, I set off into
the gloom.
Even with that red lamp casting its glow, it was dreadful dark. The rocky walls and
splintered braces cast jagged shadows, ebbing and flowing like a murky tide as I
picked my way through the twisting tunnels. Any moment I expected to be jumped by
some curly wolf lurking in the shadows. There were a million places for a man to hide
in the rough burrow, and a million for me to die.
And the mine did reek of death. The deeper I drew into the tunnels, the more foul the
air became. At first, it was just the smell of stale sweat - the lingering perspiration of
the men that labored in the earth, chipping away with heavy pickaxes and hauling
dense rocks. Bime-by, as the outside world sank out of view, a moist, pungent smell
began to overpower me. The black, damp odor reminded me of the times I visited the
backroom of the taxidermist with my father when I was young.
When the shaft split off into a network of different corridors, I chose whichever seemed
the brightest. The mine was silent now, aside from the echoing crunch of my boots.
To my dismay, Melody had ceased crying now. I had to find her, lickety-split.
Meanwhile, the glow was getting quite strong now. The fiery red light filled the dusty
darkness, forcing me to question whether I was still in the Orientals’ mine or had
stumbled into Hell itself. I pushed aside a mess of makeshift check curtains that hung
like grave cloth and came to a dead end. That’s when I saw her.
Melody.
She was crouched down with her back turned to me, partially silhouetted in the red
radiance emanating before her. It could have been a trick of the light, but it looked
like she had a ragged gash down the length of her back. I rushed to her, hollering her
name. My voice echoed through the maze of mineshafts, eventually returning to me
as something twisted and mocking. I reached out to touch her – my fingers barely
grazing her soft, flowing locks.
She snapped upright with the swiftness of a rattlesnake and whirled around. I gasped
as I looked into her once-beautiful blue eyes – now just hollow sockets, streaming
tears of blood. Those soft lips in which I once found paradise, where now cinched
shut with viscera-soaked twine. In her hands she clutched the red lamp – or rather,
she clutched a doll to which the lamp was attached.
It appeared to be a children’s rag doll toy, made of dyed burlap and rabbit pelt,
roughly stitched together with the same kind of twine that now scarred sweet Melody’s
face. As far as I could tell, it was supposed to be a fox, though someone had gone
through the trouble of attaching an extra tail to its arse. It was flecked with blood, both
dried and fresh.
I could not speak. Tears ran down my cheek as the horror rooted me to the spot. My
mind raced to make sense of the grisly scene playing out before me. Melody reached
out, as if offering the doll as a gift. Her head slumped unnaturally to the side, almost
mirroring the sagging toy in her hands. I looked into the doll’s eyes, which were made
of smoked glass. They were as dark and unfeeling as the grave itself. They saw
through me, past my thoughts, to my very soul. They judged me and knew that I was
not pure. I could never be pure. I was of no use to anyone.
Amid the swirling thoughts of worthlessness, a voice rang out in my mind. It was
Melody’s - her cries for help echoing in my skull. As long as I could save Melody, I
thought to myself, I was of use to someone. I willed my hand to my holster and
grasped the reassuring hilt of my shootin’ iron. Courage coursing through me like
cheap whiskey, I took aim, pointing my six shooter right at the doll’s face, making sure
Melody’s head was out of the way.
I pulled the trigger.
It was like thunder on the plains. The muzzle flashed like lightning, illuminating the
cavern in stark clarity. The red light suddenly vanished, plunging us into pitch
darkness. The echo did not stop, however. It was soon joined by a deep rumble that
permeated the entire mine. I felt grit and stone tumbling down around me.
The blasted shaft was caving in!
Completely blind, I reached for Melody’s hand, only to find empty space. “Melody!” I
shouted, over the mounting din. There was no response. In the suffocating darkness,
I heard massive boulders slipping and sliding, smashing into the ground with the full
weight of the mountain itself. I tried to run towards where I had last seen her, but in
the disorienting, discordant darkness, I couldn’t tell up from down. I just ran.
Tripping and getting knocked about, I ran. I pushed past the check curtains that
nearly ensnared me like the hangman’s hemp and slammed into buckling beams, all
while trying to avoid the hail of stone. I didn’t stop until I saw the light up ahead. The
sun was rising, and I could see the salvation of dawn through the entrance of the
mine.
Wheezing, bleeding, and bruised, I stumbled out into the morning’s first light. My
knees buckled and I fell to the ground. The cave in must have been over by then, but
I couldn’t tell. The ringing in my ears would continue for days to come.
Tan and his folk found me soon after, though not before some bounty hunters from
Regal found them. Melody…well, she’s gone. No body was ever found.
So I sit here in the hoosegow, awaiting my reckoning with the rope. Go ahead and
print your story. I can’t explain what I have been through, but it’s the Lord’s truth. Not
that it matters if anyone believes me. My Melody is gone and I plan on joining her
soon. I hope there’s a heaven, ‘cause I know for certain there is a Hell.
