Chapter 48
A Rider

The day was one I’ll never forget. Never could forget!

It was late August. A hot summer’s day. Hot and still. Wherever the wind from the Sierras was, it had gone to sleep that day and felt like it intended to sleep all through the afternoon. It was so still I could hear the flies buzzing about. And hot . . . so hot!

Pa had been back from Sacramento for three days. He’d been gone a week and a half, his longest stay in the capitol yet. But Tad had gone with him, and they had a wonderful time together. When he wasn’t on legislative business, he showed Tad all around Sacramento, and Tad had hardly stopped talking about everything they had done together. He had gone with Pa once or twice to Assembly meetings too. When Pa first saw Alkali Jones the day after they got back, he was telling him about the trip.

“I reckon it’s time you changed that motto of yours, Alkali.”

“Which one’s that?”

“About the presidency.”

“You mean Drum fer President—hee, hee, hee!”

“That’s the one. But you gotta change it now.”

“How so, Drum?”

“Politics has gone and bit my son right square between the eyes. You gotta change it to Thaddeus Hollister for President.”

Tad’s face beamed at the words.

“Hee, hee . . . Tad fer President! Yep, you’re right, Drum—sounds a heap more likely with his name instead of yours! Hee, hee, hee!”

But during the days since he had returned, I could see a downcast spirit coming over Pa. It had nothing to do with Tad, only that his good time with his younger son had brought back to mind the lingering doubts over the fate of his elder. We’d heard nothing about Zack all this time.

Something was different about that day besides it being so hot. There was something in the air. There was no breeze rustling the trees. But there seemed to be an invisible wind about, invisible in the way that you couldn’t see it or feel it or hear it. Kind of a wind of the spirit, not a wind of the air. It was a sense, a feeling that something was coming, but you couldn’t tell what.

We all felt it, I could tell. As the day wore on, I could just see a look in Almeda’s and Becky’s and Tad’s faces that they felt it too. We found ourselves looking at one another with expressions that had no words. It was a feeling of agitation, of anticipation, as if something was at hand but nobody knew what it might be.

It was a sense of expectation, the kind of feeling people get before a big thunderstorm. Everything changes. A different kind of warmth is in the air. The breezes start kicking up, and although they don’t feel too powerful, you know they are only the fingery edges of the blasts that are coming. You feel the storm on its way. The air smells different. Before long, the blackness begins to appear over the horizon, steadily getting larger and filling more of the sky, and you know our senses have not betrayed you.

This was a day like that. But there were no breezes, no stormy fragrances, no hints of anything in the sky other than blue going on forever in every direction.

The little breezes kicking up the leaves for a moment and then letting them settle back into place, the feeling of changes in the atmosphere . . . they were all happening inside. Every once in a while I’d catch Almeda standing at the door or window looking out, with her hand over her eyes, peering into the distance as if expecting something. Then she’d turn away with a confused expression, as if wondering herself why she’d paused to look outside, not even knowing what she was looking for.

Nobody was saying much. The day wore on, getting hotter, and everyone grew more and more quiet. Something was coming. No one knew what.

Pa tried to work at the mine some. But it was too hot. After lunch Pa went out again, walked lazily up the creek, running thin and low now in the late summer.

It was one of my times to stand at the open door looking out, with my hand over my eyes. I watched him walk up toward the mine, kicking at the rocks with his feet, one hand in his pocket. He disappeared from sight. A few minutes later I heard noises from the area of the mine. But they didn’t last long.

I was still standing there, looking out aimlessly, not feeling like doing anything, when Pa came into view again, walking back down the path, this time toward the stable. Apparently he had given up on the mine again. His shirt was drenched in sweat, under his arms and down the middle of his chest. But he didn’t need the work to sweat. It was plenty hot to sweat just standing doing nothing. I was sweating too, in the shade of the house and open doorway.

Closer Pa walked. It was quiet. I could hear his feet shuffling along, too tired now even to kick at the little stones along the way in front of him. Everything was so still. Only Pa’s rhythmic, shuffling step broke the stillness and the silence.

I found my eyes riveted on his slow-moving feet, watching them come toward me in the distance. The soft sound of his boots along the dried dirt entered my ears in perfect cadence. One . . . two . . . right . . . left . . .

Over and over—right, left . . . thud, thud.

Still my eyes fixed themselves on the motion, but gradually I became aware that something was wrong with the sound. There were still Pa’s feet walking along as before, but the rhythm had been interrupted. It had changed. There were too many sounds for only two feet. I heard the noise as of a footfall when Pa’s two feet were on the ground and in the air not making any sound.

And . . . the sound itself was wrong.

It wasn’t a thud, thud, thud anymore. Now I heard clomp . . . clomp . . . clomp mixed in with the shuffling thuds of Pa’s boots.

It sounded like a horse.

I shook off my dreaming reverie and turned my eyes in the opposite direction. A horse was approaching from the direction of town. Of course, that was the other sound I’d heard.

Who could it be? I squinted my eyes . . .

“Somebody’s coming,” I heard Becky say from inside the house behind me.

“Who is it, Corrie?” Almeda asked from the kitchen.

I kept squinting, trying to see. I could tell it was a man, but all I could really make out was a hat and a light brown beard.

I stared. The horse plodded along as slow as Pa had been walking. But steadily he came closer.

Suddenly an incredible sense of recognition seized my heart! But . . . but it couldn’t be!

I spun my head around and my eyes again sought Pa.

His slow step had become a rapid pounding of his boots along the path. He had seen the rider too! He was running toward him!

Unconsciously I started out the door. I looked toward the road. The rider was close now . . . there could be no mistake!

He was climbing down off his horse. I was running now too! “Zack!” I cried. “It’s Zack!” I yelled back toward the house.

Out of the house the others came, following me as we ran as fast as we could toward the road.

Pa reached him first.

I stopped, ten yards away, weeping with happiness. I felt the others come up behind me, but I could not take my eyes off the scene of reunion being played out before my eyes. I felt Almeda’s arm slip around me as she watched, too.

Zack had slipped off his horse, but he hadn’t been able to take more than a step or two before Pa reached him. The father threw his big arms around the son and held him tight, weeping freely and without shame.

Slowly I saw Zack’s hands stretch around Pa’s back and return his close embrace.

The two stood silently holding each other for a long minute. The only sounds to be heard were the throbbing of six hearts in joy.