The Star of All Valleys

by Vicki H. Cutler

  Chapter 6

  Willy sat on a fallen log by the trail and felt the old familiar pain twist at her heart. She remembered the day Ryan had left for work for the last time. She had been packing his lunch when he came down and announced that as soon as he got home, they were going to go trade in the old pick-up and camper on brand new ones. Aghast that he wanted to add such a large debt to their already strained finances, she had reminded him of their situation and they had argued. They had only recently moved into a small house and paying the mortgage was a burden they hadn’t quite expected.

  Willy had tried to economize but she was young and inexperienced. She was so busy caring for the two children that she hadn’t much time for writing to bring in any income herself. Some of their bills didn’t get paid and Ryan was feeling the strain also. Willy didn’t know how he could justify such a huge expenditure and suggested that they put it off for a while until they got caught up a little. Ryan had left for work in a bad mood. He did not like the feeling of being controlled. If he wanted a new camper, he was going to get a new camper. They’d work it out!

  The sound of their raised voices and the slam of the back door had wakened the children and Willy had swallowed her tears and gone to get them up. It was only a few hours later when the squad car had driven up and she was given the news about his accident.

  Willy’s face clouded when she thought of that day. It was all still so clear in her mind. The policeman had been somber and polite and told her all he knew. He said they weren't sure about Ryan’s condition but he had been taken to the hospital in an ambulance. After he left, Willy was filled with shock and confusion and fear. She ran next door and disjointedly explained to one of her new neighbors who had been friendly since they moved in what had happened and asked her to watch the kids. Before she left, she remembered to call Ryan’s parents and blurted the story out to them and told them which hospital he was in. Then she jumped in the car and raced the few miles to the hospital.

  The emergency room had been busy that day and she had trouble getting through the crowded waiting room to find someone who knew where Ryan was. Finally, Ryan's partner, who had been with him when the accident happened, saw her struggles and came to take her to the intensive care room.

  There her husband lay, surrounded by white coated doctors, nurses, and machinery, but they parted when she walked fearfully to the bedside. He was swathed in bandages about his head and arms, with tubes running in and a respirator pumping. No one would meet her eyes and the postures of the medical people told her the situation was very grave.

  Willy had tried to find a place to touch him, to let him know she was there. She finally had just leaned over his face and sobbed out a plea for him to wake up--to live. He wasn’t conscious and there was no response. Tears streaming from her eyes,  she felt the hands of their own family physician, Dr. Corra, turn her from the bed and help her to a chair in the waiting room. “What happened?” she had asked in despair. “How bad are his injuries?”

  “They tell me that he was handling a supposedly dead wire when someone down the line must have turned on a large generator and fed electricity into the line. It knocked him out of the crane basket and he fell about 30 feet. He was burned severely, which is bad enough, but he fell on his head and that is worse. We've had to start his heart three times," he had told her gently.

  Willy looked into his eyes searching for comfort and hope, but what she saw there started the tears coming. The doctor touched her hands and said reluctantly, "Willy, we just got the results from the EEG. There is no sign of brain activity.”

  Willy had gazed at him in confusion. “No brain activity? What does that mean?” she asked, terrified.

  He went on to explain the technical medical terms, but she didn’t hear until his last words, said quietly but firmly. “He’s only being kept alive by the machines. You need to think about what comes next. In my opinion, it would be best to turn them off soon."

  Screaming her anguish, Willy remembered how she had lost control, crumpled against his chest and sobbed, asking if there was nothing they could do. When the doctor assured her that they had done everything possible already, she raised her wet face and cried, "It can’t be true! He can’t be dying! I didn't even get to say good-bye! I've got to say good-bye!” She jumped up and started in a stumbling run back to the room, tears blurring her vision. “Please let me see him," she said to the nurse by the bed.

  The doctor followed her in then nodded and asked the others to leave. Alone by the bedside, Willy, no longer afraid to touch an injured part of his still form, hugged his body and whispered an agonized apology that their last words had been unhappy. She told him of her love and hugged and kissed him. Then again the shock overcame her and she broke down in sobs to pound her fists on the bed and berate him for leaving her, for taking such a dangerous job, for deserting his young family.

  After several minutes the piercing shock diminished and she felt the beginnings of resignation and grief. She bent once more over the still and bandaged form on the bed and made a promise. "I will be the best mother for our children," she whispered. "I won't let them forget you. I promise you that no one will ever replace you in my heart."

  It hadn't been easy to get through the ordeal of the next few hours. Ryan’s parents lived nearby and came to the hospital as soon as they could. After hours of exhausting all the medical opinions they could find, they all had reluctantly agreed that there was no longer hope and the plugs needed to be pulled. It was done late that night with the three of them present.

  The terrible finality of the decision was very hard to bear and when the steady sounds of the pumping machines had stopped, Willy had still strained to listen for any breathing that might miraculously begin spontaneously. Of course there was none and the room was still and silent except for the quiet weeping of three heartbroken people.

