Vagabond

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	FALL 2008 ISSUE

Vagabond in Colorado


		by Penelope E. Davidsen

	I love going to visit my Aunt. She knows more about the history of our family than anyone, and for once, family stories aren’t boring. Ours seem to be riddled with, intrigue, adventures, ghosts, curses and as I found out recently suspected murder. As a writer I find no better inspiration than turning the pages of my long lineage. But this last visit I asked her about the story of my great-grandmother.

“Oh, Aunty, what about the one when Amelia was in Kansas and that guy came to the house?”

She laughs, “It was Colorado, not Kansas.”

“It was?” I was sure it was Kansas and I sat looking very puzzled and slightly disappointed in my recollection of the story I had heard only ten years ago. I always tried to remember my Aunt’s stories verbatim. How was it that I had a completely different state in mind? I was also upset that upon my cross-country trek I looked at Kansas with a slanted eye and a feeling of, well, “Get me out of here!” was all for not. I had had my wits scared out of me in Colorado for a completely different reason. I don’t like heights, and I don’t like going 70 miles per hour down a hill with large 18-wheelers flying past me. I have traveled extensively, but to my knowledge Highway 80 out of Denver is the world’s only nature rollercoaster, but I digress.

“Amelia moved to Colorado in early 1900’s. Your grandmother wasn’t born yet, but the other three children were and your grandfather was there for the mining. Silver.” My Aunt had answered my question before I had asked it. “It was near Pike’s Peak, in Colorado Springs, but it didn’t last long. By the time your great-grandparents had gotten there, most of the silver was gone.”

“I thought they moved back to Massachusetts because the winter was too hard, plus the guy.”

“Well, it was a combination of many things, the man only being one of them.”

At this point my little cousin, who had been half listening to our conversation pipes up.

“What man?” My little cousin is nine and I wasn’t sure this story was appropriate for a girl of her age, but like the rest of the women in my family, she too is strong willed and there is no point in asking her to go play with the other children. My Aunt continued.

“The house had a kitchen in the back. Most of the homes did. The kitchen was small, but most of life was centered in that room. It also had a mudroom attached.”

“What’s a mudroom?” Again my little cousin asks a question.

“It’s a small room that one would enter the house first. It is that room where coats would be hung and muddy boots would be removed.”

The nine-year-old’s mind works fast. “Like that one?” She points to my Aunt’s room off her kitchen.

“Yes honey, just like that one. Anyway, one day this man comes to the back door. Well, Amelia, you know how she was.” My Aunt, now speaking to me, starts the story again. “A strange man coming to her door?”

...

“Is that when she picked up the shotgun?” It’s my turn to ask a question.

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