Author’s
note
Finding
excuse for a trek to colorful Colorado in an ad in a horse magazine inviting
interested prospective buyers to visit the Arab equines on this Wisconsin
family’s western ranch, we plodded westward for a vacation to the mountains
with an added venture to seek out the horses.
Having
hit our usual high spot haunts among the myriad summits including Rocky
Mountain National Park above Estes Park, south along the Blue River to Frisco
and Breckenridge, Cripple Creek and the “Springs” on to Canon City via the old
stage coach road through the Sangre de Cristos on west to visit Royal Gorge and
finally, to Salida for our turn north to the Arab ranch.
Pulling
into the only fuel station in the little burg, a ramshackle weathered wooden
false-fronted western establishment version of the modern “C” store, I stopped
at the single pump and began the fill-up. On an unsteady, ancient bench in
front of the business sat a “wraith” next to a little boy hastily licking away
at an ice cream treat; the ghost was speaking to the urchin. The gaunt old man
wore a dirty, ragged buckskin shirt which hung on his bony frame like wash
blowing in the wind carelessly snagged on the slim branches of a long-dead
tree; his too-short pants showed ragged cuffs above dusty ankles and worn out
moccasins. An ancient leather hat covered matted, greasy thick black hair, the
lid sporting various sized holes. He appeared Indian.
His
“captive” audience might have been a grandchild in the old man’s care. The boy,
about seven, or so, held the stick-end of a vanilla ice cream bar covered in
hard, milk chocolate. His missing two front bottom teeth made his task difficult
and the warm weather turned the treat a messy, runny liquid quicker than the
child could eat. A chunk of delicious chocolate escaped the ice cream and fell
onto his exposed leg below the hem of his torn and tattered short pants; the
old man retrieved the delicacy, plopping it into his mouth; the boy didn’t seem
to notice or to mind.
I
moseyed over their way hearing the old Indian say, in that staccato, chopped,
single-syllable grunting of the Native American dialects, the words “Our
people” as he spoke to the boy.
“Arapahoe?”
I inquired, interpreting his words into the native meaning.
Looking
up at my unsolicited interruption, he offered what might have been a hinted
smile beginning, or, just a silent castigation at the “white-eyes” to mind his
own business. Silence!
“Uh…Sorry!”
I began. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. Just knew ‘Arapahoe’ meant ‘Our people’.”
The
Indian smiled, then, and nodded, reaching for another escaped tidbit of
chocolate icing.
The
old Indian picked up a cardboard flat from under the bench and laid it in his
lap; the boy sat up straighter to get a view of the contents, obviously
interested. The man ran his gnarled, leather-tanned fingers over the stones in
the box, feeling each, searching a decision.
Finally,
he took one from the contents, rubbed it clean of dirt, held it up in the sun
to scrutinize it, smiled, handed his prize to me and said, “A copper sample---for…you!”
He
placed a golf ball size rock of bronze, green, white and yellow-gold in my
palm. Beautiful!
We
went on to view the Arabian horses up on the mountain that day; a fine
adventure.
In
that futile search for “Happiness”
through material accumulation exists satiated time-space.
My
deep appreciation for the “simple” things of this life was re-focused, that
trip. Ah! Love!
I
found it on the summit among cerulean pristine clarity. Enjoy! Mon Amie! It’s right---there!
Overlook not the
orchid searching out a rose-pleasure
Taste sweet the
sugar-honey lick of life’s true-treasure
Amen!
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