You have to walk that lonesome valley for yourself. Or that is what I thought until I found you.
I was heading down-trail—that lonesome trail—all alone. I was gonna make my own way.
I was once so lonely . . . I was once without you.
Now you are my life.
’Twas a feelin’ . . . ’twas something that brought us together. ’Twas love.
I ain’t much for words . . . I’m just a saddle tramp.
Tomorrow, I head out for the drive to Abilene. I’ll be punchin’ cows and eatin’ dust for a thousand miles. But I’ll be thinking of you every mile of the way.
Round the fire at night while the other boys are swappin’ their lies, I’ll be thinking of you.
Hey guys, it's me, Danny—your favorite dog. I'm hangin' out just listenin' to Kris sing a little Willie Nelson song. My human, Andrew, doesn't get it. He doesn't know that Kris and Willie are speaking for God. Have you ever listened to Sunday Morning Coming Down?
Andrew is off the boat . . . gettin' into trouble no doubt. Me, I'm listenin' to Kris / Willie Nelson.
I love to ride in cars, don't you? Sticking my head out the window, barking at any dogs I see along the way. I can even put up with Andrew when I'm riding in the car.
So this is what I wanted to tell ya. Two days ago, Andrew took me out to his car, opened the door and told me to get inside. Normally I wouldn't do what he wanted. But a ride in the car? So I jumped in. I didn't know where we were going; however, as long as I could stick my head out the window, I didn't care.
It was a Sunday morning, the roads were empty, which was a good thing because Andrew was a little the worse for wear. He had had a rough Saturday night and he was still a little tipsy. And just like in the song, we stopped by a church and we listened to the choir. It was then that I knew what Kris meant when he wrote, "There's something in a Sunday makes a body feel alone." Because I saw it in Andrew's eyes that Sunday morning. It was indeed a Sunday morning coming down.
I didn’t know it at the time, but Andrew was looking for something. He had a hurt in his head, he had an emptiness in his soul. We never go for rides to nowhere, but I guess he felt he was already nowhere on that Sunday morning.
He turned to me and said, "I need a beer."
You need more than a beer, pal . . . you need help.
We were still by the church and Andrew was wishing he was stoned.
I knew that the only thing Andrew cared about more than getting high was me. So before he could start the car and go looking for booze on that Sunday morning, I jumped out the window and took off, knowing that he would chase after me. As long as he was focused on me, he would not dwell on his Sunday morning coming down.
I'm sorry to say that he caught up with me right away. Then we went and bought a six-pack.
It was indeed a Sunday Morning coming down . . . and it came down—right SMACK on the head of my human
Danny
P.S. Now, before everyone gets all concerned for poorAndrew, I wrote this a couple of years ago. I didn’t write a new story this month because I’m on vacation. Anyway, it was me to the rescue (as usual) because after that infamous Sunday, I told Andrew to throw the TV out the window and sit down at the computer and write something about his misbegotten youth. It would be a whole lot better than bingeing on the Kardashians, which would drive anyone to drink!
Well, one thing led to another, and now with 140 short stories and four novels under his belt—almost half a million words—he doesn’t have time to get into trouble.
Nowadays on Sunday morning we go down to the local bar and sit outside where dogs are allowed and have a nice healthy breakfast with an occasional Bloody Mary thrown in. No more six-packs.
Once upon a time—in my far distant youth—I travelled the rails. I rode boxcars. Always by myself, but once I met up with a man named Jake and he tried to teach me the ways of the professional hobo.
One night after hitting a small town in Texas, he took me out foraging for food.
To be concise and succinct about it, the foraging took the form of going to the back doors of houses and asking for a hand out. I had done the same thing on occasion, but my modus operandi consisted of going to a restaurant’s back door.
Anyway, Jake told the eighteen-year-old boy that I was at the time, “The best pickings are in the poor sections of town. You never get turned down. Next are middle class neighborhoods. You stand a fifty-fifty chance in that neck of the woods. Then last are the rich neighborhoods. Unless the cook answers the door you might as well forget about getting anything outta that house. Ain’t it funny that the people with nothing are willing to share what little they have while those with everything are afraid to part with even the slightest bit of what they have?”
There are many antagonists in Resolution. Here are three of the more prominent: 1) Murderers, 2) Wolves, and 3) the most dangerous—the extreme Yukon cold when it’s seventy degrees below zero.
Murderers:
Huck, tiring of the conversation, picked up the bottle and filled his and Molly’s glasses. Jass’ was still full. “Alright, Mister Knight, how do you plan on doing it? Take us out back and shoot us?
“I must say you are taking this like a gentleman. No crying or begging for mercy?”
“Would I get any?”
“Any what?”
“Mercy.”
“Most likely not.”
Huck looked at Molly and nodded.
She stood with such force that she knocked her chair backwards and it started to fall. She had her gun out and in her hand before the chair hit the floor. The scraping noise of the chair as Molly stood turned the men’s attention from the gold to the table. It was the last act of their lives. Molly had a bullet into each one of them before they knew they were dead.
Wolves:
The two-legs are just ahead. The three females fan out to attack on the left—to drive the two-legs to the rear, where the males await. The pup, in happy anticipation, watches and learns the way of the hunter.
* * * * *
“Here, Molly, take the pistol! Jass! Get back-to-back with Molly and get ready with one of your crutches. You may have to use it as a club.”
