Holster (2 page)

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 at 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.

A stream of images came pouring out of his hands.
Again and again his son’s face was before him. He sat transfixed
watching it rise out of his palms and come into focus. Jonathan
smiled, that crooked, goofy smile he always had when he saw his
dad. He smiled back. The color and lines began to blur and fade and
once again he was looking at two dirty, empty hands.

To see that face, just one more time.

One more time.

That was all he asked.

His heart hardened. He took out the single bullet,
holding it between his index finger and thumb, slowly rolling it
back and forth, back and forth. He could see the little lines and
grooves in the metal jacket as the fading sun reflected off it. He
stood it upright in the palm of his left hand so that it’s tip
pointed towards the sky. He stared.

The same hands that moments before had offered him
his son’s face, now offered him a lone bullet. He placed his palms
together, pausing briefly, hands touching as if in prayer, then
transferred the bullet to his right hand.

He drew out the revolver, feeling its weight, hearing
the slight sound it made as it scraped against the holster. He
popped open the chamber and placed the single bullet, one step from
the firing pin. He snapped it shut, its loud click audible above
the chorus of crickets. He felt weak and thought he might vomit.
With a surge of anger he jammed the gun back into the holster.

He felt a rush of warm summer air and lay his head
back against the hard stone foundation. He looked up as the first
stars pierced the fading light. He became aware of the cool rock
against his back. He smelled the dry pine, the dust, and tasted the
salt from sweat on his lips. He felt his chest pound with the
contractions of his heart.

Shaking now he steadied his breathing. The fingers of
his hand slid down over the rough handle of the pistol, now cool to
the touch. He would see his son again. One more time. He would look
him the eye and make things right.

The world around him began to warp and weave into
meaningless patterns and colors and sounds. He began the final
break from time and the obligations of the living. Only the
revolver was clear, loaded with its lone bullet, awaiting a clear
intention. He took a deep breath, placed it against his right
temple, and paused.

Son, I am coming.

He took his last breath and squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened.

He squeezed it harder.

Again, nothing happened.

Desperation overcame him. He put the gun in his
mouth, grabbed the trigger with both hands and squeezed as hard as
he could. Still the trigger would not move. Shaking so hard he
nearly dropped the gun, he took the revolver out of his mouth.

He brought it slowly down into his lap. Waves of
nausea and adrenaline washed over him. He looked at the pistol,
seeing but not comprehending.

There, sticking out of one of the bullet chambers was
a foot.

He still didn’t understand. He brought it up to his
face in the fading light. There, in one of the six chambers for
bullets, was a tiny red plastic leg with a lightning bolt on it,
jamming the pistol. The hammer was pulled back, but the cylinder
couldn’t advance with the leg jammed into it.

He stared for a full minute, and then looked down at
the holster.

A small plastic figure lay in the bottom of the
holster with one of its legs broken off. The remaining leg was
caught in a hole in the seam of the leather in the bottom of the
holster, trapping it in place. It was the action figure Jonathan
called The Bolt, his favorite. He must have left it there after
playing with it for the last time.

It dawned on him, slowly at first, then with a force
that threatened to tear him apart- his son’s last act in life was
to place his favorite plastic toy in a spot where it would hold
back death from his father. A small piece of plastic, shaped like a
leg, had stopped Jeremiah from killing himself. In Jeremiah’s mind
the impossible had occurred.

The son had protected the father.

Something broke inside Jeremiah and he began to sob.
Grief ripped through him like the storms that raged through
mountains in the winter. He screamed into the night sky until he
was hoarse, his cries ringing out into the vastness. The mountains
accepted his grief. They stood still, unmoving, quiet and open.

He cried at the beauty, the horror, the beauty and
the horror, that life is. He cried until he was empty. He collapsed
back exhausted, staring at the stars. They pulsed overhead to the
rhythm of the mountains, untouched by his grief.

He still had a wife and two other children who needed
him. This was the end of the trail, the end of grief.

He stood up slowly, straightening his back, and
looked around. The crickets had stopped. It was night now. He spoke
out loud to himself.

I am only a night’s hike away from the truck, and by
dawn I can be home. Home.

He said it again, carefully emphasizing each word.
Speaking it out loud to make sure it was real.

He picked up the gun. In the moonlight he could still
see the small foot jamming the hammer open. Grabbing the little
foot with his right hand, he twisted it back and forth, easing it
out of the revolver. He popped open the chamber and took the lone
bullet out.

In one hand he held the little leg, in the other the
bullet. He paused, understanding now what he held in each hand. He
drew back his arm and threw the bullet as hard as he could off the
ridge. It twinkled briefly in the sky and was gone.

He gently put the little plastic leg back into the
holster, taking it off his belt at the same time. He set it down
next to him. Stone by stone he built a rock cairn where it looked
out over the mountains. When he was done he hung the holster over
the top of it. Jonathan was ok. He knew that now.

He built a second, slightly larger rock cairn next to
the first for his father. These were his mountains too. He knew now
where to find them if he needed them. They would always be here,
together, watching over each other.

An elk bugled in the night. Somewhere, far away in
the canyons below, another called back.

He shouldered his pack.

It was time to go.

The rest of his family was waiting.