Copper Dust: Chapter 2

- F R O Z E N   R O O T S -

I used to be what you'd call a decent human being. I did well in school. Sometimes I listened to my mother. No one would have suspected - least of all myself - that when I grew older there'd be rough sketches of my sneering face plastered all over towns and endless lawmen on my tail. On the other hand, now that I have the chance to retrospect on my days, it doesn't take me long to pinpoint where it all started.

I can recall the anxiousness in the sheriff's voice when he started calling for me. "Derick, it's time to go..."

I lifted my head and withstood a long pause that was filled with dull gray wood and tattered bed sheets. Winter had set in early, but even in the frigid temperature the black suit I was wearing was suffocating. The funeral, the funeral. I know. I’ll be there. For God’s sake, just leave me alone. 

They'd only been dead for a day. I remember thinking that the funeral was awfully premature; it seemed like the town just wanted to get it over with.

“Derick...”

A shorter pause, and a ticking clock.

“Derick Marr...”

Leave me alone. Please.

After a while I heard the clinking of his spurs as he approached my bedside. “It’s time to go, son. Everyone’s ready.” He put his hand on my shoulder and I repressed the urge to flinch. “I know, Derick,” he said. “It’s hard.”

Oh, shut up, I thought, nudging his hand off my shoulder and jumping off the bed. “Just give me a minute,” I said, as politely as I could, and hurried past him out the door.

Immediately, I was engulfed in the wind’s icy breath. I buttoned my suit and dug my hands into its unfamiliar pockets before slipping into the bleak and deserted street and wandering into an alleyway between the livery stable and the post office. I didn’t know what I was doing. I wanted to prolong the funeral, I suppose; maybe run away.

I wandered to the back of the livery stable and climbed through the window and up the ladder to the hay-strewn attic, where I knew I could get a good view of the street and the hills beyond. It was also where I had spent many hours with Hezekiah, the stableman - whose pallet and bedding up there was almost always occupied by a roost of chickens - reading and rereading from his collection of novels and stories. He was very fond of me, even though I was the typical troublemaker who notoriously dipped the ends of girls’ braids into inkwells during church, and frankly, I don’t know what he saw in me, except that I liked to read. In any case, he became a father I never really had.

Scattering a few chickens, I crept to one of the windows and undid the latch. The sheriff was standing on the front porch of my house, scanning the street and rubbing his hands together. Waiting. When I didn’t show myself, he donned his hat and walked away, towards the funeral. I’m sure he was eager for the warmth of the church. I sure wasn’t.

I turned to the south window, where I could see the church and the adjacent graveyard, both silently brimming with the entire town’s population. The entire population minus the lives of my mother and my little sister, of course, and minus me. To put it simply, minus the entire Marr family.

I stood at that window and eyed the church like a frozen, unblinking statue. I watched the dark, huddling groups of people file inside. I watched the sheriff hold the door open for someone else when he got there, and I watched as Hezekiah lingered by the church’s gate for as long as he could, waiting for me, then shake his head as he finally went inside, closing the doors behind him and shutting off the cold. In no time at all, it seemed, the procession and the two coffins, one big, one small, were being led from out the back doors of the church, and from the front doors the rest of the people spilled out and met them in the graveyard.

I don’t remember seeing the coffins lowered into the ground. My eyes had gone out of focus by then, and I wasn’t watching anything or feeling anything but the cold air biting my cheeks. I ignored the pain inside and embraced the gusts of wind that swept through the open windows of the attic.

The town sprang back to life as soon as the people returned to their customary occupations. I left the attic and huddled outside against the walls of the livery stable, waiting beneath a lean-to of wooden planks and listening to the sounds of rolling cart wheels and barking dogs. Once I felt the right time had arrived, I left my hiding place and skirted along the back edges of the buildings, dodging open doors and avoiding sympathetic eyes.

Soon, my footsteps fell upon the hard-packed trail that led to the church. There were no buildings to hide me now, and anyone who glanced in the direction of the church would see the poor Marr boy, numb with cold and grief, tripping over frozen pebbles in his hurry to reach a pair of fresh graves.

-o*0*o-

I spent the night with Hezekiah and the chickens, bundled up in horse blankets and trying to distract myself with a Jules Verne novel. The first snowfall of the winter had begun, and I was restless and couldn’t sleep. Hezekiah set up a few candles so I could read, and I must’ve gotten halfway through Journey to the Centre of the Earth before I finally dropped off.

I hadn’t been asleep long when Hezekiah was shaking me awake again. “Dirk, wake up!” he cried. “You gotta see this! Quick!”

Rubbing my eyes, I staggered after him and saw that he was pointing out of the same window I had watched the funeral from. Oh God, I thought. The funeral. A wave of misery threatened to crush me as everything began flooding back: the sickness, the coughing, the cold, the pale faces, the red eyes, the coffins. I stumbled and fell on my knees.

“Derick! You alright, boy?” Hezekiah rushed to me.

I sucked in my breath. “Yeah, I... I’m fine.”

He affectionately ruffled my hair. “C’mon, this’ll take your mind off it all. Take a look out here.”

He swung the window open as far as it could go, and at the sight of what lay beyond the church, my heart leaped tremendously. “Hezekiah!” I cried. “Are those...?”

“The buffalo, yes! The buffalo!”

“I’ve never seen...”

“They’ve never been near Ashcroft in years. The last time they came, you were probably just a little youngster.”

Hundreds upon hundreds of bison draped the shallow valleys in a massive brown carpet of a truly incredible size, rumbling past rifts in the earth and swarming around clumps of trees and shrubs. The sun had just barely risen over the light sprinkling of snow. As the rest of the town felt the rhythm of thousands of thundering hooves, people dashed out of their homes, many men and boys my age brandishing their rifles and yelling in excitement.

Hezekiah nudged me, his face flushed in delight. “Wanna go too?”

“What?”

“Take Rocky, your favorite. I’ll help you saddle him up. And my rifle’s right here.”

I was dumbfounded when he handed me his prized weapon. Absolutely dumbfounded. “Hezekiah, I -”

“Grab a few extra cartridges for your saddlebag, too. What’s that look on your face all about? This is a buffalo hunt, Dirk!”