It is for the High Plains to give up their ghosts---
The dry and temperate nature acting somewhat as a preservative, allowing them to populate the land long after their expiration date has come---
And long gone.
As the bison bones left bleaching in the withering suns of seasons and centuries past; giant massifs left on these very plains as testament to men’s brutality and his penchant for senseless slaughter, so are the instruments and implements of man’s own making cast to pasture, or left where they inhaled their last breath---
A fuel-air mixture that failed to be compressed in a cylinder and exhausted to the heavens---
A crankshaft that failed to turn just one more revolution---
And a battery that drained itself trying to energize a starter and turn a flywheel.
For whatever reason, known only to the unknown ghost who endured a long walk back to the pickup truck parked inconveniently at the other end of the field, there would be no repairs forthcoming.
It would stay where it died---
A dray horse who had furrowed his last row, and collapsed; a mechanical American Belgian of sorts, even dressed in the Chestnut and Flaxen of his equine predecessor, the Comfort King cab ne’er again to know air conditioning or the sounds of high fidelity AM/FM speakers as they presented the price of pork bellies and corn futures on the 5am farm report, or the 8-Track tape sounds of George Jones and Tammy Wynette singing of a doomed marriage and impending divorce.
Perhaps in a few more decades, the errant or curious traveler will stumble upon its form, marveling at the technology from a century past as few might do with the smattering of donated steam locomotives throughout the land---
Of 0-6-0 shifters and Prairie-types stuffed and mounted for display at places like Clovis and Lamar, and one hulking 2-10-4 entombed behind chain-link on 2nd Avenue in Amarillo.
It will suffer the same fate of time and neglect, yet no one will come and lay on a fresh coat of paint and plant flowers around its resting place in an attempt to spruce things up a bit.
To be sure, sticks and stones have been cast, quite possibly even certain caliber projectiles fired, perhaps by Saturday Night Sinners lubricated fully with ‘spiritual’ courage.
The path to Sunday morning sainthood would most likely begin in the confessional, where the visiting Monsignor from the Amarillo Diocese would likely chuckle to himself as the antics from last night passed through the screen. The offender would receive a stern admonition, and a penance to include several Hail Marys and resisting the urge to wretch while receiving the Eucharist, all to the throb of a pounding hangover headache.
Maybe someday, in the who-knows-when future, between the rumbling of the passer-by trains and the quiet of the wind, a large semi-truck will arrive, the beep-beep-beep of his backup alarm clearing the way for no one really. The driver will expertly spot the tilt-bed Landoll trailer, winch the old tractor aboard, and cart it away.
10 minutes flat.
Destination unknown.
Leaving only the depressions in the ground where the flat tires had rested for…how many years now?
Now longer will the hoot owl have a roost to feast on his nightly prey, nor will the cottontail have a place to shelter from the marauding red-tailed hawk.
Survival of the fittest will be fully in play.
Perhaps the hiss of an acetylene torch looms on the horizon for our old Case 930; an eyesore in the eyes of the beholder; a lost cause that might bring a few dollars on the price of scrap metal.
Perhaps.
But tonight, only the sun balances on the knife edge of the land, the brilliance of its glow fading, yet still warm on the face of the curious---
Upon the flanks of fast trains---
And the bones of things that lay where they died.
Their ghosts will haunt another night.
---RAM
Rick Malo©2024
BNSF Transcon near Kingsmill, Texas.
October 30, 2024.
