by Ninie Hammon
Gabriella pulled her jeep to a stop in front of a building flanked on one side by the dry goods store and on the other by the apothecary. A hand-painted sign on the front proclaimed St. Elmo’s Mercantile, Established 1885. The proprietor, a man named Pedro Rodriguez, was the man Gabriella had driven more than a thousand miles across seventeen states to see. He held the key—literally—to her future. If what James Benninger had said in every Christmas card in the past five years was true, the owner would welcome Gabriella and her family, supply them what they needed and give them directions, maybe even a hand-drawn map to direct them to St. Elmo’s Fire, snuggled in a hanging valley on Mount Antero 11,673 feet above sea level.
Gabriella opened the jeep door and got out, then turned to help Theo clamber out of the backseat. But he stepped down unaided and shook off the hand she’d placed on his elbow.
“You’ll know I need help standing up when you see me falling down. And you’ll know I’s ready for the Reaper when I stay down there cause I like the view.”
“A little grumpy, aren’t we? You’re just afraid I might find out you’ve got a heart of gold.”
“So does a hard-boiled egg.”
Ty and P.D. had already bounded up the steps to the wide wooden sidewalk in front of the Mercantile. Gabriella couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen the boy’s eyes lit with so much joy. He must feel like he’d left the real world to take up residence in a cowboy movie. She and Theo joined him and pushed open the door and set the bell above it jingling. P.D. didn’t have his guide dog sign hung around his neck but Gabriella suspected this was a place where animals were as welcome as people.
The interior of the store was dim and shadowy, the array of merchandise on the shelves an eclectic hodgepodge of items. What appeared to be a well-stocked small supermarket filled the whole left side. Theo headed that way, likely searching for licorice. In the center was a Southwest souvenir shop like those they’d passed every fifty miles since they crossed the Oklahoma border into Colorado. Ty had pleaded with her to stop at Injun Joe’s Wampum or Crazy Harry’s Rattlesnake Ranch or the one with a twentyfoot-tall purple Tyrannosaurus Rex out front that advertised Indian rugs, turquoise jewelry, pizza and Chinese carry-out.
The Mercantile’s souvenirs included the classics: T-shirts that proclaimed I HEART Colorado or My Parents Went to Colorado and All I Got Was This Stupid Shirt. Rubber tomahawks, Indian bows with stoppers instead of arrowheads on the arrows, cap guns, slingshots, Indian drums topped with stretched rubber instead of animal hides and Indian headdresses made from dyed chicken feathers. For the more discerning shopper, the back wall featured turquoise and silver jewelry, genuine handmade Indian pottery and rugs and Pendleton blankets.
And a huge section of rocks.
Gabriella was instantly drawn there. She gazed at the kinds of minerals she’d grown up with, housed in cases and on shelves in a special room in her childhood home. Glittering pyrite—fool’s gold; deep purple fluorite octahedrons; flaky, milk-colored mica that looked like shaved glass; dense blue apatite; shiny black squares of galena and slices as big as a saucers of quarter-inch-thick granite, striped with black and reddish brown veins, polished to a finish as smooth as a granite countertop.
And of course, blue, white and purple aquamarine—some polished into semi-precious stones and others in the natural, crystalline state her parents had found on the mountain.
“Mom, come look at this,” Ty called. He was standing with P.D. at the counter of a small post office on the far wall of the Mercantile next to a bank of post office boxes and a small array of mailing paraphernalia—first class envelopes, small boxes and brown wrapping paper. A mini laundromat—three washers and three dryers—occupied the wall on one side of the post office and on the other side stood swinging doors like those in an Old West saloon. Gabriella could see what appeared to be a family room beyond the doors, likely the living quarters of the proprietor.
Ty was talking to a rugged Hispanic man with a thick black mustache who stood behind the post office cash register. A dark-haired girl was down on her knees petting P.D.
“Check that out, Mom.” Ty pointed behind the counter to a life-sized poster beside a collage of snapshots under the banner Wall of Honor. The snapshots were of grinning fishermen displaying trout of every variety—rainbow, brown, cutthroat—and every size.
