Grayfox

by Michael Phillips

  “They didn’t do that.”

  “No. They chose a different pathway. Every man and woman’s story in life is different, Zack. Most folks have to learn to see God’s reflection in their fathers. A few have to take something that maybe doesn’t reflect God at all and use it to learn to look up to find God. Your story won’t be like mine, Demming’s won’t be like Tranter’s.”

  “Like we’re different books?”

  He nodded. “Different, yet in every man and woman’s story—yours, mine, Demming’s, Tranter’s, Laughing Waters’—God will use earthly fatherhood kinda like a tool, even though he uses it to accomplish different purposes in each of our cases.”

  I thought a minute or two about everything he’d said.

  “I think I get what you mean. So what you’re saying is that God will use earthly fatherhood even in the life of an orphan?”

  “Even an orphan can say to himself, ‘I don’t know anything about earthly fatherhood. I don’t have a broken mirror. I don’t have any mirror at all! Therefore, I have to look all the more carefully to find out what it means that God is my father.’”

  “It must be hard for orphans.”

  “There’s lots of broken mirrors around, Zack—lots of orphans, lots of young’uns with rascals for fathers, or whose fathers don’t live with them, lots of different kinds of stories people’s lives have to tell. But we still all gotta learn to look up and find our heavenly Father somehow.”

  Neither of us said anything for a bit.

  “Trouble is,” Hawk went on, “most folks, seeing that the mirror of their own pa is either broken or blacked out or gone, they turn their backs and walk away, and then they never find out what God’s fatherhood is like at all.”

  Hawk paused a minute, a look of sadness coming over his face.

  “That’s the way I was for a long time, Zack,” he added, “till I finally figured out what that broken mirror had been reflecting back to me all my life, but I’d never seen.”

  “You mean your own pa?” I asked.

  “Yep, my own pa.”

  “What was he like?” I asked.

  Hawk got real quiet and thoughtful, and didn’t say anything for quite a spell.

  “I didn’t mean to pry,” I added, feeling suddenly awkward about what I’d asked.

  “It’s okay, son,” he answered slowly. “It’s only that I haven’t told a soul all these years . . .”

  He put down his coffee, reached over to stir up the fire, then sat back and continued.

  “Up to now, I never met anybody I could tell.”

  Chapter 47

  Two Men

  It was a long time before Hawk spoke up again.

  When he did, his voice sounded a whole lot different than I’d ever heard it before. I knew his words were coming out of a different place down inside him, and something about his voice made me pay closer attention than to almost anything I’d ever heard him say before.

  “You recollect me telling you about two men when we was talking about courage?” he said finally.

  “Yeah,” I answered. “One was called Jake—the tough, fighting fella. But I forgot the other name.”

  “I called him Mr. Fenwick,” said Hawk in an even quieter tone.

  I waited for him to say more, but it was a long wait.

  He was staring down at the ground, but his eyes looked like they were boring right through the dirt and seeing a mile underneath it. It was the same kind of look that comes over somebody’s face when they are seeing back into the past.

  “’Course, Fenwick wasn’t his real name,” Hawk finally said, then paused again.

  “You mean he’s a real man?”

  “Yep.”

  “What is his real name?”

  “Trumbull,” answered Hawk. “Mr. Fenwick’s name was Trumbull.”

  “But . . . but why’d you call him Fenwick then?” I asked.

  “’Cause making it seem like he’s somebody different keeps the pain of remembering a little further away,” replied Hawk. “You see, son, the fellow I was talking about was my pa.”

  “Mr. Fenwick—I mean Mr. Trumbull?” I said in astonishment.

  Hawk nodded slowly. “That was my pa—glasses, music, reading, thinking—just like I described him to you.”

  “Where is—I mean, is he still—”

  “No, Zack,” said Hawk quietly. “He’s dead now. Been gone a lot of years.”

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry, Hawk,” I said, fumbling for words. I’d never seen Hawk like this, so quiet and emotional, and it suddenly made me feel different inside—like he wasn’t so much older than me, like we were more on the same level.

  “That’s all right . . . thanks, Zack.”

  “What . . . what about the other fella?” I asked.

  “Jake?”

  “Yeah. You just make him up?”

  Hawk smiled, but in a melancholy way.

  “No, he’s real too.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Jake’s my brother,” said Hawk. “He’s just like I told you too—a tough customer, like Demming, who’s killed more men than I can count. Makes me shudder just to think of what’s waiting for him some day.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean when he dies and finally meets his Maker.”

  “He’s still alive?”

  “Yeah,” Hawk answered with a sigh. “Though I can’t say as I’d exactly call it living. But you’re right, he’s still alive—far as I know, anyway.”

  “You don’t know for sure?”

  “No, I haven’t seen him in more than fifteen years. He and I didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.”

  By now I was so curious I was dying to know more, but I was almost afraid to ask. So I just waited, hoping Hawk would want to tell me.

  “You see, son,” he said at length, “I grew up with both those two men—my pa and my brother, Jake. Jake was four years older’n me, so all my life, when I was a little fellow, I just figured he was mostly a man too. Our ma died when I was eight, and after that it was just the three of us.”

