west for the last time. the same mountains, the same pass.

and then the hills, the hills.

in reverse they chart their own course. the prospecting sites, the coal mines. same and yet changed, as they are same and yet changed.

old sites litter the grass like broken beads. travel goes quicker than the last time. maybe on account of what they’ve left behind, maybe on account of their longer legs. maybe on account of their rushing toward a place they want to be. what makes a home a home? the bones, the grass, the sky bleached white at its edges from heat—familiar and yet not, as if, flipping through an old book read once upon a time, they find the pages disordered, the colors melted by sun and years, the story misremembered. so that each morning dawns both known and surprising: a smoking mine, a town no larger than one crossroads and two boys loitering, white bone, a town all ashes with tiger prints in its crust, another crossroads with two girls one tall one short, a choked stream, another crossroads, a mound in the sighing grass, a stream blackened yet running, a mound in the singing grass where something might be buried, a mine where wildflowers have grown over broken earth, another crossroads, another saloon, another morning, another night, another high noon with sweat stinging their squinted eyes, another crossroads, another dusk with the wind seeming to whisper over an unmarked mound in the weeping grass where something might be buried, another crossroads, another crossroads, another crossroads, gold, grass, grass, grass, gold, grass, gold—

maybe the travel goes quicker on account of the two horses sam steals. sister, one is named, and the other, brother. sam swings in, then out, of the trading post. they’ve ridden half a day before lucy sees the weight of sam’s wallet: as plump as before.

“they’re ours,” sam calls back through the wind of their passage. “we’ve paid our dues.”

lucy lets loose a string of cusses. the grass swallows them, nodding assent. she knows what sam means. how can they be beholden? how can they be any more outside the law? that law a treacherous thing, twisting to sink fangs into them however it can. better to make their own rules, as sam always has. anyhow, they’re leaving.

gold grass gold grass gold grass gold grass gold

maybe the travel goes quicker on account of their running from pursuers. at the horizon the dry heat shivers, as if trying to lift off. sun-blinded, her shorter hair lashing her cheeks—lucy sees shapes, not all of them real. at the corner of her eye: a wagon? a figure waving? a dark silhouette? look straight on and there’s nothing. sam keeps a hand on the gun and squints for debt collectors in black. twice they cross paths with indian travelers and sam dismounts to speak to them, learning that they, chased out, are searching too. lucy does what ma never would have: she greets them shyly, follows sam in sharing their meager food. their hands, dipping into one stewpot, are dusty, yes, hard-used, yes—but if at first lucy flinches back, soon enough she sees that her own are no cleaner. in their weary faces a familiar exhaustion and hope. she eats.

at other times she hears the screams of children playing on the wind when she and sam are quite alone. what makes a ghost a ghost? can a person be haunted by herself?

gold grass gold grass gold grass gold grass

maybe the travel goes quicker on account of the stories sam tells at the campfire. no longer smooth—sam’s adventuring stories peel back night by night. sam tells of the southern desert where the bite from a dragon lizard festered till a man died blackened like a weeks-old corpse. of how men looted that ancient indian city they found, smashed the pots and pissed in the graves, but out of a crevice in the cliffs sam found white flowers that bloomed at night and woke the camp with scent. of how in the north a freeze leapt down and iced half the cattle where they stood, and in the blinding snow some men went crazy and ran out stark naked and some men drew beautiful shapes in the drifts and some men called sam chink. more rarely sam speaks of the job with the gold men, where sam learned the new ways of prospecting with weapons that blast hills to dust, and befriended men and women black and brown and red, and learned the names of their tribes and lands. but in the telling of these gold stories sam’s face darkens, sam’s gaze skitters as if fearing the boom of dynamite, till sam’s voice fades and sam gulps whiskey.

