Song of the Ancient Horseman Page 2

baby boy. He had long believed, probably correctly, that the only reason he continued to live was that by then he had another son, one who survived well into his seventies.

  He had lost sons in every war in which America had participated, all but this mess going on now in Viet Nam. The only reason he had been spared another loss was because he had no more sons left that were of age. Harold was in his 60s and Birch was nearly 80 now. They don’t draft men of that age no matter how desperate they are. His grandsons and great-grandsons were another matter. Five of them had died in W.W.II. and Korea. Another profound sadness to be endured. There was so much.

  Joseph was having to actively fight back the tears now, and it was not an easy battle. A faint rustling in the brush roused him enough to break his concentration. Must be a beaver or other varmint, he judged. In his mind’s eye he saw the beaver he had trapped for his first wife, Two Shoes. He’d used the pelt to trade for a metal cooking pot for her. She’d wanted one since before he’d married her and she was thrilled to tears when he finally came home with it. She promised to cook the best meals he’d ever eaten for the rest of her life. She did not lie. They had 25 wonderful years together, raising children and horses, building a ranch house (something else she had long wanted).

  His second wife, Esther, had been all but waiting in the wings for Two Shoes to die. She had been in love with—or if that’s not the right word, infatuated with—Joseph since she was a small child. She only saw him once or twice a year, but he was such a handsome figure of a man, tall and elegant, that her knees just went to jelly whenever he was around.

  When Two Shoes died from complications of childbirth after delivering their fourth boy, Esther saw her chance. She waited as long as she could stand, out of courtesy, but the following spring, when Joseph and his sons came out of the mountains, she made it very clear that she meant to have him as a mate. Being over 20 years her senior, he was at first flattered by her shameless advances, but once he realize her sincerity, he made a pretty easy catch.

  In the end, Esther was his favorite, and though they both expected that she would outlive him, it was not to be. After 32 years of marriage, she died on VE day of what would later be called cancer. Joseph had taken her deep into the mountains and given her a proper ritual burial. That duty having been performed, he lost himself in the mountains for nearly two months. His children agreed that he was never quite the same after he came back, as if part of him chose to stay forever in the wilderness with his beloved Esther. In Joseph’s mind, she had simply left too big a hole in his heart to ever be filled. And that was so for many years—until he met and married his third and last wife, Maris.

  She too was many years his junior, still young enough to bear him one last child; her fourth, his thirteenth. Their relationship was different than those who came before. Joseph’s first marriage to Two Shoes was devoted to carving out a niche in the wilderness, both natural and human. His years with Esther were patterned after the halcyon days of summer, filled with joy and glory and plenty, punctuated only occasionally by tragedy.

  Maris, on the other hand, was the woman with whom he had chosen to grow old. She was above all else comfortable. At that time in his life, comfort had risen to a place of honor on his list of values. For her part, Maris was quite content with her role. She was a soft-spoken woman of great pulchritude, with a true gift for pleasing others.

  But even she had left him behind, though much more recently. She had simply failed to wake up the morning after they had sat transfixed to the television set in the Ramada Inn in Pendleton, watching Neil Armstrong walk on the Moon. During the few months since then, Joseph had felt like a rudderless ship in becalmed seas. Just drifting aimlessly through the remainder of winter. The family was fearful he would just fade away, and they were nearly right.

  But once the first signs of spring peaked timidly out from behind winter’s cape, Joseph seemed to come back alive. Next thing they knew, he was packing for his annual survey of the herds. They were reluctant to let him go, but they knew they’d have to tie him in bed to stop him, and even that wasn’t sure to work. In the end, they decided that it was his life to use as he chose, a lesson he’d been teaching them for decades, almost as if in preparation for this very moment.

  Joseph roused himself enough to place more piece of wood on the fire before laying back again and closing his eyes for the long night ahead. As he drifted off to sleep his thoughts again backtracked over the long and wondrous journey he called his life. The smile on his face was one of the densest imaginable satisfaction, the look of a man who had found his true place on this good Earth and lived there long and well. And as his soul slipped quietly, imperceptibly, from his form, he was sure he could hear Esther calling him to her bosom once again, to the home of his heart, from which he would nevermore have cause to travel.

  --fin—

  Author’s Note:

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