CHAPTER 3
November 1
Jesse tried not to look like a kid in awe as she entered Travis’s cabin. They had gone from the diner and worked in the caboose until five p.m. The food had fueled her and she felt stronger than ever, but now was hungry once more. The home was more than just a cabin. Although it had cedar logs with white plaster between each, the inside was roomy. It felt like a nurturing nest to her and all the tension in her shoulders disappeared. She stood to one side as Travis entered and shut the door.
“My great-grandparents, Samuel and Hannah, built this cabin,” Travis told her, gesturing to the huge, long log beams above them. “My father was born here.”
She gazed around the long kitchen that had two large windows over the sink and counter area. “This is beautiful. All made of cedar?”
“Yes. My great grandmother didn’t want to deal with pine and bugs getting into the logs, so they had the cedar brought down from Canada.” He dropped his Stetson on a wall peg near the door and shrugged out of his denim jacket, hanging it on another one. “Get comfy,” he told her. Pointing to a hallway on the other side of the fireplace and living room, he said, “Guest bedroom is the first door on the left. Next to it is the bathroom.”
Nodding, Jesse said, “I’d like to get cleaned up.” She pointed to the dust on her jeans. They had done a great deal of work that afternoon on the caboose and it was starting to come alive beneath their care.
“Go ahead. I’m going into the kitchen and will rustle us up some elk steaks. Think you’ll be ready to eat in about forty or so minutes?”
Her stomach clenched at the thought of a second real meal. “Sure. What can I do to help you?” She saw him shrug.
“Nothing. Go take care of yourself. If you need to have your clothes washed, the laundry room is down at the end of the hall.”
“That sounds great. Thanks.” She hefted her rucksack over her shoulder and stepped into the large living room, appreciating the flagstone fireplace, the chimney built all the way up to the ceiling. Jesse felt as if she was continuing some wonderful dream as she located the guest bedroom. Inside was a large brass bed, and a very old quilt with colorful patches thrown across the top of it. There was a handmade table carved out of cedar with a computer sitting on it in one corner, along with a wooden chair. This was a very male room, spare and consisting of mostly dark colors. There wasn’t much of a woman’s touch to it except for that hand-sewn quilt. She wondered if his grandmother had made it. Setting her pack on the bed, she went next door to check out the bathroom. To her joy, there was a claw-foot tub, plus a shower at the other end. She could count on one hand how many times she’d gotten a shower in the last three months. Tubs were her favorite as a child growing up. Running her hand over the white porcelain, she longed for a hot soak.
Dazed by the sudden and unexpected cornucopia of what she saw as gifts, Jesse almost wanted to pinch herself to ensure this was real. The last three months had no shower, no tub, no room or even family household. She felt emotional and overwhelmed by the chance meeting with Travis, his familial connection to the caboose, and being offered a place to stay. It was nearly too much for her to absorb. She had four sets of clothes in her backpack. Usually, she would wash them by hand with a bar of laundry soap, kneeling down at a creek or river bank, scrubbing them and then, hanging them out on tree limbs to dry near her pitched up tent. As the tub filled, she shimmied out of her dirty clothes, ignoring all of the bruises on her legs and arms from too many days spent walking through the forest.
The hot water surrounded her, the heat kneading gently into her tired, exhausted body. All of her worries dissolved in the luxurious, surrounding heat and she closed her eyes. There was a bar of orange-smelling Herbaria soap in a nearby dish. The washcloth, yellow and soft, felt so good later on when she roused herself from near sleep after ten minutes and got cleaned up. The fragrant soap brought back so many memories of her parents, who also believed that handmade soap was the best. Jesse wondered as she scrubbed her skin, if the favored Herbaria soap was a carryover from Travis’s past. She liked that he honored the traditional ways because her parents did, too. That was comforting to her and she couldn’t explain why, other than that they shared a parallel parental way of living.
Regretfully, she climbed out of the tub, all of the aches and pains gone. Padding on bare feet across the black and white tiles to the shower, Jesse got in and scrubbed her short hair with a bottle of shampoo that was on the shelf. She looked at herself after removing the steam from the mirror and wrinkled her nose. She smelled so fresh after emerging, toweled off and climbed into her last set of clean clothes. It was a pair of wrinkled jeans and a long-sleeved pink tee. How wonderful to have a washer and dryer nearby! It was almost too much for her to take in. It felt so good to be dirt and sweat free!