  “And . . . and what happened?”

  Still that far-off gaze was in Hawk’s eye.

  “You remember, when I told you about them, I was talking about courage?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, I reckon the long and the short of it is that I spent the next ten or fifteen years watching the two of them, my tough brother and my meek, soft-spoken pa, looking back and forth between them, watching how they did things, trying to figure out which one of them was a real man. They were about as different as two men could be. So I reckon I figured one of them must know what being a man was all about, and the other didn’t.

  “And . . . did you get it figured out?” I said.

  Hawk nodded, slowly and thoughtfully.

  “Yep . . . yeah, I did.” He sighed. “Though by the time I did, it was too late.”

  “Too late . . . too late for what?” I said.

  “You really want to know, Zack?”

  “Yeah, ’course I do.”

  Hawk paused a minute, then suddenly got up.

  “You feel like going for a walk?”

  “I guess,” I said.

  “Let’s walk out across the hills. I’ll tell you as we go.”

  We set down our cups of coffee and walked out of the cave into the bright sunlight and the hot afternoon sun.

  Chapter 48

  The Rest of Hawk’s Story

  That day, the whole desert seemed full of memories.

  Hawk was thinking about his past, and I was thinking about my first months with him. Maybe the tightness in my thigh as we walked made me remember my broken leg.

  We walked up past the spot where Hawk had first talked to me about the sky and the importance of learning to see. I realized what a treasure it was that he spoke to me as he did about such important things rather than just always talking about surface matters.

  I reckon a lot of folks would have considered Hawk a s
trange bird, always trying to find meaning in things, always looking at everything spiritual-like, always making things so personal.

  Yet I realized how fortunate I was to have time with him. A man like Hawk doesn’t come into a person’s life every day. It was a time, which I reckon comes for lots of kids like me, when I wasn’t able to see maybe some of the things I should have from my own pa. But God gave me the gift of another person to help me learn during that time. Hawk wouldn’t have wanted to be a substitute for my own pa, but he was there to be kinda like a pa for a while, all the time helping me to gently look at the things I might not have otherwise.

  We walked a good ways before Hawk said any more.

  When he did, I could tell right off from the sound that he had drifted a long way back in time, through the years, to when he was a lot younger even than I was right then.

  “My pa was a soft-spoken man,” he began, “like I told you. I reckon there’s things in everybody’s fathers they wish was different. For me, I always wished my pa’d talk more. You never knew what he was thinking. He was a decent man and pleasant enough, just quiet. He wasn’t what you’d call a man’s man either. Like I told you, he was a music teacher. He was small and wore glasses, and most of the time when he was home he’d spend his time reading or playing on the piano we had or writing out some music for his students. My ma loved him and loved music right along with him. She taught me to play the piano some, but—”

  “You can play the piano?” I interrupted.

  “I haven’t even laid eyes on a piano in years,” Hawk answered. “I don’t know what would happen if my fingers found themselves on one again.

  “At any rate,” he went on, “when my brother Jake started growing up, it was clear right off that he was about as different from my pa as any kid could be. He sure wasn’t interested in music or the quiet kind of life we had. I remember overhearing my mother and father talking once, wondering to themselves where he’d got his loud, tough, rebellious streak. He was a lad to give any parents fits, especially ones like ours. By the time he was five he was getting into fights with other boys twice his age. I think he first hit Pa when he was seven. I don’t remember, but he bragged to me about it later.

  “By the time our ma died several years after that, Jake was twelve and might as well have been running the whole place. I think Pa kinda gave up trying, what with his grief over ma’s dying and figuring it was impossible to control Jake.”

  “What happened?” I said.

  “The next few years must have been hell for my pa, though I couldn’t see it much then. He went on with his teaching and kind of left me and my brother to fend for ourselves. It wasn’t from not caring, I don’t think, but just because he didn’t know what to do about Jake.

  “Jake just did whatever he pleased. He’d started stealing when he was ten, stole a gun right after Ma died and kept it hidden from pa, and the next year he ran away, left home, hired on with a riverboat, and by age fifteen or sixteen he was already getting a reputation as a feller to stay away from.

  “I knew it broke Pa’s heart. A little bit more of him died every time we’d get some kind of word about something else Jake had done. I remember one time when Jake came home, he was bragging about the first time he’d killed a man. The brokenhearted look on Pa’s face—”

  Hawk stopped and looked away. I could see him blinking back tears. I looked away too. I didn’t want him to be embarrassed from me seeing him cry.

  The rest of our walk was pretty quiet.

  There didn’t seem much more for Hawk to say. And I didn’t want to ask any more questions. I knew the memories hurt him deep inside.

  By the time we got back to the cave, I had to sit down. My leg still got sore from the snakebite when I walked on it too much at one time. So I just had to sit down and rest it a spell.

  “Feel like some more coffee?” Hawk asked.

  “Yeah . . . thanks.”

  “And now that we’re up here, how about I start us a pot of beans for tomorrow? We got some dried pintos left, and a little bacon. I’ll be heading down for supplies next week.”

  “Sounds right good,” I said.

  There was a long pause. Hawk just kept sitting there.

