I'm known by Jess, sometimes Jess Harper but that makes me nervous. I have warrants hanging over me in Jasper and Harris counties in Texas, so I don't usually put Jess with Harper. The warrants were just for drunk and disorderly, but I didn't want to go back to Texas any time soon. I'd had nothing but bad luck there.

It had been a little over ten years since The War. I could remember when my squad was manning a fifteen pounder. My best friend was suppose to chock the wheels so the recoil of the cannon wouldn't cause it to roll back. I still don't know if he forgot or just didn't bother to do it. Either way, the chock wasn't there and, when I pulled the lanyard, the wheel of the cannon rolled over my right knee. The surgeon wanted to take the leg off, said it would cause me trouble for the rest of my life. He was right about that and, right now, every move my mule made drove another nail into my knee.

Once I lost any use of my right leg I could count on, the Army had no use for me. To be honest, I no longer felt the U.S. had the right to kill the American natives and take their land at will. I was beginning to think it made us no better than King George's Red Coats.

I'd tried working as a cowhand for a while, but my leg just couldn't take those long days in the saddle. So I decided to sell off what few possessions I had to buy a mule, a pick and shovel, a few other supplies I thought I'd need, and try prospecting for gold. I'd heard that up in the Dakota territory, Crazy Horse and his brethren weren't happy about the desecration of their hallowed Black Hills since gold had been found there, but that didn't stop the thousands of people flooding into Deadwood looking to get rich.

It seems folks were finding gold or silver in far off places in wild and untamed lands. I spent a year in the Colorado territory, and had no more luck than most other prospectors. I was hoping things would change for the better soon, and decided next I'd try my luck around the Nevada territory. That's the bad thing about luck though, it can go just as fast as it comes.

I'd met up with some other travelers on the trail and we decided to make camp together. With roving bands of Indians raiding in the area, I figured there was safety in numbers. I had my poke tied under one of the bags on my mule. That small sack held what little gold I had left of what I had managed to scrounge out of the ground. When I woke the next morning, all I had left was my bedroll, my old shotgun, and a tin cup half full of coffee. And my mule with the worn out old saddle on it. Of course my poke and the little bit of gold in it was gone. So much for safety in numbers. I may have been better off with the Indians. There was nothing I could do but get back on my mule and keep riding.

With no water or supplies, I wasn't sure how long I'd last on my own. As I rode, the creaking of saddle leather was a cry for oil. My mule was worn out and we both needed water. I was choking on dust. I had my bandanna pulled up to try to catch a little air but my eyes were tearing so bad, there was mud caked on my face.

After riding so many miles I was beginning to wish I had gone along with the doctor's advice about taking off my leg, although I'm not sure how easy riding would have been with one leg, but I decided to try not to think too much about it. Wasn't nothing I could do about it anyway. I was still surrounded by a whole lot of nothing when I saw a flash of lightning behind a ridge, and a thunderhead that towered over the hills. I knew we were in store for some really nasty weather.

I knew I needed to find some place I could hole up in to weather the storm. I hoped to find a cave high enough above the river bed I'd been riding along to avoid any flash floods, preferably one that was not already occupied by local wildlife.

I looked around my immediate area. Since the guys I'd been with had all cut and run, I only had myself to worry about, although I wouldn't be sorry if my former companions met with ill fortune. I saw a dark opening high up on a ridge, so I climbed up and found a cave with a fair sized opening, big enough for both me and my mule to fit through. I fired two rounds from my 12 gauge to see if I had any company. The inside of the small cave lit up well enough I was reasonably sure no one was home.

I gathered up all the loose limbs I could find lying around, knowing I would probably need every stick I could find to keep a fire going. It was April in New Mexico and I knew the weather could do anything, and change without notice, so I wanted to be prepared.

I got a fire going so there was a little light, then went back down the trail for my mule. With a little coaxing, I managed to get Bones to follow me and guided him up to the opening. I called my mule Bones since he wasn't much more than that when I bought him, and wasn't much more after his time with me. I stripped all the tack off him and gave him some grass I'd gathered for his supper. Then I built up my fire, stretched out under the saddle blanket, and lay my head on the saddle..

I don't know how long I'd been sleeping when I heard something that sounded like a train coming down the river bed from somewhere upstream. It didn't take me long to figure out a big storm, further up the mountain, had sent a flash flood crashing down through the break in the rocks the river had once flowed through.

When the storm turned loose its demons, it was unlike anything I'd seen before. The cave we wer in was a good thirty feet above the creek bed. Now the water was up so high, six inches more and I'd have been sharing my shelter with some fish. At least, for the moment, we had water to drink. I wish my former companions had left me a canteen so I could carry some with me. Traveling gets rough quick with no water around.

I wondered if maybe this storm, along with all my other recent setbacks, should be taken as signs that, just perhaps, I wasn't meant to make my way as a gold miner. I was remembering a girl I knew back in Denver, called herself Dallas, I'd taken a shine to. She'd made it clear she didn't mind sharing her time with me, and I thought maybe I should head back and find her. Perhaps I could find work more suitable for a worn-out former soldier who carries bad luck around with him in a tote sack. Anyway, at least I still had my old tin cup. I decided from now on I would consider it to be my lucky charm. Surely it had to be time some good luck came my way, didn't it?

So I made up my mind to head back to Denver and try to find  Dallas. The time we'd spent together had seemed to work out well enough for us. But with so little to my name, I'd felt I had to do something to try to make my fortune. That hadn't turned out very well, but I still hoped she'd be happy to see me anyway. I was also hoping she hadn't moved on, or found a substitute she figure'd would stick around longer. After all, I couldn't expect her to wait around forever.

After the flood water receded, and there was enough daylight to see, I led Bones out of the cave and down to the now dry creek bed. I took it very slow and careful. There's something about a flash flood that brings out a lot of rattlers with bad dispositions, and loosens the rocks one might step on. A broken leg wouldn't help Bones or me any.

There was debris everywhere. For a place with so few trees, the water had carried a lot of broken branches along with it. Even with the sun hidding behind an overcast sky, the day was warming up fast. As I looked around I spotted a buzzard with its wings spread out, riding on a hot updraft, precise and mindlessly a part of the world around it. I had no idea what the time was. The clouds made seeing the position of the sun kind of hard, but I could tell the morning was dying.

Perhaps it was the gloom of the day, but dark and heavy thoughts filled my mind with despair. When the pain of the past caught up with me, and joined with the bleakness of the landscape, I doubled my effort to move forward. Towards late afternoon, the sun came out from behind the clouds and rose above the horizon, blurred and blood red. I reached in my pocket and found I still had a little tobacco and some paper, so I rolled a cigarette. I found my box of matches, only to discover they had gotten wet. It's funny, when everything goes bad you can't but think about the people who were your best friends, who you would do anything in the world for. Then you find out they're just using you for a rung up the ladder, or to make someone else jealous. If that don't make you feel like a foolish idiot, nothing else will, with no explanations or apologies.

The dry river bed I was following made its way out of the mountains and continued on through the gates of Hell. There was nothing but sand, rocks and tumbleweed for as far as the eye could see. I could make out something white about twenty or thirty yards ahead of me. When I got closer, I found the sun-bleached skull of an unlucky cow. I guess some of the scavengers that run in the night had drug the rest away. Seeing the skull made me think about the big question that I'd been trying to ignore for some time, which was where I might find us some water. Despite the rain the night before, there was none in sight now. I knew I would have to find some very soon. I couldn't help but think of how close I'd come to drowning the night before. Now I'd have been happy to see a little of that water lying around. At least all that rain had settled the dust for a while.