Rock Springs

And as I walked on up the cold street that afternoon in Great Falls, the questions I asked myself were these: why wouldn't my father let my other come back? Why would would Woody stand with me outside my house and risk being killed? Why would he say my mother had been married before if she hadn't been? And my mother herself-- why would she do what she did? In five years my father had gone off to Ely, Nevada, to ride out the oil strike there and been killed by accident. And in the years since then I have seen my mother from time to time--in one place or another, with one man or other-- and I can say, at least, that we know each other. But I have never known the answer to these questions, have never asked anyone their answers. Though possibly it -- the answer-- is simple: it is just low-life, some coldness in us all, some helplessness that causes us to misunderstand life when it is pure and plain, makes our existence seem like a border between two nothings, and makes us no more or less than animals who meet on the road-- watchful, unforgiving, without patience or desire.