Carver
Neil Hilborn Lyrics

According to our maps, we are more than half way there.
We have covered more than half of the distance as per our maps.

My hands were frozen into claws around the climbing rope.
My hands were so cold that they became stiff and looked like claws around the rope.

The cold was crawling into my legs, biting me through my clothes and I just knew that if I let go, I'd slide all the way down the mountain back to New York.
The cold was penetrating my legs and felt like it was biting me even through my clothes. I was afraid that I might slip down the mountain to New York if I let go.

Shivering in the cold, I open my eyes and all there was was that rope, disappearing into the blizzard.
I was shivering in the extreme cold and all I could see was the rope vanishing into the blizzard.

Let me take you back three years.
Let me tell you a story that happened three years ago.

I was working for Sam Carver, putting up posters for his speeches.
I worked for Sam Carver, and one of my duties was to assist in the promotion of his speeches through posters.

Sam Carver, venture extroadionaire, had seen all known continents of the world.
Sam Carver was a venture capitalist and an adventurer who had traveled all over the world, even to the most remote continents.

Now, Mr Carver said that Americans had a right to everything to the west of us.
Sam Carver believed that Americans had the right to claim and own everything to the west of their current location.

He called it manifest destiny and I just could not get it out of my head like,
Sam Carver referred to this ideology as manifest destiny, and it had such a strong impact on me that I could not stop thinking about it.

It was a hymn to the Lord and Sam was the mouth of God saying, 'Go west, my son, go west.'
The idea of manifest destiny sounded like a religious hymn, and Sam Carver was like a messenger of God, saying 'Go west, my son, go west.'

So when Sam said he was going to California, I told him I was the kind of woodsman that could chop down a tree with a stick and a sharp rock.
When Sam told me about his plan to go to California, I boasted that I was a skilled woodsman who could cut down a tree with just a stick and a sharp rock.

Hell, I could start a fire with a piece of wood and some wet moss, you see,
I was so confident in my skills that I even claimed to be able to start a fire with just a piece of wood and some wet moss.

I grew up in the mountains of Kentucky where just breathing is like pulling a tornado into your lungs and spitting out the debris,
I spent my childhood in the mountainous region of Kentucky, where even breathing can feel like you're inhaling a tornado and exhaling the debris.

Where sunset is like all the gun powder in the world going off in reverse on the horizon.
In Kentucky, sunsets look like a reverse explosion of all the gunpowder in the world on the horizon.

Mr Carver, he said that sunsets in California were like the pacific closing its eyes.
Sam Carver claimed that the sunsets in California were so beautiful that the Pacific ocean even shut its eyes in awe.

According to our maps, we were more than half way there and Sam said that God spoke to him.
Our maps indicated that we had covered more than half of the distance, and Sam claimed that God spoke to him.

Told him to turn south, turn south,
God apparently gave Sam Carver instructions to turn to the south.

And some of us thought we was going the wrong way,
Some of us thought that turning towards the south was the wrong direction.

Especially when we starting climbing that mountain, but he just kept repeating, 'South, we've got to go south.'
We became even more doubtful when we started climbing the mountain. But Sam Carver kept insisting that we should go to the south.

Now, I'd have trusted that man as long as I still had teeth in my head, but then there was that rope.
I would have trusted Sam Carver as long as I had teeth in my head, but then, there was that rope to deal with.

Disappearing into the blizzard.
The rope vanished into the blizzard, which made things more complicated and dangerous.

Manwell yelled back through the snow, 'Richard! There's blood coming outta my shoes!'
Manwell shouted back to Richard through the snow, saying that his shoes were soaked in blood.

And I ripped off his boots, and his feet, they were rotten from the bottom up,
I removed Manwell's boots, and to our horror, we saw that his feet were decaying from the bottom upwards.

Burnt black like firewood, with coals glowing in the centre.
Manwell's feet were charred black like firewood, with glowing coals in the center.

He asked me to shoot him right there but a Christian man can't kill no one so we built him a fire and just left him there.
Manwell wanted me to shoot him at that moment, but as a devout Christian, I couldn't take a life. So, we made a fire for him and left him there to die.

I was leaning back on the rope, pulling Johnson up an ice shelf and when he came up over the lip his leg snapped.
As I was pulling Johnson up an ice shelf, his leg suddenly snapped when he got to the top.

I ran up to Carver and said, 'John's leg damn near broke off!', but all he said was, 'Well, he'll have to get it put back on when we get to California.'
I hurried to Sam Carver and told him about Johnson's leg almost breaking off, but he dismissed it and said that Johnson could seek medical attention in California.

And then the meat ran out.
We ran out of food.

I caught myself staring at McNab as he laid down in the snow.
I couldn't help but stare at McNab, who was lying down in the snow.

I'd never been so hungry.
I was incredibly starving and had never experienced such hunger before.

And when Sam smiled, I saw the gates of Heaven clanging shut and he said that Providence wanted us to eat,
When Sam Carver smiled, I felt like the gates of heaven were closing on me. He said that it was God's will for us to eat.

Wanted us to have this,
Sam Carver thought that it was necessary for us to consume human flesh to survive.

And I bit into his raw and frozen thigh.
I bit into Sam's raw and frozen thigh, which was an act of cannibalism.

His blood tasted like every single word a manifest destiny spit out and a howl from the Devil.
Sam's blood had a taste of everything that manifest destiny represented and also felt like it was howling with the voice of the devil.

The last thing I saw before I passed out was Carver, heading West with two human legs hung over his shoulder.
Before I passed out, the last image I saw was Sam heading west towards California, carrying two human legs over his shoulder.

He was just whistling, walking to California.
Sam was just whistling and walking towards California, seemingly unaffected by the cannibalistic act he had initiated.