by Meg Muldoon
“Well, I guess I should have a look,” he said, nodding to the car.
I forced a smile.
“I’d be grateful,” I said.
He hobbled over to the open hood of the Escape, and I let out a long sigh of relief.
Chapter 3
“She’s gonna need a better man than me to get ‘er up and running again.”
The stranger with the scar on his face backed away from the hood, letting a big wad of spit squirt from the side of his mouth onto the gravelly highway shoulder. He took off his hat, revealing the balding roots of his stringy grey hair, and with the back of his wrist, wiped away the beads of sweat that had accumulated on his forehead. His hands were blackened with oil.
I bit my lower lip. The thought of the upcoming mechanic bill and tow service that I was almost certainly destined for made me feel like I’d just swallowed a pound of lead.
“Well, I appreciate your help very much, sir,” I said. “I guess it’s just one of those things.”
“Yep,” he grunted. “Some days you’re the dog. Other days, you’re the fire hydrant.”
I felt the edges of my lips turn up at the unexpected humor.
“Ain’t that the truth,” I said.
He wiped his hands off on his jeans, then closed the hood of my car. It came down with a loud, reverberating crack.
“I’m passing through Christmas River if that’s where you’re headed,” he said. “Nobody’s sitting in the passenger seat of my truck. If you’d like, I can drop you off wherever you want to go.”
The lead in my gut only seemed to grow heavier as I glanced quickly from the wiry man to the heap of smoke and metal he called a truck.
The stranger had given me every reason to trust him. And there was nothing more that I wanted to do than get off this highway and back home to Christmas River.
But being married to a sheriff, I also knew one other thing:
You never get into a truck with a strange man who you don’t know. Ever. Especially when you have no way to call for help.
I knew from the news and from stories that Daniel told – doing something like that was how you ended up with your face on a missing poster in the Sheriff’s Office.
“That’s very kind of you,” I said. “But, uh, I think I would be more comfortable staying put.”
I gazed into the man’s dark eyes for a split second, trying to gauge his reaction.
A moment later, he abruptly turned on his heel, heading back to his truck without saying so much as a word to me.
Then I watched him open the driver’s door and climb in.
“Dammit,” I muttered, shaking my head silently to myself.
How was I ever going to get off this stupid highway now?
I headed back to the Escape. I unlocked the trunk and began pulling one pink pastry box out at a time, placing the pies in a small shady clearing where they had a better chance of surviving the journey than in a metal box beneath a hot September sun.
I wasn’t wrong for turning down the ride – I knew that much. But I also couldn’t help but feel some regret about it. Because just what did I think my options were here? Somebody would have to give me a ride back to Christmas River. And that also meant inevitably I would have to trust someone.
Just, maybe not that man.
I bit my lower lip, placing another one of the pink boxes in the shade.
I hated admitting it to myself. But as welcoming and open-minded as I attempted to be, I wasn’t immune to making judgments. This man right here was a prime example. He had done nothing but help me. He had stopped when others had zoomed on by without a second thought. He had spent a good chunk of his afternoon trying to fix my car, and when he couldn’t fix it, he’d offered to drive me into Christmas River.
And how had I repaid him for his kindness? I said that I’d rather stay put on a steep mountain pass for all eternity than spend an hour in the passenger’s seat of his truck—
A shadow suddenly passed over the stack of pies in front of me.
I turned around, nearly gasping as the man’s dark eyes drilled into mine.
“I called Phillips’ Tow Company in Christmas River,” he said. “They said they’ll be here in about an hour or so. And I thought maybe you might want to call that husband of yours, too. Let him know that you’re all right. I know if I was him and you didn’t show up when you said you would, I’d be worried.”
My mouth dropped open as the man with the scar and the limp handed me his phone.
He readjusted his cap in a nervous manner, then dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
“It’s a satellite phone,” he said. “Normally, I ain’t the kind to carry a fancy phone like that. My daughter insists on it, though. Where I live, it’s pretty rural, and she’s always concerned that I’m gonna have some medical emergency and need the thing to call for help.”
He drew his shoulders together sheepishly.
“She doesn’t understand that I choose to live out in the woods for a reason. But I let her buy that phone for me and keep it going because I know it’ll give her some piece of mind.”
I couldn’t quite believe that he had one of these.
“I mean, you don’t have to call your husband if you don’t want to. But I thought—”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I will. I mean, I’m just really…”
I trailed off, swallowing back some nervous spit.
“Thank you, sir,” I said, looking him squarely in the eyes. “I really appreciate it.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be much of a man if I turned my back on you,” he said.
His lips spread into a smile, bringing out jagged crow’s feet around his eyes.
I smiled back at him as the phone rang.
Never judge a book by its cover, I thought.
Truer words were never said.
“This is Sheriff Brightman, how can I—”
“Daniel, it’s me,” I said into the phone.
“Cin? Are you at home?”
“No,” I said. “I’m still up at the pass.”
“Are you all right? Is everything okay?”
His voice was tinged with worry.
I glanced at the Good Samaritan, who had walked a few feet away, giving me some privacy.
