With the blue halogen light on his headband picking out the path and his barely willing, yet committed, small band following. He led them single file through the light and shadow, along the path towards the flagpole and the Memorial to Doc Holliday. I could barely see the dim flashlight. The medium sized dog stayed close within the group and the wind was in my favor so it didn’t detect me. The running commentary, “Sum bitch!” this and that, clearly marked their progress.
I took a lower trail on the south side and drifted through the trees until, just minutes before midnight, I was poised to simply step onto the trail behind them as they came by the flagpole and down the hill to Doc’s grave. The older boy’s running commentary had focused the group’s attention and his voice easily covered any sounds I might have been making. All were looking down and watching their footing. I fell in line with them and was still unnoticed as they walked alongside the fence to the head of Doc’s grave; bunching together when the older boy stopped. He began playing his light onto the headstone and the wan yellow circle of the group’s other light was wandering over the supposed location of the grave itself.
I stopped at the foot of the grave. The dog ran in behind me for a sniff and I poked sharply backwards with my cane and gave it a nice solid jab in the ribs. It made no sound but ran off into the night. I leaned on the iron fence on both hands, my arms straight. The halogen headlight lit Doc’s new tombstone and four pairs of light dazzled eyes stared. I kept my eyes carefully averted…
“Sum Bitch! That’s Doc Holiday’s new tombstone”
“Yes!” I said, with full voice, in Doc’s Southern drawl, “And see that you treat it with considerable respect!”
The halogen light swept across me and every young eye was turned to catch the momentary illumination of the dark visage of the very man they had come to visit but had not expected to see! The young girl bolted into the night, screaming! Uttering their own cries of fear and dismay, the two younger boys immediately followed! The leader swung his head and thereby his light, trying to focus on his fleeing companions. I took the opportunity to slip down the south trail from the grave, which soon passes into the shadows of the large trees there. A location, which which, I am very familiar. I was gone in an instant!
Far below, John says to himself, “Ah, they found Doc!” He suffers through a fit of laughter trying to imagine what has occurred on Jasper Mountain this midnight.
Meanwhile, the two younger boys have gone to the aid of the girl who has been fortunate enough to fall, unharmed; before, she ran into the barbed wire fence not another twenty or thirty feet further down the hill. The older boy, his voice breaking and his light swinging every which way but lingering nowhere, is shouting, “Sum Bitch! Where is he? I saw him. Wheereeis that Sum Bitch? It was Doc! Sum Bitch! I tell you, it was Doc!”
He soon switches his efforts to collecting his wayward companions and all are quickly assembled again, back by the grave, assuring each other that they are unhurt! …they want to go back down now! …and that they have, for SURE, seen Doc Holliday! It is quickly decided that it is time to retreat, and a rapid pace is soon set towards the cemetery exit. I am trying not to reveal myself by bursting into laughter.
I decide I will go back down the steep trail from Doc’s grave and try to intercept them as they come down the main path from the cemetery entrance. It is much harder, more dangerous and slower to go down than it is to come up these narrow, slippery trails and my quarry was making extremely good time down the mountain.