Song of the Ancient Horseman
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Song of the Ancient Horseman
A Story By Ned B. Johnson
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Just An Old Cowhand
The snow will be completely gone soon, thought Joseph Longeyes as he sat, icy still, his legs following the curve of Mirriah’s girth as she stood silently beneath him. He had already decided to head back to the ranch in the morning. The horses, though still in their winter feeding grounds, were safe and sound. It would soon be time for the spring roundup. His boys would be glad to hear his report. They always pretended to worry about the stock, but he knew that he was the true object of their concern.
For some reason he had never quite fathomed, they just didn’t seem to understand why he, a man of 101 summers, insisted on working every day, year round, when he didn’t really have to. But that was just it: he did have to. He had lived his whole, long life in these mountains—except for those first few years when the Nez Pierce were on the run and later forced to live on the reservation. He’d sneaked back to Oregon as soon as he was old enough and had remained there ever since. When was that? He tried to remember. Must have been in the summer of ’85. Yes, it was in his sixteenth summer that he had made the long and difficult trek across a continent to his ancestral home in the Wallowa Mountains.
A cold puff of wind coaxed an involuntary shiver from Mirriah. He realized that he’d better get the saddle off her and build a fire before the evening chill really got down to business. The air was almost at the freezing point already, and it was not yet dark.
He slid slowly to the ground and began to remove Mirriah’s halter and saddle. He smiled to himself with self-satisfied pleasure. He had slowed down, as age began to take its toll, of that there was no doubt. But he was still strong enough to unsaddle a horse. Not bad, he thought, for an old Indian.
He slipped a long noose over Mirriah’s head and tied the other end to a nearby tree, one near enough to some exposed grasses so she could have a midnight snack if she wanted. He had picked this spot to stop for the night because this was where he had always camped when he was in the area. How many fires he had set in the same stone hearth, under the same trees? Hundreds for sure. Thousands maybe. He had never counted.
He ambled around the area picking up squaw wood, those handy dry branches that littered the floor of the old-growth forest. He made several trips, returning to the hearth after each loop, before he had collected enough to last all night and into the sharp morning. When he had finished, dusk was breaking out all over and he was anxious to feel the heat from a new fire. There was nothing quite like that to comfort old bones.
In minutes the fire was blazing and he sat down on a favorite rock to warm himself in the glow. When he was nice and warm, he started thinking about supper. Unlike his children, he had never taken to eating “white man’s food” when on the trail. He opted instead for a more traditional menu of jerky and whatever he could forage locally. Sometimes he would hunt for small game, a bird or squirrel, but he was tired tonight. He would be happy with a simple meal of jerky and pine nuts.
He mused how lucky he was to still have enough good teeth to chew the stiff strips of cured venison. Strong teeth were vital to longevity when one lived as he had for so long. He walked slowly, though not as stiffly as before, over to his saddle pack and retrieved the bag of berries and other food.
Sitting back down on the rock, he took his hunting knife from its scabbard and cut off a nice piece of jerky, chasing it with a swig of spring water from his canteen. As he chewed, he looked out over Dark Horse Valley, through which he had come earlier, just as the last traces of daylight skittered into the shadows. A broad smile spread across the trenches of his leathered face. God how he loved this country. His heart sang songs of joy in harmony with the whispering breeze coursing through the trees above and the distant rippling of the spring. He found himself humming ancient Nez Pierce chants to himself as he ate. His mind, though not his body, sang the songs. In mental lyrics, he praised the spirits for the bounty of the land he so loved, for the sky and the game, and most of all, for the beauty of the land itself.
When the light died, he closed his ancient eyes and was drawn back into his youth, when he had first camped on this very spot. It had been spring, just as it was now, and he had only recently arrived after his long journey from the east. He had thought much in his months of travel about what he would do when he finally returned to his homeland. He had determined to live alone in these mountains because the white man seemed to fear Indians who traveled in packs.
He had decided that he would become a merchant of horses. Everyone always needed horses and he was, if nothing else, a gifted horseman and trainer. Soon after his return he had collected a small herd composed of wild ponies and other unbranded stock that he found running wild in the mountains. In the remote reaches he had chosen, he seldom saw another soul—white or red—even in the warmer seasons. When the weather turned cold, he could go for months without human contact.
In those early years he lived all but entirely off the land. Game was already becoming somewhat scarce, but he didn’t need much to stay alive. When he did find the need to buy something, he would just bring one of his fine horses into a town and trade it for whatever he needed. Then he would again be swallowed up by the vastness of the wilderness. It had been a lonely life, but a good one.
Having satisfied his belly, he stoked the fire a little and spread his bedroll out on some fir boughs before laying down. Once snuggled in, he looked skyward at the blanket of stars emerging from the darkening sky. His eyes weren’t as eagle-sharp as they had once been, but he could still find familiar patterns up there. What was it the white men called them? Constellations? Yes, that was it. They had names for everything but understood so little. He rolled his head back and forth on the bedroll in lieu of shaking it. How was it that white men could be so stupid about so many things and yet be smart enough to do some of the amazing things they did? This thought sent him into another reverie.
Joseph had been born in 1869, the year in which, he later learned, the transcontinental railroad was completed. The iron horse was one of those amazing accomplishments of the white man that were in such stark contrast to all the stupid things he did. It still boggled his mind how they could do such a wondrous thing, even after a century of living with and around them.
He looked at the rising Moon as it peeked out from behind a nearby tree. Why just a few months ago those crazy white men had actually sent three men to the Moon! He had no idea why they would want to do that, but it was still an astounding accomplishment. For Joseph, however, it just deepened his confusion. They were walking on the Moon, but didn’t have the vaguest idea how to properly care for the Earth. What a strange race they were. A strange race indeed.
The first owl hoot of the evening broke the silence as it echoed through the trees above him. At least there were still some places, places like this one, where one could pretend that the white man and the Oregon Trail and the iron horse were all just part of a bad dream, a dream from which one could awaken into a world that was as it should be, as it had always been, ever since his most ancient ancestors had come here in the time before time.
He thought back to his earliest days, before the great march in which Chief Joseph had led his people to within a scant 40 miles of Canada and freedom, before the pony soldiers captured them and the great Joseph, his namesake, spoke his famous words, “I will fight no more forever.” The boy J
oseph had been just eight years old then and was one of the few children to survive the march. The next eight years of his life were spent on reservations until he finally made good his escape and returned to this very spot to live out the rest of his long life.
And what a life he had lived, thought old Joseph as he gazed up at the infinity that surrounds our mother Earth. He was so grateful that he had not had to live it in solitude as he had when he first came home. He had outlived three wives who had, between them born him15 children, all but two of which he had also outlived.
His tired old eyes began to well up now as he thought back to the passing of so many whom he had loved. In his time, Joseph had felt much pain, but none greater than burying 13 children. Even losing his parents and wives was somehow easier to endure. Even now, after 80 years, he could still see the face of his first-born who had succumbed to smallpox at the age of two. Oh how he had loved that