Later I awoke feeling much better and decided to wear my new green sweater with a more stylish pair of jeans. I freshened my make-up, curled my hair a little, then slipped out without waking Rusty.
Jesse, her husband, James, and their two sons came for dinner. Jesse jabbed James in the ribs. “What do you think?” she said, pointing at me. “Boyfriend sweater?”
“Definitely. Why didn’t you buy one?”
“Because on me it looked like a ‘my big, fat boobs don’t fit in this sweater’.”
“You’re not fat.”
“Do I have this guy trained or what?” Jesse asked me. “Watch this, does this blouse make me look fat?”
James rolled his eyes and recited, “That blouse couldn’t possibly make you look fat.”
I hoped I never had Rusty that well trained. Jesse wasn’t really fat; she was a mom and had gained a little weight with each child. She might not fit into her old clothes as she once had, but she wasn’t fat.
“Where’s Rusty?” Jesse asked.
“I laid down for a nap and he’s still asleep.”
“Mmhmm, yeah, right. You showed him the sweater didn’t you?” she accused teasingly.
“I did not. He hasn’t seen it yet.”
“You’re talking better now!” said Patrick brightly.
“That’s because I’m rested.”
“Will you tell me a story?” Patrick always wanted to hear a story. I was glad I had a couple handy. He especially liked stories involving animals.
Just then the dinner bell rang. I didn’t feel ready to climb all those stairs again so I was glad when Rusty appeared on the top landing. He came down the stairs and looked at me approvingly in the new sweater. Jesse gave me an “I told you so” look as Rusty hugged me close right in front of everybody.
“Mmm, nice sweater,” he said. “Why haven’t I seen it before?”
“Because we just bought it today.”
“I’ll have to send you shopping with your mom more often.”
“Please, Aunt Cassidy, can you tell a story?” Saved by the kid.
We all gathered around the table and Patrick watched me, ready for the adventures to begin. Jesse’s eyes glanced from me to Patrick and then back again.
“Pat wants to hear a story,” I announced to everyone. “Do you have the patience for it?”
“Cassidy, you don’t have to if it’s too hard for you,” Jesse said.
“I’m doing good for now. I can get through one. Do you want to hear the airplane story or the bear story or the moose story or the mountain lion story?”
“Start at the beginning!” Patrick said enthusiastically.
“Okay, that would be the airplane story. When Uncle Rusty and I went on our honeymoon we flew to Minnesota and then we got on a little airplane that can take off and land on water. The pontoon plane took off from St. Paul and it was really cool watching the forest and lakes go by. I even got to sit up front with the pilot and he told me about all the animals I might see at the lake where our cabin was. When we were almost to the lake our airplane had engine trouble! At first the pilot told us to sit down and buckle up, but since I had parachuted in the Marines I chose to strap into a parachute instead. I thought I could always buckle up after I put on the parachute. As it turned out, though, the pilot said the airplane was going to crash and so Rusty put on a parachute and we both jumped out of the plane over the woods of Minnesota. There was only one small problem! My parachute wouldn’t deploy! I was falling through the air and I couldn’t get my parachute to open.”
“I don’t want to hear this,” my mother said. “You shouldn’t tell this to your parents. We’re both going to die of a heart attack.”
“Speak for yourself,” my dad said. “I think it’s fascinating, she obviously made it, didn’t she?”
“I tugged and pulled on the parachute trying to get the fabric to catch in the wind and I was tumbling through the air thousands of feet above the ground. I figured I had about five minutes before I was a big splat on the ground. Finally my parachute opened part way, but I was falling awfully fast. I came in for a very hard, fast landing on a lake. Fortunately, I was able to see where Rusty came down and so I swam in that direction. It felt like I was swimming forever and when I finally got to shore I was so cold. I couldn’t get warm no matter what we did! We had to spend five days in the woods with no food. We snared a rabbit and made a fish trap. One day we only ate cattails and we even made strawberry tea without a pot or anything. Rusty thought that was really weird that we could make strawberry tea without any tools.”
