Ghost Town

The prairie is strangely still. There is little breeze to be felt, only an occasional gust that sends the dried skeletal remains of a single sagebrush in a seemingly drunken and skitterish path across the plains.

Little sound can be heard. The cold of winter has blown early down across the plains from the north. Nearly all sensible creatures, four-legged and two, are snuggled warmly in cave, or far below ground, or perhaps crouched under blanket or pelt beside a fire within the confines of tepee. But, not all creatures have resigned themselves to shelter. There are those wilder souls still lurking through the prairie night, across plain or over hilltop. Listen, there is a long and lonesome wail. Perhaps it is the ghost of that first steam-belching Iron Horse that crossed the plains westward. But then, maybe it is only a lost wild soul lifting its cold muzzle to the dark night sky as it calls to the hiding moon.

Is it a wolf, his shaggy coat shimmering silver in the muted moonlight? Or is it the form of some other similar sinister creature that releases its lonesome cry. Perhaps it is a—werewolf, for now, as the ancient clocks of time near the midnight hour strange things may begin to appear across the prairie. Listen, the silent clock has struck the hour and the beginning of what the ancient Druids once celebrated as the time of the dead roaming the earth has begun. But, alas, there are no dark robed holy men of old to light the bond fires to ward off the coming haunts. And so, this night the dead of the West may rise again and live for only a few hours.

Watch closely, and listen, and perhaps you will become aware of them. Yes, there is a prairie town taking a ghostly transparent shape in the moonlight. Do you hear the music? There, faintly, the tinny tinkling of an out of tune piano. It seems to be coming from over there, beyond those wooden bat-winged doors that are silently moving—perhaps in the breeze for it seems that no earthly shape had passed through them. Let us look within.

Over there, with his back to the door, sits a man holding a hand of poker. His blond hair rests upon the shoulders of his buckskin tunic. Is it little wonder that the cards he holds are now known as a—dead man’s hand. But let us leave and see what other strange sights may appear.