gold grass gold grass gold grass gold

maybe the travel goes quicker on account of the two of them being more alike than lucy remembers. same and yet changed. on the day lucy tears her skirt, sam draws needle quicker than gun. lucy admires the clever stitchwork that affixes the bandana at sam’s throat and keeps the buttons on sam’s shirt from popping. sam attentive to clothes despite a disdain for skirts, as if saying, with each tug of the needle, what people see shapes how they treat you. meanwhile lucy learns the hunter’s trade. hitches her shift high with no shame and no eyes around, and chases down rabbits, squirrels, partridges with flashing spots. a few times she pulls on sam’s spare pants. run quick enough and she can shuck the weight of herself, as she once did by floating in a river. they catch so much game they eat only the good dark meat and leave the lean for the jackals. a grateful howling spools behind.

they both talk, slowly, of the life they’ll have beyond the ocean. laying their dreams out on the table, cautious at first, spooked as poker players showing their cards at the long game’s end. lucy intends to stay on their land with only wind and grass to talk to. sam wants to venture into the crowded streets, taste the fish, haggle with the merchants. aren’t you sick of being looked at? / but over there they won’t just look. they’ll actually see me.

gold grass gold grass gold grass

maybe the travel goes quicker on account of the gambling games sam teaches to pass the time. this should worry lucy—sam’s love for a fortune that rests on a stroke of luck. but she puts the old fears aside. she learns poker and checkers, how to lean forward with cards held close so that the man across the table will watch her chest and not her bluff.

gold grass gold grass gold

maybe the travel goes quicker on account of the buffalo. one moment they’re riding, next moment the light is half-gone. they look up through shadow. there it is. as if a piece of the hills has shifted, stepped close. does either one breathe? even the wind hangs still. ancient thing with its pelt gone blond at the tips, brown body fringed with gold. its hooves are wider than lucy’s hand. she raises hers to compare. keeps it raised in greeting. and then the buffalo is moving, blowing its sweet grass breath, and its coat brushes her palm. at her side, sam holds a hand up too. the buffalo passes, melting back into the hills that have its color and shape. i thought they were dead. / me too.

gold grass gold grass

maybe the travel goes quicker on account of the land growing more familiar, the shapes of the hills each morning better fitted to the shapes in lucy’s dreams. one day they hit a piece of trail and she knows with a force like a fist in her gut what will come round the bend: a rocky outcrop, wild garlic in the shade, a stream’s crooked elbow where she once found a dead snake.

lucy dismounts and makes sam follow on foot, swearing and sweating, to the crest of a hill. she tells sam to look up. the clouds begin to circle, them two at the center. once, lucy was taught to look from fear of being lost. but now she teaches sam to look for beauty. as sam’s impatience shifts to awe, the land shifts too. same and yet changed.

gold grass gold

maybe the travel goes quicker on account of lucy feeling a sorrow kin to love. because though these dry yellow hills yielded nothing but pain and sweat and misplaced hope—she knows them. a part of her is buried in them, a part of her lost in them, a part of her found and born in them—so many parts belong to this land. an ache in her chest like the tug of a dowsing rod. across the ocean the people will look like them, but they won’t know the shapes of these hills, or the soughing of grass, or the taste of muddy water—all these things that shape lucy within as her eyes and nose shape her without. maybe the travel goes quicker on account of lucy mourning, already, the loss of this land.

but she’ll have sam.

gold grass

maybe the travel goes quicker on account of sam’s unease hurrying them along. sam of two faces: bold and grinning straight-on; at other times twitchy, hard-lipped, glancing round. this second sam looks at lucy with a mouth that opens and closes, as if a man pushes uncertainly at the door of a room he fears to enter. tiger got your tongue? / it’s nothing.this second sam starts at the merest rustle, the whuff of their horses settling down at night. this sam sleeps little, sleeps sitting up. enters a saloon only to dash out, pop-eyed, saying the man in the back—fat, bald, harmless—looks wrong. lucy vows to ask, later—when words aren’t quite so dangerous, so liable to make sam shake—why sam lives so cautious. but that can wait till they’re on the ship with the ocean wide around them, and they have all the time in the world to learn a new language, one that hasn’t hurt them.

gold