Their conversation was interrupted by the tinkling of Fireball's bells. She had walked around the corner of the building and was now standing there snorting and swishing her tail. He had learned that typically a horse snorts when they are happy and content. They often do it when they greet other animals or when they are expecting a treat. "Well I wondered when you would show up. I was expecting you for breakfast too". He got up spryly for an old man and took out a large orange carrot from his jacket pocket. She bit off chunks of it as he held it firmly in his hand, her nose and lips twitching from side to side. It brought a smile to the old man's face. "You're a spoiled girl ain't ya"? he teased as he scratched her forehead. "My pa had a horse like this when I was a kid" he said wistfully. When the last bit of carrot was gone he turned and sat back in his lawn chair. Fireball followed him and kept nudging his shoulder with her velvet nose. Then she nosed the back of his stove pipe hat and it slipped forward over his eyes. "Get out a here ya panhandler. I give ya yer breakfast" he laughed as he straightened his hat. "She's a sponger, that's for sure"..Van chuckled, "What happened to your horse"? The old man paused and stroked his beard.."Well, I don't rightly know. I was sixteen years old in 1944. I left the farm, lied about my age and joined the Army. They sent me off to Camp Roberts out in California and taught me how to shoot and read a map and drink beer"..he laughed. Heck, that come easy for a kid from Bonetrail North Dakota! Next thing I know I got my face stuck in the sand on some beach in Okinawa. Well, after that little exotic tour I spent almost a year in Japan with the occupational forces." He stabbed the air with his pipe and said with narrowed eyes, "You know what son? I was with the military police outside his house when they arrested that son of a bitch Tojo."..he leaned forward from his chair and spit in the fire. "Got a letter one morning from my older sister. She wrote me that ma and pa had both been killed in a wreck. They were headed down to Williston in the old Plymouth...going to buy ma a brand new Maytag ringer washer for their anniversary. A guy haulin a load of logs going north on #2 fell asleep and his rig come across the centerline. Well, they discharged me soon after that. It took me another month to get home. By that time my sister had sold off all the livestock.. and that old horse...well, I just don't know what happened to that old girl. Anyways, that was kind of a round about answer to a simple question"...he acknowledged. "Seems like you've survived just fine"..Van smiled. "Oh, that I have son..had a good life...a good long life..no complaints"...he said with a wink and a smile. They sat in silence for a time; the old man filling his pipe with the Prince Albert tobacco. Van leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "I had a hard time when I came back from the war. I struggled..just couldn't seem to get it together. For the longest time I drank too much, I partied too much..hell I did everything in excess. I just couldn't stop thinking about everything that happened in that shit show over there" he said shaking his head. "I guess I was just trying to flush that insanity out of my mind. I was renting a travel trailer from a Methodist lady in Minot and tending bar at the Blue Rider. Early one Sunday morning I was washing my clothes at the Suds and Sun..there was a pamphlet laying there on a folding table. I picked it up... it was either that or a woman's fashion magazine so I started reading it...waiting for the rinse cycle. It had some pictures on it...I remember how it said that all the crap that's going on matched bible prophecy...how Satan was stirring up all this trouble. It said how this wasn't the way things were supposed to be and said how the future would be better. It sounded plausible to me. Thinking back I guess I was really just looking for some answers...looking for some friends. There was an offer on the back and a phone number. So when I get home I decided to give it a call. This woman answers and I explain why I'm calling...she's real pleasant and said that she would let me talk to her husband. Well we talk for quite a while and I agree to having him stop by...heck, he shows up that very afternoon. So we talk for an hour or so and he shows me a lot of things in the "good book" that I never knew..how that soon the Lord would bring an end to iniquity..iniquity..that was a new one for me"..he chuckled. "He showed me that it's going to happen by what the bible calls Armageddon and that after that the Lord would restore the earth back to paradise. He'd come around at least once a week after that..sometimes twice. He gave me a book called "Glorious Reward" and over a few months we read through that whole book. I started going to their meetings...well, they call them conclaves. There was a lot of emphasis put on just how close we were to his "radiance"...that's what they called it when all this would happen"...he said rolling his eyes. "They would say that "he was at the door". So, up until just recently, that's what I believe happened a few weeks ago...I believed it was the "Day of Fury" just like they'd been teaching me about. Somehow I survived but I don't believe it was because I'm some sort of chosen one." The old man sat and nodded knowingly. He took the pipe from his mouth and slapped the bowl against his wrinkled palm to dislodge the burned tobacco. He took a small jackknife from his denim jacket and with the blade he scraped the residue from the inside of the pipe bowl. After a while he stuck the pipe and knife in his pocket and turned towards the young man. "Well son, I'll tell ya something that I've observed over my ninety some years...sometimes things happen that ya just don't understand...but as more time goes by there always seems to be a logical explanation come about. And another thing...if I had a nickel for every religious grifter that I've seen come through in my life who implied that they were the gateway ta everlastin life...well...I suppose I could buy myself a new set of gold teeth." he leaned forward again and spit on the hot coals. "All the while they're smilin and huggin ya with one arm, they got the other in yer back pocket" The young man smiled and nodded, " I think you're right". The old man looked up towards the sky. "I get the feelin it's gettin on towards noon. Everyday bout this time I have myself a little glass of the homemade brew. Would you care to try some?" The young man replied.. "You bet, I never turn down a good glass of barley water."

He followed the old man up a set of weathered steps at the back of the building and through the door into his home. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the dimness. A large round oak coffee table with three clawfoot legs sat in the middle of the room. On the table was a kerosene lamp, a lacquered cribbage board with ivory pegs and a worn deck of cards. On an open oily white cloth was a disassembled broomhandle Mauser pistol and a small bottle of Hopps #9. An antique crystal chandelier hung over the table suspended from the high tin ceiling. There were three old comfortable looking over stuffed chairs and one worn cushioned rocker that sat around the table. Draped over the back of the rocker was a Navajo blanket. Bookcases lined part of both walls and more books were placed in stacks on the floor. Above the bookcases along both long walls were scores of different taxidermy mounts of wild animals and birds. A full mount of a giant condor with outstretched wings looked down menacingly from its perch high on the wall. In between the mounted animals on one wall were framed shadow boxes full of carefully arranged flint arrow heads and primitive stone tools. On the other wall were the same but filled with a collection of insects and brightly colored butterfly specimens which were carefully pinned to a foam surface beneath the glass. In one corner was a painter's easel with an unfinished canvas and a wooden box of paint tubes that lay open on a small wooden stand. The whole place had, which to him, was a pleasant smell of pipe tobacco, fermenting beer and old books. The old man had walked farther back into the room past some tall cabinets that served as a partition between the room that he stood in and a kitchen area. The cabinets had glass doors and on their shelves set a collection of native American relics and artifacts. Along the outside wall of the kitchen was an old Heartland cook stove and next to it a Standard cast iron kitchen sink. Above the sink two buffalo horns projected out from the brick wall and cradled a weathered M1 Garand. In the center of the room was a wide butcher block table that had originally been used to cut up meat. On it were a few five gallon glass carboys that were fermenting what appeared to him to be a dark beer. "Pull up a chair son and kick yer feet up" the old man said as he came from the kitchen. He held two tall glasses of dark beer with about a half inch of foam on the top that he set on the coffee table. "I'm fortunate ta have a propane refrigerator...It keeps my homemade brew nice and cold! How do ya like my little cabin"? he asked as he set the glasses of beer on the table. "I like it just fine" Van replied, "Have you lived here a long time?" "Oh I've owned this little place for quite a while...I just come over here for a change a pace sometimes...I got a nice little farm just a ways outa Westhope...nice old house and barn...lived there for most of my life." "Westhope...that's where I just came from" Van stated. "Is that right?" the old man sipped from the glass ..."And where you and yer little pony headed to?" "I'm making my way down to Charbonneau...take me about ten days." "Charbonneau!" the old man laughed and slapped his leg... "There ain't nuthin in Charbonneau but jackrabbits and sagebrush!"

..to be continued.