The Damned Girl, Part I
In Skagway town, eighteen ninety-eight
Lived a young man, Elliot McKay.
He worked with his father selling dry goods,
To the miners heading Klondike-way,
They made some good coin in a day.
Elliot he, like most younger men,
Had an eye for womanly curves.
His favorite worked in a house downtown,
With dark hair done up in curls,
A woman who’d ‘broadened’ his world.
At first it was cold, but that all changed quick,
And they soon were a regular thing.
She taught him skills a man needs to know,
Really took the boy under her wing,
And knew how to make his heart sing.
But his father said “Boy, don’t fool yourself,
That damned girl wants nothing but cash.
And many a man has found himself broke,
Chasing after a professional lass,
You better get over her fast!”
But Elliot continued, and went when he could
For weeks this went on, as before.
Until one day she asked to meet his kin,
Not the act of some common whore.
She must have loved him like never before!
They went to his house outside of town,
His lady fidgeting and tense,
Elliot knew she must be nervous,
To be meet disapproving parents,
He prayed that his dad would relent.
She entered the home and father went cold,
His face truly taken aback.
His jaw dropped and he said aloud,”Clarice!”
Then she shouted outside,”It’s Mack!”
A new figure stormed in from out back.
A man appeared, a gun in his hand,
Pushing before him Elliot’s mother.
Elliot had seen his likeness before,
It was the felon Bloody Jack Carruthers,
He knew it could be no other.
Jack said,”Now, now, we meet again,
McKay, the man who survived,
When our gang fell down in Monterey,
Shot up back in seventy-five!
Our loot you had on your ride!”
“And now I see how you spent it all,
And made it pay out in droves,
While I rotted away in sweltering cells
Far down south in old Mexico,
Imagining how this would all go!”
“You see this girl here, she is in my pay,
Since I heard that your son took a shine.
She played the damn fool, acted in love,
Until he’d bought into her lies.
And she led me here where I did find…”
“That a dirty skunk, yellow as can be
Built his home on the blood of my friends!
And all because this pretty young girl,
Your stupid, young son could bend.
Now then, prepare for your end…”
CONCLUDES IN PART II.
Copyright © David Welch | Year Posted 2017
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