I was about to cut Hopkins down when a captain from the 82nd stuck a .45 in my ear and said “leave him.” So I left him up there to turn in the breeze. By daybreak I’d see a dozen more dead boys in trees that never reached French soil.

Looking back, wormy grits and fat drippings seem like grim offerings, but to our raccoon eyes and distended bellies it was manna from Appalachia.

His lungs filled and he sank like a stone in that cold dark eddy. He still comes around, though, on the darkest nights. The children feel his presence.

He brined in pickle juice beef ribs the size of tennis rackets and cooked them low and slow over mesquite smoke. We knew our fate was deserved (we’ve done this a long time) but it was a helluva last meal.

He rode the midnight rails from Sanderson to Alpine, dodging the bulls just for the view. It was his train ride to the stars.

Pretty people in a restaurant

talking so loudly

reminding us

we’re not them.

"I recall when you were just a pup, and now you're here to rip my throat out."

"You knew this would happen when you raised me."

When the thinnest remnant of daylight melted into the treetops, our adrenaline was smothered by a blanket of dread. We dug in.