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Table of contents | Previous chapter A novel by Scott Lazenby
Advisory to readers: This chapter Chapter 15  y pack was heavy — I was carrying most of the food, the stove, and the tent — and my skis sank deep into the snow. Trixie was able to keep up, sliding her skis along the track I made. On the west side of the Cascades it was probably still cloudy, but here the sky was a brilliant blue, and even with sunglasses, the white peaks of the Three Sisters were almost too bright to look at. The air temperature was well below freezing, but with the sun and exertion, I was building up a sweat. “How are you doing, buddy?” I asked.“Okay, Dad. Whose idea was this anyway?” “If I remember right, it was yours. Didn’t you say it looked like I needed a break?” “Oh, yeah. I guess I didn’t think it would take so much work.” We stopped for a rest, sitting on our skis in the snow. I had put the water jug in the pack, next to my back to keep it from freezing. I pulled it out, and tossed a chocolate bar to Trixie. Far overhead, a jet drew a white trail across the sky, and I could hear a faint echo of the rumble of its engines. “How much farther?” Trixie asked. “Oh, I don’t know. We’re high enough already, and we have to get our camp set up before we run out of daylight. Maybe another mile or two.” “Can we climb one of those mountains?” “I thought you said this was hard work!” “Oh, yeah. But they seem so close. Wouldn’t it be cool to look around from up there?” “Yes, it really would. Maybe if the weather holds out, we can climb up a ways tomorrow.” We set up our dome tent on a flat spot in the snowfield. It was well above the timberline, and the only thing that anchored the tent was the weight of our packs. We crawled into it to get out of the cold as the sun sank behind the Cascades. “Here.” I handed Trixie a small pot. “;Reach out there and put some snow in it.” I carefully poured some white gas into the camp stove through a small funnel, and dribbled a little extra on a piece of starter briquette. I struck a match on the zipper of my pack and lit the starter, checking to see if the blue flames had sneaked down the side of the stove to the tent floor. After a minute I figured the burner was hot enough. The thin air at our elevation sucked out the hot fuel, and the stove roared. The snow melted almost instantaneously. Trixie dumped in the contents of a couple of packets of freeze-dried soup. The tent warmed up quickly. After the soup and a half baguette of French bread, we heated up some hot chocolate. I opened the tent flap and stuck my head out. The stars seemed close enough to touch. “Take a look at this,” I said. Trixie slid up to the tent opening and rested her head on my arm. “How come there are so many more of them out here? Is it ’cause of the smog in the city?” “Partly. Up here the air’s thinner and cleaner. But I think it’s mostly because there aren’t as many lights to drown them out.” I kept my eyes wide, hoping to see a shooting star. The frost from our breath made the starlight shimmer. “You know, a lot of those things that look like stars are really other galaxies, like the Milky Way. Pretty cool, huh?” Trixie said. “Yep. Billions and billions of stars.” I tried to sound like Carl Sagan, but for Trixie it wouldn’t have meant anything. “So, Dad, do you think there are other people out there?” “There’s probably some lonely Russian in a space station.” “You know what I mean. On another planet.” “Like E.T., huh? Well, you know, I’m not sure. There have to be other planets, and there are so many suns out there that it hurts my head to try to think of it. But I read somewhere that you need exactly the right conditions for life. Just the right distance from the sun, just the right chemicals on the planet, just the right temperature, just the right amount of time for evolution to do its thing. And the chance of all that happening randomly is, like, one in a really big number. Some people think that really big number is bigger than the number of stars out there, so as big as it is, the universe isn’t big enough to make life happen by random chance. Does this make sense?” “Uh. Not really.” “Well, here’s something else to confuse you. One of the things you need for life is to have just the right amount of stuff in the universe. If there wasn’t enough, stars and galaxies would never clump together, and everything would be thin and cold. And if there was too much, there would be so much energy flying around that we would be nuked before we even started. So ... maybe God needed to put all those billions and billions of stars out there just