Her stomach growled and she was familiar with the hunger that was starting up again, a gnawing sensation in her gut. As she opened the bathroom door, the steam escaping, she inhaled the alluring scents of dinner being prepared. Elk steaks had been a family staple because her father, like the men in the family before him, had been hunters. But they killed only what they could eat, never killing for sport. This was something she’d eaten before and her stomach agreed with her. There were other aromas in the air, too, making her mouth water. She glanced down the hall, seeing Travis competently working in the kitchen, his back to her. That relaxed her, too. He was a good human being, respectful of her. Jesse didn’t fool herself as she took all of her dirty clothes, including her two towels and wash cloths, and placed them in the washer. Travis was black ops like her. There was no hiding from him how far down she’d fallen. And yet, she knew he was making a real effort not to make her feel even worse about her downfall than she did already. He didn’t mention how her clothes looked, or her terribly short hair that she’d cut and hacked at with her Buck knife without a mirror to look into to see what her efforts looked like.
The home was warm and she appreciated the logs snapping and crackling in the fireplace as she wandered through the large living room. There was a very old, but colorful, carpet across the cedar floor and beneath the leather couch and two overstuffed chairs. She felt as if she were back in the 1870s or thereabouts. This home held many generations of the Ramsey family, its past as well as the present. Jesse could feel a contentment embrace her that lived within these walls. She padded across the living room, making sure Travis knew she was nearby so he wouldn’t automatically go into defense mode as operators would sometimes do. It was second nature for them to defend themselves out of muscle memory, which could get someone seriously injured or killed.
Halting at the end of the counter, she saw the two huge steaks in a big, old iron skillet. “Those smell wonderful. What can I do to help, Travis?”
Stirring a pan full of brown beans that he’d dropped a tablespoon of brown sugar into earlier, he said, “That cabinet to your left has all the plates. Silverware is in the first drawer below the counter where you’re standing. Go ahead and set the table.”
Jesse followed his instructions, smiling when she saw the Fiesta plates, cups, saucers and bowls as she opened up the cabinet. “Are these your grandmother’s plates?” she wondered, taking down a blue and green one.
“Yes. She loved Fiesta ware. Liked the rainbow colors, as Gram Inez called them. Hiram liked bright colors, too. She had two sets. One is out at the boxcar and I brought the other one in here.”
“That explains a lot.” She placed the plates on the rectangular dining room table. It was tiger maple; the wood grains a shifting of gold and dark caramel colors beneath the lamps overhead. There was another fragrance filling the kitchen while she set the table. “What’s that other smell?” she asked.
“Oh, sourdough biscuits baking,” he said, tipping his head a bit toward the oven. “My great-grandmother, Hannah, made sourdough starter nearly a hundred years ago and my Grandmother Inez kept it going, feeding it. She passed the starter on to my mother, but then my mother died of breast cancer when I was a teenager. Before Grams passed, she made me promise that I’d keep the family sourdough fed and keep it alive.” He looked sad as he turned off the heat on the pan of beans. “I’ve done that. I like family traditions and I grew up on sourdough pancakes, biscuits, bread and anything else she could make with that starter.”
“I’m sorry your mom passed so early in her life.”
“We all were,” he admitted. “She was the glue that held our family together. Luckily, Hiram and Inez stepped in and helped me, Kyle and my father through it.”
“Still…I’m sorry. That starter is a family heirloom of sorts.” She gave him a sympathetic glance, seeing the sadness in his expression. Trying to sound more upbeat, she asked, “Butter or jam for the biscuits?” Every time Travis talked about his family, his voice turned mellow with fondness. It didn’t when he mentioned his father, however. Rather, his voice took on a harder edge as if he were defensive or perhaps shielding himself from his father. Jesse noticed the difference, understanding there was a real rift between them.
“Both,” he said. “They’re in the fridge.”