“Everything’s fine,” I said. “But if you could spare a couple of hours Sheriff, then I could use some help up here.”
I heard rustling in the background then.
“I’m on my way,” he said.
I grinned, hanging up the phone.
Chapter 4
“Sometimes I wonder whether it’s the trees doing the talking, or whether it’s the voice of the wind we’re hearing,” the man said, leaning against his truck and looking up as a hot wind shook the towering Ponderosa pines around us. “I’m predisposed to believe that it’s the trees whispering to one another about what they see from where they stand in the forest, but I haven’t solved that riddle yet.”
I smiled.
“Sounds like a question that only a poet would ask,” I said.
I’d told the stranger that I’d be fine waiting for Daniel and the tow truck by myself, and that he’d already helped plenty. But the man wouldn’t hear of it and flat-out refused to leave me stranded alone.
At first, I’d felt awkward about having to wait an hour with him. But with each passing minute, he surprised me more and more. His conversation wasn’t the kind that you heard every day, and there was something easy and nice about it that seemed to belong to a past era.
“A poet?” he said, taking off his hat, running a hand over his thinning grey hair and flattening it even more. “Naw. I’m just a dabbler in thought who reflects every now and then on what I see.”
I chuckled.
He took in a deep breath of air and closed his eyes, an expression of pure joy lighting up his face as he did. Like the air was as sweet as strawberries in June. He tilted his head up toward the sun, letting its rays spread across his deep wrinkles and that
pale scar.
“Sometimes on a warm day like today, when I close my eyes and breathe in real deep like now, I think I can hear another voice besides the trees,’” he said. “It’s a small, quiet voice. Real faint. Hardly noticeable to most.”
He paused for a long moment.
“Want to know what it says?”
I raised my eyebrows.
The man was more than likely a little crazy, with the way he was going on about trees and the wind and voices.
But I had nothing better to do, and I was curious to see just how deep the crazy ran in him.
“Sure. What’s it say?”
“It says ‘There’s only one thing worth all the dyin’, all the bleedin’, all the cursin’ and cryin’ and howlin’. Only one thing worth all the burnin’, the runnin’, the thievin’. One thing and one thing alone…”
“The voice says to me, ‘Love, pure love, is the only thing that brings the evil of the world to its knees. Love is the only thing in this mean old world that’s worth anything.’”
As he spoke, his voice lowering to a whisper and rising and falling like the sound of the wind, I felt a strange, pleasant warmth rise up in my chest.
The stranger might have been crazy. But he was the good kind of crazy.
“That’s beautiful,” I said.
He shrugged.
“They ain’t my words. Just what I hear out in these pines. The secret to the universe is written out here, you know. The farther I am in these woods, the louder that little whisper gets. ”
“Have you always lived here?” I asked.
“No, not always. But I moved to Central Oregon as soon as I could drive,” he said. “I heard so much about it growing up. And my blood runs green, you see. Green like the pines up here.”
He eyed me suddenly, his dark eyes unreadable.
“How about you? Your blood run green, too?” he asked.
The stranger sure had a funny way of phrasing things. And for a second, I contemplated the question, not understanding it exactly.
“Yeah, I guess it does,” I finally said. “I was born and raised in Christmas River. I left for a little bit in my 20s to go to school and work in Portland. But I couldn’t seem to pull myself away for long.”
“Once this place’s got you, it’s got you for life,” he said, nodding.
Another gust of hot wind wound through the trees around us, and he paused, as if it he didn’t want to interrupt the trees speaking to one another.
“So how is it that you support yourself in Christmas River, then?” he finally asked.
“I run a pie shop.”
That made him smile.
“A pie shop, huh?” he said.
I nodded.
“You like what you do?”
“I wouldn’t do anything else,” I said, with a grin. “Baking pie is my passion in life.”
He stroked his chin, seemingly in deep thought.
“Sounds like a good living,” he said. “Getting to do what you love every day is a reward unto itself. Doesn’t matter what the bank account says.”
I smiled.
I’d had that very same thought plenty of times, especially back when I was just starting out and didn’t have $100 to my name. I still believed the sentiment these days, even though the amount in the bank had increased and things were a little easier.
“So is that what that is over there?” he asked, nodding to the shady area where I’d placed the pastry boxes. “Pie?”
I nodded.
“I’ve been working in Portland a lot this summer, expanding the business,” I said. “I was bringing them home for a party tonight.”
He nodded, seemingly transfixed by the stacks of pink boxes. As if he was imagining all the sugary, fruity goodness contained inside.
“Say, would you like a slice?” I asked. “They’re Marionberry. They’re tart and sweet and I guarantee you that they’re juicier than any pie you’ve ever tasted before. The berry season’s just about over, so I’d say get in on this pie while you can.”
The stranger wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and I knew that the description had caused him to salivate a little bit. I knew that because after nearly a decade of describing pie to customers, I’d seen that very reaction plenty of times.
He paused for a long moment, as if thinking hard about something.
And then, to my surprise, he shook his head.