“How did you do it? Mom has teabags and a whistling teapot and a pitcher and everything. How do you do it with none of those?”
“Some day I’ll show you… how to do it.”
“Cool!” said Patrick. “Too bad I don’t like tea.”
“It’s good for you in a… survival… situation. It has lots of vitamins in it. One day we ate a vole.”
“What’s that?”
“Have you ever seen a guinea pig in the pet store?”
“Yeah, they are noisy.”
“Voles are… kind of like that except smaller… and brown.”
“You’re talking funny again,” Patrick observed.
“Patrick!” Jesse said. “That is rude. You apologize to Cassidy. She can’t help it.”
“It’s okay, Jess, he’s… just being a kid. I wish… adults would be that honest sometimes.”
“Uncle Rusty?” Patrick asked, and although it sounded strange to me it was true, Rusty was his uncle now.
“Yeah, Pat?”
“Did you arrest the guy that beat up Aunt Cassidy?”
“The police did. I went to the hospital to take care of Cass. He was shot in the raid and he is still in the hospital, but if he lives he will spend the rest of his life in jail. He did a lot of bad things.”
“I’m glad you catch bad guys,” Patrick said.
“I just wish I could catch them quicker,” Rusty added.
Scrapbooking. Who would have ever thought there were so many gadgets just for pasting pictures in a photograph album! And it can’t be just any photograph album either. It has do be acid free, linguine free, super duper, extra creative, bradded, journaled, embossed, and decorated photograph albums. I was shocked at the amount of work Jesse had put into arranging my honeymoon pictures. We sat down, each with our two page spread and went to work.
“Here’s ribbon, die cuts, stickers, brads, eyelets, paper, scrap paper, fancy scissors, rubber stamps and embellishments. Help yourself.”
“What… do I do?” I asked, not knowing where to start. She handed me my five photos.
“Find paper that goes good with the theme of the pictures.”
I had the airport pictures. Red, white and blue airplanes. The old corrugated airport with its floppy orange windsock.
“Red?” I asked.
“You can do better than that. What do you remember most about that particular memory?”
“The old, broken down building of the tiny airport.”
“Okay, well, I think we have some tin roof paper. That would look like an old corrugated metal building. Then you can add travel embellishments.”
“Now is not the best time for me to try and get creative.”
“It’s okay, just ask before you stick and I’ll tell you if it looks good.”
It took me half an hour to leaf through all the hundreds of sheets of scrapbooking paper, but she was right, there was one that looked like an old tin roof. Why would anybody need paper of an old tin roof? Or spaghetti noodles, or grass? I couldn’t believe the weird paper Jesse had available.
The tin roof paper was too busy for a large area so I decided to use it as accents with rust colored paper for the background. Then I cut out a windsock shape from a scrap of orange. Jesse cropped the pictures before I started piecing things together. She actually cut them up! But they were focused better once she was finished.
Fiddling with all the little pieces of paper taxed my brain and I became weary rather quickly, but finally we both had the last two-page spread done.
“Wait,” Jesse said, “I have brads that look like rusty nails. Add those and it’ll tie it together better.”
“Jess… I gotta quit. I need a nap. I just can’t…”
“That guy really did a number on you, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“Here, it’ll only take a second.” She fished around in a plastic bin and brought out a little Ziploc bag of brads. She poked a few through some corners of my photo mats, bent the tabs back and declared the book done. “Now you can see the whole thing.”
We looked at the book page by page and I exclaimed in broken sentences what a good job she had done then told her about each of the pictures. She had placed the boyfriend pictures on a two-page spread as the centerfold and then added ribbon with the word romance running down it so I could even tie them closed if I wanted. I wasn’t sure how she managed it but the pages were formally masculine as well as casually feminine all at the same time. She’d picked up colors from the picture she knew Rusty liked, and that added a rustic charm to the pages, but there was also a feminine wispiness about them too.
