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327 2005 Journal’s End I stand in the pale light of sunset and look into the canyon, a lifetime below, the river so far down and away that it is nothing more than a silver thread, motionless against eons of time. I stand on the edge of eternity. Under my heels there is solid rock. Under my toes, there is 2,000 vertical feet of empty space. I feel the weight of the old composition notebooks, the journals, in my hands. Dozens of them. I don’t know why I ever decided to keep a journal. Chetlehe said only white guys were so proud of what they did that they actually had to go and write it down. He said if what I did really mattered, other people would write it down, or tell the stories to their children and grandchildren. I wouldn’t have to. Write it down. I thought about that for a long time. It worried the hell out of me. It still does. Because other people didn’t write it down. Because I am only left with me. No matter. I will finish this last entry and then I will not keep a journal anymore. Lee Maynard 328 I stack the journals on the rock beside my feet. I bend and take one of the old notebooks in my hand. I flip it open. South Carolina. I close the notebook and hold it for a moment, thinking. But I came here to do something, and it will be done. I sail the notebook out into the emptiness of time. For a second or two it sails flat and fast, and then the covers fly open and the notebook flutters like a wounded bird trying to tumble to safety, wings not beating the air but flailing. Useless. And then the notebook is gone. The process has started. I take another notebook and sail it, not even bothering to flip it open to see where . . . It falls away. And then another and another. And I take my foot and shove the small pile over the edge of the canyon. I lose sight of them long before they ever hit the timeless stones that will keep them. ...

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