Gossamer Moon 

© 2001, Curtis Imrie and John Brookings Imrie


Winfield tells the story Everett Winfield, a rancher and a fugitive from
the law. Winfield grew up in New England. He was taught to be
independent, self sufficient, and above all to care about other people.
Everett had set out to be a rancher, that was what he wanted to do. He
found a ranch in Colorado and began to raise burros.
However, Winfield loaned a gun to a friend of his who had a felony
record. This friend of Winfield's used the gun to shoot his father, who
had been quite abusive to his son. Winfield was not found culpable in the
murder, but because he provided his friend with the gun that was used to
commit the murder, Winfield was sentenced to jail for providing a weapon
to a felon.
Winfield served his sentence in the prison in Canyon City. While there,
Winfield fell in with a group of prisoners who were taming wild burros
caught on the BLM lands. 
Winfield began to learn important things from the Burros. The first thing
that he learned was that one had to gain the trust of the Animals that
they were working with. The animals would only cooperate if they saw that
their trainers were willing to sacrifice as much for the animals as they
were asking the animals to sacrifice for them.
Winfield's cool head served him well in prison. He was always calm, never
got into trouble, and quickly found favor amount the guards. He would
tell jokes, he would council the other prisoners. He became known as a
trustworthy prisoner. He also became an expert at breaking the burros.
Winfield was given more and more privileges, including the right to ride
around the outside of the prison. 
One day, while riding a burro outside the prison compound, Winfield had a
sudden impulse. He broke free and rode out into the desert and the
mountains beyond the prison. 
Winfield laid low for a while. He knew how to survive in the desert and
the wilderness. For months, he camped out in the Rockies, living off the
land. He finally got in touch with his parents who set him up as on a
small ranch. Everett bought some Burros, and began racing and training
them. He developed various techniques for handling the burros.
He had a lot of trouble with money. He struggled with getting his
financial footing. He came close to going bankrupt. However, he sold
several of his burros and was able to get a little bit of cash.
He decided to more actively promote his burro business. He began
providing studs to mule breeders. He would also run in burro races around
northern Colorado and New Mexico. 
In prison, Winfield had developed a plan for breaking wild burros. He
began to realize that instead of trying to "break" the animals spirit,
that it was best to gain the animals trust. He would train the burros
with trust. He sometimes used what he called "Persuasion", a pop on the
butt with a stick, but he usually worked with patience on the burros.
Winfield at first was a quiet player in the fabric of the town political
scene. But as he stays longer in the town and begins to weave himself
into the fabric of the town, he becomes more and more outspoken. He
begins so speak out on issues he cares about. He consistently opposes the
implementation of a recycling program, instead encouraging people to
minimize what their consumption.
When the issue of recycling comes up, somebody stands up in avid support
of an environmental program that would include recycling, a program of
environmental education workshops, and perhaps some sort of production at
the theater of a play with environmental issues presented
He says that while he wants to save the environment, he is very concerned
about the energy wasted in recycling. He is convinced that there are
other things that can be done to reduce the amount of garbage that the
town sends to its landfill. One of the things he says is to reduce what
we consume. "There are two ways to become rich," says Winfield, "You can
make more, or require less. Most of us in this town are making as much as
we possibly can, busting our asses to feed our families and maybe have a
few luxuries, but think how much we consume, folks, its amazing how much
crap we are willing to buy. We're gonna have a McDonalds's in the place
soon (the crowd gasps in horror), we don't need to recycle, we need to
reduce and reuse."
Someone in the back of the room stands up and says "That's easy for you
to say, you don't have any kids and you don't have to buy dolls and toys
and other crap like that."
Winfield says "Do you have to buy toys and crap like that? I mean think
about if folks, think about how much stuff we are consuming. How much
stuff we are buying from the corperations. Dolls, jewelry, little toys in
the McDonald's kids meal. I mean, recycling is supposed to solve a
problem right? Well, the cause of that problem is You guys."
A voice from the back, "Winfield, you keep a pretty full storage shed at
my lot, how much crap you got in their?"
"I keep a fair amount of stuff in there. But it's all I have. How many of
you could fit all your worldly goods in a storage shed. I don't even have
a car."
Outside of the Town meetings, Winfield is a quiet, intellectual type; he
has a degree in drama, but likes to tinker with machinery, hence his
Burro business. In the Sixties, he spent a lot of time between San
Francisco and Boston. Still clinging to his hippie roots, he wears loose
cotton clothing, sandals, a beard and keeps his hair somewhat long. He
also wears glasses. Occaisonally, he dons western style clothing, but he
prefer a more hippy style of clothing. 
Winfield is a little become a bit of a pack rat, saving things that he
thinks he might find useful. He also loves to read and has quite a few
books, mostly on environmental and social issues. He is also a back to
the lander, interested in preserving the tradition of old agrarian
societies.
Word gets around town that "Winfield's Burro Ranch" has opened and is
doing Burro breeding and sales. 
He is friendly, and people like him. But he does not have much of a
social life. However, he does begin for dorm a relationship with his
landlady, Carol MacKend. Carol is a single mother who lives with her son,
Mike. Elisabeth also has a hippie past, but tries to keep it a little
more hidden than Winfield does. However, she is a vegetarian, and likes
old time rock. She favors faded denim dresses and sandals. While she
continues to cling to her hippie roots. She plays the guitar and likes to
sing. 
Carol has a very clear sense of right and wrong. To Her, honesty and
caring for others is very important. She is a little bit of a neat freak
and tries to get Mike to clean his room and maintain a sense of order in
his life. She doesn't go to church, but makes an effort to support
charities and help out the community in any way she can.
Carol's Husband committed suicide. Carol is still bitter over the
experience. Her husband, Forest, was also a good friends of Winfields.
Winfield is also suffering with the pain of Forrest's loss. As the two of
them struggle together to face the pain, they spend a lot of time with
Carol's son, Mike. Mike is 15 and seems to be getting into quite a bit of
trouble. The police have already picked him up a couple of times for
stealing and underage drinking. He also is not doing well at school.
Mike was picked on as a little kid and remains very defensive of himself.
He tried desperately to fit in and will do anything to get into the
"incrowd". This often gets him into trouble with the law, and he
continues to exasperate his mother. 
Winfield lives by himself at first, cooking for himself, and spending the
evenings alone, with his books and music. He writes a lot, and keeps a
journal. His Ranch is sparsely furnished and he does not have a lot of
things. He keeps his room pretty neat, which is easy for him to do
because he does not have a lot of stuff to keep track of.
His ranch is small, he lives mostly off of rice and beans. He hates
processed foods and only rarely buys cheese. He's a bit of a film buff,
so a collection of VHS tapes slowly grows in one corner of the room. He's
not very tidy, doesn't clean upp regularly. Dishes pile up in the sink
for days before he attacks them, things pile up on the window boxes.
Carol and Winfield begin to draw closer and closer. Winfield begins to
spend a lot of time up in her Ranch. Carol takes out her guitar and they
all sing together. They tell stories and have a really good time. 
In addition to his interest in Carol, Winfield has a steady girlfriend,
Sue. Sue has two Master's degrees and still has not found her niche in
life. She has bounced around from job to job doing various things. Sue
spends a lot of time up at Curtis's house and Winfield often goes down to
her place. 
Sue is also looking for a direction in life. She is trying to see what
job suits her best. She has been bouncing around from career to career,
trying to seek fullfillment in life. She is also a burro racer and helps
Winfield with his burros. Her niece comes up often to help out on the
ranch.
Carol knows Sue, but she does not realize that Sue is Winfield's
girlfriend as well. However, Winfield has a much stronger relationship to
Sue than he does to Carol. With Carol, his relationship is based on when
they see each other. Winfield is a horny bastard and doesn't mind
sleeping around. Sue knows it, but is not willing so dump him.
Often, Sue will come up to the ranch and spend the night with Winfield,
they will discuss all sorts of things. One day, Sue shows up after work,
with a bag of groceries, that she lugs into the house. Winfield helps her
put them away.
"So," says Winfield, "How was work today."
Winfield collapses on the couch. Sue comes over and sits next to him.
"Y'know Everett, I think I've developed a certain "resignation" to the
whole idea that, I don't have a lot of strong talents. I mean, some
people seem to be very talented in one direction, they seem to be able to
focus on one thing to its completion. I can't seem to do that, I seem to
have a lot of things that I can do, a lot of talents, none particularly
strong."
"Well," says Winfield, "You sure seem to have a lot of talents, how many
different jobs hav you had? You've had a lot of different things that
have happened to you and you've performed well in a lot of different
circumstances, y'know? There's nothing wrong with that."
"Yeah, but so many people that I know seem to have this incredible sense
of direction that, I'm really Jealous of."
"Awww, C'mon, don't let it to you. There's a lot of oppertunities that
you have. I know a lot of people that have done all sorts of different
things with their lives, it just makes them interesting people."
Sue leans over and kisses Winfield, "You old wiseguy, you'll say anything
to anybody to get a little action won't you." One evening, in early
spring, Winfield goes over the Caol's house to take care of some business
regarding some fincancial trouble that he was in. He got out of this
trouble by winning a burro race and then selling several animals. He got
a loan to cover the rest.
"So, How many animals do you have on the ground now?" asks Carol
"Not Many, let's See, there is Pekinpah, Oscar, and then maybe five or
six jennies, everyone else is sold. I've got a guy who is interested in a
few of my jennies, he's called me and we are hooking up next week."
"Jeez, that sounds like you've taken a big hit on this."
"Yeah, I have. But it's okay, y'know, it's not a big deal, its pretty
easy to pick up new stock, y'know?"
"Where do you get yout animals?"
"Mostly, these days through my breeding. I used to go down to the Mexican
border once, sometimes twice a year, to get animals. The BLM rounds them
up and takes them home, and gives them to bidders, sometimes. Or
sometimes they just go at a flat rate."
"How did they get out there, all those animals? I mean, they didn't just
come in over the Land Bridge, did they?"
"You mean the Berring straight? Nope, they were brought here, by the
spanish conquistadores. I guess the Spaniards got them from the Moors, in
Northern Africa. That's all desert country up there and the burro has
traditionally been the beast of the desert. They once carried man's
burdens all over the world, and now, they are all but forgotten. But
they've always fascinated me."
Carol glances down at her watch. "Mother Moses, where is that boy!! He
should have been home hours ago."
Winfield is surprised. "It's not that late, it's only six o'clock.
Doesn't he have and afterschool program. Hell, My newphews work after
school on the stage productions, sometimes they don't get home till ten.
It drives their poor mother crazy."
"Yeah, well. Mike should have been home hours ago, Winfield. He's been
getting into trouble again. Busted by the law a few times, not doing well
in school. Last week I had to drive him home from the police station. He
had been picked up, for underage drinking. What am I going to do,
Winfield?"
"Well, I don't know. Young kids these days probably don't get into
trouble any more than I did when I was their age. God knows I kept my
mother busy, but it does seem that the world presents more problems to
kids these days. Life was so much simpler when you and I grew up. We all
looked forward to that first kiss, and then the car, and that was it. Or
at least it can sometimes seem that way."
Carol gets up and begins to pace up and down. "Now look, Everett, It's
now 6:10, He told me he would be home by four, and I gave him fifty cents
to call me if he needed a ride. There's another thing Everett. He's
changing. I can feel it. There is something about him that is slipping
away. He used to be such a happy kid. And now, there is a darkness about
him."
"What do you mean."
"When he's in his room and I call him for dinner, or I go in and ask him
to clean his room, I get this very unfortable feeling. Something inside
him is dying."
"Well, Carol his father is gone, he has that cross to bear that not a lot
of people have to deal with. Give him some room to move."
The phone rings and Carol picks up the receiver. She speaks into it, her
face becoming more and more worried. Everett takes a beer from the
refridgerator and goes out and sits on the front porch. Carol comes out.
"That was the police department, Everett, they have picked up my son for
Marijuana use."
Everett looks up as she begins to cry. He reaches out and gently pulls
her into his shoulder. "Everett, he's my baby, I can't stand it."
"I have never had a Child of my own, I guess I can't appreciate fully
what you are going through, can I?"
"Now, you can't."
A dark, non descript sedan pulls into the driveway and a police officer
gets out. Walkki-talkie chattering, he walks up to the doorway."
"You Carol…?" He asks.
"Yes. Officer, is that my boy in the back of your car?"
"Yes ma'am. Seems we picked him up for smokin on the street this evening.
We tried calling you but the power lines have been out."
"Well, Thankyou officer. I appreciate that. My boy had some explaining to
do."
The police officer hands Carol a piece of paper, [closeup of ticket for
illegal drug possesion] "The fine is fine hundred dollars, ma'am. Your
welcome to dry to argue this in court but I don't recommend it. We've got
a pretty good case against him. I saw him."
Carol sighs. The oficer leaves. Mike begins to try to explain his
position. 
"Mom…I'm…"
Carol turns on him. "I do not want to hear about it mike. No excuses, no
reasons. What reason could you POSSIBLY have for doing that. Go to bed,
we are going to talk about this in the morning. But there are going to be
som major changes in the way things are run around here."
Mike marches non-chalantly into the rear of the house. Carol looks at
ticket. Winfield says he is tired and bunks down on Carol's front porch
with a sleeping bag
Winfield is struck by the incident and can't get to sleep. He ponders his
own past and the difficulties that he faced. He is afraid that Mike will
go down the same road. Suddenly he is startled by the eruption of loud
voices in the night. 
Winfield cannot hear all of what is said, but he makes out an angry
Carol, "Mike, Damnit, I don't really want to hear about it. You were
using drugs. I tried to tell you that they were dangerous." Her Voice
breaks. "For God's sake Mike, Drugs are what took your father's life. He
tried to find an escape in them. It didn't work for him, Mike, it won't
work for you."
"Mother, I wasn't smoking Marijuana. The officer didn't see me using it.
He just came into the allye where my friends had been smoking it."
"Oh, really. And I am supposed to believe that?"
"Yes."
"Mike, what the hell were you doing with the type of person that smokes
that stuff? You think your old mother is that stupid? I was young once
to. I tried to pull this type of bullshit on my mother and it didn't
work, and you can't pull it on me. You can't tell me you were just
hanging out with them. You had no business with them, if you weren't
going to smoke marijuana with them."
"Mom, I wanted to find out what happened to people when they smoked that
stuff."
Carol relaxes, "Well, you could have asked me, probably could have asked
me, or Everett. I experimented with that shit, and he probably did too.
But why in the hell did you have to go screwin' around with it?"
There is no answer to Mike. "Okay, well, go to bed, get some sleep. We're
going to have to make some changes out here in the morning."
Carol walks out onto the front porch, Winfield has been sitting up in his
sleeping bag. Carol doesn't realize that he is there. She stands at the
side of the porch, and crys. She looks up at the stars.
"Forrest, out there, are you out there? I could forgive you, if you could
come back. If you could come back and hold me and tell me everything was
okay." 
Everett realizes that she does not realize that he is there. He looks out
at the night, his truck, the highway. He Gets up and walk out to where
Carol is. For a long time, he doesn't say anything. He then gently
reaches out and pulls her towards him. 
"What am I going to do Everett?"
Everett shrugs. "I…Well, I have an Idea."
"What is that?"
"well, I am always looking for someone to work on the ranch with me. That
ranch work is good work, it's hard work, but simple. It's heaving hay
bales and shovin' around burros. I can teach him to care for an animal,
to appreciate something that is living, and to be responsible. I think I
know when to be patient and when to kick his little ass!!"
"Everett, I think that would be great for him. I am just worried about
him accepting the deal. He doesn't take to kindly to being pushed
around."
"Well, he's like a burro. I had a burro once, big black animal, biggest
damn jack I ever saw, and he was this goofy old thing. He was awkward and
uncooperative. One time the son of a bitch took off on me, just bolted
like a rabit. If I hadn't let go of the rope I would have been dragged
out and really scuffed up. Now he is learning now about how to cooperate.
He's gonna be a good racing burro, but it takes time, you can't do it
overnight."
"Well, I guess so."
"I think you can talk to him about it. Let him decide. I don't want you
to force him to do it. That will defeat the purpose, and it won't work.
The point is that he has to be productive. If I can get him to give a
little bit of himself to something, well, that can be a great thing for
him."
The Next morning, Winfield gets himself some coffer.
Carol come out in a nightgown and slippers. She goes into the kitchen and
poors some coffe. "Mike will get up late. I am tmepted to make him get up
early. I've really had enough of his getting into trouble, but he has had
it so hard. I don't want him thinking about these things without a full
night's rest."
Winfield Shrugs "Yeah, well, don't be to easy on him. He's been pretty
stupid, he could have been a lot smarter than he was."
"Yeah, I guess so. Still, I think it's best to let him sleep."
"you are to easy on him" Says winfield. "When I was a kid, my father
would have tanned my hide if I had pulled a stunt like that."
"Winfield, you forgot something, someone closed to me had a lot of pain
in his life and couldn't deal with it. And the Consequences were
disasterous. I think that what Forest did was extremely selfish, but he
did it in response to some pain inside that he couldn't deal with. I
don't want Mike to have to deal with that. He is using drugs to escape
some problems. Somebody needs to find out what those problems are."
Winfield nods "Yeah, you are right. There is a pain in there that has to
be discovered, and dealt with. People in pain do stupid things. It's kind
of an animal instinct thing. It hurts and so we have to get away. Well I
think that I might be able to reach him. 
Mike comes in to the room very sleepy, he is barefoot and and bare
chested. He wears a baggy pair of pajama bottoms. "What's going on, mom?"
"Nothing Sweetie, go take a shower, we have some things to talk about
when you are out."
Mike disappears into the shower. Winfield looks at Carol. "Okay, Carol,
How are we going to do this."
Carol shakes her head "Tell him that you need his help, that you are
willing to give him a little money for a little help."
"Well, aren't you afraid that if he gets the money, he'll use it for
drugs?"
"Well," says Carol, "I want to have him put it all in a savings account.
Its important to me that he learns how to save his monew. My mother
taught me to save, she said that it didn't matter what amount of money
you made, as long as you were smart with it."
"And as long as you give it away, y'know? I like to donate small amounts
to certain charities and such, people who are a lot less fortunate than I
am."
"Yeah, that's always a good thing."
Mike comes out, rubbing his freshly washed hair. 
Winfield looks him square in the eye, "Mike, I need some help, some work
done on the ranch. I can't pay you much, but we can have a lot of fun
together."
Mike looks at him, "Man, is this some sort of paternal thing you want to
do, because I don't want any of this father shit, you know what I mean?"
"This sisn't father shit. This is work. I need work, you want money?"
"What makes you think I want money?"
"Everybody wants money. I want money, you want money. We all want money."
"Okay, so what are you going to pay me to do."
"All aorts of things. Sometimes you will be working hard, on say, loading
a hay trailer. Other times, the work will be easy, cleaning something.
The point is I want you to be doing something."
"So it's just busy work, eh? To keep me the hell out of trouble."
"No, it's not to keep you out of trouble. I want to teach you some things
about ranching. I think you'd be a good rancher."
Mike looks at his mother. "Well, alright, Everett. I guess its better
than whatever other approaches my mother might take to 'save me'"
"Nobody's gonna save you kid, but yourself. You are the only thing that
can save you."
"Well, okay. I'll do it, when do I start."
"Tomorrow, after school. I have an extra car down here, it's yours, if
your willing to work with me. But Mike…"
"Okay, Everett, I'll work for you."
"Mike, your not working for me, you're working with me."
"What do you mean."
"Well, if you work for me, that implies that I have something I want you
to do that I am to lazy to do myself. I don't like that image, Y'know?.
We're gonna work together. I want to teach you some things in a way that
I hope will make you understand them; and I hope you understand them in
such a way that makes you, well hell, I hope tthey make you a better
person."
Mike nods. "Tomorrow, what time do you want me to show up?"
"Ten O'clock."
Mike nods "I'll be there."
Winfield stands up "Okay. That's good. Don't let me down, you would sleep
well if you do. Listen, there is a bike in the back of my truck. It's not
a great bike. It's not even the best I have. But it's yours if you will
work for me, and work hard. Another thing, don't show up without a pair
of running shoes. I will send you home."
"Well, thanks for the bike."
"Forget it, just ride it up to my plave tomorrow."
"Everett, I lost my license, cause of this drug bust man, My mom will
have to drive me up."
Winfield sighs "Jesus man…"
"I'm sorry Winfield, what do you want me to do."
"okay, come on up to my house anyway you can. I'll come down and pick you
up."
"No, My mom can drive me up, it's not a big deal."
"Okay, well, be there at nine."
"Okay, I will. I'll be there."
"good."
Cut
The Next morning, Mike and Carol show up. Mike gets out of the car and
goes up into the house. Everett is eating a bowl of cereal. 
"My mom is out ther, you want to tak to her?"
"Why the hell would I want to talk to your mom, tell her I can't talk, I
have a new employee to train. We have business to talk about."
"Okay, Everett. I'll go out and tell her."
Mike runs up to Carol's truck. "He Doesn't want to talk to you. He says
that this is just between him and me and me."
"okay mike, work hard."
"Mom!!"
Mike walks into the cabin, Everett has finished his cereal and comes out
of the bathroom with a toothbrush in his mouth. He points over to the
window seats and mumbles "In there, under those seats, there is a bin
with grain in it. There should be a coffee can in it."
Mike looks at the bin. "There is nothing in there, Everett."
Winfield come back out into the room, rubbing his eye. He looks into the
bin, "Okay, where the hell did I put that, it must be down by the hay
bails. You've been here before, it's down where I showed you that bike."
"Okay, Everett, I know where that is."
Mike walks down the hill. The He observes the mountains and the valley.
He finds the bucket and walks up the hill. He arrives, panting, at the
top of the hill. Everett is waiting for him. "Kinda steep, that hill,
isn't it" says Everett.
"Yeah," Says Mike.
"Well, pretty soon I want to put you on a running schedule, get you into
shape."
"Maybe, I can run in those burro races." 
"Yeah sure you can. That's what I want you to do."
Winfield looks at the sun. "Well let's get out and take a run. It's a
great day to run."
Winfield grabs a couple of Halters and takes Mike down to the corral.
"Okay, now, we're gonna start on the jennies. They are pretty easy to
work with. When you get pretty adept at handling them, we can move up to
the jacks. If you get on a running schedule, and keep it up, you can have
one of those animals."
Mike lights up "Really?"
"Yeah, that's our deal, but you have to keep running. Show me a month or
two of running and we'll get it together and hook you up with an animal.
But I am not going to waste my time teaching you to handle the animals
unless I see you willing to put in some of your own time and effort into
this."
"Right, ok. How should I start a running program."
"well, we can worry about all the technicallities later. For now, just
get your butt out the doe four or five days a week. And your gonna have
to change some personal habits. Eat right, etc."
"I think I can do that."
"Well, I hope so, there is no reason why you shouldn't be in the best
shape you can be in."
"Okay Everett."
Winfield goes to the bottom of the porch and grabs a bunch of halters.
"We're gonna take some burros out to the mailbox, your first training
run." Mike follows Winfield into the corrall. "These are my jennies mike,
the jacks are up the hill in the smaller pen. The first thing you have to
understand Mike is that any animal is a living breathing organism. It
will give to you, and cooperate with you, only as much as you will give
to it and cooperate with it. It's a living, breathing organism Mike. It
has feelings, it can learn to love you, you can learn to love it. But you
have to give it patience, love, and understanding."