“Jesse, how… can I thank you? You put so much… work into this.”
“Just get better. A mom’s got to do something when the kids drive her nuts. I do crafty things.”
“I need to go home… and sleep.”
“You want a ride?”
“It’s only… quarter mile….Yeah, I want a ride.”
I walked into the ranch house and looked at the stairs. No way. I wasn’t tackling those stairs.
“Mom? Where’s Rusty?”
“He went out shooting with Randy. He’ll be back in an hour or two.”
“You have a… blanket handy?”
“There’s one in your closet.”
“Too far… okay.”
I stumbled out the front door and lay on the porch swing. The wood was freezing but I didn’t have the energy to find a better place. A blanket soon appeared and my mom went back into the house with a tsk, tsk. I wrapped myself up in it, lay back down again and was out like a light. After a while I awoke with the slight jiggling motion from the swing, heard shoes on wood, then a gentle, “It’s just me. Don’t jump. Okay? It’s just Rusty.”
“She knows that,” Randy said.
“Not always, and you should see her when she doesn’t. She’d likely hurt both of us.”
He picked me up, blanket and all and carried me inside.
“Babe, you were freezing out there. You need to be inside on a day like this. Come on, up to your room.”
The next day we decided to go riding. Steve saddled the horses for me. Rusty didn’t enjoy riding yet, but it was because he wasn’t at home on a horse yet. He was able to make his way through the gaits and would remain seated, but then dismounted awfully sore. A trail ride would be good for him and an easy way to get more experience in the saddle. We rode out to the wood where the fox den was, and I showed him the site where the mother fox had attacked me for getting too close to her babies. I found old fox tracks but they weren’t using the den at this time of year. I showed the tracks to Rusty and we followed some for a while. I was relieved that I was able to follow a fox trail. Tracking was difficult because I had to walk, focus on the trail, and concentrate all at the same time. My brain still felt scrambled and it didn’t take long to wear me out. I tied Shasta’s reins to Rusty’s horse.
“Can I… ride with… you?”
“You okay?”
“Think I… overdid it.”
Rusty climbed into the saddle and left me a stirrup so I mounted the horse behind him.
“Nope, I want you in front. You look like you’re about to crater.”
“You need… stirrups.”
“I’ll be okay.”
So I slid off and barely remounted in front of Rusty. He said the magic words, “Let’s go home Mac.” And his horse headed back to the stable. I leaned back into Rusty and the warm familiarity made me feel comfortable and sleepy. I was so used to the movement of a horse that I just rode with it naturally in my sleep with Rusty’s arms wrapped around me.
“Cass, don’t push yourself like this. What if you’d been out here alone?”
“Got to push to… go anywhere.”
The ranch hands rushed up when they saw a riderless horse. Randy took Shasta and came back quickly.
“What happened to her?” Randy demanded of Rusty accusingly. He’d always been over protective of me. He had lived on the ranch since he was fourteen and thought of me like a little sister, even though I was two years older. He’d outgrown the mad crush he once had on me but his protective nature never let up.
“She’s just tired. She went too far and overdid it. She’ll be fine.”
I threw a leg over Mac’s head and slid to the ground where Randy promptly caught and steadied me. I led Mac to the barn.
“No way, Cassidy. We’ll take care of it.”
“It’s… my job.”
“Not if you’re fired. When you can talk clearly you can groom horses all you want.”
“Did Dad… give you orders?”
“He doesn’t have to. By now we know.”
I walked into the ranch house, Rusty following. I looked at the stairs with disgust. I didn’t have the energy to climb all those stairs and the living room was starting to look more appealing, especially if the fireplace was lit. I went to the back porch and took a log off the stack. Rusty promptly took it from me with a glare.
“All you need to do is say something.”
“Doing… saying… about the same effort.”
