The town rose from the earth like the wheat rose in the fields around it. Sun bleached buildings shimmered in the August heat, as if alive. The red of their bricks baked in the sun, from a distance appearing to float just above the brown sea of wheat that covered the valley.
Mountains stood in the distance. Solid and still they sat, untouched by the heat of summer or the cold of winter. Worn down by age, their slow rise and smooth shape across the arch of the sky gave them the illusion of proximity. After a lifetime in the valley, it still surprised Jeremiah how something that looked so close, could be so far away.
Leaving town this morning had been strangely uneventful. He thought he would feel some sadness at leaving for the last time. Instead, he felt nothing but relief as he said goodbye to his wife and two remaining children.
Relief for them, relief for him, relief that at last the end was in sight.
He looked to the road ahead. The narrow dirt jeep track wove through the pine trees before disappearing out of sight around a bend. He shifted into a lower gear as the road climbed steeply. With a loud bang the whine of his truck’s engine paused, jumped a pitch higher, and then resumed its noise as it fought gravity. Jeremiah’s ears rang as the old Ford strained to make its way up the steep grades of Forest Service Road 181.
Plumes of powdery tan dust chased behind the pickup as it climbed. Town was now more than an hour back, out of the mountains, across the fields. He would catch a brief glimpse of it at switchbacks, back out through the canyons in the distance. It was too far to see clearly now, just a tiny red smudge baking in the sun, lost in the rolling fields far behind.
He would miss these mountains. As a boy he had come up here with his father to hunt. The first time his father ever left him alone in the woods had been a few miles from where he was now.
At first he had been afraid to be alone in the mountains. Watching his father disappear into the darkness down the ridge had initially filled him with horror. He was alone. There were predators hunting the same ridges they were, predators that could easily kill a ten year old boy.
He had sat in the dark night, glassing the distant ridge for elk as instructed until his arms ached from the big binoculars. As he sat his fear faded. The call of the elk as they bugled back and forth, the crisp night air, the small cloud of his breath appearing and disappearing in the moonlight. He discovered there was a quiet rhythm in these mountains that never stopped. By the time his father returned, Jeremiah understood what it was his father loved about these mountains.
The dirt road leveled out as it neared the top of Indian Ridge, widening slightly in a spot to turn around before ending at a wall of trees. Sweat pooled in the small of his back from the heat. He stopped the truck. He was here. The cloud of dirt that had been chasing him up the mountain enveloped the truck. Silt dusted the pickup, painting it brown with the fine dirt.
Jeremiah shut off the engine, watching the dust gather into little clumps on the windshield. It grew dark in the cab. Still he didn’t move. His hands gripped the wheel, sweating where they touched the hot leather.
Was this the right thing to do? Would his father have done the same if he were in this position? A sense of shame tore through him, a crippling cancer that had metastasized into every part of his life. He looked over at the backpack on the seat beside him. His father would not have been in this position. This was Jeremiah’s failure, Jeremiah’s mistake.
He opened the door of the Ford to stand for a moment on the side of the road. The scent of the high country tamaracks mixed with the diesel exhaust from his truck. It was a familiar and friendly smell. This place, these trees, these mountains- if the answer was anywhere it was here.
Sweat stung his eyes and he squinted, turning away from the blazing sun. His shadow fell onto the ground before him. It stood slightly stooped. No longer did he stand straight and tall. The top of his spine bent forward, worn down like the mountains around him. His posture crushed by the weight of an unbearable grief.
He shouldered the daypack, slamming the truck door with a bang. Dust leapt off the door into the air, as if shocked. He ignored it. Reaching into the back of the pickup, behind the driver’s side, he unzipped a black, dirt covered duffel. Halfway down the zipper stuck. He cursed. With a frustrated yank he ripped it open, breaking the zipper. There, on the bottom of the bag, glistening in the bright white sunlight, lay a shiny silver Smith and Wesson .44 revolver.
As a boy he had watched his father kill a man with this gun. They had been hunting the backside of Chief Joe’s Draw. It was near the end of the season, when the snows covered the peaks but hadn’t yet touched the valleys. It was late in the day, and the light was low. They camped just below the snowline, big wet flakes mixed with rain falling from the sky. Jeremiah sat at the campfire, hands painfully cold inside wet gloves, watching the little bursts of steam rise from the snowflakes that landed on the hot rocks at the edge of the fire.
The man stumbled drunk out of the woods into their camp. His rifle was scuffed, rusted, and wet. It slung haphazardly over his left shoulder, a piece of dirty twine holding it in place instead of a leather shoulder strap. It pointed towards the sky, taking the rain and snow directly down the barrel. The man did not seem to notice.