She liked the quiet camaraderie that sprung between them. There were officers in the Army who were a pain in the ass. Her own captain in the Delta Force team, was very much like Travis, however, a good officer, with a calm, quiet voice. Her captain had always remained humble, never setting himself apart from the enlisted people he led. “Okay, butter and jam coming right up.”
In no time, Travis placed huge, steaming elk steaks on each plate, a bowl of baked beans with brown sugar and a huge basket of hot sourdough biscuits to go with it. He pulled out a chair for her. “Sorry, but I have military genes in me and we believe in treating a woman like a woman.”
Jesse smiled a little and sat down. “Thanks. I won’t hold it against you.”
“Phew. Good to hear.” Travis sat opposite her, handing her the bright red bowl with the beans in it. “Dig in.”
“This steak is huge,” she protested. “I doubt I can eat half of it.”
“No worries. We’ll just put the leftovers in the fridge and you can make elk steak sandwiches for lunch tomorrow while we work on the caboose.”
“I like your idea. I don’t waste any food, either.” She spooned the beans onto her plate.
“You look better. There’s some color in your cheeks.”
“I took a long, hot bath. It was pure heaven.”
He grunted and slathered butter over his biscuit. “I’ve been thinking about how you’ve dropped into my life. What are the chances that a woman operator who worked in a Delta Force team would suddenly walk into my life here in Hamilton, Montana?”
She buttered her biscuit, taking a bite, letting it melt in her mouth. Swallowing, she gave him a wry look. “I could say the same. When I went into your grandparents’ caboose, I felt a kinship with it and I didn’t know why. Now I know why. It’s because of you, our shared past experience and having families who helped settle Montana.”
“You’re scary psychic,” he muttered, giving her an amused look between bites of steak.
The weight that had been on her for so long was lifting. She could feel it, literally. “No, just observant,” she parried. The food was hot, tasty and her shrunken stomach quickly became full. Jesse wanted to eat more, but she knew better. Sliding her plate aside, she allowed herself the dessert of one more sourdough biscuit, this time slathering it thickly with apricot jam. The pastry with the sugar sweetness of the fruit mixed and mingled joyously in her mouth, drawing out a sound of pleasure in her throat. She saw Travis look up, but he said nothing, returning to his own plate of food. Reminding herself that he worked hard today, she was sure she’d probably eat almost as much if she wasn’t treading the line of starvation. To eat a lot meant she’d throw it up because her body just wasn’t able to handle such a sudden overload. That was not what she wanted to happen.
“You’re leaving a lot on your plate, Jesse.”
“It will make a great lunch tomorrow. I’m stuffed.” She saw him frown, giving her a sharpened look of concern. There was emotional turmoil around him in that glance he gave her. “I’m hoping,” she began quietly, “to get some stability in my life. I think between my job as a dish washer at Katie’s Koffee Bean and the chance you’ve given me to live in your grandfather’s boxcar, I’ll survive.”
“I want you to do more than that,” he said, his dark brows moving downward. “I want to see you thrive.”
Touched, she whispered, “I’ll do my best. You’ve given me more support than I ever dreamed possible, Travis. I won’t let you down.”
“You shouldn’t even be doing dishwashing,” he added. “I know how intelligent you really are.”
“But I can’t handle stress. And doing dishwashing doesn’t spike anxiety in me. That’s the way it has to be for now. I’m hoping over time, it will lessen, but I don’t know if it will or not.”
“It will,” he promised, mopping up juice left from the steak with half a sourdough biscuit. “My first year home was a rough landing, too, but at least I had a home to come back to. Luckily, my folk’s home, this cabin, was mine. My father has his own cabin that he built a while back, down at the other end of Hamilton. I needed to be alone a lot just to grapple with the flashbacks and nightmares. Sam didn’t understand what I was going through. He hired several guys each season to handle the fishing guide work. It allowed me to have a softer landing compared to what’s happened to you, and to a lot of our other vets.”
“I can’t tell you how nice it is to have someone like you in my life right now. I think the quiet of the meadow where the boxcar sits and having nature around me, will be a huge support and help.” She grimaced. “I’m not fit company for anyone right now.”