At lunch time, Everett takes some bread and meat out of the
refridgerator. "I ain't much of a cook" he says, "But I thinkg I can
rummage up something."
He gets two plates out of the fridge. He opens the crock pot that has
been sitting on the stove. "This is the same beans that the cowboy ate, a
hundred years ago. In today's world, despite all the fancy genetically
modified foods that wee have, this stuff is the best you can get."
Everett reaches under a table and pulls out a big bottle of rice. "his
stuff is also really good for you. It's natural rice, not that over
processed uncle ben shit."
"Gosh, everett, you seem very critical about a lot of things. Why?"
"The same reason you hate school kid, because I think that the world has
become a controlled, manufactured shit hole."
"Yeah, I know that. It's like that on TV too. It's all of a phony thing.
Soap operas are stupuid, but everyone watches them. And if they, God
forbid, mis the show, they have to ask all the other girls about what
happened."
"Yeah, life seems pretty pathetic the way the corperations present it.
It's a little pathetic. But what are you going to do, you have to live
outside it all. You have to observe it, sometimes live with it. And you
have to put up with the people who aren't going to understand why you
want to live on the outside, you know what I mean?"
"Yeah, I know what you mean. It's a pain in the ass. The kids at school
are like lemmings. They all wear the same clothes. It's eaither this
brand or that brand."
"It's like a feudal system, y'know."
"Yeah, back in the middle ages, in Europe and even in Asia, they had
feudal lords, and they would all fight each other and the peasants would
be loyal to one lord or another. It's the same thing with the brand
names."
"And they kill each other, y'know, over brand names."
"Y'know, I've heard that, but I really don't care, man. It's not a big
deal around my school. I think a lot of that is hype."
"Okay, well you would know more about that than I would. The point here
is that the reason that I am critical about these things is that I don't
want to get sucked into that phony world that it's all part of, y'know?"
"Well, that's a little paranoid, isn't it"
"Yeah well," Winfield scratches hid beard, "I guess that it is, but I
feel that it is better to be too extreme one way than to be in the
middle. I'd rather be overly cautious about getting sucked in by this
oversized megola-media-maniac sytem than to be part of the culture, you
know what I mean?"
"Yeah."
By this time, the rice has come to a boil. Everett spoons to heaping
masses of rice onto the plates, which he then smothers with beans. They
sit together on the bench, facing one and other, talking.
"Everett, what do you think of that new development that is going in down
in the valley there?"
"All those double-wides. God save us all. Every night I pray for the
desert down there to open up and swallow the whole goddamn thing. When I
came out here in the late 60's, there was nothing out here. Shiloh was
this one horse town with one stop light. You could lie awake at night and
here the train whistles at night. Nowadays this country is filling up
like crazy, full of houses. And that damn development is big blow in the
war to save this valley. It's a lost battle but not a lost war. The
problem is that the very corporations that are making all the artificial
crap are also paying off politicians so that they can control politics to
suit their own needs."
"Winfield, this may sound like an odd question, but why in the hell do we
need to preserve all this open space. I just want to play devils advocate
because I know that there are some people who are going to wonder what in
the hell we are doing all this preservation work for."
Winfield waves his hand to the towards the mountains. "Out there, Mike,
there is a freedom in the wilderness that is very valuable. People want
to tame it over. We still have these old manifest destiny notions about
owning the wilderness and trying to tame it and to control it. We need to
lose that and to become more sensitive to the needs of the people around
us."
"Right, I think that 
The phone rings and Winfield reaches over and picks it up.
"Hello…Uh-huh…right, see you then, bye."
Winfield opens a large notebook and begins to write in it. "Mike, I have
a friend who is coming up to spend the night. He Will be here in a little
bit."
"okay."
Winfield walks over to the shelf of books by the door of the cabin and
pulls out a book. "Mike, here is a book 
One day, Mike and Winfield are working in the Ranch and Carol comes up.
She Ignores Mike when he tries to speak to her and walks into the back of
the Ranch, where Winfield is and speaks to him. "I got a call from Mike's
teacher today, he was caught with Marijuana in school." Winfield begins
to apologize "No" says Carol "its not your fault" she blames Mike and
asks him to talk to Mike. Winfield Says he will.
That Evening, Sue returns from work, and Winfield is silent. He hunches
over the coffee table, drinking coffee and reading a magazine. He
acknowledges Sues presence by kissing her. Sue opens the Refridgerator
and begins to make some chile. 
"SO," she asks, "What did you do today."
Winfield shrugs, says nothing, "Did you work with the burros at all?"
Asks sue, Winfield nods, and contnues reading.
"What's on your mind, Winfield." Sue presses.
Winfield rubs his beard, "I had a talk with Carol today, it seems her
son, Mike, is getting into trouble at school. He's fighting, getting into
trouble with the teachers. It's not a happy scene, and with Forest gone,
it's not the same for him."
"Well," Says Sue, "You and I both had fathers and when know what a major
impact they had on their lives. Forest checked out and was pretty
irresponsible. He left Carol behind with a kid to raise and now the poor
guy does not have any male role models, is it any wonder that he is
getting into trouble."
Winfield nods, "Yeah, That's what I've been thinking, He needs a man in
his life, and I've been thinking about bringing him into the ranch and
teaching him about burro racing."
"And what do you think that would do for him. I mean, what would that
accomplish?"
"Well, I dunno, excapt that it would teach him a few things about
responibility. There a modus opperendi in the natural world that have
been lost in the human's world, yet they are stil valid in our world, and
if you can learn them and apply them, there can be many benefits."
"Such as…?"
"the animal will only give to you what you are willing to give to it. So
you can't expect it to just automatically cooperate. He doesn't have that
kind of sense. He can't think 'oh, He wants me to canter, so I'm gonna
canter because I am SOO grateful to him for being the source of my hay
and water.' I think it will also give him another pathway in which he can
succeed, a skill which he can take out into the world and sell."
"Do you really think you can help him?"
"It's worth a shot."
"Well, let's eat a little bit, and sleep on it. Then we can take care of
these things."
Winfield nods. Sue hands him a plat of food, rice and beans. He eats. "I
hope this works, I don't know if it will." He says
"Well," says Sue, "I think its worth a shot, like you said. If it doesn't
work, how much harm can he do you."
"Yeah. I also want to get him into Burro racing. He's ready for it. He's
got this incredible heart. If he can get out there and work, he can win.
I think he's also got the heart for it. He's desperate. School is
knocking him around, he's got no dad. He's trapped and he needs a way
out." 
"and you think you can help him?"
"Yeah, at worst, I'll be keeping him out of trouble and at best he'll
learn a skill that he can get a job with. There's money to be made
running burros and doing other things. Finally, It is important that he
have something productive to do. If he isn't going to be productive at
school, maybe he can be productive on the ranch."
Winfield looks up at the clock. "Oh Jesus," He says, "It's getting late
[yawns], I think it is time for bed."
"Well, we can worry about this in the morning," Says Sue, "I think it is
bedd time for bonzo."
"Don't forget that Hannah comes tomorrow."
"Oh really? You didn't tell me that?…She didn't tell me that."
"Yyeah, she called me this morning, she wants to come up and spend a few
days here. She is off of school right now."
"Well, she can help out on the ranch. How do you think she'll be with
Mike?"
"I don't know, She's so gentle and sweet. I hope she does him some good,
I mean hellI think he could do her some good."
"What do yopu mean?"
"Well, she's so sweet and innocent. Sometimes I think she's two sweet and
innocent. Y'know, and he isn't innocent enough. He's been doing this
drugs and stuff. He needs some of that innocence and she needs some of
his street smarts, y'know?"
"Yeah, I guess you are right, but talk to her."
"ok. Well, what time is she coming tomorrow?"
"About 10 am"
"well, I think I told him to be here at nine o'clock. So if I get to him
and I talk to him, it'll bell alright."
"Where, you'd better let me talk to Hannah. She hasn't been around guys
in a while. Espescially not loud big boys like Mike."
"She's hung around me, I thought I was a loud big boy."
Sue snuggles up in Everett's arms, "Yes, but you are handsome too."
Everett tickles Sue with his beard, she giggles.
The Next morning, the phone rings, It's mike. Everett tells him to come a
little later, at eleven.
Hannah pulls into the driveway in an old car. She pops out and bounces
into Sue's arms. "Hey Aunt Sue, how are you doing."
Sue looks down at Hannah, "I'm alright, Hannah. Everett is inside, he
isn't up yet."
"Well then, I can be very careful and quiet." 
"Well, actually, he'll want to get up know that you are here. We have
something that need to talk to you about. We need your help."
"What do you want?" 
"I thinkg I better let Everett explain. Better come on in. We'll wake him
up."
Hannah follows Sue into the house, stopping to scoop up a kitten. She
walks out to the back of the house, where everertt is sleeping. Sue opens
the door and Hannah drops the squiming cat onto Everett, bundled up
underneath the covers. He squirms and sits up.
He scowls "Aww, C'mon, it's Sunday morning, can't I sleep in a little
bit.?"
Nope, c'mon Everett, it's up time. We have business to talk about."
"Well, okay. I am coming, somebody go get me some coffee."
Hannahh runs off to fill a coffee mug. Everett comes out in a bathrobe
and slippers, gratefully accepting a mug of coffee from Hannah.
"Hannahh, I have a young friend, about your age, perhaps a little older,
who needs your help, or at least could benifiet from…" Everett Searches
for words. "…You have a lot to offer Hannahh, and you are good at
offering it. I think my friend could be helped a lot by that."
"What do you mean?" asks Hannah
"Aww, well, He's been in a lot of trouble lately. His father committed
suicide, he's been living with his mother, not a lot of male influences.
He's been doing things that he shouldn't. This poor kid's life is a mess.
I am being his 'two-dad', He's worrking for me on the ranch and I am
trying to keep him out of trouble. I was hoping you'd be his friend for a
couple of days while you are here."
"Sure." Agrees Hannahh
"I'm not asking you to be his Girlfriend or anything like that, but he
needs, well, a friend. He's different and he gets picked on quite a bit,
by people."
"Aww, I know what that's all about. The kids used to pick on me all the
time."
"Yeah, I know. You dealt with it pretty well, with maturity and grace. He
hasn't been that successful. Work with him, Hannahh, be his buddy."
"Okay, Everett. I think I can do that."
"okay. He's a good kid. He's just gotten into trouble."
Mike opens the door, his mother dropped him off at the gate he says, as
he walks in and fills a pail with grain underneath the cot. His hair is
slightly rumpled and his clothes are baggy. He clomps out the door in his
big boots, ignoring the two women. 
Hannahh raises an eybrow and looks at Sue. 
"Aww, c'mon sweetie." Says sue
"Sue, he looks like such a troglodyte"
"he needs your help, Hannahh, you said that they picked on you. So don't
pick on him."
"okay."
Mike come's back into the house. He takes off a denim jacket and a
baseball hat. 
"Mike, This is my niece Hannahh" says Sue
Mike nervously waves. "Hey, how's it goin'"
Hannah shyly waves her hand, "Hello" she's says
"Hannah is going to be hangin' around here for the week. She will be
working with you a little bit."
"Okay, that's cool."
"Well I thought this afternoon we could go on a hike through the
mountains. You know, take the burros, etc."
"Sounds like a good idea" say's Mike, "beats the hell out of loading hay
all afternoon, which is what I think that wee will be doing otherwise. We
still have quite a bit hanging around in the lot up at Franks."
"Okay, why don't you guys go down and pick up Oscar and…Let's take
Massai." Says Everett
Mike goes down with Hannah at his heels. Hannah reaches out and picks up
the halters that are up on the trees. "Hey, I think your taller than me."
Says Hannahh, "So why don't you get Maasai?"
Mike nods and takes the halter that Hannah offers him. "So, how long have
you been working with Everett?" asks Hannah.
"Oh, a couple of days. He invited me up here, I think to keep me out of
toruble. But I needed to be kept out of trouble, y'know."
"What Kind of trouble?"
Mike shruggs, he leads puts the halter on Maasai and leads the burro out.
Hannah follows with Oscar. "What kind of trouble" she reapeats as the two
pick their way up the hill
"Aww, you know, I was hanging out with some stupid friends. I kept
getting picked on by the bastards at school. I'd pick fights. I was more
concerned about how I looked than who I was. I go to a pretty messed up
school. Everyone is rich, nobody is real. They are all smart but there is
no substance. A couple of my friends and I were just dumped onn by
this……Bitch, I hate using that word, but she would just give us misery. I
once had the gall to tell her what I thought ov here and I got into a
fight with her brother. We both got busted, but I already had a history
of getting caught with marijuana, so I was escorted home to my mother in
a fucking squad car. My mother, Jeez, I didn't know what she would say,
y'know. She had this look on her face that I thought she would kill me,
y'know? And Everett tols me that he wanted me to work for him. Of course
I knew full well what he wanted to do, but I took it for some reason."
Mike stretches out on the rock, "Now, I think it's the smartest thing I
ever did, y'know?"
"Why?"
"Aww, y'know, the burros don't judge, see? The burros understand two
things. Love and food. Well, I think they understand sex too, but they
don't care what I look like or whether or not I am wearing a certain
brand of clothes. You follow me?"
"Yeah, I guess I know what you mean. It's not much fun, is it? Dealing
with other people. I sometimes think that all people are fake, like you
said earlier and that there is just a small handfull of people who are
really, honest people. You know?"
Hannah does not have time to respond. Sue and Curt come out and they put
a pack saddle on Oscar. Sue tucks three sandwiches and some other food
into the Saddle, Curtis stuffs in some waterproof jackets. "Only three
Sandwiches, Aunt Sue, Why? Aren't you coming with?"
Sue shakes her head, "No, I'm late for work as it is, I gotta go."
Everett walks out of the yard with Oscar on a rope, Maasai follows, led
by Hannah, Mike follows on foot, without a burro. 
They work their way up the rocky undergrowth for a while before reaching
a main trail. Winfield stops and passes water all around.
"Okay," says Winfield, thirst. "Hannah, you know these burros so I want
you to take Oscar on ahead, he'll probably be pretty cooperative for a
while."
The party works their way along along the steep mountain trails that wind
throgh the mountains. "Oh Everett," Says Hannah, "It's so good to be back
here in the mountains. I've been at school in the midwest for the past
year. It's been absolutely miserable. The weather is hot and steamy and
the people there are so up tight. I feel so free now."
Everett looks at her, "They put up you through some pretty harsh
treatment there, didn't they?"
"At the boarding school? Yeah, it was not that bad. I just hated getting
pushed around."
"But you are doing well in that school, aren't you?"
"Yeah, I suppose so. I just feel like I am too much of a free spirit to
be hanging around that school. For God's Sake they won't even let us wear
pants."
Winfield shakes his head "My god. Did they ban premarital sex because
they thought it would lead to dancing."
"What?" says Hannah. 
"Nevermind," says Winfield, "it's a joke." 
"Anyway, it is really nice to be back here. I've come out here so often I
feel like I live here, like I belong here, y'know?"
In a clearing, they sit on log. Everett breaks out the sandwiches from a
saddle bag. He passes sandich bag around, followed by bottles of juice.
Everett takes a bite inot his sandwhich.
"Oh Man, That aunt of yours knows how to make a good sandwich."
"Yeah, she is a much better cook than you are everett" says Hannah.
"Hey!! I keep you fed, don't I."
"It depends on what 'fed' means" says Mike
"Alrigh, wise ass, why don't you cook then?"
"You have nothing in that kitchen to cook with. I looked in there and I
wanted to find a pot to boil some spagetthi in and I couldn't find
ANYTHING." Mike turns to Hannah, "See, it's Chicken-Egg question. Which
came first, the chicken or the egg. Can Everett not cook because he
doesn't have the proper equipment or does he not have the proper
equipment?"
"Well," Says Hannah, "I have a friend who is a professional cook and we
were out in the middle of nowhere and he put together a pretty decent
meal. So I don't think Ol' Everett here had any excuses."
Everett rolls his eyes, shakes his head, and laughs "You two are the most
ungrateful little piss ants on the planet."
"Ungrateful!!" Says Mike, "I could have cooked for you, but you don't
have the propper equipment."
"What 'Equipment' do you need"
"A big ol' pot to boil pasta in and a big ol pot to cook meat in."
"I have a big ol' pot"
"Yeah, and you tried to smoke it didn't you?…I haven't found no pot in
your cuboard" Says mike
"You're one to talk about smoking pot, Mike."
"Okay, but at lwast I can cook…When we get home, I want to see this…pot."
He waves his hand contemtuosly.
"I'll show you my big pot."
"Okay, you guys, knock it off." Hannah is laughing. "I can't vouch for
mike, but I can tell you everett…you can't cook, for beans."
Everett gets up, "Listen to you guys 
"Okay, quit this shit, let's get up that mountain." 
"Aren't you afraid that the burros will wander away Everett." Asks Hanah
"Nah. I they know where their food comes from. That's the great thing
about these animals. They are not stupid. They know where their food
comes from."
"Their just stubborn, eh?" comment's Mike.
"Nah, not even that. They are extremely cautious animals, and they know
their rights. They won't be forced into a situation that they are
unfamiliar with. They like their Independence, they will fight like hell
to maintain it."
"That's kinda why you like them, eh Everett? Asks mike. "Seems to me I
could see you fighting like hell to keep your independence."
"You're right, I can't be happy unless I can be alone. I Prize the
ability to piss of my own front porch."
"Everett!!" Hannah is not ammused.
Everett looks at Hannah, and Winks at mike. "Well, I think we better
clear out of here." They load the burros back up and continue up the
trail. 
Hannah begins to point out the flowers along the way for Everett.
"Aunt Sue tells me all about the flowers, Everett. She says that one, the
red one, Indian Paintbrush." Hannah points out all the flowes There is a
Colorado Columbine, and look at all the Lupen."
"Man, how do you know all this stuff?" asks Mike. "I've lived here in
this valley all my life. My dad lived here all his life. And he never
knew any of these flowers. And I sure as hel don't know them."
"I took a class in botony at school. And I have a 'Petersons Field Guide'
at school, tells me all about the flowers. I should have brought it, but
I left in kind of a hurry. I just wanted to leave that damned place."
"What kind of a school do you go too, man?, it sounds like the convent
from hell."
"Aww, It's not that bad, really. They are just strict. It's a Christian
Academy and so they have all these moral codes and stuff like that. I got
an hours dentention for saying 'Shit!!' when I broke a nail. It's crazy.
But most of the people are nice there."
"Oh man!! I don't think I coul stand that. It would drive me crazy!!"
"Well, it's pretty tough, but I enjoy it. Like I said, there are nice
people there. They don't seem to have the…chip on their shoulder that a
lot of people have. These folks are more genuine people, y'know?"
"That's a theme that Everett and I talk about a lot. How few genuine
people there are in this world. It's seems a lot of them are jokers and
fakers. Followers of the mass market culture, worshippers of the cult of
advertising."
"You know, it does seem like Idolatry."
"'bow down and worship the allmighty Coca-Cola. The great merciful god of
Coca-Cola will grant you great you great happiness and health.'"
Hannah laughs. 
"See," says Winfield, "we do have a state religion; consumerism. If you
don't pray to the great god of buy, there is something wrong with you."
"Aren't we profound?" says Mike.
"No," quips Winfield, "Just full of shit like everyone else."
They have been walking as they talk and they come to a stream. There is
some difficulty getting the burros across, but they continue up the rocky
slope on the other side of the stream. [Show camera shots of the gulch]
At a small flat spot below the summit, They stop again.
"I think there is some more food in that saddle bag. Cjhecl the middle
compartment."
Mike digs out some candy bars and distributes them to the crew.
Everett pulls out a long stake with a rope on it and drives it into the
ground. He then hobbles the other animals. He takes a candy bar from
Mike, thanks him, and sits down. He looks at the sky. 
"well," he says "I guess the weather is going to hold out for us. It's
gonna be a push, but up there is the Mt. Harvard Summit."
They start up the slope, zigzagging back and forth across the slope. High
on the mountain, Hannah sits down. "Oh man, there air is so thin up here.
I can barely breathe."
Everett sits down next to her. "Yeah, maybe we should have waited untill
you were a little more acclimates."
"No, I am fine, I just need to get my breathe. Give me a moment and I
will be ok."
"Okay. We have all day. We got up here pretty early. There is always
tomorrow to. That mountain's not going anywhere."
"Well, I think we don't have to worry about tomorrow. Over My dead body I
am going down. It is a real pull, but I think I can make it."
"Well," Says Everett, "Work your way along the side of the hill, it will
be a lot easier that way."
Hannah begins to work her way up the hill. She trys walking straight up.
"Hey Hannah," Says Everett, "Don't try walking straight up the hill,
dude. That won't work. Spread out the task, traverse."
She begins to traverse the slope. 
"Jeez," she says, "What a difference that makes."
"Well, it spreads the work out. You work longer, but you don't work as
hard."
They begin to make their way to the top of the mountain.
Mike raises his hand.
"If you need a break", Says Winfield, "That's fine."
Mike nods and sits down with his head between your knees. "You're doin'
fine, bub." Says Everett, "There is no hurry, we have all say."
Mike nods and sits there. Hannah goes over and looks off the edge of the
mountain. She comes back.
"Whoa boy, there is a pretty steep drop over there. I mean it just drops
off sheer."
Mike shivers, "Oh God, I
They scramble over boulders at the top of the mountain. At the top of the
mountain. They sit down and admire the view.
"Gosh, I wish she could see this?" Says Hannah
"Who?"
"Aunt Sue"
"Don't worry, She's been up here before. And She will get a chance to get
up here again…But don't let her inability to enjoy this detract from your
ability to."
"Right. I'm just glad that there is protection for places like this. I've
seen some pretty impressive artwork, in museums and stuff. My dad thought
it was pretty impressive. But I think that this is so much more
beautiful. No human hand can ever make anything as beautiful."
"Yes," Said Everett. "I agree. What's even more impressive, to me anyway,
is that this ridge we are sitting on runs all the to the Cannadian border
and all the way down to mexico. It's the 'spine of the country' the
continental divide. All the water on the eastern side flows to the Gulf
od Mexico and the Atlantic. All the water on the western side ends up in
the Pacific."
"Wow!!"
Far below, the burros can be seen munching on the grass of the high
mountain prarie."
Winfield looks at the sky. "Hey, look, I hate to spoil the party, but we
had better be heading down to the cabin again. It is almost 3 o'clock, I
reckon by the looks of that sun. We should get back, it might rain."
They begin to head down to the burros, below. The wind starts to blow and
Hannah says she is cold. 
"Well," Says Everett, "have some jackets back down the hills, so if you
can last until we get down there, we can warm you up."
"I think I can do that," says Hannah.
Back at the burros, Everett pulls out a jacket that he had stuffed into
one of the saddle bags. He hands it to her and she puts it on.
"Well, lets get out of here."
They begin to go down the cabin. 
"Everett," Asks Hanna, "Has anyone found minerals up in this part of the
Rockies."
"Oh yeah, Don't you remember the Terrotprial mining museum up in
Leadville? This is the Minning Capital of the World."
