Aspen in Moonlight

by Kelly Wacker

  As soon as she opened the car door, she heard a dog barking. It was Willy, her parents’ black lab mix. When she emerged from the car, his long tail began wagging furiously, and he jumped off the porch and ran across the lawn to greet her.

  Melissa braced for impact as he planted his front paws on her stomach and tried to lick her face. Laughing, she rubbed his head and ears.

  “Willy! Get down!” Melissa’s father scolded him as he walked around the corner of the house, though he looked nearly as happy as Willy. “Hey!” was all he said and gave her a hug while Willy danced around them, barking.

  Without asking, he grabbed her suitcase out of the back of her car and carried it up to the house. Her mother came out wearing an apron and wiping her hands on a towel.

  “Baby Bee!” Melissa’s mom exclaimed, calling her by a childhood nickname, and hugged her tightly. When she was born, her older brother couldn’t say her name, but he could say “baby.” Well, sort of. According to family legend it came out sounding more like “bah-bee,” and he said it over and over, bah-bee, bah-bee. Eventually the nickname turned into Baby Bee.

  After her mother released her, they walked into the house together. Melissa, immediately noticing the mouth-watering scent of a roast, smiled knowingly to herself. In the kitchen, her mother pulled two bottles of beer from the refrigerator and handed them to her. “The roast won’t be ready for another half hour. I’m making a salad, so why don’t you have a beer with your father and go sit outside.”

  Her father smiled and held the front door open. “I think we’ve been dismissed.”

  They sat together on a wooden bench on the side of the house facing the mountains. The sky glowed orange above the blue-green foothills, and a few high, thin clouds reflected the sunlight, looking like liquid gold.

  “That is so beautiful,” Melissa said softly and took a swig from the bottle.

  “Miss it?”

  “Of course. How couldn’t I?” She didn’t expect an answer. “Is Robby coming for dinner?”

  “He is.”

  Robby, her younger brother, an engineer for a company that manufactured wind turbines, lived in Boulder, about forty miles away. Her older brother, Dave, a pilot in the navy, was currently assigned to an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. Her father had recently accepted an early retirement package from the tech company where he’d worked as a software engineer, and her mother was an accountant with an auditing firm. With her love of the fine arts, literature, and history, Melissa was an anomaly in her family. They never really understood what she did, but they supported her and congratulated her on her successes.

  Her father pointed his bottle toward the driveway. “Speak of the devil.”

  A bright-yellow Toyota FJ Cruiser turned off the road and into the drive. Robby never drove slowly, and the SUV’s tires kicked up gravel as he plowed toward the house. Melissa glanced over at her father, who rolled his eyes and shrugged. “I’ve given up trying to get him to slow down.”

  “Who taught you how to drive?” Melissa yelled as her grinning, sandy-haired brother emerged from the Cruiser carrying a white bakery box.

  Robby yelled back when he saw her. “My sister!”

  Although the youngest, Robby was the tallest in the family. He gave her a hug, planting a kiss on the top of her head. “It’s good to see you, Baby Bee!”

  “Good to see you, too, little brother.” Melissa’s focus shifted from him to the box. “What did you bring?”

  “German chocolate cake.”

  “Oh, my favorite!” Melissa said and then added in a stage whisper, “Don’t tell Dave that you’re my favorite brother.”

  Robby put a finger to his lips. “Lips are sealed.”

  Melissa’s mother called them in for supper, and they sat down and ate and talked as if it were old times, minus her brother, Dave, of course. But he was present in the many photographs of him, mostly in his flight gear and posing next to, or in, his aircraft. When the meal was over, they left the table for the living room to drink coffee and eat cake in front of the television.

  “So, you’re going to be up in Buckhorn, huh? You know there was a bear attack there just this week.” Robby shoveled another forkful of cake into his mouth.

  “Really?”

  “Yep,” her father said. “It was on the news a couple of nights ago. A group of Scouts were camping up near—”

  “Estes Park,” Melissa’s mother said. Estes Park was south of Buckhorn and not very close to where she was going.

  “No,” Robby said. “It was near Buckhorn, the Wildwood campground.”

  “Which is near Estes Park.” Melissa’s mother spoke matter-of-factly.

  “Wait, isn’t that near Granby?” Melissa’s father asked, turning his attention away from the television.

  For several minutes, Melissa ate her cake and said nothing as her parents and brother triangulated the exact location of the bear attack. Finally, she interrupted them. “So, what happened?”

  “Well,” her father said, “a Boy Scout troop was camping up there, and a black bear attacked one of the Scouts in his tent during the night. Dragged the poor kid, tent and all, into the woods, and the other boys and the Scout leaders yelled and made a ruckus. The bear let go and took off.”

  Robby nodded while their father talked. “The kid probably had food in his tent. Some smelly beef jerky or something.”

  Melissa’s mother sat up straight and looked around as if an alarm had just gone off, then stared at Melissa. “You do have bear spray, don’t you?”

  “Uh.” Melissa was caught off guard. “I hadn’t planned on it.”

  “We’ll get you some,” her mother said. “Didn’t you say you wanted to do some shopping before you headed up?”

