The Corpse on Boomerang Hill by Leah Schwartz

Prospectors slipped over the rocky shoulders
Of the spade shaped San Juan Mountains
In an unending search for pay dirt.
Staking placer claims in the pristine valley,
Some weren’t satisfied with nuggets and flakes.
They dreamed big dreams of mother lodes and great strikes.
They scratched and clawed into the unyielding rock –
With little luck.

Then a river of silver sparked the dreams of hundreds
With the discovery of the Sheridan group.
The “Eureka!” cry cut loose, reverberating east and west
And mining gave birth to Telluride, Colorado.

A thundering rush of rock roared through
The bowels of the Smuggler-Union Mine.
No one screamed.
Before the dust settled the brotherhood
Had lost another man to the mine,
His head pulverized by a mass of rock.
The men who dug out the body whispered a prayer,
A prayer he never had a chance to utter.
His wife collapsed in horror and grief
When they brought his mutilated body down to Telluride.

At the Smuggler-Union mine in Telluride,
On May 1, 1901,
350 union miners walked off their jobs,
Protesting this new here “contracting”
What means a miner done do thirty days worth of digging,
But don’t see thirty days worth of pay.

When the strike come up, Bill Barney,
A no good “all the way” company man
Done disappeared from his post,
Without leaving no word.
Them Pinkertons done claimed his
Bones been recovered in a shallow grave
On Boomerang Hill.

Our mine “president” — he calls himself –
Was born to privilege, silver spoon and all.
He be convinced we laborers are beneath his boots,
He won’t heed our desperate call.
He got the company, the papers, and the Pinkertons too
Accusing Vincent St. John of the murder
Of William Julius Barney and more too.
They done charged ole St. John and the union with
Conducting (music to their ears) a “reign of terror.”
They called us all a pack of assassins.

No one knew those crafty Pinkertons gained
Considerable sums from making false accusations.
When they found those dusty remains,
They drew them some conclusions.
They places a skull in a shop window,
Adorned with a sign decrying “Grewsome Work”
of the Telluride Miners’ Union.

There was one complicating factor though –
William Julius Barney wasn’t dead.