Free Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese Page A

closed. The kid scuffed around at the gravel with the alder stick.
    “There’s a place just up this face worth seeing,” the kid said.
    His father only grunted.
    “I been goin’ there a long time. It changes. Maybe because I got older. Got more sense now. I don’t know. It’s just special,” the kid said. “There’s signs up there. Symbols. Painted right into the rock. When the old man took me there the first time he said it was sacred because no one can ever figure out how come the paintings never faded. They been there a powerful long time.”
    “I hearda places like that. Never been to them. Never seen them.”
    “Seems like maybe you should see it now.”
    “We gotta climb to it.”
    “The horse can get you most of the way. I’ll lug you the best I can up the rest.”
    “Sounds like a lotta work for a few paintings.”
    “Lotta times, I guess, you never know what you need until you lay eyes on it.”
    “You got to be a philosopher,” his father said.
    The kid looked at him and shook his head. “Not so much. I mean, out here things just come all on their own sometimes. Thoughts, ideas, stuff I never really had a head for.”
    “I never had much of a head for anything. My back got me through.”
    “That and the hooch,” the kid said and nodded toward the bottle.
    His father glared at him. He tipped the bottle up and swallowed. He coughed and gagged a bit. He held a hand up to his mouth and closed his eyes. When the urge to retch passed he leaned back against the root and eyed the kid who lowered his gaze. “Don’t judge me,” he said.
    “Ain’t,” the kid said.
    “What is it you’re doin’ then?”
    “Just watchin’ is all.”
    “Watching what?”
    The kid stood up and pitched the stick into the fire. “Guess I’ll tell you when I got that figured. Right now, I’m just watching.”
    His father took a feeble sip of the whisky. The kid kicked dirt over the fire and stamped it out then walked to the horse, snugged up the tack, and led her back to where his father lay. His father struggled to his feet. The kid took his arm to help him up onto the horse. His hand encircled the whole bicep. He had to reach out and grab his father by the belt to hoist him up into the stirrup. He stood with his foot in it and caught his breath before kicking his other leg over to sit in the saddle.
    There was a narrow path that led around boulders and between trees that eased upward with the flank of the cliff at their right. The forest thinned out. There were large gaps between trees. The ground was a mass of pine needles, roots, and rocks. Here and there a small copse of aspens or birches lent a dappled look to the slant of the path and the horse nickered at it. The kid patted her neck. His father looked around and clutched the saddle horn for balance and they walked easily for a while until the trail canted upward sharply. It pressed tight to the cliff. They began a tenuous, snaking climb. His father had to lean forward in the saddle and the horse fought for purchase in the talus and gravel.
    The trail bellied out onto a small ledge. The trees were stunted. Only junipers seemed to flourish and they spreadwide right up to the edge of the cliff. The trail became barely visible along the cliff face. “We’re gonna leave her here,” the kid said. “It’s about eighty feet more.”
    “Might as well be eighty miles,” his father said. “Way I feel anyways.”
    “I’ll get you there. Everyone should see something like this.”
    The kid tied the horse to a small tree and his father was able to walk on his own for a dozen yards. Then the trail tilted up and the footing grew less stable. The kid moved behind him and put a hand in his belt and the other between his shoulder blades. His father grumbled but the kid pushed on. They stopped now and then so his father could catch his breath. The kid looked out over the valley below them and waited. When he was ready his father huffed and the kid propelled him