  “Yeah. I was planning to buy a new pair of hiking boots and some batteries for my flashlight.”

  Melissa’s mother turned her attention to her father, who had been distracted by a funny advertisement on the television. “Robert!” she said sternly, pulling him back into the conversation.

  “We’ll get her some at Jack’s Sporting Goods tomorrow. I need to get some flies anyway.”

  “Flies?” Melissa was confused.

  “Flies. For fly-fishing,” her father said.

  “When Dad retired he decided he needed a hobby,” Robby explained. “Turns out he actually likes it.”

  “Brad Pitt was so handsome in that movie,” Melissa’s mom said to no one in particular.

  Both Robby and her father looked at Melissa’s mother as if she’d lost her mind.

  “A River Runs Through It,” Melissa said. “You know, the movie. Brad Pitt is a fly fisherman. He’s at the peak of his life and looking…you know…all Brad Pitt.”

  Melissa’s father smiled weakly at her, shrugged, and turned back to the television.

  Melissa slept in the guest room upstairs. It was quaint, with dormer windows and a slanted ceiling, but the two antique twin beds and dresser filled the small room. Before she crawled into one of the beds, she opened the windows in the stuffy room to let in some of the cool, dry air that was such a relief from the humidity of the South. She fell asleep to the lulling sound of crickets and woke to the sun when the early morning light broke through the windows, falling across the bed and her face.

  Willy must have heard her get up, because before she made it to the stairs, he had bounded up them and then guided her back down. She was happy to find coffee brewing as her mother got ready for work.

  After a quick breakfast, her mother left, and Melissa and her father went to his favorite sporting-goods store, a two-story complex that covered every kind of outdoor recreation possible. While he wandered off to the fishing section, she checked out the shoe department and found a pair of hiking boots exactly like her old ones she loved and had worn out. She knew that if she didn’t go home with some bear spray, her mother wouldn’t be happy. She wasn’t sure of where to look for it and asked a nearby young woman wearing a blue polo shirt with the Jack’s logo printed
on it.

  “That’ll be in aisle eleven, with camping gear,” she said in a perky voice and a distinctive Nebraska accent, its lilting cadence revealing its Scandinavian roots. “I’ll show ya where it’s located.”

  Stacey, her name tag said, pointed out the shelves with various brands of pepper spray intended for defense against a charging bear.

  “Do you know anything about these?”

  “Sure don’t,” Stacey said and looked apologetic.

  “Okay, thanks.” Melissa picked up a can labeled “Bear Defense.”

  “Let me know if ya need anything else,” Stacey said in her friendly voice and then disappeared into another aisle.

  Melissa read the label on the canister. Like the other brands on the shelf, it looked like a small fire extinguisher with a plastic nozzle and a trigger. The packaging showed a photograph of a very angry-looking bear. As she read the instructions, she realized that it sounded like it was a tactical firearm, the words assault, attack, protection, and deterrent used repeatedly. The cannister should be “fired” in short bursts, it said, and it was designed to be carried in a holster. Don’t stow it in your backpack, the label warned.

  “Put it in the basket.”

  Hearing her father’s voice, Melissa jumped. He was standing next to her, and she had been so lost in thought, she hadn’t heard him approach. He held out a plastic shopping basket, and she put the canister and a holster into it, next to an assortment of small boxes containing flies, basically small fishing hooks adorned with fancy feathers to look like insects, and a spool of neon-green fishing line that said it was guaranteed to float.

  “Your mother will be happy.”

  “And you, too, right? What’s that expression?” Melissa joked. “Happy wife, happy life?”

  “Yep. That one’s true.”

  When Melissa’s mother returned home after work, she was pleased to see that Melissa had complied and bought the bear spray. Melissa assisted her in the kitchen as she reheated leftover roast and potatoes from the previous night’s dinner.

  “I know you don’t think you need it, and really, you probably won’t ever need to use it, but I’ll feel better knowing you have it.”

  “I understand, Mom.”

  As Melissa carried the silverware to the dining-room table, she noticed several old photo albums on the table in the breakfast nook. “What are these?”

  “Oh, I pulled those out for you. They belonged to your great-grandmother, and I found them in some of my mom’s stuff recently.” A look of sadness flashed across her face. Melissa’s grandmother, her mother’s mother, had died a little over a year ago. “I thought you might like to look through them after dinner tonight. You know, she used to go to Buckhorn. I came across some photos taken up there.”

  “Yes. I definitely want to look at them.” Melissa didn’t recognize the photo albums and resisted the urge to start inspecting them immediately.

  After dinner her mother made coffee and her father retired to the living room with a cup and a piece of leftover cake to watch television. Melissa and her mother stayed in the kitchen flipping through the photo albums together, starting with the album on top. The photos were attached to heavy black paper pages with paper corners that had been glued in place. Notes written in a neat cursive script with white ink were located next to the photos that had belonged to Melissa’s great-grandmother, Evelyn Llewelyn. The oldest photos were studio portraits taken in Nebraska in the 1890s, where they lived a few years before settling in Colorado.