He said he was a hunter like they were. He said he had hunted these hills for a long time, like they had. He said all hunters were brothers in camp.
Jeremiah’s father did not answer. He rose slowly and stood unspeaking between Jeremiah and the man.
Hunters share their kill with other hunters, the man said. No one should go hungry when there is food for everyone. The man’s eyes darted about the camp, stopping when it saw his father’s rifle.
It sat leaned up against the tent under the fly, out of the rain. It was flawless. The barrel had a perfect sheen of oil on it, so perfect it reflected the flames of the campfire in the steel. A single drop of moisture beaded up on the barrel, unable to touch the steel through the oil.
The wood of the stock was worn smooth from use. It shimmied as well, fine, dark, and precise. A leather strap, crafted by his father specifically for the rifle, twisted slowly back and forth in the breeze, dangling from the top of the barrel. It was an instrument of perfection.
The man stared at the rifle for minute. No one moved. His eyes shifted from the rifle, back to Jeremiah, then to his father. He spoke again, slurring his words.
I have whiskey; I can share whiskey for meat.
He took a step towards the fire.
Jeremiah’s father rested his hand on the hilt of the revolver. He slowly shook his head side to side, never taking his eyes off the man.
The man spoke faster, spittle flinging from the edges of his mouth. It’s not right to keep a man hungry when you have more than enough. It’s not right to turn a man away from a hot fire on a cold night. It’s not right for you to have, and others to not. I’m a hunter too, he said, I’m a hunter too.
Still, Jeremiah’s father did not speak.
The man grew more agitated. He pointed at Jeremiah. If there’s not enough the boy will be fine going hungry. It’s good for a boy to sleep in the mountains with an empty stomach. It teaches him to be a man. Give me some food. He took another step. Give me some food. Jeremiah grew afraid.
His father answered.
No.
The word hung in the air like a wall as soon as his father spoke it. It was solid, unmoving, untouchable. The man knew it.
Give me some food. I have a family too. Give me some food, or I will take it.
Jeremiah watched the man through the flames of the campfire. His movements grew quicker, more agitated, exacerbated by the flames dancing before him.
Still his father did not move.
The man spit on the ground. Curse you. And curse your son. He turn
ed, shuffling his slow drunken gait back towards the woods.
A wet log in the fire popped. The man spun, unslinging his gun, dropping to one knee as he did so. He moved impossibly fast for someone who had seemed so drunk a moment before.
Jeremiah’s father drew the revolver and shot the man in the heart. He was dead before he hit the ground. Jeremiah was safe.
***
Jeremiah knelt in the gravel to hide the key under the front wheel of the truck, as he always did. He stopped and gave a small laugh. He would not be coming back. There was no reason to hide it. He stood, setting it in the middle of the hood, holding it there for a moment to make sure it wouldn’t slide off. Once he was sure it would stay, he traced a large circle in the dust around it to draw attention to it. Someone would see it when they found the truck.
Jeremiah set the pistol next to the key on the hood and unslung his backpack, setting it in the dirt at his feet. He unbuckled the top of the pack, flipping it open. A leather holster lay atop the gear in the pack.
He took a deep breath and picked it up. Last night was the first time he had touched it since Jonathan died. It had still been in the boy’s room, next to his bed where his wife had left it after the funeral.
Jeremiah stepped into the room with a spinning head after half a bottle of whiskey. Everything was still in place exactly as Jonathan had left it six months ago. A glass of water sat next to the little boy’s bed, half evaporated, dirty from dust in the air and time.
The smell of the boy was the worst part. It made Jeremiah’s chest ache. It was as if Jonathan had just stepped out of the room a moment ago. It made him seem just out of reach, just out of touch, trapped just one second away, forever.
Jeremiah looked down at the holster in his hands, bright in the sunlight. It was oversized by modern standards. It was made to carry a big gun, a long time ago. The leather was soft, worn down with time, and faded. At one point a star had been stamped into it. All that remained was a faint outline. The holster had been passed down in the family for five generations. Father to son, father to son, father to son.
He threaded it onto his belt, and pushed the revolver down into it until it was snug. It was a perfect fit.
Jonathan had loved the holster. Jeremiah had given it to him for his sixth birthday. He had wanted his son to have it as soon as he could. To be part of the men in the family who had worn it.
Jeremiah had assumed he would use it to carry his toy pistols, as he had when he was a boy. But Jonathan was funny. He used the holster like a belt pack, a way to carry his plastic toy figures, not guns.
