I was hesitant to post this as reads are down on this site, but decided I can always remove it. Anyway, I hope whoever reads, enjoys. I appreciate reader response. Nevertheless, all guest reviews will be removed.

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It was easier to have my killing of Ross Marquette categorized as a simple case of self-defense. And it was, but not as they think. I wasn't protecting myself from him so much as what he drew out of the darkness when he opened that gate; it was threatening to envelope me as it had him. But try to explain that to anyone.

Ross and I were friends for 15 years, almost half my life. I met him when I was about to leave for school back east. I wanted to run with my friends before I had to dedicate myself to years of academics, wanted to be free and wild but my father wanted to rein me in, hobble me. As a child, I had always been obedient, more out of fear of losing my father's love than anything else since for so many years it had just been the two of us. Then he married Inger, my brother Hoss' mother, who loved me, stroked my hair when I was ill and pulled me into her lap in the aftermath of my father's anger for a childish transgression. Inger was slaughtered in an Indian attack and I had nightmares for years about it as I saw it all. All of it—the blood, the agony and the dying. That was the worst, the dying.

A few years later, my father married Marie, Joe's mother, and I felt I then owed my father nothing. After all, Marie was the estranged wife and then the bitter widow of Jean De Marigny; I wondered if the ghost of Jean watched them as they rolled about together in bed and if he cursed their coupling. But with that marriage, with the knowledge that my father wasn't such a noble man after all and could betray a loyal man's friendship for a grab at swinging hips and rounded breasts, well, the seeds of rebellion were planted. My inherent nature prevailed and as I grew older, I said things that shocked my father, even made my younger brothers stand dumbfounded at my impertinence and audacity, but I couldn't stop myself. All those years of pent-up frustration and anger boiled over and my tongue scalded those I loved.

I "chased" with the Bonner brothers, Jeff and Rick, as my father derisively put it, and with Carl Reagan, the son of our foreman who we called "Old Will." Will Reagan had a blood-hound look with sagging jowls and wrinkles about his eyes, must have looked old in the cradle and even in the bloom of his youth. And it was at that time my father told me that despite the acceptance letter, I couldn't head off to school for another year, perhaps never if I didn't show I could handle the responsibilities of a man. He said 16 was far too young and just because I stayed in school three years longer than my friends proved nothing except that I read better and ciphered better. But, according to him, I had a far way to go to be a man. I burned with anger but my father held the purse strings as all I received each week for my hard work was a meager pittance, less than the dollar a day the ranch hands earned, and he threatened to pay me nothing at all if I didn't stop carousing and apply myself to ranch work. I agreed because, as I told him, I would do anything to get away from the Ponderosa…and from him. I saw the hurt on his face at my cruel words and wanted to take them back but at the time, I thought a man shouldn't apologize for saying what he felt or could be hurt as he was by just "words." Of course, now I know words can be sharper than razors and cut a helluva lot deeper.

One day, while I was saddling up, a young man rode into the yard, about my age, give or take a few months, but long and lanky with bright blue eyes and a mouthful of large white teeth and when he smiled, it was so wide it seemed to reach to his ears; you couldn't help but smile back. He said his name was Ross Marquette and he was looking for work; he heard in Virginia City the Ponderosa was hiring on. I welcomed him and shook his hand and his fingers were so long and thin, I couldn't help but think it was like shaking the hand of a skeleton.

"Where you from?" my father asked. He appraised Ross, considering him too slight for any heavy work, or so he later told me.

"I was born in 'Missoura'," as he pronounced it, "but I've been on my own since I was thirteen, travelin' about and pickin' up work here and there. I've done some mustangin', brandin', herdin', and even a touch of farming."

"Jack of all trades," my father added, stroking his chin as if he a long beard. Then he pulled an earlobe and I couldn't tell if he was making up his mind or already had and just wanted to add a bit of uncertainty. Made a man want the job even more.

"Yessir, guess you could say that." Ross shoved his hands in the back pockets of his dungarees, waiting for the verdict and rocking on his heels. "I can do just about anything if someone will show me how."

"You know how to muck out stables?" I knew my father didn't need Ross for that job as it was my brother Hoss', and once five-year-old Joe was able to manage a pitchfork and shovel, it would his. That was why Hoss encouraged Joe to drink all his milk, "So's you can grow up real quick and take over muckin'."

"I learned that job a long time ago," Ross said grinning, "and if that's what you need, I'll do it." My father smiled. I could tell he liked Ross and his open, honest face but more for his honest answers.

