Winter Rain

Jeremiah reached out and folded his father into his arms. “But that don’t mean I ain’t your son no more. Nothing ever gonna change that. I know now that nothing ever could change that.”

Refusing to believe what his heart told him, Hook started to choke out the words, “I ain’t so sure I should—”

“She’ll always be my mother,” Jeremiah interrupted, turning to look down into the dark hole in the midst of all of that white swathing the ground. A wet, spring snow. “I owe her just as much to try as you do, pa.”

His heart leapt, burning with his love for that youngster he hadn’t watched grow up. Burning with love for his son who had swiftly crossed all those years they had been apart by bridging that great gulf with his own love. For a moment Jonah wondered where Jeremiah could have ever learned that sort of love … then he knew, thinking suddenly on Gritta once more, here beside her empty grave.

His voice cracked as he said, “You always did sort of favor your mother, son.”

Jonah realized Jeremiah had gotten the best his mother had to give him. It was always that way with Gritta: giving everything to her man and their children.

“I want to do this for you too, pa.” Jeremiah helped his father stand in the cold as the wind shifted, swinging out of the south.

“You sure about this, son?”

He nodded, straightening his strong back. “I ain’t really asking you, pa. I’m telling you what I’m going to do. With you … or without you: I’m going after my mother.”

Jonah brought the young man into his arms and hugged him fiercely. Holding him like he had never held Jeremiah before. As a man.

“Son, let’s go find your mother.”

And as they turned from that open black hole, so like the empty place torn through the middle of Jonah’s heart, the snow became a cold rain.

A slow, tearful, winter rain.

Epilogue

Late summer 1908

NATE DEIDECKER DARED not admit it, but he was relieved to know that Jonah Hook would be getting him back to the cabin tomorrow afternoon.

Still, with all his fears, this horseback ride into the splendid serenity of the Big Horns had been one of the singular events in the life of the young newsman. Something he vowed he would tell his grandchildren about when they gathered at his knee. Funny to think on that now, for there had been times in the past three days Nate had entertained serious doubts of ever living long enough to father any children, much less come to enjoy his grandchildren.

What stories he would regale them with, sons, daughters, grandsons, and granddaughters all—tales to make them cringe, tales that would make their hair stand on end, make their eyes grow wide and their mouths O in surprise. These true tales of Jonah Hook.

The sun was glorious beyond belief falling into the west beyond their camp that night on the western slope of the mountains. Out there beyond, yonder in Teddy Roosevelt’s Yellowstone Park, it seemed to be settling, as here the light bled away to magnificent stillness. How the air of these evenings hummed with a radiant alpenglow, cooling quickly as the old frontiersman puttered about the camp he made them that night. Having started the fire and left Deidecker to tend it, Hook had proceeded to erect the newsman’s small dog tent, unfurling in it Deidecker’s canvas bedroll wrapped around its wool blankets. Then Jonah had unpacked the cast-iron skillet and small kettle, along with that monster of a battered pot capable of making a gallon of coffee. From a nearby freshet running through the meadow Hook had drawn them water, then set the blackened vessel on the flames to boil.

The haunch of a young doe Jonah had shot at mid-morning was sliced, and two thick slabs of the bloody meat now covered the bottom of the old man’s skillet, ready for frying when the time came. The singular, invigorating smell to the air of these mountain evenings made Nate all the hungrier. If Jonah hadn’t protected the loin steaks, Deidecker might well have tried to raise a slice or two and wolf it down raw.

In the past three days of travel through this wilderness he had come to understand why the plainsmen said what they did about eating when a man had the chance to—a man never knew when his next meal would come. Try as he might, though, Nathan Deidecker could not get used to rising early, even before the sun had warmed the air, to eat a big breakfast before they would ride all day without stopping for a midday meal. This pushing his body to its limits was something new to the reporter born and raised in Iowa, gone after six early years of news work to Nebraska when he had the offer of a position with the prestigious Omaha Bee.

“So the chromo back at your cabin wasn’t you at all, was it, Jonah?”