to keep everything in balance, and make it possible for life right here on earth. What do you think about that?” “Hmm. I think it’s kind of scary.” “How’s that?” “Well, what if we are all alone? And what if we mess up? People don’t seem to be doing too good a job taking care of the place, with all the pollution and people killing each other. You know?” “I suppose.” • • • I awoke to a gray light and complete silence, except for my daughter’s breathing. I bundled up and went outside to pee. The tent was coated with a couple of inches of snow, and all I could see in every direction was white. The forecast had been for clear weather, but the combination of storms off the coast and an east wind howling out of the Columbia gorge made accurate predictions almost impossible. Every time the jet stream shifted, we got served up a different batch of weather. I followed my boot tracks back to the tent, and lit the stove to cook a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of coffee.Trixie stirred. “You hungry?” I asked. She just groaned and huddled deeper into her sleeping bag. It was still snowing when we broke camp. “Where are we gonna go?” Trixie asked. “Well, since there’s not much to see, I think we might as well make our way back down,” I said. The problem was, I wasn’t sure how we were going to do that. Our tracks from yesterday were completely obliterated, and in the whiteout, it was even hard to tell which way was down. I had had the foresight to bring a compass, but all that could do was keep us in the right general direction. At least there were no crevasses or steep canyons below us, as far as I knew. “Stay in my tracks, and if I go too fast, let me know, okay?” “Yeah.” The wind picked up and whipped the snow into a thick froth, making it hard to see my skis. In a moment of panic, I thought I had lost Trixie. I froze and called her name. She was over the back of my skis before I saw her. “Are you having any trouble finding my tracks?” I asked. “No, its easy. That’s the only place my skis want to go.” “Good.” We continued in what I hoped was a straight line, checking the compass every few minutes. At one point my skis broke into thin air and I plunged six feet down a steep bank. I rolled into the powder at the bottom and called a warning to Trixie, but it was too late. She whooped when she hit the drop off and crashed into me, giggling. “Can we do that again?” “No, that was exciting enough for me. Let’s just take a break here. Want some water?” “Sure. Got any of that trail mix stuff?” The bank gave us some shelter from the snow as we rested. On an impulse I reached into my pack for the cell phone, and took my gloves off so I could work the buttons. “Whatcha doing?” Trixie asked. “I’m just going to call Mom and tell her we’re okay.” The roaming light turned on, and the battery level barely registered. I got a dial tone and punched in the numbers, but the phone went dead before I could get a connection. “No answer,” I told Trixie. We were alone in the middle of the Three Sisters Wilderness with a cell phone that didn’t work. The folks at the Survival School wouldn’t have approved. My finger tips were numb even with my gloves back on. “Let’s keep moving to stay warm,” I said. We struggled on for another two and a half hours. In places the snow had drifted so deep that I had to kick my skis through it. There was no way I was going to float on top with a heavy pack on my back. But the snow was so light that it was hard to tell where the surface ended and the atmosphere began. We didn’t seem to be making much progress, and I had no idea where we were. I thought about Mary and about Kate, and said a silent prayer. At least the compass kept us from going in circles. We stopped for a lunch break of apples and cheese and a few Snickers. “Are we close to the trail?” Trixie asked me. “I think so. We ought to hit the trees before too long. Are you tired?” “Not really. I think you’re doing most of the work, Dad.” I decided to change direction and head due east, figuring that would take us to the tree line quicker. There was a change in the light pattern, and at times I thought I could see rock outcrops twenty or thirty feet away. Finally we reached a few stunted trees, permanently bent over from the wind. Nothing looked familiar, though. We turned north, skirting the edge of the tree line and looking for some sign of the trail. The visibility continued to improve. At one point we hit a large stand of trees, and I decided not to go uphill to get around them and instead picked a path between them, trying not to fall into the tree wells surrounding the trunks. We stopped for a