Wyoming Nights (4 page)

T
he one thing Daniel had hoped would not happen during Darlene’s visit, happened 55 minutes into her arrival at the cabin.  It never failed, each time he fired up the grill, his neighbor, and local raccoon aficionado, would show up.  Regardless if he fired up the grill at six am or if he fired it up in the dead of night, Cassandra always made her way over.  She lived only five miles west of him, but he wished that she lived more downwind. He could smell her before her physical body arrived. It had become habit for him that once a month when he would grill out, he would always cook a steak for her.  Between Sheila D. and Cassandra, those were the only two people to talk to outside of lost hikers and campers.

“Hey there Park Ranger,” she said as she sidled around the corner of the cabin.

“How are you Cassandra?”

“Oh, fair to middlin’ Daniel.  I was planning on coming this way today anyhow...then I smelled the smoke and coals...,” Cassandra told him.

Inside the house before Daniel went out to feed the animals, Darlene had asked if there was anything she could do to help with dinner, and she had begun to work on the peas and potatoes.  Krysten came around the corner with another one of her cheap bottles of wine that she brought in her carry-on bag.

“Who is he talking to?”  She asked Darlene.

“Is he talking to someone...I was in my own world over here,” she said as she pulled potatoes out of the handmade hopper. She eyed the craftsmanship of the bin.

“He is definitely talking to someone,” Krysten said as she walked over to the window and peered out.  Her eyebrows shot up.  “He is talking to some woman with a raccoon on her head.”

Darlene didn’t believe her friend so she looked for herself out of the side window.  “That is not a raccoon, that is a coon skin cap,” she said trying to correct her friend.

“Well her cap just blinked its eyes and moved,” Krysten said.

Cassandra had moved closer to Daniel and was beginning to plead her case.  As she reached upwards to scratch her head, she felt Roscoe, her favorite coon.

“There you are fella, I was looking for you,” she said as she rubbed the back end of her favorite pet.

Her eyes then went to Daniel. “You know...Daniel.  I have been meaning to speak on an idea I have had for some time now...about me and you...us getting together...so the nights won’t be so long...and lonely...I mean, I have my coons and all...,” she babbled.

In the kitchen, Krysten was listening closely to what the woman was saying.  She could not believe her ears.  That raccoon headed woman was coming on to their Daniel!

“Gurl, she is hitting on our man!  You need to get out there and put that dingy woman in her place,” Krysten said with panic in her voice.

Darlene moved quickly, dropping the vegetable peeler and heading out the back door. Instinct alone pushed her to his side as she gave the coon headed woman a smile.  A smile that quickly faded as the smell of the woman walked up to her nose and socked her in it.  Daniel must have been immune to her stench because his face showed no sign of discomfort.

“Daniel, honey, you didn’t tell me we had company,” she said.  As she reached his side, she slipped her arms around his waist.  The man was solid. Solid muscle.  Just to make sure, she allowed her left hand to rub across his abdomen.

Yep. All muscle.

In response, he lifted his left arm to encircle her shoulder. “Darlene, this is Cassandra.  She is our nearest neighbor.  Her place is about five miles west of us.  She runs a sanctuary to rehab animals, mostly raccoons.”

“I see she brought one with her,” Darlene said as she clenched his shirt in her fist.

The surprise at seeing Darlene with her arms wrapped around Daniel was almost more that Cassandra could handle. “Daniel, when did you take a woman?  I didn’t know you were planning to take yourself a woman!  I thought maybe when I went over to Laramie and got myself a good set of teeth, that maybe yous and me, would you know...”

This speech was more than Krysten could process. How dare this woman wander up and hit on their Daniel!  She flew out of the back door and stood beside her friend. “Did she say get a good set of teeth? Did I hear that correctly?”

Cassandra’s eyes were now locked onto Krysten, but her words were for Daniel. “You have two womens Daniel?  Are you having some kind of sexy party?  I could run up to the hot spring and soak and come back and play too!”

“What is she talking about?  And what is the smell?  It smells like old hot dog water, death and anger!” Krysten said.

Daniel’s lips were pressed tightly together trying to stave off the laughter that was about to choke the life from him. “No, this is Krysten.  She is a friend of Darlene’s,” he said through gritted teeth.

At this point, Cassandra was staring very closely at Krysten and she took two steps forward. Krysten held up her hand trying to hold back the woman and the smell that were both assaulting her senses. Cassandra moved closer.

“What?  What are you doing?” Krysten asked.

Through squinted eyes, Cassandra asked, “you are one of them gals that like to party with other gals ain’t cha?”

