"The Hidden Jesus": A Short Story

So here’s a url to my short story “The Hidden Jesus,” currently in the new issue of The Hopkins Review (as in Johns-Hopkins University):
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/the_hopkins_review/v002/2.4.cobb.pdf
The cemetery mentioned in the story is based on a number of windswept, high-lonesome cemeteries I’ve wandered through in my killing-time hours in Colorado. The morbid onlooker in me loves a good cemetery, and the West has its share of classic Boot Hills. One of my favorites is the cemetery of Creede, Colorado, located on a plateau above that “ghost town,” although I know quite a few people who live there and are very much alive and kicking.
I lived in Creede in 1999, and loved it, great people, canyons and mountains. Just north of Creede is Lake City, site of the infamous Alferd Packer cannibal story of the 1870s. (Via Wikipedia comes the tidbit: In 1968, students at the University of Colorado at Boulder named their new cafeteria grill the Alferd G. Packer Memorial Grill with the slogan “Have a friend for lunch!”) Bob Ford, Jesse James’ killer, was originally buried at the Creede cemetery, although someone later moved his body. Creede was also home for a time of  the legendary Bat Masterson, who has a juicy Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Masterson.
My other favorite cemetery is near Silvercliff, Colorado, which is known to have supernatural lights hover over it, ala the famous “Marfa Lights” of West Texas. It’s more anonymous and haunting, set in the Wet Mountain Valley with the awesome Sangre de Cristos to the west, which are MY mountains, as in my Colorado home is on their slopes. Above my house is a Christian resort, and is the model of the Christian rehab center of the story.
The original title of this story was “The View from Sorry Mountain.”

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *