The Mountain Between Us (24 page)

“Was anyone hurt?” Maggie felt guilty that she hadn't asked this before.

“As often as the snow comes down over the road up there, there have been very few injuries,” Reggie said. “It's remarkable, really. No one was hurt in either slide this morning.”

“Chris, our UPS deliveryman, has been in four avalanches,” Danielle said. “No one else will drive our route in winter, but he says he doesn't mind. He sits in his truck and waits for the county to come and dig him out.”

“That's crazy,” Maggie said.

“Do y'all know what you want to order?” Danielle asked.

“I'll have the special and iced tea,” Rick said.

“Just the chicken and dumplings for me,” Maggie said. “And water.”

Danielle left and Rick continued the conversation. “Skiers and snowmobilers get caught in avalanches in the backcountry and a lot of them die,” he said. “But some survive. Jameso told me once that the trick is to ride it like a wave and to swim to the top, if possible. The people who can do that make it out okay.”

“Avalanche surfing.”

“I surfed a snow slide once. Wildest ride I ever had in my life.” Bob, bundled in insulated snowmobile coveralls, the black fabric repaired in several places with duct tape, stopped by their table. Instead of his usual ball cap, he wore a green knit cap and a pair of goggles pushed on top of his head. He looked like a mad scientist from an Arctic lab.

“You are so full of bullshit,” Rick said calmly.

“Swear to God, it happened,” Bob said. “Up at the Merryvale mines. Whole mountainside came sliding down underneath my feet. I started swimming to the top and popped out on the surface. Broke a leg when I slammed into a tree, but I survived.”

Who could say if Bob was telling the truth or not? Maggie thought. He had a colorful story for every occasion; but then again, he'd spent a lot of time in these mountains. Maybe all his stories were true.

“You coming to the snowmobile races tomorrow?” Bob asked.

“Wouldn't miss it,” Reggie said.

“How many racers do they have?” Katya asked.

“Six, last count,” Bob said. “But I imagine we'll get some last-minute entries.” He patted Maggie's shoulder. “If Murph were alive, he would have entered. You'll be there, won't you?”

“I guess I will,” she said. After all, it wasn't as if she had anywhere else to go.

“You look a little shell-shocked,” Bob said. “I guess this is a lot different Christmas than you probably spent last year back in Texas.”

Last year, she and Carter had spent Christmas with Barb and Jimmy. Well, they'd had Christmas dinner at the Stanowskis' house. Carter had excused himself half an hour after the meal to deal with an “emergency” at the office. Though she hadn't been ready to admit it yet, Maggie had known something was wrong then. “My ex gave me a coffeemaker for Christmas last year,” she said. “He gave his girlfriend a diamond necklace.”

“Ouch!” Reggie said.

“It's all right.” She hadn't thought about her ex and his new wife in months. The knowledge stunned her. She tried to summon a bit of her old hurt and rage, but the part of her that had once nurtured those emotions came up empty.

“I'm sure this Christmas will be much better,” Katya said.

Would it? Without Jameso or Barb here, she wasn't sure. But she had friends around her and a picture-postcard setting in which to celebrate—none of which she would have imagined a year ago, sitting in tropical Houston. Nothing about her life was the same as it had been back then. And nothing about her was the same either. These mountains and these people had changed her, for the better she hoped. She rested a hand on her abdomen. More changes were happening every day. She didn't feel prepared, but like riding an avalanche, all she could do was go with the flow and hope she came out on top.

C
HAPTER SIXTEEN

D
ecember 23 dawned cold and clear, the sun blindingly bright in a sky the color of the turquoise from the French Mistress Mine. “With the snow stopped, maybe they'll be able to open the roads soon,” Maggie said as she stood with Olivia and Lucille in front of Lucille's house, awaiting the start of the snowmobile races. “Jameso will be able to make it home for Christmas.”

“I hope so.” Olivia adjusted the folds of the lacy wool scarf she'd draped around her neck. “For your sake and for mine. The bar's been packed with people who seem to think the best way to endure being snowbound is to pickle themselves in alcohol.”

“Are there many people stranded on this side of the pass?” Maggie asked. “Where are they staying?”

“There were a handful of people at the hotel and a few folks staying with relatives,” Lucille said. “There was a salesman from Cheyenne and a truck driver from Abilene. We put them up at the hotel. They're not happy, but they'll make the best of it. And, of course, Gerald Pershing is here. I don't think he planned on that.”

“Oh?” Maggie had heard through the gossip grapevine that Pershing had handed over his check for the bogus mine shares yesterday morning. “Are you okay with that?”

“I'm certainly not going to let that old goat ruin my Christmas.” Lucille snugged her coat more tightly around her.

The front door of Lucille's house opened and Lucas emerged. “Are the racers here yet?” he asked.

“Not yet.” Maggie checked the time on her phone—at least she could still do that, even if she couldn't make or receive calls. “Bob said the races would start about ten. So any minute now.”

“How many racers are there?” Lucas squeezed in between his mother and Maggie.

“Last I heard, seven, but that could change.” Maggie turned to Olivia. “Is D. J. racing?”

“I have no idea.”

“D. J. had to work this morning,” Lucas said. He sneezed violently.

“Honey, maybe you should go back in the house,” Olivia said. “You don't want to make your cold worse, standing out here in the wind.”

“I'm okay.” He sniffed. “Where are they racing?”

“Bob and Junior Dominick laid out the course,” Lucille said. “They start at the county barn, just off the highway, then up Main, around Pickax, turn the corner, and head down this way to the finish line just down there.” She indicated the stop sign half a block away, where Fourth Street intersected the main highway out of town.

“Too bad Jameso isn't here,” Olivia said. “He'd love this.”

“Yes,” Maggie agreed. “He'll be annoyed they raced without him.” Motorcycles, skis, snowmobiles—if it traveled fast and was dangerous, Jameso loved it. What drove some men to be such daredevils? Because he'd faced down death in Iraq, did he think he could keep on doing so forever? “I wish he wasn't so reckless,” she added.

“No, you don't,” Lucille said. “Then he wouldn't be the man he is.”

Maybe Lucille was right. The first time Maggie had met Jameso, he'd ridden up on a motorcycle, a darkly handsome man in black leather, vaguely menacing. He'd seemed dangerous, but he'd been kind to her; the combination intrigued her, though she'd resisted her attraction for a long time. But the qualities that made a man an exciting lover didn't necessarily translate well to the qualities a woman needed in a husband and the father of her child.

She pulled her coat more tightly around her and peered down the street, pretending to watch for the snowmobile racers, but wishing she could see Jameso instead. He'd promised to be with her for Christmas; she couldn't blame him if the weather prevented him from keeping that promise, but then, he shouldn't have left her in the first place. Not when she'd all but begged him not to leave.

Lucas sneezed again, then leaned his head on his mother's shoulder. He was as tall as Olivia now, less spindly than Maggie remembered from when he'd first arrived in Eureka. “I probably won't be able to go with you and D. J. to hand out presents tomorrow night,” he said.

“Maybe you'll be better by then,” Olivia said.

He sniffed. “I doubt it. You and D. J. will have to go without me.”

Olivia looked anything but pleased by the idea.

“Are you helping with the Santa project?” Maggie asked.

“Yes, Lucas's teacher asked us. They needed someone who could drive a truck to a couple of the more remote families, and since D. J. is a plow driver, he seemed a good choice. She said he needed a helper and I couldn't think of a way to get out of it without looking like a Scrooge.”

“I bet you'll end up having fun,” Maggie said.

Olivia looked doubtful.

“Good morning, ladies. Don't you all look lovely.” Gerald Pershing, dressed like an old west gunfighter in a leather duster and Stetson, stood before them like a general surveying the troops. “Lucille, that scarf brings out the blue in your eyes.”

“You'd better step back or you'll get run over when the racers come by,” Lucille said, her face expressionless.

Gerald glanced down the street. Maggie thought she heard the whine of engines in the distance. “So kind of you to be concerned for my safety,” he said.

“I'm not concerned for your safety as much as I'm concerned that we don't have an accident to ruin the race for everyone,” Lucille said.

“Of course. You have to put your duties as mayor ahead of personal concerns.” He paused, then added, “Perhaps I should pay a call on Cassandra this morning.” He waited, as if expecting some reaction from her.

“Tell her I said hello. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to see the racers.”

Lucille started to turn away, but he took hold of her arm. “Don't do this, Lucille.”

She didn't flinch, but looked him right in the eye. “Do what?”

“Be so cold toward me.” He gave her his most charming smile. “I understand you might have some hard feelings over the way I left, but that's all behind us now. After all, we're going to be business partners, so to speak, working together on the mine.”

“We're not going to be partners in anything,” she said. “As for that mine, you'll get about as much return on your investment there as the town will on those technology stocks you sold us.”

Maggie wished she'd had her camera ready to capture the confusion on Gerald's face. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, there is no gold in that mine. There never has been. Just like there was never any hope of a return on those stocks you sold us.”

“You lied to me.”

“We gave you some information and let you draw your own conclusions,” Lucille said. “You believed what you wanted to believe, blinded by your own greed.”

“That's fraud. I'll sue.”

“Try it and I'll make sure every one of your shady dealings comes out in court. You'll end up in prison for the rest of your life.”

Maggie suspected this threat was more wishful thinking than reality; if the town had any real evidence of criminal wrongdoing, they'd have turned Gerald over to the authorities long ago. But the words clearly shook the man. “I can't believe you'd do this, Lucille,” he said softly. “After all we shared.”

“After all you took from me.” Lucille's voice shook. She swallowed, marshaling her emotions. “You may have thought I was just another lonely woman you could take advantage of, but you were wrong. I looked after myself for a lot of years and I'm not going to stop just because some good-looking charmer comes along. I hope this makes you think long and hard before you try to swindle anyone else.”

She turned and caught Maggie watching the exchange. She winked, a saucy gesture that made Maggie smile. Her friend may have been battered by her experience with Gerald, but she wasn't broken.

Gerald also turned away, back stiff, head up, but he moved with the awkward gait of the shell-shocked and confused. He'd been bested at his own game and clearly didn't know how to handle it.