"Well," my father said as if he was considering all possibilities, "I tell you what. Adam here'll take you out with him in the morning to check for strays up in the northeastern portion of the Ponderosa. It's a rocky, scrubby area but we often have cattle wander that far for the grass; it gets a lot of rain up there. We pay a dollar a day for bunk and beans."

I thought Ross was going to break out in a yahoo, he looked so happy, glancing at me and then back to my father. "Thank you, sir! Thank you! Happy to start early tomorrow. Thank you!"

"You may not thank me after ten hours with your ass in the saddle." Ross grinned at that even wider. "And Ross, trade in that bag of bones you're riding for one of our cowponies. Adam, take him to the corral and let him choose."

"Sure, Pa," I said.

"And then see he's settled. Good to have you on board," my father said and turned back to the house.

Ross looked at me, puzzled. "What's he mean by that, to be on board.?"

"My father was a seaman; it means to be aboard a ship. Just do your job and he won't toss you overboard."

Ross looked puzzled for a moment and then he grinned. "Might do me good—I haven't had a bath in a month o' Sundays."

"C'mon," I said. "Get that spavin 'mule' of yours and let's go trade him for a real horse. It looks like the mount of one of the four horsemen."

"What horsemen?" Ross said catching up his horse's reins.

"In the Bible," I replied.

Ross blushed. "I haven't had much Bible learnin'." He looked down and without meeting my eyes, said. "Hell, I can barely read."

I clapped him on the shoulder. "As long as you can read brands, you'll do fine." And he smiled at me in that way he had and we understood each other. That was the basis of our friendship, a mutual understanding of each other's weaknesses but not mentioning them or taking advantage.

Ross was young and shy but he easily fit in with the other ranch hands, getting, of course, the worst bunk in the bunkhouse. That was the top one off in the farthest corner and above Reilly O'Hannon who snored like a bear in hibernation. But it didn't faze Ross who claimed he'd once slept through a tornado that ripped the roof off the house. I believed him. And the morning after signing on, Ross and I headed up into the hills, our bedrolls tied on our saddles and our saddlebags stuffed with jerky and hard tack; we would more than likely have to spend the night up there.

Once we arrived to the high country, we spent six, seven hours beating the bushes and searching for cattle, calves and corpses but found only a few sun-bleached bones among the rocks and bent, windblown trees; no telling how long those bones had been up there.

"Your pa really expected us to find cattle way up here?" Ross asked.

"No, I don't think so. This is my punishment. Sorry you had to share in it."

"Punishment! What'd you do?" Ross seemed genuinely surprised.

"Had fun. I was supposed to leave for school back east but now I have to stick around here for another whole goddamn year and behave myself or I can't go. I swear, I'd eat a stack of cow patties with maple syrup for breakfast if it'd get me off the Ponderosa." We rode in silence for a few moments and looking at Ross, I saw his brow was furrowed, his lips tucked in like a disapproving schoolmarm. "What?" I asked him.

"I can't see anyone wantin' to leave the Ponderosa, leave this place. I never had much of anything. We sharecropped and never owned any land. I made up my mind that one day, I'd have a spread of my own." Ross looked about.

We rode about the area, going up into the highest areas, filled our canteens from the creek that burbled through, and then passed by what had at one time been a silver mine of sorts, first explored and used by the Paiutes but later by unknown others as abandoned picks and shovels attested. It was as if they had just given up and said to hell with it and dropped their tools. Or were frightened away. The blue streaks that indicated silver ore were still visible across the rocks but they were also covered with incised images. Ross pulled up his horse. He had chosen a long-legged roan with a docile disposition. The animal was a trained cowpony and once the reins were dropped, stood and cropped grass and leaves.

"Why're you stopping here?" I asked. I was hungry and wanted to set up camp for the night but I wouldn't have chosen this spot. It was too exposed…and eerie, somehow.

"I just…." He dismounted and walked over to the rocks, running his fingers over the rockface surrounding the gaping black hole in the hillside. "Look at these, Adam? What d'you think these drawings mean?"

I considered pulling rank as a Cartwright and ordering Ross to mount up and move on but instead, I dismounted as well and walked over. It had been a long time since I had been up that far, a long time since I had seen this area, long-judged not worthy of mining. Besides, my father hadn't bought this property for the mine or even grazing but as a buffer between us and any other rancher choosing to put down stakes around us.

"I remember those petroglyphs from the first time I saw them," I said, running my fingers lightly over the images carved into the stone.

"The what?" Ross asked.