"I ment in this particular part of this rockies."
"You mean in this…gulch here. I sure as hell hope not. This is national
forest land, not protected 'wilderness land' like buffalo peaks is. The
wilderness out there is closed forever to industry. You can't mine it,
you can't log it, you can't run cattle in there. It's protected for good.
But this area isn't protected like that, and any mining company that
could prove that they could get enough minerals in the rock back there
could probably persuade the powers that be to open the place up to
mining." Everett Shakes his head. "This is Public land, it belongs to the
people. But the US government would allow some mining company to put up
fences and to keep the public out. It is a little scary what the
consequences of that would be. Poisoned rivers, acid stained rocks. Dead
fish."
"Everett, why would they do that?" asks Mike.
"Oh, you know. IT's fucking greed, pardon the french. The can't get
enough from the minerals that they get out of the rocks, so they have to
cut corners on cleanup costs, I guess. They throw a lot of nasty
chemicals into the rivers and into the ground. Arsenic and mercury."
"Don't they have to clean that up though?"
"Not if it is on public land. The government has to pick up the tab. The
EPA has dozens of these superfund sites all over the place."
They continue on throught the forest. Tired, they don't say much until
they get back into the yard at Everett's place.
Carol is waiting in the house as they come in. She comes outand gives
Everrett a hug. He looks at hert and smiles.
He turns to Mike and Hannah "Go take the animals down."
Mike and hannah leave. Everett goes out onto his porch and Carol follows
him. "Is that your Neice?" she asks?
"Sue's, she comes up here in the summer sometimes. I think she gets
yearning for a little bit of freedom. I think that her parentts are a
littl repressive." 
Carol shrugs, "Eh, well, they are probably only trying to do that which
they think is best for their children."
"yeah, I know. But I always hate it when I see somebody's spirit being
broken. The old cowboys used to 'break' a young colt. As soon as he was
big enough to be ridden, one of cowboys would get on him and stay on as
long as he could until the horse threw him. Then he would get on the
horse again and do it all over again. The goal was to 'break' the animal,
to wear his spirit out.
"the school does the same damn thing. It did it with Mike, it did it with
Hannah. I like to bring them up here, where there is more freedom, where
they can find themselves."
"Well, Everett, I think you are teaching them valuable things. Things
they can't learn anywhere else."
"I hope so, I really hope so."
Mike comes up, followed by Hannah. "Carol, this is my niece, Hannah."
Carol shakes Hannah's hand "How are you doing, I am Mike's mother"
"Hi, Your son is a nice kid." 
"Thank you. Everett says your pretty nice yourself. How are you lasting
with these two guys, all hanging out together."
"They are all right, I think I had to yell at them once or twice to get
them off some stupid, immature, guy thing that they were doing. But
that's okay."
Carol Smiles, "C'mon Mike, Let's go home." They walk up the driveway and
out to Carols car.
Hannah and Winfield are left alone. They walk back to the house. 
"Hannah" says Everett, "You think you can cook up some of that rice in
the kitchen."
"Sure, " Says Hannah. She gets a pot down from the shelf and fills it
with watter. She dumps some rice into it and lets it simmer on the stove.
She turns to Everett.
"That Mike is a nice kid. A little strange. What kind of trouble did he
get into?"
"Ah, the dumb kid was busted for smoking pot in school. His father
committed suicide when Mike was a baby. His mother never remarried. I
think I am the first real man in his life. His father was a friend of
mine. I think that somebody messed with him when he was a kid. There is a
priest who lives up the valley, used to rather, until he was shot, and I
think that he used to mess with the alter boys. Abuse them. Mike's dad
Forest was one of these kids. I watched him grow up. For a while it
looked like he was going to make it. He met Carol, they got married out
of high school. He moved down to Denver, so she could go to college. He
worked all kinds of jobs, never able to hold one for long. God knows
Carol was patient with him. When Mike was born he seemed to straighten
himself out. He worked a steady job in a meatpacking factory. Until they
found him, one day, he had shot himself out in front of their house."
Hannah winces, "Shit, that's awful." 
Curtis nods "Yeah, I guess. But he left Mike and Carol stranded. Carol's
recovered, I guess. She seems a lot stronger about it than I was, than a
lot of Forest's friends."
"Did you know Forest then?"
"Yeah, I did. He was a great guy. He always was doing crazy, funny
things. I was just gutted when he died. Poor son of a bitch, I only wish
he had told someone about it, instead of turning to drugs and finally a
.45."
"It makes you wonder how much the people around us carry bottled up
inside them. What pain Mike and Carol and everyone has bottled up
inside."
"Yeah."
Hannah begins to spoon rice onto to plates and everett reaches into the
Refridgerator. He pulls out a package of greens and a steak.
"Here, I'll make a Salad and you can put that in the oven." He says
pointing towards the staek.
They sit on the porch, eating. "Poor mike," Says Hannah, "I think,
though, that he has a chance to maike his life better. I guess anyone who
spent any amount of time out here in the woods, has to find peace."
Winfield shakes his head. "There are some people who will never find
peace. Its just a sad fact of life."
"Well," hannah shrugs, "I guess the best thing we can do is just love
them."
Winfield gets up and stretches. "Yeah, I guess you are right." Winfield
collects the assorted plates and stacks them in the kitchen. A horn
sounds out in the driveway, and Sue pulls up. She gets out of her truck
and come into the house.
"Hi guys, house it coming along."
"All right, we had Mike up here this afternoon. I think he an Hannah get
along fine." Says Winfield
"Well, that's good, Hannah, what did you think of Mike?"
"He's a nice kid. A little strancge, but I can get used to that, y'know?"
"Yeah. And Remember, He's been through a lot."
"Yeah, I know. I can cut him that slack. Hey, it's now easy to grow up
without a father, lord knows."
"It's nice to see you being so compassionate, Hannah, a lot of kids don't
have the degree of compassion for their fellow human beings as you do."
Hannah shrugs. "I guess so, it's just the way my mothe brought me up I
think. I had strict instructions to think about other people. And now, if
you will excuse me, I think I want to go to bed, it's been a full day."
She got up and left the room.
Everett goes out onto the front porch and looks out at the sky. He sits
down on the front Porch, he rubs his beard and looks at the stars, and
the lights of the city below.
He comes into the house pulls out an article from a file. He crawls into
bed, looking at the Article about his friend committing murder in Denver,
back in 1971. His I catches his own name which is circled in red.
Winfield ponders the article, and goes to bed.
In the Morning, Hannah and Everett eat Breakfast out on the front porch.
After Breakfast, they go down and look at the burros.
"Gosh, Everett, you have a lot of animals on the ground. What are you
going to do with all of these animals?"
"Ah, you know, sell them, trade them. I sell one for a couple hundred
bucks, trade another one for hay, grain, whatever. If you want, we can
hook you up with a burro."
"You mean it?"
"Sure, you've done a lot of good work for me out here. I guess you're
ready for a small jenny."
"Well, Gee, thanks" Hannah hugs winfield
"Ah, you do good work for me, I make sure you get rewarded for it."
Hannah looks around at the mountains. "I have to go soon, I have to be
home tonight, I have a presentation tomorrow, at school."
"Okay, you think you will make it back this way anytime soon."
"Yes, Maybe next weekend, I don't know. There is so much that I have
going on."
"Yeah. I guess I know what you mean."
Their dinner is interrupted by a honking outside the cabin. A red jeep
pulls into the yard, with Niel McGowan in it."
Winfield grabbs Neil in a hearty Bear hug "Neil, bub, how are ya?"
"I'm all right. Man, the traffic coming up out of the Eisenhower Tunnel
is unbeleivable."
Winfield shakes his head. "If we're not careful, we'll have an interstate
running through this town. It's rediculous."
"Well, that's so called 'progress, what are you going to do?"
Winfield Gestures towards Hannah "Neil, This is Sue's Neice, Hannah, who
is, unfortunately, about to desert me."
Hannah looks at Winfield. "Oh, Winfield, I don't want to go, but duty,
calls. Damn this presentation. I'll be back in a few days." 
She returns to her car, and drives out of the lot.
Winfield watches her go. "Good kid" He says.
"Who was that, " asks Neil. 
"That's Sue's neice," says Winfield, "She just came up here for a couple
of days. She helps me out on the ranch, I think it's good for her."
They go into the house.
"Well," Says Neil, "looks like the house came through another winter."
Winfield shruggs "Ah, you know, this place is still running. I am just
pushing on. I am really trying to preserve myself here, against the
influence of, the 21st century."
"Did you ever work out that financial mess you were in last year?"
"With the bank? yeah. I got a loan, paid off the bank. All that shit."
"But you still have the new loans."
"Yeah, but by the time I have to pay them off, I probably won't be
around."
"Well, that might work."
Winfield fills a kettle with water. And puts it on the stove. "You gonna
run this summer?" asks Winfield.
"The Races, hell yes."
"Shall we talk about strategy?"
"Yes, I am willing to take anny and all advice that you have to offer.
You are the grand old man of the sport."
"Well, it's pretty simple, yuou just have to be in top shape and you have
to know your animal."
"But you have spoken of using the burro's instincts to help you. How do I
do that?"
"the burros have several things that they are, hard wired to do. They are
herd animals. They will want to stay in a group. Now, if the burro wants
to hang out with an animal behind you, that's a problem. But if you can
get the animal to run with an animal that seems to be doing what he is
supposed to, you are all right."
"You have worked with these animals for thirty years, you must be the
grand old man of the sport."
"yeah, I think I have been doing this for a long enough time to qualify
for that honor."
"You are ready to teach others, you have to pass it your knowledge onto
the younger generation."
"Yeah, but it's putting pearls before swine. You young whippersnappers
got no respect. When I first started out, these races were run in hiking
boots and blue jeans. We just got a bunch of boozers from the Golden
Burro in Leadville and sent them up the mountain with the burros. Now
it's becoming a hi-tech sport with all sorts of fancy stuff. I guess
that's all right, but if it goes to far, it becomes another comercial
'Whore Sport'"
Neil laughs, and goes to the kitchen and opens the refridgerator. "Hey,
Everett, what is the beer hera for?"
"That's for the two of us. Take a Beer, help yourself, just bring me
one."
Neil comes out and plops a beer down in front of Everett. He pulls open a
drawer in the kitchen and comes out of the house with a can opener. He
opens his own beer and hands the othe beer, with the opener to Everett.
"Sue Said that Ol' Forrests kid has been hanging around here, what's the
shake down on that."
"He was getting into trouble at school, drugs, fights. He was going down
the tubes, the same tubes that his father went down. I knew where that
led to. But how is it supposed to work when a kid has no father, y'know?
I mean, before I came along, he had no masculine figure. I am his
two-dad."
"So he's ben working here, with you."
"Yeah. I feel, I think that Mike just needs a father figure in his life."
Neil laughs, "You? A father figure?" 
"Hey, I've got the hardware,"
"Yeah, but do you have the software?"
"we'll see. But if you think you can do a better job, go ahead."
"No, no, your little project…I won't interfere, I just wish you luck."
Winfield gets a little disgusted. "Hey, uh, listen bub. Why do you need
to be so jaded about this. I care about this kid. I've seen people walk
down the road that he walked down. It's not a pretty sight."
"Well, are you going to make him into a burro racer?"
"If he wants to be a burro racer. You know, I can only make him what he
wants to be. But I am giving him a learning experience that he can't get
anywhere else. And he is doing well." Winfield looks at the sun, "Well,
It's getting late, I think I have to give the animals some hay."
He Gets up and goes down to the corral. Helooks at the hay bales.
"Dammit!, I am getting low. This here, in the suummer, I go through hay
pretty quickly, Neil. I go a couple times a week to load up my trailer."
Curtis drags a bale out from the stack and pulls the baling twine off. He
ties the baling twine on the side of the trailer.
"You save all that stuff huh?" Says Neil, as they drag the hay over to
the coraal.
"What? The baling twine?, oh hell yeah, I use that stuff for EVERYTHING,
tying the stuff to my pack saddle, I've even used it as a belt. I needed
to hold up suit once and bam, there was my bailing twine belt."
"Pretty good. Better than that gray tape, here you are recycling."
"Yeah, I guess so."
Winfield takes about half the bail and walks over to the corral. He
flings it to the burros and watches them eat. He speaks to them in a low
voice. Neil watches from a distance, for a long time.
Neil and Winfield walk back up to the house.
"So," says Neil, "I heard you almost lost this place." 
Winfield laughs "Yeah, yeah, I almost did. But I hung on by the skin of
my teeth. It was my little flirtation with the policy makers who hold the
common people by the balls in this country. Our country has lost all
respect for the rural lifestyle that was once its lifeblood. I mean
Thomas Jefferson envisioned us as a society of farmers. Working the land,
out in the sun and the wind and the rain, in tune with the earth, and
giving to it as much as we took out of it. A society like that, so simple
and beautiful, would be one where we care about each other. Where we all
pitch in to help each other, build somebody's barn when it burns to the
ground, help the women and children. And it hasn't worked that way. We've
lost the farm, now its all about how much money you can make in silicon
alley in these cold, steal and glass buildings. So I had a little battle
with that, a fight to preserve my way of life."
"How did you work that out?" asks Neil
"I got a loan, a small one, that I paid off part of the debt with, and
then I run a burro race and that gave me some cash. I sold some animals
and a car, stuff like that. I had a newphew help me out with the rest."
"You? Go to one of your Nephews? I never woul've……"
"Spare me", interupts Winfield, "It hurt like hell to have to do that. My
nephew is a hardworking son of a gun, with a wife and a kid. He's putting
himself through an Ivy League school, he's an academic type. But he had a
little cash and my brother told him I was in trouble…so he helped me
out."
"so you are free and clear now, huh?"
"Yeah, now the trick is so stay out of debt."
"Is that so hard."
"Well, hay and grain are going through the roof, I am hanging on as best
I can."
"Is sue helping you out a littl bit?"
"…more than I care to admit, and I am trying to end that. I would like to
be as self sufficient as possible. It's a trait that was passed down to
me from my father. That old son of a bitch didn't want to take any help
from anyone."
"Well, I guess it's a good trait to have."
"yeah."
Neil gets up and looks out at the valley, "hey, I need to head out soon,
but this summer, I guess is going to be great."
"Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. You been training." Winfield shoots
Neil an inquisitive glance.
"Oh yeah, I Have to beat the old man somehow."
"Get the hell out of here."
Neil reaches out to shake Winfield's hand. "Well, old timer, I'll see
you.
Neil walks out to his car.
On a sunny afternoon, Carol drives Mike to the ranch. She drops him off
at the gate with a kiss, and drives away. Mike goes down into the ranch,
calling for Winfield.
Winfield comes to the door , "You're here, good. I have a foal down in
the pen down there, he's yours. You can do with him what you like but
while you're here, you're responsible for keeping him fed."
"Well, what do I feed him."
"I am going to show you that and a whole lot more.
Winfield goes into the house and gets a coffee can. He comes back wit it
heaped with grain. "here" he says' "Give them about one or two of these a
day. They love this stuff. They'll go nuts when you give it to them, and
ALWAYS whistle. That's very important." Winfield whistles, "That helps me
find them if they ever get lost."
"Have they ever gotten lost?"
"Yes, but I found them again. Once I went camping with my Nephews up in
the woods back there, with my nephews. They were hobbled, I was sure that
none of them could get loose. 
The next morning, they were gone, all of 'em. I had to go back to the
house, they had found there way back."
Everett walks over to a stack of hay and lifts a bail from the stack. He
begins to break it up. "You've got these bails here, and they come apart
in flakes see? Like so…" he holds up a flake and carries it into the
animal pen. 
The burros munch quietly on their hay, and Winfield stays around,
watching the burros eat. "Pretty soon, I need to get more hay for these
guys."
"Where do you get it?"
"Oh, there is an old codger up the valley a little bit, he sells me the
hay pretty cheap. It's not good hay, but he needs the money and the
burros actually don't need good hay. In some ways this rough crap is
better for them?"
"So it sounds like a good deal, the guy up the road gets good cash for
his hay and you get good hay for the animals, but how is it better for
the burros?"
"Burros are desert animals. Wild burros hang out on Death Valley, down in
the Four Corners region. I've been down there. It's like being on the
Moon!! There is NOTHING, and there is certainly not much in the way of
water down there. These animals live off of thorns, burrs, roots, and all
sorts of crap. They are geared toward roughage, not good grass hay like
the horses and other animals need. Th burros are sort of the out casts,
they never got the respect that horses got."
"Yeah," Says Mike, "When we think of horses, we associate them with the
image of a knight in shining armor, on a huge stallion…all that crap."
"Exactly," Says Winfield, "The horse was the beast of burden for the
kings and knights, royalty. Priests, nuns, the common man, had the
jackass. That's why I like them, there is not much pretentiousness about
a jackass……and today man, the horse people show up at the stock show down
in Denver with these huge multimillion dollar trailers, all this fancy
tack and stuff. I don't like it. Now you need a corporate sponsor for
EVERYTHING down there. I really don't like it."
Winfield and Mike begin to walk up to the house. 
"So why the hell do you go down there, if you can't stand it."
"Well, sometimes you have to play their game in order to get anywhere. I
need to sell my burros and showing them down there is good advertising."
"So do you win anything?"
"Sometimes, but its hard. There is no donkey class down there, so they
get the donkeys in with the mules. Donkeys don't have the refinement that
the horses and mules have. That's why I like them, but the judges down
there they don't see it that way. So I could probably enter the best damn
burro in the state of Colorado and I still wouldn't win."
"That sucks. I wonder why there is that prejudice."
Winfield waves it off, "Ah, it's just one show. Once a year. It's not
something that keeps me up at night, y'know?"
"Yeah, I guess. Okay, the burros are set, now what?"
"Well, we are going down to that old codger again, to see about the hay
that I want to buy from him."
He walks over to his truck. "Okay, now I want to teach you about hitching
up this trailer, there's a lot of things to do out on the ranch here and
they are all dangerous, so keep your head about you."
Winfield takes Mike over to the back of the truck and explains how the
hitching system works. 
"Okay, here we are, you have the trailer hitch, and the ball, and hitch
fits over the ball. You have to guide me back so that I can fit the
tongue of the trailer over the ball on the trailer." Winfield gets into
the truck. Mike lifts the hitch up and Winfield slowly backs into the
trailer. Mike guides him with hand signals and shouted commands. Their
first attempt is a failure, but on the second try, Mike is able to
successfully drop the hitch down on the ball. 
They drive down the Arkansas River Valley after hay. Winfield explains to
Mike all the way down that they are in a desert environment. 
"The desert is fragile," says Winfield, "and a lot of people assume that
it's just a wasteland, with no water, and no life and nothing worth
preserving. I've been out to Nevada and I know it looks like Mars out
there. It's easy to assume that they can do anything to it because it's
just wilderness. But I have a different view. The desert is not a place
of death, it's a place of life, it's a place where life is struggling to
survive against a really harsh environment………And I see a parallel between
the animals struggle against the environment and the people's struggles
against the corporate powers that run this country."
"You make it sound like the people are engaged in some life and death
struggle against the powers that be."
"Well, it is, in some ways, it is. The problem is that people are so
dependent on the corporations now that it's hard to break free. I can't
even do it, I have buy gas, feed, food, tools, from the same damn mega
corporations that everybody else does. I try to avoid it when I can, but
sometimes its impossible. It's what my mother calls a 'chicken-egg'
question. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Which came first, are
willingness to pay for what the corporations want to sell us, or their
control over our pocketbooks, and what we sell."
"It's probably a little bit of both."
"Yeah…Hey, Listen, I have a question to ask you. I know you're having'
trouble in school and it's a big fight with your mother and your teachers
and you don't want to work, I thought I might let you give me your spin
on it."
"Everett, I know, you know, the teachers know, that they don't have a
monopoly on the process of learning. Your burros can teach me some things
that the teachers can't. I don't like the way they teach. They want us
all to be the same, to spin out the same old answers all the time.
"and I also hate the kids. If somebody is different, or 'weird' they take
hell for it. People ask me, y'know 'why don't you drive a car?' or 'why
do you talk like that?'
"You know, the school I went to is supposed to be one of the best in the
country, everybody thinks that they can get it into Harvard from it and
if they don't they are failures. I have friends that have been told by
their parents that if the don't get into Ivy League schools that they,
meaning their parents, won't pay for the poor kids education."
"There is this desperate drive for prestige in this country."
"Yeah, and its making something is begin to bother me."
"Yeah, what?"
"Well, I am beginning to understand that, there are certain people who
live off of this...manufactured world that the people in the 'industry'
have created. They live off of what's going on in the TV shows, not what
is happening in the real world. People measure their self worth by how
much money they make, where their checks come from. We learned about
symbols in school, y'know?, and symbols can be very powerful. You don't
make light of a swastika painted on the door of a Jewish Synagogue,
y'know. Symbols are supposed to represent things. You want to have a car
with a certain symbol, i.e. a brand name, on the hood. Or a jacket with a
certain symbol on it."
"Yeah," says Everett "But I don't think that it is a recent development.
I think that it has long been a part of the human psyche to cling to
symbols and what they mean."
"Why? It seems so pointless. The symbols are just objects. They mean
nothing."
"Well, the humans that created them seem to put a hell of a lot of
importance on them. I like to think that I can get by on ideas. I like to
think that people are more important than things. I'd rather have a good
talk with a guy like you, that uses ideas, than a fancy car. Human beings
are the only things that matter to me. But some people can't get by on
ideas. We doubt the existence of the idea and we need an object to remind
us of the idea. We need to have an object."
"But," Says Mike "We don't. Objects die, objects become useless as the
function that they were created for becomes obsolete."
"Not everybody believes that they can be happy without objects. A large
portion of the wealth in this country is generated by people who are
selling useless items. I remember when I lived in San Francisco, a long
time ago, there were street vendors that would sell you EVERYTHING, from
cheap reproductions of Rolex watches, to stupid toys. I saw this one
dude, he was selling these little dolls, y'know, and they could be filled
with water and then you could pull their pants down and they would
piss…it was the dumbest thing. What was really scary is that I found him
several times, which makes me think that the guy actually made money."
Winfield and Mike drive into the hay yard.
"Okay, bub, guide me into the hay. Keep in mind that door."
Mike jumps out of the truck and Winfield drives up ahead. Winfield begins
to back up into the hay stack. Mike is so busy watching the horses on the
other side of the fence that he forgets to watch Winfield and the
trailer. With a loud crump, the trailer hits the haystack.
Winfield jumps out angrily "Hey! What the hell are you doing!! You were
supposed to be guiding me and telling me when to stop!!"
"Sorry, I got distracted." Mike shakes his head.
"Well, you have to use your head out here, this isn't a place that you
can be fucking around in. You can really get yourself hurt or killed."
Winfield goes around to the back of the trailer and looks at what
happened. The door is bent slightly. "Goddamnit!!, I don't know if we are
going to be able to close this door, Mike, you need to use your head a
little more."
Mike looks ashamed. Winfield tries to close the door. It closes, but it
takes some effort to keep it shut. "Well," says Winfield, with
resignation "I guess it can't be helped now. Don't worry about it, but
you have to keep your head about you on the ranch."
Winfield motions Mike to come over and stand by the stack of hay bales.
The stack goes straight up, it is not tiered.
