By Reaona Hemmingway
“Cider, how old are you?” Revelation asked.
“Done lost count after sixty. Why’d you ask?”
“I think you’re gettin’ senile draggin’ me up this mountain to freeze my ears off. What I should be doin’ is takin’ you to Denver City to see a doctor.”
Cider laughed. “Well, Rev, guess it is odd climbin’ a mountain with a bullet in my chest.” He looked at the red stain on his buckskins. “I’ll die anyway. And when I do, I want to rest beside Whispering Tree.”
“Is she really the only gal you ever loved?”
“Prettiest Blackfoot gal ever walked this earth.” The gray horse stopped when they reached the top. “I used to trade furs with her pa. Gave him two pack horses for her.”
“Ever have any kids?”
“Three. Two of them died.”
“What about the third?”
Cider looked at Revelation. “Whispering Tree died givin’ birth to him. I buried her right up here on top, facin’ the morning sun.” Cider swiped his arm at the vast world below. “To the north, west, and south all you see is mountains, to the east the plains. You’ll never see more land at one time than you can at this moment.”
Revelation pulled the fleece coat collar coat over his ears. Cider handed him a shovel. “Let’s get digging,” the old man said. He paced off from a boulder and pounded a pickax into the frozen earth. Revelation finished digging after Cider passed out.
“I found her!”
Cider opened his eyes and looked down at the bones showing through holes in the rotted Indian blanket. “That’s your ma, boy. Sorry I left you at that children’s home. Your real name’s Stanley after my pa, but the mother superior named you Revelation.”
Revelation peered into his father’s eyes. “How come you never told me?”
“When I found you starvin’ on the streets, you swore you’d shoot your pa if you ever met him. Figured we’d get along better as partners. Forgive me…”
Cider stopped breathing. Revelation wrapped him in a Hudson Bay blanket and laid him beside Whispering Tree. As he filled the grave, he thought about all the times he saw love in the old man’s eyes.
Early the next morning, he returned to the trading post. Stella met him, her raven hair blowing in the wind. “Hey, Rev, where’s Cider?”
“Buried him on the mountain next to his wife.”
“Chase Lassiter shot him bad then, huh?”
“Yep. But Lassiter didn’t make it far, either. He died from Cider’s bullet.”
“Did Cider leave you anything?”
Revelation looked up at Pike’s Peak. “Well, I got what was left of his poke. And he let me know I was never really alone in this world.”
(C) Reaona Hemmingway. First published in the 2010 Kansas Authors Club Yearbook.