We brought the wood around front and Rusty went inside with an armload of logs. I turned and noticed Jesse’s old pickup coming slowly down the road. It was weaving around strangely and suddenly veered to the side taking out a corral fence post. That section of fence tipped in and fell over. Where was Jesse? Or James? And then it hit me, it had to be Patrick! As the truck came coasting around the corner and went by the front of the house I could see him standing on the seat, looking out the windshield and then glancing down again at the pedals.
“Rusty!… Help!” I managed to shout as I dashed after the truck. I ran after Patrick, praying he wouldn’t hit the gas. I was getting winded really fast but ignored it and put on a burst of speed. I managed to grab the door handle and yank it open. I pulled myself up and in, shoving Patrick to the passenger’s side and stomped on the brake. The truck slid to a halt and I shifted it into park. Things were swimming around as I slid out of the driver’s seat. “Who… told him… story ‘bout… me an’…tractor?” I mumbled as I slumped to the ground.
Crackling. I could hear the fire and felt the warmth seep into me. I lay there drifting, unable to move for what felt like a long time. Rusty noticed I was awake and took note of the change. He didn’t push me to move and since I was comfortable on the couch he just sat with me, not even broaching the topic of the truck.
“Thank you… for putting me… on my right side. How long… have I been… out?”
“We’re on our fourth log.”
“Funny… couldn’t climb… stairs… but I can chase… down a truck.”
“Old Frank told Patrick about the tractor.”
“Figures… today… right?”
“Yeah, it doesn’t take Patrick long. Now rest. Try and sleep. You’re trying to do too much.”
I slept for most of the afternoon and Rusty kept the fire going. I faded in and out but never really had enough energy to move. He’d talk to my dad, then to Steve. The subject of Stern and the beating never came up. I knew it meant Rusty wasn’t dealing with the aftermath very well and it was still a tender spot.
“Cassidy? Dinner time. You need to eat something. You’re wasting down to nothing. When I carried you in I was shocked. Can you eat dinner with us?”
“Yeah, I’ll try.”
“Aunt Cassidy, I’m sorry I drove the truck,” Patrick said as I took my seat next to Rusty. I knew Jesse put him up to it.
“Did… Old Frank tell you… what happened to me… when I drove the tractor?”
Old Frank suddenly looked guilty.
“I had… to mend… the fence… wash the tractor… and did extra chores for a week.”
“I don’t know how to mend a fence!” he said, worried.
“If… you’re going to be… a cowboy like… your dad… it’s about time… you learned. But that’s… up to your parents. Having been… in your shoes… I’d let you off easy.”
“You’re talkin’ weird again. I’m sorry I hurt your brain.”
“Pat… you didn’t… I just have to rest.”
I knew from the expression on Patrick’s face that he blamed himself. I’d told him that my brain hurt and he had come to associate my speech with the severity of the condition, so it was a logical conclusion for a small child to come to. He jumped down from the table and ran out the back door. I got up to go after him.
“Where’d… he go?” I asked Jesse.
“Probably the tree house.”
Shoot. “Okay.”
I started out the door and followed the road to Jesse’s house. I could see Patrick up ahead running toward the tree house and I started smiling. The tree house I’d built myself and it was where my nephew ran when he was feeling sad. It took all my energy just to walk down there and then I would have to climb up too. You can’t talk to a sad kid by yelling up at a tree house. There was a rule about that somewhere. You have to be like a kid yourself when you’re with them, at least aunts who look like little kids do. I took the ladder slowly and crawled up into the tree house, all the time trying not to use my left arm.
“Did you… climb… the rope to… get up here?” I asked.
He was sniffling and red eyed. “Yeah. I tried and tried until I learned how, but I can climb up the rope easy now.”
“I knew… you could do it. Pat… you didn’t hurt… my brain. It just takes time… and… you know what?”
“What?”
“I bet… no one’s really mad… at you for driving… the truck. You have… to learn to wait… until you’re… the right age to do things…. Grandpa and Grandma and Steve… they are all… saying, oh, no, not again! Not another Cassidy… we barely lived through the first one…. See… you’re a lot like me…. At the same time they admire… your inde… independence and quick thinking… you’ve got spunk… and they like that…. If they punish you… for taking the truck… take it like a man…. Do what they say… and learn from it…. But you didn’t hurt my brain. I know you… wouldn’t treat a person like that mean man… did to me. You care… about people… or you wouldn’t be sad… for me.”