“I understand. The dishwashing will be easy for you because there’s no stress and no crowds of people around you.”
“I miss my dog, Tag, that I had as a teenager,” she offered. “These last three months I’ve been so lonely and I’ve often wished I had a dog at my side.”
“I know a number of vets who have a service dog and they tell me all the time what a positive impact it makes on them.” He managed a quirked smile. “A dog will love us despite ourselves.”
“But you don’t have one.”
“Sam has our dog, Cyrus, who’s real loving mutt. He’s fifteen years old. These past three years I’ve been reclaiming what’s left of me and handling the guide business because Sam can’t work anymore. His joints were stiffening up to the point where he had to use a cane and on some days, he was relegated to his electric wheelchair, which he hates. He pretty much stays away from the office, but sometimes, when he’s really bored, he’ll come in and jaw with clients. Cyrus is always with him. There’s times when I think if the dog wasn’t there, that Sam would turn completely bitter and be miserable to be around all the time.”
“I’m glad he has a dog. Everyone should have one.”
“If you start stabilizing here,” Travis suggested, “you might go down to the no-kill shelter here in Hamilton. And there’s some folks you should make friends with, Holly and Nick Conway. Nick was an Army Ranger and has a WMD dog, Snowflake, plus, when he came home, adopted a stray yellow lab named Lady. They’re good people. He’s a vet like we are.”
“That’s good to know. You said Holly ran a shut-in charity. I was wondering if she might want or need some part-time help. I believe in giving back. I might not be able to pay you for what you’re doing to help me, but I can pass it forward. Do you think they could use some volunteer help from time to time?”
“I’m sure they’d like that. Holly is five months pregnant and she’s usually the person who serves the meals to the elders. Nick has a full-time long-distance job with Apple as a software coder. I’m sure as her pregnancy progresses, she’s going to need some help. He divides his spare time between being a dish washer for his mother over at the Yellow Rose Diner, and helping feed the shut-ins.”
“If I feel more stable, I’d very much like to meet them, but not right now.”
He finished cleaning everything up off his plate with the other half of his biscuit. “I was that way the first year. I called it my “hermit” year. Being alone, not being distracted, helped me work through a lot of my adjustments and get square with being a civilian once more. Well, as square as I could. Ever since returning home I’ve always felt like a square peg in a round hole. But it lessens every year.”
She held his self-deprecating gaze. “Do you ever get better?”
“Yes.” Travis looked fondly around the cabin. “The vets who get help and support do get better. The first year is always hell because you feel like you’re landing in a field of cut glass on an alien planet. No matter what you try to do, or where you go, you’re getting cut up and bleeding out. It might not be literal, but it’s emotional and mental for all of us. And healing doesn’t happen in a straight line, either. I’m sure you’re experiencing a lot of ups and downs in those areas?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “All the time. It never stops.”
“I think if you get a fixed routine living in the caboose and having a low-stress job, it will help you stabilize pretty quickly.”
She crossed her fingers. “I hope you’re right.”
He pushed back from the table, starting to pick up the dishes. “You look pretty tired. You can go to bed whenever you want. I usually stay up until ten or eleven.”
It was nearly seven p.m. “Sometimes, I think you read a person’s mind,” she said, standing, picking up her own dishes and following him to the sink.
“No, just been there, done that.” He took the dishes from her. “Why don’t you go check out? There’s a small flat-screen TV in your room if you’d like to watch it.”
“No, I’m whipped. Eating all this food has made me super sleepy. What are your plans for tomorrow? And how can I help you?”
“Let’s talk about that over French toast and bacon tomorrow morning whenever you wake up, okay?”
“That’s a deal. Good night, Travis. And thank you for all you’re doing to help me.” Jesse wanted to throw her arms around the cowboy, but she resisted.
“Just passing it on. Good night, Jesse. I hope you have a deep, uninterrupted sleep tonight.”
So, did she.