Bright was itching to fly into the grayness and have at the interlopers, but Huck ordered him to stay put. So far, the dog had done as he had been told. Just then, a wolf shot out of the fog and snapped its jaws an inch from Huck’s arm. Bright did not wait for permission. He was off the mark and had his jaws clamped on the wolf’s neck before Huck could react. The wolf was bigger and stronger than Bright and easily shook him off. Then it started to melt back into the icy mist, but before it was completely swallowed up by the frozen vapor, another wolf attacked. It snarled and snapped at Molly, but did not go in for the kill.
Molly couldn’t get off a shot because she was afraid of hitting Huck or Bright. Huck went to her side, handed her the rifle, and took the Colt. But before he could use it, the wolves were gone.
“Why didn’t they finish us off?” stammered Molly.
“They’re trying to drive us back a ways. The rest of the pack must be back there. But we’re gonna fool ’em. We ain’t movin’,” answered Huck.
The Cold:
Huck was quite a sight. Black scabs from frostbite dotted his face. And in other places, the flesh was purple where the skin was just beginning to die. His brows and beard were covered in a fine white frost.
He had no idea how many miles he had covered since leaving Molly and Jass. But he did know that he wasn’t going to cover many more. He wasn’t even sure how many days he’d been gone from them. He was as played out as a man could be and still be alive. He was starved, frozen, and so tired that it took all his will not to lie down in the snow and just give up.
On his next step, he stumbled and fell headlong into the waiting and beguiling arms of The White Death.
It is 1896 in the Yukon Territory, Canada. The largest gold strike in the annals of human history has just been made; however, word of the discovery will not reach the outside world for another year.
By happenstance, a fifty-nine-year-old Huck Finn and his lady friend, Molly Lee, are on hand, but they are not interested in gold. They have come to that neck of the woods seeking adventure.
Someone should have told them, “Be careful what you wish for.”
When disaster strikes, they volunteer to save the day by making an arduous six hundred mile journey by dog sled in the depths of a Yukon winter. They race against time, nature, and man. With the temperature hovering around seventy degrees below zero, they must fight every day if they are to live to see the next.
On the frozen trail, they are put upon by murderers, hungry wolves, and hostile Indians, but those adversaries have nothing over the weather. At seventy below, your spit freezes a foot from your face. Your cheeks burn, your skin turns purple and black as it dies from the cold. You are in constant danger of losing fingers and toes to frostbite.
It is into this world that Huck and Molly race.
They cannot stop. They cannot turn back. They can only go on. Lives hang in the balance—including theirs.
Flying through the desert, the air is warm, the stars are bright, and I’m as high as a kite.
Caught me a long ride outta Mesa, New Mexico heading for the Promised Land of L.A., California. The year: 1968.
It’s early morning. I mean it’s really early . . . like 1:00 a.m. early.
We blow through four counties, we're movin’ fast. My life is waiting for me on the West Coast. Ain’t got no time to mess around in this bohunk desert. Ain’t got no time for this bullshit.
Then he spoke to me. He came from the stars. His voice dove into my being, and I’ve never been the same since. The Wolf Man had my soul. The Wolf Man showed me the way. The Wolf Man was the way!
He was Huck Finn, the celebrated lawman. In his day, back when the frontier was still wild, he had tracked men through fiery deserts, up impassable mountain trails, and into places no sane man would venture. He’d been shot at and wounded; his blood had marked his back trail. Once, in the Sonora Desert, he went without water for an agonizing four days and had almost died of thirst. But he had always traced his man and brought him back to face justice, or if the hombre put up a fight—buried him where he had found him. However, he was younger in those days. Time had not taken as much a toll on him as it does on some men. But all men slow down with age, and yes, even Huck Finn.
He walked the valley as in a dream. He would halt his forward movement every five steps. And standing knee-deep in the snow, swaying back and forth like a sapling in the wind, he would wait for his life-force to return. He had set that measure for himself. Five steps at a time. No more, and certainly no less.
Bright, frustrated with the slow pace, ran up ahead and then back to urge his master on. Huck smiled at the dog and thought, Good boy. Keep me going, don’t let me stand still for too long. So much depends on me—and on you, old friend.
He lost track of time and before he knew it, it was dark, though his situation was not entirely dire. There was sufficient light from the stars and the borealis to allow him to find wood enough for a small fire. He had to attend to his feet. They were like blocks of ice and almost as white as the snow that he crouched in. Another few hours and they would have started to turn black. After vigorously rubbing them with snow for a hour, the feeling started to come back. As the painful tingling moved from his ankles to his toes, he moved his feet nearer to the fire. Then he had to deal with his blackened and scarred face.
Will I ever feel warm again?
With blood once again flowing to all parts of his body, he took a moment to raise his gaunt eyes to the heavens to take in the wonder of God in the form of the aurora borealis. He was not a religious man. He hadn’t had much truck with God over the years, but on that night he said his first prayer in many a year. He prayed that he might live to get to Jass’ cabin. He had no concern for himself. He had to live for Molly and John. If not for the thoughts of them, he would have lain down in the snow a long time ago and fallen off to his final, blessed sleep.
When Bright had finished his last ration of bird and weasel bones, Huck stood up, and on pure willpower, he plodded on—he trudged on—to the west . . . always to the west.