water break and I looked around. “Hold on,” I told Trixie. “I’m going to check something out.” I thought I could see a paint mark on a tree a hundred feet away. I made my way over to it, but I couldn’t tell if it was a trail marker, or something that the foresters had put there for some reason of their own. I squinted to see any features that would line up with my green trails map. In the summer, a line cut in the ferns and undergrowth would have revealed the path, but now the ferns and huckleberry bushes were buried under ten feet of snow. Something drew me downhill slowly. Another blue mark appeared on a trunk. There was a linear depression under the branches of a massive fir, and I slid my skis into it. They moved on their own, pulled straight down the fall line, following the track we had left the day before. I called for Trixie. No answer. I re-traced my path, shouting her name. Where had she gone? At the point where I had left her, a pair of tracks led off into the trees. Uh-oh. She couldn’t have decided to look for the trail on her own, could she? She was impetuous enough to do it — like Kate in that way. I followed the tracks, holding down my panic. As the forest got thicker, I suddenly came on her skis, thrown into a snow bank, with a set of boot tracks leading away. “I had to go to the bathroom,” Trixie said, sinking to her knees in the soft powder as she worked her way back to the skis. “You had me worried there.” “Sorry.” “Guess what?” I said. “You found a McDonald’s around the corner? I’m starving.” “No, you knucklehead. I found the trail.” “Oh, good. I thought it was around here somewhere.” She grinned at me, deep brown eyes twinkling under her red wool cap. I gave her a one-armed hug. The time passed quickly as we went gliding along the path. The knot in my stomach eased, but other demons settled in to haunt my thoughts. Why wouldn’t the TBLC ease off for a while? What was really going on with Rob Titus? What had I done to lose Kate — was it the part about Gordon? Maybe it was none of my business, I shouldn’t have brought it up. By the time we got to the car, the sky had cleared. The South Sister looked down at us smugly, surrounded by a placid crown of blue. • • • “Forget it. We’re not going to jump into that.” Diane McTavish spit the words out. When I had told her about my conversation with Rob Titus, her face had flushed. This was going to get sticky.“Umm. I agree, it wouldn’t be a smart thing to do, but as a councilor, Rob is free to bring it up for discussion. I promised him we would schedule an executive session on it. He wanted me to just go ahead and file the eminent domain paperwork, but at least I held him off from that. He was kind of peeved, though.” “He has absolutely no right to do that. Who does he think he is?” I just looked at McTavish. Technically, the mayor had no more authority than council members under our city charter — except for chairing the meetings — but I didn’t reckon this was the time to point that out. “No, we won’t do it,” McTavish said. “Even talking about it will leak out and we’ll have those Business Leader curmudgeons all over our case. Forget it — ” “But it puts me in kind of an awkward position. Rob already thinks I’m dragging my feet. You can try to talk him out of it if you want, but I sure didn’t have any luck.” “Aw, Ben, have some guts. Don’t let him throw his weight around like that.” “All right, but what if the roles were reversed here? What if you felt as strong about it as he does?” “I might feel that strong, but I wouldn’t be that stupid.” Out in the reception area, Terri Knox was laughing with Betty Sue. Terri was wearing something that looked like a maternity blouse, but she hadn’t said anything to me. “Okay, I’ll talk to Rob,” McTavish said. “Just keep it off the agenda.” • • • After an endless process of grievances and appeals, the firefighter that Max Oakley had fired for blowing the lock off a door in a drunken fit was down to his last hearing. We sat in the council conference room — I was flanked by Pete Koenig and Max Oakley, and the firefighter had in his corner Brian Gallagher and an attorney in a gray suit whose name I had forgotten.I was impatient with the whole process, but this meeting promised to be interesting. Max had told me that he had heard through the grapevine that the firefighter had concocted a new story. The new version, apparently, was that the guy had gone outside to take a leak, and had stumbled across a cougar in the woods. In order to protect the partying crowd, he had grabbed his shotgun, and as he was running back to the house, he had tripped and the gun had gone off by accident