Let this be a warning to all the saddle bums who pass through Sunshine Valley. It’s
the devil’s country.
reports document merely the most recent chapters in a bloody saga
spanning the ages. The following is an account from one James William
Tremont. His testimony was submitted to the February 12th edition of Weekly
Arizonian in 1860 and, while not referencing the Tails Doll by name, may be of
interest to the readers of this site.
____________________________________________________________________
Ya'll want to know my story? You want to know how I seduced that innocent young
flower? You want to know how I made off with her? No. Your readers are probably
looking to know how I killed her, and what a rip like me did with her body.
Well, all I can do is tell you the God’s truth.
Regal, Arizona is where I found my ruin. A quaint little town - not much going on. It
was built to be a stop on the new railroad, but as luck would have it the big bugs
changed their plans. Now the iron horse runs some distance away, leaving Regal high
and dry. It’s just a dusty little town full of dusty little people. Not bad folks, mind you.
They’ve just been cut off from the rest of the world with no prospects to be had. When
I first arrived, they showed me kindness and I aimed to do the same. I had no kin and
no job and I was looking for my place in the world.
Then I found it - in the arms of the preacher’s daughter.
Melody was the finest lass I ever set eyes on. Smart, beautiful, and good with horses
to the manner born. I met her after the barn dance and, over the next few days, she
became real keen on me. But with nothing but the plunder in my pack, there was no
way her father would have obliged her hand in marriage. Lord knows, I asked. That
old Gospel Sharp told me he’d have me tarred if he caught me around his daughter
again.
So we ran away.
It was supposed to be like all her fancy books - the two of us gently riding off into the
sunset, kissing like love birds, ready for what life throws our way. What happened was
a might different, on account of the preacher having already warned the sheriff about
my amorous intensions. We hadn’t even cleared Main Street when we were spotted.
Before we knew it, there was a whole posse riding out after us. Our sunset canter
turned into a mad, dirty dash for survival. Melody clung desperately to my waist, while
I clung to the hope that I would be able to survive the night without getting tarred and
feathered, lynched, or both. As the sun set, red as freshly drawn blood on the
horizon, all I could see behind me was a raging storm of dirt, wild horses, and even
wilder men. I knew that they wouldn’t stop ‘till they had tracked us down and torn me to
pieces. The trail just wasn’t safe.
We lost them in the canyons.
‘Course, we got lost, too. That was the problem with deviating from the road most
taken - there ain’t no signs to point you where to go. By the time the men were out of
sight, and the thunder of flailing hooves had faded away, I hadn’t the foggiest idea
where we were. It was night now, and the desert chill was mounting. It didn’t help that
we were in canyon country, where the wind blew extra sharp. Melody was trembling
something awful. Setting a fire would be dangerous, since it meant the posse from
Regal could spot us, but not having one would just be suicide. I kindled the fire and
loaded my girl up with blankets. Somewhere in the distance, a lonely kit fox was
calling to her kin. It was not quite the honeymoon we had been hoping for, but in each
other’s arms, even the freezing, scorpion-infested wilderness felt like paradise.
At dawn, we headed North West. The desert is a powerful dangerous place for a man,
and double for a flower like Melody, but she bared it quite well, God love her. She
kept our spirits high as my old horse trudged onward. Even on the third day, as our
supplies ran low, she kept on talking about the future with a smile on her face. I didn’t
have the heart to tell her that if we didn’t find food and water soon, there would be no
future for either of us.
That’s when we stumbled into Sunshine Valley. It was dusk, so the only light to be
seen was the reddish haze of the horizon and a winding train of lamplight. Lamps
could only mean one thing - there were miners prospecting in the surrounding
mountains. Salvation! Melody and I got a wiggle on and cantered up to them.
They were Orientals.
I don’t have a problem with the Chinese, Japanese, or any other -neses out there.
The way I see it, we're all foreigners in the Frontier. We’re all just men trying to make
it, and when a man is dying of thirst, he doesn’t care if it’s the devil himself offering him
a drop of water.
Eventually, I found one I could talk to. His name was Tan. Between hay and grass, he
couldn’t have been more than fourteen. Grubby from a long day in the mine, he slung
his pitted shovel over his shoulder and approached us. Melody squeezed my hand as
she noticed that his left paw had been mangled in an accident some time ago. His thin
fingers were twisted like brambles, jointed at disagreeable angles. I prayed to the
Lord that this boy could help us. The thirst was wrapping ‘round our throats like a
noose. I told him my fiancée and I had been lost in the desert. We need water and
food, and directions to town.
