Dying Embers

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

I sat on the floor staring at the dying embers. The coals from the large fire I’d built earlier were coated with a fine gray ash … as the exquisite thirty-four-year-old single malt was tinged with the same, more than faint, taste of ashes. The fire - gloriously hot with the popping, almost explosive sound of the pockets of burning resin - had been laughing at me, providing a jeering counterpoint to my pain.

Now the logs were only embers, their very soul sacrificed to provide me with a meager comfort; that sacrifice mimicking the sudden death of what I had falsely, foolishly even, believed and accepted - without question - had been a love for the ages.

Wait … a sudden flare up of hopeful flame, flashing even as the structure of the fire collapsed, glinted off the fool’s gold of the ring properly located on my third finger, left hand. I held that ring up in front of my eyes – that ring that had never left my finger in those twenty-six years of marriage. Where was the happiness so joyfully promised … lo those many years ago? Where was the love implicit with the sliding oh so carefully onto my hand in that blessed sacrament of marriage?

With an anger I would have not believed possible six months earlier I ripped, ripped with a savage force the ring of betrayal off my cursed finger and threw it in the remains of the fire … only to see it bounce off some hidden hard spot of what I thought had only been ashes – and roll slowly away through the wood consumed by fire, away from the dying, almost dead embers.

This was unacceptable; this I could not contemplate. My effort, a gesture really, had been refused by the Gods. I nodded, carefully, at the half empty bottle and made a heroic attempt to lower the level of that amber fluid of life. I slowly, oh so slowly, stood up, staggered to the kitchen and carefully grasped the tongs. Easing my way back to the fireplace I grasped the ring with a gentle care and dropped it into the heart of the ashes.

Like an owl wisely turning my head, this way, that way, I spied the papers lying carelessly strewn on the strips of contrasting Brazilian hardwood flooring. Ah, the papers. The papers that spelled out so carefully like that great Tammy Wynette song: D-I-V-O-R-C-E. Would that light my fire? No, no alcoholic humor now. Yes, the divorce papers would wonderfully bring light to the ashes of my life so I carefully centered them over the slight crater caused by dropping the ring in the ashes.

Yes, this was high quality paper. The fire now brightly flared. I grabbed two, four … oh, yeah, one more of the resin filled logs and built a pyre – this is a good image, I muse; does a dead love deserve a sad funereal pyre? I carefully stack them, center them over the ring now hidden … but not forgotten.

The heat was high now. A rhythm. A pattern. One log. Swig some scotch (such a beautiful word that, swig – to heartily, greedily even, take a big drink). Yes, I like that. Log, swig, log, swig. A nice rhythm going now. The fire a crucible for the ring as those hated D-I-V-O-R-C-E papers had proved a crucible of my love.

The embers are alive! No ash covered logs now … a roaring, powerful heat pushing me back. A swig. Now the embers are coming to me. One here, on the hearthstone. One there – yes, that’s on the carpet. The carpet glows – marches towards me with an evil glee. Another swig? Yes the last. The bottle thrown at the burning carpet, one bounce, two – the count so carefully noted – the bottle crashes. The noise of the breaking glass lost in the loud roaring of the flames. It’s warm. It’s hot. An idle thought – is a heat flash the same as a flash of heat?

Hot, fire, hell. Is that my destiny? To burn in the fires of hell? I laugh at the fire. I laugh at the D-I-V-O-R-C-E papers, those ashes of my life. I laugh at Jean. I laugh at each of those twenty-six years of my happy marriage.

God, it’s hot. I can’t breathe. Some instinct, some primal call from an unknown ancient caveman leads me to the door … out in that blessed coolness, out in to that icy cold snow. Loud noises – sirens blaring? A medic; am I okay? A uniform; a cop? Talking to … me. Taking my arm. I’m in a car, smelly, dirty. The heavy aroma of vomitus permeating the air.

They take me away and now I’m here in this place of peace and they feed me, bathe me, talk to me … I say nothing, never, not a word for months on end.

Two years later I was released. They told me I was “cured.” What does that mean? Should I be happy? Should I be glad? No, cured or not I still felt nothing but sadness. I guess that’s all there is to life.

TO LIVE AGAIN

It was another three years before I really knew who I was and what I was about. They told me my name was Sam Adams but it sounded rough on my tongue – like speaking a foreign language. I would sometimes stand in front of a mirror, saying the name over and over. My first trip to the store I brought some beer – I just grabbed some, didn’t bother to look at the label. I laughed when I got home and put stuff away and saw the label. I was only a guy on a beer label.

I remembered all about Jean now. I had no idea why it happened but the what was forever burned into my memory from the many – too many – sessions with my psychiatrist.

We’d had some problems – nothing more than any couple married over a quarter century. We started meeting with a counselor a couple times a month. Some stuff came out; hell, no one has a perfect marriage. It was mostly things related to passing the fifty-year mark and starting to question our lives and our commitment to each other. Jean would say at the therapy sessions that she felt old and used up, not attractive any more.

I think she mostly missed the kids now that they had both moved out and were doing their own things. For myself I guess I just felt tired. The sun rose looking a bit flat and washed out and the nights lasted longer than my body could lie down.

I guess our sex life was like most people our age. The spark that had made a bonfire of our early years of loving was flickering weakly by the time we sought help for our marriage. Maybe once a week at best we found time to focus on each other in a loving way. Even then it seemed at times it was more of a habit than anything else.

The guy we went to for counseling was a younger man, about thirty-five or so. I had to concede that he was good-looking. He had curly black hair and a complexion that spoke of Southern Italy. It did turn out that he was from Palermo.

I never felt comfortable with him – somehow most of the problems seemed to be mine. He was always making goggle eyes at Jean … and she ate that shit up! If things weren’t bad enough, we would go home and fight about the guy that was supposedly helping us. I should have picked up on things better when Arturo – yeah, that was the prick’s name – suggested we have a few separate sessions … once a week for each of us.

I was going in on Monday’s and Jean on Tuesday’s. He scheduled us at the end of the day, because, “ … that’s the only time available on short notice.” This went on for several weeks before I forgot my watch at one of the Monday sessions. Arturo always made us take our watches off so we could focus on our “feelings” and not what time it was.

After that session I was kinda pissed off. We always left our watches with the secretary and she would leave them on her desk when she left at five. As upset as I was, my watch was the last thing on my mind. The next day I missed it – it was a nice Rolex – so I called Janine and she said she would leave it on her desk and my wife could bring it home with her after her session that afternoon.

Jean had seemed distracted after her sessions lately so I was figuring she would probably forget the watch. It wasn’t out of my way so I decided I could stop by on my way home – I was really attached to that watch. I knew Jean and Arturo would be in session but I could just grab the watch and take off. Arturo always closed the door for his sessions for privacy so there would be no interruption.

I got there to pick up the watch and I heard this keening sound. I recognized the sound immediately: it was the unique noise Jean made when she had a strong orgasm. No one ever said I was stupid; I figured out quickly what was going on. I tried the heavy oak door but it was locked.