when he hit the ground. Gallagher began the meeting with a prepared speech about how it was his duty to protect his members from the arbitrary and capricious actions of management staff. While he did admit that some mild form of discipline would be acceptable, the alleged incident had occurred outside the workplace and the firefighter hadn’t even been prosecuted by the local authorities. I wasn’t surprised by that. The young couple that had hosted the party wasn’t about to file a complaint. I had read the police report, filed by the deputy who responded to the call. He had exercised a fair amount of discretion in ignoring the fact that a number of the guests seemed to be under the influence — and in possession — of a variety of controlled substances. Gallagher had barely got through his speech when the firefighter blurted out that he was, in any case, innocent. We would understand if only he could share the truth about what had happened. Come on, I thought, spill it. The police report showed clearly that the buckshot had sprayed into a close pattern on the floor, and there was no way he could have stumbled and made those holes. Lying in a disciplinary hearing was clear and uncontestable grounds for dismissal, and it would be the quickest way to wrap this up. But the lawyer shot his client a stern look. The story never came out. We sent the firefighter out of the room, and negotiated a compromise where he would be reinstated, but without back pay, and with an agreement to participate in an alcoholism program. It didn’t seem right to me, and Max listened to most of the negotiations in stony silence, but Pete had counseled me that it was about the best we could get without getting into an expensive legal battle. • • • I was trying to come up with some excuse to call Kate when I finally saw the message I had been waiting for.
“Guess what?” she said. “Okay, what?” “Bruce Poulet just came in and said he would dedicate the right-of-way to us.” “Well, all right! This will get things moving again.” And get Rob Titus off my back. “What made him change his mind?” “All he said was that Nova made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. You know, I think he wanted to do it all along, but he was just getting leaned on by Pritchard and his crowd.” Bess plopped into the side chair by my desk. She picked up a paperweight — a chunk of smooth glass with a copper version of the city seal in the center — and twirled it around in her fingers. It looked like she might have actually put on nail polish in the recent past, but it was mostly worn off now. “Just out of curiosity, did he mention the Nova lawsuit against TBLC?” I asked. “Nope. It didn’t come up. But maybe he knew that Pritchard couldn’t push the issue with him with that hanging over their heads.” She put the paperweight back on my desk. “Do you think Nova will drop the suit now?” “Hmm. I don’t know. You know, I bet they won’t, just to make TBLC squirm a while longer, and make them pay Judd some more legal fees. But they’ll probably drop it before the court date. They can still claim damages from the delay, but it will be sort of moot if the road is built by the time they show up in court.” Bess nodded. “You’re probably right. By the way, did you know that Nova is talking about buying another forty acres, supposedly for future expansion of their plant?” “No. Where, though? There isn’t that kind of land left.” “Well, that’s the problem. They’re looking at a piece next to their property, but to the west, which puts it outside the urban growth boundary. Collins called to ask me what it would take to get inside the UGB. I said, like, hell freezing over, but it didn’t seem to faze him.” I rubbed my eyes. “That’s all we need, another controversial land-use issue involving Nova.” “No kidding.” I always wondered about Japanese electronics plants surrounded by huge campuses. The land was for expansion, they said, but in fact they rarely expanded, and often scaled back their operations. If business was good, they built factories at other sites, arguing that they needed to tap into other labor markets. It seemed that the land was the important thing, and that the factories were a secondary issue; a plum to keep the locals happy. “You know what they should do,” I said. “No, what?” “They should go ahead and buy the land, or at least get an option on it. Then in the future, when they’ve maxed out their existing site, they would have a much better argument for expanding the urban growth boundary. All they’d have to do then is dangle another 500 jobs in front of our eyes.” “You’re right. They say they don’t like dealing with uncertainty. They want to be sure the land is buildable. But hey, that’s life.” The phone rang. “Go ahead and take that. I gotta go,” Bess said. She stood up and sauntered out of my office. The caller was Matt Monroe, with City/County Fire Services in Las Vegas. He said he wanted to fly up to meet with me, and what would be a good time. Any time, I told him. I had been hoping to hear from him. I penciled a date in my calendar for the following week. • • • Mary answered the phone when Kate called. They talked for about twenty minutes while I sat in the living room and tried to skim through the stack of professional journals in my briefcase.