I can live with ghosts. This part of the Texas Hill Country has ghosts thicker than fleas on an ol' yaller dog. Conquistadores slaughtered for god and gold here; the Comanche returned the favor. Tonkawa practiced their ritual cannibalism along these creeks; Anglos answered with their own atrocities. To the south, the martyrs of the Alamo mission still haunt old San Antonio de Bexar. After the unpleasantness between the northern and southern states, freed blacks moved here from Dixie and farmed the river bottoms in the only cash crop they knew -- cotton -- until they and the land wore out. The attentive, midnight ear hears war whoops and Rebel yells mingle with the strains of old spirituals.
The ghosts carry their histories upon their bowed backs and ask nothing of the living. I can live with them in peace. But the dead have never rested easy in this sun-drenched, heat-struck land -- and nowadays, they don't seem to be resting at all....
Other Fiction → A DYING BREED by Carrie Richerson06 Nov 2009, 20:56 You have to login or register to post comments. |
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