He shouldered the pack then grabbed the halter and walked the horse out of the camp and down the trail that led north and west along the creek. His father struggled to sit the horse and settled for clutching the saddle horn two-handed again.
“Try and feel her step,” the kid said. “You have to move with her.”
“Ojibways weren’t horse Injuns.”
“Still. Better if you read her step. Don’t tire out that way.”
“I’ll tire out anyhow.”
The creek was boisterous from rain in the higher elevations and it drowned out the sound of the land. The kid kept an eye on the trees. Cougars were known in these parts and they bore no fear of man. There were tracks in the mud of the trailside: deer, raccoons, skunks, rabbits, and one sudden, bold, clear print of a bobcat. He looked up at his father to point it out to him but he was slumped in the saddle with his chin bumping his chest and he called to him. His father raised a hand limply from the saddle horn then let if fall. He was weaker. There was a different odour coming off him now, something like old leaves mouldering on the forest floor, and the kid wondered if the moment was close by. The thought raised a lump in his throat and he gritted his teeth and mouthed a silent curse at himself for it. He punched his thigh and scowled. He walked the horse more carefully up the pitch of the trail. His father’s head lolled and he moaned now and then and the kid wondered about binding his hands to the pommel and his feet to the stirrups.
The trail left the stream after three or four miles and began a long, meandering climb around the jut of ridge. The trees were farther apart here, the bed of soil a mere four inches thick, and he could see the roots of them pushed across the skin of the mountain like veins. They climbed steadily for the rest of the morning and when the sun had reached its zenith he looked for a level place to stop. They came to a clump of pines with one thick root poked out of the grass and gravel and he took the horse into it and helped his father down and set him with his back against the root until he was comfortable. Then he strode off and returned in a short time with mushrooms and greens and berries that he crushed up and fashioned into a paste. He gathered a clump of it on a stick of alder and held it out to his father.
“You don’t want me to eat that?”
“It eats better than it looks.”
“It’d want to.” He took a mouthful and washed it down with water from the canteen and looked at the kid with surprise. “Don’t taste bad.”
“Sometimes I’ll put some pine resin in with it if I got a pot and a fire. Makes a good soup. Lots of good stuff in there.”
“Old man?”
“Yeah. At first he brung me out all the time when I was small. Showed me plants and how to gather them. Everything a guy would need is here if you want it and know how to look for it, he said. You gotta spend time gatherin’ what you need. What you need to keep you strong. He called it a medicine walk.”
“Hand us that crock.”
The kid reached across to the pack and rooted around for the bottle. His father drank in small sips and peered out through the trees at the territory they were in. The kid rolled them each a smoke and they lit up and sat silently. Now and then his father would close his eyes and let his head fall forward and then push it up again with one hand. Then he leaned his head back against the root of the tree and closed his eyes and the kid could hear him breathing. It was ragged and forced at first and his hand clenched and unclenched at his side and he put the other to his belly and groaned. Gradually he eased and his breathing grew shallower and quieter. His mouth hung open and he huffed and clawed around at his pocket for the smokes. The kid leaned over and dug out the pack and shook one out and held it to his lips and lit it for him. His father smoked without using his hands and kept his eyes closed. The kid scuffed around at the gravel with the alder stick.
“There’s a place just up this face worth seeing,” the kid said.
His father only grunted.
“I been goin’ there a long time. It changes. Maybe because I got older. Got more sense now. I don’t know. It’s just special,” the kid said. “There’s signs up there. Symbols. Painted right into the rock. When the old man took me there the first time he said it was sacred because no one can ever figure out how come the paintings never faded. They been there a powerful long time.”
“I hearda places like that. Never been to them. Never seen them.”
“Seems like maybe you should see it now.”
“We gotta climb to it.”
“The horse can get you most of the way. I’ll lug you the best I can up the rest.”
“Sounds like a lotta work for a few paintings.”
“Lotta times, I guess, you never know what you need until you lay eyes on it.”
“You got to be a philosopher,” his father said.
The kid looked at him and shook his head. “Not so much. I mean, out here things just come all on their own sometimes. Thoughts, ideas, stuff I never really had a head for.”