  Willy was so distraught that Ryan’s mom and dad offered to stay with her and the children overnight. When she went to pick up the kids, the neighbor said they were sound asleep and offered to keep them overnight so they wouldn’t be disturbed quite yet. Willy agreed, knowing that she needed to gain some control over her own emotions before having to break the news to such young children. She couldn’t imagine how to tell them or what to do to ease it for them.

  Willy had called her parents from the hospital and they had arrived the next morning from Portland. The four grandparents helped her break the news to Allison and Jeffy. Allison had been close to her daddy and was confused and broken-hearted. Jeffy was too young to understand but he picked up on the general atmosphere of grief and became quiet and subdued.

  Both sets of parents helped her through the worst of the arrangements and the funeral. It was the only way she would have made it. Sharing the burden had been easier on all of them. Their grief was just as deep and they needed comfort and support also.

  After the funeral she and the children had gone to Portland for a few days to get away from the house with so many memories. Her parents had been soothing and let her handle her grief in her own way. They cared for the children but didn’t push or try to manage her life and had given her much good advice. Finally after several weeks, she, Allison and Jeffy had returned to their own home and had begun the work of taking up their lives again.

  Settling into a home without Ryan had been extremely hard. She found that she needed to spend much more time with the children to be sure they didn’t feel alone and neglected. She tried to keep them involved in different activities and busy so there wasn’t much time to spend feeling sad. The first thing that really hit her, though, was the pile of bills that was stacking up.

  The deeper she delved into their accounts and debts, the more alarm she felt. She knew they had struggled to meet their bills and had to juggle payments and put off creditors sometimes, but she saw from all the papers strewn through the desk that their situation had for a long time been teetering on the brink of financial disaster. She finally confided in an account
ant friend who offered to organize everything for her and see what could be done. Luckily, the electric company that employed Ryan had provided a generous life insurance policy and that had saved her.

  She eventually knew she had to sell everything she wouldn’t be using so she found buyers for Ryan’s gun collection, the boat, the motorcycle and the two all-terrain vehicles. She kept only a few other things she thought the children might like to remember him by when they were older. She had been advised to pay off as much of the home loan and the remaining loans on the truck and camper and her small car. And of course the credit cards. Thank goodness they hadn’t traded up to a bigger truck and sunk even deeper in debt. She kept the cameras since she had already started writing her travel articles to try to help with the finances. There was just enough money to tide her over until the checks from her feature articles and the sales of her photography had started coming in.

  Now that Allison would be starting school, though, Willy would be forced to cut down her travel to just the summer months and maybe holidays and would have to find another way to do her research. She hoped that the articles she would write about the places they had visited during this trip would bring in enough income from various sources to last them through the winter. They had been able to travel to several states and had been on the road for most of the summer since Aggie had gotten out of school.

  Surfacing from her reveries, Willy's heard the kids and Aggie coming back from their snail expedition and her mind came back to the present. She rose from the log where she had rested but turned and wiped her eyes. Remembering always made her cry. When would that ever end, she wondered. Taking a deep breath, she called out and went to meet them.

  They showed her all their treasures--empty snail shells, wild flowers, and bleached bones from some unfortunate woods creature. By the time they reached the jeep, Max had finished his nap, the blanket was folded and all that remained to do was to stow all the booty in the back. Noticing the long, red-tipped flowers among the rest, Max gave them a lesson in botany and teasingly threatened to arrest them for picking the protected Indian Paint Brush that was Wyoming's state flower.

  Allison and Jeffy looked up at him with big eyes and started to take them out of the bunch. Max just laughed, patted their heads, and said, "I don't think there's any harm in keeping them now that they are picked. Next time, though, just enjoy them where they are. That way, they are there for the next people that come along."

  They took their places in the jeep and started back down the long road. The hot sun and motion of the vehicle soon put both kids and Aggie to sleep. Willy's eyes grew heavy, too, but she wouldn't let herself drop off.

  She asked Max about the valley and the town, but she didn't try to delve into anything personal. On the other hand, he asked her about her family, her home, her work and seemed intensely interested in her past projects and her travels. Soon the last curve was rounded and the town spread out before them.

  "Is it all right if we stop for ice cream before we head back up to Cottonwood?" he asked.

  The word, 'ice cream', was enough to wake the two little ones and they shouted their approval. Willy shrugged and smiled. "Only if it's my treat this time," she agreed.

  They pulled into the Whirl Inn Drive-in and found an empty picnic table outside. After the girl came to get their orders, Allison noticed that her mother's nose was getting red. "You're all sunburned, Mama," she said.

  "Should have bought that hat," agreed Max. "You're really burned. The thin air at this high altitude does more than make you breathe harder. It has a tendency to make people burn easier, too."

