kindly as the grapes were pitiless. They came at night, the preacher leading the mob like Judas. They were armed, and I couldn’t take them all with my rifle. I figured talking was better than shooting, especially with a gang like that, but they did all their talking with a rope for the dog and a rope for me. He growled and struggled, but didn’t have the courage or sense to bite. Once they got the rope on him he howled like a cat until the gunshots silenced him. I was alone now. It was all gone: the taut body, the eyes of everlasting question, the soundless corporeal gestures of affinity annealing the impossible comradeship between one tattered, lonely monster and another, as if they—as if it—had never existed at all. I struggled and bit, but that army of the righteous bound me tighter than Lazarus in his winding-sheet. A low hill of yellow rock rose above a grove of cottonwoods that had been left untouched at a bend in the creek. It was rough going, with my hands and arms bound and five men dragging at the end of a tether. There was no trail, and the rocks were slick with desert varnish and black, fernlike dendrites. They found the old prospector’s hole. He had gone down twenty feet and found no signs of ore. It was straight and narrow as a well. They lowered me down by the rope, still bound, and let the rope fall in after me. The spiraling stars looked down at the opening of the shaft as their footsteps died away. I felt panic rise as I touched the smooth, cold walls of the hole, cold as a tomb, black as my Leo. My feet were wet. Keep the panic away. I felt for a loose stone that I could use to begin pecking footholds. I would find a use for the rope as well. The sky was close enough to touch, and somewhere, far away, a dog barked. theMeadow 99
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