  “You know, Zack,” he added finally in a far-off voice—and for once he didn’t look at me, but kept staring straight into the fire—“having you here . . . I’ve enjoyed myself more than I have for years. It’s been good for me to have someone to share life with. You been a good companion.”

  Again he stopped, still just looking into the fire.

  “I wish you could stay here with me,” he went on. “Not that I got any regrets. I was at peace with my life alone. But I could get real used to having you around.”

  Finally he looked over to me, then added, “What I’m trying to tell you, son, is that you’ve been a good friend.”

  I tried to reply, but no words would come out.

  Chapter 49

  Looking Inside Myself

  Laying there in the mountain cave that night, with the fire slowly burning itself out, I didn’t fall asleep for a couple of hours. I looked around, and my mind kept going back to my first days with Hawk, and that couldn’t help but remind me why I was out there in the first place.

  But it wasn’t only from being in the cave again.

  I couldn’t listen to all Hawk said about his own pa without doing some mighty hard thinking of my own about leaving Miracle Springs like I had. I’d said some pretty awful things, and now I was sorry about what I’d said. After being with Hawk all this time, I was looking at a lot of things in a whole new light.

  Hawk knew what I was going through and what I was thinking about. I knew he knew. He gave me lots of room and didn’t push.

  But then a day came, after we’d been up at the mountain cave about a week, when I reckon he knew I needed prodding to take the next step where I needed to go.

  It was mid-summer and really hot. He’d mentioned a couple of times that he had to go down to the Desert Springs trading post in the valley to pick up a few supplies. At first I figured I might stay up in the hills alone. The mood I was in was a quiet one, and I wasn’t all that anxious to see other people right then.

  Hawk had told me all along that I ought to get in touch with the Pony Express people, to let them know I was still alive, and my family too. But up to now I still hadn’t done that. Though I always intended to get word back home, somehow the time passed faster than I realized, and I just never did anything about it.

  At any rate, on this particular afternoon we were out in front of the cave, tending to one of the mules, which had picked up a stone in its hoof. That ornery critter always hated to have its foot messed with. Hawk had to hold its head while I dug out the rock.

  We were standing out there, working hard under that hot sun, when Hawk made a statement right out of the blue.

  “It’s time, son,” he said.

  I thought at first he was talking about his trip down to the valley.

  “Time for what?” I said. “You going after your supplies?”

  “No, I ain’t talking about me,” he answered. “It’s time for you to show what you’re really made of.”

  “Huh?”

  “You proved you got the one kind of courage. Now what about the other?”

  “I don’t get what you mean,” I said. “You afraid that bear’ll come back while you’re gone? I’ll be careful.”

  “I’m not talking about that.”

  “What then? I’m not facing anything dangerous.”

  “For what you got to face.”

  “I still don’t get your meaning.”

  “Zack, you’re not facing a war or a band of Indians or a charging bounty hunter trying to shoot you down . . . or even a bear. But you’re sure enough facing a challenge—and it’s something that takes a different kind of bravery. What you got ahead of you takes more courage than most men have.”

  “How’s that?”

  “It’s easier to be br
ave when you’re up against something outside yourself, no matter how fearsome it is, than when you’re facing something inside yourself. That’s where you need the real courage. That’s why real manhood comes from courage inside.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Facing what’s on the inside’s a long sight harder than facing what’s only on the outside. Nothing’s harder than facing your own fears, your own past. That’s where the greatest courage comes—when the thing you’re up against is yourself.”

  Neither one of us spoke for a few minutes.

  “I reckon I kinda figured, after what happened with Demming and Laughing Waters, that maybe I’d taken a couple more steps toward being a man than I was before,” I said finally.

  “You did,” replied Hawk. “Several big steps.”

  “But that’s not enough to make me a man—that what you’re saying?”

  Hawk’s smile was kinda sad and thoughtful.

  “Most folks think it is,” he said finally. “That’s what the Indians think. That’s why they honored you by giving you a name that means courage and cunning. Their main purpose in life is to survive. Their whole way of living, their whole outlook is based on that tough, warrior approach. But no, Zack, my boy—no, that’s not all of what manhood is.”

  “So does what I did matter at all?” I asked.

  “Sure it matters. You saved the girl’s life, and you proved you got some guts. Those are good things.”

  “But not enough to make a man of me?”

  “I’m afraid you got that right. No, what you did won’t make a man of you. Any fool can go out and get his head blown off. Any fool can be brave or courageous if he’s determined enough to prove that he’s tougher than the next feller—or if he doesn’t think he’s got anything to lose. Tell you the truth, Zack, any fool could have done what you did by standing there and shooting that last arrow at Demming. Now, I’m not saying you’re a fool, and I don’t mean to take anything away from what you did, because it was still a mighty brave thing. I gotta tell you, I was right proud of how you handled yourself.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” I said.

  “It was selfless too,” Hawk went on. “That takes guts, putting yourself in danger for the sake of someone else. And you used your brain to do it so that you wouldn’t shoot too soon and get yourself killed! So you did good, don’t get me wrong. You showed yourself a pretty brave rascal. But that still can’t make a man of you all by itself. Jake could have done the same.”