DEATH HUNT: A CHARLES BRONSON EPIC

Do you know anything about a guy going around playing the harmonica? He's someone you'd remember. Instead of talking, he plays. And when he better play, he talks...

 --Cheyenne, Once Upon a Time in the West

One of the single most moving experiences I've ever had in a cemetery, slowly ambling up to the grave of Charles Bronson, all alone in the middle of nowhere, while listening to the hauntingly sparse Harmonica Theme from Once Upon a Time in the West while a light snowfall accentuated the silence of world all around. It left me with goosebumps.

I was working a whole long essay about Charles Bronson and his general bad-assery, but I've been sidetracked by another piece, and I wanted to get these photos out there for public perusal. It snow started slowly, and then picked up fast. The results of the snow are down at the bottom of the post.

...And the captions are snippets from the poem etched on his grave. Like I said, bad ass, cause it starts off like this...

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not here, I do not sleep

I am a thousand winds that blow

I am the diamond's glints on snow

I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the autumn's gentle rain.

 When you awaken in the morning's hush

I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight.

 I am the soft stars that shine at night

Do not stand at my grave and cry

I am not here, I did not die.

And then it started to snow.

The cemetery is surrounded by huge mountains, 

which you can't see past the treeline...

And then this happened...

Which isn't as bad as it could have been. 

The car slid for about 40 feet and came to a soft landing between hazards.

You can see the tire tracks just missing this pole...

And this big rock...

And this van, which was in a bad car accident...

You saved his life!-- Jill

I didn't let them kill him, and that's not the same thing... --Harmonica