Now I’m a big man – six-four and about 250. I’d been a heavy equipment operator all my life and now I owned a franchise in San Antonio for several major lines such as Caterpillar. Yeah, I’d gone to seed a little but not that much. A well-placed boot knocked the door in. Typically, they had a heavy-duty security door in a crap frame.

There on the couch Arturo and my wife were in a tight embrace, seemingly enjoying the down slope of relaxation after the physical exertion of sex. They looked up – stunned was the image that stuck with me.

I felt a murderous rage but I had no desire to go to prison for what I knew I could and would do to Arturo. I stared at Jean for a longish moment, letting her see my disgust and rage.

In a cold, dead voice I told her, “I’m glad to see you got more out of this counseling than I did. I’ll go see Ed in the morning.”

With that I turned and stalked away. I stayed at one of our construction trailers that night – we kept a cot folded up for occasional use, particularly at remote sites. The next morning I went to see Ed Terrell. Ed was my cousin but we had grown up together and had been closer than brothers. Ed wasn’t a divorce lawyer but he had one on his staff.

“Sam, are you sure this is what you want to do? You’ve been with Jean for a long time and I think it’s been a better marriage than most.”

I looked at Ed a bit, making sure I had his attention. “I’m sure. After what I saw … and, Ed? I want that asshole to lose his license over this.”

“Okay, Sam. Let’s get with Jerry and start the ball rolling.”

I went to my office to call the kids. Susan was a chemist at an oil refinery down in Pasadena, southeast of Houston. She was engaged to a pediatrician about five years older than her. Ken was almost finished with his MBA at the University of Texas in Austin. We had lived all our married lives in San Antonio but we were both born in the San Angelo area.

Our friends that had gone through divorces said I shouldn’t tell the kids what had happened. I thought that was maybe okay for small kids but ours were both adults and I felt they should hear the truth. I had a good relationship with them and I didn’t want to be the bad guy in this. I knew Susan particularly would want to try to get us back together and I wanted to nip that in the bud.

I told them exactly what had happened and told them I had already started divorce proceedings and that since I was going after Arturo’s license there was a good chance that everything could wind up in the newspapers.

They were upset but they did seem to understand how I felt. Ken agreed that I was doing the right thing. That didn’t surprise me. Ken had somehow always been a moralist. Not in any religious sense but he had always been fascinated with philosophy and took as many courses in that area as he could. Typical of him, his Master’s thesis was on Business Ethics.

It was hard – I can’t say it wasn’t. I’d been with Jean for a long time and our lives were intertwined by so many years and events. I thought I was dealing with it pretty good until I got the final copy of the divorce decree. I left it unopened on the small kitchen table in my tiny studio for several days.

Finally I got around to opening it. That was when things got hazy for me. Everything after that I got from my psychiatrist but the things he told me had more the texture of half-remembered dreams than of memories.

As best as I can reconstruct it I had gone to Arturo’s office at closing time. I waited until his last patient had left then went in to talk to him. No one knows exactly what happened after that but clearly I did things to Arturo that led to a near fatal kidney injury and major reconstruction of his right cheekbone and his mouth. After I finished whatever I did to him I walked out in a daze and drove over to our – my ex’s – house. I later had some half-remembered half-dream idea of talking to Jean and asking, why.

She wasn’t home but there were some remaining coals from a fire in the fireplace. I rummaged around and found a full bottle of Bunnahabhain thirty-four-year-old Islay single malt Scotch I’d won as a door prize at one of Caterpillar’s meetings for franchisees.

Now it was five years later and I was trying to bring the threads of my life back together.

I suppose I saw Jean while I was in the loony bin … don’t really remember. When I got out she was remarried and living up in Dallas.

Arturo was going to sue me and the police were going to charge me with grievous bodily injury (it was that) but both gave up on the prognosis that I was clearly nuts and could be put away for twelve months … or years … or maybe forever. Arturo went back to Italy and was never heard from again.

My kids – they still loved me but they had lives of their own now; both married with their own families.

Me? Well, for the last three years after my “cure” I bounced around, finding whatever job could keep my interest for a while. I got started again by one of my former customers I’d played golf with a number of times offering me a three month contract driving an earth mover at a new housing development in El Paso. I’d kept my union dues paid up with the Teamster’s Building Material and Construction Trade Division – mostly because the local threw such great parties. I knew who needed help and made a lot of friends by making referrals.

After that I did a stint at driving a dozer at a garbage dump in Phoenix but working at a smelly place like that in the heat was no fun. From there I worked a year driving a Cat D9 on open coalmine reclamation in the southeastern part of Montana. That was okay. I did my work and lived alone. No one bothered me.

That wrapped up after six months and I went farther west and finally I found something I really liked. I started a great job with a timber company in the mountains east of the Prineville, Oregon area. I handled most of the heavy equipment: moving the logs around, loading them on trucks … whatever they needed. I would occasionally drive one of the logging trucks but that wasn’t something I particularly liked to do.

It was a small, family owned company that was easy to work for. Mostly I would work in the field but sometimes I would work at their lumber mill over in John Day or their lumberyard in Prineville when they were short handed. They had closed their mill in Prineville a few years earlier.

I found a place to live that I liked about ten miles northeast of Prineville. It was a bit over forty acres up a dead end canyon with a fairly new log cabin and horse barn and a couple of corrals. I had no plans for horses but I liked the remoteness and the beauty of the place. There was also a smaller, one bedroom log cabin that I used for storage. The valley was heavily forested and backed up to the Mill Creek Wilderness area. There was a pretty good horse trail going up into the wilderness area. I found out the previous owner led horse expeditions for camping out in the mountains. It turned out there wasn’t enough demand to make it profitable.

The trees in my canyon were mostly old growth stuff with a number of pretty meadows. There was a year round creek that tumbled down the valley in a meandering fashion. I liked the tranquility and remoteness of it. I guess I had turned into somewhat of a loner. I thought about renting out the smaller cabin but I wanted my privacy more than I needed the money.

I did date Polly Chase a few times. She was the daughter of the couple that owned the company and ran the office for them. She was as close to pretty as you can get without actually being there with a cute upturned nose and short, curly dark hair the color of aged black walnut. Polly was just a bit more … voluptuous than I cared for. She liked to do the bar scene – drinking and dancing two, three times a week. I had fun with her but she didn’t seem a steady enough person for me to risk a serious relationship. I swore I’d never let another woman hook her tentacles in me.

I cooked some of my meals but my heart wasn’t really in it; I wasn’t a very accomplished cook. I ate mostly at a place in a small strip mall a couple of miles from the turnoff to my place. It wasn’t much: the restaurant, a gas station with a first rate mechanic, and a small, non-chain drug store. The restaurant was called the Edge. It used to be The Edge of Nowhere but the bottom half the sign had broken off in a windstorm some years before and the owner didn’t think it was worth fixing.

Carla, the gal that owned it was dating a guy I worked with, Dave La Rue. The food was pretty much “Mom’s Diner” stuff, good, plentiful and cheap. I’d eat breakfast and dinners there most days and got to know Carla pretty well. We’d kid each other a lot and she would keep trying to fix me up with dates. Most of the people that ate there were locals and I got to know them all. A guy I got along with pretty good was the mechanic, Tom Wells. He was an older guy with a gift for keeping cars that were past their prime up and running.

My “car” was a good example. I’d driven a 1952 Dodge three quarter ton pickup while I’d been in the army. I was a radio-teletype operator and there was a metal hut on the back of the truck with all the radio equipment in it. Right after I’d moved to the Prineville area a guy had the misfortune to ski down the wrong trail and his widow was trying to get rid of one just like I’d driven.

It had a 318 cubic inch 5.2 liter V8, a two-speed transfer case, a 4-speed transmission with a power take off opening which would send power to the front and back of the truck for operating auxiliary equipment and big 9.00/16-8 ply tires on 16X6.50 inch wheels. I just kept slapping on more of that ugly brown paint to keep the rust at bay and Tom kept it running. There weren’t many jeep trails I couldn’t drive that thing on. It had a winch on the front that could pull me out of anywhere.

I called Ken and Susan pretty regularly, three or four times a month. I was trying to find a way to have them visit me for Christmas. I’d gone back to Texas a couple of times for brief visits. They never mentioned Jean and I wasn’t about to ask. It was like having a boil lanced: you don’t remember the pain; just how good it feels when it’s gone.

TO LOVE AGAIN

Things would have drifted on like that for years but one rainy Saturday morning in early March I woke up with a hunger for some of Carla’s rich coffee and her world’s best sausage gravy over her homemade biscuits. About halfway down the long dirt track that I dared call my driveway, I saw a car partially blocking the road. I couldn’t see anyone in it but I played it cautious. I’d had some trouble with a couple of rough looking bikers wanting to plant Marijuana up in the wilderness area. They offered to pay me a grand a month for access and to beat the crap out of me if I said no.

Dave and I were waiting for them when they came back. Dave, one of the guys I worked with, was just as big as I was and we had both worked hard all our lives. The details aren’t necessary but they did walk out of there … barely. I ran over their bikes a couple of times with my truck and then hooked a chain to them and towed them to the entry way to my valley. They still sit there, one on each side of the road, a monument to something.

Out of that, Dave convinced me to carry a rifle in my truck for a while. I never saw the bikers again but got used to having the rifle with me. When I saw the car I grabbed the rifle and edged around through the trees to come up to the late model Mercedes SUV from the rear. The windows were steamed up so I couldn’t see inside and the car was heavily bogged down in a perpetually muddy spot in the road. It didn’t even slow down my truck but this car was hung a lot closer to the ground.

I bent down and edged along the side until I got to the driver’s window. I tapped it a bit harder than I intended with the rifle barrel. There was no movement for a minute then the window came down a couple of inches and a tremulous voice squeaked out, “Go away, leave us alone!”

I could tell a lot from that brief sentence. This was a well-educated eastern girl that was plenty scared and had the sexiest voice I’d ever heard – Julie London singing, “Cry Me a River” was a close second.

I rapped on the window again, this time leaving a star like a rock hitting the windshield would, and said much harsher than I’d intended, “This is private property. Didn’t you see the sign on the road?”

The window came down a bit more and the sexy voice responded with more of a mad snottiness than the previous tired timidity, “We got lost in the dark last night and it was raining too hard to see any goddamned signs and we’re tired and … ”

I was starting to get mad myself but her voice trailed off into sobs. Damn, all I needed was a weeping woman on my hands. And what was this we business?

In a softer voice I asked, “Ma’am, are you in trouble? Do you need any help?” I guess that was a stupid question; any fool could see the car was stuck in the mud. “Roll your window down and let’s see what we can do.”

Slowly, the window came down a bit at a time. I crouched down so my face was level with hers and found myself staring into the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen. They were the steel gray of rain-swollen clouds that went from a wide-eyed innocence to a narrowed suspiciousness as I continued to stare at her.

“Do I meet your approval?” she spat out.

I leaned back enough to take in her silky rust-colored hair that framed her pale oval face with wild disarray speaking of a night sleeping in her SUV. Unthinking I reached my hand out to touch a silky strand of her capricious hair that, in the perpetual twilight of a dark morning under the forest canopy, looked almost burnt orange. She flinched and then jerked her head back - looking scared now.

Stuttering a little, I almost whispered, a soft voice, one used to gentle a scared animal or child, “You … you are so lovely. I look in your eyes and I see my soul. Who are you?”

She smiled a little at that, but with a clear sadness. From the back seat I head a sleepy, “Mom, what’s going on?” I turned my head and saw a young girl, maybe sixteen. She looked like her mom probably did as a young girl but with hair more red and eyes blue.

“I’m sorry, let’s figure out what to do to get you on your way.” I was all business now. “I can pull your van out of the mud and see if everything is okay.”

She nodded – it wasn’t like she had a lot of choices to pick from. I drove my truck around and hooked up the winch. It was but a moment to pull her out. The rain had let up and was only a heavy mist by now. I asked them to step out and I got in the car. I started it and pulled forward a little but I could feel the clutch in the automatic transmission slipping and the car was barely inching forward; the tachometer was topping out but I was hardly moving. I opened up the hood and pulled the dipstick for the transmission out and it had that telltale burnt smell.

Getting out I saw I’d got the leather seat wet. I started to apologize but she shook her head impatiently. Clearly this was a woman with troubles and a stain on her leather seat wasn’t one of the more important ones.

“Did you rock your car back and forth a lot trying to get out last night?”

“Yes, until the gas was getting low and I started getting sleepy.”

“Well, it’s pretty clear the transmission is shot. The nearest Mercedes dealer is down in Bend, close to fifty miles from here. If money is a concern I know a guy can order a rebuilt one and install it for much less than the dealer would charge. What’s your name, anyway?”

“Mary Kate, Mary Kate … Danaher. I do need the car but I don’t have … well, I don’t have much money.”

I knew right away she was lying about her name. Mary, yeah, probably. Maybe even Mary Kate. Hell, she even looked like a Mary Kate. But with the hesitation on giving her last name and the fact that was the name for the role played by Maureen O’Hara in “The Quiet Man,” with John Wayne, I didn’t think so. How was she to know I was a movie buff, that I’d seen the movie countless times, and that the first – and only – redhead I’d ever fallen in love with was Mary Kate Danaher? Another Mary Kate Danaher in my life? No way, Charlie!

“I’m Sam Adams and, well, don’t make any jokes about the beer. That’s already been done way too often. Look, I’m cold, you’re cold, and your girl is cold. I’m way past hungry so let’s go get something to eat and I’ll check about the car. Don’t worry about the cost until you know what it is.”

We piled into the truck and drove to the Edge. The woman and her daughter immediately disappeared into the restroom with a small bag they had brought from the SUV. I gossiped with Carla for a bit, drinking some of her great coffee. When they came back I introduced them.

“Carla, this is Mary Kate … Danaher,” here I hesitated exactly the way Kate did when she gave me her name. Carla gave me a sharp look of askance – I’d told her about my putative love affair with Maureen O’Hara. “And this is her daughter?”

“Colleen,” Mary Kate provided.