“What's the prize for the winner of the race?” Lucas's question broke the awkward silence after Gerald left them.

“A bottle of brandy and a fruitcake,” Maggie said.

“Fruitcake?” He wrinkled his nose.

“Janelle made it and it has so much brandy in it you can practically get intoxicated walking past it.” Maggie had seen the fruitcake in question when she'd gathered details of the race for a story for the paper.

“I guess Janelle could make even fruitcake taste good,” Lucas conceded.

The distant roar of engines grew louder as the racers turned the corner onto Fourth Street and headed toward the finish line. Half a dozen bullet-nosed snowmobiles were bunched in a tight group, rooster tails of snow fanning out behind them. The drivers, like colorful astronauts in red and blue and black helmets and insulated snowmobiling suits, hunched over their machines, gloved hands gripping the controls, barreling toward the crowd in front of the mayor's house.

“Who is that in the lead?” Maggie shouted over the roar of the engines.

“I think that's Charlie Frazier,” Lucille said.

As the roaring machines flew by, Maggie thought she recognized a bit of Charlie's ginger beard beneath his helmet.

The racers shot through the stop sign and gradually slowed to a stop a hundred yards beyond, to the cheers of waiting supporters. The group on Lucille's porch moved toward the celebration. “Jake would have loved this,” Lucille said, as Maggie fell into step beside her. “He would have won, too. He was such a competitor.”

Maggie thought of the three trophies her father had won in the Hard Rock Days mining competitions, and the pictures of him competing—a big, ruggedly handsome man so clearly in his element. “I always missed him most at Christmastime,” she said. As a girl, she'd daydreamed of her father arriving at last to visit her, loaded down with presents and apologies.

“I think he missed you, too,” Lucille said. “He always had a hard time at the holidays. He drank more and refused all invitations. He said he'd rather be alone in his cabin, but I don't believe it.”

“It was his choice,” Maggie said. She still had a difficult time accepting that he'd known all along where she was and what she was doing, yet had never made contact. She remembered the letter he'd written but never sent, the one she'd found after his death. In it, he'd said that he hadn't intended to stay away from her forever, but he was never able to make himself go back—that the awful things he'd done in the war made him feel he didn't deserve to be around a baby like Maggie. He'd given her the cabin and the French Mistress Mine and this new life. That was something. Maybe not enough to make up for the years of hurt, but she could never hate him, only pity his inability to complete the connection while they were alive.

At the finish line, she joined the others in congratulating Charlie on his win, then took a picture of him kneeling in the seat of his snowmobile, the prize bottle of brandy in one hand, the fruitcake in the other. She was packing up her camera and notebook when the jingle of bells distracted her.

“It's a sleigh!” someone shouted.

Sure enough, two black Percherons, harnesses jingling, trotted down the snow-covered street toward the crowd, pulling a red and black sleigh festooned with more bells. Rick, a Santa hat perched rakishly on his head, stood and waved to the crowd. “Merry Christmas!” he shouted.

Maggie snapped a couple of photos, then raced to join the others around the sleigh. “Rick, where did you get this?” she asked.

“Ken and Darla Brubaker loaned it to me. They're out of town for the holidays and I promised to look after the horses. This is Boots”—he nodded to the horse on the left—“and Betty.” Betty tossed her head and whinnied, bells jingling.

“Can I have a ride in the sleigh?” Lucas asked.

“Climb in. You too, Maggie, and Lucille and Olivia. I'll give a turn through town to anyone who wants.”

The women and boy piled into the sleigh and pulled rough wool blankets over their legs against the stinging cold. Maggie laughed as they set off with a jerk.

“Now this is Christmas!” Lucille said, eyes shining. She grabbed Maggie's hand in her own. “Who needs cell phones when we've got this?”

Who indeed? From her vantage point high in the sleigh, she could almost believe she'd been transported back in time. The handmade decorations on the light poles and storefronts passed by at eye level, dusted with last night's snow, and the streets, cleared of traffic for the race, might have looked this way in 1920, or 1890 for that matter.

“Merry Christmas!” Rick called to passersby. Even the grumpy publisher had caught the Christmas spirit.

People said Christmas was a time for miracles. All Maggie needed was a little one—the roads opening to bring Jameso home to her. Then the holiday would be perfect. Perfection was a lot to ask for, she knew, but this was the one time of year when you might as well go for broke when it came to expectations.

 

“As far as I'm concerned, Christmas has come early,” Lucille said as she watched the snow drift down over the quiet streets from a booth near the front of the Last Dollar. Rick had dropped her off here over an hour ago. She'd climbed down from the sleigh, feeling a good ten years younger, and almost giddy with joy and relief that they'd managed to recover at least some of the money Gerald had stolen.

“We haven't cashed that check yet,” Reggie reminded her. Seated across from her, he sipped coffee and joined her in gazing out the window.

“No, but it's locked in the safe at my store, and with no phone service or DSL, Gerald can't stop payment or spirit the funds off elsewhere. As soon as service is restored, the bank has agreed to expedite the transaction.”