Apache Dawn

He watched absently as fresh snow landed on his hand and didn’t immediately melt. He thought it was odd that he couldn’t feel the cold anymore.

He felt nothing.

Mom didn’t feel anything anymore, either. The coughing fits, the congestion, the fever, the pain. It was all over. She had lasted longer than most, he guessed. Certainly longer than his father and sisters. That was Mom, though. The toughest woman he ever knew. He smiled and wished again that he could cry.

Chad grunted and stood up. He brushed the snow and dirt from his favorite jeans. His best boots were already under the new snow. Tilting back Dad’s well-worn Stetson, he looked up into the gray nothingness above. The snow swirled and fell around him in silence. It was a wet snow. Some of it hit his face. If he couldn’t cry, maybe the sky would.

“It’s time we got inside. Come on, son,” mumbled his neighbor, Doug Miller. The grandfatherly man struggled to hold in a cough. Chad knew his neighbor’s time would be up soon.

“I know what you’re thinking, son. But, I’ll be damned if the young man who helped me care for Emma is gonna freeze today. I owe your folks that much.”

“Miss Emma wouldn’t want you to turn into an icicle, either.”

The old man chuckled ruefully and Chad raised his eyes from the grave with no expression on his face. He looked left and right at the other mounds, where his dad and sisters were already at rest on the cold ground. He looked at the sick old man who stood before him, trying not to shiver.

Mr. Miller was wrapped in two muddy blankets and had snow on his shoulders. A thick wool cap perched on top of his head provided only a little protection to the wispy silver hair that poked out in all directions. Old Man Miller stamped his boots a little in the snow to keep his feet warm. He suppressed another cough but his shoulders shook with the effort. He glared at Chad under a bushy white eyebrow with a rheumy, red-rimmed eye.

“I ain’t sick, so stop worrying—but I am gettin’ cold.”