Carla asked, “What can I get you ladies for breakfast?”

Colleen jumped in with, “Pancakes!”

Her mom looked uncomfortable, and said, “I’m not hungry; I’ll just have some coffee.”

Carla looked at me with raised eyebrows. I nodded my head.

I walked them over to a table, bringing a pot of coffee with me. I pulled the chairs out for both Mary Kate and Colleen, getting a surprised look from both of them.

I figured I’d start trying to find out what problems there were that might need my problem solving skills – at the same time wondering cynically if I’d be so concerned if it weren’t for those gray eyes that seemed to change color each time the light changed … and each shade seemed even more to take my breath away than the last.

“Where are you ladies headed to?”

They shared a nervous glance, and Mary Kate responded airily, “Oh, we were just wanting a change. Is it nice around here?”

Her accent called Smith or Amherst to mind - maybe rounded by a few years in California. Smiling at Carla, I replied, “Oh, we like it fine. Don’t we, Carla?”

Looking back at Mary Kate, I dug a little deeper, “Where y’all from?” Sometimes that Texas accent slipped in on me.

With a slight vacuity to her eyes, she replied, “Oh, south of here.”

Carla, eavesdropping as usual, pointed out, “Hell, honey, everywhere is south of here.”

Seeing as how Colleen was wearing a Sea World sweatshirt I took a shot. “I’ve only been there once, but San Diego’s a great place, isn’t it.”

With her first show of interest, Colleen replied, “Oh, yes, it’s a …” her body jerked, like her mom had kicked her shin, “ … a great place to visit. They have the best zoo, they …”

Her mom cut in with, “We’re from San Jose.” With a nervous laugh, she added, “You know, that place everyone knows the way to.”

Carla brought the food over, a big plate of flapjacks and a sizeable slice of ham for Colleen, along with a tall glass of milk. Mary Kate wound up with three eggs, an even bigger slice of ham, and all of the free space on her plate was taken up with country style potatoes. I got my sausage gravy liberally poured over three huge biscuits.

Mary Kate started to get up, protesting, “No, I just ordered, coffee. I … really I’m not hungry.”

“Carla, she says she’s not hungry. I guess you’ll have to dump this out.”

“Mrs. Danaher,“ a little smirk here, “If you just won the lottery, would you buy me breakfast?”

Looking confused, she replied, “Well, I guess.”

“Well, I just won the lottery. Eat!”

Carla went into the kitchen, laughing at me. I started in on my biscuits and gravy wondering if finding those sad gray eyes counted as winning the lottery.

Tom came in and I told him where her car was. “Tow it to your garage and check it out. Looks to me like a new transmission, but you’re the expert.”

“Yes, I am, ain’t I?” Laughing, he walked out to his tow truck.

Mary Kate jumped right in with, “Wait a minute, I …”

“Mrs. Danaher, oh hell, Mary Kate, it’s not going to cost you anything for the tow or estimate. We do things differently here than they do in … where was that? San Jose? If I see something you need to worry about I’ll let you know.”

Carla came out with some fresh coffee and sat down.

Putting her hand on Mary Kate’s, she told her, “Honey, we’re good folks here. Any one can see you got problems. It makes us no never mind if you don’t want to talk about what ails you but if you want some help just ask. Now do you need money?”

“No, I …” Mary Kate started.

“Let me say that different,” Carla continued. “I had a girl that quit last week to work at the Walmart down to Bend. She’s getting married next year and needs more money than I could pay her. So I’m looking for someone to help me. If you need money I can’t pay much but it would include any meals you want for you and your girl. Is that something you could do? I know it ain’t what you’re used to an’ all that.”

“Well, I … I guess I could learn, couldn’t I? And if you need anything done on the computer, well, Colleen is a whiz. You know, menus and the like.”

“Great, honey. You can pay for your meal today by clearing off the table. My feet are swollen something fierce.”

Colleen jumped up and started picking up the plates. I helped her so I could show her where everything went. Just as I got back I could hear Carla, “ … so if you need a place to stay Sam has this place that’s perfect. And since he’s not using it, I’m sure he wouldn’t want to charge you anything.”

Nervously, I jumped in, “Wait a minute, Carla. I’m sot so sure that’s such a good idea.”

“Hush, Sam. It’s all taken care of. This is women’s business any way. If it will make you feel better, I’ll fetch you a piece of that cherry pie I done seen you lusting over for the last hour.”

As Carla got up, Mary Kate, looking embarrassed, pleaded with me, “Mr. Adams, …”

“Sam.”

With a faint smile she started over, “Sam, Carla just took over. Does she do that with everyone?”

“Yeah, she thinks she’s everyone’s mother.”

“Anyway, I’m sure we can find something. Don’t worry about us.”

Damn, now I felt bad. She looked like she was about to cry again and I sure couldn’t handle weepy women. She looked at me with those big gray eyes looking sadder than ever; something in my heart fluttered and I knew I was lost. All those resolutions about never wanting to let another woman get close enough to do what Jean had done to me went flying out the window.

She knew at once something had changed in me. Maybe those eyes really could see my soul and know my heart. The gray turned a shade lighter, the sadness lifted a little. Her eyes crinkled a tiny bit at the edges and her mouth turned up the tiniest fraction. Not a smile … just less sadness. There was this … this knowing look in her eyes. She knew of my pain, my hurt, my agony of what Jean had done to our marriage. Not the details, of course, but there was awareness in her eyes that said she knew me better than Jean ever had.

She gently placed her hand on mine and I knew that whatever was between us, if anything, she would never hurt me. And I looked at her and knew her hurts, her pain, and her sadness.

I squeezed her hand briefly and stood up. Business-like of a sudden, I said in my best optimistic voice, “Well, then. Let’s go take a look at that cabin of mine. I’ll have to move some stuff out and the place will need a good cleaning.”

She went over to Carla and gave her a big hug, which earned me a wink from Carla. We piled in my old truck and drove out to my valley. By that time the clouds had broken and the sun was warming the ground causing an enchanting mist that added an air of mystery to the muddy track to the cabins.

As soon as the buildings came into view after the last turn Colleen started squealing, “You have a barn? And corrals? Oh, don’t tell me, Mr. Adams, you don’t have horses, do you?”

I was startled and must have looked bemused.

Her mom showed her first smile, the first hint of what laughter could do to her eyes. “I should have warned you, Colleen is more interested in horses than in boys. And she is very interested in boys.”

Oh. “Well, no, I don’t, but the previous owners did. There’s all kinds of crap, uh, tack, I think it’s called, and other stuff in the barn and it’s all set up with stalls and such. You can see the corrals. I think they had a dozen horses or so.”

“Oh, Mr. Adams, could I go look?” Colleen asked without looking back to see what my answer was.

I showed Mary Kate my cabin and then showed her the smaller cabin. It wasn’t all that big. The main part was one big room with a bedroom and bath in the back right corner and the kitchen in the back left. The kitchen had a door out to a small deck and the bathroom (shower only, no tub) could be entered from the main living space or from the bedroom. There was also a good-sized loft with a bed and sitting area. The ladder was steep but I didn’t think Colleen would have any problems with it.

