The Ballad of Brodie 

Brodie’s story begins in the early 1800s, somewhere in the lonely sands of Arizona. He grew up listening to the wild whistle of the wind passing through the Grand Canyon, a soothing sound to him. Each day, he would wake up under the rising eastern sun and help out on his father’s ranch. Since there was no schoolhouse within thirty miles of his home, he never got erudition. His education was that of farmer’s. But, his father, who he had become very close too, would sometimes take him down to the old abandoned Fort Huachuca and teach him how to fire a pistol. This was Brodie’s favorite event of his uneventful, farm boy life. He remembered his grand father telling him stories of the wild cowboys of the west, shooting their guns and raising havoc. Brodie would often sit near the edge of the Grand Canyon, staring out, dreaming of becoming a cowboy. With the sound of the wind in his ears, he would wait there like a dog waiting to be presented with a bone. But for eons, nothing happened. However, everything was about to change.

Years after his early childhood, Brodie was sifting through the red-stained sand in search of coin he dropped. As he looked through the rocks, he saw a gold glitter. Thinking it was his coin he had dropped, he reached for it. What he picked up was not his coin, but rather gold nuggets. To his utmost disbelief, this shocking discovery would have soon haunted him like a Promethean curse.

         In 1858, the news of this found gold hit the to the nearby town like a steam engine. Instantly, a stampede of greedy men rushed the area like a herd of buffalo. Brodie’s discovery started a gold rush, but when there was not enough gold left to go around, the miners started to grow paranoid and uneasy. A civil war broke out and as all hell was unleashed, buildings were torched and innocent people were caught in the crossfire. After coming home one day from a trip to the  canyon, Brodie found his parents dead and his family house burned. As he fell to his knees in front of their lifeless bodies, all he could think was – I caused this, I found the gold.