Emmetsburg: Sixty-two

Golden. It was shame that drove him west out of Vermillion. Not that John had much of an idea where he was headed, just as he had no real interest in where he ended up. So he went west, because it was as good a direction as any. He drove west across the dust choked emptiness of South Dakota.

The road was hardly more than a dirt track, running off into the distance, towards the indiscernible horizon, where perhaps a new fate awaited to replace the one he sought to escape in Emmetsburg. He drew to a stop at a crossroads. The earth and sky were blended, as if they were the base colors on a great canvas, the world and details to be supplied later. It was a continuum, as if the two were kin. All that could be seen were a line of telegraph poles, a single black wire connecting them until they were swollowed in the dust and haze of the plain. John weigh his options and decided to continue with the telegraph line.

He couldn't say how long he'd been driving. Not for sure anyway. He had an idea. He'd left Vermillion sometime before dawn, and he'd watched the sun march across the sky. John figured it was late afternoon, especially when he pulled up on the tiny little town, the shadows of the half dozen or some small buildings stretching across the road.

It was a stretch to call the place a town. To one side there was an old barn, that looked like it might have just been there forever. An old Indian leaned from a chair against the barn. He wore a white shirt and dark trousers. He was tall, his ochre skin stretched tightly over a slender frame. Beside the barn was a water pump. The barn faced a general store doubling as the town hall. There was a single Sunoco gasoline pump out front. Further along was a house, and a small Baptist Church.

John drew to a stop in front of the barn and climbed out, brushing the dust f rom his trousers and shoulders. The Indian didn't budge a muscle. His eyes were closed, but the precarious nature of his balancing act on the two back legs of that old chair made it clear he wasn't.

“Mind if I help myself to your water pump?” John said from the road. The toes of his boots met the edge of the barn's shadow. He remained there, as if that line marked some boundary.

“Don't cost nothing.” said the Indian, without hardly moving a muscle.

“Much obliged.”

Thank the good Lord.”

John stepped into the cool of the shadow. His eyes kept going to the Indian, even as he quenched his thirst and cooled his neck and face from the icy cold water from the well. John stood, the front of his shirt soaked and heavy from water. In the shadow of the barn it almost gave him a chill.

“Ask you a question?” he said.

“Those are free too.”

“Where is this place?”

“That depends,” said the Indian.

“On what?”

“On where you want to be.”