“I never had much of a head for anything. My back got me through.”
“That and the hooch,” the kid said and nodded toward the bottle.
His father glared at him. He tipped the bottle up and swallowed. He coughed and gagged a bit. He held a hand up to his mouth and closed his eyes. When the urge to retch passed he leaned back against the root and eyed the kid who lowered his gaze. “Don’t judge me,” he said.
“Ain’t,” the kid said.
“What is it you’re doin’ then?”
“Just watchin’ is all.”
“Watching what?”
The kid stood up and pitched the stick into the fire. “Guess I’ll tell you when I got that figured. Right now, I’m just watching.”
His father took a feeble sip of the whisky. The kid kicked dirt over the fire and stamped it out then walked to the horse, snugged up the tack, and led her back to where his father lay. His father struggled to his feet. The kid took his arm to help him up onto the horse. His hand encircled the whole bicep. He had to reach out and grab his father by the belt to hoist him up into the stirrup. He stood with his foot in it and caught his breath before kicking his other leg over to sit in the saddle.
There was a narrow path that led around boulders and between trees that eased upward with the flank of the cliff at their right. The forest thinned out. There were large gaps between trees. The ground was a mass of pine needles, roots, and rocks. Here and there a small copse of aspens or birches lent a dappled look to the slant of the path and the horse nickered at it. The kid patted her neck. His father looked around and clutched the saddle horn for balance and they walked easily for a while until the trail canted upward sharply. It pressed tight to the cliff. They began a tenuous, snaking climb. His father had to lean forward in the saddle and the horse fought for purchase in the talus and gravel.
The trail bellied out onto a small ledge. The trees were stunted. Only junipers seemed to flourish and they spread
wide right up to the edge of the cliff. The trail became barely visible along the cliff face. “We’re gonna leave her here,” the kid said. “It’s about eighty feet more.”
“Might as well be eighty miles,” his father said. “Way I feel anyways.”
“I’ll get you there. Everyone should see something like this.”
The kid tied the horse to a small tree and his father was able to walk on his own for a dozen yards. Then the trail tilted up and the footing grew less stable. The kid moved behind him and put a hand in his belt and the other between his shoulder blades. His father grumbled but the kid pushed on. They stopped now and then so his father could catch his breath. The kid looked out over the valley below them and waited. When he was ready his father huffed and the kid propelled him steadily upward. Eventually they reached a ledge about ten feet long and four feet wide. The wall of the cliff was flat. The kid eased his father down close to the edge. It took a moment for his breathing to settle and when he finally raised his eyes to look at the cliff face his mouth draped open.
“Damn, Frank,” he said.
The kid sat down beside him and they both stared up at the wall of rock. There were symbols painted in a dull red, black, and a stark greyish white. There were birds, oddly shaped animals, what appeared to be horses and bison, horned beings, stars, and assorted lines and shapes. The drawings stretched a full twenty feet up and covered the entire wall. They studied them without speaking for a long time.
“Take me up to it,” his father said quietly.
The kid stood and helped him stand. Together they shuffled to the face of the cliff. His father reached out and put his
hand on the rock. Then he slid it over and covered a small dog-like shape and raised his head to look up at the array.
“What do they signify?” Eldon asked.
“I don’t know. Near as I can figure they’re stories. I reckon some are about travelling. That’s how they feel to me. Others are about what someone seen in their life. The old man doesn’t think anyone ever figured them out.”
“Ain’t a powerful lotta good if ya can’t figure ’em out.”
The kid shrugged. “I sorta think you gotta let a mystery be a mystery for it to give you anything. You ever learn any Indian stuff?”
His father lowered his gaze. He turned his back to the wall and slid down to sit. He brushed a hand over his forehead and closed his eyes to heave a deep breath. “Nah,” he said finally. “Most of the time I was just tryin’ to survive. Belly fulla beans beats a head fulla thinkin’. Stories never seemed likely to keep a guy goin’. Savvy?”
