Sit down and I'll tell ya'll a story about a man. A man some said was the devil and others said was an angel. An angel sent from heaven to send the wicked men of the world to meet their maker in the most evil way possible….

NEAR SPRINGERVILLE, ARIZONA 1887

It was a god-forsaken desert that went on for miles and years. It was hot there

even during Christmas. When other folks were decorating their pine trees and sippin eggnog in places like New York and Terrahoute, Indiana people in the desert were baking in the sun. Rotting corpses and bleached skeletons lined the sagebrush-pocked landscape. No one really knew why just kinda how it was. I'm sure they all had their sad stories but nobody cared then, ain't nobody cares now. Back in them days they wouldn't even let you in to Arizona without proof of a notarized living will. In 1887 people from Near Springerville went to Death Valley just to cool off. (Well they didn't really. Just makin a point. You know with it bein so hot and all.)

That's how it was in Near Springerville. But all this heat and misery didn't bother the strange man heading toward town. Just to save a lot of extra writin; if this man were alive today you'd say he was a dead ringer for Clint Eastwood.

He rode toward the town of Near Springerville slowly but deliberately. His chestnut horse made that weird noise horses do where they kinda, well if you put your lips together and kinda puff out your cheeks and blow so you're lips kinda slap together real quick it's like that. I don't mean whinny or nothin' and not like your doin' a motorboat either cause you don't hum you just blow. Not sure if a horse is sneezing when they do that or just sighing. You know like they're bored or something. Well come to think of it they do that when they're excited too so that can't be it.

Look just go hang around a horse for a while if you don't know what I mean they're bound do it sooner or later.

The stranger was about 5 miles west of Springerville (not 5 miles west of Near Springerville, which was 2 miles west of Springerville. Near Springerville was such a small place there weren't any signs saying how far you were from it just how far you were from Springerville. All you knew when you come to Near Springerville was that you were near Springerville.) It was like a bunch of folks got together and decided to settle a rest stop.

In the distance there was a small log cabin just sitting out in the middle of nothin and nowhere. There was a corral near it though no horses or cows to be seen. On it, near the gate hung a sign with the word Trigger on it .

The stranger slowed his horse and squinted his eyes from the bright sun. Somethin wasn't right. As he drew nearer to the cabin he saw a hole bein' dug about 30 yards in front of it with the top of a wooden ladder sticking out of it. There was dirt flying out of it on a pretty steady basis. As he came to the hole he noticed a wheelbarrow covered with a canvas tarp and leaning on it was a shovel and a broken pick axe. He dismounted and walked over to the hole. There was a sound of shoveling. As he came to the edge and peered in he could see a man or rather a boy about 17 years old he guessed. He was down there shoveling for all he was worth, his shirt soaked from sweat. The hole he was in was around 5 feet diameter and maybe 12 feet or so deep. Here again to save us both a lot of extra readin' and writin' the boy, were he alive today, you'd swear looked just like Leonardo DiCaprio wearing a sweat soaked shirt with suspenders and covered in dirt.

"You know if you're diggin a grave you coulda stopped six feet ago," said the stranger. His voice was raspy and he talked a bit slowly and very clearly like a professional wrestler. Well maybe not that slow.

The boy didn't seem surprised at all that someone had walked up and started talkin' to him without even looking up he kept digging and said, " Not diggin a grave mister," he said and kept on.

"Well if you're diggin a well I can tell you you're doin it in the wrong place."

"Ain't diggin a well neither. I don't reckon it's any of you're business what I'm doin'," the boy called up not stopping or even slowing.

"Well," said the stranger throwing back his poncho and grabbing a cigar from his vest pocket, "I think it might be," he said and bit the end off the cigar and pulled a match from a pocket on his snakeskin boot. Not many people had boots like that but the stranger never made a big deal about it. Wasn't like he invited friends over to show them his boots sayin' 'Hey looky here! My boots they got pockets in 'em!' and everyone body would be like, 'Hey where'd you get those?" It just wasn't his style.

"Ya and how do you figure that?"

"It's just so happens that I know the man who owns this land," he said lighting the cigar and taking a deep puff and letting it out, "and you ain't him."

"That a fact?" asked the boy.

"That's a fact," said the stranger throwing the burnt match into the hole. It hit the boy's bare arm but he didn't seem to notice. "Hmm," said the stranger to himself, "guess I waited too long. Went cold." So much for the old match burnin twice joke he thought to himself. Just as well seein as how I'd be startin at the punch line.

"Don't matter anyhow," the boy called up still shoveling away, "This time tomorrow he won't be around to bitch none."

The stranger calmly took another puff on the cigar, "Thought you said you weren't diggin a grave. You plannin' on throwin a rug over this hole?" he walked over to the wheelbarrow and lifted the tarp though he half-expected to find a dead body he was surprised to find that it was full of TNT.

He didn't act surprised though. Just kinda squinted his eyes a little differently. Tough guys like this and now I come to think of it the boy in the hole (see the part above where he doesn't act surprised) don't act surprised at nothin, even when no one's around they don't act surprised. The only time tough guys like this act surprised is when it comes to women. They just can't help it. There just wasn't no accounting for them. A man could drag his family out in to the middle of nowhere, risking all their lives for promises of somethin he overheard at a bar from some drunk who mentioned that somewhere out west there was gold and better livin'. Fighting off Indians, starvation, disease and death for somethin that might not be there at all. But woman can go through their whole life without makin' a lick of sense.

"What ya plan to do with all these fireworks?" the stranger asked.

"I plan to blow up the whole world and everyone in it," the boy said matter-of-factly.

The horse reared and whinnied. "Easy Trigger," said the stranger patting the horse's mane. Down in the hole the boy stopped shoveling. He then dropped the shovel and climbed the ladder as he got to the point where his head was above the hole, he looked over at the sign on the corral for a moment mouthed something then shook his head.

"Ah hell what am I doin? I can't read," he said then climbed back down the ladder, picked up the shovel and went back to work.