Free Ghost Town: A Novel by Robert Coover

we even set off. So it aint about gold at all nor land neither nor freedom—hoo! freedom, shit!— nor civvylizin the wilderness and smoothin the heathen encrustations from the savage mind, oh no, hell no! It’s about, lissen t’me now, it’s about style . They aint nuthin else to it. Cept fer the killin, a course, caint even have style without the killin, but thet’s easy, aint nobody caint kill, it’s like eatin and fartin. But dustin em with class, with a bitta spiff’n yer own wrinkle, thet’s one in a million billion. Thet’s the one whut leaves his name behind—his real one or his made-up one, dont matter—but thet name jest sticks like mud’n sucks everbody else up into it, and, son, yu aint gonna git nowhars out here till yu learn thet. Whut I mean t’say is, thet’s mebbe a handsome sombrero yu got pushin yer ears out, but so far’s I kin tell whut’s under it dont amount to a pile a stale horse-poop.
    Thanks, ole man, that’s mighty reassurin, specially comin from a stylish gent like yerself. But I aint tryin t’git nowhars.
    At the doorway, as if to prove his point, he’s stopped by a skinny long-haired fellow in a black suit and bowler, a photographer by the look of the paraphernalia he’s porting. Dont take the ole coot inside, he says. The light’s piss in thar. I say nuthin about the smell.
    He’s dyin. It’s his last wish. And he’s hurtin bad.
    Yu dont say. Well it aint gonna matter to him nor nobody else shortly enuf, replies the photographer, with a crooked gold-toothed grin, setting up his gear. Everthin passes, friend, thet’s the good news. Now jest set him on this chair here so’s I kin shoot his disgustin remains fer pasterity wunst he’s finally kicked it.
    The old prospector seems to relish the idea of having his photograph taken, even if he won’t be around for the actual event, so he props him up there on the chair the photographer has dragged out of the shot-up shack. Jest lean me sideways, boys, the prospector wheezes, so’s I dont hafta set on thet damn arrow.
    The ole fart’s gone all t’hair, the photographer grumbles from under his black hood as he peers through his lens, the greasy black strands of his own hair dangling under the cloth like spiders’ legs. Looks like the ass end of a fuckin porkypine. Fit him out thar with his pick’n pan, why dont yu, make him look half human.
    He does so, also loads him up with his antiquated sidearms and sets his slouch hat on square, as the photographer instructs, and then he remounts the swayback mule and prepares to move on. Whut yu need, son, the old codger calls out, is a proper sidekick. He wags his gnawed armbone at him accusingly, or maybe he’s just waving goodbye. It’s about the nakedest thing he’s ever seen. I’da been happy t’oblige but yu come too goddam late!
    I know it, he says. Dont seem to of been on time fer nuthin yet. Reckon thet must be my style.
    That sets off another fit of cackling and wheezing and dark spewing, a sorry spectacle which he rides away from. The town meanwhile has finally sunk from sight and he is alone once more out on the vast empty desert.
    It is dark, another moonless desert night, when he comes at last on the lost posse, locating them not by their campfire or bitter laughter but by the lowing of the vast herd of cattle they have gathered around them, their distant fire flickering in the herd’s depths like the candlelit core of an unstable maze. They’ve filled up the whole prairie with the dumb shuffling beasts; he has to pick his way through thousands of them, trying to avoid their scything horns, egging on his reluctant mount, which is white now only on its underside, away from the weather; it’s like moving through some viscous and muscular sea, shoving against a stubborn tide, though how he even knows about seas and tides, he has no idea. Once among them, he can see nothing else for miles around, and he worries that maybe he’s fated to be rafted here above their