"Petroglyphs, carved pictures in rock. My father brought me along to check out the property; he'd bought it sight unseen." There were recognizable representations of bison, antelope and warriors alongside spirals, rain symbols, water signs and what appeared to be ears of corn or maize. Certain hunting tableaus were represented and images that may have been kachinas or the gods the Paiute revered, but there was an odd image that had puzzled me then and did now. It was a broad-shouldered warrior who held a bow but his quarry was not an animal but some hybrid creature. Although the drawing was as crudely carved as the others, this creature was distinctly female with large breasts and a V between its legs to indicate genitals, but deer antlers grew from its head. The warrior image sent an arc of arrows flying from his bow but they flew up and then over this deerlike creature. I had asked my father about it, but he dismissed it, said the pictures were just part of the stories Paiutes told to one another about hunts and battles and maybe, the drawings were wishes for good hunting. Or bad hunting as it was obvious the hunter had missed the female deer. And there was another creature as well, half man, half wolf, what I later learned was a skinwalker or shape shifter, a creature that often took the form of a huge, murderous wolf. There was also an image of a serpent, long and sinuous. And then there was one that had always bothered me and which, until then, I had long forgotten—the Elk Man. The profile head of an elk, ruff, horns and all, sat on the broad shoulders of a man. He wore a loincloth and held a bow in one hand and arrows in the other.

A cold wind tickled the hair on the back of my neck as I ran my hand over the rocks, feeling them and imagining those who had taken the time to carve them. I looked up as the wind picked up and began to swirl leaves, almost as if the place was whispering to me. A chill ran down my back; I shook it off. Night was falling quickly and even in the failing light I could see the stacked dark clouds rolling in; we were in for rain.

"C'mon, Ross," I said standing up and looking about, "we need to find shelter and make camp before it gets any darker."

He stood up and looked at the sky as well. "Why not here. We can sleep inside there." He motioned toward the cave.

"No, I don't…it's not shored up well. See those warning signs there, the carved skull and crossbones in that wooden beam? Some past miners made it. The shoring is rotten. I don't care to be buried under a few tons of stone."

Ross chuckled at my comment. "What makes you so sure the danger sign is about that. Maybe it's a warning about Niya or an Unktehi who lives hereabouts."

"What?" I had no idea what he was talking about. "What the hell is a…Niya and a…Unk…?"

Ross laughed. "Just be glad they're only legendary and not real or saying their names aloud would draw them out." He looked again at the mine opening. I wasn't going to stay there.

"There's that overhang we passed," I said. "We can camp under it." Ross nodded but glanced back again at the cave and the rock etchings that covered the front and seemed to even go into the yawning blackness.

Suddenly the horses startled, and ran off a few yards, stomping and backing up as if considering taking off. They behaved as if something was pulling on their reins, wanting them to step where they shouldn't, where they knew better than to go; their ears were pulled back almost flat. The wind picked up even more and I caught a movement to my left and quickly looked. I saw nothing but was sure there had been something, someone. It may have been what frightened the horses.

If we approached the horses slowly, they would probably take off. Horses are strange like that; any behavior out of the ordinary will spook them. So, I walked over as if all was normal and reached for the reins. My horse looked at me with the side of his face, raising his jaw and looking down at an angle. I grabbed the reins and he allowed me to lead him around so I could mount up. Suddenly, things seemed normal again and I could feel my horse settle down under me.

"Let's go," I said. Ross seemed reluctant to leave the place but he did. He mounted up as well, but before I could kick my horse, the wind picked up again and it felt like fingers were caressing the back of my neck, like a woman's hand does when you lean down to kiss her as she lays beneath you. But I was young then and didn't understand how seductive that touch can be. But I learned.

Once we reached the overhang, we quickly built a fire and sat waiting for the rain. Thunder rumbled in the distance and the sky would lighten with indistinct strikes. We sat with our elbows on our knees, tearing at jerky strips with our teeth and looking out, anticipating the dark. A crow alighted a few yards from us, turning its head the way crows do.

"See that crow?" Ross asked.

"Yeah. Should be gone so close to night and with the rain and all."

"He's listening to us." Ross reached for another jerky strip.

"What?" I asked.

"It's listening to us, remembering every word so he can repeat it to the other crows. Then the crows will tell the wolves and coyotes and bears."

"Oh, of course," I said. "Foolish me." I believed he was joking and I guess he half was. But only half.

Ross chuckled. "That's what my mother told me. You see, the wolves and bears, the coyotes, man is their competition for prey. The deer, antelope, elk, buffalo are never safe because all the predators eat them. Now the crows," he pointed to the crow sitting, watching us, its head cocked to one side, "are gossips and listen to men to hear if they're talking of hunting and if we are, the crow flies off even faster, jabbers even faster to the bears and wolves and for their reward, they get to pick out the eyes of the fallen deer or antelope or elk."