“Kate has a question for you,” Mary called from the kitchen. I went in and picked up the phone. “Hi, Kate.” “Hi ya.” “Well?” “Okay, where should I begin? I’ll spare you the details. So I’m looking at this business decision, whether to buy out the rest of my building. Here’s what I’ve got so far.” She summarized the costs she’d figured for the building mortgage, the loan costs for start-up equipment and tenant improvements, and extra part-time staff. Then she went over revenues, down to the level of how many cups of coffee she would need to sell. “Wow,” I said. “You have given this some thought, haven’t you? What do you need me for?” “Hmm, now there’s a loaded question.” I laughed. “All right, I walked into that. But here’s a better one. I’m having a hard time picturing you sitting around yucking it up with customers who just come in to hang out. But that’s what you’re going to need to do to keep the place busy. You want to be the ‘Cheers’ for the Denver home-based business crowd, but how are you going to deal with the Cliffs and Norms of the world who just come in to buy coffee, shoot the breeze, and maybe buy a few office supplies?” “Yeah, I’ve thought about that. Actually, I’m better in the customer service department than you might think. Plus, I was thinking of hiring a studly coffee hunk — uh-oh, Gordon’s giving me a strange look. Okay, make that a barista babe — who would handle most of the small talk department. So what do you think?” “That sounds good,” I said, “if you’ve got the wages figured into your calculations. And having some more staff around could help take some of the load off you, too.” “Uh huh. But it would give me more personnel headaches to deal with. There are so many trade-offs.” “Sure.” I drank in the sound of her voice, wishing the conversation would never end. “You know, Kate, I haven’t heard you sound so fired up about your business for a while. Maybe you should just go where your heart takes you.” “Mmm. Speaking of which, do you want to know what I’m wearing?” “Huh? Okay, what?” “Just a bra and undies. Well, and socks, but they’re coming off right now.” “Oh.” My mind formed a picture, and I felt an almost forgotten sensation at the base of my stomach. “So what does Gordon think about this?” “He’s downstairs, watching the tail end of the Lakers game. Speaking of tail end, I’m sliding my undies off now. There. If I can keep from dropping this phone ... Okay, now my bra’s coming off. Well what do you know? There’s still a tan line from last summer. I’m completely naked, Ben, what do you think about that?” I glanced at Mary. She was bent over a sheet of paper, writing a note to her parents. “I’m thinking this maybe isn’t such a good idea.” “Really? But it’s bedtime, and I’ve really been looking forward to undressing with you on the phone. It’s actually kind of thrilling.” I fumbled for a response. “Um ... you talked about some video phones in your new business? Now that opens up some possibilities....” She laughed. “Well, I’ve got my fuzzy blue bathrobe on now ... even though I’m too hot to want to wear anything. Look what you do to me.” “Always glad to help.” “Goodnight, Ben,” she purred. “Goodnight, Kate.” I tried to keep my hand steady as I placed the phone back on the hook. “So she’s thinking of expanding her business?” Mary asked. I paused, not sure I could trust my voice. “Yeah, that’s what it looks like.” “Why don’t you think it’s a good idea?” “How’s that?” I asked. “Isn’t that what you said? Maybe it isn’t such a good idea?” “Oh, right. Well, it’s pretty risky. They would have to invest a lot into it and wait it out for a few months before they really would know if it would work. But it sounds like she wants to go ahead with it.” I went to the sink and poured myself a glass of cold water. Next chapter: a new proposition Copyright © 2001, Scott D. Lazenby. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the author is prohibited. Illustration: Paul Salmon |
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