He sighed and said to himself, “It’s all just a figment of my imagination. It’s a hard thing for a person to be alone in the world. Solitude gets on a man’s nerves. I’ve been alone for too much of my life. If I die here, no one will mourn me and I have no children to carry on any kind of legacy. If I find my way back home I’m going to settle down. I’m done searching for treasures.”

            Nature, his sole companion, seemed oblivious to the hunter’s thoughts. He rose and headed for the brook, bent down on his knees, then washed his face and scraggly, straw-colored hair in the cool, crystal water. Feeling refreshed, he patted his face dry with a threadbare towel and set about gathering some wood for his breakfast fire. As he scrounged about he noticed something white gleaming in the early sunlight.

            “What’s this?”

            He scooped up the earth with a piece of wood to uncover the object that had caught his attention. “Why, it seems to be bones of a hand. He dug deeper and unearthed the rest of a human skeleton. Whoever it belonged to appeared to be about the hunter’s height.

            “There’s this tuft of yellow hair still protruding from the skull,” he said amazed.

The lock of hair looked jagged and wire-like. He wondered how long had these human remains been buried in the ground.

            “What is your secret? Did you die all alone here?” He asked the stoic skeleton.

            A part of the piece of humanity crumbled slightly in his hand. The yellow, wiry tuft of hair sprang from the skull and somehow attached itself to his arm, scratching him. He yelled to the thing. “What’d you go and do that for? What’s going on?”

            Unexpectedly, the skeleton sat up. It stretched out a hand towards the hunter but spoke not at all. The careless unconcerned canyon winds circled around him. The stillness of the canyon gave the old timer no clue as to what was happening or why.

            The yellow tuft of hair seemed to expand and continued to twist itself around the old man’s knotted arm. He struggled to free himself from the haunted appendage of the skeleton. He roared out in terror, “Leave me alone. Get away from me. Let go!”

            The skeleton said nothing. Yellow hairs from the skull continued to wrap themselves tighter and tighter around the hunter. The skeletal hand clenched its grip. All at once he knew. He knew it all. The skeletal hand that handcuffed him was none other than his own. The tufted, wiry hair was the hunter’s. The hunter tried to free himself but it was no use. Slowly, surely the tuft of hair and the clasping hand began dragging him down under the soil. After the burial, slowly, surely the earth shifted back around and over the hunter and his skeleton. Sounds muffled by a ton of dirt cried out. Soon even the muffled cries died down and there was nothing left but silence. Not far away from the burial site sat the old man’s chipped enamel teapot. The ashes of his campfire swirled away and became one with the passing winds of time.