*
November 2
“Well, what do you think?” Travis asked Jesse as they stood back the next afternoon, looking at their team handiwork to make the caboose livable for her. Her black hair shone with blue highlights beneath the new ceiling lamp that brought lots of light into the boxcar. They had worked tirelessly since seven that morning, after eating a big breakfast of French toast and bacon at Sue Conway’s diner. It was now three p.m. Travis watched as she moved her fingers through her hair, pushing strands off her damp forehead. A hard, constant worker, it was he who had to call for a time out. They had moved in the new bed, an overstuffed chair that he had kept in the barn out back, and pale yellow curtains that Jesse chose to put up in the kitchen window. The other windows in the car were double-paned to keep cold from seeping through them. He liked her color choice of drape fabric for these: a pale lavender brocade with nearly invisible white flowers, reminding him of the meadow where the boxcar sat.
“I think it’s a palace,” Jesse said, tilting her head in his direction. She gestured to the overstuffed leather chair. “And I’m so glad you kept your grandparents’ duplicate chair. It makes it look more like they had it when they lived here.”
Earlier, they had stopped at the Hamilton hay and feed store. Even though it was November, Dorothy and Jim Hansen, the owners who were in their sixties, always had a display of potted flowers that they sold throughout the year. Dorothy had a green thumb and there was a wealth of buyers who wanted the red, pink and white geraniums she sold in clay pots. They were a hardy flower and provided greenery throughout the winter months, reminding all that spring and the thaw was coming. Travis saw Jesse go over to the plant stand and found out she loved flowers. He’d bought her two pots. She’d placed a pink one on the table and the other, a red one, on the wide kitchen window sill. It brought new life into the car. A woman’s touch. Something that was sorely missing from his life.
“Well,” he said, looking around, “I think we’re done. You have a quiet generator outside, protected from the elements, that will provide you with all the electricity you want. And the propane tank is filled so you’ll have heat for the car.” Looking around, he said, “The only thing missing is a computer and internet for you. I’m going to call up the satellite company and get something out here for you. Probably in a week or two. That way, you’ll be in touch with everyone and with the world when you want to be.” Travis hoped that maybe, when she felt like it, she might reach out to her old team in Delta Force. He knew this would help Jesse even though she didn’t look thrilled about being wired in with the world once again.
“And,” she said, giving him a brief look of gratefulness, “I have wheels now.”
“We don’t need the other two trucks until mid-April, so it’s yours.”
“I’ll pay you back for the groceries we bought earlier.”
“Whenever you can,” he said. “No rush.”
“Tomorrow I start my dishwashing job.”
“Nervous?”
“Yes. I don’t want to disappoint Katie.”
“Katie’s a local, born here in Hamilton. She’s twenty-six years old and created that popular café out of nothing. She won’t be disappointed in you. Her brother, Gabe, is in the Army. He’s two years older than her, and they’re close. Both her parents were in the Army for twenty years, so she’s a military brat and has a soft spot in her heart for vets like you.”
“Which is why she probably hired me.”
“Most likely, but Katie’s got good people instincts, too, and I’m sure she spotted your quality and intelligence.”
Grimacing, Jesse said, “My intelligence regarding missions has no crossover job description in the civilian world.”
That was true. He could see she was worried, licking her lower lip, not connecting with his gaze like she usually did. “I know Katie will be glad you came to ask for a job.”
Moving to the kitchen, Jesse touched the new coffee maker that Travis had bought for her from Cooper’s Hardware Store. It was a priceless gift to her whether he knew it or not. “Katie said that if I ever wanted to work full time and learn how to become a barista, that she’d do it.”
“The out-of-season help travels south out of the winter, and it’s all on her shoulders. There’s days when she does need help,” Travis explained, picking up his hat from the table and settling it on his head. “Katie’s place and Sue’s diner are busy year ’round.” He grinned a little. “We need our coffee and our breakfast.”
“Is there anything I can do to pay you back sooner? Do you need some office help of any kind?”
He liked the idea of seeing more of Jesse. “Well, if you put it that way, yes. Sam hates computers and we have six file drawers full of clients that I’d like to put into our computer database. Are you interested?” He held his breath, hoping so. Delta Force operators were some of the most skilled and common-sensed people he knew. Jesse had that same kind of practical smarts from what he’d seen in the last two days. He saw her frown a bit, considering his offer.