Gabriella smiled at the poster. It showed Napoleon Dynamite—one of Ty’s all-time favorite movie characters—with his hair a curly red fuzz-ball and his arm draped around the shoulder of a smaller, dark-haired boy on whose upper lip sprouted something that approached a mustache. Both wore t-shirts that proclaimed “Pedro for President.”
So did the man behind the counter.
“His name is Pedro, too,” Ty said, and nodded to the man, who extended his hand.
“Pedro Rodriguez. I’m happy to meet you, ma’am.”
Pedro was tall, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, a sturdy man whose unibrow shaded direct brown eyes. The bright smile that lit his face like a halogen bulb revealed perfect teeth beneath the black broom of mustache. His features were craggy, not traditionally handsome but rugged and strong. Gabriella was embarrassed to discover that if she’d had to describe him in one word, that word would have been “sexy.”
He looked her dead in the eye when he shook her hand, took in her face as a whole rather than a collection of pieces with one side slathered in makeup that camouflaged but didn’t completely hide her deformity.
“This is my daughter, Anza—Esperanza,” he said. “In Spanish, that is Hope.”
“I’m Gabriella … Underhill.” She didn’t think he picked up on the pause. Even after using it for two weeks, the fake name didn’t flow easily off her tongue and she was always afraid Theo and Ty would forget it altogether.
The girl stood and Gabriella got a good look at her as they shook hands. Her hand was small and soft, but her handshake was firm—no dead fish on a stick.
“Your boy tells me you’re going to be spending the summer at St. Elmo’s Fire,” Pedro said.
“Mister Rodriguez says—”
“Pedro ees fine, son.” The man’s Spanish accent was the musical kind where every word is linked to the next in a melodious daisy chain.
“Pedro says that St. Elmo’s Fire is the only cabin on the whole mountain, Mom! On the only road on the whole mountain. And there’s a creek there with a waterfall and trout and at night the moon shines on the chalk cliffs, which aren’t really made out of chalk and—”
“Breathe in there somewhere, Ty,” Gabriella said, “before you pass out.”
At that moment, she was acutely aware of Ty’s little boyness. As evidenced by his exuberance, of course, but more apparent by what failed to light a fire under him than what did. Ty paid no attention at all to the young woman smiling beside her father. And any male human being who didn’t stare at the girl slack-jawed was clearly pre-pubescent. Or a blind eunuch.
Though voluptuous in a peasant blouse, Esperanza Rodriguez was modest and demure, with a head of glossy black curls, a china-doll face, and warm, brown skin as clear as morning light. She had the kind of plump, moist mouth men grow stupid about, pouty lips that were red without lipstick and brown, doe eyes with obscenely long eyelashes. Beside a girl so strikingly beautiful, Gabriella felt like a troll under a bridge.
“Not the only road, son, the only jeep trail. There’s a road up the other side of the mountain for prospectors. Folks have staked claims to about every square inch of that side of the mountain to mine the aquamarine.”
Gabriella found her voice and hoped she hadn’t been caught gawking.
“You have the key to the cabin—right?”
“Not just the key but a warm welcome to go with it for Jim’s mystery guests.”
Gabriella’s gut clenched into a knot and she had to struggle to make her question seem more surprised/bemused than desperate/frightened.
“Mystery guests? So what’s Jim been telling you about me?”
“Oh, he didn’t call you that. It was … I … a few years ago, five or six I guess, he said he’d invited someone to stay at the cabin whose family spent a summer there back in the 80s.”
“We were here when I was seven … almost eight years old.”
“He talked about it a time or two after that, never mentioned your name though, and I …” Pedro grinned and Gabriella noticed how comfortably a smile fit on his face. “Well, I got to thinking of you as his ‘mystery guests.’ Before he left for Sudan, he called and said he’d invited you to stay the whole summer and if you showed up, to give you my spare key to the cabin and the gate, and to play host for him, make sure you have everything you need.” His smile grew wider. “As I’m sure you know, Jim”—pronounced with a long “e” sound in the middle—“may be a little … scattered … but he ees an amazingly gracious man!”