"Okay," Says Winfield, "this is how we work this, see how the hay is
stacked straight up, and not tiered?" Mike nods. "Pull a bale out at the
bottom, like so." Winfield reaches into the stack with a hay hook and
yanks out a bale of hay. Both he and Mike back off as the hay bails come
tumbling down around them. The begin to stack the hay in the trailer,
loading them into the back. Winfield shows Mike how to stack the hay,
first lengthwise, than crosswise, than lengthwise again.
The trailer fills up quickly, but there is still quite a bit of hay to be
stacked. Winfield looks at it "We need to get a flatbed trailer for this
stuff. We can fit about sixty, maybe seventy bales on that thing. That's
more than twice what we fit in this thing."
"Are you taking this whole stack?" asks Mike
"Yeah, as much as I can take. I am paying a dollar a bale."
"Man, that's pretty steep isn't it?"
"Actually, it's a pretty good deal. I am getting it for a lot cheaper
than some guys pay. Some guys are paying 2, 3 bucks a bail. Me, I have it
cheap. But remember, its crap hay. We are not talking about the cream of
the crop here."
Once the trailer is full, Winfield and Mike climb back into the truck and
drive slowly up the canyon. Mike points to a cave, high in the rocks
above the canyon, "Hey, what is that?" he asks.
"That's some old Mine shaft maybe, or it could be a natural cave. I think
Sue has been up there, maybe with her dad, but I've never been." Says
Winfield
"There are abandoned mine Shafts all over the place around here, aren't
there?" asks Mike.
"Yes," Says Winfield, "Most have been closed off, by the Bureau of Land
Management, and the Forest Service. They don't want anybody going down
there and getting hurt. Some of those mine shafts go way down into the
ground. If somebody got stuck down there, injured or lost, it would be a
long, long time before anybody found him."
"Ugh, imagine being stuck down there, never seeing the light of day
again. There are better ways to die…Yet the world seems to prefer
darkness sometimes, they don't want to let anyone come out and see the
light."
"There you go again," Winfield Says "You and your profundity, you're
grand ideas. What is the next sermon from the Rev. Mike?"
"Oh Jesus Everett, Can't I have some ideas."
"Yes, but you can't talk about them like a Ph.D. lecturing at Harvard,
you're still in High School for Chrissake!"
Winfield and Mike return home and begin to unload the trailer. Winfield
backs the trailer down the hill, and then gets out of the truck. He goes
over to a tree trunk and lifts off a few tires, laying them on the
ground.
"What are those for?" asks Mike
"For the hay, they keep the hay off the ground, so the moisture does not
get to the hay. It makes the hay last longer., That stuff I bought
yesterday, that's for right now, but I am using this stuff for the
winter, so I've got to keep it better protected."
Winfield and mike walk over to the trailer and begin to take hay out of
the back of the truck. Winfield and Mike begin to drag the hay out of the
trailer and across the lot to Winfield's big hay stack. Winfield takes
out a huge hay hook and uses it to pull bails of hay out of the trailer.
Mike pulls it over to the tires that he and Winfield have set up to hold
the hay. They begin to stack they hay lengthwise, and then crosswise. 
"Why do you stack it on the tires" asks Mike
"Well, The moisture comes up and ruins the hay. It gets mold on it. It's
really nasty. And the, of course I can't use it."
"So it preserves the hay?"
"Yes."
"We drove up here and we passed a hay truck. I noticed two things about
it. Number one, the bails were HUGE, and also it was greener than this
stuff."
"Yeah, that was alfalfa hay. That stuff is really rich. It's like sugar
for a kid. I've given it to them in the past. But it is really rich, they
can't handle to much of it. I've given them some in the past, but they
really do better on the rough stuff. Remember, they are desert animals.
The never had the luxury, when they were wild, of things like good
alfalfa and fresh grass hay. They lived off of thorns, briars, cactus.
They are amazingly tough animals."
"Wow, I guess that's pretty cool. They sound like camels"
"Well, the camel is the only animal that can retain more water?"
"What does that mean.?"
"Well, when camels, or burros, or you and I, take a shit. We loose water,
through our feces. The burros are able to squeeze that last bit of water
from their feces. They can last a long time from drink to drink."
"How often do they need to fill up on water."
"Oh, it varies. If they are working hard, they need water. If its hot,
they need water. But if they've just been hanging out in the pen and it's
not that hot, they don't need that much water. Besides. They get a fair
amount of water from the grass they eat. When we take them out on the
trail and they eat all that green grass, they are able to get quite a bit
of water from all of that."
"I think I understand why you became so fascinated by these animals. They
are great."
In the afternoon, Winfield leave the Ranch and Takes Mike on a burro ride
through the mountains. In the forest, Winfield begins to teach Mike how
to handle the burros. "The key here, Mike," explains Winfield, "Is to get
the burro to trust you, to give him an opportunity to follow you. A burro
has a mind of its own, and the best way to deal with them is to make them
think that what you want them to do is there idea."
"Well," Says Mike "Isn't that the way people work. I can understand the
animal's resistance to being pushed around. It doesn't want to have
someone else be the boss. I can totally relate. I hate being pushed
around, I hate calling someone else 'Boss'".
"The burros aren't any different. They don't acknowledge me as their
master, they do what the hell they want to do!!"
"So, how do you get them to cooperate."
"You've go to make the burros think that you're great idea is also their
great idea. The easiest way to accomplish that is simply to beat the hell
out of them. They are tough enough, they can take it. WHAM with a stick
on the haunches, or the back end of a rope, they'll get the picture." 
"Is there any other way?" asks Mike.
"Oh Sure, sometimes they'll do it because they trust you, because they
might even love you."
"Well, how do you get them to love and trust you."
"You have to love and trust them."
One time, he and Mike are on top of a high hill, looking out on a desert
landscape, Winfield asks Mike "Look out there, into the desert, what do
you see?" Mike shrugs, "Mike," says Winfield, "Out there is the
wilderness, beautiful, pristine, wild. Created by the hand of God. It is
a treasure. And people are fucking it up, people are raping it and taking
away its beauty." Mike says, "That's terrible" Winfield Continues "Yeah,
it sucks. People find gold out there, or oil or coal, which are almost as
valuable these days, and they come in here and they dig it up, and it
makes them a whole pile of money. But it ruins the environment, destroys
ecosystems. The companies provide jobs to a bunch of people and when the
ore runs out and the minerals are gone, they leave, just pull up and
leave. And the mess that they leave, well, that is left to the taxpayers.
Birds land in the water that they pollute and die, within hours. Whole
flocks of birds come down and land on the lakes that they have polluted
and they just drop dead in the water, like flies" Mike says "Jeez, that's
Awful"
"Yeah the shit that you are doing with these drugs and stuff that you are
doing to your body is the same thing. I don't know why you do it, I guess
you get what they call a 'Buzz' from it. I don't care what that buzz does
for you and it doesn't matter. This is the only body you've got, and you
have been taking it for Granted and you can't do that anymore, you're in
trouble, understand." 
Mike denies ever doing the drugs. But Winfield knows what drug users look
like. "I'm not stupid and I wasn't born yesterday" he tells Mike. "I know
what druggies look like and I know what they become." 
Mike says, "I guess I have messed myself up a little bit"
Winfield says "So what are you going to do about it?" Mike says, "I don't
know what to do" Winfield answers "well hadn't you better figure that
out?" Mike agrees and they head home together. 
"Mike," Says Winfield, "Every young man needs to find themselves, it's a
struggle that wee all go through. I went through it, my brothers went
through it, and my nephews are going through it now. One of them took his
parents car and drove it all the way from hi parents home to Alabama, the
kid didn't even have a license."
"What the hell did he do that for?"
"He just needed to get away for a while. I guess it's a good thing that
he used the car to get away, and not drugs. There is this threshold that
we all have to cross as young men that isn't easy. And Girls, they do it
in different ways. They seem to have it easier, emotionally, but tougher
physically. This kid took off in the car and got off pretty easily, I
think."
"jeez, I guess…I never did anything that stupid."
"getting into fights and using drugs is plenty stupid. Maybe not as
stupid as taking the car like that, but in someway more stupid. It
doesn't matter. The point is that it okay to do stupid things when you
are young. That, in some ways, is what being stupid is all about."
"So what are you saying, that what I did was, OK?"
"no, its not okay. You caused your mother and me a hell of a lot of grief
that you did not need to cause us. But maybe that's our fault as well as
yours. You have issues that you need to deal with, and adolescence is all
about resolving those issues. I remember when I was your age, I had this
thing going. I had to deal with these adult problems, girls, money,
responsibly, etc. But I wasn't mature enough to deal with those problems.
It was a meeting of adult problems with child mentality and you begin to
think 'Jesus Christ, how the hell am I going to deal with all of this'"
"Yeah. There is a little bit of confusion."
"But you have to realize that, you can make it with what you got. You
might not make it the way that the rest of the world thinks you should,
but that's okay because, you are not like them."
"Okay, but what does that mean for me?"
"It means that you just have to find your way through this mess.
Everybody has something worthwhile that they can do, everybody has
something that they can offer the world. You have something and you have
to find it and then use it, and you have to love it."
"Hey Winfield," Says Mike, "When is that girl coming back?"
"You mean Hannah, Next Week, I got a call from her mom. She thinks you
are a pretty nice kid." 
The drone of a car sounds and a black car drives into the yard. "Oh
Shit!!," says Winfield, jumping up, "I forgot that this guy was coming to
look at some foals, Joe Santini is his name, I think."
He walks up the hill. A man gets out of the car. Winfield walks up to
him, "You're here to buy foals, right?"
"Yes, I called you earlier today, I saw what you had on your website.
Good stuff."
"Well, I have a lot of foals from last year, I left a jack in the pen for
a long time and he just serviced them all. I wish I could get that
lucky."
Joe Santini laughs, they walk down to the corral together, "Well, here
are my foals, they are all from good stock. The one on the left is from
an unknown father but her mother was a damn good wild jenny that I bought
from the BLM wild burro adoption program, down in canyon city."
"Is that where they have all those prisoners, breaking the wild stock
down there?" Asks Joe.
Winfield's eyes light up, "Yeah, all those cons down there, they are
breaking them. They do a pretty good job, I think. The animals I get from
down there are gentle, not afraid of humans, and well kept to."
"What about that jenny over in the corner there?"
"That big black one? That's actually the only burro I have that isn't for
sale, my nephew has that one, he's gonna run with it this summer in the
races around here."
"Races? What Races?"
"Well every summer, throughout Colorado, they have races where they run
the burros through the mountains."
"like an Endurance ride?"
"Yes, except you don't ride the burro, you run, leading the burro ahead
of you!"
"Wow, that's cool. When do they hold the races?"
"through out the summer. All theses men and women get together from
around Colorado. We have guys that come up from the south, southern
Colorado folks. But its mostly folks from around here."
"That sounds wild. Are any other burro racers as into the whole breeding
thing."
"Ah, Yeah. There's a guy, Mick McDonald who lives down in Golden, and
then I have a friend who runs down is Westcliffe. There are other folks,
but they only have one or two animals. And quite frankly, I think I have
the best stock around. I've been experimenting with the breeding. I have
a number of large Mammoth Jacks, that have great size and strength, but
they don't have quite the refinement that the standards have. So I have
been breeding the large mammoths with the standards and I get a pretty
goof animal from it."
"Yes, I see," Says Joe. "You've got some nice looking animals here. They
are quite beautiful. I like those red jennies and I wish I could get you
to sell me the black one in the back."
"Well, That's not for sale, you have to understand the I have loyalties
to my nephew. He's worked pretty hard towards racing that animal and I
have no desire to see all that training go to waste. So that one is not
for sale."
"Well, okay, I understand where you are coming from. How much for the two
red ones?"
"Well, I can let those go for, $450, $500 apiece. They are pretty good
animals."
"Well, would you be interested in trading. I have some good stock that I
could trade you. I also have a wagon and a Bobsled, good stuff. And some
Harness. My harness isn't fancy stuff, nothing you could show with. But
it is serviceable. It would be good to train with."
"Y'know, I would be really interested in that. I've always wanted to have
a team of maybe four or six jennies, pulling those things. I've been
fascinated by those old teams they used in the Death Valley borax mines."
"Yes, I've seen them, they are pretty impressive, what they have done
with those huge mule teams. I was down there a while ago and I saw a
reenactment, it was pretty impressive."
"So, If I threw in a wagon and some tack, could we negotiate a better
price? "
"Sure, there is plenty of room to negotiate. I can be a stubborn son of a
bitch but I al willing to cut a deal."
"Well let me think about this, you have some mighty fine animals, Mr.
Winfield, I just need to figure out what I am willing to give you in
exchange for them."
Joe walks out to his truck, to drive off. Mike looks at Winfield "well,
do you think that we can make a deal with him?"
"Oh, sure. I really want to get my hands on that wagon. Imagine a huge
team of burros, pulling a brightly painted wagon down in the fourth of
July parade in Buena Vista, or something like that.?"
"That would be pretty impressive, how many animals do you think you could
rig on one wagon?"
"Oh, as many as I had harness for. I would use all Jennies, the jacks are
to aggressive. I don't relish the thought of having my animals go bucking
all over the place when they are in the harness. They can really hurt
each other."
"yes, I see what you mean" Say's mike "Why do those jacks fight."
"It's evolutionary biology," Says Winfield, "they are competing to see
who can pass their genes along to the next jenny. Guys do it in every
species. It doesn't matter if you are a jack or a guy. Haven't you ever
wanted to pose in front of a girl, just to show off? You try to be as
loud and raucous as possible, or you think she'll be impressed by your
hot car, shirt, or whatever stupid thing you do. Jacks do the same
thing."
"So it's a hard wired thing, if you are male, you want to show off and
show the ladies that you are the hottest thing around, that you are the
one that they want to reproduce with. The problem I always found is that
when I tried to do it, I ended up acting really stupid."
"Oh yeah, I know what you mean. I thought I could impress the girls when
I did those stupid things. I remember one time, I put some speakers in
the shower in my apartment in San Francisco. I had a microphone on a wire
to the outside. These girls would come in to use the bathroom. I had the
shower curtain drawn, see, so they couldn't see the speakers. They would
go in to use the john, and I would get on the speakers and say 'huh,
Pardon me, ma'am, we're doing' some work here in the showers."
Mike laughs "Oh, Jesus, that's hilarious, did they freak out?"
"Oh, yeah. I didn't make any girlfriends that way, but we all had a good
laugh. So, y'see, we all do nutty things. The problem is that the burros
are aggressive about it and if your not careful, they can really hurt you
or the people that you are with."
Winfield and Mike begin to talk up the hill, when Carol drives into the
yard. Winfield "Mike, your mother is here. You keep working, I am going
to go and talk to her."
Mike nods. Winfield walks up the hill, he gives Carol a hug. 
"Hi, how's it going?" Says Carol.
"I've got a little money now, I've been selling some foals, and I got
that loan. I am straightening things out. Soon I may have a little extra
cash lying around, So, I can pay him."
"IS he working out." Asks Carol
"Yeah, he's been very helpful. We're gonna have to teach him a thing or
to about safety on the ranch and stuff like that, but that's alright. It
takes a little time. Nobody learns everything in a day. Pretty soon I
want to get him in on a training regimen so that he can run the races. He
really seems to enjoy those animals, and I think that he can be a hell of
a burro racer."
Carol takes Mike home, and Sue shows up in the evening. "did you work
with Mike today?" She asks, throwing some vegatables in a bowl for a
salad. Winfield helps her by setting the table.
"Yes. I think it was a success."
"Everett, what are you doing for him? what can you do for him that the
schools can't? I don't question you ability to do something good for him,
I just wonder what you're gonna do?"
"The schools are fine, but they only teach you certain things. And some
of those things can't be learned by everyone. It's a crazy system,
y'know. In school they teach you how different everybody is and then they
punish those who can't learn the same way everyone else does. Is it any
wonder that a kid like Mike has trouble handling it. I'm giving him an
opportunity to try something new. There is another thing that I think
will benefit him. Those animals are therapeutic. There's something that
touches the human soul when you are working with something alive. I've
always enjoyed that."
"I get the same feeling too, when I work in my garden. The soil on my
hands feels so good. There is life in that soil, worms, maggots, plants.
It's cool and moist, a perfect pastime for a hot afternoon."
"Our culture has certainly devalued life. There is nothing more beautiful
than an newborn foal at birth, with the mother standing over it, giving
it life."
"It's a little sad, y'know, that all these people are poor in this
country, I almost think that it should be illegal to invest outside the
country. Colorado, and America, would be a much better place if we just
invested more in each other."
"You sound like an isolationist. It is tough to force people to do that.
Sometimes it is more profitable to invest in other markets, that is what
brings money into the country."
"Yeah, I know, but it also takes money out of the country. People are
starving in our own country, but we are sending the money that we should
be paying them, into other countries. It's not right. We all do better
when we ALL do better!!"
"But at the same time, there needs to be a way to bring more money into
the country. If anybody id going to better, than the money has to come
from somewhere."
"Yes," Says Winfield "But there still needs to a way to make sure that
everyone gets a piece of the proverbial action. We need to find a way for
the money to circulate. Now I think we'd all agree that it is un-American
and undemocratic to force profit sharing on the American people. But we
need to find a way to get the money around the country."
"Well, what do you want to do about it?"
"I want people to pay their fair share. They are taking advantage of the
everyday, hard working Americans."
"Well, some people would argue that they are already paying their fair
share. Hell, some folks are going to say that they pay more than their
fair share. And what should people do? Don't people have a right to their
money, that they have worked hard for?"
"I don't object to people keeping their money, I understand that the
people at the top worked hard to get their money. But the people at the
bottom also worked hard to get their money, just as hard to get their
money. But they don't get as much. And that's wrong."
"that's the Free Market Everett, how are you going to change it?"
"I have nothing against the free market. Lord knows I have benefieted
from the free market. But when people fall to the bottom of the free
market. There needs to be a bottom for them to fall on. Right now, there
is no bottom. They just fall out the end. It almost happened to me, as
you well know. I got lucky."
Sue gets up, "Well, I'm about ready for bed, it has been a long day."
Winfield gets up "Okay bub, I'm with you."
They lie together in bed. Winfield puts his arm around Sue's shoulders.
"So, how are things going."
"I guess everything is alright. I'm thinking about changing jobs again."
"Well, hell, how many jobs are you going to try?"
"Ah, I don't know. I may just ramble from one job to another
until…forever." Sue laughs
"Well, that wouldn't bee that bad, now, would it? As long as you are
using your talents."
"No, I guess you are right. Still, I'm not fond of the instability that I
seem to have."
"So you are a little bit of a gypsy, that's no big deal. Just makes your
life interesting, and it makes you and interesting person."
"Well, It just seems that the people around me seem to place SUCH an
emphasis 'career' and on estabnlishing a career. It seems they knew what
they wanted to do the minutes they got out of college."
"Dearest, I don't think they really knew what they wanted to to. They
just got sucked into the whirlwind like everybody else."
"Do you really think so Everett."
"Sure, quit worrying about it. Besides, I love you, what more do you want
than that?" Everett rolls over and kisses her. She laughs.
Scene
Neil drives up the dirt road in his red truck. He pulls into the
driveway. Curtis comes out with a cup of coffee in his hand and wearing
his glasses. He is wearing pajamas and his hair is a mess. He has a pair
of slippers on and he holds a large mug of coffee in his hand."
"Jesus Neil, I didn't expect you to come up this early."
"Sorry, I thought we were going to get an early start on this here
training run."
"Yeah, well, I want to bring Mike on the run, so we are going to wait for
him. Well, come one in."
"How is sue"
"She's alright, A littlt upset recently, she isn't to happy with the
direction her life is going in, it sounds like."
"Well, That sucks"
"Yeah. I think she feels to much peer pressure to 'find her direction.',
y'know?"
Mike brings the bike to a stop above the house and leans it against the
tree. He walks down to the house.
"There you are," says Curtis, "Are you ready to run?"
"I think I am more ready than your are, old-timer."
"Smart mouth, I'll be out in a jiffy, and then I will get you a work out
that you'll remember."
"Where are we running."
"Ah, I thought we would run on the railroad tracks across the valley.
That's where the Buena Vista burro racing course goes."
"Okay that sounds like a good idea." Agrees Mike.
"I'm glad you approve" says Winfield, "Why don't you and Neil go down and
load up a burro."
Neil nods and follows Mike down to the corall "Okay mike, I think you kno
more about this thanI do, what's the procedure here?"
"Well, get the halters from the tree, and slip them over the animals
heads. That will help you get everything where you want it."
Neal Slips the halter over the animal and Mike slips another halter on
another animal and they lead the animals out of the corral
"Shut the gate" says mike, "that always drives me NUTS. I ALWAYS worry
about whether or not I have shut the gate."
"Well, I'll shut it this time and then you don't have to worry about it."
"Okay, sounds like a deal." Neal chains the gate closed and they lead the
burros up the trail to the hose.
Winfield comes out, wearing running shorts.
"Okay, put the animals in the trailer,"
Mike pulls the animal into the trailer and neil follows with his animal.
"Oh shit!" says winfield as he runs back into the house and comes out
with a couple of Pack Saddles and a riding saddle
"What is the saddle for?" asks Mike.
"Uh, that's for you, in case you get tired."
"I'm not going to get tired man, I think you are more likely to get tired
than I am."
"Smart ass
Out by the trail, Everett and Mike saddle up the two burros. The three
men with the two animals begin to run along the trail. Neil and Everett
start out with the animals and Mike follows
"This is the trail that we run out of Buenat Vista, Mike, this is the
course we run on. It's the old railroad bed. It was a Narrow gauge
railroad, before Abraham Lincoln standardized the guage, when they put in
the standard guage railroad, they ran it down in the town. Now even
that's shutting down. The Cities are expanding and they are forgetting
that it was the rural small guys that built the west. They wouldn't have
anything if we didn't give it to them."
"They give us stuff to."
"Not as much as we give them. Our small farmers used to feed this
country. We used to ship lettuce all over the world from this here
valley. Nowadays, we get no respect. They want to flood the valley with a
damn dam so that all the fat cats down in Denver and Aurora can get their
water."
"Hoh!!" calls Everett, brining his burro to a stop he hands Mike the
burro's lead rope. "Mike, Take a shot with the burro."
Mike takes the burro and hitches the rope underneath the his butt. He
begins to trot along with the burro in tow.
"Attaboy Mike, you are getting it."
They run along for a while in Silence
"Mike," says Winfield, "Try switching your hold, perhaps to the saddle,
or grab onto his tail. The head needs a break."
Mike slackens the lead rope and grabs ahold of the tail. 
"you better watch out." Says Neil, "That burro may shit all over your
hand."
Mike pulls his hand away suddenly, Winfield laughs "Okay, he'll pucker up
his asshole before he lets it rip, but be ready for it."
Mike puts his hand back on the the burros tail. "Mike," says Everett,
"you are making your steps too big. Short steps, no use in expending to
much energy we have a long way to go."
Mike nods his head, and shortens his steps. "Mike, the races that you are
training for is not about speed, its about endurance. If you can keep
running steady, you should at least be in the money."
Mike nods
Everett runs ahead in front of the other two and turns around to run
backwards.
