As the closing track to his first album, Boone “Dusty” Maddox delivers a song that feels less like an ending and more like a quiet transition. “Ledger’s Last Page” is the sound of a man hanging up his tools at the end of a long season in Sector 8, watching the frost turn the bunker dust into silver while the mountain smoke settles into the hollows.
The Promises a Man Can Keep
This track brings together all the “field notes” we’ve learned through the previous songs. The charcoal bed, the North Star in the head, the carved bone, and the dipped light—they aren’t just survival tactics anymore; they are the sum total of a life lived with intention. The rhythm here is slower, the boot-stomp replaced by the gentle creak-thump of a rocking chair or a shifting log in the stove.
There’s a profound contentment in Boone’s gravelly whisper: “I’ve learned the secrets of the rock and the tree / And that’s enough of a world for me.” In a world that used to be obsessed with “more,” Boone makes a compelling case for “enough.”
Banking the Fire
The spoken bridge serves as the ultimate Maddox status report: “The filter’s clean. The hook is set. The candle’s burnt… But I ain’t done yet.” It’s the resilience of the Appalachian spirit distilled into four short lines. He isn’t giving up; he’s just “resting his bones” until the spring-thaw.
When he finally says, “Goodnight, mountain,” and the song fades into the sound of a howling winter wind, you get the sense that Boone “Dusty” Maddox is exactly where he’s supposed to be—safe, prepared, and profoundly at peace with the silence.
LEDGER’S LAST PAGE
by: Boone “Dusty” Maddox
The frost is a-creepin’ on the window pane
Turning the dust into a silver stain
I’ve walked the ridges and I’ve wove the oak
I’ve lived my life in the mountain smoke
The ledger is full and the ink is dry
Under the lid of a winter sky.
I got my water through the charcoal bed
I got the North Star inside my head
The trip-pole lathe is a-quiet now
Beside the hammer and the rusted plow
I carved the bone and I dipped the light
To keep me company through the long-haul night.
Oh, the mountain gives and the mountain takes
In every heart-beat and the breath it makes
I’ve learned the secrets of the rock and the tree
And that’s enough of a world for me
Just a lonesome man in a lonesome shack
With no reason for to be lookin’ back.
The filter’s clean.
The hook is set.
The candle’s burnt…
But I ain’t done yet.
Just restin’ my bones ’til the spring-thaw comes.
So I’ll bank the fire with a hickory log
And listen to the silence in the valley fog
The tools are ready and the shelf is deep
With all the promises a man can keep
I’ll lay my head on a cedar floor
And let the winter wind howl at the door.
That’s the end of the book. Goodnight, mountain.