The boy smiled, revealing dust-blackened teeth. He explained that he and his family
traveled from a nearby camp. This was their mine. Listening to our plight, Tan spoke
to a few other men in that funny language of theirs, twittered back and forth like birds,
before coming to an agreement. When he returned, smiling his dusky smile once
more, he offered to let us camp with his people.
They took us to a cabin not far away. It was fairly large, though not large enough to
comfortably fit all the miners. They were packed like sardines in there, though it didn’t
stop them from offering their hospitality. They fed us noodles and some strange stuff
Tan call “Toe Food.” I’ll tell ‘ya, when you’re starving, it is the sweetest meal in the
world. Poor Melody drank enough water to float away.
Some of Tan’s people were a little skittish around her and I noticed that there were no
women folk in the camp. They didn’t approve of bringing gals out into this harsh
country. Looking at Melody, so soft and frail, I couldn’t blame them.
As the night wore on, the men started playing games. Some were sitting at a kind of
queer dominos game, while others took out decks of cards. I’m not a professional
gambler, but you can’t make it in the west without a passing interest in cards. I
peeked over at one of the nearest games. It wasn’t any type of Poker or Blackjack I’d
ever seen. The familiar clubs and diamonds had been replaced with sissy flowers and
trees. I asked Tan why there were leaves and poesies on their cards. He said it was
some kind of Japanese game. Hanafooder, he called it.
Melody was staring at the cards. She seemed to be fascinated by the frilly game. Tan
laughed and asked if she wanted to play. I looked at Melody. She wasn’t one for
games of chance – being a preacher’s daughter and all – but she seemed absolutely
entranced by the cards. After all she'd been through in the last three days, she
deserved to have some fun. I told Tan that we were up for it.
Tan nodded and ran to the small, scuffed chest in the corner that contained all his
belongings. He returned with a deck of cards, wrapped in a worn cloth. “Very special
cards,” he called them. They belonged to his grandfather. He held out the cards and
gestured for me to shuffle through them. They were full of the same pastoral imagery,
yet this deck was different. Each card had funny, colored animals painted on it.
There was what looked like a blue porcupine, a yellow fox, and a bunch of other
critters. This seemed to delight Melody to no end.
Tan gave us the run down on the rules. It wasn’t easy playing a game written in
another alphabet, but I suppose there’s plenty of card sharps what can’t read English
neither. To my surprise, once the game got going, Melody seemed to win the most
hands that night. My bride-to-be was full of surprises.
It was nigh on midnight by the time we turned in and my head was fuzzy from focusing
on those funny cards. The rest of the men had gone to sleep and the cabin was full of
snoring Chinamen. Tan led us through the maze of sleeping bodies and put out a
straw mat for us in the corner. We thanked him once again for his kindness and laid
to rest. Melody was still saying her prayers when sleep overcame me.
I woke up in a cold sweat.
Melody was gone.
I threw off the blankets and looked around the room. Tan and his people were
sleeping and no one seemed to notice me. Trying not to trip on the sleeping bodies, I
stumbled out the cabin and into the icy night air. The stars shone bright and moon’s
pale glow gave the land a ghostly pallor. I called her name, softly at first. If she was
nearby, I didn’t want to wake our hosts, but when my girl didn’t respond, I began to fret
something awful. Had she got lost on her way to the outhouse? Had an animal
attacked her?
Had she been kidnapped?
It wasn’t safe for a woman along in these parts. Tan’s kin seemed nice enough, but
could one of them have made off with her? What if it was one of those polecats from
Regal? No. It couldn’t be. Supposin’ someone had been tracking me, they would’ve
dragged me back for a proper lynching.
That’s when I noticed a red light on the horizon. It looked like someone was carrying a
lantern as it bobbed and weaved into the distance. Was it a search party? No – there
would be more lights scattered all around and nothing I knew could have made such a
shade of light. Whatever it was, it was quickly fading out of view. If Melody had been
taken, catching this feller might be the only way to get her back. I skedaddled to my
old nag and in two shakes I was off, chasing the light. Bobbing and weaving like a
drunk, the ruddy glow was making its way towards the hills. No - not the hills.
The mine.
I tried to calm myself and think clearly as the red light dipped into the mouth of the
mine, vanishing from my sight.
When I was two whoops and a holler from the entrance, I heard Melody’s voice. She
was crying and I could hear her voice echoing from within the craggy mountains. My
beauty was sobbing, pleading for her life.
Only a fool would bring a horse into a mine, so I dismounted in a hurry - not that my
mount would even set hoof more than thirty feet from the cave. Her eyes were wild,
mad, and yet, her muscles were frozen in fear. Mustering my courage, I set off into
the gloom.
Even with that red lamp casting its glow, it was dreadful dark. The rocky walls and
splintered braces cast jagged shadows, ebbing and flowing like a murky tide as I
picked my way through the twisting tunnels. Any moment I expected to be jumped by
some curly wolf lurking in the shadows. There were a million places for a man to hide
in the rough burrow, and a million for me to die.