"Do you have eyes in the back of your head, Everett?" asks Mike
"That's what my mother used to tell me." Says Neil 
"Right, Mine to."
"I always wondered why she didn't wear sunglasses back there. She was had
sun sensitive eyes in the front, but never in the back?" says Everett
Mike grins "maybe the hair kept the sun out."
"That must have been it." Says Everett
"Man, that is the oldest Cliché" says Neil
"What is it," asks Mike, "That all parents use the same damn lines. They
are corny."
"Ah, I think it's cause they all went to school together, you know." Says
Neil
"And they all pulled the same damn lines from their parents and
teachers?"
"Yeah, I guess so"
"So that they all learned the lines form the same place?"
"Yeah."
"Ah, well, that's the way it goes, eh?, we all get the same bullshit from
our parents."
"ah, it's not bullshit, Mike," says Everett, "They give you this crap
because they love you."
"I know, Everett, but its still a pain in the ass."
"well. Someday you are gonna have kids too mike, and then you will
understand.?"
"yeah, yeah, yeah."
Winfield looks at Neil and grins.
Winfield holds up his hand and looks out at the valley below. "Well,
Ladies and Gentlemen, here we are, when I came into thie valley thirty
years ago this place was empty. You could walk down Main Street Naked
because there weren't enough people to care. But now its becoming tamed.
'It's better that way' seems to be the excuse of the developer. 'It's
better that we harness engineering feats that nature made and use them to
our advantage than to let them alone so that they can be used for
whatever nature intended them to be used for.' It's ludicruous to think
that we can second guess the very force that we came from."
Neil shrugs, "Ah, Don't sweat it now, Everett. Enjoy the run."
"Yeah," says Everett. "I guess…If you worry about these things to much
itd just gets you unnesecarily depressed." 
Everett reaches into his pack saddle and pulls out a bottle of water. He
squirts some into his mouth. Mike stretches his hand out, hoping to
receive of th waters. Everett looks at him.
"What the hell, you don't get any!!"
"C'mon Everett, I need water."
Everett laughs and tosses Mike the bottle. Mike tips his head back and
squirts into his mouth. 
"Hey," yells Everett, "What the hell is this, you can't drink the whole
damn bottle!! Conservation, remember?"
"Oh yeah."
Mike hands the bottle over to Everett. He glances up at the sky which is
turning grey.
"Looks like its gonna piss"
"Yeah, looks like a regular old desert rainfall."
"You say it's a desert, but it rains all summer."
"Yeah, but every desert has its 'Monsoon' season, Mike. Three seasons of
the year, Fall, Winter, and Spring, we have a dry season. It rearely
rins. But in in the summer, it rains a lot."
Everett stops the party and digs around in a pack saddle and pulls out a
jacket that he wraps around the boy. "There, old man, uyou can't go home
and tell your mother that I never took care of ya!!"
"Thanks A lot everett."
"These mountains up here, they don't forgive you much. You can't mess
around out here and it is imporant that you stay properly covered." 
Everett begins to turn the burros around "Okay, men, I think that it is
time for us to turn back now." 
He wheels the party aroundand they begin to work their way hom, along the
way towards the car. They load the burros and get in the car. Everett
turns on the engine and they beginto drive down the street. Neil looks
out at the rain. "Man, look at that stuff come down."
Winfield takes the car into the town, pulling the burros in the trailer. 
"Let's go into Bongo Billies and get some cooffe," he says.
They sit in the car, drinking coffee and talking, watching the rain come
down and hit the truck. "Well," says Mike, "What do we do now?"
"We go home and put the animals away and maybe we can watch a movie."
"Like What?" says Mike.
"Ah, I have some films that we can watch. And this storm probably won't
last long."
They drive back home, up the wet road to the house. Winfield pulls the
burros out of the back of the truck and leads them down to the coral.
Mike follows him as he walks down to the corral. 
"When I was a new kid to this burro thing, just startin' out with a
couple of animals, I used to have the heart to let my burros hang out
inside when it rained."
"Really?"
"Yeah, or I would let them hang out undeneath the house, under the porch.
But now, I just let them get wet. They are tough animals, desert animals
that can stake extreme heat, extreme cold, rain, drought, snow. High
tolerance, low maintainence. I wish women were like that."
"Man, they are really tough." Says mike, as he helps Winfield lead the
burros into the corral. Winfield slips off the halters and locks the
gate.
"Have you ever seen them fight?"
"Oh yeah, I’ve seen them fight big time. The jacks, Mike, have this
instinct for passing their genes on. Propagation of the species is number
one on their to do list and they will stop at NOTHING when it comes to
passing those genes on.
"I remember the one time that I was down in wild rose canyon. I was about
26 years old and footloose. I was looking for wild burros."
Winfield and Mike walk up the the slope. "I was down in a place called
Wild Rose Canyon, outside Death Valley. I was looking for wild stock. I
had been running trained, over bred and over fed animals."
"Well, what was the fight like?"
There were two jacks involved. The whole herd was down in the canyon. I
spent the night out by the road, near my bike, where I had camped. That
night the stars were so clear. As you know, Death Valley is below sea
level, but it actually felt like I was closer to the stars. The desert
air out there is so dry, and its so far away from anything that it’s not
polluted. So the stars are really clear. Anyway, as I lay in my sleeping
bag, I could here these animals braying in the night, the bray would echo
off the canyon walls and it sounded like something out of a space movie.
It was pretty cool, I thought that God had a pretty good sense of humor,
to have created those sounds. They were funny, errie.
"The next morning I saw the band grazing out there, nibbling on the tough
plants. Those burros will eat anything, they can swallow all manner of
crap. On the outside of the pack, I could see this one old jack, a gray
beat up thing, looked like an old soldier. Something must have hit him
wrong that night because he suddenly took off and shot through the herd
and started giving it to this young black jack. There was a real fight
going on. It was spring time, when Jacks tend to be hyperactive anyway.
Jacks can be horny anytime of year, but when the snows have gone and it
is still cool enough to move, they are all over those jennies.
"anyway, this old gray jack started kicking and biting and really tearing
into this black jack. The youngster was giving it as good as he got for a
while, but they fell down the slope rolling, over and over each other.
IT’s funny, Mike, but I began to realize something. Those burros were
enjoying this. Just as you and I enjoy teasing and rough housing with
each other, those two burros enjoyed this fight. There was some primitive
animal insinct in those that had been loosed from its kennel that would
stop at nothing, that wouldn’t even let its own loming distruction stand
in it’s way. I also realized that if I could harness that instinct, I
would be the baddest thing on the course."
"Man, what the hell happened then?" asks Mike
"Well, I thought they would kill each other, y’know? I mean these guys
have brains the size of walnuts, they don’t nessecarily have the
intelligence to stop. But they finally did. I found them later, in a
holding pen down in Barstow, ,California."
"How did they get diwb there?
"Oh, the LM conducts rondups of the wild burros and horses every year and
sells them. There must have been a round up shortly after I was down
there. I found to jacks. I guess I can’t be sure if those were the two
jacks that I adopted, but they sure looked like them One had been gelded,
the black one. We always called him black jack. The gray one was called
Moses."
"Damn, that sounds like a hell of a fight."
"Yeah, I guess. It’s cool to watch the animals do it in the corral, but
there is something, freaky about watching a fight like that. I makes you
wonder why the hell two animals in the same herd and the same species
fight. And then you have to remember that wer do the same thing as
humans."
"Well, that’s the way the world works."
They walk into the house. Neil looks at the plaques up on the wall.
"Gosh, curtis, all these burro racing medals, how many have you one."
"Neil, I haven’t missed a race in 25 years."
Neil shakes his head, "Man, that’s incredible."
"Well, I love the sport too much not to show up for those races. And
pretty early on, I figured out how to breed these animals to get what I
wanted from them. They are wonderful animals."
The Phone rings and Curtis picks it up. He speaks for a little while.
Then he hangs up.
"Mike, its your mother, she wants you home." 
Neil looks up "Wel, I can take him home on my way out. I have to work
tomorrow, so I have to get going. I don’t want to hit all that traffic."
Winfield nods. 
"Do you want me to feed the stock?" asks Mike.
Winfield shakes his head, "No, I’ll take care of it tonight. You get
going."
"Thanks," says Mike. He and Neil head out to the car to go home.
"So," Mike asks Neil, "What got you into racing burros?"
"I became enamored with the sport as I kid. I grew up in Leadville, so I
watched the leadville races every summer for as far back as I can
remember."
"SO what hooked you up with Winfield and burro racing?"
"I just found some guys back at one of the races and asked them ‘If I am
interested in getting ahold of a burro to race, who do I talk to?’ and
they all told me Everett Winfield.’"
"the man, I guess he’s kind of the kingpin around here."
"Has been for along time."
They arrive at Mike’s house and he gets out of the truck. "Okay buddy,
see you later" Neil Drives off.
Mike walks into the house, his mother is there. She hands him an
envelope. He opens it. "It’s the Air Force, Mom," says Mike, "their
recruiting BS."
"Well," she says, "Have you ever thought about Joining?"
"Not really, some of the kids at school have joined. I’ve thought about.
Just, well, I don’t know if I can survive boot camp and all that training
and stuff like that."
"Yeah, that can be tough, my dad was in the Marines and he told me some
scary stories about boot camp. It was tought, but I think people are able
to handle it, y’know?"
"Yeah, people are able to handle it, but I sometimes wonder about it."
"what’s there to wonder about, its only 8 weeks of training."
"Yeah, it can’t be that bad."
"Well, don’t worry. Why don’t you go for a run."
"I thibnk that’s a good idea."
Mike disappears into the back of the house and comes out dressed for
running. He holds a water bottle under the sink. He kisses his mother,
and runs out the front door and the camera follows him as he runs down
the road. He begins to think
"Should I join the air force? A lot of people I know have joined the
millitary. It just may be the only way to get ahead. They dole out a
pretty hefty paycheck, but I am not sure that I want to sacrafice all the
things that I would have to sacrafice to where that uniforme. Eith weeks
of boot camp? That sounds like hell. But on the other hand, it’s only
eith weeks. I can survive that. It’s not a big deal, and they pay you. I
am getting paid, and I am getting free food and clothing and a way to get
a college education. It just might be the best damn thing that ever
happened to me. I should talk to everett about it."
Mile continues to run along the road. "They might not take me, I have a
pretty rough record, got in trouble one to many times? On the other hand,
if they do take me, it’s a chance to clean my record. This country has
historically had a lot of respect for those who have served. IT’s a great
way to get a job, a great way to get an education. What the hell? I might
as well try it."
Mike finds a hill and runs up it "I wonder how far I can get up this
hill. It goes all the way up the mountain, I’d like to climb that
mountain, sometime."
"On that air force question, just how far would I want to go in the Air
Force. I wouldn’t want to make it a career. I wouldn’t want to be an
officer because than I would have to be on call even after I left the Air
Force. At least that’s what my friend told me."
Mike pauses on the top of a hill, "Hell, man, do I need another
challenge. Do I need anything else to make my life more difficult. I’m
trying to become a man, do I need to go through the shit of trying to
become an airman as well."
Mike pauses, high above the city and looks out. "My God, it’s gorgeous
out here, the city below is a sight to behold."
He takes a rest and looks out at valley, he takes a drag on his watter
bottle "Damn the air force, damn school, damn everything. What is the
point of trying to satisfy everybody. Why not satisfy yourself. That
sounds selfish doesn’t it? I guess so, but the fact is that is true. And
I guess to truly satisfy myself , I have to think about other people,
don’t I?"
He stands up and stretches and continues with his run. "What would
Winfield say, what would he think. That crazy old man always has an
opinion about something. He’s told me all about his crazy days as a
hippie in California. He wouldn’t like that expression, ‘hippie’, he
would say that everyone was a hippie back then. Well, what the fuck am I
going to do about that, he was a hippie back then. He still is a hippie.
Him and his burros and his crazy ideas. 
"Never mind him, he’s not important, this is my discission, it’s my life.
I guess. Maybe if I give it to the air force, it won’t be my life. Who
knows? "
Mike turns around and runs back down the slope, heading for home "Okay,
well, this is something I can worry about on another day. There is time."
The camera pulls away, and we see mike, running down the road to the
house and into the driveway. 
"How was your run?" asks his mother, "You were gone a long time"
"I love, running, it’s just a great way to get a way from everything,
which is something that I need."
Carol nods.
"Mom, this thing from the Air Force is killing me, you know? I guess it’s
a decission that every young man makes when he is my age."
"My brothers had to make it, so did your father. I knew him in high
school, he agonized over it, and decided not to go into the force. His
father was a serious intellectuall, and thought that your father would be
wasting his time by going into the Armed Sercives. But you are your own
man, just because your father didn’t go iinto the service doesn’t mean
that you can’t go into the service yourself. It’s a decision you have to
make for yourself."
"Right, well, I guess I have time, I am going to take a shower."
"Okay, dinner will be done when you come out."
"Alright. I am hungry. "
"I don’t doubt it. You’ve been working hard."
Mike dissappears into the shower. Everett pulls into the driveway and
walks into the house.
"Hello Everett" Says Carol, "Looking for your employee?"
"Yes, I am. I was just driving through, I picked up a load of hay down in
Howard, I thought that maybe he could come up tomorrow after school and
unload the stuff.
"Well, He’s in the shower right now. He’s just come back from a run."
"oh great, how long was he out for?"
"Well, He was out for about forty minuted, but I saw him walking home, so
I don’t know how much of that was actually running."
"Well. Forty minutes is still a little long for him, so as longa as he
was running for about half of that, or maybe a little more, he’s on
track."
"Okay."
Mike comes out, buck naked, Carol turns around and screams at him.
"MIKE!!!! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU NOT TO COME OUT HERE
WITHOUT ANYY CLOTHES ON?"
Mike scurries back into his rooom.
"Put on some blue jeans," calls Winfield, "we are going to be bucking
hay. " Carol shakes her head, "My God, some of the things that he does
just baffle me."
Winfield shrugs, "Well, I guess he might have picked up some bad habits
from the old man."
"Oh, has it been you?!" Carol looks at Winfield in surprise.
Winfield squirms, "well, you know, there is a little less formality up at
my place."
Carol shakes her head, "You Guys. God knows what you guys do up there."
"Ah, it’s probably a little..er..different up there, but it’s still a
valuable experience."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m just glad Sue drops in occasionally to keep you
out of trouble."
Mike comes out in running shoes and a pair of blue jeans, with an old
denim jacket slung over his shoulder. He looks at his mother. "We don’t
get into trouble out there. It’s just a lot of fun."
"I’ve seen it up there, there is plenty of trouble."
"Get a hat, the sun is really beating down out there." 
Mike grabs a baseball cap from his room and jams it down on his head.
"I’ll have him back in a few hours, Carol."
"Alright, Everett, see you then."
Everett and Mike head out to the truck. "there is another reason why I
wanted to take you out here. I have an animal for you to work with, a
jenny. She is perfect animal for a beginner." Everett turns into the
driveway and drives down into the corrall.
"I Used to want to put a tennis court down here. I told my mother I would
do it. But I never got around to it."
"Why not." Asks mike.
"Oh, it’s awfully expensive. And where would I stack my hay and park my
cars?"
"I guess that would present a problem."
"Putting a tennis court in is just one of those things that I will get
around to….one of these days."
"Right, rather, something you will put off forever."
"Hey."
"that’s in the back of the truck."
Everett and Mike exit the truck and Everett begins to stack tires on the
ground. He puts a bunch together in the middle of the "tennis court."
"Alright, wiseguy." He says "Grab that hay and put it into the tires
here. Use this." He hands mike a hay hook.
Mike sticks the hay hook into his hay bales and grags them onto the
tires.
"You just hand them to me and I will stack them" says Winfield.
Mike begins to throw hay bales off the truck and down onto the ground,
Winfield stacks them on the tires. Winfield gestures over to a stack of
corrugated sheet metal over on the ground. "Now we cover them." He says,
muscling the huge pieces of corrugated metal with mike. They flip the
metal over on top of the hay stacks. 
"This is all part of rural life mike. It’s a way of life that was cheap
and easy and respected once. But now big business has taken it over.
Archer-Daniels Midland and Cargill and all those other mother-fuckers
arerunning the little guys out of business."
"But you are preserving an old way of life?"
"yeah, but it’s not just blind presevation. I am living as close to the
land as possible. I am dealing with living things in my 







Break
One day, Carol picks up Mike at school. She drives up to where he is
sitting on the side of the street. He gets up and she begins to notice
that he stands up straighter. She pulls over and he pulls himself into
her truck, and slams the door. She asks him how his day was. 
"It was good", he articulates quite clearly. She looks at her son. He
continues "But I still hate it. The kids are really annoying."
"Is Everett helping you to deal with the people who you were having
trouble it at school?"
"Yeah, He's become my friend, he who I aspire to be like."
"You're changing." She says, "You're growing up."
"Well, That makes sense, doesn't it. I mean, I am not as much of a little
boy anymore, like I used to be."
"No, that's true, but you have changes so dramatically in the last couple
of days."
"Yeah, well, it has a lot to do with Winfield. He is someone I have a lot
of respect for. I can't let him down. I slip sometimes, but I figure
that's because I am human."
"Well, My mother always told me, 'You can't be perfect, but you better do
your damndest'"
Mike laughs softly, "Yeah, I guess I better do my damnedest. I feel like
Winfield has given me a new leash on life. He's somebody I have a lot of
respect for, and I don't want to let him down."
"Well, I think your relationship with him is good for you both."
"Why?, I mean I know why it's good for me, I've sort of gotten my dad
back. I don't mean that he can ever replace the man called Forest…"
"…I know what you mean. Just remember to be grateful for the chances that
he is giving you…"
"…and don't mess it up. I know, mom, I guess the best way to do that is
to run with it. I know that, and it's an easy ball to run with because I
enjoy it."
"Well, just make damn sure that you don't drop the ball. It's been handed
to you on a sliver platter, young man, and you better not fuck it up."
"MOM!"
"I mean it, Mike, you better take this opportunity and make the most of
it. You can't go through life being nothing. You don't have to make a lot
of money, you don't have to be an academic super star, but you do have to
apply yourself to something worthwhile. It could be burro racing, music,
it can be anything you want. You don't have to be a genius, but you can't
be a bum, either."
"Okay, what should I do?"
"Just find something, it can be anything, it doesn't matter what it is,
it just has to be something productive that you are engaged in. It could
be school, but since that doesn't seem to be a forte of yours, make it
something else."
"Well, Everett wants me to run with some of his burros. He wants me to be
running 5 days a week and to be thinking about all that stuff. I think
it's something that I can dedicate myself to. Those races are so much
fun, I don't think I could ever get tired of running them."
"well, there ya go, there's something that you can work towards."
"Mom, a lot of my friends, they talk down to those who aren't making good
grades. The treat us like crap!!"
"I know, honey, but you have to understand its just cause they aren't
secure with themselves. They have to attack some other person to make
themselves feel better, they have to take advantage of other people."
"Why, Mom? That's so pathetic. I really don't understand that. You know?
People who need something to make themselves feel better should do
something to make themselves to feel better. "
"Yeah, but your making a mistake, thew world doesn't think like that,
they just want run someone else into the ground to make themselves feel
like they are big shots. It doesn't work like that. Now listen, you've
got his thing going with Winfield, it's doing you good and that is all
that is all that matters."
"I think," Says Mike, "That Winfield understands more about what it means
to be a teenager than anybody I have ever met. I mean, he is able to
communicate with me in a way that no other person ever has."
"Well, why do you think that is?"
"I don't know. I think it may have to do with the burros. A burro will
resist what its so called master wants it to do. So will an obstinate
teenager. Both the burro and the teenager are scared and confused, They
have a sense of there they are going, but are unsure and afraid. So they
resort to balking, they refuse to go into a certain situation. And
Teenagers do the same thing. It's scary mom, a lot of people don't
realize just how scary it is. 
"I mean, a teenager is someone who is on the loose for the first time in
his life. For the first time, they are alone, and unprotected from the
cruelties of the world. They are children who have to deal with adult
problems. And the only way that they will become adults is to deal with
those problems."
Mike and Carol go home. "Mike," says carol, "Do you like Winfield? I
mean, you spend a lot of time there, and it looks like you have fun, and
it looks like the experience is having a positive effect on you, but I
wonder, sometimes, if you are really enjoying yourself."
"Mom, I like working out there. I have a sense of pride about my work,
that other jobs can't give me. Winfield and I were talking about this
today, you can't get an education from school, at least not a real
education. There are things that one can learn in school, and there are
things that one can learn outside of school. The things that really
matter. I am becoming a little bit of a Renaissance man."
"Well, okay. It just seems like you need to have friends your own age."
"From where, school?! That's pretty slim picking's mom."
"School?! What's the matter with school, honey?"
"Mom, don't you know what school is like, everybody listens to that awful
rap music, everybody talks shit about you if you are different. What they
don't realize is that people are different and the same at the same time.
People are the same enough naturally. One thing I am beginning to think
about is that human beings, as a species, are pretty messed up. I mean,
Everett was telling me about all the crazy things that people are doing
to the environment. He's also been telling me about some of the things
people do, it's crazy. We don't need to conform anymore than we already
do."
"The problem, I think, is that we don't like to admit that we are messed
up like that. So somebody says 'I don't have those problems' and then
somebody else says 'I don't have those problems either' and pretty soon
everybody denies having those problems and everybody is lying. And then
when somebody manifests symptoms of those problems, or God forbid, admits
to having those problems, we treat them like they are some sort
of…pariah."
"Yeah, and that pariah feeling is awful, and when I get it I can't bear
it. That's why I was using drugs. Now that I'm with Everett, I guess I
have found acceptance, from him, from the burros. Y'know?"
"Yes I know, honey."
"And there is this wonderful feeling I get working with the burros. They
come behind me when I am working with them. They nibble on my shoulder,
they rub their big heads against my chest. He has a huge burro named
Maasai. This sucker has a head that's the biggest thing I've ever seen.
He comes up and rubs it against my head. His ears are huge, and his eyes
are big and beautiful. And even though he has that loud, raucous bray,
he's use usually pretty quiet."
"Jeez, it sounds like you have found something that you can really learn
to love."
"Yeah, it's great. When I am with Everett, I don't care about anything
else. I don't need to please anyone but him and the burros. It's a whole
new culture. I didn't fit in at school, and now I don't have to."
They ride along in silence. "Mom?," Says mike, "I need to buy some
running shoes."
Carol laughs, "Has Everett gotten you into running."
"Well, he has some old videos of him running in the burro races. They
look like a lot of fun. I want to run in them this summer."
"Well, than you better start running."
"Yeah, I'm going to, but I need some running shoes. Everett says I need
two pair. He said he'd stake me for them."
"Okay, We'll go to the store this evening."
They Arrive home with two new pairs of shoes. 
"I don't see why you need two pairs of shoes, sweetie." Says Carol.
"I don't either, Everett suggested two pair." Mike takes one pair from
the box and laces them up and jogs in place around the floor. 
"Well?", demands Carol, "How do they feel, are the comfortable?"
Mike looks at her, "they're all right…But…" he walks towards the door
"…The only way to find out if they are really worth a damn is to run in
them."
"Well, if you run in them, you are not going to be able turn them in for
a refund."
