Ballad Of Dan Mitchells

In the afternoon of June 17, 1898, Dan Mitchells lay bleeding with a knife in his back in the old church presidio of San Cayetano. The people responsible were none other than Willy and Emeline, whom he had once considered his best friend and lover, respectively.

Aside from this, it was a fairly good day out. Water flowed through the banks of the Santa Cruz, a wind blew from the south coming from Mexico, and that night fireflies would light up the valley in company with the many stars. Dan, of course, cared none for any of this, and instead only felt the blistering sun and betrayal of his closest companions.

“Twenty god damn years, Willy,” Dan growled after freeing his mouth from the gag the two had silenced him with, “Twenty years of trust and friendship. And this is how you do me? This is how you end it?”

Willy kept on loading the horses with the materials they had camped with, clearly keeping his head down trying to ignore his old friends shouting.

“And you Emeline!” Dan struggled to move himself within the rope he had been tied with to look at her, wincing in pain as the knife went in further into his body. “Our whole lives Emeline! A whole life of love and giving everything to you! Giving everything to satisfy you! Is this all I get for all the love these years?”

Emeline's lips were quivering as she helped Willy load up the horses. Her eyes were puffy and wet, wouldn’t even look at her old love.

“I guess it should've been more obvious! After all, you know what they say, no honor among thieves and all that. Should’ve known my whole life to do better than hang around you snakes and Judas-”

“We didn’t wanna do this to you, Dan!” Emeline screamed back at him, the tears in her eyes finally breaching the levees of her better judgement and flooding down her cheeks, “We woulda left you-”

“I told you to stay quiet, Emeline!” Willy whispered through clenched teeth, clutching her wrist quickly.

“Damn you, Willy! It ain’t right to do him like this!” She went over to Dan and got down on her knees, “I’m…”

She paused and clutched the cross necklace on her breast, thumbing it in her hands as she took in shaking breaths. Her eyes shut tight as she tried to find the words. Instead, only stumbling on-

“We was just scared, Dan.”

“Oh, you weren't just scared hun. You were cowards! Weak, conniving, chicken shit worms!”

“Damn it, Dan! We didn’t wanna have to…I told him we shouldn’t! But it’s all this- it wasn’t- I couldn’t-Willy was gonna-”

“Oh Willy was actually gonna do the manly thing and kill me dead right here and now wasn’t he! But you couldn’t bear to see that happen, could you Emeline. Oh, you could betray me all you wanted. Leave me for dead! But you couldn’t bear to actually see my body. Could you sweet, dear, Emeline?” He spat straight up into her face, “Fuck you, you two-bit cheap-”

Willy came over and kicked him right in the face.

“Shut your goddamn mouth already Dan!” Willy was red in the face, and he shuffled Emeline off back towards the horses.

Dan lay on the ground, spitting the blood out of his mouth while Willy loaded the last of camp onto his horse.

“Just die quick, Dan,” Willy called back to him. “We don’t… We don’t wanna drag this out any further than we already had to.”

“I always knew you had no balls, Willy. That’s why I always did the dirty work for us. Cause you didn’t have it in you. You never had it in you to be brutal, and you were too stupid to understand what I’ve always known…” Dan slipped his hand out from the cloth it had been bound in and grabbed his gun up from off the ground.

“Loose ends kill.”

The shots echoed through the valley, leaving a wave of silence in its wake.

Just two shots. Emeline's white dress now stained red. Willy not even able to grab his gun before he was shot down.

Dan caught his breath. He pulled the knife out, slowly and painfully, then used it to cut away the rope binding his feet and knees. He cut off a piece of his shirt, though he knew it wouldn’t do much good, and tied it tight on his back, hoping maybe that might plug the wound. He found his way back up on his feet, and tried to walk. He dragged his feet, kicking up sand as he tried to move a leg that didn’t want to budge before once again he was on the ground, the taste of iron and sand filling his dried-out mouth. He didn’t try to push himself up. Instead, he lay there, his eyes closed and the hot sun beating down on his skin.

