Ma’ ol’ man put it better than I ever could. He told me, “Son, I believe we’re at war.” Not with each other, No. This war ain’t got no bombs droppin’, or bullets flyin’. Ya’ can’t see our enemy, it’s formless, invisible, but it’s there. Stalkin’ us. Ready to gut ya’ the first chance it gets.
I’m talkin’ about nature.
“A battle for survival,” he called it. A one cruel adversary, indeed. Ya’ make one wrong move out here, and ya’ gone. In the wilds, ya’ got to do just about anythin’ to stay alive, but that’s what my family’s been doing for 100 years. Survivin’.
Well, I reckon it’s been that long. Us Henley’s have been here, scraping a livin’, doing all we could to get through one more year. It started with gramps. He rode out lookin’ for a better life, hoped to find gold in the west, but all he found was this shithole. He got as far along the Albiqua trail as he could, before gettin’ caught in a blizzard, in the mountains.
That year was cold, so brutal you’d freeze solid before you made it 10 yards. I’ve seen bitter winters. But it ain’t nothin’ like wha’ Gramps faced. No, fire, no shelter, nothin’. Just open land and whatever his group could throw together.
But survive he did, I’m livin’ proof o’ that.
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