by Ken Dickson
“If it’s any consolation, I’d do it all over again.”
“It was a fun ride. Thanks for asking me to go. I’m sure that we would have had a fabulous time.”
“Yeah. Okay, some space it is. I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too.”
It was a far cry from the conversation that I expected, but despite that fact, it was strangely liberating, giving me fresh hope of repairing my marriage. In short order, the burning in my heart extinguished, replaced with a spark of hope. After regaining my composure, I called Beth. She picked up one ring before the answering machine.
“It's me. How are you?” I asked.
“Tired. It's difficult managing everything alone. To make matters worse, the van is making a strange whirring noise.”
“Sounds like the power steering pump or maybe an idler pulley. You want me to come over and look at it?”
“Thanks, but I’m having Jeff look at it tomorrow.” Jeff lived right across the street from her and was particularly talented at coaxing miles out of older vehicles.
“That’s good. He’ll steer you in the right direction.”
“How's trailer life?”
“Okay. Not much to manage. I had a roommate for a while: Carlos. I really enjoyed having him, and he kept the place spotless, but he moved into one of the new homes.”
“That name sounds familiar.”
“I met him at Pinecrest, but he’s changed a lot since then. Hey, I'm going up to Chama, New Mexico for a few days to look at some land for BRI. I was wondering if you'd like to join me.” My heart raced in anticipation of her response, which took forever.
“Thanks, but I think I'll pass. I would like to talk sometime, though.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Okay, whenever you want. And Beth,” I hesitated, wondering if it was the right thing to say, “I’ve never stopped loving you.” For a moment, I thought I heard her catch her breath.
“I… Well, have a good trip.”
It wasn't much, but it was the most progress I'd made in months. Rather than fret over Jessie, I felt as giddy as I did after my first date with Beth.
***
On Sunday, May 11, 2014, I left for Chama, driving east through the Salt River Canyon, through Show Low up to I-40 and from there to Gallup. I stopped at a Wendy’s for lunch in Gallup and then took Highway 491 north through the arid New Mexico desert. The road ran straight as an arrow for miles at a time with only an occasional stone monolith breaking the monotony. I grew increasingly tired until finally, with the cruise control set at seventy-two, my head slumped.
The car held steady for a time and then began to weave, at first crossing the centerline and then heading back toward the shoulder. Seconds from leaving the road, a voice woke me. “Ken, wake up!” Just then, the wheels left the pavement, and the car careened down an embankment, leaning steeply to the right. I tried to turn back onto the road, but the car began to fishtail, and I feared it might roll. Forced to ride it out, I fought the steering wheel and applied the brakes judiciously to slow the car while still maintaining control, smashing through frail desert brush and barely missing boulders until finally, the car came to rest in a cloud of dust. As I leaned over the wheel, trying to calm my nerves, I remembered the voice and turned toward the passenger seat. Clear as day, Beth returned my gaze, her face a mixture of horror and concern. I rubbed my eyes and looked again, but she was gone.
When I was mentally ill, I hallucinated a few times. I called them hypnagogic dreams: dreams mixed with reality. My experiences back then were entirely due to sleep deprivation. Perhaps I was pushing the limits again. Or perhaps it was just my imagination. I shook it off and stepped from the car to inspect the damage, figuring that I’d at least have a flat tire. Thankfully, although filthy, the car appeared to be fine. I got back in, reversed back up the twin scars I’d left in the desert and then continued my journey.
Arroyos, washes, buttes and mesas, the desert grew drier and more dramatic with each passing mile. One giant stone monolith looked like a cathedral. The road continued north through the town of Ship Rock, where I bought some soft serve ice cream and iced tea to help me to stay alert. Then, I drove east on Highway 64 through Farmington. Beyond Farmington, the elevation climbed steadily, and the scenery grew lush as I entered the high desert. Cedars dotted the faces of hills and pines jutted from their peaks.
Just outside of Chama, I crossed the Continental Divide at over seven thousand eight hundred feet. The road finally ended at a T directly in front of a Phillips 66 gas station. I filled up with gas there and then drove fifty feet to my motel: the Chama Trails Inn.
