Page 12 of Mountain Refuge
I hoped they were okay. I’d seen Tommy on Tuesday and he was in for the storm. I didn’t like him there alone at his age, especially after his injury, but there was no way we were ever going to get him to move out of his home or allow someone elseto move in with him. If Walter was in trouble, I had no idea how to even start helping him. I knew where his land was but not where his house was on it. Maybe next time I was in town, I should ask Jack to print me off a map of each of their lands so I knew where to go if they needed me. Mind, given that we all loved our privacy and all of us were armed, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to ever show up uninvited or unannounced.
“If you need me to go to Tommy’s, let me know. I’d rather do it in the daylight.”
“Old man’s probably ignoring me after last time. I suggested contacting family to see if they would come and help him. I think he destroyed his radio after that. Kept threatening to do so if I pushed, and of course I pushed.”
I snorted. Of course, Jack did. We were like his little lost ducklings and he was our mama duck.
“Might not be a bad idea to contact them anyway. He needs more help every time I visit, and he’s starting to notice I’ve upped my visits recently.”
“You’re a sweetheart for looking out for him. I know he appreciates it, even through his cursing. But I’d never break his confidence, no matter how much I think he needs help. He’s out there for a reason, same as the rest of you. I don’t know all of his story, but I do know that there’s a reason he hasn’t spoken to his family in over forty years.”
Forty years. I couldn’t imagine it. When I visit Jack’s store, he lets me use his desktop to check my email. I had renounced communicative technology when I’d moved out here. I don’t own a computer, a phone, or a tablet. All my books come from the library or a secondhand store. I don’t even have a TV or a DVD player since streaming would be impossible out here. However, in order to prevent my mother from siccing the FBI on my trail, I send her emails to let her know I am okay. I also gave Jack my username and password since my mother was theonly person with that email address so he could send her a message from me when I couldn’t get down off the mountain. On her birthday, thankfully a summer date, I would call her from Jack’s landline.
I hadn’t spoken to my dad or brother in almost nine years. My sister, once my best friend, was no longer considered a member of my family tree.
My mother had mentioned visiting. Other than the state of Montana, she didn’t know where I was. If my mother took the initiative, she could trace Jack’s number to his store, but that still wouldn’t tell her where I was exactly.
I was beyond frustrated and fed up with my family. They were clearly as done with me as I was with them or my mother would have mentioned at least one of their names in her emails or our annual phone call. Yet, I never asked and she’d never offered.
It made me wonder. In forty years, would my family even remember I was alive? If something happened to my mother, would anyone even bother to tell me?
I was estranged from my family, but at least I still had communication with one of them. To not talk to anyone in forty years… That was difficult to grasp. What had happened to Tommy? Was it something he had done or they had done? Did it have to do with him being a Korean War veteran?
Realizing I’d been quiet for a while, I keyed my mic. “Forty years. Hard to imagine.”
“I worry in forty years you’ll be the same, kitten. I hope whatever drove you up to that mountain doesn’t keep you there indefinitely.”
Except I knew it had. I was never leaving this mountain. I loved my mountain. I loved my life and, most importantly, who I was on this mountain. I couldn’t imagine anything ever bringing me permanently off thismountain.
“It’s not so bad up here. It’s down there that I can’t stand.”
Jack’s laugh came across loud.“I got customers, sweetheart. Thank you for checking in and I’ll keep my ear out for any lost tourists.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Over and out.”
“Over and out,”came back to me.
I turned off my mic but kept the volume up on the speaker. If Tommy or Walter came across the channel, I wanted to hear it.
A throat cleared behind me. I spun around, still not used to having another human being in my cabin. In fact, Adam and his family were my first and only guests. Dalton or Corbin stopped by occasionally to check on me in person but they’d never been inside my cabin or I in theirs. It was a silent agreement that inside was sacred grounds. We’d sit on the porch or the stairs. Even around the fire-pit I had out back. But they’d never stepped foot inside.
Adam being here was…different. But somehow not intrusive. Before two days ago when I’d invited them inside, I never would have contemplated having guests.
“Sorry to scare you.”
I gave him a reassuring smile. He was still standing on the stairs, as if waiting for an invitation to the loft. He looked…good. Like really. Not that he didn’t look good before, but he’d clearly been ragged before. Exhaustion and the bitter cold could do that to a person. Right now, though, his hair was dark from the shower, towel tossed and hanging low behind his ears. His full beard looked washed and a little puffier. He wore his jeans but had a different shirt on. He must have had another shirt with him in that bag, or it had been under his long sleeve fleece. I hoped it was a clean shirt, which would give me time to wash his long sleeve one.
Adam was lean. He wasn’t bulky-muscular like I was usedto from the men on the mountain. He had a defined figure though, and I liked the way he held his shoulders back. Stress still weighed heavily on him. The shower had done him wonders, but I could still see it in his eyes.
Maybe that was what had given me pause when I’d been talking to Jack. Beyond Lydia’s initial reaction to me, Adam’s obvious exhaustion had been different than the exhaustion of a man on vacation with his family. His exhaustion was one of fear. I could tell upon him waking that he’d been ashamed he’d fallen asleep. Not because he’d left his children with a stranger in her cabin in the middle of the woods, which was an unusual scenario in and of itself, but because he hadn’t been there for them. Why? To watch and care for them? Or was it something more? Was it because he hadn’t been there to protect them?
Protect them from what?
What could a man and two small children be running from that they would end up on a mountain? A tourist was looking less and less like a possibility.
“Who were you talking to?”
His question came across as casual curious, but I could tell it was more. He was afraid. His eyes kept flickering to the sleeping kids as if he needed to know where they were so he could grab them and run.
