Come rain or shine, I\u2019ve climbed Kiowa Peak twice a week for the past year. It\u2019s a commitment born of my need for aloneness, to be exclusively in the company of self. The cumulative years demand a time of solace, a time to visit with my age, a time to compose the final sentiment before crossing.<\/p>\n
The cold November day rests heavy and quiet beyond the Peak to the barren mesquite and scrub-brush sweep below, on eastward to the Salt Fork breaks. I wish I had a bigger coat. The chill runs bone-deep. Scanning the landscape I am suddenly startled. Focusing for an instant, the hard-scrabble land comes alive. I see him with other men walking a narrow path over by the broke-back shacks of the old abandoned oil camp. Shaken, I press back and breathe deeply, trying to gather myself.<\/p>\n
It is my father who passed with cancer in 1982, and is now alive. My breath becomes ragged. I quickly break free and for a moment lose sense of time and place. I recognize Dad\u2019s dark canvas coat and his brown corduroy cap with ear flaps.The men are talking, but I can\u2019t hear their words. I recognize most of them: there\u2019s Whitey Homes, the gang-pusher, and Cecil Green, a pumper whom I often see hunkered on his front steps in the old oil camp, and I believe I see Hubert Ghan, the Texas & Pacific boss. He\u2019s wearing a tie. And there\u2019s Limpy Reid, who walks as though he\u2019s grinding through three forward gears. I spot Luke Penninger who has married and divorced his wife three times. I recognize them all. Each has been dead at least 35 years. I call out to Dad, but he doesn\u2019t respond, doesn\u2019t hear my voice. Ignoring the icy terrain, I jump and yell louder: this time I call out some of the other names. No one hears.<\/p>\n
Crazy with age and afraid of the steep, icy climb down, I am yet determined to make my way off the Peak. I move carefully, watching my step and slowing to make sure the men are still there. Keeping my eyes on Dad, I continue to yell and move in their direction, while lurching and slipping on the frozen ground. Growing weak and loose-legged, I stop. Looking across the flat plains toward the Salk Fork, I notice I am no closer to the group. The men are now milling about and talking easily. They soon begin to gather dead mesquite limbs and rotten planks from the old shack piles.<\/p>\n
The men group and kneel beside a small fire. A thin smoke ribbon rises and wafts in my direction. While catching the scent of smoke, I watch what appears to be an animated discussion. The men seem to laugh while exchanging hand gestures and nudges. Feeling certain I can now move in closer, I proceed with more caution to cut the distance. I notice each man, one at a time, leaving the fire and disappearing behind the old oil camp rubble. Again, I have failed to advance on the group. I stop when I see Dad is the only man left. Throwing my arms in the air, I yell loud as I can. He stands alone for a moment before kneeling to extinguish the small fire. He then walks away as did the others.<\/p>\n
Only now am I able to approach where the group had assembled. Seeing the ashes, I reach down and find the spot cold to the touch and nothing more than gray wood chips and dust. I hesitate and look again and notice a small stick. I look closer and realize it is not a stick. It is the stub of a pencil. Dad always had a pencil stub in his pocket, and how could I forget this little piece of nothing; its hint of color, its trace of lead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is my father who passed with cancer in 1982, and is now alive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-jim-finley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15440"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15547,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15440\/revisions\/15547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}