In the small town of Rat’s Eye, Mt. pop.-3, there’s not many doors left that need locked, as they say around here. In fact there’s not many doors left at all. The town was named after a rock formation up higher on the hill behind the town that looked like a rat. There was a depression in the rat’s head right where the eye would be that had some quartz in it that would catch the light from the setting sun and make it gleam like a rat’s eye in the firelight. So somebody called it Rat’s Eye and the name stuck. Lots of places around the area got their names like that. This was never a big town to begin with as it didn’t have a lot going for it when there were live people living here. There wasn’t much of a draw. The country was a little steep for cows, you couldn’t grow much with a 97 day summer and except for a small seam of coal they never found anything worth mining for. But never the less there were people willing to give this place a try.

Such were the Chilkott family, Edna, Emmet and their boy Ed. Emmet worked odd jobs around town, Edna took in washing, put up jams and jellies and sort of home schooled the town kids and any ranch kid their folks would let off to try and learn something. Ed was a sickly child, he had the croup real bad when he was young and never seemed to get over it. He was what they called pigeon-chested, a narrow child both physically and mentally and no one held out much hope that he’d amount to much. They were right.

They lived in a small frame house that Emmet pretty much built by himself. It was back near the coal shed that everyone who worked the seam would store the coal in. The community drew on it throughout the winter. The Chilkott house wasn’t much but it was better than the wall tent they stayed in for the year and a half it took Emmet to stand the place up. Three rooms, which were a kitchen, a bedroom and a sort of combination storage area and a place to keep the few chickens they had plus the milking goat. Winters were bad enough that they had to keep the animals where it was warm and they couldn’t afford a barn. Edna had read that goat milk was better for children with the croup than cow milk was, and they couldn’t afford a cow anyway. They had a hard-packed dirt floor for a while until Emmet traded stacking fresh-sawn green lumber down at the tiny sawmill one summer for enough boards to put the floor in.

It was kind of a tough life but then nobody had it all that good. Every once in a while Emmet would come into a windfall of an extra dollar or two due to getting some extra work and they’d spend it on some extravagance. A folly they called it. The Sears catalog got a real work out then. The pages in each ones area of desire were dog-eared, the ink smeared from touching the things they wanted most. Everybody had a special item picked out and the discussions about their picks filled many a long night by the coal-fired stove as they each presented the merits of their claims. There was untold agony and the greatest elation as each persons choice would ascend or descend in popularity as the discussions waged back and forth. When the order was finally placed there was a sense of relief that they had finally agreed on something. It turned out that everybody would eventually get what they wanted with Edna being the last to finally get the thing she loved.

She had expected a hard life but the year and a half they lived in the tent nearly broke her. That winter proved to her that there was a purgatory just like that traveling preacher threatened. She was quite a bit more god-fearing after that and never missed a chance to give thanks for the little they had. She knew you could have a lot less. When they moved into the house she felt like she had become one of the chosen ones and good fortune had finally smiled on her. She was sure this was a sign they would make it.

Their front door was made out behind the house on a pair of homemade saw horses and didn’t turn out half bad, Emmet gradually getting more skilled in the making of things. They hung it at first with leather strap hinges and it had a clever latch system that Emmet puzzled out to keep it closed. When it was finally Edna’s turn to choose from the catalog she chose a brand new nickel-plated door knob with matching fancy back plate. It cost three dollars and was the most expensive thing they had ever ordered out of the book but she knew it would make her house a home. When it came it had not one but two keyholes with two different skeleton keys to lock it up tight so nobody could get in. For some reason Emmet installed it upside down. I wish I could ask him why he did that. He must have had a good reason. It didn’t matter, it still made their door the fanciest door in town and everybody stopped by to admire it and try their turn at using the keys in the locks. Whenever they left to go to church or over to Hackmore, the town next over the hill, to shop or attend the Saturday night dance Edna would carefully lock both locks then hang the keys on the nail Emmet put in the door frame to hold them. Locks were just for keeping honest people honest.

People were gradually leaving Rat’s Eye for more prosperous places like Hackmore which was growing leaps and bounds. Some of them even went on up to Billings where there was a lot of work. It wasn’t long before it was just the Chilkotts and one other family and they were talking about leaving. It was a desperately cold night and Ed was coughing again and one of them, the story doesn’t relate who, put some extra coal in the stove so they’d be a little warmer. Nobody knows how it happened, but some how the damper handle got bumped closing down the flue, maybe the stove door was hot and it got slammed shut and the damper turned, or the damper was turned open to let more air in to get the new coal started easier, then it was turned back a little too far towards the closed position, whatever happened it doesn’t matter now. The Chilkotts, Edna, Emmet and Ed didn’t wake up the next morning. Coal produces carbon monoxide and carbon monoxide produces deaths. And gone is gone.

The other family took care of burying the Chilkotts. They rest out behind their house on a little hill where Edna used to sit and crochet in better days. Then they packed up and left. That’s why the town sign says -3 for population because that’s all that ‘s left of the town of Rat’s Eye. That and a few of the buildings. The three graves are overgrown and barely discernible but the white rocks with their names on them are still there. Every once in a while someone will pull the weeds and straighten the stones. Edna’s fancy doorknob and back plate are still there, as is her house. The keys are long gone but it doesn’t matter, the doors are unlocked.