  Willy, self-conscious about her red nose, noticed that her arms were pretty pink, too, and decided to invest in some suntan lotion. She had seen a pharmacy in town and asked if they could stop for a few minutes on their way through. "I need to call Mrs. Danner in Kent and see if everything is okay at home, too," she told the kids. "Let me see if my phone has any reception here in town," she said, pulling it out of her purse. "I won't talk long,” she assured Max. “You must need to get home."

  "No problem. I'm in no hurry. How about if we drive by my place on the way back to the canyon, too?" Max offered. "I live on a big ranch with horses and cows."

  Enthusiastically, everyone agreed, but Willy felt some reservations. This big, friendly charmer was just getting too close. They would only be here for a week or two and she knew how quickly kids get attached to new friends. She had noticed that Allison especially liked being around men and seemed to make friends easier with them than with women. She supposed it was just her longing for a father-figure.

  Willy looked at her little daughter's face, animated just now with interest as Max described the horses, sheep and cows on his ranch. He was telling about Smoky, the grey Appaloosa horse, and his dislike of being caught. Jeffy's eyes got big when he heard about the fences the horse would jump rather than let the group that was trying to catch him surround him.

  "I wish I could ride a horse," Jeffy said wistfully.

  "You'll have to come over while you're in town and see if my brother, Lloyd, has a gentle one for you to ride," Max offered.

  The little boy's eyes lit up and he turned to his mother for immediate permission. "Not today, Jeffy," she said. "It's getting late and we need to get back to camp before dark. Maybe some other day."

  "Tomorrow?" he asked hopefully. "I never rode a horse before."

  Finally, to put him off, Willy said, "We'll see," and turned his attention to a ferris wheel in the distance. "Is there a carnival in town?" she asked Max. 

  "The Lincoln County Fair starts Monday," he informed her. "That would be a fun place to go. They have all sorts of shows and exhibits and livestock. And there is a rodeo every night. Have you ever been to a rodeo?" he asked.

  They had heard of them, but never seen one. He entertained them with a detailed account of what goes on at these favorite activities of Wyoming towns.

  "I didn't know there was so much to do in such a small town," Aggie commented. She had expected to come here and enjoy the scenery and not much more. "I hope we can come back to town and go to the rodeo sometime this week."

  Willy assured them that they would make time for the fair and rodeo before they left for home. Max parked on Main Street and Willy sent Aggie into the drug store for sunscreen while she made her phone call in the car. Max took the kids on a short walk to window shop. Soon they were on their way again.

  Max turned down a gravel lane not far out of town and drove a couple of miles to a beautiful ranch house. It was made of white brick and was set at an angle to the road. A circular drive with a wagon wheel at each end broke the monotony of a large, green lawn. He didn't pull in but kept going past and pointed out the barns and equipment and the fields. There were several fields covered with bales of hay with two crews of men out loading them up. It looked like a prosperous operation and Max had pride in his voice when he told how hard his father had worked to build it all up.

  The trip back up the canyon to their campground was uneventful except when they rounded a bend and came across something fluttering in the road. Max pulled over and got out to investigate. "It's a baby bat," he called. "Come and see it."

  They all jumped out and walked cautiously up to the fluttering animal. "Where's its mother?" Allison wanted to know.

  "I don't know," Max answered. "It is very unusual for bats to be out at all during the day. I wonder what happened." He carefully cradled the small, quivering animal and placed it gently in the shade of a rock. "Maybe its parents will hear it calling tonight and come to rescue it. We'll get it out of the sun so it won't die."

  When they reached camp, they unloaded the cooler and their jackets and treasures. Willy reminded the children to thank Max for the great day they’d had and then they hurried to the table with Aggie to spread out their acquisitions. Willy turned to thank Max again. "It was truly a wonderful day," she told him. "We all enjoyed it. I got so many pictures and so much in
formation for my article. I've got to go write it all down before I forget."

  "We can go again if you need more," he offered. "I enjoyed the day, too. I feel like I'm part of the family already."

  Willy stiffened at that remark. A stab of guilt darkened her eyes as she remembered her vow to Ryan. She had promised that no one would replace him in her heart and now here was this man trying to worm his way into their family. She turned, flinging a curt 'good-bye' over her shoulder and went inside.

  Hearing the engine roar into life, and the children calling their farewells, Willy peeked out the window and suppressed the jolt of her heart. She knew she was being disloyal to the memory of her husband to even entertain the faintest glimmer of interest in another man. She gave herself a stern mental lecture about keeping her mind on the business at hand and not letting it wander into forbidden territory.

  By the time the kids were ready to come in for supper, Willy had herself under control and managed to spend an enjoyable evening playing games and singing with her children and sister. They were all tired out from their long hike and turned in early.

  Willy lay, listening to the quiet forest sounds and the even breathing of her children and felt again the stirring of long-unacknowledged yearnings in her body. What was there about the warm hands and gentle lips of a man that had such power over her? She craved the affection that had been lacking for so long. Putting a mental clamp on her runaway thoughts, she started reciting poetry to herself until, exhausted, she fell asleep.