Chapter 2 That winter the trees inhabiting the dusty river shore were stripped from early on. The sky was pale all the livelong day and the trees were stark against it. The boy strode on and there was nothing but the cold and the silence. A bitter wind blew forth from the waters of the poles toward a resurrection or retribution whose book keepings would be scribed and dated only long after they had recirculated and vanished and gone, such is this history. The boy stepped to a stream. He lowered his head to drink his reflection, and as he did the reflection moved in the dark water, like some kind of other self of child that resided in the waters of the earth, or hid in each secret place even to such untrue places as here, so that the child would always be certified to himself, and not ever completely left alone in the world. Among the pines the sun died in a red lake beneath the mountains of gold. The antelope moved and nodded, and a pair of Mexicans, who had been orphaned by the war, turned their heads and watched the youth with gazes that wept inwardly with a great sorrow that was yet what may wed joy with its brother grief, and they stood silhouetted upon that vast open plain. And even though their hearts reached out to that young boychild it was still true that for some very slight reason they would have murdered him. *** That night the sky was without clouds, clear and cold. The boy wandered through a far away orchard, and above the stars shimmered. Stars by which he had no notion nor capability to calculate, be they node, be they matrix. Nothing to which he was satellite. He took wide strides through the dark and the frost of the night, like that ellipse which chronicled the moments of the universe about which it comprehended nothing though comprehend it must. *** As you can tell this story has arrived at a limit called the late 1800’s. A new time had emerged, and what happened became blurred by the way people talked, or how they desired it to be. To some what had been before was the golden time, simpler and without remorse, and old folk who could not know if they would live over this line of a new century spoke of it with anger, and fear. For sin had snuck upon a unsuspecting world, and joy had vanished, and morality as well. O, but the apples shall never taste so sweet again! And childhood was not pure, not the way it use to be. For there were no worries then but how to find a good stone to skip. Where did all the precious stones vanish to? All the simple times? You could no longer trust a gentleman by his word. And how could you recollect the joy, and the despair, and the throbbing sentiments so akin to grief? It could only be recalled that they were once there. But O the apples shall never taste quite so sweet again! *** The boy turned away and entered the barn and gathered some rope and stuffed it in a satchel. He took down the shotgun and broke it to be sure and he was, then he latched it together. He took a knife. He took down six of the charges and put them in the satchel and slung it around him. He took down one of the saddles and held it by the horn, walked across the floor, opened the keep of the mare, and saddled her. He led her out of the barn and down the way far from his father and never saw him again. He was twelve years old.
Posted on: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 00:10:49 +0000
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