Free Holster by Philip Allen Green

The town rose from the earth like the wheat rose in
the fields around it. Sun bleached buildings shimmered in the
August heat, as if alive. The red of their bricks baked in the sun,
from a distance appearing to float just above the brown sea of
wheat that covered the valley.
     
    Mountains stood in the distance. Solid and still they
sat, untouched by the heat of summer or the cold of winter. Worn
down by age, their slow rise and smooth shape across the arch of
the sky gave them the illusion of proximity. After a lifetime in
the valley, it still surprised Jeremiah how something that looked
so close, could be so far away.
     
    Leaving town this morning had been strangely
uneventful. He thought he would feel some sadness at leaving for
the last time. Instead, he felt nothing but relief as he said
goodbye to his wife and two remaining children.
    Relief for them, relief for him, relief that at last
the end was in sight.
     
    He looked to the road ahead. The narrow dirt jeep
track wove through the pine trees before disappearing out of sight
around a bend. He shifted into a lower gear as the road climbed
steeply. With a loud bang the whine of his truck’s engine paused,
jumped a pitch higher, and then resumed its noise as it fought
gravity. Jeremiah’s ears rang as the old Ford strained to make its
way up the steep grades of Forest Service Road 181.
     
    Plumes of powdery tan dust chased behind the pickup
as it climbed. Town was now more than an hour back, out of the
mountains, across the fields. He would catch a brief glimpse of it
at switchbacks, back out through the canyons in the distance. It
was too far to see clearly now, just a tiny red smudge baking in
the sun, lost in the rolling fields far behind.
     
    He would miss these mountains. As a boy he had come
up here with his father to hunt. The first time his father ever
left him alone in the woods had been a few miles from where he was
now.
     
    At first he had been afraid to be alone in the
mountains. Watching his father disappear into the darkness down the
ridge had initially filled him with horror. He was alone. There
were predators hunting the same ridges they were, predators that
could easily kill a ten year old boy.
     
    He had sat in the dark night, glassing the distant
ridge for elk as instructed until his arms ached from the big
binoculars. As he sat his fear faded. The call of the elk as they
bugled back and forth, the crisp night air, the small cloud of his
breath appearing and disappearing in the moonlight. He discovered
there was a quiet rhythm in these mountains that never stopped. By
the time his father returned, Jeremiah understood what it was his
father loved about these mountains.
     
    The dirt road leveled out as it neared the top of
Indian Ridge, widening slightly in a spot to turn around before
ending at a wall of trees. Sweat pooled in the small of his back
from the heat. He stopped the truck. He was here. The cloud of dirt
that had been chasing him up the mountain enveloped the truck. Silt
dusted the pickup, painting it brown with the fine dirt.
     
    Jeremiah shut off the engine, watching the dust
gather into little clumps on the windshield. It grew dark in the
cab. Still he didn’t move. His hands gripped the wheel, sweating
where they touched the hot leather.
     
    Was this the right thing to do? Would his father have
done the same if he were in this position? A sense of shame tore
through him, a crippling cancer that had metastasized into every
part of his life. He looked over at the backpack on the seat beside
him. His father would not have been in this position. This was
Jeremiah’s failure, Jeremiah’s mistake.
     
    He opened the door of the Ford to stand for a moment
on the side of the road. The scent of the high country tamaracks
mixed with the diesel exhaust from his truck. It was a familiar and
friendly smell. This place, these trees, these mountains- if the
answer was anywhere it was here.
     
    Sweat stung his eyes and he squinted, turning