  The photos displayed somber-looking men and women dressed in their best clothing. Melissa knew that the exposure times of the cameras used then were slow and that any movement would lead to a blurred image. She always looked very carefully at people’s expressions in photos from this era, trying to see beyond the serious faces they wore for the photographer, searching for clues to their actual personalities.

  After a few pages, the format of the photographs changed. Instead of being mounted on thick paperboard, the photographs were printed on thin paper in a square format, an indicator that they were taken with a Brownie, the first camera produced for amateur photographers.

  The pictures in the album changed, as well. Instead of posed indoor portraits, she saw landscapes, houses, and yards with people posing or doing things. The people in these photos seemed more relaxed than in those older studio portraits. They gave Melissa a better sense of who was serious, who was morose, who had a good sense of humor, and who seemed to be kind.

  Her great-grandmother’s written notes were helpful as they indicated where the photos were taken and when. Together, they created an illustrated story of her family: Melissa’s great-great-grandparents had emigrated from Europe, traveled across America, and finally settled in a little town along the Front Range of the Rockies in Colorado.

  The second album resembled the first one, but as soon as she opened it, her curiosity was piqued. On the first page, written across the top, was “Buckhorn Ranch.” Melissa stared at the page in disbelief.

  “Do you think that’s the same place I’ll be staying?”

  “Probably. You said it was an old working ranch. I don’t see why it wouldn’t be.”

  The photos on the following pages included photos of mountain peaks, lakes surrounded by ponderosa pines and big boulders. She saw pictures of barns, a lodge made from large logs with a wraparound porch, and small cabins constructed from roughly sawn boards. The cars that appeared in some of the photographs looked to be from the 1920s and 1930s. There were pictures of cows, horses, and wranglers, though some of the people photographed in the saddle looked like they’d never been on horseback before and were just posing for a picture. Her great-grandmother was rarely in the photos, probably because she was taking them.

  Melissa turned a page, surprised to find a photograph missing. The paper corners were there, glued in place, but the photo was absent. The note below the missing picture stood out. “Ursula.” Melissa’s jaw dropped.

  She quickly flipped through the rest of the album, thinking that it might have fallen out and been tucked back in, but found no other pages with a missing photo.

  “Could that be Ursula Bergen?”

  “The artist?” Melissa’s mother seemed nonplussed. “Well, I don’t see why not. Your great-grandmother had those paintings by her.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t realize they knew each other. I thought she might have purchased them from a gallery or secondhand.” Melissa put her hand to her chin. “You think they could have been friends?”

  “Could have…” Her mother echoed her question.

  “But why is this one photo missing?” Melissa stroked and tugged at her lower lip. “It’s strange.”

  Her mother nodded and yawned. “I’m going to join your father in the living room and watch the news.”

  “Can I take these with me when I leave? I’d like to compare them to where I’m staying and see if it’s the same place, maybe show them to some people up there.”

  “Sure, Baby Bee. You can keep them.” Melissa’s mother stood up, putting her hand on Melissa’s shoulder, and patted her. “I hope they help with your project.”

  Chapter Five

  Melissa took her time getting to Buckhorn. Check-in at the ranch started at three in the afternoon, so she wasn’t in any hurry. She decided to savor the drive on the curving mountain roads and extended it by taking a slower route, a narrow county road that followed a creek and ran between the two busier canyon highways that most people, tourists especially, took to get to the historic mountain town. She knew of a small picnic area along the way, one of her grandmother’s favorite spots. Melissa remembered eating lunch with her there, listening to her complain that the road had been ruined when it was paved and widened back in the 1970s. Then, she didn’t understand how an improvement could be a bad thing, but now, as an adult, she understood what her grandmother meant.

  The site was small, tucked into a spot where the creek curved sharply against a rock face. It had just tw
o old concrete picnic tables and a trash bin. If you blinked while driving, you’d miss it. As she’d hoped for, it was devoid of people and she had her choice of places to sit, so she chose a table next to an enormous boulder shaded by pine trees. While eating a sandwich she’d made earlier that morning at her parents’ house, she gazed at the creek and enjoyed the gentle burbling of water flowing over the round rocks.

  A gray jay hopped its way down through the branches of a nearby pine, watching her carefully from a perch on the lowest branch. When she looked up at him, he seemed to take her movement as a cue that he might get lucky. Flying down to the far edge of the table, he looked at her sideways, focusing on the sandwich in her hand.

  “What a brave little beggar you are,” she said quietly.

  She tore off a small piece of the whole-wheat bread smeared with peanut butter and honey and tossed it toward the bird. The jay hopped forward and dipped his head, quickly snatching the tasty treat with his beak, and then, with a few swift pumps of his wings, flew back up into the safety of the pine tree to enjoy his tasty morsel.

  Melissa smiled and continued eating her lunch, knowing the jay would likely come back for more. She remembered how her mother would make her two sandwiches when she was a kid, knowing that one of them would get fed to birds, squirrels, chipmunks—whatever crossed her daughter’s path. If she hadn’t made the extra sandwich, Melissa would have happily given up her lunch to the local wildlife. As she tore the crust off the bread, reserving it for the jay, she wished she’d remembered to make two sandwiches this morning.