And the mine did reek of death. The deeper I drew into the tunnels, the more foul the
air became. At first, it was just the smell of stale sweat - the lingering perspiration of
the men that labored in the earth, chipping away with heavy pickaxes and hauling
dense rocks. Bime-by, as the outside world sank out of view, a moist, pungent smell
began to overpower me. The black, damp odor reminded me of the times I visited the
backroom of the taxidermist with my father when I was young.
When the shaft split off into a network of different corridors, I chose whichever seemed
the brightest. The mine was silent now, aside from the echoing crunch of my boots.
To my dismay, Melody had ceased crying now. I had to find her, lickety-split.
Meanwhile, the glow was getting quite strong now. The fiery red light filled the dusty
darkness, forcing me to question whether I was still in the Orientals’ mine or had
stumbled into Hell itself. I pushed aside a mess of makeshift check curtains that hung
like grave cloth and came to a dead end. That’s when I saw her.
Melody.
She was crouched down with her back turned to me, partially silhouetted in the red
radiance emanating before her. It could have been a trick of the light, but it looked
like she had a ragged gash down the length of her back. I rushed to her, hollering her
name. My voice echoed through the maze of mineshafts, eventually returning to me
as something twisted and mocking. I reached out to touch her – my fingers barely
grazing her soft, flowing locks.
She snapped upright with the swiftness of a rattlesnake and whirled around. I gasped
as I looked into her once-beautiful blue eyes – now just hollow sockets, streaming
tears of blood. Those soft lips in which I once found paradise, where now cinched
shut with viscera-soaked twine. In her hands she clutched the red lamp – or rather,
she clutched a doll to which the lamp was attached.
It appeared to be a children’s rag doll toy, made of dyed burlap and rabbit pelt,
roughly stitched together with the same kind of twine that now scarred sweet Melody’s
face. As far as I could tell, it was supposed to be a fox, though someone had gone
through the trouble of attaching an extra tail to its arse. It was flecked with blood, both
dried and fresh.
I could not speak. Tears ran down my cheek as the horror rooted me to the spot. My
mind raced to make sense of the grisly scene playing out before me. Melody reached
out, as if offering the doll as a gift. Her head slumped unnaturally to the side, almost
mirroring the sagging toy in her hands. I looked into the doll’s eyes, which were made
of smoked glass. They were as dark and unfeeling as the grave itself. They saw
through me, past my thoughts, to my very soul. They judged me and knew that I was
not pure. I could never be pure. I was of no use to anyone.
Amid the swirling thoughts of worthlessness, a voice rang out in my mind. It was
Melody’s - her cries for help echoing in my skull. As long as I could save Melody, I
thought to myself, I was of use to someone. I willed my hand to my holster and
grasped the reassuring hilt of my shootin’ iron. Courage coursing through me like
cheap whiskey, I took aim, pointing my six shooter right at the doll’s face, making sure
Melody’s head was out of the way.
I pulled the trigger.
It was like thunder on the plains. The muzzle flashed like lightning, illuminating the
cavern in stark clarity. The red light suddenly vanished, plunging us into pitch
darkness. The echo did not stop, however. It was soon joined by a deep rumble that
permeated the entire mine. I felt grit and stone tumbling down around me.
The blasted shaft was caving in!
Completely blind, I reached for Melody’s hand, only to find empty space. “Melody!” I
shouted, over the mounting din. There was no response. In the suffocating darkness,
I heard massive boulders slipping and sliding, smashing into the ground with the full
weight of the mountain itself. I tried to run towards where I had last seen her, but in
the disorienting, discordant darkness, I couldn’t tell up from down. I just ran.
Tripping and getting knocked about, I ran. I pushed past the check curtains that
nearly ensnared me like the hangman’s hemp and slammed into buckling beams, all
while trying to avoid the hail of stone. I didn’t stop until I saw the light up ahead. The
sun was rising, and I could see the salvation of dawn through the entrance of the
mine.
Wheezing, bleeding, and bruised, I stumbled out into the morning’s first light. My
knees buckled and I fell to the ground. The cave in must have been over by then, but
I couldn’t tell. The ringing in my ears would continue for days to come.
Tan and his folk found me soon after, though not before some bounty hunters from
Regal found them. Melody…well, she’s gone. No body was ever found.
So I sit here in the hoosegow, awaiting my reckoning with the rope. Go ahead and
print your story. I can’t explain what I have been through, but it’s the Lord’s truth. Not
that it matters if anyone believes me. My Melody is gone and I plan on joining her
soon. I hope there’s a heaven, ‘cause I know for certain there is a Hell.
Let this be a warning to all the saddle bums who pass through Sunshine Valley. It’s
the devil’s country.