By the river

By the River

"This they say is where it all started. The home of our ancestors boy.
In this dark glen many moons ago, a Buchanan started to spread the word
of god. A word that spread east to St Andrews and south to Edinburgh.
There they had the reformation, the church split, fragmented and our
folks, relatives scattered all over the known world. Here in Perthshire
a man called John Buchanan founded the Free church and since then all
us Buchanans have been free to roam this world. Free in a physical
sense, but still tied to a god." The speaking man lowers himself into
the edge of a shallow river bank, water envelopes his lush green waders
protecting his ageing bones(skin). His white beard marks his years and
adds to his appearance as a traveller, explorer, who has seen sights
other men would deny. He speaks to the teenager, a boy that has the
same blue eyes and crocked nose, as if they both at the age of ten had
it purposely broken to enter their clan or a secret society. The boy
enters the water and hands the old man a pan handle. "There Grandpa",
he says in an American drawl. The bearded one counters, "I said call me
Zeb, I don't like the idea of me being a grand anything, especially
since I'm only fifty two years young". He chuckles as he bends over and
enters the icy cold waters, his hands appear unperturbed by the near
freezing water. He fills the panhandle with silt from the river bottom
and starts shaking his instrument of discovery.
"It was my grand pa that first tasted freedom. He said ' enough is
enough, I'm outer here, there's gold in the new country and I'm having
some of that. Money will be my god, not some cold church and an even
colder god with commandments from the dark ages. This is a free world
he said, I'm a free man and my destiny still to be written'. He was
right, Sean, he was right. He said that to me when I was younger than
you. I listened. So you listen to your elders, boy". The boy copies his
grand father and takes some silt from it's resting place and shakes it
in his panhandle, returning it finest to it's origin save a small stone
or twig that remain. He discards them to. The old man returns to his
monologue. "My grandpa your great, great grandpa was the first miner of
our clan. He found gold, made good money, and like the times lost most
of it in the ways that he never thought he could. Now you, Sean, your
in the same position as him. You've got a free soul, a free mind, and
your free to do as you please. It's your world, play with it as you
can. Respect it for in it is your downfall and your gold rushes. It
might change subtly over the years, the rules may be re-written, but we
Buchanans stay the same. Slaves to our gods. So Sean chose yours
wisely. For work the right god brings riches, look at your great, great
grandpa he found gold, bought a farm and some cows, that my father
turned into a ranch with the biggest herd of longhorn west of the
Mississippi. Your father found oil on that ranch, enough to grow dollar
trees. Me I went my own way to, enjoyed the sixties and I grew bands,
took drugs, and saw the world, from the Amazon to the Taj to olde
Europe. You Sean you can chose like your fore fathers did".
The teenager feels the cold sweat cling to his body, he itches his bare
arms and mentally answers, "Yer grandpa". But his thoughts are on his
methadone, his screams echo inside his hollow body "how long do I have
to suffer this??."