[UA] Dear Brother #10c: Mexico

[Bryant Durrell]

Dear Brother:

It still feels awful strange writing this to you since you are sitting
in the other room talking to that Bill fellow, but if he is telling the
truth about forgetting I had best get it down on paper now.  I think I
will not bring it with us, though.  It seems better if we forget where
Danny is since I think this is as close to peace as he will find on this
Earth and it would be a shame to disturb it.  So we will forget and not
be reminded.

After all what happened in Chicago we thought it would be a good idea
to take a little while and rest up.  Danny and me were pretty done over
by the bastard Pinkertons, and neither of us were much good for much of
anything what with broken bones and all.  Well, this was well and good as
a plan until Ben reminded us that his grandpa could watch us through the
eyes on American money.  It shows how bad off the country is, and I will
write another letter about that to Mister Greenspan someday.

In the end we decided to hole up in Mexico.  I was not too happy about
leaving American roads but it was the best thing to do.  And just look
at all the outlaws who have spent a little while in Tijuana before coming
back home to make a final stand.

We left Waylan's LS6 in a little border town to be watched over by a 
Mexican witch and a pack of children and stole an old pickup without
license plates.  The plan was to go just a little south and spend nothing
but pesos and maybe buy some hospital time until we felt better.  Well,
that was another failure as a plan, because about half an hour into Mexico
Danny sat up straight like a squirrel and started off on his music tunes
again and would not stop until we agreed to follow his lead.

It is not as though Danny has not been part of the crew through thick and
thin all the way back to where we met him in Memphis so we did not mind
much.  I rest better when I am driving anyhow, and never had much use for
the hospitals and doctors.  But I will confess I did not expect that we
would be driving as long as we did.

I do not know the Mexico maps and I get a headache when I study too long
on them.  I think there are traces of old gods in those maps the way the
coffee grinds get into the last cup of coffee from the pot and you have
to ask the waitress for a new cup.  This is by way of admitting I can not
put down the exact route we took, but we drove all the way past Mexico 
City until we was almost out of Mexico on the other side.  Ben says we
came to a place called the Yucatan and I guess he would know.

Danny got more excited the more close we came.  In the end we drove over 
a hill and saw a big valley on the other side, like someone leaned over
and scooped a handful out of the earth.  Down in the hollow of the valley
there was a shack and a garden and most important a big radio tower.

Well, of course we went down there.  A native woman working in the garden
said the man who lived there was expecting us.  We went in with our 
caution as close as our guns, but there was no trouble there, just an 
old longhair hippie named Bill smoking Lucky Strikes with a blue band
on the pack.  That is something I have never seen.

He looked happy and sad to see us at the same time.  Most of the sad was
for Danny, I think, because he had some hard words for my friend.  He told
Danny that he felt like he had lost his world because it had been erased.
He said that Danny could never go home again.

But he also told Danny that all the voices he ever heard were just people
and all that about the Dero and the Tero was a lie.  He said that there
were no secret masters, either.  All those things Doctor Sam Lully told
Danny back in the asylum and after were lies, and I think it was good
for Danny to hear that.

Danny was looking at the records Bill had in this little radio station of
is, and they were all the songs Danny knew that none of the rest of us
ever heard.  I guess that was convincing to Danny, but you could see him
fighting to know which to believe, Bill or Doctor Lully.

But in the end Bill said that Danny could stay with him if he wanted.  Now
Doctor Lully never offered him anything even close to going home, and at
least Bill was someone who had the memory of the same things Danny did.
So Danny talked to us for a while, and he decided that it was best if he
stayed, and I will miss Danny like a brother but I think Danny was right.

We all talked a little while longer.  Bill said that the valley we were
in was made by a big chunk of orichalka coming down and hitting the earth,
and that was why he could remember the old history but that it would also
make us forget after we went away.  Waylan's eyes lit up but Bill told 
him the chunk was all broken up and just dust now.  A shame.

Bill also had a copy of that last record in the collection by that Harry
Smith.  He said it would be all right if we took it so we will.  It will
be strange not to remember where we got it.  I am still finding a want in
me to keep this letter after we leave but it would not be fair to Danny.

I think I will write down that Danny is happy and we should not go back
to bother him on a separate piece of paper, and I will fold that paper 
up inside one of the maps of Mexico I found.  I do not need those maps
most times and I do not expect I will ever go back to Mexico again so I
will not find the paper right away.  But if I ever do get a yearning to
figure out what happened to Danny Greer it will lead me to Mexico and I
will unfold the map and find the paper.  And then I hope I will be
satisfied and leave my friend Danny alone.

Bill and the woman who lives here and the boys are saying there is dinner
now and I hear they say the hot sauce here is worse than in Texas.  Well,
we will test that out for ourselves.  I will leave this in the radio studio
tucked behind one of these records.  Maybe someday Danny will read it and
I hope it brings him good memories.  I know I am proud to have good 
recollections of him.

Your brother,
Reese Beulay

-- 
        Bryant Durrell [] http://www.innocence.com/~durrell [] 9/11/2001
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               "To fall into a habit is to begin to cease to be."
                          -- Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo

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