As I Walk Through the Valley - Part 2
With a stern heel the rider cracked his boot into the side of the horse and the pace quickened again. The rider could see the grass bend and split apart around the frame of his pursuer. He reached down to the cuff of his boot to draw out his knife. As soon as his hand felt it missing he could remember it was back, far in the distance, tossed under mud and ashes at what remained of his fire. He had been riding for days that turned into weeks and each night he would settle a camp and build a fire the way they taught him in the war. The boys down from Boston would complain about the heat while he and the others from Carolina would carry on in laughter about how they must have never had the privilege of a southern summer all sticky and humid. Building up the fires at night would gather a crowd hiding away from the swarms of mosquitoes and the fever brought down on some of the men from that pestilence that walked in the darkness. Those moments were only weeks gone for the rider but they felt so much longer past as if they belonged to some world he could no longer be a part of, belonging to another breed of man. One without regret, or conscious, or all those human sins that the good preachers back home would rouse souls with.
For so long he had a life shaped by the regularity and plainness of service to the farm his family had drawn some acres of wheat from and then to the dreaded routine of service to his country. Now his life had become full of wandering. Across the black waters below Baton Rouge and the sun starched plains that stretched like some endless stream he rode. He rode in the back of train cars with only stops and the back parlor of saloons from St. Louis to Lincoln to Cheyenne to keep him still for more than a moment. He would hide his face under the wide brim of his tan wool felt slouch hat or underneath a thick handkerchief he kept round his collar. Most folk would leave him alone if they thought he was an enlisted man he reckoned. He would catch some staring at him with faces that were part fascination and disgust at the sight of the scar along his jaw. When the shine of a new morning wore heavier on him than the events of the previous night he would stir himself up and put together himself enough to avoid suspicion.
At Boise he sold the Springfield rifle he had taken with him from the barracks and the small case of rounds they had been using for practice. The money got him a horse that just been broke, a saddle, tack, a knitted wool blanket and dried venison packed in a small tin to keep out rain. He left before the night sky had begun to diminish, leading his horse along the well worn hunting trails that coil through the steep hills leading to the mountain pass. For days he rode through the foothills without seeing a soul. If he stayed along the path following the sound of coyotes crying for one another at night he thought surely he could make to down into the valley before the shining sea and from there…