On the way back to the ranch house I told him in stuttering, broken sentences about seeing the bear on my honeymoon and how it stole our breakfast. By the time we got back I was barely standing, could hardly talk and needed to eat something, but I was only able to manage a few bites. I made sure to eat a few vegetables and a little meat. I stayed at the table for Patrick’s sake, but when everyone began dispersing I headed to my room and quickly fell into a deep sleep. Rusty jiggled me a little before he went to bed and again in the morning to make sure I was actually sleeping. It was very unusual for me to sleep past him, but when he decided I was just tired he showered, dressed, and started the day. It was Thanksgiving.
I slept on and on, my body apparently demanding rest after the previous day’s excitement. A few hours before dinner, my mom came into the bedroom causing me to jump in fright.
“Are you okay?” she asked as she sat next to me on the bed.
“Rusty, should have warned you. I’ve been jumpy.”
“I thought you’d want some time to get dressed for dinner. Do you need help?”
“Come back in an hour. I’ll shower and do my make-up before I put the dress on.”
“You’re sounding better.”
“Yeah, the sleep helps. Don’t let Patrick ask for the mountain lion story over dinner. If he asks, encourage Rusty to tell him about the moose.”
“What’s wrong with the mountain lion story?”
“It involves human body parts.”
“Oh, right. Cassidy, how do you get mixed up in these things?”
“I just went out tracking. I saw a mountain lion. I’m lucky I did, too, or Rusty wouldn’t have found me.”
“Huh? You lost me somewhere.”
“It’s a long story.”
I got up feeling better than I had in days. My head felt clear and I was able to shower easier, nearly one handed. I put on make-up, curled my hair, then took out the dress. As with most of the fancy dresses that looked good on me, this one was woodsy colored. My cute dresses are colorful and perky while my fancy dresses have muted tones with textured fabric that that tend to hug my body a little. My mom could spot a dress for me from across the store. She had clothing radar or something. She came in later and helped me slip my left arm through the hole and then zipped up the back of the dress.
It was time to find Rusty. I was sure he’d been bored stiff for most of the day but when I found him he was visiting with a group of guys in the living room. He noticed me at the top of the stairs and I felt very self-conscious as I walked down. He stood when I got to the bottom of the stairs.
“Who’s this stranger posing as my wife?” he asked in a teasing voice.
“Careful, that one’s trouble,” Randy commented.
“Trouble in disguise,” added Zack.
I let them have their fun.
“I’m glad you’re feeling better, but you really do look different and it isn’t the dress. What have you done with yourself?”
“I didn’t do anything. Did you see the scrapbook of honeymoon pictures? I helped Jesse finish it up.”
“You’ll have to show me. But really, Cass, something’s different.”
“I promise, nothing’s different. I’m not stuttering but that’s because I just had a long rest. But other than that I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Are you pregnant?” my mom called out from the kitchen. “If you were that would account for it.”
“Mom! No, I’m not pregnant. That’s a silly thing to ask!”
“Why? You’ve been married four months. Lots of couples get pregnant sooner than that.”
“Well, I’m not. I don’t know if I even want kids. We haven’t even talked about having kids.”
“You don’t need to talk about it to do it,” Randy commented, and then quickly blushed in embarrassment.
“Well, I’m not pregnant and I’m not planning on getting pregnant and I don’t know what you think is so different except that I do feel much better today. Can’t we just be glad of that?”
“Of course we can dear,” my mom replied.
The conversation turned to the safer topic of horseracing.
“Cassidy, you’re about the size of a jockey,” my dad observed. “Would you test out a new colt we’ve got in training?”
“No,” Rusty stated adamantly.
“What did you say?” asked my dad in disbelief.