Krysten’s eyebrows narrowed as she tried to discern what the smelly woman was trying to deduce. “And you are a woman who traveled here with a raccoon on your head, but I’m not calling you out,” she told her.

“I ain’t never been with no woman,” Cassandra said. “But how I’m feeling right now, I am willing to give it a go!”

“No!  No!  And Hell No!” Krysten said.

“Why you being all hostile? I said I was going to run up to the springs and soak away some of the yuck.  I mean unless, you want it like it is?” Her eyes were lazily hooded when she said that latter part.

“I can smell you from here,” Krysten told her.

“Yeah, that means that it’s ready!” This was said with a black, missing tooth grin as Cassandra wiggled her hips suggestively.

“I can’t.  I can’t and I refuse to continue this conversation any further,” Krysten said.

Daniel still, was trying his best not to laugh.  “Cassandra, I have your steak ready.  I hope you brought your plate.”

As if she suddenly remembered them standing there, she turned to look at Daniel.  She opened her lightweight jacket and pulled out a metal plate.  The raccoon on her head still had not budged. “Let me go and rinse this off before you put my dinner on it,” she said to Daniel.

“Daniel, what is she doing?” Darlene whispered.

Krysten was outdone.  She asked, “The better question is why does she have a metal plate stuck in her shirt like a piece of body armor?”

They all watched with interest as Cassandra attempted to perform a sensual walk over to the river that ran behind his house. She bent over towards the water, her butt stuck up in the air, as she attempted to look over her shoulder at Krysten. Suddenly she did a wiggle that was supposed to incite the onlookers, but it only scared the hell out the raccoon that started scampering down her back.  This catapulted Cassandra into the river, soaking the top half of her body.  Daniel took off at a run to help her and Darlene, started to laugh.

She laughed loudly.

She laughed hard.

She laughed so hard that her feet came out from under her as she dropped like a sack of potatoes on the porch.

“Somebody grab me a towel,” Daniel yelled as he brought Cassandra back over to the porch.

Krysten ran into the house, down the hall and came back with a white towel which did not stay white for long. As Daniel patted down Cassandra’s head, she grabbed the end of the towel and wiped her face. Each time she wiped, it showed more pink skin.

“Holy shit!  She is a white woman?” Krysten yelled out loud.

That did it for Daniel who started to laugh.  His stomach cramped, his sides ached and he fell over on the porch next to Darlene. Eventually, he was able to upright himself as he sat up, wiping tears from his eyes. “I have not laughed this hard in years,” he admitted. 

The laughter didn’t stop especially after Cassandra removed her wet jacket and shirt, sitting braless in a wife-beater.  Something she was trying desperately to show to Krysten.  This was summarily another thing that Krysten had no desire to see.

“Whether or not you decide if I am the husband for you, you two are welcomed to come back and visit any time you want,” he told her. “I am thoroughly enjoying your company.  I can’t wait until we sit down to dinner so we can have a whole conversation.”

“And if I decide to marry you...” Darlene asked.

He placed his hand upon hers. “Then tomorrow, I began to show you how we can build a life together here.”

“Then I guess I need to go and get those potatoes and peas ready for our first dinner together,” she said as she leaned into him.

“Then I guess you should do that,” he said to her with a coy smile.

D
inner was quite possibly one of the surrealist moments in Darlene’s life. During her career, she’d dined separately with three sitting American Presidents, two dictators, four members of the United Nations and numerous heads of state on matters of environmental laws and policies.  The dinner conversations had been stimulating and energizing banter of ways to protect the natural resources of the planet.  Until now, she never realized how truly empty those conversations had actually been.

Krysten had barely touched her food because one she found out the steaks were not beef but elk, and in her head that animal was a distant cousin of Rudolph, so she had no intention of eating it. Secondly, she could not focus on the meal for watching Cassandra through the screen door with Roscoe the raccoon.  The animal sat across from the dirty woman with both his paws fisted and full.  One little paw held a chunk of potato while the other held a chunk of elk steak. Every now and then, a small gust of wind would blow and the scent of the raccoon queen would waft through the door, which was also the third reason she’d lost her appetite.

“I mean, Daniel, why is she sitting on the back porch, like she is having dinner with an honored guest,” Krysten asked.

“She is...,” he said as he sliced through the tenderized meat. “...she is my guest for dinner.  Normally, when it is only us two, I eat on the back porch with her.”

This interested Darlene. “Why aren’t you eating out there with her tonight?”

The look he gave her sent a shiver up her left leg. He spoke gently, “Because you are in here.”