Mike looks quizzical. "You're right" he says. "Well, we have two pair and
they are the same size and brand, and since I can only run in them one at
a time, if they are no good, well then we can return the other pair and
we are only out 80 bucks."
"Mike, honey, Is that such a smart idea? I mean, you should know these
things before hand."
"Mom, It'll be okay. Besides, Everett's paying for them."
"And Everett is short of cash . Remember, he almost lost his farm a few
years ago."
"Yeah, but he just sold some burros this morning and he is willing to
stake me to the shoes. So I am going running and when I come back, we can
have dinner."
Mike walks out the door. Carol sighs and watches him run down their
driveway at a steady trot. She shakes her head. "My God," She says "My
little baby is growing up. That little boy who used to call me mamma is
now a man."
Carol walks out to the end of the driveway and picks up the mail in the
mailbox. Mike comes back. "Well, Mr. Bigshot, How do they feel."
"Great. They are keepers. I'll tell Everett tomorrow that you bought me
some running shoes and he can pay you back tomorrow"
"Well, that's good. What do you want for dinner, There is the leftover
chicken from last night, and I have some creamed corn in the
refrigerator."
"Sounds good, I want to take a shower because I smell like hell."
"Okay, you do that."
Mike comes out of the shower a few minutes later, wrapped in a bath robe,
rubbing his hair. 
"Dinner's ready, honey. You can come in your bathrobe. I am serving it."
Mike comes in, rubbing his hair with a towel "Jesus mom, this looks good.
You're a lot better cook than Everett Winfield."
"Oh boy, I can just imagine."
They eat for a while in silence.
"Mike, You had better run with those shoes, they were not cheap, you hear
me son?"
"Of Course, mom, I know. I think I want to run in the burro races this
summer. Everett told me I would be good for it, but I need to train for
the races, y'know?"
"Okay. That's great that you want to run the races, but you had better
put your money where your mouth is, y'hear."
"Yes mom."
"Your father…He loved to run. He liked to go out early in the morning,
out into the desert. He said he liked the stillness, the solitude
Sometimes I would come along, but often I liked to stay in bed. I
prefered to run at night, when the sun was setting. And then, when I
became pregnant with my little boy, I stopped running. I tried to start
again after he died, but, I just didn't have the heart. It was such an
emotional strain. I didn't know what to do about it. And I had thought it
was going to kill me. But I had you around, I needed to take car of you.
I couldn't spend too much time running. And then, by the time you were
old enough to take care of yourself…well by then I just didn't want to
deal with it."
"Okay, well, you don't need to worry about my slacking off on the
running. I love it, and it's a great way to get away from everything.
Sometimes, Everett has sent me out running by myself, I just feel so
free, it's so, well hell it's internally cleansing."
Mike gets up and clears his plate. "Well," he says, "I have homework to
do and then I want to go to bed. I am really tired."
Mike goes into his room, Carol satys outside, puzzled.
One night, Carol comes to pick up Mike. Mike is working on a she remarks
to Winfield what a change has come over Mike. He is talking differently,
and seems to take more pride in himself. Winfield shrugs. "Hey, he's done
it. I gave him something that he could put his heart into, and he's
performed well."
"Well, he says you gave him the ability to produce something that is
worthwhile."
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Well your doing a good Job Everett."
"Hey, I am his godfather, the only father he's got right now. I feel I
owe it to him. Mike got screwed over by school. He didn't fit in their,
mold, didn't fit in what they wanted him to be. I think Mike has a big
heart, and sometimes it's easy for him to get lost in that big heart.
He's sometimes in a different world. But no less of a valuable world than
the one we are in."
"Yes, Everett, but don't you think that he needs to learn to function in
the real world?"
"PST, what real world? Out there, people want to sell you everything. At
least with this world that he is living in, what he does and what he is
has meaning. There is love in the world that he is living in. Your love
for him, Forest's love for him, my love for him, enters into that world.
He may not be aware of it, but it's there and it's very real. 
"And what is really important is that in that world, he can love. I don't
think that you can love unless you can be yourself. And you can't do
anything that is worthwhile unless you can love. So I think all that I've
done for him is provided an Avenue for him to succeed."
"Well, I am noticing him succeeding, I appreciate it."
The Next day, Winfield picks Mike up at school. "Hey Bub, How was school
today."
"It was alright. Y'know I am not fucking up all of school. There are some
classes that I am doing alright in. That I actually like. Like History, I
love history. I like the story it tells."
Winfield laughs "Oh man, when I was in school, I hated history. My
brother called it 'learning where things was at'"
"Yeah, well, it makes a great story. And what's really great is it really
happened. But I'll tell you what really puzzles me, is why in the hell
there is so much ambiguity in how history is interpreted. For example,
some people say that Abraham Lincoln was 'The Great Emancipator' and that
he was a wonderful idealist. Others say that he emancipated the slaves
for purely political reasons."
"It's a pretty complex issue, huh?"
"Yeah, but it's a little weird to have something that happened, y'know, a
hundred and fifty years ago, be so ambiguous. I mean, there could be a
number of reasons why he freed the slaves. And it already happened, so
there is only one answer."
"Yeah, but we don't know the answer, so there will always be that debate.
Down in the south, they wish the slaves had never been set free. To them,
the blacks should still be slaves. So they have there own interpretation
of what happened during the Civil war."
"I guess you can look at history at any angle depending on who you are.
Maybe our interpretation of history is dependent upon our interpretation
of the present."
"Exactly. When we get home, I need you to help me with something. My car
overheated yesterday, I drove down to Aspen to go to a concert with Sue.
We overheated pulling the pass coming back last night. We need to check
the oil and maybe put some more in."
"Okay."
Winfield pulls into the lot and parks on the side of the hill. "I guess
you want a snack first, eh?"
"Yeah, that would be nice."
"Okay, there's an apple in the fridge. Get me one to." Winfield gets out
of the car and goes around to the back of the truck. Mike goes in to get
the apples, Winfield goes down to the bottom of the hill where the car
is. Mike comes down, picking his way among the boulders and the stump
that litter the lot.
Winfield opens the hood of the car. He surveys it, "Well, I don't think
that we have any major damage." He pulls the dipstick from the crankcase,
wipes it, and dips it back into the crankcase, and pulls it out again. 
"Shit!!, no wonder this thing heated up, there was no oil in it." He
says, "Mike, bring me the funnel that is in the back of my truck."
Mike runs up the hill, looking for the truck. He comes trotting down to
car, lugging an oil can.
"You know, I've read that someday they aren't going to need this stuff
anymore. With electric cars and all that stuff, there is going to be a
lot less demand for cars."
"Then people will be more likely to buy energy efficient cars and stuff
like that. The air will be cleaner, there will be less drilling in the
arctic, less oil spills. It will be a much better for the world when
people care a little more about the earth and what we are doing to it."
"Yeah, but its got to start at home, people need to keep doing what they
can to preserve the earth. People can do a lot. Sometimes I think it's
just a mater of changing the way we think. Spending less on the
acquisition of Material things. People in this country are obsessed with
THINGS. Things don't mean anything. They are incapable of showing any
emotion. They can't make your life any more fulfilling, so why waste all
the time acquiring them. I have better things to spend my money on, like
feed for my animals and, oil for my car. And when you come over here, I
have to feed you, that's another added expense."
"Yeah. So many of my friends think it is SOOO cool to hang out at the
mall, the girls buy stuff and the guys sit around playing video games and
crap like that. Last week, my friend's girlfriend bought a new pair of
shoes. She's already got five pairs. I get away with two pair."
"Yeah, I guess I know what you are talking about. My nephews live back in
this exclusive neighborhood in Illinois. They complain about the consumer
culture out there. Everyone seem to measure things about by what they
have." 
Winfield gestures, with a greasy finger to the car that he's working on.
"Mike, look at that car and ask yourself if you can truly love that
burro."
Mike looks at the car "I guess I can't, it's just a piece of junk, when
you think about it. It's useful junk, but its junk"
Winfield nods, "Yeah, I like the way you put that, it's junk, it doesn't
mean anything unless one uses it to do something else. Once I had a lot
of junk in my house, down in New Mexico. It's still down there. I don't
know what happened to it and I don't care. I'm more interested in people
than things."
Mike and Winfield head up the hill to the house. They go in. 
Mike says "If you're so interested in people than why did you come out
here? There are no people out here. It's just a small, dipshit town"
"Watch the mouth!! Now, out here I can get to know the people I am
around. In the big city, you meet so many people you can't get to know
them. Out here, you can actually talk to people and find out who they
are. There is no rush."
"So you don't like the city"
"No, I love the city, It's a great place, all sorts of interesting people
and places, but Sometimes it chokes me, its an artificial environment,
and it doesn't take me long to say "Alright, I need to get the hell away
from all the crap out here and get to know some real people"
"Where did you live before" asks Mike
"In Albuquerque NM."
"What did you do there?"
"Ah, You know, I was working as a trucker back in Albuquerque. I was
hauling freight around the city. Then I came up here."
"Why did you come up here?"
Winfield shrugs. He stretches out on the couch. "Ah, I just felt like
it."
Sue walks into the house with a briefcase. She notices a pile of papers
on the window seat.
"Everett!!! You made a mess in here, damn it!! I told you to keep it
clean. I cleaned out this joint yesterday."
Winfield rolls his eyes "Ah, It's my damn house, isn't it? I never asked
you to clean it out!"
"Everett!!, Have a little respect."
Mike looks at the mess. "She's right Everett, we've kind of let this
place go to hell."
Everett rises up on one elbow and looks hard at Mike, giving him a hard
look. "We're awful full of opinions, aren't we?"
"Hey man, at least that's the only thing I'm full of!!!"
Mike punches playfully at Winfield, who half rises up, grabbing mike by
the arm and throwing him onto the bed. Mike hollers and buries himself in
Winfield, who grabs him and stands up, tossing him onto the bed gently.
Mike jumps up and grabs a pillow, he whaps it at Winfield, who takes it
and hits Winfield with it.
Sue comes into the room and catches them rough housing. "Hey!!, what are
you guys doing, not in my house you're not rough housing."
Winfield and Mike release each other. Winfield looks at Sue, "But this is
my house."
Mike looks up at Sue, "He's right, Sue, it's his house."
"well, when I'm around no rough housing. Let's have a little lunch."
Mike helps Sue make lunch, while Winfield goes down to the corral. He
sits in the corral, and talks to his burros, he rub their ears. Up in the
house, Sue tells Mike to get Winfield because lunch is ready. Mike goes
running down to the corral, looking for Winfield. 
Winfield is in the corral, patting some of the burros. One of the animals
comes and rubs him in the back. Winfield reaches up and scratches his
ears. 
"Hey Buddy, how's it going old fella."
Mike looks over the corral fence, "Hey, uh, Winfield, Lunch is ready up
at the house."
Winfield looks up, "okay, bub, I am coming." 
"Winfield, what do you find so interesting about the burros. You spend so
much time down there."
"They are my family, Mike, they are my kids. It fascinates me that they
will take care of each other in a way that humans won't. When a jenny is
about to give birth to a foal, the other Jennies will protect her. They
huddle together in the winter so that they all stay warm. Why the hell
won't humans do that."
"I don't know?" Says Mike, "but I do know that Sue is going to kick our
collective ass if we don't eat the lunch that she made for us."
"Yeah, I guess so."
They go up to the house. Mike helps Sue set the table and Winfield comes
to the back of the house. He comes back with a gun, which he holds
pointed down to the ground. 
"We can talk about that later…it's actually not that important. I just
need your check for your dues on the Colorado Burro Racers membership.
And I also have some ideas for the race this summer in Buenie. Just some
changes I want to run by you."
"As long as the rules don't change, I am okay with whatever you want to
implement."
"yeah, Okay. Well I was thinking about introducing a new contest. I
thought that we could, you know, give out a prize for the most creative
pack saddle."
"That would be good idea……Winfield, what do you think would be the best
idea for entertainment."
"I have an old friend, a Banjo player from Canyon City who we could hire
to play at the race."
"Well, that would work. I think that we also should give out prizes for
various people who 
"Mike, Out here, in the mountains, we need a lot of tools to survive.
Some folks don't understand that. So I am going to teach you a little bit
about this gun. First of all, there is no such thing as an unloaded gun.
You always treat this gun as if it's loaded. Even if you are absolutely
sure that there can't possible be a bullet in this gun, you treat it as
if there is a bullet in it."
"Okay, no such thing as an unloaded gun. I think I can remember that!!"
"Yeah. Okay, after lunch, we'll got out and shoot this thing. We'll start
with the BB gun, then we'll move up to the .22, and then the .3030. But
those take time."
They continue to eat. Mike looks around and smiles. "I like it up here."
Winfield grins, "So do I".
Winfield reaches up into the cupboard and takes out a couple of steel
cans. He looks at Sue. "Well, I think that I'll start with the big cans
and then we'll see if he can hit the small shit".
"So, you are going to teach him to shoot?" asks Sue.
"Yeah, it's always healthy for a boy to know how to use a gun, it's just
a skill like any other."
"And you think his mother will approve?"
"Shit!! I never thought with that. Oh hell, it's easier to get
forgiveness than permission."
"I don't know about that, you are teaching some mother's baby to handle a
gun. Some women, they wouldn't be too keen about that."
Mike pipes up "She's my mother, I know her and she's pretty cool about
things like that. I think my father had a few guns. Mom still has them, I
think."
"Well, Okay then. You take the heat on this one."
"Right. I will vouch for you. Let's shoot!!"
Sue gets up, "Everett, I have to leave, I have an appointment down in the
valley this afternoon. I don't want to be late."
Winfield looks up at her, "Well, are you coming back tonight?"
"No, My mother isn't feeling well tonight, so I thought I'd go over there
and help her out."
"Okay, see you later than." They kiss and sue leaves.
Winfield goes into the back of the house and brings out a BB gun. "Mike,
this here is the BB gun, it shoots these little pellets." Everett shows
mike a jar full of BBs "These are good for you to start with, these BBs
They can't really kill you, but they could put an eye out, so you still
have to be careful. And what's the thing you have to remember?"
"There is no such think as an unloaded gun."
"Right."
"And remember, you can't point this thing at people or anything else."
"Right."
They go down the hill, looking for a place in the slope where they can
set up a coffee can. Winfield picks up a rock, which he places in the
bank of the slope. On the Rock he places a can.
"Now, different folks like to shoot different ways." Says Everett.
"Me, I like to pop off standing, but I know guys that kneel, sit, even
lie down. It's all a personal choice."
Everett takes out the gun. He shows mike the lever and how the gun works.
Mike sits down and attempts to shoot at the can. He misses.
He recocks the gun and fires again. 
"I didn't hear anything, did you." Asks Winfield
"No" Says mike.
"It would sound like a little 'ping' on the can."
"Yeah. I know."
"Well," Says Winfield. "Try it again. It should sound like a tap on the
metal. When you can hit that can on a regular basis, we can upgrade to
the .22.
Mike levels the gun again and shoots at the target. He turns around to
face Winfield. "I didn't here anything."
Winfield is uninterested in his success. Mike has the gun pointing at
Winfield's face. "Hey!! You can't do that." Growls Winfield. Mike quickly
lowers the Gun. "You have to be more careful, goddamnit!!."
"Sorry," Mike lowers the gun. 
"It's okay" says Winfield, "Don't worry about it, Just be more careful.
Here Let me see the gun." Mike hands it over, he's nervous.
"Hey, relax okay. This isn't Punishment."
Winfield looks at the gun. He waves Mike out of the way "Stand back" He
says. He levels the gun and pulls the trigger. Nothing happens. He lifts
his head and looks at the gun. Winfield swears and looks at gun.
"Damn, This gun is jammed. Okay, let's see if this one is better."
Winfield raises the gun and fires at the can. There is a loud report and
the can falls off the rock. Winfield the .22 to Mike and goes over and
rights the can. "I don't know what the hell happened." Says Winfield,
"That BB gun must've been Jammed."
"Wow!" Says mike, "this is a lot heavier than the BB gun."
"yeah, I used to sit on the couch, in my apartment in San Francisco and
there was a hole under the fireplace and the rats and mice would come out
under the fireplace. I used sit on my bed with my .22 and pop off those
mice. It drove my landlady crazy."
"Oh Man, That's funny, what would she do?"
"She was this little Chinese woman and She'd say 'You better off, you
better off. I came home one day and told her I lost my job, she'd just
shake her finger at me 'You better off' If I'd told her my mother died,
she would've told me, 'You better off'"
Mike laughs. 
"okay bub. Try hitting' that can with the .22"
Mike Sits down and tries to hit the can again. He raises the gun and
fires. This time, there is a loud PING. He carefully lays the gun on the
ground and runs up to examine the can. He picks it up, looks down through
the hole.
He looks back at Winfield. "Well," Demands Winfield, "didja hit it?"
"Yeah. Let's give it another shot."
Mike goes back to where Winfield is standint and picks up the gun again.
He cocks it and raises it to his shoulder. HE trains the gun on the can. 
"Wait" Says Winfield, "Here is a tip, when you aim, do it on a full
breatgh of air. If you inhale while you are taking aim, the barrel of the
gun will rise."
Mike takes aim again, this time he tries doing what winfield tells him.
HE lays the gun down on the ground and runs up to inspect the can. He
looks back at Winfield.
"Did ya hit it?"
"Yeah, I popped the fucker right in the nose."
"Well, good for you. Take A couple more shots."
"Winfield, Don't the burros go berserk when they hear the gun go off?"
"Well I am trying to calm them down. They need to get used to the sound
of the gun for the fall hunting Season."
"What do you do in the fall?"
"Well, I take people into the back country for hunters. You can make good
money doing that kind of thing. I use jennies because they are more
reliable. They aren't as contankerous as the jacks. They are a little
more, cooperative."
Mike returns to his shooting. He puts a couple more bullets in the can.
"Okay, Mike" says Winfield, "I think that is enough."
Mike stands up, with thg gun pointed down at the ground. Mike and
Winfield make their way up the hill towards the house.
Winfield turns to Mike, "Uh, Mike, go on down and give the animals some
hay. In the tires down there."
Mike nods, and then goes down to the corralls and gives the burros some
hay. Winfield puts the guns away, and comes out to the kitchen. Sue has
been reading a magazine. She looks up at him "Well," she demands "how did
it go?"
Winfield shrugs, "alright, I guess. He needs to learn a little bit about
safety with a gun. But once he takes care of that, he'll be okay."
A Honking horn at the top of the grade signals that Carol has come to
pick up mike. Mike sticks his head up into the door. "my mom is here, you
want to come up and talk to her?" Asks mike.
Winfield nods and walks up the hill. Carol sits in her truck, reading.
Mike Scrambles into the cab, next to her. Carol rolls the window down and
Winfield leans on the window. He pulls out his wallet and pulls out a
check that he has written. "Here, I have a check for Mike, for his work
here. He's been foing a good job. He Still has some things to learn, but
that will come in time."
Carol Nods. 
"Just one other thing" says Winfield, "this money that I am giving him. I
want it to go into a savings account, alright. I don't want it to be
spent on, sugar crap. It's not worh it."
"Right" Carol puts her car into gear and rolls out onto the road. She
suddenly slams on the breaks and backs up to where Winfield is still
standing. "Winfield, make an appointment, would you, to see me? I want to
hear about how you resolved your debt issues and make sure you have a
good plan. It's great that you were able to pay that damn thing off, but
you need to ensure that it does not happen again."
"Okay," says Winfield.
Winfield goes into the house. He scratches his ear, and walks out to the
front porch. Sue is reading at the table. Winfield sits down on the bench
that is out on the front porch. In the early evenin light, he stands out,
looking into the valley. Sue comes up and rubs his shoulders "How's it
been going, something bothering you?"
"Yeah, just, some things are bothering me. I guess.
"Well, what?"
"Something, I guess I better tell you. I killed someone, long ago, and
went to jail for it. This guy was a really nasty guy, he beat his son,
and he didn't feed him properly. His son, Mal, was a good friend of mine.
He says that the old man used to chain him to a pip at night and beat him
with a broom stick. Mal left home at 16, and then went to jail for
robbery. In jail he was able to take courses that enabled him to get a
high school diploma. He turned his life around and when he got out, he
began to do odd jobs. The old man had been a landscaper and when he
wasn't beating Mal in a drunken fit, he taught Mal the trade. Mall says
the only class in high school that he ever got above a C in was a botany
class, which he aced. So poor old Mal starts taking odd jobs as a
gardener. This kid was smart, he bought some bonds, made the most of what
he was able to get. He saved, and all that. He got a good break. But he
still had these scars from his father. He kind of had that forgive and
forget attitude. He lived with it. Well, Mal got Married and had a few
kids and all that fun stuff. He turned his life around. He saved, he
invested a little. He had a blossoming landscaping business down in
Denver. And then one day the old man showed up and wanted some money. 
"Mal knew what kind of money his dad was making with his landscaping
business. There was no way he could be short of money, but here he was
begging mal for money. Needless to say, Mal didn't want to give him a
damn cent. But his father kept coming around for money."
"It's hard to believe that there are that kind of people in the world."
"Yeah, But there are. Anyhow, Mal finally called the cops on the old man,
and had him arrested for trespassing."
"The court let him off pretty easy. I don't know what happened. I think
there was this…perception that he could not be the evil mother that his
son claimed he was because he was such a clean cut guy. He had a whole
army of clients and employees saying what a wonderful guy he was. So he
walked free. My friend was furious. How could the law let this monster
walk free?
"Well, poor Mal began to talk about killing his father. He hated that old
man. When he would come over to my house at night, and we'd drink beer
and watch football. We were pretty lonely, back then. Mal had a
fascination with guns, and I had a few. Mostly old weapons, beautiful
guns. I had one from the revolutionary war, and old pistol that was
nickel plated, just gorgeous… And Mal said he knew a guy who wanted to
buy a gun like that. Well, I was a fool enough to believe him, so I gave
him the gun and told him if he got me a good price, he would have a 20%
commission. He accepted. 
"Well, that was really stupid in two ways. A, that's a crime because Mal
had been convicted of robbery. He was a felon, I supplied a gun to a
felon, but I didn't realize it at the time. I had been working as a video
engineer at the time and I came home one night and there And then the Gun
was used in a murder"
"So, what do you expect me to do now? Is this your confessional? Am I
supposed to absolve you of your sins?"
"No." Winfield is disgusted, "I don't do that stuff. I just wanted to,
let you know what was going on. I felt, dishonest about the whole thing.
I can't really go on with out you knowing. If you ant to turn me in,
that's fine."
"I'm not going to turn you in, Winfield, You've done to much for me, to
much for my family. I believe that even the most severe crimes can be
forgiven. You acted out of your sense of right, I don't think that you
can be punished for that crime. I am not saying that what you did was
right, but you were not wrong either. This was a bad person that you
killed, it was a not a good person."
"Yes, but I killed him."
"So you killed him, my father killed Germans in World War II. Probably
most of the German's that my father killed were family guys. Good
Lutherans, church going, God fearing men. And My father shot them across
the head. So don'' worry about it."
Winfield looks at her, "Well, what o you want me to do?"