“I said no. Cass shouldn’t be racing.” Uh oh. Did Rusty know what he was doing? Rusty continued, “And if someone asked Betty to do something dangerous I would hope you would say no, too.”
The ranch hands immediately stood back to watch the action play itself out.
“Cassidy?” Dad said, turning to me.
“You’re not putting me in the middle of this debate. If I ride the colt I’d be going against Rusty’s wishes and if I don’t then I’d be going against you. Either choice is wrong.” Wow, I couldn’t believe I just did that!
“Harrumph,” Dad said. “I can’t believe, my own family.”
“Mr. Gordon, you’re asking more than you know. You didn’t watch Cassidy just two weeks ago trying to walk again. One spill on the racetrack could cost her months and I’m not willing to risk that.”
“Is it safe to ring the dinner bell?” Martha asked, sensing fireworks.
“There’s no need. We’re all here except Jesse and we know they are on their way,” Dad replied.
As we were sitting down to our huge Thanksgiving dinner Jesse and her family arrived with the kids dressed in slacks, white shirts and bolo ties. Jesse was wearing a new outfit that we just bought on our shopping trip. All the ranch hands wore pressed jeans, colorful western shirts, string ties and shiny black boots. Dad and Rusty were both wearing sport coats and ties. The mood turned festive again and we all sat down to steaming plates of turkey, roast beef and leg of lamb with all the fixings. This year, I told myself, I was going to have more pumpkin pie. Last year I had spent my whole trip working on academy homework and had nearly forgotten about pie, but not this year. I was determined to get my pie. Plates were passed and conversation became quiet for a while until Patrick had cleaned his plate and then asked the inevitable question. Would I tell another story? So I told him about stalking the wild moose, making it sound a lot more dramatic than it actually had been. He asked for the mountain lion story, too, but I told him that would have to wait until after dinner.
“It ties into several other stories that some people might not want to listen to, so we don’t want to tell it when everyone is at the table. Plus some of it is a little bit gross.”
Rusty mentally went through the whole story as he remembered it and started looking worried. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it either.
After dinner everyone settled in the living room with pie and Patrick persisted.
“Pat, it’s a very long story. And the mountain lion portion is only a short part of it. And some of it is gross…”
“Cool!” he interrupted.
“Not cool, sad, and other parts are sad too. Do you still want me to start it? What about everybody else?”
I received numb stares in return. Nobody was sure with the exception of Patrick.
“Okay, well, if you get up and leave I won’t be offended.” I then started way back with the flat tire and the mean man who had been trying to make me believe he was nice. I told them about Stern prowling around the house and the bird nailed to our front door. I told them about seeing the mountain lion and something being wrong about the sighting. I then mentioned how we watched the mountain lion eating people at the graves and how much it had upset me. I explained how Rusty had gone back to investigate and the mean man coming back and kidnapping me. I didn’t delve into all the psychological aspects of the experience because there were some things young boys didn’t need to hear. Then came the part about getting stuck in a cage and being with the fighting dogs and getting thrown in the pit with the dogs biting at me… I tried to skim over the violence, and then I suddenly realized Rusty didn’t know about the pit. I abruptly cut the story short. Oh man, I should have been more careful. Everyone listened as I continued explaining how Rusty had made the connection between the mountain lion and the dog fighting ring, how the police had raided the barn, and how Stern had taken everything out on me and I realized Rusty didn’t know that information either. Perhaps Rusty was protecting me from flashbacks, but he hadn’t heard the whole story, and now everyone knew. Finally, I told them about waking up in the hospital and having to basically learn how to talk and walk again and about all the friends who had been there for me.
“Stern beat you because the police showed up?” Rusty asked. I heard the real question, though. He was blaming himself. He’d set up the raid. He’d sent the undercover cop in and Stern had seen Rusty there.
“Stern wasn’t thinking straight,” I told him. “It’s not your fault that he beat me. I could have prevented the beating. All I had to do was let him use me as a shield and he would have tried that, but I refused and that’s why he beat me. I wasn’t going to let him use me against you, and then after it started I couldn’t stop him.”
