I come to Trails End twelve years ago. Come in from Spokane. It was winter, February, an’ I had nothin’ but a furniture pad fer a bedroll. I was with another fella, an’ we rode through Wenatchee, an’ the snow was comin’ down heavy, so we stayed with it, didn’t even git outta the car. Rode over the Cascades, an’ wound up in Everett. Took up in abandoned house soon as I got into town. Some a the windas was busted out, but it weren’t a bad place. Kept the rain off. The rain comes down pretty good ‘round here durin’ the winter. I was stayin’ in a couple places, that old house an’ a sand warehouse, sleepin’ in one er the other. An’ this cop seen me ‘round, an’ tells me to jungle way out on Pidgeon Creek. I sez, “Hell no, that’s not fer me.” An’ he sez, “Well, you might try the dump. You look like you might be able to make it out there.” An’ I been here ever since, workin’ the dump, pullin’ out scrap, copper, brass, an’ haulin’ it over to the scrap-yard. Built my shack outta the dump. Got ev’ry stick a wood, ev’ry winda, door, the works, outta the dump. Worked on the place five, six years b’fore finishin’ it. It’s built up on pilin’s ‘cause of how the river rises ev’ry year. Water comes down from them mountains an’ swells the Skykomish twice it’s size. Durin’ the flood a ’75, the water com up an’ ‘bout carried the place away. It was rainin’ an’ rainin’, wouldn’t let up fer nothin’, an’ the river kept gittin’ higher. It was washin’ ‘round the pilin’s, swirlin’ ‘round an’ running fast.I was keepin’ an eye on it, an’ it kept inchin’ it’s way up the pilin’s till it came right up to the bottom a the floor. Came up quick an’ started workin’ b’tween the floorboards. Had a reg’lar current runnin’ through the place. All night long, the water kept on risin’. I stayed up an’ sat on my table. Sat up there all night, watchin’ the water swirl ‘round the room. It rose almost halfway to the ceilin’ b’fore it begin to go back down.

Don’t go nowhere no more ‘cept the store and post office. Git a place like this, and your practic’ly a prisoner to it. I lock it up if I leave, but you can’t be gone long er one a them winos’ll come in an’ steal you blind. Some a these fellas is out to git a jug is all. My dog’ll guard the place fer me; keeps most a them types out. Use’ to have jus’ the one dog, the three legged one. She got that leg a hers caught in a trap, and the vet had to take it off. She’s doin’ fine now, but fer awhile there I didn’t think she’d make it. She come close to dyin’ on account a bein’ in the trap fer so long. Had her leg caught thirteen days. I jus’ figgered she run off somewhere an’ disappeared. Then one day I found her. I was makin’ my way through the brush up along the river, an’ there she was, lyin’ on her side, near dead, an’ her foot was caught b’tween these steel jaws. She was half starved. Her ribs an’ bones were pokin’ out so’s it looked like her skin was stretched over barbed wire. Could barely lift her head. I carried her back to my place an’ got some food into her an’ took her on up to the vet. She’s OK; gits ‘round on them three legs same as if she had four.

She’s a good warnin’ dog. Barks an’ warns me whenever somebody’s walkin’ ‘long the tracks.  It’s a good thing, ‘cause ever since that murder in ’78, I don’t know what to expect. That was when Red an’ Blackie was shot. Triple murder. Red, Blackie, an’ this young local boy was killed. Red an’ Blackie was shot up at Red’s shack. Red had the shack furthest upriver. You follow the old Milwaukee Road tracks, an’ come to a trail, an’ the trail cuts through the woods an’ winds up at Red’s, right by the river. It happened I was the one found the bodies. I was walkin’ over there by Red’s and found that local boy lyin’ dead on the trail. I went up to Red’s shack and peeked in the winda and ‘saw Red and Blackie lyin’ dead on the floor. This other guy was with me, and he peeked in too, and he  sez, “I hope it’s not Blackie, I hope it’s not Blackie.”  But we went inside, an’ sure enough, it was. The two of ‘em, shot in the head. I know who did it, ev’rybody does. Ain’t no secret. It was a guy’d been stayin’ with Red ‘bout ten, ‘leven months.  The guy came to Trails End, an’ Red was good to him, took him in. They caught up with him and put him on trial, but he got acquitted on insufficient evidence. I went up to the trial ev’ryday.  Got ten dollars a day to testify. The guy woulda been convicted, but, trouble was, they never found the gun, the murder weapon. They even dragged the Skykomish fer it, thinkin’ he throwed it in there. Never came up with it. He musta hid it somewhere. Ev’rybody knew damn well he did the killin’s, but he got off. And then he went back East an’ shot another guy. They got him fer that one.

Things’ve been quiet since the murder. There’s another fella took up livin’ in Red’s old place, and a couple new places been built, one upriver, and one downriver. All in all, Trails End’s simmered down. My cats an’ dogs, and keeping’ up the place keeps me busy. I’ll stay on here long’s I c’n. Don’t know how much longer that’ll be. Don’t feel like jumpin’ an’ snappin’ anymore, jus’ ain’t got it in me. My wood’s all chopped fer winter, and long’s the river don’t act up, I’ll be makin’ out alright.

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