It was actually in great shape. The previous owners had left the window covers, throw rugs and all the furniture. It was decorated with a western motif with Navajo rugs and such stuff. It only needed a good cleaning – I hadn’t touched it in the three years I’d been there.

I spent the day moving my stuff to a loft in the barn and washing the windows inside and out. The girls tore into cleaning their new home. I was impressed with Colleen. I was expecting her to be surly, sulky and lazy like most of the teenagers I came across but she had a great sense of humor and laughed a lot. By the end of the day she was calling me Sam and her mom was looking more at ease.

I had Mary Kate make out a shopping list and in the middle of the afternoon I ran into Prineville to do the shopping and do a couple of errands of my own. I stopped by the garage and talked to Tom. Sure enough, the transmission was shot.

“I found one over in Eugene. If you can run over and pick it up, sometime next week I can start working on it. It came out of a car that was totaled but the transmission is good. It turned out to be a lot cheaper than a rebuilt one.”

“Thanks, Tom. Don’t worry about the money, I’ll cover it until we get things figured out.”

“Oh, hell, Sam. I weren’t worried about that. Since Junebug died I don’t know what to do with my money anymore. All the things we used to do together aren’t fun anymore. If I couldn’t work on cars, I’d probably just fall over dead of boredom.”

I patted him on the shoulder and walked away. Tom was a good man.

I did all the shopping and got my errands done. I stopped by the small cabin first to unload. It was about a hundred yards from my cabin and closer to the barn and corrals. I carried everything in and they started putting it away.

Finally, I walked out the truck for the last item. On an impulse I’d found a flower shop that had some white roses that I thought would go perfect with Mary Kate’s steel gray eyes. As I was walking in with them I wondered if she had a special shade of gray that her eyes turned for “bedroom eyes.” Damn, I’d better get a grip on myself.

Gruffly I shoved them at her at said, “Here, this should make the room brighter.”

I turned back at the door and I could swear her eyes were glistening. Yeah, Sam, get a grip.

Things went along for the next few months fairly smoothly. I was gone a lot. A week at the sawmill in Burns, several weeks at one or another of the timber harvesting sites. Mary Kate was helping out at the restaurant and Colleen would sometimes be there also. Carla was pleased that of a sudden there were a lot of young men eating lunch there.

Over my protests, Mary Kate had started cleaning my cabin. We argued about it. Her point was that since I wasn’t cleaning it, someone should. I tried to tell her that wasn’t a logical argument. In the end she just ignored what I said and when I wasn’t there she cleaned anyway. Women.

One night I came in and she and Colleen were waiting for me in my cabin. Something smelled great and something not so great.

“Go take a shower and then we will eat.”

Sure didn’t sound like she would brook any nonsense from me. Dinner was great – and then it seemed like we were doing it regular-like when I was home. She was a great cook, imaginative and could make something tasty out of almost anything. Since I had eaten everything at the Edge about a hundred times each, I was a happy camper.

Colleen had started at the local high school. It worked out well because the bus stopped at the turnoff to my drive. The pickup point was right in front of the sad remains of the classic Indian Motorcycle. I’d felt bad right after I’d run it over with my truck … for about ten minutes.

Mary Kate was working mostly from breakfast through lunch and Carla would work breakfast and dinner. Lunch wasn’t very busy now that Colleen was in school, except for weekends. Colleen seemed to be helping out for lunch on Saturdays and Sundays pretty regularly.

When the SUV was fixed I had to do some work on the road. I borrowed a dozer from work and did the grading in an afternoon. I worked a couple weekends for a guy in trade for gravel … if I’d pick it up myself. So I really spent almost nothing out of pocket and it wasn’t muddy anymore.

Then I got a chance to know Mary Kate a lot better. I found out she liked to fish so I took her over to the John Day River one Sunday. It turned out she was better at it than I was. I’d sit around dreaming, watching the birds, the clouds, maybe actually fish once in a while. I just liked to get out and relax. She was much more focused - and successful. Finally, shamed into it, I put my waders on and got in the river. I was standing on a rock and jumped to another, not noticing it was wet. My foot slipped and I turned my ankle. I knew it was bad and I wouldn’t be able to walk.

She helped me hop to the shore and we tried to figure out the best thing to do.

“Since you can’t drive my truck you’ll have to walk out to the highway and flag someone down.”

“Why can’t I drive the truck? Is this something personal where only you can drive it?”

“No, of course it’s not that. But, Mary Kate, it’s a stick shift and there’s the transfer case and the four wheel drive and … “

She interrupted me, “And I have to double clutch when I shift and I have to sing those stupid cowboy songs of yours, right?”

I blushed at that. I guess I didn’t realize I’d been singing when she was in the truck.

She drove the truck right down to the river and helped me in – it wasn’t easy. She took it as slow as possible over the rocks to the highway and just drove it like she’d been doing it all her life. I’d look over at her ever once in a while. I had a healthy new respect for her. She could see me looking over and as usual knew exactly what I was thinking.

Finally I had to ask, “Mary Kate, where did you learn how to drive a truck?”

“Sam, I can do a lot of things you have no idea about. But a woman has to have her secrets.”

We finally got to the Pioneer Hospital in Prineville. I wound up staying for two days then I had to stay home for three weeks before I could go back to work. The first week I was to stay off my feet as much as possible. After that I could use a wheel chair.

Mary Kate could see me fretting as she drove me home. “Now what’s troubling you?”

“Well, shoot, Mary Kate, I guess I’ll have to get a nurse to come out and help me.

“Why can’t I take care of you?”

Blushing, I replied, “Oh hell, you heard what the doctor said. I’m not supposed to get out of bed for the first week. That means … “

“That means you’ll have to have your bedpan emptied and someone to clean you up, fix meals and feed you. Sam, emptying bedpans is another of the things I know how to do that you didn’t know about. I took care of my dad for the last few months before he died. Hell, you don’t have anything he didn’t have.”

Looking over with another of her perfectly done smirks, she mumbled something that sounded a lot like, “ … except dad was probably a lot bigger than you are.”