Rusty’s anger flared and I could see the storm clouds brewing. He excused himself and started for the door, obviously needing some time alone to think. Then Patrick’s little boy voice suddenly piped up, “Don’t be mad! You’ve never been mad at each other! Please, don’t be mad! You should be glad Aunt Cassidy’s brain doesn’t hurt anymore! You should be glad!” Patrick suddenly leapt to his feet ready to flee from the room. Everyone else remained seated obviously shocked by everything that had just transpired. Rusty scooped up Patrick as he ran by and the young boy lashed out at him.
“Hey, buddy, settle down, it’s okay. I’m not mad at Cassidy. Stop. Patrick stop. You said something that’s very important. How you can tell that Aunt Cassidy’s brain doesn’t hurt any more? Please tell me. I need to know. You can hit me all you want, but I just need to know.”
Patrick settled down when he realized that Rusty wasn’t angry with him. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and looked down at me from way up in Rusty’s arms. Patrick then sniffed out his reply. “She doesn’t talk weird anymore, even when she’s sad and scared and… and her eyes are pretty again.”
“What? Her eyes are pretty again?”
“Yeah, when her brain hurt she didn’t see right. It looked like she was looking behind me when she was looking at me, and it looked weird, and now she doesn’t do that. She’s got pretty eyes again. And I thought, I thought her brain was better. And I was glad for her and then everybody got mad.”
Rusty paused. He took a couple of deep breaths.
“Out of the mouths of babes,” he said softly, the storm clouds dissipating. “You’re right Patrick. You saw what nobody else did. I’ve been trying all night to figure out what was different about Cassidy and I couldn’t. Thanks for showing me that. You’ve done more for me than you’ll ever know. You’ve given me reason to be happy again.”
Rusty set Patrick down and he ran over to his mom and hid, obviously ashamed of his outburst. After a while he shyly returned to Rusty. “I’m sorry I hit you and yelled at you, Uncle Rusty,” he said in a rather rehearsed tone of voice.
“That’s okay, Patrick. You were just standing up for what you thought was right. It takes a brave kid to stand up to me.”
Patrick was right. My brain didn’t hurt anymore. It felt wonderfully free to be able to think clearly again. I could talk and walk at the same time. Patrick and I enjoyed quiet activities together that wouldn’t get him into further trouble or over tire me. We stalked the rabbits in the paddocks and tracked the ranch hands and dogs. I rode Shasta through a barrel racing cloverleaf and even took him over some low jumps. Rusty was finally able to see the album of our honeymoon pictures, though I had to get over my embarrassment of knowing the ranch hands had seen them all, too. I really wanted to finish Rusty’s birthday present but I had to go home to complete it.
For Rusty’s birthday, I decided to make a collage of memories and souvenirs from our honeymoon that didn’t fit into the scrapbook. I bought a poster-sized shadow box frame. I hung the parachute, snare, and rabbit pelt inside. Then I chose six favorite photos and attached them framed inside the display. I didn’t have an artistic eye, but I hoped with some experimentation that it would resemble a miniature museum exhibit of our trip. Gradually the project took form until, at last, nearly a month late, I presented it to Rusty. We decided to hang it in the living room because it complimented the photos that Mark had given us. When we had guests they would pause in the living room, intrigued by the display. They could identify each of its components but were unable to decide why I’d gone to so much trouble to make it. With this quirky display, our honeymoon adventure would always be a great conversation piece in our home.
After the visit to the ranch I had very little stamina, but I knew that would improve with time and hard work. So I walked knowing it would still be weeks before I’d have the endurance to go out on a call. I had to be able to hike and carry a pack before Strict would call me again, so I pushed for that goal. Tourist season was over in the Angeles Forest but winter was coming and with it the inevitable snow rescues. First things first, though. Hiking. Then backpacking. I could do it. I’d get there. Eventually.