Deadwood

It smells like melting tar and burning wood, unwashed men, rotting teeth and freshly turned dirt, old whiskey, sick, piss and shit.

Its pungent and raw. The road here was so empty and peaceful, but with the hush of hidden death hiding just below the green leafy canopy of forest and hills.

Now death is everywhere and loud and obvious.

They pass a flat board filled with black haired scalps. A sign says reward for dead injuns. The scalps are covered in the buzz of flies and a thick stink of ammonia.

His heart pounds hard. The fight is real. The story is no longer fiction. Life is a tragic struggle. No longer hidden. No longer a tale sold for a dime. Here death is not just an unknown ambush, but a glaring man in a ten gallon hat holding the butt of his pistol. He makes it obvious he wants what the boy has. Youth and a second chance.

Laughter and angry shouts fill the air. Mixed with the orgasm of a man long traveled and in long need of relief behind thin pine wood walls.

The laughter of a whore.

The tinkle of cheap ivory piano keys.

“Come get your gear here miner,” a man in dirty overalls shouts over the din of tin being hammered and boards being nailed and the occasional shot fired either into the air or still living meat.

Maybe the small town boy regrets his decision to come west. Maybe he thinks he can go home now.

But he is here, stained forever with what is around him, no longer able to go home and be the kid he was before. He is becoming the man he will be. One day he will either be, or not. That is the way of Deadwood. you either succeed or die whether an attempt is made or you do nothing.