uh this is uh from a western in progress entitled the place of dead roads and my protagonist kim carson finds himself in deadly conflict with mr hart the press tycoon and old man bickford a beef and oil baron and bickford has a special price on kim s head because kim killed old man bickford s son in a gunfight real western yeah for three days kim camped on the macy tops sweeping the valley with his binoculars a cloud of dust headed south told him they figured he d arrive south from mexico he d headed north instead into a land of sandstone formations and everywhere caves pocked into the red rock like bubbles in boiling oatmeal some of the caves had been lived in at one time or another rusty tin cans pottery shards cartridge cases kim found an arrowhead six inches long chipped from obsidian and a smaller arrowhead of rose colored flint dusk was falling and blue shadows gathered in the sangre de cristo mountains to the east sangre de cristo blood of christ rivers of blood mountains of blood does christ never get tired of bleeding it is raining in the jimenez mountains it is raining anita huffington last words of general grant spoken to his nurse circuits in his brain flickering out like lightning in gray clouds pottery shards arrowheads rusting fish hooks you can see there was a cabin here once a hypodermic syringe glints in the sun he holds the rose flint arrow head in his hand and he fondles the obsidian arrowhead so fragile do they break every time they were used like bee stings he wonders somebody made this arrowhead it had a creator long ago this arrowhead is the only proof of his existence so living things can also be seen as artefacts designed for a purpose so perhaps the human artefact had a creator perhaps the stranded space traveller needed the human vessel to continue his voyage and he made it for that purpose he died before he could use it he found another escape route this artefact shaped to fill a forgotten need now has no more meaning or purpose than this arrow head without the arrow and the bow the arm and the eye or perhaps the human artefact was the creators last card played in an old game many light years ago chill in an empty space kim gathers wood for a fire the stars are coming out there s the big dipper his father points to betelgeuse in the night sky over st louis his fathers grey face on a pillow helpless pieces in the game he plays on this checker board of nights and days so fragile shivers and gathers wood slave gods in the firmament he remembers his fathers last words stay outta churches son all i got a key to is the shit house and swear to me you will never wear a policeman s badge hither and thither moves and checks and slaves and one by one back in the closet lays rusty tin cans pottery shards cartridge cases arrow heads a hypodermic syringe glints in the sun