Canto 1
Welcome home, friend. I seen you comin in from the plain.
Now smell this here. Gunmetal. Polished. Pristine. You wont find no better specimen this side of old man river. See it shine. See how it catch the sun like that. It aint no ordinary pistola. I ever tell you how I got it?
Her eyes are like big blue moons and bouncing bouncing. Now she's bouncing and now she's leaning and now her head is sliding and angling back. When I ask her if she's cold she just tilts her head back slyly and does not answer.
I kindly spake it. The kid had on gray. That was all I seen. Gray hat. Gray shirt. Looked like an officer. He might could have been one for all I knew.
Then I'm holding her in my arms and together we're moving moving to the bedroom and she smells like leaves and when I lay her down in the cold of the bed she smells like when she says it's morning.
I'm ahead of you there brother. But you must understand. The kid had on gray. Gun or no, gray in them days meant you was askin for trouble. You understand.
Now I'm stopping and I'm trying to say. I'm gazing down at her and I'm trying to say.
In fact this gun once belonged to General Grant hisself. I got the white papers and everthing so dont go callin me no liar. A soldier caint rightly sleep at night without his gun, or so the saying goes. At least my father used to say somethin to that effect.
We're undressing and then we're moving. We're moving quickly. Then her back is in the sheets and my knees are in the sheets and I'm holding her in my arms and when I ask her if she's cold she jerks away from me and does not answer.
With which party was he? Well that's an unfortunate question. But as it turns out he wasnt with neither party. Not in actuality. By Christ's nails and blood he wasnt in league with neither party.
The family, they came out and cleared the dead and dyin off their property, then they dug a ditch behind the barn and he was there interred.
See they left me stranded with just one round, brother. None more. Just the one.
Smell that. Here, come closer. It aint loaded. About three year ago an old cleric warned me of this gun, warned me to keep it holstered for she feared it might yet retain the restless spirit of that young boy. And in some ethereal twist of fate she feared that it might one day have its way with me. Well it aint tried nothin spooky yet and I done given it its chances.
Her eyes are big and blue and bouncing. I'm inside of them and I'm inside of her. She smells like leaves and she smells like when she says it's raining in the morning.
Friend, I dont presume to know why or how it happened. But it happened. The boy is dead and it aint no amount of moanin and hollerin goin to bring him back. You understand.
Everday come twelve noon I sit idly by and give his spirit the chance to have its rightful say, and by God's bones he aint never had nothin to say. You ever put a loaded gun to your forehead and pulled the pecker and lived to tell about it?
Finally she asks me if I'm cold. I nod and tell her that I am. I am cold. I am so dreadfully, painfully cold.
General Grant, he understood. Fog of war, he called it. After you been out there moren a few day everthing starts to go all wishywashy on you. Blends together. You get that blood pumpin full ought and then you caint stop til everthing about you's deadern a hammer. You understand. General Grant, he surely did. He surely did understand.