Week 11 - Five For West

Five For West

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Money. Things always fell apart when money was at stake. Or more correctly, when there was a lack of it. Many friendships failed and many men died in the pursuit of money. This was nothing new.

The world meant crawling through mud and grime and muck. That was life. That was all that was left. The dirt and filth covered and corrupted. That was the only option available anymore. They were all covered. They were knee deep and infected, even if they couldn’t see it. Their only escape would come from crawling through the mud and the grime and the muck in the hopes of coming out the other side.

The other side was invisible. They crawled, but did not know where.

Marshall looked down at his hand. He was tired. His muscles ached. His hands were worn and cracked. He had blisters and calluses on top of the scars from blisters and calluses. He wanted to go home. He wanted to be so very far from here. He wasn’t sure when he had last eaten. He couldn’t concentrate. All he could do was dream.

They had come too late. That was for sure. There had been big dreams back east. They laughed and smiled and told each other how they were going to be rich. The rivers flowed with gold out west. The five of them had set out. Friends, dreamers; they were going to be rich.

He had been a big man with big dreams, and what had dreams gotten him? Pain and suffering. The bloody flux, malaria, influenza. He had watched friends go home or worse. An accident meant one would never walk again. A pox meant another would do nothing again. He had left everything behind and spent every dime he had.

Big dreams and nothing to show for it. His life was a waste. There had been a woman – Elizabeth. He had loved her but not enough, not in the right way. He had loved her, but had wanted more. He had left her to come west. Three years seemed like thirty. Was she still there? Was she waiting? He had left her with the promise of riches and eventual love. He had promised he would return. He was sure she believed him. He was sure she cared. Still. He hoped he was right. He hoped he would see here again.

Five friends, western bound. The stories promised such different lies. No one said that the promises had an expiration date. No one said that the land was logged and roped off and the only thing left was dirt.

You couldn’t eat dirt. You couldn’t get rich off of dirt. Water and dirt – it was all they had. They had spent a fortune on water and dirt. All water and dirt got you was mud. His world was mud and he was covered in it.

Marshall’s hand’s bled. He worked as long as there was light. And sometimes he worked beyond that. Three years later and he was still at it. His aching arms and his aching heart. He would work as long as he could. That was the only way to redeem his sorry choices. He would pick and sift his way through the mud and find a fortune. Or his muscles would give out and he would die. But he would swing that pick-axe as long as he was able to.

His dreams had been for riches. His dreams had changed. Now he dreamed of work. He dreamed of finding the strength to swing that pick-axe one more time. That was what kept him going. One swing after another. Just one more swing. And then another. And then one more. Swing after swing. That was what his life was – one long Sisyphean repetition.

“William…” Marshall mumbled. He was tired and weak and hadn’t eaten in what seemed like forever. He was lucky to be standing. “W.M.?”

There was no answer. Marshall wasn’t sure if he had actually spoken out loud or not. He might have been talking in his head. He did that sometimes. He didn’t used to, but things were different now.

William was somewhere nearby. He was sure of it. William had been there before. They had been working and W.M. had been right there with him. He was sure W.M. was real. There were too many other ghosts that haunted him, but William was real. William was all he had left. Five had become two. But the two of them kept going. Just as he was going to swing that pick-axe one more time, the two of them kept going.

W.M. hated himself. He hated what he had become. He hated what he had done to his friends. He was the man with bright ideas that weren’t so bright. He was the man with foolish dreams that convinced others to tilt at windmills with him. He had believed in the “West” with all its promises, but all he and those promises had done was get his friends killed.

Things hadn’t turned out the way they were supposed to. Traveling cross-country. Disputes over claims. Disputes over where to go and what to do. San Francisco had been overrun. The world had descended and there was no room left. They followed the Siskiyou Trail as so many others had. They spent their last dimes and struggled.

Three years of struggle and despair and he was still at it. He had never imagined it would turn out this way. He had been a fool and expected too much, too easily. He couldn’t apologize enough. He couldn’t atone for his sins. No amount of sorrow was going to bring his friends back to life.

But William wasn’t giving up. He was never going to give up. He was going to make sure he paid for his sins and paid for them rightly in gold.

Gold. He was sure of it. He had seen it too many times. He was sure it was gold. His eyes had lied too many times before. Marshall – he needed Marshall. He needed another set of eyes. It was going to be gold. It was going to be true. It wouldn’t change the past. Nothing was going to change the past. Henry and John were gone. But he had been right. He had been right about everything. It hadn’t all been a waste. He would find Jacob and give him his share. Jacob would come back. They would need him to come back. He would want to come back. He and Jacob and Marshall with their strong arms and strong hands – they would pull the future out of the ground. They would master fate and build the world.

He needed Marshall. He needed Marshall’s eyes. He couldn’t see for sure. He needed another pair of eyes.

W.M. turned as he yelled for his friend.

“Marshall—!”

W.M. caught a glimpse – a muddy figure looming above him. His face was smeared with blood, but his eyes were bright and clear. There was madness to them – the bright piercing glow of a crazed and broken mind, glaring through.  W.M. caught a glimpse and was sure it was his friend. Then he caught a glimpse of deliberate motion.

And it was in that moment that the pick-axe struck him in the back. Marshall had swung one last time.