The sixteen-room Chama Trails Inn is an L-shaped single story structure with the office at the end of the south leg, and for some reason, a one-story addition above rooms eleven and twelve at the end of the west leg. It sported a rustic red steel panel roof, contrasting with blue painted trim and a white stucco exterior, again except for rooms eleven and twelve, whose walls were inexplicably brown.
I went to the office to check in. On this particular day, everything but the suite—room sixteen—was sold out due to a biker’s rally. I paid for the room and took my bag to it. With the adjacent rooms impossibly close on either side, it appeared to be anything but a suite. However, opening the door revealed an unexpectedly large corner room. No sooner had I done so than I heard Beth’s voice again: “Nice view.” I instinctively looked ahead toward two sliding windows. The view through the right one was indeed magnificent. Two chestnut mares grazed in tall grass no more than fifty feet away from me, each perfectly framed by one half of the sliding window. Behind them, tall poplars reached for the sky, and just in front of those, a rusting white horse trailer leaned precariously on a pair of flat tires.
I walked to the open window and a cool evening breeze greeted me—the only air conditioning offered by this hotel. After a time, I took stock of the room. There were three queen beds, each with four pillows and white down comforters. The furnishings, white-washed and painted in a southwestern motif, appeared hand-made. Colorful southwestern paintings graced the walls. A free-standing gas burning faux wood stove shared floor space with a 1990s vintage CRT television set on a plain, whitewashed stand with an old DVD player tucked beneath it on a single shelf.
Once I’d unpacked my suitcase, I drove into town to find dinner, settling on the Boxcar Café, directly across from the Cumbres and Toltec train station. As I ate, my view through the window was of a 1920s era steam engine, releasing steam after a long day of hauling tourists into the Rockies. After dinner, I returned to the hotel and soaked in the vintage Jacuzzi bathtub, admiring the hand-painted tiles in the bathroom wall as I did. After that, I went to bed.
Late that night, I awoke and squinted toward the empty pillow beside me, half-expecting to see Beth. She wasn’t there. Convinced she was nearby, I sat and scanned the other two beds. Sure enough, she was in the one closest to me reading a ghostly book propped against a pillow next to her. She turned, peered over her reading glasses and smiled at me in the dim light. Apparition or not, she won’t be caught dead in the same bed as me. Just then, she and her book faded, leaving only an empty, undisturbed bed.
On Monday, I awoke, showered and ate breakfast at Fina’s less than a quarter-mile north of the motel. Without the sign out front, you might mistake Fina’s for a residential home. Fina is the boss lady, server, cashier—you name it. She cooked and served me bacon, eggs and a pancake and then took my money at the register. I left Fina’s, drove just over a half-mile south and showed up right on time for my 10:00 a.m. appointment with Northern New Mexico Realty. I parked the Elantra and then entered the large building, which looked more like a renovated barn than a real estate office. No sooner had I walked through the door than a gray-haired, bearded man with full black eyebrows approached, dressed in a light plaid shirt, blue jeans and hiking boots. “Ken Dickson, I presume?”
“Yep. Tim Cain?”
“The one and only,” he
said, his brown eyes twinkling with enthusiasm. He extended his hand and we shook. “You’re right on time. Can I get you some coffee?”
“Water would be fine. I just ate a salty breakfast at Fina’s—I’m already getting thirsty.”
“Fina’s the best—a real down-to-earth, hard-working gal. So, you want to see the ranch, huh? Nice property. A bit of a ride, though. I hope you’re up for it.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing it.”
Tim handed me a chilled water bottle. “After you,” he said, gesturing toward the door.
We headed toward a late model, dark green Jeep Rubicon sporting a massive aftermarket front bumper and the most serious winch I’d ever seen.
“Wow, that’s some winch. You ever use it?”
“I’ve hooked to a tree or rock a few times to pull myself out of a jam. It gets pretty slick in these parts when the snow melts. I couldn’t do this job without it. By the way, it’s a twenty minute drive to the forest service road leading to the property. It will be all four-wheel drive shortly after that. Are you all right with a little off-roading?”
