Virgil Sanders explained to me that in 1865 Franklin Pedimore was 87 years old, but looked no more than 30. The mountain was good to him. Kept him alive whether he ate or not.

Virgil continued: “Pedimore discovered he couldn’t travel more than a few miles from the base of this mountain. The further he moved away from the mountain the more his body aged. It frightened him. He looked thirty, but having made his way south along the col to Round Top, his hair began to gray and teeth fell out of his head. At one point he became almost too weak to continue, so he turned around on hands and knees and crawled most of the way back to Monte Sano.

“When Franklin Pedimore saved me,” Virgil said, “he was one hundred and fourteen years old, but didn’t look a day older than sixty.

“He said he’d been watching me. He said he saw the time I moved a man from the path of a rock that had not started falling. Sundry other instances that suggested I might already have the foresight he’d known before meeting the shaman.

“I listened to his stories for days. I came to trust him. I was fascinated by the idea that he could be hungry, but could not die from hunger. The only time he aged was when he tried to leave the mountain.

“After a few days the snow melted and I was ready to make my way out of the caves.  Pedimore was anxious, grumpy. By and by he stopped me as I found the main throat out of the caverns and begged of me a favor.

“He said part of his oath was that he would never leave the mountain without someone to take his place. He was certain I was suitable for the job and begged that I might stay for a few months while he searched for the family of a squaw he knew when he worked for John Ditto. Said he was fairly sure she was with child when he left and he wanted to know what became of it.

“Friend, I was not a smart man. It seemed to me I lived on this mountain anyways. This man had saved my life and I owed him. He could have left me be to die in the cold, yet he saved me. He had my trust. I had no idea who Apollo was and I genuinely thought his stories of tellin’ the future were hogwash. I thought, well, if tellin’ this man I’d stay on the mountain I was already livin’ on would make him feel better, so be it.

“He insisted on what I thought at the time were theatrics. He brought out his little stone stool and started a fire in a clearing. At first I wasn’t scared and played along.

“But then, friend, I began to see what looked like shadows dancin’ just outside the perimeter of the light. As Pedimore stirred that fire and move the embers to the side I saw a hole in the ground. A white mist rose from that hole and Pedimore began to speak in tongues. The shadows came to the fire and they all moved around it in unison. The mist or smoke moved in between them, around them, through them. The stone chair I sat upon began to vibrate strangely. Then I became scared.”

I remember Virgil’s face. It was stressed. He shook his head, like a man trying to tell a memory to go away.

He said, “But this man saved my life. I owed him. So I didn’t budge.”

Taking a deep breath, Virgil continued: “Pedimore froze for a moment, eyes wide and starin’ at that fire. Suddenly he snapped his hands in my direction and the mist enveloped me.

“My head fell back and I saw nothing but red blood and glowing veins. After a while a small white dot appeared in front of me. It began to grow and through it I saw a great light come from the entire valley below us. The whole valley shined like all the candles in the world. Above all the candles stood one enormous candle, a bright red light flashed atop it. I saw the American flag waving on the moon. On the moon, friend. You have to understand at that time it was insanity. Witchcraft, it was.

“I awoke some time later. I have no idea how long I was out.

“I felt fine for the most part. Pedimore was nowhere to be found. I figured he’d be gone for a bit, but I did check on the spot in Three Caves, just to be sure.

“Friend, I expected him to be gone for a week or two, a month at most.

“Two months passed, an Independence day, a Christmas.

“Friend, it took almost five years before I was able to come to grips with the notion that Pedimore had tricked me and was never coming back.

“I was thirty three years old when Pedimore saved me. You can tell I’ve attempted to leave this mountain several times or else I would look thirty three years old.

“By my own reckonin’ I’m one hundred and forty six years old.”