"Nothing, Winfield, there is nothing you can do. You can't bring this guy
back to life, and you can't make me condemn you for what you did. If you
want to turn yourself in, go ahead. Bu I Would venture that if you went
back in, you would just escape. And I think you are right in your guess
that the guards let you go. Besides, Winfield, you didn't even kill the
guy, your friend did."
"Yeah, but I helped, Sue, I helped take a man's life. I didn't want to go
to Vietnam, so I did EVERYTHING I could to avoid going there. I had a bum
knee and I ran up and down the stairs at the local High School football
stadium, where my parents lived."
"Yeah, well, so what."
"That's how repulsive I found the idea of taking a man's life."
"But Winfield, you didn't take a man's life, it was an accident. It was
all a mistake."
Winfield looks up at Sue. "So you are not going to hold this against me?"
"Winfield, I don't care, I don't give a damn. Just don't think about it."
Winfield scratches his neck, "well, hell, is this vindication. Have I
been absolved of My sins?"
"No, but, I have too much admiration for you to really want to do
something about it. You are a good man, Everett Winfield."
Everett shrugs. "okay," he smiles, "Than I guess I shouldn't worry about
it?"
"Heavens no!! What's the point?" 
"I just felt…I don't know…I always felt that that something was wrong,
going on like this. I felt I was being Dishonest."
Sue scratches her ear. "Ah, it's not a big deal. It is in the past. It
doesn't matter."
Everett shrug's again "okay".



One afternoon, Winfield is hard at work fixing a saddle when Carol comes
in to talk to him.
"Winfield, I want to talk you." She says.
"What" Says Winfield
"Well, Mike has changed so much."
"In what way?"
"He's so much more mature. He is talking differently, walking
differently. He's doing things in school that we thought he couldn't do,
I want to know what you've done."
"No I don't" says Winfield, "I feel that I need to do more. "
"Well" says Carol, "if you want to do more, there is volunteer work at
the theater that you can do."
"I'd like that" says Winfield.
Central to the talk are the effects, and after-effects of a local priest
that is suspected of molesting boys. It hypothesized that Carol's
husband, Forest, was one of his victims and that the after effects of the
experience were what drove him to his death. Winfield knew him well and
knew the priest that molested him. Forest was a burro racer and Winfield
and Sue both knew him well. Winfield and Sue are also devastated by the
experience.
One day, Mike comes home with a note from school. He had been fighting.
Carol confines him to his room and then takes the case up with Winfield.
Hannah is up at Winfield's ranch again
"Winfield, he's been fighting again, in trouble at school. This time it
sound like he started the fight, I don't know how, I don't care. But he
won't listen to me, he will listen to you."
Winfield takes a walk with Mike and talks to him. He says "Hey, what's
all this stuff about you fighting in school. I thought we talked about
this stuff, I though we weren't going to do that crazy fighting anymore."
"I know Winfield, but it's hard sometimes not to blow up when the kids
start talking trash about you."
"Yeah, I know what you're talking about, they used to talk trash about me
in school too."
"What did you do?"
"Well, when I was a little kid, I used to react. I'd call people names,
pick fights, and all that little kid stuff. But when I got older, and
more mature, I learned to live with it, and sometimes I enjoyed it
actually."
"Why?"
"Because it was attention. It was pretty pathetic and eventually I grew
out of it. The problem with being teased is that it gives the person who
is being teased the feeling that they are not one of the gang. That can
be a really awful feeling as you well know. But the point is to, well, to
sort of "drop out" of the gang. Think about it. Do you really need them,
do you really even want them. If they treat you so badly, why do you want
to be in with them, why do you want to even trade blows."
"I guess it's so stupid."
"What you need is something outside of school, outside of the 'system'.
If you can't succeed in school, you've got to find out a way to succeed
outside of school. I think you've got a lot of talent in the burro
ranching and I think we are making that work." 
"So what does that mean?"
"That means that you have something that is worth putting time and effort
into. It's outside of school, it has nothing to do with school."
"That makes it easier to get into, for me. I hate school, I hate doing
things that the teachers tell me to do."
"Yeah, well, that's okay up to a point, but you need to have something to
put your heart and soul into. If it's not going to be school, than make
it something else, burro racing, dirt biking, music. It can be anything,
but you have to be willing to work for it."
"So what do you think I should work for?"
"I think you should work for anything you want to work for. Find it, it's
a question that only you can answer. Make it something you love, make it
something that you are willing to sacrifice for. Search for your gift.
The world is a puzzle and you have to find which pieces belong to you. In
the meantime, we're gonna get you ready to bust your ass on a burro,
we'll turn you into a burro racer yet."
Mike's eyes light up
"But in the mean time you have been doing pretty well on them dirt bike
races haven't ya?"
Mike says "Yeah, I have"
"Well, remember that Bike I showed you, we have to set you up on that and
get you running. On that thing, you're gonna have to bee in pretty good
shape to handle that big old bike, so you better start running too."
"Yessir."
"And don't give me any yessir crap. I ain't your father, I'm your
friend."
"Okay, two-dad"
"That's more like it."
Winfield takes Noah to his house and shows him a burro, named Lorado.
"See that red Jack"
"Yeah"
"You keep running, putting your heart into something worthwhile, keep at
that dirt bike and I'll give him to you."
"You mean it" 
"Sure, his names Lorado and he's a really good jack. He's full grown, you
can ride him, pack him, and he's a damn good racing' burro. He has his
faults, just like any other animal, just like you and me. That old
expression "I'm only Human" should be changed, it should be 'I'm only
animal' and Loredo is only animal, so he's not perfect"
"I know what you mean"
"But he's a good jack, and I think he can teach you a lot, so starting
this weekend, when you are off of school, you and I can take him out and
see what the old bastard can do and, what's more important is that we see
what you can do."
"Ok, anything I should do to start getting ready for this adventure we
are about to embark on?"
"Yeah, start running. There's gonna be a lot of running in your future."
Noah sighs and looks up.
"Sorry, bub, that's the price of the ticket, you want to play the game,
you have pay for the ticket, you got to be in shape, boy. You want top
play, you have to pay.
"OK Winfield."
"Besides, running is good for you, it will make you into a man. It is
also cleansing, it takes all the crap that is stuck on the inside of your
body and washes it out, cleansing it."
"Ok, I'll do it."
"good, now I'm counting on you for this one, buddy, so don't let me
down."
One day, Mike come up to the burro ranch and Winfield had a form for him
to sign. "Mike, this is for you, it's your form to join the Pack Burro
racing Association."
Mike looks at the paper. "$25 bucks, for joining the Assocation?"
"Yeah, it primarily goes to the dinner and stuff like that."
"What dinner?"
"We have a huge dinner at the end of the season. Prizes are given out and
there is a lot of other fun stuff."
"Sounds like a hell of a show."
"Yeah. Well, times a'wastin' you go down and get that burro and we'll
work with him, take him out to the mailbox."
Mike goes down the hill and comes up the hill with Loredo. "are we going
to put a saddle on him?" he asks
Winfield Shakes his head. "No, you don't need all that fancy hardware
yet, just a rope."
"Okay, Lets go."
Winfield and Mike go out on a run. 
"Mike, wrap that lead rope around your waist. Lean back into the rope and
let him pull you. But don't lean into it to much."
Mike begins to lean into the rope, letting the burro pull him. He turns
to Winfield "This ain't so hard."
Mike runs with the rope and the burro out to the mailbox, where he picks
up the Mail. Winfield gives him pointers as he runs.
"Mike, you have to stay behind the animal, it won't work to just pull him
along. You see, burro racing is as much about the Psychology of the
animal as anything else. The burro will cooperate most if he thinks that
it is his idea. What you have to do is to control where he is going, make
it so that the most appealing way for him to run is to run where you want
to go."
"Okay, how do I do that.?"
"Well, for one thing, quit running up by his head, get down by his hip."
"But you always told me that the way to control them best was to get up
by their heads."
"Yes, but at the momentt, you don't need a lot of directional control.
They know how to run in s straight line. All of these burro races are on
rails or roads, and these animals are pretty good about folowing the
trail. The most important thing is to keep down there by his him. You can
pop him with a stick or some other implement, like the knots on the
rope."
"Okay, everett, I'll try."
Mike begins to run again. Everett Calls out Instructions to him as he
runs. When the Burro runs to the left, Everett tells mike to pull the
burro in.
"you've got to counter the burro. Also, don't pull out on the cope
constantly. There are times that you have to pull on the rope and there
are times when you have to release."
Mike tries it agsin, and this tim he is a little more successful. 
"There you Go, you are getting it."
Mike begins to run and Everett follows him. "Go, man, go, you've got it.
Just make sure he doesn't get away from you."
They get to the hill, and Mike lets the burro run out. 
"No, damnit!!" yells Everett, "Don't be such a goddamn fool. You're
letting the animal run away from you. In a down hill situation, you want
the animal behind you.
Mike gets out in front of the animal and Everett follows.
"Alright, now stick your arms out and block him, don't let him get away
from you."
Mike sticks his arms out and looks over his shoulder, observing where the
animal is that he is leading. He shifts his body back and forth, blocking
the burro.
Everett runs down the opposite side of the road, shouting instructions
and encouragement to Mike.
"There you go, big guy, you are getting it."
At the mailbox, Everett gets his mail. "You want to ride home, Mike?"
"Hell no!!!"
"Okay big shot. But I'll take the burro home. You can just run."
Mike nods and begins to run back up the road. 
"No, kid, lets run out across the desert"
They run farther down the road and continue along the fence till they get
to a break, where they hit out across the desert on the way home. 
"Let me show you the secrets here" says Everett, if the burro gets away
from you, pull it in a circle. You have to use your head with these
animals because they are so big. You can't out pull them, so you have to
outsmart them."
"Is that easy?"
"It can be. If you know their habbits and their instincts and how to use
them to your advantage."
"Enlighten me Everett."
"Well, they are herd animals. In the wild, burros will stick together,
with each other. This is for their protection and for their safety. One
burro can be picked off pretty easily by a predator, say 


"Next week, there is a burro race down in Montrose, I think you are ready
for it. You have been training for it and you are really strong."
Mike begins to stay out of trouble more and more. He comes right home
from school, begins to stay out of trouble. He takes his responsibilities
with the Burro Ranch very seriously. He admires Winfield and becomes more
and more concerned with keeping his trust. He begins to become very
conscientious. He makes a real effort and gains the admiration of
Winfield.
Sometimes, Winfield and Mike close the Ranch, and go off into the hills
together. Out there, they hike, experiment with Winfield burro designs,
and talk about politics. Winfield begins to instruct Mike the values that
he believes in. Nonconsumption and respect for the land are very
important to Winfield and he tries to pass them on to Mike. 
Once Day, Carol drops mike off at Winfield's ranch on a sunny morning,
and Winfield has a burro all ready in the yard. With Mike's help, they
saddle the big beast and walk off into the mountains. 
Panting up the slopes, Winfield and Mike don't say much. Finally Winfield
asks Mike "Whatcha thinkin'?"
Mike stops and looks out at the valley below.
"Well," he says, thinking, "I know there is a huge fight in this valley
to keep the City of Denver and Aurora from taking all the water in the
valley, and I know that you and my mother and a lot of your friends are
really trying to fight it, but I am not sure that I understand why."
"Well, says Winfield, "water is important, especially out here, in the
desert. I think that 70, or 80% of your body is water, so you need a lot.
And people use it for all sorts of things, washing, watering, drinking,
cooking, you name it. It's very important and the people in the big
cities that are taking it need it, but we need it too. We have to cook
with it and drink it and use it to wash ourselves and use it to water our
stock and our gardens. The echo system out here needs it as well. It's a
desert, there is not much in the way of water out here as it is, so to
sell it off to the big suburbs and major cities is ludicrous."
"So why do people do it? I mean, if it's crazy, the way you say it is,
why the hell waste all the money and energy, it just seems so pointless
to do it."
Winfield turns to him, "You want to tell me what else is pointless in
this crazy world. How much money is this society wasting on little things
that we don't need. I admit to being a little bit of a pack rat, and I
have a lot of crap in that storage bin. But it is not that much and I
need some of it. Y'know, sometimes things have sentimental value, but
sometimes things are just pointless. Sometimes this stuff scares me."
"How?"
"You take a baseball glove or a nice lamp that I picked up at the store
somewhere. And I think, this thing can't give me any pleasure, it's a
piece of junk...it doesn't do anything for me. It can't comfort me when I
am upset, it can't offer any advice, it can't tell me stories. It's a
piece of shit."
They go camping together and Mike learns about low impact camping and
about caring for the land. Winfield also teaches Mike that doing things
for other people is very important. Winfield tells Mike that there is too
much selfishness in the world, that people needs to do something for
other people.
Winfield asks Mike what he and his mother are doing with the money that
Winfield is paying to Carol. Mike says that his mother is putting it all
in a bank account for him. Winfield urges Mike to use the money to help
the world. Donate it something to help someone. Winfield tells Mike that
the world only works when people do things for other people. Mike and
Winfield also discuss girls, and how to deal with them.
"hey Everett" Says mike, one night as their campfire dies down, "what did
you do when you were a kid to attract girls. I mean, I thought that
they'd all think I was tough shit when I was using drugs, but they
didn't. When word got out that I had fucked myself up, they all would
have nothing to do with me."
"Yeah, well that's the problem with adolescence, sometimes it can be
asshole essence. Kids are unsure of themselves and so when they get a
chance to put some other kid down and tell him what a little shit he's
been, they will because then they feel superior. It's a human instinct,
everybody does it. I think we like to site there and say "Oh, that person
is not a good person because they do whatever. I think it's also fear, a
fear that they will turn into that person."
Despite his booming business, Winfield is losing money. So much time and
energy is put into his volunteer work that he begins to lose customers.
He finally has to borrow some money from Carol. He is late on his rent.
Carol is understanding, but urges him to find a way to get more money. He
takes a part time job as a bouncer in a local bar. He provides a false
social security number. He is now extremely busy, working all day at the
burro Ranch, late into the night at the bar, and volunteering in the
mornings and on weekends at the local theater. One evening, he falls
asleep at the dinner table. Carol is puzzled by Winfield's behavior. She
becomes worried about his health and begins to press Mike to see what she
can learn about Winfield as a person. Mike is unresponsive. 
Carol finally confronts Winfield. One evening, she comes down to
Winfield's Ranch with a casserole. She tells Winfield that Mike is
visiting his grandparents and that she wants to talk to him, so she has
invited herself for dinner. Winfield laughs and says "You didn't invite
yourself, I invited you." Winfield sets his table for the two of them,
and the two of them eat, gossiping about the theater. As Winfield rises
to clear the table, Carol reveals her real motive for coming. She wants
to know why Winfield is working so hard with his charity work. At first,
Winfield protests. He insists he is fine and is working because he likes
the work. He tells Carol "The world only works when people reach out to
help each other". But Carol is not buying it. She pressures him further.
Insisting that there he must have some ulterior motive. She promises him
that she will not hold it against him. She just wants the truth. 
Winfield rubs his face and looks at her. "I am wanted by the police. I
bet every fucking pig in Colorado would love to get their hands on me,
and throw me in the slammer where I belong. But I can't go to jail, I
would die. Those walls shut out the air, shut out the sun. I am sorry
that I assisted in taking someone's life, but hell, the bastard got what
he deserved, he beat this kid, he broke the bond of trust that should
have existed between the father and the child. I guess that we didn't
take the most, shall we say "Christian" approach to the affair, a little
bit of Vigilante Justice isn't the most healthy thing in the world, but
the motherfucker asked for it!!"
Carol is silent, "So you are a wanted Murder?"
"Well, actually, I am a wanted for escaping from a prison in Canyon City.
I was put in jail. We worked out a plea bargain, we would plead guilty in
exchange for not getting the death penalty. I was sentenced to life in
prison. No parole, I was in there for good.
I would have gone insane probably, I hate being locked in forever. But
they had a program where the convicts are allowed to take a burro and
break it. These are wild burros that have been caught out in the wild.
They are living legends. These burros have taught me so much about life
and love, they became my friends. They never judge you on where you have
been, they only Judge you on how you treat them. The hold a grudge, but
only if you give them a reason. I understand their disaffection with
being in captivity. But I also understand that they will trust someone
who is willing to understand them. So I worked with them, learned that I
had to give them everything that I wanted them to give 
me. I learned that anything worth doing takes work, whether it is raising
a child, taming a wild burro, or trying to make your way through this
crazy world."
Carol looks at him, and picks up his hand, which is lying on his thigh.
"So, these hands have taken a life, huh?"
Winfield nods "yes, they have taken a life."
Carol drops them, "or you could argue that they just put a person out of
his misery. People who take advantage of children are miserable people, I
almost feel sorry for them. Who knows what pain inside him would have
driven them to hurt the innocent."
Winfield looks at her, "What do you mean."
"Maybe, that schmuck deserved to die. But maybe, what he did was the
result of something in him that drove him to it, some pain inside him. I
am not trying to let him off the hook, but I am trying to understand why
he did what he did." 
"Well, maybe you need someone to understand why you did what you did."
"Carol, I killed somebody, I took a life, committed murder."
"Thirty years ago, you bumped somebody off and you escaped from jail,
you've spent thirty years trying to regain your life. You've done a damn
good job."
"You're letting me off pretty easily."
"Because I would have done the same thing if I were in your shoes."
"You can't kill a fly without feeling bad."
"I could kill an abusive father. I had a friend who got the chair for
killing his father. I've always felt bad about that. I knew what an
asshole his father was, I knew the old man deserved what he got."
"So, does that mean that killing somebody is justified if your victim is
a dickhead anyway."
"Well, the world is better off without him isn't it. I mean, who wants a
drunken, dipshit like that."
Winfield Shrugs.
Carol strokes his hair. "Well Everett, is there anything I can do to help
you. I mean the law is out after you aren't they?"
Winfield shakes his head. "Yeah, the law is after me, but I don't let
that bother me. They are probably not interested in an old fucker like
me."
"Why not, I mean, you killed somebody Everett, you're lucky that you
didn't get a ride in ol'sparky"
Everett winces "Yeah, but I left so long ago, it doesn't matter to them.
They have other things to worry about. More pressing matters. The guards,
they knew I was itching to leave, they knew the circumstances around my
crime, and they knew that the man I killed deserved what he got."
"So you think they kinda looked the other way when you made your break?"
"Exactly. I also think that judge, the one that didn't give me the death
penalty, knew something about the circumstances under which I committed
the murder, so he didn't give me the death penalty, and the guards were
aware if that. I also was a trusted prisoner. I didn't get in trouble, I
didn't complain, I didn't fight. I just minded my own damn business. I
went to school in there, got a degree in music history."
"Jeez, I wonder what the town would think if they found out what you've
done."
"I am not so sure I want to find out. I am afraid of that."
"Well, Is there anyway I can help you?"
"No, it's best if you don't get involved. This is stuff you probably
don't understand and don't want to understand."
"Everett, damn-it-to-hell, you need help, what do you think they will do
to you if they catch you. Do you think that they will look at your
service record, do you think they care one damn about who you are. To
them, you are just a number and that's all they care about."
"I know what they will do to me if they catch me, they will put me back
in the slammer and take away all the privileges that I have earned, take
away my parole, make me into a dummy. Maybe they will put me in Solitary.
I'll die!! I can't go back there. I ran from their once, I am not going
back."
"Nobody said that you were going go back to jail. I am going to help you
in anyway I can Everett. To me you've changed who you are, become a
better person. Besides, you've done so much for the town, become such a
fixture of the town's infrastructure, I don't think anybody would turn
you in."
"You really think that?"
"Oh yeah. Don't you realize what a fixture of our town you've become,
Winfield, don't you understand that, if you left, there would be a huge
hole in the fabric of this town?"
"Yeah, I guess I understand that. Still, I'm not sure, Murder is a pretty
stiff charge."
"Everett, its not like you killed the president of the United States.
Like I said before, you did the world a favor by killing this little
shithead."
"Well, I guess that settles it. I'm a hero."
"Everett, stop this, You didn't even kill anybody, it's not a big deal."
"But I helped to kill somebody."
"You've changed, you've been more effective outside jail than you could
ever have been in jail. You mean so much to this town, don't you
understand that."
"Tell that to the Colorado Department of Corrections."
"Everett, the DOC isn't here and isn't concerned with you because for all
the know, your in Canada or Tahiti. It doesn't matter."
Everett sighs, "Ok."
"Everett," Says Carol, "see this as a chance to redeem yourself, you've
done something awful, but you've also done a lot of good." And the good
is what counts, the bad, ah, who cares. And don't fool yourself, I don't
think that I am letting you off easy. There's hell to pay for murder, but
you're paying it, so you're clean. Now, lets have some food."
She turns into the kitchen, and Winfield goes in to help her. He begins
to cut up some vegetables. There is silence. Carol suddenly turns around
and grabs Winfield around the waist. She loosens her grip and he turns
around and holds her against his chest. 
"Winfield, I love you."
Mike comes in "Hey mom, that's enough, let's get a little bit of food
cooking here, I am hungry."
Winfield lets Carol go and playfully chases Mike out of the room.
"Well," Says Winfield as they sit down to dinner, "I registered to vote
today."
"That's great!, now you can start attending town meetings and making your
voice heard."
"That was kind of the point. I feel that it is my responsibility to
participate in government. In a democracy, things only work when people
participate in the government."
"But Everett, didn't someone ask you for a social security number when
you registered to vote?"
"Yeah, I made something up."
"Everett! They will trace that Number, what do you think will happen
then?"
"Ahh, I don't know. But we'll cross that bridge when wee come to it,
there is not a lot I can do about that now."
"Yes, but you can't just be totally flippant about it, you need to think
about these things."
"yeah, yeah. I know. But at the same time, I'm not REALLY worried about
it. There are more important things to think about. But I have to be
careful, I can't just write this off as not a big deal, they are going to
be after me."
That night, Everett and Carol lie in bed. Carol falls asleep, but Everett
stays awake, thinking about what effect his actions will have on those
around him. The rain drums on the window pain, leaving him to wonder just
what will become of him.
As a newly registered voter, Winfield becomes an outspoken member of the
community. He never misses town meetings, never misses an opportunity to
express his opinions on what the town is doing. He consistently opposes
the measures proposed to encourage recycling, but he is an outspoken
supporter of the public park system and is always ready to increase its
funding. 
As Winfield and Mike continue to work together their friendship becomes
stronger. Mike is interested in old rock'n'roll and Winfield begins to
share knowledge with the boy, playing old Credence and Hendrix records.
Together with Carol, he begins to expose Mike to the world of hippiedom.
They teach him about the old rock and roll, about communism, and about
the importance of peace and love. 
Mike is interested in the political issues that Winfield is interested in
and they spend a lot of time discussing those. Winfield talks about the
importance of conservation, of preserving wilderness.
On weekends, they spend a lot of time together, playing games and doing
stuff at home. Winfield is very into reading, and tries to get Mike to
read. He exposes Mike to Kerouac, to Edward Abbey, Jack London and to a
lot of the other great writers. He pressures Mike to try and read a book
every week. Mike though, is more interested in music. Winfield has all
sorts of records and exposes him to Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and other
great music of the era.
