Benjen at 17
I have seen your future, Benjen, and it is good. You will walk through the valley, but you will not remain in the shadows. Your home is on the mountaintop. Press on to higher ground.
Benjen closed his eyes and listened to the sound of Yuma Blackhawk’s voice as it was carried on the wings of the wind whispering through the trees. His heart ached to know he’d never speak to his father in this lifetime again.
The funeral was over. The neighbors had paid their respects and went on their way. His brothers were at home, coming to terms with the fact both their parents were gone. Four brothers, the oldest barely in his twenties, and a 1447-acre ranch to run. There was no other family for them to depend upon. Only each other.
Standing beneath the spreading oak, Benjen stared at the twin headstones. One new. One beginning to weather. He knelt down and ran his hand over the pink granite. A knot formed in his throat when he remembered what he’d heard being said in town.
Talk about irony. Who ever heard of a redskin being killed by a drunk driver? Isn’t the Indian the one usually falling down drunk?
Yea, ironic. His father never drank. Even after their mother passed, he’d stood firm in his principals, determined to raise the boys to be strong, brave men. Bowing his head, Benjen closed his eyes to contain the tears. “I still need you. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
Even though he was the youngest, he knew his brothers all felt the same way. Easy seemed to be taking it the hardest. but he’d seen the whole thing. Benjen couldn’t imagine the horror of watching the wreck take place right before his eyes and being unable to stop it from happening.
A high-pitched piping noise sounding overhead caused Benjen to look up. There was no other sound in nature like it, the call of a bald eagle. He scanned the sky until he saw the bird sailing proudly on an air current, dipping and climbing, surveying its domain. A sense of peace filled him. Rising to his feet, Benjen looked beyond the small hillock where his parents rested, to the rise of the mountain in the distance and the ribbon of river in its shadow. Undeniably, a slice of Heaven on Earth. Once again, his father’s words reached his ears.
I grew up here, as did my father, and his father before him. Before ownership of land was defined by a deed written on a piece of paper, this land belonged to us.
Benjen remembered him standing on the top of Packsaddle Mountain, raising his weathered bronzed face to the sky.
Feel it. A sense of place. Our home is not just defined by the number of acres we possess, but by the people who live here, the collective experiences.
“I don’t understand, Bitaa.” He called him one of the Apache words for father.
He’d smiled and winked at Benjen. “There’s an old house in Tupelo, Mississippi. A tiny shot-gun house, so small you could fit four of them in the bottom floor of the home I built for your mother. If you were to go there, you’d wonder how people could manage to live their life in such a cramped place. I can guarantee, you wouldn’t be impressed…until I told you it was the house where Elvis Presley was born.”
Benjen’s eyes had bugged. “I’d like to see it. I love to play Elvis’s music on my guitar.”
“See? Even in your mind’s eye, that unassuming shot-gun house has taken on a different spirit. What tales those walls could tell. The floor wouldn’t just be wood and linoleum, it would be where Elvis walked. The porch wouldn’t be just a place to sit, you would picture Elvis sitting there with his mother, singing a gospel song.”
“I think I understand. Our home isn’t just land and a house, it’s also the memories.”
His father had nodded. “The memories of days gone by and the hope for the future.”
Squaring his shoulders, Benjen took a deep breath. There was work to be done. Time to put aside childish things and be a man. He pushed a strand of long ebony hair over his shoulder and fit his Stetson on his head. One of the last conversations he’d had with his father flitted through his mind. Looking back, he wondered if Yuma had sensed the end was near.
“I love each of my sons equally, but even with your mother’s blue eyes, you are more like me than your brothers.” He’d chuckled and given him a wink. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.”
“It’s a good thing,” Benjen said with pride. “I want to be just like you.”
“You don’t remember my mother, your shichu, but the first time she held you in her arms, she predicted you would be spiritual. The Apache don’t use the word shaman, but that’s how the outside world would define our medicine men.” He tapped his forehead. “You have this insight and a healing touch. Compassion.”
Benjen hung on his father’s every word. “Teach me. I want to know everything.”
Yuma let out a long sigh. “I will not leave you adrift. I have recorded everything I have learned and everything my father taught me in a buckskin journal. You will have it when the time comes.”
At that moment, Benjen hadn’t understood his father was saying he wouldn’t be around to teach him in person.
“When will the time come?”
“Sooner than I wished it would.” He let out a long, solemn breath. “Just remember, each of my sons will walk their own path. Daniel is a leader. He will be the mainstay. Easy is laughter. He will keep the sun shining bright and the clouds at bay. Samuel is a rock. He is like the placid surface of a lake with hidden depths.”
“What about me, Bitaa? What am I?”
Picking up the reins, he led his mount out to the edge of a circular swale some fifty foot across. Surrounded by willows and carpeted by deep grass, the depression lay near a spring-fed creek which flowed toward the river. The ground at his feet was marked by deer tracks, and a raven called from the top of a nearby cottonwood tree. A small orange butterfly flitted in a shaft of warm sunlight. Benjen wondered how things could look so normal and bright on such a dark day.
With one last look at the graves of his loved ones, he turned his mind toward the future. The prospect of making his father’s prophecy come true seemed a daunting task, especially without Bitaa’s guiding hand.
As he rode away, heading home, the answer to his question settled on his shoulders like a mantle being passed from father to son.
“You are the heart of the family. You feel things deeper. Your sense of right and wrong is heightened. You, my son, will be a hero.”