Gabriella felt the knot in her stomach slowly relax. This was the last hurdle. She had no idea how much Jim Benninger knew about her. He obviously knew her name and her parents’ names, but did he put it together with the famous Garrett Griffith, or somehow link it to Rebecca Nightshade? And how much had he shared about her and her family’s connection to St. Elmo’s Fire with the person who kept the key? If Jim had given out her identity, poured out her whole story, maybe—at least as much of it as he knew—it would have been too dangerous for her to stay here. She’d have been forced to move on and find another hiding place, take Theo’s advice and throw a dart at the map.
She first heard from the Rev. James Benninger in a Christmas card in 2005—the first Christmas after Garrett’s death. Getting that card was the only thing she could remember clearly about that Christmas. It shone like a single, bright star in the black depths of her grief.
She’d never sent out cards, thought it was crassly commercial, and over the years most folks had marked her name off their Christmas card lists, too. She remembered the envelope lying by itself on the table by the front door, addressed to Gabriella Griffith in care of Phillip and Natalie Griffith at her parents’ old address on Old Boston Road in the Whitehall neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The family had lived there until Grant’s death and then moved away. But years later, Garrett bought the house—said it was the only place they’d ever lived that felt like home. He could have afforded a mansion, but he lived for years in that modest house. Died there, too. After his death, she couldn’t bear to sell it, just left it empty. Mail delivered there was forwarded to her address.
She’d only opened the envelope because of the address. She remembered sinking down to the floor and staring at the picture on the front of the Christmas card—a stunning photograph of St. Elmo’s Fire. Not the simple, rustic cabin she remembered but freshly painted and beautiful with the unchanging rise of mountain behind it and the waterfall in the background.
Written inside the card in a fluid script not usual in a man’s handwriting, was a message:
You don’t know me, Gabriella. My name is Rev. James Benninger and I pastor St. Stephen’s Presbyterian Church in Biloxi, Mississippi. I purchased St. Elmo’s Fire in Colorado ten years ago and have gradually been renovating it ever since.
The next line kicked her heartbeat into a loping gallop.
When the carpenters tore off the roof to add a second floor, they found a box of items in the crawl space of the attic that had belonged to previous owners or tenants. One of the things in the box was a bunged-up family Bible in which a little girl named Gabriella Griffith wrote a diary and drew pictures during the summer of 1982. The final entry sent me digging into your family’s connection to St. Elmo’s Fire and I learned about the horrible tragedy that occurred at the end of that summer. I am so sorry for your loss.
I hope I am not invading your privacy by contacting you. But given the significance the cabin has in your life, and the obvious strong feelings you must have about the time you spent there, I thought you might like to visit sometime, and I want you to know you are welcome to stay at St. Elmo’s Fire anytime you would like.
This is my address and phone number. (I got your address from a blank check in the Bible. I hope someone in your family still lives there to forward this on to you.) Give me a call to arrange a time when the cabin is free.
And may the blessings of this special season soothe your heart and restore your soul.
God bless,
Jim Benninger
She’d certainly needed a soothed heart and restored soul that Christmas, but it would have taken more than a Christmas card—however kind and sincere—to assuage her pain. She’d stared at the photo through her tears, then threw the card away and never thought about it again.
Another card arrived the next Christmas, and every Christmas after that. The message in each of them was different, but they all contained the same offer to visit St. Elmo’s Fire. She had thrown every card away, never wrote down Rev. Benninger’s address or phone number or made any effort to get in touch with him. But she had grown to anticipate and enjoy his cards—seeing the changes in the cabin—the new second-floor deck, new wraparound porch, the trees in the aspen forest taller.
The card this past Christmas varied from the usual message, however. Rev. Benninger said that he and his family would be working at a refugee camp in Sudan from March until October, 2010.