“Sure,” I replied, keen for a new adventure.
We hopped into the Jeep, buckled up and headed north through Chama on Highway 17. After crossing the Colorado border, we exited to the right on a decent dirt road and drove for about a mile. Then, Tim stopped the vehicle.
“Are you ready?
“I guess,” I replied, uncertain as to what I was in for.
He shifted the Jeep into four-wheel-low and proceeded up a steep, rutted incline into the forest.
“This is about as good as it gets for the next hour,” he said as we jostled about. “It’s only about twelve miles to the land, but this is unimproved Forest Service road. Hardly ever gets graded.” Fifteen minutes into the ride, we came to a small meadow with a single camp trailer parked in the middle. “That’s the last sign of civilization you’ll see. No one dares take a trailer beyond this point.” Just then, a pronghorn sheep darted from behind the unoccupied trailer, crossed the meadow in a handful of leaps, and disappeared from view.
The ride seemed endless and incredibly rough. I heard a groan from the back seat and turned to see Beth. She held desperately to a handhold above the door and braced her other hand on the seat to stabilize herself. The look on her face was one notch below fear. I chuckled to myself. I was enjoying her company more and more, even if she wasn’t real.
“Do they actually grade this?” I asked doubtfully.
“Only when it gets really bad.” I couldn’t imagine it being worse. It must be nearly impassable when wet, even with four-wheel drive.
We arrived at an open meadow with a few scattered spruces. “This is the highest point of the property,” Tim announced. “Just over ten thousand feet.” We got out, and as we walked around, Tim indicated the farthest reaches of the land. A door shut and I looked back to see Beth beside the Jeep. Moments later, she stood beside me, pulling her light gray sweatshirt tightly about herself. I noticed for the first time that it was indeed very chilly. At mid-day it was barely fifty degrees. Patches of snow still clung desperately to the shady side of nearby rocks. “It seems pretty cool today. Is this normal?”
“Typical for this time of year. The last snow just melted recently. In the winter, the snow is over ten feet deep here. The only access is by snow machine.”
We returned to the Jeep, drove for another ten minutes and then stopped on a ridge overlooking the last four hundred acres of property. The photos didn’t do it justice. Only in person could you appreciate such grandeur. A lush green valley filled with tall grass and wild flowers stretched downward for hundreds of yards to the sparkling river meandering through it and then rose again on the opposite bank equally far to spruce forests and distant snow-drizzled mountains. The gurgling of river water over rocks was discernible even at this great distance due to the lack of any other sound.
The valley stretched for miles in each direction, well beyond the boundaries of the ranch. It was indeed breathtaking. At that moment, a strong wind howled ominously through nearby spruce, and it grew even colder than in the meadow that we’d just left.
There was a reason the land was so pristine—it was inaccessible for most of the year and even in the best of times was difficult to reach. It was clear to me that there would be no building here unless materials were hewn from local trees or flown in by helicopter, and the living conditions would be extreme. As I weighed all of my concerns, I reached an inevitable conclusion: this was not the home for Amistad. At my side, Beth shook her head no, then shrugged her shoulders as if to say, “Oh, well.” I had always appreciated and even sought out her wisdom. I nodded back as I thought of that and as I did, she grew transparent, and in an instant, I found myself staring at grass and rocks.
I listened and watched for her on the ride back. I expected that I might see her as I walked through the stores and quiet streets of downtown Chama later that day. I thought that she might appear in the vacant seat across from me as I ate dinner at the Boxcar Café once again. But I never saw her or, more appropriately, the apparition of her again.
I couldn’t believe how much I missed her. More and more, I appreciated what she brought to our relationship. Instead of completing me, she complemented me. She didn’t make me stronger, but lessened the impact of my weaknesses and smoothed the inevitable bumps of my life journey. She saw when I was blind, held my hand when I was frightened and loved me when I was unlovable. Her differing viewpoint was not a threat, but a prize. Most importantly, as I learned when I was sick in hospitals and psych wards, she was by my side through the worst of times, even though I frequently had no recollection of her being there. Finally, she had the strength to walk away when, after everything she’d done for me, I slept with another woman.