“Could we settle on an hourly rate so that way I know what I need to pay you back for everything you’ve bought for me?” she asked, gesturing around the caboose. “And let me have the receipts so I know?” Because she had a feeling that Travis would let her completely write off everything if he had his way about it. She wouldn’t let that happen. Being raised to earn her way through life, his generosity demanded that she do something equally important for him.
“Sure,” he said. “What are your hours over at Katie’s?”
“I’m working noon to five p.m. on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.”
“Okay, how about you come over and spend half a day on Monday and Wednesday at my office? Maybe 1300 to 1800?”
She held out her hand to him. “You have a deal.”
“It’s a long-term project,” he warned. “We have over a thousand clients.”
“Sounds doable. I’m not the fastest typist but I don’t use my two index fingers, either.”
He slid her hand into his, wanting to touch her, to feel the warmth of her flesh against his. Travis wasn’t about to let on how drawn he was to her. Right now, as they shook and released one another’s hands, he wanted to try and develop a friendship with Jesse. Lying awake for a long time last night with her under his roof, he relentlessly tried to figure out why she was growing important to him in a personal way. She had never given any signal that she was interested in him and Travis knew why: her symptoms were her focus. Or worse, maybe it was a one-way attraction. The first year he was home, he couldn’t be around a lot of people, much less entertain getting involved in a relationship. Year two and three were brutal from the standpoint that he had to take over the family guide business since Sam could no longer run it as he had before. He had no time for any type of personal relationship. He was going to have to be very patient because he wanted to know her on a more personal level, wanted to know her without the veneer of the symptoms always distracting her. That was a tall order and he wasn’t sure it could happen even if he wanted it too.
“If you need anything, call me.” He pointed to her cell phone on the counter.
“I will.”
Nodding he ambled toward the door. Travis found himself being overprotective of Jesse. As he opened the door and walked out on the platform, shutting it behind him, he laughed at himself. The day was growing cool now, the sun heading down in the west. Of all the people who could take care of themselves, it was her. She was combat trained and had reflexes that had been born of hard, constant training. Looking around, he saw a group of deer coming down to drink water from the river across the meadow. They halted, lifted their heads, their ears up, watching him for a moment. He moved around the boxcar and sauntered toward his truck at the end of it. The deer relaxed and continued their way to the bank of the river, deciding he was not a threat to them.
As he drove back to Hamilton, the protectiveness remained in him. Maybe he should give Jesse one of his grandfather’s rifles to keep out here, just in case. About the only thing around would be grizzly, cougar and black bear, and the bears would be heading for hibernation soon enough, leaving just the cougars who hunted year ’round. He knew fishermen would sometimes walk the river and some would cross the area where Jesse was living. Rubbing his hand against his neck, he decided that whatever was between them was making him want to make sure she would be safe out there.
Parking the truck at his cabin, he turned off the engine and climbed out. The sky was a pale blue now, clear and the wind sharper and cutting. At this time of year, it would freeze every night in this area. As he walked to his cabin, he wondered how Jesse was doing. She had told him this morning after awakening that she’d had the best night’s sleep ever. That made him feel good. He wanted to invite her to his house for another meal, wanted to put meat on her bones, but he worried that she might feel pressured by him. Not that she gave him that signal, but Travis wasn’t willing to become a pest in her life. No, he was going to have to be patient. For once in his life, he didn’t want to be, chaffing against the wisdom of going slow.
Getting inside, the cabin warm and inviting, Travis hung his hat on the nearby peg. Shucking out of his heavy denim jacket that had a liner in it to protect him from the cold, he thought about a dog for Jesse. A dog’s bark was a warning in case someone, maybe a curious fisherman, came too near to the caboose. Hanging up his coat, he went to the kitchen sink and washed his hands with soap. They had moved a lot of furniture and worked together to set the brand new queen-sized bed up for her.
Looking around the cabin, it seemed more empty than usual. He finished drying his hands and hung the towel on a hook. Rolling up the sleeves of his red and black plaid cowboy shirt to his elbows, he decided to make a pot of spaghetti. That would last for two days. He wondered what Jesse was having for dinner tonight. Travis had his grandfather’s old wooden radio. It had been repaired a number of times and he liked the instrumental FM elevator kind of music in the background. What kind of music did Jesse like? He made a mental note to ask her the next time he saw her.