A fleeting moment happened as they locked eyes with each other, speaking, saying nothing, but explaining a great deal. The look was lost on Krysten.

“Yes, but the smell is coming through the back door and seriously upending a sister.  I don’t know how you can stomach the stench,” she whispered.

“I heard that,” Cassandra yelled as she cut Roscoe another piece of potato.  “If it weren’t for you two and your fancy ways, Daniel and I would be discussing the new tenants I got in this week and my release plan for the animals.”

“What fancy ways?”  Krysten asked. “Are you talking about eating at the table...?”

Darlene reached over and touched her friend’s hand silently asking her to shut the hell up. Next she addressed Cassandra, “Can you tell us about the animals you are caring for at your...habitat?”

Her face lit up as she began to talk about the beaver that nearly drowned when his dam broke. The smaller beavers were struggling to live as well as some prairie dogs.  “Roscoe here, I raised from a wee babe, and he was one of the first animals I took in, but he got too civilized and I couldn’t take him back into the wild.  Daniel here even came over and made me a coon door for him to go in and out of to do his business.” 

She was still animated as she told them, “As soon as he was old enough, that young man had the nerve to bring a lady friend up in my house.  I told this little scamp, if I ain’t getting any in my own house, he sure as fire wasn’t going to get any either!”

Darlene clamped her lips together.  Krysten should have done the same but she didn’t.

“How can you expect to get any smelling like one of those animals?”  These words actually offended Daniel.

“Krysten, I am pretty certain, although I have never met the woman that Jane Goodall probably smells a great deal like her apes when she lived among them,” he told her as he sat down his knife.

“It takes a great deal of self-sacrifice and commitment to rear, raise or take care of injured or sick animals. I have found that out first hand with that fawn back there.  I am hoping once her leg heals that I can locate her mother and reunite them, if not, I will have to turn the animal over to Cassandra to release back into the wild,” he said. 

He took a pause for a second, making eye contact with Krysten.  “You cannot see the woman I see because your focus is on the external and olfactory.  I don’t see that.  I see my friend who has spent a great majority of her life running an animal sanctuary.”

Krysten was staring at the stinky woman but Darlene was staring at Daniel.  Softly, she asked, “She means a great deal to you.”

He looked out the window. “It gets lonely out here sometimes, and twice a month, she comes for dinner. I bring out the chessboard, we play a few matches, and she washes her plate and leaves.”

“Outside of the animals, what else do you two talk about,” Darlene asked.

“Books.  I read a lot of books.  When I am done with what I have, I give them to her.  When she returns, we discuss what we read,” he said.

It wasn’t a nice potshot that Krysten took and Daniel fired back. “I didn’t think she could read,” Krysten said quietly.

“It would have been difficult for her to get through medical school if she couldn’t Krysten.  Again, you are looking at the outside and making snap judgements. Not everyone is who they appear to be, you have to get to know a person and understand, appreciate and take part in their journey.  Cassandra Mulroney is one of the best vets in the state of Wyoming. Her animal sanctuary is funded by private donors along with lots of big named celebrities and officials. She was honest and fair with you, I would appreciate if you treated her the same, even if it is nothing more than common courtesy because like you, she is a guest at my home.”

It was the passion in which he spoke and the authority in his voice that made Darlene take full notice of Daniel Wilstrom. As big, strong and virile as the man was, he had shown compassion for a woman and a helpless animal.  The bond between him and his dog was also something that she too could not help but notice. It had been a long time since she met a man who was passionate about the treatment of others and the care of animals. He took her back to a time in her life when she was drawn to those types of men. A new found appreciation surfaced as she watched him cut up Krysten’s uneaten steak to save for Sheila D’s breakfast. She watched his interaction with Cassandra as she took a vitamin supplement from her truck to add to the milk of the fawn which Daniel had to feed again before they turned in for the night.  He listened to a woman with a live raccoon on her head as she gave him instructions on care of the fawn which she would return in a week to pick it up and try to locate its mother. He shook Cassandra’s hand before she left and didn’t wipe his hands on his pants when she turned her back.  Darlene saw all if it.

She had an honest moment when she realized she would not have done the same.  The smell of the woman had also curdled her stomach, but she was not going to be like her rude friend.  Unlike the other three choices, she wanted this man to like her.  She sure as heck was liking him.

Daniel Wilstrom was some kind of wonderful. He spent all day Saturday proving just how magnificent he was. The dark hours which had kept her company for four years quickly were becoming a ticking clock in her past. 

Darlene was finally waking up from a long self-imposed slumber.