Glazing out the window of my two room cabin

 My dog Willow

Glazing out the window of my two room cabin I watched another sunrise paint the morning sky with a wash of light purplish blues, pale reds and bright yellows. These earthy tones highlighted the nearby mountains and seem to beckon one with a mysterious silence to their natural beauty. On this day the early morning silence was broken by the sound of a far off church bell ringing in town about a half mile away. It was Sunday in Kings Canyon, a small town in New Mexico with a population of just over a hundred or so depending on who was born and who had died that year. Over half or our residence were native Apache and sadly most of them were often drunk and referred to as godless souls by most of the town folk. I was alone now with my wife Sara’s passing two years earlier to some unknown disease our town's kid Doctor from Boston couldn't even pronounce. She past holding my hand terrified of death and I was paralyzed with the thought of her leaving me as I helplessly watched her die one cold winter day. Sadly we were not blessed with children to carry on our families name as I was the last of our kin still standing. Born William Timothy Taylor and was baptized by a one armed priest I'm told by my mother who lost it while spreading the Lords word when New Mexico was just a territory. I am sixty now in the year 1902 and I guess you tend to reflect on the past too much when you reach this stage in your life's journey.

 My old hide was tanned and scarred from a lifetime in the desert and my soul probably looked the same way to the almighty above even-though being baptized wasn't a free ticket to enter heavens gate. Hell, the scorpions stopped stinging and the sidewinders stopped striking at me guessing I must of tasted pretty bad to them by now. I was just ten years old when I came to this country brought here by my parents after my father hired on as an Indian agent for the United States government. Somewhere along the way my mother took poorly and died suddenly and together my father and I buried her in a good place that overlooked a deep valley that ran as far as the eye could see. We marked her grave with a cross but later that same year flash floods washed the area all away never to be found again no matter how hard and how many times I searched. Sometimes I felt my mother's loving hand brush across my face while I looked for her resting place but maybe it was just the wind after all playing a cruel trick on a motherless child who missed her deeply. My father blamed her death on the desert and especially the Jicarilla Apache Nation until the day they helped him enter eternity with that story later to be told. 

My father drastically changed with her passing from a man of kindness and God fearing to a broken spirit who lost his soul often publicly cursing and professing his now hatred to God and anyone else he felt beneath him including me. For the next eight years we lived on an army post with no more than twenty soldiers present at anytime and four of those were officers. I never really got to know any of them to make a real difference in my life as they were continuously transferred in and out often never to return. The outpost had a natural spring and was the only source of fresh water for miles but with that it brought a lot of good folks and bad to our post and most of it was unwanted. The army was there to keep the peace and maintain some reasonable amount of law and order but it was more lawless with very little order at all. My father managed the local Indian affairs which included distribution of some beef and provisions as well as matters regarding the Indian reservation. But the Apache's hated the white man and had little regard for our presence. They rightfully believed that this land was theirs and though of us as intruders and trespassers. The Apache weren't sly about letting us know their intentions which usually meant torture and death and something being eaten.