Jonathan collected superheroes, little toy action figures that stood two inches tall. His room was filled with them. The holster was the perfect solution for carrying his collection with him. He strapped it on with a belt and wore it every day around the farm, the giant holster dwarfing his little hips.
Jeremiah touched the holster with the palm of his hand. It felt smooth and solid. It was strange to think the last time he had seen this holster it had been attached to Jonathan. He clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached. He would see Jonathan soon enough. He would set things right with his son.
Jeremiah started hiking, following the gentle climb of the ridge through the fields and tamaracks. He closed his eyes, forcing himself to recall the face that time was taking away.
He walked on, lost in memories and thoughts, oblivious to the world outside. His feet crunched in the dry grass of summer, his boots scuffed against the rocks left exposed, and his heart ached from the emptiness of the vast hole left in the center of his life.
He came to a small game trail, following its flow. It snaked along, taking long slow undulations back and forth beneath the deep blue of a late August sky. The trail followed the ridgeline, no different from the other ridgelines in the surrounding mountains, no different save for the man hiking across it in search of a spot to kill himself.
The trail faded away. He kept climbing. A rock formation stood at the top of the rise. Several rock spires stuck up into the sky, like giant shards of black glass half buried in the earth.
He had camped here once with his father. A storm had caught them on the ridgeline and they had taken shelter among the spires from the wind. Gusts howled through the rocks as rain blew sideways to the earth. Jeremiah had left his coat back at the tree stand. He sat shivering, squatted over his rifle, trying to keep it dry. He was thirteen.
Jeremiah’s father took off his heavy rain slicker and gave it to him. At first Jeremiah had tried to say no, but he was so cold he gave in. He watched his father shiver and pace for the next two hours as they waited out the storm. When it finally passed he asked him how he did not freeze. His father had answered.
A man’s job is to protect his son.
***
The hot sun beat down. Jeremiah passed the rocks and kept going. A man’s job was to protect his son. He said it aloud. The shame returned. He had failed. What would his father think if he were still alive? A moment’s inattention had led to Jonathan’s death. He had not been watching his son, protecting him.
They had come to the mountains to scout out spots for the hunting season ahead. Jeremiah had been excited. Excited to show Jonathan the mountains. Excited to start teaching him the hunt. Excited to share this place with his son, as his father had.
Jonathan went down to the river to collect stones. He wanted to make a stone fort for his plastic figures at the spring next to camp. Jeremiah had stayed up above, setting up the tent for the night.
The river took the boy away. One moment he was walking out of camp, the holster strapped to his side, filled with little men. The next he was gone. When Jeremiah finally hiked down to the river to tell him camp was set up, all that remained was the the holster, spinning slowly in the current. Plastic figures floated face down against the rocks. Jeremiah never saw him again.
He should have been watching him. The boy was only six. He should have been there, in arm’s reach, always ready to save the boy. But he hadn’t. He had failed. Jonathan had depended on him to be there. But the moment when he needed his father the most, he wasn’t there.
Jeremiah touched the handle of the gun. It scalded his skin. The sun had been on it for the last hour while he hiked and the handle had absorbed the heat. He wondered how hot steel had to be to melt.
His hand ached from squeezing the handle of the pistol, forcing it down into the holster. A blister had formed at the base of his ring finger where it touched the hot steel. Letting go of the gun he slid his hand into his pants pocket. He felt the bullet. It was cool to the touch.
Habit took over and he began rolling it back and forth between his fingers as he walked. The bullet was his touchstone, the key to putting an end to the day that had no end.
Hours passed. Still he climbed. A chorus of crickets filled the air, signaling the coming of night. The sun touched the peaks to the west as the sky overhead transformed. The day was ending.
At last he reached the highest point of the ridge. He hiked along the knife’s edge, picking his way carefully amongst the stones and grass. To either side the ground dropped away, falling thousands of feet into the canyons below.
A patch of trees rose just ahead. This was it. The sharp edge he had been hiking on blunted, widening out into a small field atop the peak. Scattered trees dotted the field, swaying gently in the evening air. He walked slowly through the grass towards the far edge.
He had found this spot many years ago. He had never shared it with anyone. Parts of old rock cairns lay fallen about the field, covered by grass and age. Someone, long before Jeremiah, had spent time here.
He stopped at the edge of the field where the sky met the grass, where the ground dropped away.
This was it.
The end of the trail.
He sat down on a log, looking out into the canyons. Distant peaks stood outlined in black against the dark blue of the late evening. The sound of a river far below echoed up towards the sky.
He looked down a
t his hands, opening and closing them. As he opened them, he remembered the first time he held his son, so small and warm and pink.
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