On Tuesday, I drove back to Primera, uncertain as to where the home for Amistad would ultimately be and equally uncertain about my own future.
Chapter 37
CUT
The day after returning from Chama, I threw together a quick breakfast: peanut butter on whole-grain toast, a banana and a glass of whole milk and decided on a whim to eat it on the big rock. With my plate and glass in hand, I headed out the door to the trail leading to the rock. As I approached it, I noticed a pleasant change. The formerly dusty, root-infiltrated trail was now a perfectly smooth path of uniform gravel lined with stones on either side. It appeared as though Emma sneaked in once more while I was away.
When I reached the rock, I saw a wooden box on a post next to it with a note that said “Open me.” I placed my breakfast on the rock, flipped the latch on the lid and peered in. Inside, was a brand new pair of Nikon variable zoom binoculars. That woman is something else. I slipped the binoculars’ strap around my neck and climbed onto the rock.
As I ate the toast, I spied on the community below with the binoculars. Though it was early, people were already up, and many were outside eating breakfast on their porches or patios. As I observed, a dark, out-of-focus form streaked across my field of vision followed by a rustling sound on the ground below. I lowered the binoculars to investigate.
To my astonishment, a red-tailed hawk had landed on the trail and was strutting about oddly with its wings fully spread. I didn’t know what to make of it at first, but then, I heard the unmistakable warning of a rattlesnake. An instant later, the rattler, all but invisible against a backdrop of rocks and brush, lunged for the hawk’s wing. The hawk sidestepped the strike and leapt at the rattler, catching it just behind its head with its powerful talons. The snake writhed madly, trying in vain to free itself or coil around the hawk’s body. Meanwhile, the hawk glanced nonchalantly at its surroundings, flapping its wings occasionally to avoid the snake’s attempts to entangle it as it fought for its life. For an uncomfortable length of time, the hawk stared emotionlessly at me as if driving a point home. Then, without warning, it drove its beak through one of the snake’s soulless eyes directly into its brain. In moments, t
he snake went limp. The hawk gazed at me once more and then, pumping its wings laboriously, flew into the air with the snake in tow.
Everything happened so fast that I barely had time to think, but reflecting now, my first thought was of walking by that snake only minutes before and the next was that I would have walked by it again after finishing my breakfast. The hawk may have saved my life. Additionally, its stare seemed to warn me to be more vigilant. As I watched the hawk shrink with distance, I heard the scree of its mate, who apparently had observed everything. It swooped down, and they flew off together.
I felt a deeper awareness of my surroundings after that. I returned to spying on the neighborhood with new zeal, increasing the magnification of the binoculars to better scrutinize my neighbors. As I did, I couldn’t help but notice how healthy each of them looked. All of them were an ideal weight, had shiny hair and clear complexions. Although I saw these people every day, this new perspective allowed me to appreciate something that I’d missed: they were striking. I suspected that when people lost their negative emotions, they’d lose their dysfunctions, but I didn’t realize that good psychological health would result in good physical health.
For a brief time, I watched Carlos visiting home four. He’d brought animal-shaped pancakes for the adorable five-year-old fraternal twins—rambunctious Timmy, with his perpetually tousled blond hair and freckles, and precocious Tammy, with her long dark braids and curious brown eyes. The three sat at a table on the front patio, talking and laughing as they ate. Carlos’s physical and mental changes were the most startling of all.
The way everyone looked reminded me of when I raised guide dog puppies for the blind at a local club. At any given time, there were nearly two dozen dogs in training, all of them the picture of good health. When the dogs were young, we fed them as much as six cups of food a day, but as they aged, we reduced their food to as little as two cups a day to maintain a perfect weight. At that weight, the dog was said to be cut: its waist curved in instead of out, and you could nearly make out its ribs. When a dog was cut, it had more stamina, fewer medical and joint problems, and its service career could extend to more than ten years. By the time a dog became a guide, the guide dog organization had invested much time, effort and money into it. It was imperative that raisers did their part to keep that dog cut.