In that silence, he was able to feel something more than the throbbing heartbeat in his head. There was a hole in Dan’s stomach, and not just the one from the knife. He looked at the bodies of Willy and Emeline. The calm resigned eyes of his brother in arms, the tears streaming down the face of the only woman he’d ever loved and their hands twisted together, holding each other as they made their way into the final farewell. Two traitors, loyal to the very end.

There were many a vile thing he wanted to do. Many a hateful word or vindictive gesture he wanted to make out of spite. Instead, he again struggled up to stand. He pushed himself with careful, small, but purposeful steps as he picked the knife from off the ground.

There were many a vile thing he wanted to do. Many a hateful word or vindictive gesture he wanted to make out of spite. Instead, he used that knife to cut and maim. With heavy hard strokes, he sliced and pulled. And then with delicate hands, he picked up the bundle, walked over to the pair, and placed the hemlock flowers he’d collected onto their chests.

He stood there, a swaying ragged silhouette in the sacaton. The wind pushing his unsteady body back and forth, the afternoon sun casting the shadows further and further from the people they clung to. He stood like this, half man half feature, looking over the dead lovers for whom he once loved so much.

He knelt beside them, and he shed the tears finally that he had been holding back. He said no words, no last eulogy, merely the soft sobs and shaking breaths that were all he could muster. He let the silence of the valley speak for all the times between them. For the death not only of the only ones he’d ever truly cared about in this lonely life he led, but also for the scars across his memories. The bitter twist on every moment shared between them. For all the times in golden light now turned sickening green.

He stood there a mortal gravestone, with the date marked in his mind and the inscriptions written upon his heart, until the tears ran dry. And now, he stayed here not by choice, but by pure exhaustion. His breathing shallow, his pumping blood all that echoed in his ears now.

“Boy, you're sure in a bad way, ain’t ya son.”

The stranger's voice seemed to shake the valley like an earthquake. He looked to his side from where the voice came and saw a man standing next to him. He was dressed in all black, with nice polished boots on his side and white flourishes on his jacket and shirt. He had a bandana in his pocket, dual pistols on both sides of his waist, and a large cow skull belt buckle.

“Who-”

“Oh don’t worry about that son,” The stranger said to him. “Let's just get you inside. It won’t be much, but it’ll at least be a bit cooler for you.”

Dan wasn’t sure why the man was here truly, but he didn't have the strength to object as the stranger picked him up and propped him up on his shoulder. He hobbled him over to what remained of the church's interior, and laid him down by the sun-stained adobe brick walls. The roof was mostly gone, but the dome over the altar where the priests would give their sermons still stood, and it made the room much cooler.

“There you go, that oughta do ya,” The stranger said after setting Dan down and plopping himself on the ground next to him. He pulled two things out from under his jacket, a box of cigars, and a flask of whiskey.

He handed the cigar to Dan, struck a match to light it, then passed him the flask as he lit his own. Outside, Dan had been too tired and overheated to care much at all to look at the stranger's face. But now, as he looked at the man’s face, it seemed to shift between features. He could have written it off as the heat, or more than likely the blood loss. But familiarity haunted Dan like a ghost.

“Have we met before?” Dan couldn’t escape the feeling he knew those eyes.

“In passing. Never really introduced myself formally.” The man said, taking a long drag off his cigar.

“So you know me, but I don’t know you? That’s an awful bad man to find yourself at the mercy of.”

“I think you got more to worry about, son,” The stranger said with a dry chuckle.

Dan just kept looking at the man trying to figure him out. It was those eyes that threw him off, something about those eyes was just so, so familiar. Then it dawned on him.

“You got Emeline’s eyes.”

“I got a lot of people’s eyes Dan,” The stranger said with a sigh, “Got most people’s eyes really.”

