CHAPTER SIX

Niki slept until the sun warmed the tent and her sleeping bag heated to an uncomfortably hot temperature. By the time they had reached the campsite, cut new ridgepoles, set up the tent, unloaded their belongings, tended the sheep, horses and dogs, and ate dinner the night before, she had all but collapsed onto her cot. She hadn’t heard her grandfather rise, but she had no doubt he was out counting sheep to make sure they hadn’t lost any along the way.

Outside, she stretched and looked around at the spectacular scenery surrounding her temporary home. Sheep grazed in the meadow cradled by tall pines, the dogs dozed nearby and the horses and mules seemed completely at peace as they leisurely nibbled at grasses and swatted at flies with their tails. The only sounds to be heard were the faint gurgling of the nearby creek and bees buzzing around purple wildflowers, yellow Arrowleaf Balsam Root, Indian Paintbrush and tiny white flowers so delicate and pure they looked like fresh snowflakes.

Here, it was easy to forget that the rest of the world was on the brink of a major crisis and Bob and other area ranchers had gone to Washington D.C. looking for answers, seeking help, fearing for their families’ safety. She hoped Bob would be back home soon with good news and everything would be returned to normal by the time she left the mountains, but until then, she would enjoy her isolated world where there were no deadlines, schedules, financial catastrophes or a pending war.

Niki grabbed the old blackened and dented aluminum coffee pot, spare water jug and cosmetic case, though it contained no cosmetics, and headed for the creek. She filled the pot and jug with cold water before starting her sponge bath. The first splash of icy water on her face woke her up completely, making her feel alive and alert.

After getting ready for the day, she made her way back to camp, fully loaded down with drinking and dishwashing water. It had been a year since she last camped out, but she hadn’t forgotten a thing. Niki quickly built a fire and hung the coffee pot and dish water over the flames. She rooted through her grandfather’s supplies and those she had brought with her, and decided the coffee cake she had baked before leaving Denver would do well for the first morning, even though it was nearly noon.

She had just retrieved her sketch pad from the tent when she heard her grandfather’s mule approaching. When Sally and Bess were separated, they made no effort to hide their discontent and when reunited, they were just as vocal. The two old mules were so close Niki feared if one died the other wouldn’t be far behind. She hoped her grandfather would retire before that happened since he loved the animals nearly as much as they loved each other.

“I knew if I stayed away long enough you’d get a fire built and the coffee on,” he said as he dismounted the mule and started loosening the cinch.

“It makes me so happy to be here with you.” Niki stood and kissed him on the cheek.

“I was starting to worry you’d never wake up,” he joked as he grabbed a piece of coffee cake. “I expected you to be up at the crack of dawn, fishing pole in hand, making a sneak on those cagey little brookies or at least creating one of those beautiful pictures you always draw.”

“I planned on going fishing early this morning, but by the time I finally crawled out of my sleeping bag, the prime time was well past. Yesterday was such a long day and I was so exhausted that I guess it’ll have to be an early evening outing instead. But, I’m ready to get to work now. Did we make it here with all the sheep?”

“Looks as if about a half a dozen ewes dropped off along the way. I thought I’d take a mule and Gracie and backtrack after lunch and see if we can round them up. You can come with us if you want or you can stay here, relax and try to catch us some trout for dinner.”

“Fresh brook trout for dinner sounds great, but what if I don’t catch any?”

“You’ll get my famous salt pork, beans and cornbread.”

Niki smiled, but didn’t say anything. She wasn’t sure if he was joking or if he actually thought his beans were good and she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I’ll just catch fish if it kills me, she thought as she sipped her coffee and smiled at him over the rim of her cup.