She couldn’t have said that, could she? She must have meant he was bigger than me, but hell, I’m six-four. I turned my red face to the window and admired the view the rest of the way home.

~~~~~~

It turned out to be both better and worse than I expected to have Mary Kate fussing over me. She worked out an agreement with Carla to take a week off from the restaurant. The following two weeks she would work dinner and Colleen would fix my dinner and keep me company.

The bedpan thing turned out not to be a problem. She left me alone to do what I had to do then would take the pan and empty and wash it. She brought me what I needed so I could clean myself up. Yeah, I didn’t have a lot of privacy but she turned out to be so matter-of-fact about it that I wasn’t too embarrassed.

The good part was Mary Kate spend a lot of time talking to me. She was a very complex woman and I found out quickly I didn’t really know much about her. She was over-the-top intelligent, knowledgeable about many things I wouldn’t have expected of an eastern girl and she had a wickedly sharp sense of humor.

She had this way of skewering my preconceptions about myself with a few well-chosen words. She would see my discomfort and look properly repentant. She had this way of, I guess, relaxing her eyes. It wasn’t exactly relaxing but that was how I perceived it. They would go round and a softness would come to her face, a quiet vulnerability. I had this sense of her as a volatile mix of hard competency and soft innocence that drew me in to the core of her being.

The closeness of her being around me, bending this way, leaning that way showed me a beautiful woman of around forty that had a body that belied her age. I started the week in lust and moved rapidly to in love. Now, at the end of the week, it was something beyond and far more complex than either lust or love.

She talked freely of her past and answered my questions … up to a point. Some areas of her personal life, even basic questions like, “Why did you come to Oregon?” would instantly change her eyes to more of a darker shade of gray with glittering points of steel. She would usually leave the room right after and stay away for an hour or so.

Once, towards the end of the week when the pain in my ankle had subsided somewhat, I asked about her husband. I mostly was trying to find out if she was in a relationship with someone or not. Hell, I had a vested interest in knowing the answer. The shutters came down over her eyes and she started to pull away. I grabbed her wrist and pulled her back down.

“Mary Kate, talking with you is like walking through a mine field. You can be laughing one minute and exploding the next. I’m not very good at hiding my emotions so I’m sure you know I have feelings for you, strong feelings.”

Here she averted her face and tried to stand up. She sat back down and put her hand on my cheek. So softly I almost couldn’t hear her, she replied, “Sam, I know your feelings. I haven’t encouraged you but I haven’t really discouraged you either. I guess I’m at fault for that and I’m sorry.

“I do have some problems and I don’t know how to solve them. Please don’t ask me to … please give me some time. You have helped us so much and been so nice – you deserve more than I can tell you, just …”

And with that she ran from the room crying. Later, after she had dinner with Colleen, she came back up. Her eyes were red but she was wearing a brave smile. I patted the edge of the bed next to me, inviting her to sit.

“I do understand what you said. I was asking because I care and you can’t make me stop caring. Talk to me when and if you can but promise me that if you need help - of any kind – come to me.

“I want to tell you my story. I need for you to understand who I am. It’s not a pretty story and I’m afraid of what you will think of me. But I can’t lie to you, not ever. And not telling you what I have to say would be a form of lying.”

She sat there, on the edge of my bed while I told her my story. Holding her hand in mine I told of the years of happiness with Jean, the slow but steady sliding apart and the final, ugly ending. I didn’t spare myself: I told her of how I almost killed Arturo, the still murky, in my mind, fire and the years I’d spent institutionalized and under treatment.

I tried to let her see how my feelings had hardened as to relationships with women, of how I felt I could never trust anyone. I spoke of the few dates I’d had but the aversion to the intimacy sex would bring. I’d been chaste since my last time with Jean.

All this time Mary Kate had been looking at anything but me. I couldn’t tell how she was taking all that I had said. I had a sinking feeling that I had shot myself in the foot with my need for honesty.

With a sense of desperation, I finished, “Mary Kate, that first time I saw you, that rainy Saturday morning when I first looked in your eyes, something happened to me – something that had been hard and ugly broke or dissolved and I felt like I was falling into your eyes. I saw something change in you; you knew that you had done something to me.”

Letting go of her hand and looking away from her, I added, “I’m sorry, Mary Kate, I wish I could be a better person for you, the one to give you what you need, to make you smile more.”

She sat there for a long time, not moving. Finally, with a soft sigh, she turned to me and taking my head in her hands, she gave me a soft, tender kiss. Pulling back she looked at me, searching for something in my eyes. With a heavier sigh, one expressive in its sadness, she stood and started to walk away.

Almost as an afterthought, she turned and kissed my forehead and murmured, “You’re a good man, Sam. I just wish …” and she got up and walked away.

~~~~~~

The second week brought a lot of changes. I was able to be in a wheel chair and that gave me a lot of mobility. Mary Kate was there during the day and Colleen would fix me dinner and sometimes watch old movies with me.

I even got her to watch “The Quiet Man.” I’d told her the story of how Maureen O’Hara’s character in that movie was my first love and what a coincidence it was that her mom had the same name and almost the same color hair. She had the grace to at least blush when I mentioned the name.

After the movie was over she said, pensively, “She does look a lot like mom, doesn’t she?”

Looking over at me, she asked with a laugh, “Are you going to fall in love with another Mary Kate Danaher?”

I’m not sure how I looked when she said that but her eyes opened in sudden awareness.

“My God! You already love her, don’t you? No, don’t answer, I can see. Wow! So that’s why …” she trailed off, looking at me kind of funny.

Hmmm. I wonder what she was going to say? Deciding this was my chance to fish a little, I asked, “Uh, has she said anything about me?”

She gave me a frank look, and responded, “Well, she did say that you … well, that you are sweet.”

That wasn’t too bad. I hope what she had really said wasn’t that I was a good friend. That’s the kiss of death.

The following week our relationship changed. Oh, there was something going on below the surface, but we acted upbeat and friendly. Almost like really good … friends. Damn!

Then one morning when the spring sun filtering through the tall trees warmed the air, I rolled my wheel chair outside and we had coffee on the front porch. Mary Kate had a bunch of papers in her hand – computer printout – that she waved around but never actually looked at.

“I’ve enjoyed working at the restaurant with Carla – and she is really a dear - but I’ll never get Tom paid off with what I make there. I need more money: I want Colleen to go back to Amherst for college. It’s important to me that she gets the best education she can.

“Also this will let me pay you back for some of what you have done for us. I want to start paying rent for the cabin. I’ve looked into everything and I know it will work. It will get my daughter back into training and it will be fun to have some horses all around here. There won’t be too many people coming – we will have to fix a parking area and an outdoor restroom changing area, but …”

“Umm, Mary Kate. I hate to interrupt but whatinthehell are you talking about? Just what is ‘this’? And I don’t want a parking area and I don’t want a lot of people coming out. I like my privacy. I like living alone.”

Like a woman, Mary Kate focused on the last thing I said, ignoring the rest. With her hands on her hips in an aggressive posture, she asked, “So do you consider Colleen and I … people? Don’t answer that! Do you like having us here?”

“Well, sure!”

“There you go then. Everything should work out great. The rest is just details. Let me know if you have any questions.” With that she walked back to her cabin, printouts unfurling in the light breeze. I never did get a look at them.

Now I fully realized what I had been doing for the last few years. I was hiding from women and obviously that was the right thing to do. I wondered if I put ice on my ankle more often I might be able to go back to work earlier.

What her printouts and planning turned out to be was three separate but intertwined things. One part was that I would start boarding horses. It turned out that this was a very lucrative thing to do and the girls would take care of everything. Well, almost everything.

“Maybe you could make a gravel lot big enough for about a dozen trucks and horse trailers. Oh, and we need another corral, a bigger one please. There was one other little thing – oh, yes, it would be sweet of you to muck out the stalls for us.”

There’s that “sweet” word again. Maybe sweet was just another word for work. Damn, muck out the stalls?

The second thing was that Colleen was seriously into dressage and Mary Kate had found a guy that would train Colleen for free if he could use our facilities for training.