The wall phone rang. Travis answered it. “Hello.”
“Dammit! Where the hell are you?”
Sam’s voice cut through his vulnerable moment. His hand tightened around the phone. “I’ve been out,” Travis told him firmly, not going to let his own anger over his father’s assault on him escalate the situation. “Do you need some help?”
“I’ve been trying to get you over at the shop and the cabin. It isn’t like you to not answer your phone.”
Holding on to his patience, the grate of his father’s voice was like a rasp across his unprotected flesh. “You know I carry a cell phone on me, Sam. You could have called me on that and gotten a hold of me right away. Is this an emergency? What do you need?”
“I’m outta my pain pills!”
He shouldn’t be. Travis frowned. “I saw you three days ago and checked the bottle. It was half full.”
“Dammit! I was in pain. I took more. It didn’t help!”
“I’ll call the drugstore and get you another bottle and bring it over.”
“Fine!”
The line went dead.
Sam had a habit of hanging up on him when angry. He dialed the pharmacy, wanting to make sure there was a refill on it. His father was old fashioned. Although Travis had gotten him a simple-to-use elder-friendly cell phone, Sam grew impatient with it as he slowly went over the instructions on how to use it. One day, about a week later when Travis went over after doing the laundry for him, he found the cell phone buried under a bunch of his father’s t-shirts in one of the dresser drawers.
He shoved his personal hurt over his father’s anger aside. Moments before he had felt incredibly happy and uplifted with the time he’d spent with Jesse. It was a helluva jolt to his gritty world when he allowed his imagination to dream of a possible future with Jesse. Gently, he put away his dream. Finding out that yes, his father had two refills left, the druggist would make up one and he could drive down and pick it up. His spaghetti dinner would have to wait. Besides, his stomach was knotting from Sam’s unexpected call. Before the PTSD had nailed his ass, he had been able to separate his mental focus from his emotions. Operating at such a high level, it had become easy for him to suppress his emotions. Sam was the opposite of the dad he grew up with. A complete opposite.
A run-in with Sam like this eviscerated him because he wasn’t expecting it. No longer was he the tough, implacable mission specialist. All of that was eaten away over time and years of operations by the encroaching symptoms. Travis knew he was vulnerable to such things and was glad he had the life he had here in Hamilton. It was about nature, the wide outdoors, serenity and calm. It had been and continued to be healing balm for his soul, putting him back together again over time.
Sam was like a tornado popping up in his life and Travis could never predict when his pain-stricken father would suddenly rear up and attack him verbally. He threw on his hat, shrugged back into his heavy winter denim coat, grabbed the keys to the truck and left. In the truck, on the way to the drugstore near Sue’s diner, Travis ached to be in Jesse’s quiet company. For whatever reason, she was calming to him, to his symptoms. Right now, he wished he was at his grandparents’ boxcar with Jesse and not having to go visit his upset and agitated father instead.
*
The caboose felt like a loving safety net when Jesse arrived back on Tuesday evening. She’d just finished her first day at Katie’s Koffee Bean, learning the ins and outs of how an industrial dishwasher worked. Jesse was thankful that Katie, who had dancing green eyes, was patient with her. That was always a plus. She mounted the steps, the old, curled ones replaced by Travis the day before. There was an old wool blanket that she’d hung over the rusty rail out in the back to dry. She placed her hand on top of it, feeling that it was still slightly damp. The weather had been perfect all day long and there was no sign of rain or snow tonight, so she decided to leave it out to dry completely overnight.
Emotionally whipped from the stress of wanting to please Katie and show her that she had hired the right person, Jesse shucked out of her Army jacket and hung it across the back of one of the kitchen chairs. To her surprise, she saw on the kitchen counter, a big brown grocery bag. The air smelled good. Frowning, she turned and went over to it. There was a note next to it:
Jesse, I figured your first day at work would be pretty draining. Sue Conway always has a Tuesday special of roast beef, mashed potatoes, carrots and the best gravy in Montana. See you tomorrow at 1300. Travis.
