6 Miles With Courage (24 page)

Rob looked at Ryan, nodd
ing his head in agreement, “I’m sure your right son. Old Red just went up five-notches in my book. I’m going to tell a different story about him from now on.”

“Go to the next one dad.”

Rob peeled back the cloth revealing the last photograph which was on a sheet of tin. It was of a middle-aged woman standing in front of a steam boat. Rob did not recognize the woman but he did the boat.

“Hey, I saw that boat. It came down the river while I was camped out on the banks of the Oklawaha. I don’t know the woman
though, what do you know about her dad?”

“Don’t know anything about her but let me read this
letter.”

Rob read as Ryan peaked out the shed door
and looked up at the cabin. He could see his mom and his aunt talking. He figured they had a little while longer before they would be missed. Ryan closed the door and went back to his dad’s side.

“What did you learn?”

“It says here this woman, apparently one of my great aunts, got on this steam boat ‘The Alligator’ sometime in the late 1800’s and was never to be seen again. She boarded in Silver Springs and was supposed to meet her fiancé at the end of the line. When the boat docked nothing could be found of her, not even her luggage!”

“What? How could that be?”

“It says here, that only one person disembarked earlier, but that it was a man. Her disappearance remains a mystery.”

“That was her!
That was the lady dressed like a man who told me that I was going in the wrong direction. She was sitting on the side of the road with all her luggage. She got off the boat to start a new life! She left her fiancé behind, and got off the boat one stop early and married someone else!”

“She helped you by pointing you in the right direction and it gave her the chance to tell us that she was alright
and went on to have a better life.” Rob said.

“That’s it there are no more photographs that I am familiar with. I think between the two of us we have answered all our questions. I know now whose faces I had seen and you know a little about the people who helped you out.” Rob said as he began to put the artifacts back into the trunk.

“And I think that it is safe to say that this is all connected,” Ryan said, “Including the fact that your grandpa had shown you these pictures, and the speech you had given me about courage before I left for the second time to go for help.”

“I agree and I also believe it would do us no good to talk about this to anyone. They will only chalk it up to hallucination
s, wild mushrooms and concussions.” Rob said with a laugh.

“I agree,” Ryan said as he extended his hand to his father for a hand shake. Then they turned
off the shed light and headed back to join the ladies.

Rob and Ryan had come away with a new understanding about
life and death, and all who have come before us.

W
hen we are born, the love and the courage of
all
our ancestors dwell within us. It
is
who we are. In a desperate situation, when one feels hopeless and that all is lost, God through our faith can intervene and help us to tap into that love and courage. They learned another valuable lesson too. No matter how many years have passed you may get a chance to right a wrong, even if it was a simple misunderstanding.
Love and courage then, knows no bounds!

Within a
week Rob left the cabin and was back home. Neither he nor Ryan had any problems coping and getting back to life as usual.

In the years that followed, they shared many wonderful and exciting adventures together surveying the Florida wilderness
.
To this day Ryan occasionally works with his dad on the survey crew and is quite a valuable crew member.