Kate

by Dwight W. Hunter

Chapter09 - Rita Meets Henry

  Both Rita and Julie sat open-mouthed watching Nellie's backside move across the dance floor. It was Julie who spoke first.

  "Well, how do you like those beans? Here we sit with our mouths hanging out watching Nellie run off with the man she was supposed to bring back."

  Rita turned to Julie and quipped, "It seems perfectly female to me. Nellie is no different from the rest of us. She'll carp and complain about some guy not living up to her expectations, but just wait until another woman shows interest in Old Dumb Nut and he suddenly becomes a paragon of virtue and she'll guard him like a mongrel dog looking out for a desiccated bone. I'm looking forward to tomorrow when Nellie gives us her report on Buck's performance. If Buck lives up to her hopes, maybe she'll get off the pity pot routine."

  "I have no idea how her story will play tomorrow. Julie said. "She's talked more about her sex life tonight that in all the years I've known her. Maybe she's been thinking about her life string getting short and wants to get all she can while she can. Whoops! Looks like action is on the way."

  "Would you care to dance, Ma'am?" Asked a middle height, hair thinning and bespectacled man putting forth a friendly smile.

  "I would," Julie, answered, getting up and taking his extended hand. Soon they were nestled up close dancing slowly keeping to the beat of the music.

  A few minutes after Julie danced away Rita heard a nearby voice ask. "May I have this dance?"

  Rita was lost in thought about Nellie and a little startled by a request to dance. Glancing up and turning in the direction of the voice she saw a rather tall neatly groomed man looking at her with his hand outstretched toward her.

  "Who me? Oh! Yes, thank you," stammered Rita, accepting his hand and rising to her feet. "Sorry about appearing so dense. I must confess my mind was somewhere else. My name is Rita."

  "It's my pleasure to meet you, Rita, my name is John Henry so you have a choice as to which name tickles your fancy," putting his arm around her as they moved away with the music.

  "I have always liked both names; but since I'm offered a choice, would you mind if I settle for Henry? I find it less over worked than John or Jack."

  "I was rather hoping you would select Henry. Like you, I've found John to be a bit overused. Do you mind if I inquire where you're from? Assuming of course you're a snowbird, like most everyone here tonight."

  "I don't mind," Rita smiled. "Originally I came from Kansas. As a byproduct of my career you can toss a dart at a map and it would probably hit close to someplace I've worked. After retiring I became sort of a tumbleweed itinerant, although perhaps sometime in the future I may decide to choose a place to call home. Since we're on the subject, Henry do you have any particular place you call home?"

  "I suppose one could also accuse me of being an itinerant. I maintain a permanent address here in Cactus Junction, but I spend the hot season wherever the cool breezes happen to call me. This past summer it was mostly Canada and Alaska. Next year is still undecided." Relaxing his dance frame Henry looked into Rita's eyes and smiled.

  "Please don't think I'm patronizing, but you strike me as being cut from a different quality of cloth than most of the ladies present. You have a nimble mind and a vocabulary apart from most snowbird women I encounter, that I find very refreshing. Am I correct in assuming you had a career apart from raising a family?"

  Returning his smile she answered. "If you're sincere in your statement of appreciating the fact I have a brain and with the capability for using it, then I have to believe you sprang from a different species of men than I have encountered so far in my life." Becoming serious, Rita continued. "You were right about my career. I spend my working years with Air Force Civil Service, never married nor had children. You're very intuitive. Do you also tell fortunes?" When the music ended, Henry remained standing where they stopped dancing holding her hand. He replied.

  "No, I failed at telling fortunes, but I appreciate intelligence whenever I have the good fortune to find it. As for you being a lady with active gray matter, all the more interesting." The music began again and they resumed dancing. Henry held Rita firmly without attempting to crush her breasts or rub his genitals against her.

  "My god, can this guy be real? Rita thought. "If he's real I'd be a real chump to run him off. I think I'll give just enough to keep him interested," as she moved close enough to feel her breast touch his chest. Lifting her eyes and looking Henry in the eyes, Rita asked.

  "What occupation have you followed? I assume you're retired or do some kind of consulting work, which allows you to select when and where you choose to go." She felt Henry draw her a little closer as her breast rubbed firmly on his chest.

  I'm a geologist. During my younger years I worked for several large mining interests which took me to most places in the free world. Since retiring a couple of years ago, I've taken summer jobs in the cooler portions of the world and mixed business with pleasure. I'm also an amateur historian of sorts. It keeps me occupied in my spare time."

  Brightening to a new subject Henry elaborated. "There's an abundance of unrecorded history in northwestern Canada and eastern Alaska. Many books have been written about gold rushes and bush pilots, but very little ink has been spilled telling stories of early white men and women who mushed and walked through vast unexplored region in that part of the country. Many went in search of their dreams, but few returned. It's my ambition to give a small measure of recognition to some of these early men and women who unintentionally gave their lives in search of a dream."

  "You have and continue to live an interesting life, Henry," acknowledged Rita. "I probably make up a majority who never give much thought to the first early settlers who just pushed off into the wilderness unmotivated by anything other than a dream. Would it be fair to refer to them as Little People who played large, yet unrecognized roles, in pushing back the frontiers in this country and Canada?

  I suspect you also gave up part or all your family life in the course of your travels. I can't imagine taking a wife and children to many of the places you have journeyed."

  "I did attempt mixing family and career for awhile," Henry replied. "As you accurately perceived, it didn't work. My wife was very much of a homebody and didn't take to the idea of traveling to primitive places or having an absentee husband nine or ten months out of the year. Result, she divorced me while I was on a job in South America. Fortunately there were no children to become fatherless. I understand she married a small town veterinarian and has lived happily with a brood of children. I'm glad for her."

  Rita and Henry remained constant dance partners until Henry left two hours later. Before leaving Henry asked, and Rita accepted to have dinner together the following evening. Henry was causing Rita to experience conflicting states of emotions.

  He exhibited many qualities she thought a man should have. He obviously enjoyed the closeness of a woman without resorting to lusty clutches and suggestive innuendos' past experiences caused her to expect. He was well read, exposed to and could talk about cultural subjects and most of all he accepted her as an intelligent equal. Or perhaps on the other hand he was a patient smooth talker waiting to score when she became trusting and vulnerable. Still worse, he could be a gold digger preying on lonesome widows in search of someone to support him.

  "My God," she thought. "Have I become too wrapped up in my own conceit as to believe my ass is some sort of a Holy Grail every man in the world is searching to claim? One thing for sure, it certainly isn't going to get worn out at its current rate of use. Why not take some of Nellie's advice and quit culling men so thin?" I should have enough business experience to know if he's a gold digger or not." Rita's thoughts were disturbed by Julie sitting down with a man in tow.

  "Rita, meet Sam. Sam, meet Rita. It turns out Sam comes from a town not far from Westbank. He knows some of the people we grew up with eons ago. It's small world, after all these years."

>   Nice to meet you, Sam." Rita smiled.

  "It's my pleasure, Rita. Julie told me about you traveling around so much during your working years. You must have enjoyed an interesting career."

  "Rita, if you want to go on home? Sam has offered to drive me home." Julie said along with a wink.

  "Sure thing, I was thinking about going home anyway. I suspect you'll not be in any shape to face the world before sometime tomorrow afternoon. I'll try not to disturb you.