Daddy's Gone A Hunting
Bye, oh Baby Bunting
Daddy's gone a hunting
To get a little rabbit skin
To wrap his Baby Bunting in
Bye, oh Baby Bunting
Mommy's gone a missing
Exchanging life for dark destine
To wrap her Baby Bunting in
Bye, oh Baby Bunting
Brother's gone a hunting
Exchanging light for darkening
To wrap his Baby Bunting in
Bye, oh Baby Bunting
Baby's gone a struggling
A heart and soul to lose or win
To wrap the Baby Bunting in
Bye, oh Baby Bunting
Daddy's gone a hunting
To get an evil demon's skin
To wrap his Baby Bunting in
Georgetown, Colorado 1988
Lights twinkled in the gently falling snow and frozen night air like jewels nestled in the cleavage of the mountains rising up on either side of the small mountain town. Downtown on 6th Street the Red Ram Saloon was filling to capacity as the après-ski crowd, detoured off of the Interstate until an avalanche could be cleared, piled in after a long day of shushing champagne powder at Copper Mountain, Keystone, Breckenridge and Arapahoe Basin, known to the locals as A-Basin.
A few of the remaining Molybdenum miners in the area, as well as a few locals and one time warping hippie, sat at tables reserved for them by virtue of their many years of boozing in the downstairs bar. The wait staff, made up primarily of ski bums who traveled with the snow only to be replaced by mud ducks too broke to leave town in the spring, hustled through the smoke filled rooms delivering Coors beer, huge, honking hamburgers with fries, Coors beer, tasty steaks and onion rings, Coors beer, Mexican food that tasted as good as could be expected when cooked by a guy named Olafson and more Coors beer.
Jewels Downey, the thirty something bar manager, had been pressed into duty and schlepped a huge tray laden with food and drinks seemingly effortlessly through the throng of people queuing up for standing room only inside the bar as even more displaced travelers were forced into town. As she positioned the last item on her tray in front of a hungry customer she saw a tall, well built man come in out of the cold herding two young boys before him, one reluctant and hanging back, the other champing at the bit to get inside, and frowned. Brushing snow from his dark hair the father's eyes locked with hers for a moment before he lowered his gaze. Her scowl was not lost on him. A bar was no place for kids.