"Lovely bedtime story," I said, rooting in my saddlebag for the cold biscuits. Then I knew. I was leery to ask but I did. I handed Ross a biscuit. "What tribe?"

Ross looked at the biscuit and before taking a bite, said, "Lakota." He broke off a part of the biscuit and tossed it toward the crow that hopped to it and pecked at the piece, lifting it up and shaking off smaller pieces to swallow.

"Marquette. That's…what? French?" I spoke with my mouth full of biscuit.

"Yeah. My grandfather Marquette was a trapper, beaver mainly. My father learned from him but once he bought my mother for two wolf hides, as he often reminded her, he tried his hand at farming, share-cropping, and failed miserably. He used to say the name Marquette meant land owner and one day he'd own acreage as far as the eye could see. He never did. I was named Ross after my grandfather but my other name, the birthname my mother gave me is Kangee, Raven."

Ross paused, looking out at the falling night. I said nothing and Ross went on.

"One night, my father drank himself into a fury—didn't take much to make him mad. I don't really remember what she did to anger hm but he knocked her across the room. Then he beat my mother to death. I had tried to defend her but he knocked me out cold. Then he must have gone out in the yard and blew his own head off. I found him out there, dragged him by his legs into the house and burned it down with them both inside. And I left to fend for myself."

We sat in silence. When you hear something like that, what can you say? Nothing, really, but Ross related the events without emotion. I do that too sometimes, put so much distance between myself and what happened so that it doesn't seem real, almost like one of those perverse bedtime stories. A little like this story I'm telling you.

Ross tossed the remaining piece of his biscuit to the crow.

"Now take it and go," Ross told the crow. "Go on. You won't hear no more from us tonight." The crow swallowed the crumb and then flew off into the almost blackness of night. "Looks like the rain is passing to the northwest."

"Yeah. Fine by me. I hate sleeping in wet."

Ross paused, then asked, "You said your pa bought this acreage as a buffer?"

"Yeah?" I was cautious but curious. "Why?"

"Think he'd sell it to me one day?"

I chuckled. "You want to own this scrub property?"

"Yeah," Ross said, grinning. "I just…. Well, like I said, the name Marquette means landowner. I may as well try to be the first one in my family to live up to the name."

I snorted and shook my head. "That'd be between you and him, but why anyone would want this land, I don't know. There's better acreage."

"It speaks to me," Ross said quietly, pouring himself coffee.

"Speaks to you?"

"Yeah. Those markings on that rockface, the wind, that crow—they all speak to me. Hear the voices?"

"Oh, of course," I replied. "They're telling me you're crazy as hell."

Ross laughed and drank more of his coffee before tossing out the rest. "How about a game of cards. Rummy?"

"Now you're talking. Not even my old man can beat me at gin. Got a deck?"

"In my saddle bags."

We sat and played by the fire. I wondered if Ross was cheating as he won every goddamn game we played and the last one, he won after only two pickups.

"Enough," I said. "If we'd been gambling, I'd have to accuse you of cheating."

"It's this piece of land; my good luck starts here." He gathered the cards.

"Bullshit," I replied. "I'm gonna take a piss." I stood up, grimacing; my knees had become stiff from sitting cross-legged. When I returned, Ross had tossed more wood on the fire and was bedded. I rolled out my bedroll and having pulled off my boots, slipped between them.

"Watch out for the rolling head," Ross said, his back to me.

"The what?"

"The rolling head." He sat up and looked over at me. "See, there was an ancient one who cut himself. He licked the blood and liked the taste so much he bit a hunk out of himself. Loved the taste of his own flesh, human flesh, so he began to eat himself until all that was left was his head. So now he rolls about, searching for others to eat. Lying on the ground like this, well, it makes it damn easy for him to eat one of us." Ross watched me.

"Another Indian bedtime story?" I asked.

'Yup. Like 'em?"

"Give me a wicked witch who eats children any day."

Ross laughed and I had to laugh as well. But I did have trouble falling asleep. My boyhood imagination was crammed with images of trolls and ogres, those that inhabited the Norwegian stories Inger Borgstrom Cartwright, Hoss' mother, had told me on our cross-country journey. And as I drifted off, those creatures slinked in and out with their snaggled beards and oversized, grasping hands, ready to snatch up the child I had been and shove me down their gullet. Imagination never does anyone any good.