But Winfield makes every effort to steer Mike from drugs, he tells Mike
that the consequences of using drugs are drastic. Winfield tells storied
of some of his friends who have died from drug overdoses. One friend of
Winfield's committed suicide after spending a life using drugs and
alcohol. Winfield tells Mike "It's just really ugly, things can get
desperate." Winfield warns Mike about the consequences of making a god
out of something. Winfield tells Mike "There comes a point when you loose
control of these things, when the drugs that you once controlled now
control you."
"I knew a guy once who had a very cruel father. The old man beat his son.
Can you imagine a father who beats his son?! The son eventually killed
the old man. But what made the old man treat the son so badly? The old
codger was a drug addict, he had screwed himself over so badly with drugs
and alcohol that he lost control over who he was and treated his son
badly. I can't imagine being such a miserable person that I would need to
beat a young boy. What the hell would posses a man to do that?!"
"So are you are saying that if I continue to use drugs, I'll become and
abusive father?
"I'm saying that the there are things that those drugs can do to you that
would make you do things that you don't want to do, that I don't want you
to do and that your mother doesn't want you to do, and they can land you
in a lot of trouble."
"I try Winfield, but there are the kids at school…"
"oh bullshit, I'm not going to fall for that!! Are you gonna tell me that
you don't have enough discipline to stay off of drugs because they are
gonna think you are a puss. If that's the kind of friends you have boy,
than those aren't your friends."
"They are all I have."
"Bullshit, buddy, you have me, you have your mother. I bet you rustle up
some kids at school and you'll find that there are plenty of people who
are willing to hang out with you and be your friends, if only you would
reach out to them. Say 'hey, My name is Mike and I can ride a bike real
good and I like…whatever…' it works with the girls too."
As he continues to volunteer, Winfield becomes more and more well liked
around town. He is always there for people who want something done. He is
good with cars and is willing to help people fix their cars. He baby-sits
for people, takes the trash out for his neighbors, and is always willing
to lend a hand to anyone who needs it. He is especially helpful to Carol.
He does the dishes, laundry, and helps her clean her Ranch. 
When Winfield returns to town, he beings to instruct Mike on proper
procedures for running the Ranch. Without telling Mike too much, Winfield
begins to prepare him to take on the Ranch on his own. He begins to
transfer the Ranch over to Carol. 
One day, Winfield and Mike head over the mountains and up Mt. Harvard.
High on the slopes, Winfield looks at mike. Everett finds a boulder along
the path. He sits down and Mike sits beside him.
"Mike, you are what, 17 now?"
"Yeah that's right."
"When I was about your age, My parents moved from Georgia up to Illinois.
Now, for 17 years, I had been hanging' out with the same kids, going' to
the same school. So my parents left me down there, alone. I bunked with a
friend and stayed there until I graduated. The point here is that I
learned during that year the importance of taking care of myself. I had a
little income from some stocks that I had bought with the help of my old
man. But I had to manage the money that I got from it, see. I had to
decide what was smart to purchase and what was a damned waste of money. I
also had to decide what to purchase when. I had to cook for myself, I had
to decide what repairs I needed to have done to my car, and what repairs
I could let slide, y'know."
"Whatcha trying to tell me, Everett." Asks mike.
"Well, you're sorting out a lot of things in your life and you have to
figure a lot of things out. One of the things you have to figure out is
how to take care of yourself. A lot of young men don't know how to do
that. They need to call daddy and ask him for money, they need to call
mommy and have her iron their shirts for them. There's nothing wrong with
asking other folks for help, once in a while, but you should also learn
to take care of yourself."
"How do I do that, Everett. Do I move out and try to make it on my own?"
"No, there is no need to do that. But you need to start thinking for
yourself and acting for yourself. Take for example, money. You should
start taking care of your own money. I've been giving your mother the
money that I have been paying you for your work for me, but I think I
want to start giving that money to you, and letting you do what you want
with it. If you are smart, you will use it for smart things, like
savings. But if you are stupid, you might use it for something stupid,
like drugs. When you first came to work for me, you were using drugs and
I was afraid of you using the money that I paid you for drugs, that's why
I gave it to your mother. But I am not afraid of that now, I think you
are smarter than that now."
"Well, you started me running, y'know, and I've been working on my bike.
I have a lot going for me, and I can't afford to lose it by doing
something stupid."
"Well, okay, here is some money"
Everett reaches into his jacket and pulls out an envelope, "here is the
money that I want to pay you. It's cash. I want you to do something smart
with it, Okay? Save it, invest it, but don't spend it all in one place,
don't blow it 
"right."
"Listen, I might have to leave here soon, I would have to go off
somewhere to take care of some business, elsewhere. I don't know when
I'll have to go, where I'll be going, or even if I have to go. It's all
up in the air. But I trust you. I think you can take care of the ranch by
yourself. And Sue and your mother will always be around to help you."
"I think I can handle it, Everett."
"I think you can too, but don't bet to cocky. People always say that men
have a tendency not to go for help. They say that we want to be
independent and never ask directions, never call somebody else to fix
things, etc. But I am telling you not to fall into that trap. Use your
head, have the humility to know when you are in over your head. When you
were in school, and having problems with grades and getting into fights,
it sounds like you never wanted to ask your mother or anyone else for
help, y'know. And that's okay for a little while, but if you take it to
far, it actually becomes immaturity."
"That makes sense."
Everett gets up, "Well," he says "We'd better get moving up the slope. We
can't stay here all night."
Mike and Everett work their way further up the slope. At a little flat
below the mountain, they drive the burro's picket stake into the ground
and dig out a little packet of sandwiches."
Everett munches on a sandwich and gestures up the slope. "There it is
mike, your 14er. You may not get into Harvard, but you can at least climb
it.
Winfield meets with Chief Walter and asks him for advice. Walter tells
Winfield that the best thing to do would be to sit tight for now. The
authorities haven't caught up with him yet. Winfield agrees, but he's
still uncomfortable. He returns to the hills again, this time alone. He
ponders his options. If he's caught, he'll go behind bars for a long
time. He doesn't want to do that. He decides that the best thing to do IS
to sit tight and wait for the authorities to move. Of course, he hopes
they won't make any moves at all.
Winfield is working one night at the bar, when a man comes in and asks to
speak to the Manager. The Manager is not available, so the man leaves a
message. The man is a representative of the IRS, here to investigate
fraudulent use of a social security #. The same social security numbers
that Winfield gave the Bar when they hired him. Winfield for a moment
lost in concentration, he doesn't know what to do. 
Winfield says that the Boss is away and the IRS agent leaves. Winfield
becomes worried. He knows now that the authorities not only have clues to
lead them to where he is, but they also have another charge to levy
against him. He begins to ponder what he should do. Winfield goes back
and quits, He apologizes for not giving the two-week notice, and leaves. 
He goes home to talk to Carol. She asks him what he will do. He doesn't
know, he is considering leaving town, but doesn't know which way is safe.
He is afraid that the others will give away where he is. Carol gets
angry. She tells him that he doesn't appreciate who he is, and how much
he means to the town. She says that by being afraid that the town will
turn him in, he underestimates how much they care about him, and how much
he means to them. Mike is sitting on the couch listening to all this and
backs up Carol. He suggests that he turn himself in. Carol won't hear of
it. She tells him that he has come to far. To give up now would be to
surrender all that he has worked for. All the times that they have spent
together would go down the drain. Winfield angrily asks her what she
expects to happen to the good times if he has to run. At least it is easy
for her to visit him in Jail. 
Carol says that he's missing the point. His success, to her, has been
leaving his past behind. To surrender would be to cave into the past.
Winfield argues that to surrender would be to face the past, not to
surrender to it. But Carol says that he has already faced the past, by
changing who he is. 
Winfield asks her if she doesn't think that he has been running from the
past. Carol says that he has been running from the past, but there is
nothing wrong with that. His past is something he needs to escape and he
has escaped it.
The town's people are dumbstruck, and don't know what to do. Finally, one
man stands up and says "Well, I don't care who is after Winfield, I am
not going to cooperate with them, Winfield has done to much for this town
for us to betray him by turning him in." 
The town leaders come to the front of the room. "We think Winfield's done
too much for this town for us to turn him in. We are friends in this
community, we help each other, and we make sacrifices for each other. If
anybody has shown us that, its Everett Winfield. We don't want him to
have cast his pearls before swine."
A woman Stands up "Winfield, we really don't care about your past.
Everybody in this room has something they've done, some sins on their
soul. Nobody is clean. You've done to damn much for this town not to
deserve our help."
The townspeople agree and unanimously vote for an effort to help
Winfield. People being to stand up, one after another, and say all the
things that Winfield has done for them. They all pledge their support for
Winfield.
Winfield is touched. "Jeez guys," he says "I didn't realize I was that
popular, well, I think the best thing for me to do is to leave, at least
for a while. I won't tell you where I am going, that way the town won't
have to lie to the authorities." Winfield walks out of the town hall, the
town applauds. 
As Winfield walks out of the room, Chief Walter stops him. 
"Ok bub, whatcha gonna do now."
Winfield scratches his head "I don't know Chief, I guess I am going to
roll out of town tonight. I have my burro. I guess I'll hang out in the
Four Corners region for a while. Then, who knows." He jerks his head in
Carol's direction "I have plenty of incentive to come back home, y'know.
I get the feeling that after things settle down, the Marshals will get
the hell out of here and I can come back into town.
Chief Walter nods "Yeah, I guess I see what what you mean. I hope I can
find some way to "call the dogs off." Maybe give them a bum steer. I hope
I can do it without compromising my integrity. Well, goodbye and good
luck Everett Winfield, Take care of yourself and stay out of trouble."
That Evening, Carol goes to visit sue. She gets in her car and drives
down to Sue's house. She goes and knocks on the door. Sue welcomes her.
"What can I do for you," asks Sue, "Come on, I have some soup on the
stove."
"Well, You know that my son, Mike, has been working with Winfield for the
past several months. I have become quite fan of Winfield. He has turned
my son's life around, but he's in trouble."
"How?"
"Well, he has been on the run from the law for a long time. Apparently,
he supplied a friend of his with a gun and that friend used the gun to
kill someone. This friend who he gave the gun to was a felon, and so by
giving him the gun, Everett Committed a felony offense. He was sentenced
to 10 years in prison, but he escaped
"He's been living here for all this time, never hurting anyone, never
breaking the law, and now they are after him."
"Well, what can we do, I mean, it would be a shame for Winfield to go
behind bars, he didn't really do anything. "
"I guess so. What can we do. I mean, he's done so much for me and mike."
"Well, I think the thing to do now is to just sit tight, there is no
evidence that the law knows where he is. If you think there is evidence,
let me know, ok."
"right."
They get up and Carol leaves. Sue Gets in her truck and drives up to
Winfield's house. Winfield is in front of the stove. "What are you doing
here?" asks Winfield.
"I need to talk to you Everett. Carol came down to my house this
afternoon. She said you had a felony conviction?"
"Yeah, a long time ago."
"She said that you escaped from prison."
"Sue, that's in the past, it happened years ago."
That night, Winfield and Sue leave for the four-corner region. Winfield
packs a few possessions and his mountain burro. During the drive down, in
Sue's truck, Sue and Winfield discuss the running of the Burro Ranch,
which Sue will run in Winfield's absence. Winfield feels that Mike has
enough no-how to fix the Burros himself. Chief Walter comes to the car
that Winfield and Sue are driving home in.
He Hangs on the window "Everett, How much do the Marshals know about u
and where you are."
Winfield shakes his head "I don't know, I don't have anyway of knowing
anything about them. I guess they have the records from the Albuquerque
court. About what I look like. That's really a question I should be
asking you. Do they have the court record out of Albuquerque. I mean they
must have had some court records from there. And God knows what that
bastard Dan gave them. He was my best friend, and I shared with him
things I never should've."
"Well," says Chief Walter "Those things are in the past and it doesn't do
us any good to worry about them. But that doesn't mean we run from the
past, we turn from it. You have changed your life and I see no reason for
you to 'pay for your crimes'"
Winfield nods, he and Sue drive off into the night. When they get home,
Winfield begins to pack for a journey. The fills bags with dried fruits
ant nuts, and chocolate bars. He packs these on a Burro bag. He tries his
tires, makes sure that everything is working properly. He turns the burro
over, balancing it on its handle bars. He runs the chain through the
gears and sprays a little oil on it
Sue gets her coat. Winfield is tense "Where the heck are you going"
"You need food for the road, I want to get you some dried fruit."
"I don't need fruit," he takes a fishing pole from the wall, and
collapses it. "There's fishing galore out there, great stuff down in the
Colorado River."
Sue gets exasperated "Damnit Everett, you need food for the road. You
need energy to keep your body going. You can't just take the fishing
pole. Besides, there's no guarantee that you'll catch anything."
Winfield sighs and takes the food and puts it in his pack. "Damn," he
says.
"Everett, you have to take care of yourself out there. You've got to eat
right, you've got to have food. I can't trust you to take care of
yourself."
"Jesus Christ, What am I, some sort of a baby?!"
"No, But you can't cook for a damn. You need food out there, good food,
nutrients, energy."
"Oh God!!"
Mike comes in to the room. He's been doing homework. "What is Going on."
He asks
"Go do your homework" snaps Everett angrily.
"Hey!! What the hell, all I asked you was 'what's going on?', there is no
need for you to snap at me!!!"
Winfield turns to him, "I'm sorry, under a little bit of stress right
now. I think I have leave."
Mike says "What?!"
"No, that's not true. I trusted your mother, I've trusted you, and I even
trust the Police chief in this small town with the information that I am
a criminal, a fugitive from the law. But I know them. I've gotten to know
I could trust them. I also had this feeling that I could trust him. I
never had that feeling with my friend. I never should have trusted him.
Take this as an important lesson, Mike, you can't trust certain people.
Now listen, I want you to promise me that your gonna stay the hell out of
trouble when I am away. You've been making a lot of improvements. The
cops haven't picked you up in over six months. Your grades are improving
and you've become quite a Burro Mechanic. Don't mess it up just because
I'm not around."
"I won't" 
"Yeah, well I am counting on you."
Winfield turns his burro over and attaches a pannier rack to it. He
begins to put the items in it that he thinks will help him. A pkclet
knife, water, food, a sleeping bag.
"Don't you want a tent?" Asks Mike.
"Nah, not worth it. To much weight. Besides, I can sleep out under the
stars, the object here is to travel as light as possible, to be able to
get the hell out of here whenever possible. Who knows what I'll have to
encounter out there. Helicopters, jeeps, horseback. God only knows what
those guys will come after me with. We are talking about the US
Government. They want my ass badly. The US Government is a government of
laws and I broke that law. They want you to pay for it. There is no
chance for reform, no chance for getting your soul back with the law.
Once you have the black mark of having been convicted, you are screwed."
"So they don't take into account that you've changed who you are."
Winfield tightens a sleeping bag on the back of the burro, and slings his
panniers on the side.
He then Carries it down to the street and puts it under the camper shell
in Sue's truck. He then goes back into the apartment. Sue is in the
kitchen, Winfield comes in and grabs her, and she melts in his arms.
"Oh my God Winfield, what the hell is going on with this. Why can't the
law go after someone else. There are a thousand other Criminals that are
more important than you, more dangerous than you. There are people who
sold alcohol to my boy, people who kill other people, and they have to go
after somebody who made a mistake, that's all, you made a mistake. Mike
would say 'hey, you fucked up', and you did it thirty years ago!" She
sobs in his arms "I love you Everett, I am not going to be very happy
without you. It's not fair. You worked to hard on building a life here.
You did a good job, Everett, you did a great job, but now they are taking
it away."
Winfield strokes her hair "Hey, no crying, tears don't help anything,
they just rust burro chains. Now you listen to me. This doesn't have to
be the end. There's a whole lifetime ahead of us. This is just some
stupid boy game that the Marshals play. Once they leave town, I can come
back, maybe you can hide me in the Ranch, and maybe you can come out to
visit me. We can make plans to see each other again. The Point is that
once the Marshals give up playing Tommy Lee Jones, I can probably come
back into town, and restart my life as somebody totally different. Maybe
I can recreate your old husband, use his old Social Security number or
something like that."
Winfield goes to the bookshelf. He takes out a map and spreads it on the
table. "Look, I am going to take US highway 50 out of here, head west
into Utah and Nevada, maybe go as far as California. They won't look for
me out there. They'll assume I've gone south, back to Albuquerque."
"What makes you so sure" asks Sue, still upset. 
"I can't be absolutely sure. But remember there are 360 degrees from any
given point, they can't search all 360 at once and they have to find the
right one. Your job back here is to give them a bum steer."
"When you leave, Everett, I am not going to watch which way you go, that
way, I won't have to lie to them and tell you I didn't see which way you
went."
"Yeah, good call, now your thinking'. That way you won't have to lie to
them, you don't want to lie to a federal marshal…Maybe I should leave
alone, directly from Shiloh, and not have you dive me anywhere."
"But Everett, you have to have a head start, if you leave from town
directly, they'll catch you for sure. I can take you to the Utah border,
and then you can strike out from there. I'm willing to risk…whatever the
price of 'assisting a fugitive' happens to be. I don't care. The
important thing is not to have you get caught."
Everett nods "Okay."
Winfield and Sue drive southwest all night in Sue's truck. Before they
leave, Winfield makes Sue drink a large mug of coffee, arguing that it
will help her stay awake on the long drive through the desert. In the
morning, while driving through a canyon, Sue and Winfield discuss more of
what Sue is going to do while Winfield is away. The agree to meet Santa
Fe in a couple of weeks, Winfield will call her and tell her where to
meet him in Santa Fe. 
As they drive on, Sue begins to talk of the future. 
"Look" she says, "I don't expect this to be the last time I see you. I
think that our paths were meant to cross back in Shiloh, and are meant to
cross…" she gestures "…out there somewhere, in the future."
"Is it written in the stars?" Winfield looks out the window at the clear
night sky. 
Sue laughs. "I don't know, and it doesn't matter, I feel it. 
Sue suddenly says she has to go to the bathroom. She pulls off onto the
side of the road and gets out of the truck. Winfield follows her and
grabs her by the wrist as she slips out of the truck. He holds her in his
arms. They fall together and hold each other very close. Winfield tickles
her ear. Sue giggles, and pulls away. Winfield watches her as she begins
to work her way up the slope. When she disappears to below a lip in the
desert, Winfield jumps out of the truck and pulls his burro out of the
back. Glancing around him, to check and see if anybody is watching, he
swings a leg over his burro and rides out into the sunset, leaving a note
for Sue telling her that is better for her not to have seen which way he
went. He also promises to come back and visit her whenever he can.
Sue returns to the truck with the distinct feeling that something is
wrong. She calls foe Everett, but doesn't get an answer. She throws her
arms up, exasperated "well, I should have known." She says.
She climbs into the truck, and sits there for a while, thinking. The cars
whiz past on the highway. She gets out of the truck and climbs to the top
of the hill, looking out across the desert, at the lonely landscape
around. "Well Everett, goodbye, there's not much I can do for you now,
except love you…and hope you stay the hell out of trouble."
She goes into her apartment and thinks about Winfield. She wonders if
he's all right. She goes straight to Chief Walter and tells him what she
and Winfield did. 
"Look Chief," She says, "I took Winfield a little ways outside town this
morning. 
The next day, an emergency meeting is called in the town hall. The Chief
announces that Winfield has disappeared and perhaps will never return to
Shiloh, and that the US Marshal's are after him. He mentions that while
Winfield is guilty of a small crime, he has been framed on a much larger
charge. He asks the townspeople to support Winfield by That afternoon;
the Federal Marshals come to town to look for Fred Komells, who they all
know as Everett Winfield. The police chief asks that the people join him
in refusing cooperate with the Federal Marshals. 
Life in the town goes on as normal. The theater begins to look for a
replacement for Winfield, and Carol and Mike try to keep the Burro Ranch
open. But the US Marshall service swoops down on the town, convinced that
the town will help them find Everett Winfield, a.k.a. Fred Komells.
However the town refuses to cooperate.
The first place that they go is to the town records, looking to see where
Fred Komells worked. 
They walk in to the Police Station. "Are you Chief Curtis Walter?" they
ask.
"I am" Says Chief Walter.
One of the men pulls out a photograph and hands it to Chief Walter. It is
a photo of Everett Winfield, "That photo is a picture of Fred Komells,
wanted for jumping bail in Albuquerque, NM. We have reason to believe
that he has been hanging around these parts for a while, have you seen
him?"
Chief Walter is a prepared, he's been expecting this. "Yes, I have seen
that man, a long time ago."
"Did he live around here?" ask the Marshals 
"yes, for a while, he had a Burro business, volunteered a lot, was a nice
guy. I liked him. But he moved out a while ago."
"How long ago"
Chief Walter shrugs "I don't know, a while back."
"Did you know him?"
"Yes I did, he and I were pretty good friends."
"What was he like?"
"Him, like nobody Else I've ever met, truly a fascinating character. Did
a lot of good for this community. Anyone and Everyone could count on
Everett Winfield to help them out. Didn't matter what kind of a jam you
were in. He helped out at the theater, worked with troubled youth, was an
outspoken member of the community, great guy."
"Okay," Says one of the US Marshals, "Thank you very much, we may come
back to talk to you." They leave the Police Station.
When Chief Walter immediately gets on the phone and calls one of the town
fathers. "Hello Hick…This is Chief Walter…Yeah…The US Marshals are
here…yeah…law enforcement, they track fugitives…Yeah…Winfield…no
kidding…Get rid of the town records…anything, I don't care, burn them,
dispose of them in any way, shape or form…Talk to you later…bye"
As the Marshals Begin to question the town, most of the people are
unresponsive. Most either say they have never seen the man described, or
that he left town a long time ago. All seem to add the fact that he was a
great guy. They knew him well, but they hadn't seen him in a long while.
A Newspaper comes to town and the people are plenty willing to talk to
the newspaper. They openly tell the newspaper that they are not willing
to aid the Marshals in anyway, shape or form, find their "Fred Camels." 
The two marshals retire to a room outside the town in a little Motel.
"Well" says one of them, "What do you want to do?"
His Partner Shrugs, "I don't know, I think that the town is deliberately
not cooperating. They obviously are going to protect this guy, they don't
understand how dangerous he is." She sighs "well, let's get back to
headquarters and do some thinkin'" The leave.
Chief Walter becomes more and more worried.
At the request of the Mayor, the local theater awards Winfield, a "Golden
Marmot" in honor of hi contributions to the theater and for "25 years of
acting". 
The federal Marshals leave and the town returns to normal. One night
however, The federal Marshals leave and the town returns to normal. One
night however, Carol is sleeping late at night. It is winter and a
snowball is hurled against the window. She gets out of bed and throws a
robe on her shoulders. She goes to the window and a looks out to see a
figure standing in the snow. He is big and burly and has a heavy winter
jacket on. He waves to her and hollers. 
She turns from the window and drops her feet into a pair of slippers,
running down the stairs. Winfield stands laughing in the snow, and
clutches Carol in his arms. Carol invites him upstairs, they fall
together on the bed, laughing.
Carol strokes Winfield's hair, which is damp from the snow that has
fallen on it. She fixes him a cup of coffee. "You bad boy, you should be
far away from here."
"Ah, damn federal Marshals are far away from here. Besides, I've been
driving all night, I am not going to be showing my face on the streets of
Shiloh any time soon."
"Well, we'll see how well you sleep tonight…"