“We won’t get to enjoy St. Elmo’s Fire at all next year,” he wrote. “So there’s no need for you to schedule a time to visit. In fact, the cabin is yours for the whole summer if you want it. I’ve asked my good friend Pedro Rodriguez at St. Elmo’s Mercantile to give you a key. If you are able to come, he will take good care of you and your family!”
He also ended his message differently.
“Ever since the first of November, you have been in my thoughts often. I have learned over the years not to question it when the Lord places someone on my heart. Perhaps you have some need I don’t know about, some need St. Elmo’s Fire might meet. I urge you to take advantage of my offer and spend time there. The beauty of creation all around cannot help but draw you closer to the Creator.”
Since the first of November … Yesheb had shown up in her life on Halloween.
When she decided to run, to hide, she instantly thought of the cabin, as if it had been waiting in the back of her mind for her to summon it. She had never made any connection to Rev. Benninger. She’d never mentioned him to anyone and had thrown away all his correspondence to her, including the card last Christmas. Her family had traveled the country like gypsies every summer of her childhood. There was no record of where they’d gone, no possible way to connect her to a single cabin where they’d stayed once almost 30 years ago. St. Elmo’s Fire might be … an answer to prayer.
“We’ll need directions, too,” Gabriella said. “I’m not sure I could still … find it. Maybe you could draw us a map.”
“You will not need a map. Head down Chalk Creek Canyon Road for another four miles until you come to a big house on the left. It ees not your typical mountain cabin, it looks like … well, you will see for yourself. Steve Calloway, Dr. Steve Calloway, lives there—a retired GP—and the trail up the mountain runs right beside his place. You can’t get lost on the trail because like I told the boy,”—he reached out casually and ruffled Ty’s curls, and Ty didn’t seem to mind a bit!—“the trail doesn’t even show up on maps, except the most detailed ones for hikers.”
“People hike up the trail?” Gabriella didn’t mean to sound so alarmed but she could tell Pedro picked up on it.
“Not that I know of. There’s nothing on this side of the mountain to hike to.”
“But, the aquamarine …”
“Years ago people looked for aquamarine up there, but that was before they found huge deposits of it on the other side of the mountain. And prospectors can’t take a jeep up the trail to St. Elmo’s Fire—there’s a gate on it that’s locked when Jim’s not here and I’ve got the only key.”
Pedro smiled again, such an engaging infectious smile, Gabriella found herself smiling back. “I’
m the St. Elmo’s Fire gatekeeper/custodian/maintenance man/tour guide/service department/technical support and concierge. Mostly I check on the place, keep it in good repair and make sure it’s stocked with supplies for Jim when he comes.”
Before Gabriella could say anything else, Pedro’s eyes turned to a woman approaching the counter with a handful of mostly wilted wildflowers.
“Hóla, Contessa,” Pedro said. “What have you got there?”
The woman had salt-and-pepper hair in a windblown frizz and wore a man’s suit jacket over an Indian-design long skirt. With sparkly bangles of jewelry hanging off her everywhere she could dangle something, she looked like a gypsy fortune teller. Or a Christmas tree. If Gabriella had met her on the streets of Pittsburgh, she’d have thought she was a bag lady.
As soon as the woman spotted P.D. she issued a little squeal of delight and got down on her knees in front of him. He endured her “ohwhat-a-pretty-doggie-you-are!” stoically. His guide-dog training had disciplined him to sit quietly under the gushing ministrations of dog-loving humans.
The woman straightened up finally and answered Pedro’s question.
“Just painting out in the meadow above Buffalo Creek—still life.” Gabriella noticed paint smears in various hues on the woman’s hands and clothing. “Larkspur and loco weed—blue and purple—and a touch of red king’s crown.”
The woman noticed Gabriella for the first time and gave her a silly little wave that animated the bracelets on her arm in a jingling, clattering dance.
“Oh, excuse me—I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said, then flashed a be-friendly-to-tourists smile. “Hope you enjoy our mountains.” She turned her attention back to Pedro as Theo hobbled toward them. “And when I saw these golden asters and blanket flowers—oh, Pedro! The yellows and rusts must have been blended by angels from a celestial pallet …”