“One other thing, one of the corrals needs to be set up for dressage – I’ll give you a list of what we need. My daughter is so excited – she does have a chance for the Olympics, you know.”

I wanted to ask her how, if in fact she was hiding, she could stay hidden if she was in the Olympics. I was beginning to think Tennyson had it right:

Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die.

Even the part about the “valley of death” was sounding more and more likely. Do people still say, “Woe is me?” It does have a nice ring to it. The beginning of a protest was forming on my lips but Mary Kate was nothing but quick.

“Sam, just remember, we are doing this for you. No, don’t say thanks, I know how you feel.”

She knows how I feel? Hell, I don’t even know how I feel.

Of course, there was still the third part.

“You do remember what I told you about my training horses, don’t you?”

Uh, she told me that?

“Since we will have everything else set up I’d like to start training again. I’m really quite good. And it will add a lot of money to our partnership.”

Our partnership? Huh?

“I did tell you about the horse, didn’t I. I found one that is exactly what Colleen needs for her training and a pretty gray mare for me with the cutest stocking feet. And, Sam, I found a grulla gelding for you that you will like a lot!”

Whatinthehell is a grulla? I could guess what a gelding was – poor thing!

“Uh, Mary Kate, what was that about a partnership?”

“Oh, the papers are all drawn up. You keep all the land and buildings but you get tons of tax write-offs. All the other stuff will be fifty percent yours and twenty-five per cent each for Colleen and myself. She will do all the paperwork and billing on her computer. You did get the DSL installed, right? You’re so sweet!”

With that she sped off in another burst of high-octane energy. What the hell was DSL, anyhow?

~~~~~~

My ankle finally got to the point where I could go back to work. I did everything Mary Kate asked me to do without too much protest. The parking area was nothing. I got that done in an afternoon. I had the money to set everything up. Money didn’t mean anything to me – I’d spent hardly anything I made since I started working after the stay in the facility (that’s what the occupants called it.) I mean I was driving a 52 Dodge truck. How frugal can you get?

I didn’t have to do too much of the mucking. We were much more successful than we had planned, and had to hire a full time hand for the mucking and such. I was gone most of the time during the week and some weekends. When I was home I’d walk around trying to look important and pretend I had some idea of what was going on. I did pout a bit but no one noticed – I guess I’d have to work on a new and improved pout.

Watching Mary Kate and Colleen ride was amazing. They were both incredibly graceful and quite and looked quite charming doing anything on a horse. As the weather turned into summer, the three of us would take rides up into the wilderness area. Of course, Colleen needed another horse – the other one was just for “training.” I’d forgotten how high maintenance it was having girls around the house.

I started looking on it as more of an investment – in several ways – as the summer came to a close. I was sitting on the porch nursing a beer one afternoon when Mary Kate came up and plopped herself on my lap, in front of God and everyone. It would have been okay, but she was excited and kept wiggling around, and … well hell, I guess I was getting excited too.

She had some more spreadsheets that Colleen had put together – that girl was a real whiz on the computer – and this time I got to look at them. There were some pretty impressive numbers and I was having an equally impressive reaction to her wiggling around. She finally noticed and had the grace to blush. She jumped up and started running back to her cabin. After a few steps she stopped looked back at me, a speculative look in her eyes.

“We’re doing okay, aren’t we?”

She looked at me a bit more; then with a laugh she turned and ran on to her cabin. She’d left the papers behind so I gave them a closer look. Damn, she was even paying me for the cabin each month now. All I had known was that after the initial spending of my money there were some regular, healthy deposits into my account.

Colleen was starting to enter, and win, some local dressage events. In September she won a regional competition in Portland and the Olympic coach talked to her afterwards. She came over to us almost too excited to speak.

“I’ve been invited to the Olympic trials next spring! The coach thinks I have a great chance.”

I kept having a nagging feeling that with this visibility, Colleen and her mom were going to be easy to find, if in fact they were in hiding. I talked to Mary Kate about it later that night.

“I know, Sam. I knew there was a risk but it’s so important for her. She would have been heartbroken if she had to stop.”

She went on and told me the whole story. Her husband was a real estate promoter and was the link for payment to various local officials in San Diego County for bribes from the mob. Colleen was cleaning the den and had accidentally knocked her dad’s briefcase to the floor, spilling a stack of papers. She was picking them up to put back in the briefcase when her dad, Joey, came in and saw her with the papers. Mary Kate heard him shouting and ran into the den just as Joey had slapped their daughter hard enough to knock her to the floor.

“I grabbed an ashtray and hit him over the head as hard as I could. Colleen was okay and told me to look at the papers. I did and I was scared to death. All I could think about was running. We grabbed some clothes, the brief case and all the cash we could find in the house and started driving. This was about ten at night. We kept driving for three days on back roads just using cash and generally heading north. We wound up on your drive, stuck in the mud.”

I put my arms around her and held her tight.

“Oh, Sam, I’ve been so scared! I don’t even know if he is alive. He was still breathing when I left.”

She was still upset that night and asked if she could sleep with me. Like, I was going to say no?

In the early morning hours when the gray outside matched the sleepy gray of her eyes she came to me and we loved for the first time. It was slow and gentle, with pauses for me to kiss away her tears, a perfect marrying of the best of emotional and physical love. Her body was lovely, showing some age – I teased her when I found a gray hair mixed with her copper colored pubic hair – but it was perfection in my admittedly, prejudiced eyes.

ALL THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES

Colleen did make the Olympics. We planned for all of us to go in late summer. I gave her credit – I’d never seen anyone so focused or work so hard to attain something.

Mary Kate and I slept together when we could. She was too embarrassed to do it openly but I thought Colleen was more observant than she realized. I kept my peace though and accepted the gift of her love with grace and humility … and no conditions. As we became more used to each other her wicked sense of humor became part of our love play. I don’t know that I had any particular expectations but this wild pixie was a total surprise. She would laugh or cry at the strangest times. I just held her tight and smiled as she fought her demons.

The several horse businesses were going great. We were coming to have a wide circle of friends, truly nice people – what my dad would have called “real down home folks.” I’d given up operating the heavy equipment and traveling around the area at the various work sites. I took over as manager of the lumberyard in Prineville and assumed responsibility for the heavy equipment inventory: all the buying, selling, leasing, maintenance, etc. I didn’t do the work, just made sure it all happened to a plan. I knew more about this part of the business that any three of the other guys.

Life was as good as it could get for us except for the lingering threat of Mary Kate’s husband. I tried to get her to contact the authorities but she wanted to, “… let sleeping dogs lie.”

I understood her concern. She felt it was better not to try to change a situation because it might cause problems. The county sheriff, Bill Haslett, was a fishing buddy of mine. We were both the lazy, beer drinking kind of fishermen that got our fish from the supermarket.

“I can’t do anything, Sam, unless she turns over the papers. It’s out of our jurisdiction in any case but I know the right feds to take them to. Tell her that sleeping dogs wake up once in a while and sometimes their bite is much worse than their bark.

“If anything comes up, give me a call. If I’m home I can be there in five minutes.”

It was a hot summer night about a month later that it all broke loose. I’d left the windows open trying to catch a breeze. I was lying there half-awake hoping Mary Kate would come over for a visit. I heard a car coming down the drive and had a bad feeling about it. I called Bill and told him it might be nothing – but then again it might be something … not good.

“I’ll be there right away – I know your road well enough I can come in dark and silent. You better grab your gun, just in case.”

I didn’t want to ask what the “just in case” meant. I pulled on my jeans and boots and slipped out the door just as I heard some shouting. I grabbed my rifle from the truck and a handful of shells from the box in the glove compartment. I thumbed the shells in as I walked along the tree line, trying to get close enough to see.

I was able to get behind a large pine about forty yards from the cabin. After that there was no more cover. I could see them clearly in the cabin’s porch light plus he’d left his headlights on. He was shouting something about the briefcase and had a gun in one hand and Mary Kate’s arm in the other. I could see Colleen standing in the doorway, petrified.

I didn’t take time to think it out – I couldn’t take a chance of anything happening to my love. I took a snap shot at one of his headlights, hoping to distract him so I could rush up. It must have shorted the electrical system because both lights went out. It almost worked out perfectly.

Mary Kate hit his ear as hard as she could with her fist, hard enough to stun him while she rushed back in the cabin and locked the door. I sensed more than heard the bar fall into place – I hadn’t known the girls even knew it was there; they had never used it before.

I was rushing at the guy - I assumed it was Joey - but he wasn’t as stunned as I had thought. He threw a shot at me that knocked me over. I could see him running at me to finish me off. He had a crazed look that I knew well and realized that if I couldn’t get my rifle from under my leg I was dead.

He stopped right over me, looking down and raised his pistol. There was a sudden bright glow as Bill turned his spotlight on and yelled, “Police!”

Joey turned and started firing at the sheriff’s car, not really visible behind the brightness of the lamp. There was a single shot from Bill, heavier, flatter sounding than the shots from Joey, almost simultaneous with a lucky shot from Joey hitting the spotlight.

In the comparative darkness I could see nothing but red tainted carnage where the back of Joey’s head should be. I crawled over to make sure he was dead as Bill yelled, “Sam, what’s happening?”

“He’s dead, Bill. Come on over.”

Bill brought his flashlight and glanced down – he’d seen enough death in the A Shau Valley with a LRRP team to know what death looked like. He took a quick look at my shoulder and pronounced it to be minor.

“It went through the meaty part of your shoulder – you’re lucky, it doesn’t look like it hit any bones. The bleeding is not too bad.”

He walked back to his car to call it in and fetch an ambulance for me. Lucky, hell, I was hurting in a way I didn’t know was possible. Mary Kate came out with Colleen trailing behind, timidly. Neither even looked at the gruesome remains of their father and husband respectively.

Mary Kate, practical and knowledgeable as I had come to expect from her, had taken off her robe and was holding it against the entry and exit openings of my shoulder wound to hold the bleeding down until Bill got back with his emergency kit and the ambulance would show up. I knew that would take at least ten more minutes.

Colleen was holding my other arm, leaning into me and crying. “Oh, daddy, I was so scared. Please be all right!”

Daddy? She called me daddy?

Bill came over with the medicine kit and Mary Kate taped a couple pads to my shoulder – a little more tightly than I expected. I was in a numb and bewildered state by then. The ambulance arrived a little quicker than I would have expected and I guess I passed out. I woke on stiff white sheets with that unique smell all hospitals have permeating the air.

Mary Kate was sitting in a chair, asleep, her hair tousled and looking absolutely ravishing. A nurse walked in to see if I was still in the land of the living – they were curious about things like that – and Mary Kate woke up. After the nurse left, she came over and sat on the bed, giving me a quick kiss and a smile.

“Sam, I’m … well, I’m glad that it wasn’t you that killed him. It would … Sam, it would have been okay if you did … but I’m glad it wasn’t you. He was crazy – I think he would have killed both of us.

“I’m sorry for not telling you everything earlier, but I was scared. I can tell you now how much I love you. You are a kind, gentle man, and you have a way of making me feel special. Can we wait until Christmas to get married? I don’t want to distract Colleen from the Olympics. But if you want to we can get married right away. Oh, Sam, I love you so.”

Here she put her head on my good shoulder and did the crying thing. I patted her back and let her work through it. She’d been through a lot. What was that she said? We were getting married? Well, that was okay with me. I didn’t think I really had any choice – Mary Kate could be a determined woman. And Colleen had called me daddy, right? With that the pain meds took me away into a deep and dreamless sleep.