“No. No thank you,” he said. “You made those especially for something. I can’t be taking your business.”
“Are you kidding? It’s the least I could do for all of your help this afternoon. I mean if it wasn’t for you stopping, I’d still be out here trying to flag someone down—”
I stopped talking as the whooshing sound of a large vehicle barreling westbound around the bend grew louder.
I turned around just as the large truck came into view.
Phillips’ Tow Company was stamped across the side of the truck in black letters.
And as it slowed down, I noticed that another car was trailing it.
A Pohly County Sheriff’s Office cruiser.
“Looks like the cavalry’s arrived,” the stranger said.
I almost felt a little sorry they were here. I’d been enjoying our conversation so much.
But then I saw Daniel step out of the car, and that feeling vanished altogether.
Chapter 5
“Say… wait a sec!”
I shouted and started running after the truck along the pine-needle strewn shoulder. But either the stranger didn’t hear me, or pretended not to.
A moment later, his twisted heap of a pick-up curved around the bend, disappearing out of sight.
Daniel and I had been busy transporting the pastry boxes into the trunk of the Sheriff’s cruiser when the man with the limp had quietly slid inside his truck and decided to pull away.
“Dammit,” I grumbled.
I hadn’t even gotten the man’s first name.
I let out a long sigh, watching as the dust kicked up by the commotion spread out in the clear mountain air.
“He really took off there,” Daniel said a moment later, coming up next to me. He draped an arm over my shoulder reassuringly as we both gazed at where the truck had disappeared beyond the bend.
A little while later, I looked back up at him. His pale green eyes sparkled in the strong September sun and took my breath away a little bit.
I had missed those familiar eyes something fierce this summer.
“Did you get his name?” Daniel asked.
I shook my head.
“I didn’t even get a chance to really thank him for stopping and waiting with me,” I said. “All I know is that he lives somewhere rural – not too far from Christmas River, I think.”
Daniel clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
“I wanted to thank the man myself for looking after you,” he said.
At the very least, I should have insisted that the stranger have a slice of pie – in fact, I should have given him a whole one to take back home. It was the least I could have done considering how much he’d helped me this afternoon.
Though he might have scared me a little bit when he first pulled up, the man with the limp had turned out to be that all-too rare breed of human being who’d spend their whole afternoon helping a stranger and expect nothing at all in return.
“You don’t see too many of those anymore,” I said.
“Anymore of what?”
“Good Samaritans,” I said.
There’d been something special about the stranger. Something that now made me feel remorseful that he had left in such a hurry. And the unsettled feeling that I hadn’t expressed my gratitude properly.
Daniel rubbed my shoulder, seeming to sense my disappointment.
“Don’t sweat it, Cin. I’m sure there’s a way we could find him again—”
“All right, Sheriff,” Chris Phillips, the tow truck driver, shouted. “We’ve got ‘er all hooked up and w
e’re heading back to Christmas River now.”
The Escape was suspended at the back of the truck. I swallowed hard, thinking about the cost of towing a truck 60 miles.
Daniel nodded at the driver.
“We’re right behind you,” he said.
We walked over to the Sheriff’s cruiser as the tow-truck’s engine revved. I opened the passenger door. But before getting in, I stopped, gazing at the bend where the Good Samaritan’s truck had disappeared.
“Thank you,” I whispered out loud.
It wasn’t anywhere near enough.
But for now, and for the rest of the day at least, it would have to do.
Chapter 6
My hair had fallen flat. My dress was wrinkled. A good helping of highway dust still clung to my skin. And I was out $576.75 in mechanic and tow truck bills.
But against all odds, I had made it back to Christmas River in time for the annual Sheriff’s Office Search & Rescue Volunteer party.
And, maybe a little more importantly, so had the dozen pink pastry boxes that had come dangerously close to getting roasted in a hot car that afternoon.
“There she is,” Wes Dulany said, lowering the cold pint of beer in his hand and flashing one of his million-dollar smiles at me. “The Pie Queen of the Northwest finally returns home.”
I walked across the grass of Meadow Park beneath strings of ambient outdoor lights toward Wes Dulany, Angie Dulany, and Kevin Hayward – three of the Pohly County Sheriff’s Office’s brightest and nicest Search & Rescue volunteers. Wes did a mock bow, lowering his head in an exaggerated gesture. Then he took off his Redmond Elks baseball cap, revealing a shock of messy blond hair.
He tipped his hat at me like I was royalty.
I felt my cheeks glow at the over-the-top greeting, and I struggled to come up with a clever way to respond. Being called “Pie Queen of the Northwest” threw me for a complete loop.
In fact, I couldn’t help but blush profusely.
“Don’t embarrass Cin like that, Wes,” Angie Dulany said, sidling up to her husband and wrapping an arm around his waist.
Angie, who was dressed in a flattering yellow sun dress that was a distinct departure from her usual hiking boots, shorts, and utility T-shirt get-up, flashed a warm smile at me. I almost didn’t recognize her – she’d even curled her long red hair for the occasion, which was usually thrown up in a high ponytail.
