Free Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese Page B

steadily upward. Eventually they reached a ledge about ten feet long and four feet wide. The wall of the cliff was flat. The kid eased his father down close to the edge. It took a moment for his breathing to settle and when he finally raised his eyes to look at the cliff face his mouth draped open.
    “Damn, Frank,” he said.
    The kid sat down beside him and they both stared up at the wall of rock. There were symbols painted in a dull red, black, and a stark greyish white. There were birds, oddly shaped animals, what appeared to be horses and bison, horned beings, stars, and assorted lines and shapes. The drawings stretched a full twenty feet up and covered the entire wall. They studied them without speaking for a long time.
    “Take me up to it,” his father said quietly.
    The kid stood and helped him stand. Together they shuffled to the face of the cliff. His father reached out and put hishand on the rock. Then he slid it over and covered a small dog-like shape and raised his head to look up at the array.
    “What do they signify?” Eldon asked.
    “I don’t know. Near as I can figure they’re stories. I reckon some are about travelling. That’s how they feel to me. Others are about what someone seen in their life. The old man doesn’t think anyone ever figured them out.”
    “Ain’t a powerful lotta good if ya can’t figure ’em out.”
    The kid shrugged. “I sorta think you gotta let a mystery be a mystery for it to give you anything. You ever learn any Indian stuff?”
    His father lowered his gaze. He turned his back to the wall and slid down to sit. He brushed a hand over his forehead and closed his eyes to heave a deep breath. “Nah,” he said finally. “Most of the time I was just tryin’ to survive. Belly fulla beans beats a head fulla thinkin’. Stories never seemed likely to keep a guy goin’. Savvy?”
    “I guess,” the kid said. “Me, I always wanted to know more about where I come from.” The kid took out his makings and rolled them each a smoke. They lit up and smoked quietly for a minute or two. “I could come and sit here for hours. I spent three days here once when I was thirteen. Sorta thought if I spent enough time studying them drawings I could figure out what they were supposed to tell me.”
    “They ever?”
    An eagle drifted over the valley. There was a yap of coyotes from somewhere below and the snap of a limb as something big moved through the trees above them. “Not really, I guess. Nothin’ real, least ways,” the kid said after a while. “But it seemed to me no one came here no more. Like they forgot it was here. That made me sad. So I kept comin’ so there’d at leastbe someone even if I didn’t know how to read ’em or get what it was they were tryin’ to say. At least there was someone.”
    His father just looked at him.
    “I can’t reckon someone dying,” the kid said. “Scares me some to think of it. Don’t exactly know how to face it. Don’t know what I’m s’posedta do when it happens. So I don’t know how come I brung ya here. Mighta just been for me.”
    His father slipped the whisky out of his coat pocket and dribbled a little of it into his mouth and sat there looking out across the wide expanse of space that hung over the valley. “Mighta,” he said.

10
    T HEY MADE THE BOTTOM OF THE CLIFF by mid-afternoon. His father was weaker. By the stream the kid helped him off the horse and washed his face with handfuls of cold water, then held a cup out for him to drink. His father sipped at it and when he swallowed there was an audible clack in his throat. Then he coughed. The kid sat him back against a rock. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back and the kid listened to the sounds of the land around them. The breeze sent leaves fluttering and the rush of the water was like a low whistle underneath that. The horse whinnied. The kid put his hand to his father’s head and felt the heat of him. Then he stood and faced the west and put his face up