“That’s right,” Dan said, “Cause you got Willy’s eyes too. You got the eyes of the train man from our first big haul, and the eyes of the bank teller that gave us trouble in Galveston, and the eyes of the wag-”

Dan bent over in a coughing fit, and the stranger patted his back till it calmed down.

“Have another drink, Dan. Get out of your head a bit,” The stranger handed him back the flask. “You got company after all.”

“I’m sorry but I mean, you can forgive a man for being in his own head in a moment like this, can’t you?”

“I could,” The stranger said with a goofy kind of pondering tone, “But there isn’t much use in that is there?”

“I’ve done a lot of bad things. I know I’m gonna have to answer for them.”

“Dan, let me tell you something. I was walking along the plains and mountains today, as I have done for as long as I could remember, and I saw the sun rise. I watched it rise on the workers as they made their way to the mines and the fields, I saw it rise on the drunk wasted on the ground, and I saw it rise on the kid taking his pocket change.

“Tonight, I will watch the sunset. I will watch as it falls on you, Willy, and Emeline. And then I will watch the stars sparkle and burn themselves out just for you to gaze on them. I will see the moon dance across the sky over both this old church and some old brothel. So will the workers, the drunk, and the young thief.

“And tomorrow morning, while I won’t be here to see it, the sun will rise on all of you still. It won't hold itself back for the drunk, the thief, the betrayer, the adulterer, or the killer. It won’t save itself only for the priest, the worker, or the doctor. It will shine on all of you just as much as the other.”

The stranger took a break from his long speech and took a deep puff off his cigar. He turned to Dan.

“Even if the sun does rise tomorrow. I won’t see it,” Dan’s voice was shakier than he wanted it to be, “No use in a sun you can’t see.”

“Damn it, Dan. The sun rises and the sun sets all over. It ain’t about the sun rising itself. It’s about how everything works like a sunrise. No matter where you go, no matter what you do, the sun rises. Even in a world where there is no sun or moon. The sun will rise on you again. And the moon will do her dance. Nothing ever really ends, Dan. It just changes.”

Dan took a big gulp of the flask in his hand, washed it down, and with a weak smile turned to the stranger.

“You're full of shit man.”

“Well shit kid,” the stranger laughed, “Can’t say I didn’t try.”

They sat there in silence, listening to the sound of the soft wind blowing through the dilapidated and broken-down halls of the church. They watched as the sun drifted slowly away, and the shadows stretched out further and further across the floor. They could smell the river, even from over a mile away, as it brought the wet smells of the mesquite into mingle with the smoke of the cigar.

Soon, the sky began to get dark, now the sun was only visible from the soft glows of orange and pink along the rims of the sky. Dan and the stranger could see it from the gaping open side of the altar. They saw as the first stars flickered on in the sky, felt the air get cooler, and heard the crickets and bats crying into the night.

Dan’s breathing was getting shallow. His eyes had a long stare to them, and he was gripping his jeans so hard that his hands were getting white.

“Don’t be afraid Dan.” The stranger pulled another drag off the cigar “Just close your eyes, and let yourself rest.”

Dan looked at the world around him. He took in a deep breath, shut his eyes tight, and relaxed the tight grip on his clothes. And as the fireflies began to start joining the stars in their post in the sky, Dan let out his last breath. His head fell limp, his arms at his side, and the cigar dropped from his mouth.

The next morning, as the workers made their way to the mines and fields, the birds started up their songs and slowly animals started to make their ways from their burrows and nests into the challenge of a waking moment; light started to stretch out from over the mountains. It spilled out over the valley, licking up the sacaton and the mesquite in its rays, shining their bright green leaves out into the world. The light poured itself slowly over Willy and Emeline, the shadowplay the only thing that moved on their lifeless bodies.

And as the world began to wake itself up on the morning of June 18th, 1898; the sun rose over Dan Mitchells.