She peeked into the bag and inhaled deeply. It smelled wonderful! She didn’t have to cook tonight. Her heart warmed to Travis and his thoughtful understanding of how she’d take the first day of work. More and more, he was nesting into her world and she didn’t mind it at all because they already had a built-in trust with one another forged from their mutual experience in the heat of combat. Her mouth watered as she pulled the large paper to-go box out of the sack. When she opened it, there was enough there for two lumberjacks! Laughing a little, Jesse knew she’d put at least half of it in the refrigerator for tomorrow night’s meal.
The caboose was warm and the curtains drawn so everything felt safe to her. After eating she took a hot shower and climbed into a lavender flannel nightgown. There was no dishwasher but she didn’t mind, enjoying the warm suds on her hands as she cleaned up her dinner plate and flatware. It was silent in the place and she missed soft, non-intrusive instrumental music most of all. The bed looked inviting and she turned out the lights, heading for it, grateful to have a mattress, sheets and blankets. It was far better than her pup tent.
*
November 3
The metal tag on her leather collar said “Freya” with an AKC number below it. The black and white Border Collie lay deep in the woods of Montana, five new pups hungrily suckling her. The leather collar she wore had partly burned, the leather twisted. As she lay there in the early morning hours, the cold seeped around her chosen area to whelp her pups: an ancient, tall pine tree that had finally given up, fallen from natural causes, the radius of roots exposed to the world. It was there that Freya dug down between the exposed roots and made a soft soil cradle, filled with dried pine needles, as her birthing spot. She was exhausted but remained alert, knowing she was in bobcat, fox, grizzly and cougar country. The smell of blood and birthing matter would draw the attention of any predator if they were in the area.
As her lids closed over her blue eyes, the terrible crash of sixty-five days ago flashed before her once again. Her owner, Stella, was driving her back to Billings, Montana after breeding her to another champion Border Collie in Idaho Falls, Idaho. It was dusk, and Freya was in her aluminum wire dog crate in the rear of the SUV when something happened to Stella on the two-lane highway. Her mistress suddenly slumped over the wheel, the SUV veering into the path of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler truck speeding along at sixty-five miles an hour.
Everything suddenly upended. Freya was slammed against her cage, the rear door popping open. The SUV crunched into the grill of the truck. Fire erupted from an explosion, and the SUV went airborne. Freya yelped as the vehicle hit the shoulder of the road and then flipped end over end, tumbling down a steep bank. The rear window shattered and popped out.
The next thing Freya knew was that she was trapped as the vehicle groaned to a rest at the bottom of the slope. Fire tongues licked at where she was trapped. Her fur became singed and her collar blackened. Yelping, the pain of the fire consuming the rear of the vehicle, Freya frantically looked for escape. Slamming her body against the cage door, it yawned open.
The window! Without thinking, the dog leaped through it, her hair on fire across her back. She slammed to the ground, rolling several times. It put the fire out on the hair across her shoulders. The smell of singed flesh and the acrid odor of her burned leather collar surrounded her. She stumbled to her feet, disoriented and scared. Looking back at the SUV, crumpled completely in the front, the fire blazing within it, she ran and ran as far as she could get away from that crackling, popping vehicle. As she sped down to a grove of trees, racing as fast as she could, another massive explosion rocked and thundered through the area behind her.
The pressure wave from it tossed Freya into the wet, long grass. It slammed her into the ground, knocking her semi-conscious. She yelped again, her body twisting and tumbling until the grass finally halted her forward movement. Frightened, she jerked a look back, seeing a huge plume of black smoke rising in a deadly column, the SUV no longer visible. Shaking her head, she got to her feet. She had to escape! The smell burned her sensitive nostrils as she lunged forward, moving deeper into the forest, sensing that she would have some kind of safety away from this fire monster who was belching and exploding behind her. She had cut her right paw on sharpened glass as she’d leaped out of the SUV. It left a trail of blood, but she never felt the pain of her injured paw or the second-degree burns across her neck and shoulders because of the adrenaline anesthetizing her bruised body.
All Freya wanted to do was survive.