~~~~~~

Bill wound up getting a commendation from the county board of supervisors and tons of unwanted paperwork. He groused about all the work I’d caused him, but I noticed that was a mighty fine frame he’d put that commendation in. It looked right nice in his office next to the stuffed speckled trout I’d given him as a joke for his fishing prowess last Christmas.

Mary Kate didn’t have to get involved with the mess in San Diego that the papers caused. She really didn’t, in fact, know anything but that they were in her husband’s briefcase. The feds took a sworn deposition and in the resulting trials the evidence came from “an anonymous tip.” Most of the stuff they were able to independently create and verify now that they knew where to look.

Colleen did great at the Olympics … not in the medals but not that far out. I was just as proud as her mom was. After we got back she told us, “ … now that she had realized her dream she was ready to focus on school.” She would always stay involved and she was thinking of working with her mom summers once she started college, teaching young girls what she knew.

We did have our marriage at Christmas. Mary Kate said she wanted a small wedding, which was fine with me. It turned out like half of Prineville was there: all the people we met through the little businesses Mary Kate had started.

My kids, Ken and Susan, came out, bringing their kids with them. Ken was the best man and Colleen was the bridesmaid. Ken and Susan both loved Mary Kate, as I knew they would. I mean, what’s not to love?

They didn’t say much about Jean; they didn’t see her anymore than they saw me. They thought she was “okay” but that she didn’t seem really happy. I just shrugged my shoulders – it was like reading about someone in the newspaper: interesting but it meant nothing to me.

Both Ken and Susan said they wanted to send their kids out for the summer when they got old enough … if it was okay with me. They could see this was a great environment for them. They also promised to actually bring the kids and make it their main vacation each year.

I wanted to take Mary Kate on a fancy honeymoon, but she demurred. “Sam, living with you is a honeymoon every day. I don’t need to go away to be happy. I have all the happiness a girl could dream about right here with you.”

Well, that was fine with me.

Then she added, “Besides you’d miss your grulla too much.”

I swatted her behind and she ran away laughing.

~~~~~~

We talked about kids but came to a quick agreement that we were too old. We wanted to focus on each other and this surprise love we found that neither had ever expected.

We would talk over, every once in a while, all that had happened. We eventually came to agree that life was not something we made happen, but something that happened to us. When the time came for a final accounting we shared a belief that the only important things in life were the deep and lasting love we shared, our family and our friends.

Mary Kate had gone to bed, waiting for me. I was finishing my coffee, waiting for the fire to burn down a bit. No, I didn’t see any dying embers; I saw the bright flames of a love that would last forever.