“I guess,” the kid said. “Me, I always wanted to know more about where I come from.” The kid took out his makings and rolled them each a smoke. They lit up and smoked quietly for a minute or two. “I could come and sit here for hours. I spent three days here once when I was thirteen. Sorta thought if I spent enough time studying them drawings I could figure out what they were supposed to tell me.”
“They ever?”
An eagle drifted over the valley. There was a yap of coyotes from somewhere below and the snap of a limb as something big moved through the trees above them. “Not really, I guess. Nothin’ real, least ways,” the kid said after a while. “But it seemed to me no one came here no more. Like they forgot it was here. That made me sad. So I kept comin’ so there’d at least
be someone even if I didn’t know how to read ’em or get what it was they were tryin’ to say. At least there was someone.”
His father just looked at him.
“I can’t reckon someone dying,” the kid said. “Scares me some to think of it. Don’t exactly know how to face it. Don’t know what I’m s’posedta do when it happens. So I don’t know how come I brung ya here. Mighta just been for me.”
His father slipped the whisky out of his coat pocket and dribbled a little of it into his mouth and sat there looking out across the wide expanse of space that hung over the valley. “Mighta,” he said.
T
HEY MADE THE BOTTOM OF THE CLIFF
by mid-afternoon. His father was weaker. By the stream the kid helped him off the horse and washed his face with handfuls of cold water, then held a cup out for him to drink. His father sipped at it and when he swallowed there was an audible clack in his throat. Then he coughed. The kid sat him back against a rock. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back and the kid listened to the sounds of the land around them. The breeze sent leaves fluttering and the rush of the water was like a low whistle underneath that. The horse whinnied. The kid put his hand to his father’s head and felt the heat of him. Then he stood and faced the west and put his face up and closed his eyes. There was rain coming.
“Got to get you inside,” the kid said. “Rain and cold ain’t good for you.”
“You got a cave in mind?” his father asked. He opened one eye and studied him.
“There’s a deserted old trapper’s cabin a few miles off. It’s off our route some but not by much.”
“Got a bed?”
“There’s a cot is all.”
“I could stand a bed.”
When he’d rested the kid pushed him up into the saddle again and they walked along the stream for a mile or so. Then the kid led the horse west. There was a meagre trail that was overgrown with bracken but he knew where he was headed. His father looked up every now and then but didn’t speak. They soon broke through the trees into a wide marsh. The grasses were high and bent in the breeze that was stiffer now and cold. The footing was boggy and the horse’s hooves made loud sucking sounds. The kid clomped through looking for tufts of grass to aid his steps. There was a wide pond with a beaver dam in the middle. At the far end the spruce and fir began again and the ground was firmer and dry. The horse seemed to know where she was headed and picked up her pace some. His father grasped the saddle horn and swayed before he caught the rhythm of her step and settled into a looser sway. They walked into a clearing where there was dilapidated cabin gone grey with age and an open shed canted to one side. There was a feeble curl of smoke from the chimney.
The horse nickered at the smell of hay and the door to the cabin opened. A woman stepped out. She cradled a shotgun in the crook of her arms. She was short and burly and she wore men’s clothes. Even her boots were a man’s and when
she walked her step was deliberate and heavy. She had the wide, squat face of a Native woman but her skin was fair and her eyes under the wide, battered brim of her hat were a pale blue. She stepped off the porch and stood mutely, her eyes flicking back and forth between them. The hands that held the shotgun were grimed with dirt, hard-looking, dry, and she flexed them while she fixed her flat stare on them.
“He sick?” she asked, swinging her gaze to the kid. Her voice was gruff and rattled out like she hadn’t used it in while.
“Yes,” the kid said. “My father.”
“What’s he got. The fever?”
“No, ma’am. He’s drink sick. He’s dying.”
“Drink sick? Well, least it ain’t catchy. Rain’s comin’ and I don’t imagine you fancy a night out in it. Feels like a good soak on its way.”
“Appreciate a place on your floor, that’s true,” the kid said.
“Well, fetch him in then. There’s hay and the well’s back of the shed. I got stew and I do a pretty good biscuit. If he’s drink sick, some cedar tea will help his fever.”