After lunch Niki watched her grandfather ride off on Sally, with Gracie trotting happily alongside. She could see why he was so reluctant to give up this lifestyle. All summer he lived in one of the most beautiful places she had ever seen with only amiable sheep, loyal dogs and wildlife for companions. He did as he pleased and was treated well by the Blackburns. In the winter he lived at the ranch and spent his time repairing tack and tents and doing whatever odd jobs he could scrounge up, though the Blackburns didn’t really expect him to do anything. While she, on the other hand, lived on the sixth floor of a building in a tiny apartment, commuted for forty-five minutes through bumper-to-bumper traffic to and from work, and had a demanding boss and a group of petty coworkers who would gladly stab her in the back and steal her ideas to get ahead, with the exception of Kate.

She pushed her coworkers out of her head, put out the fire and tidied camp. It seemed as though it always took her about a week to put her job behind her and truly relax, but she was determined to forget it all sooner this year and make the most of her extended vacation. The thought of spending an entire month in the mountains was exhilarating, but the circumstances which created the extended opportunity kept nagging at her mind and she hoped for a speedy and peaceful resolution.

Niki believed the best fishing was early morning and just before dusk, so she had plenty of time to explore before catching dinner. She made her way to Storm and checked his hobbles. He could run nearly as fast with them on, but since the rest of the horses and mules couldn’t keep up, he generally didn’t go too far, so she didn’t have the heart to cross-hobble him.

She pulled a carrot out of her pocket and was rewarded with a head rub along her arm before he yanked the vegetable out of her hand. She checked the water buckets they had brought up for the animals the night before, so they wouldn’t have to hobble down to the creek for water, and found those were still full.

Satisfied the animals were okay, Niki continued to explore the area to familiarize herself with the new campsite. As she wandered, she caught enough grasshoppers to use for bait later in the day when she started fishing, a task not nearly as easy as it sounded. When the old mayonnaise jar was full of mad hoppers, bumping against the glass, she poked several small holes in the top to give the insects enough air to stay alive, and then placed them in the shade for later.

After she had taken care of the bait issue, she climbed the rise behind the meadow, giving her a good view of the sheep and camp. Niki sat down with her sketch pad and watched the forest. A doe and fawn wandered out and grazed alongside the sheep. Stella’s ears pricked and the dog watched the deer, but didn’t move from her post. Before long the deer moved on and the dog laid her head back down on the grass and slept in the warm afternoon sun.

Niki sat on the rise and sketched. Her drawings were a world away from her graphic design work, but so far sketching scenery and wildlife had only been a hobby while marketing and advertising paid the bills. Her job consumed so much of her time that she seldom worked on her sketches except during the weeks she spent in the mountains with her grandfather each summer. To her, drawing was, and always had been, pure therapy and something she looked forward to all year long.

Growing up, she spent the school year in a modest apartment in Chicago with her mom and her mom’s lifelong, but much older friend, Doris. Both women worked at a factory. Niki hadn’t liked Chicago, but knowing she would spend the summer in Wyoming with her grandfather had kept her from rebelling. Thinking back to how hard her mother had worked to save enough money for airfare each summer made her feel guilty. At the time she hadn’t realized what a hardship it must have been and hoped her mother hadn’t realize how unhappy she was when not with her grandfather.

When her mother died in a car accident during her senior year in high school, Doris had supported her so she could graduate with her class and had helped her apply for scholarships, enabling her to go to college. She had no doubt the Blackburns would have taken her in, but she had been too proud to let them or her grandfather know how marginal her situation had become. When not at the ranch or at college, she always went back to Doris, having no place else to go. She exchanged Christmas cards with the older woman, but as Niki looked out over the scenery in front of her, she realized that wasn’t enough—she owed Doris more. She would fly her mother’s best friend to Wyoming as soon as she could save up the money and let her experience the beauty and serenity in person.

Niki continued to think about the past as she sketched, but as usual, avoided contemplating the future. The mountains brought her peace and the thought of giving a little of that feeling to the woman who had sacrificed so much for someone else’s child made her anxious to run the idea by her grandfather. He would offer to help even though he had so little, but she wanted to do this for Doris on her own.

She sketched the mountains, the meadow, the sheep and the horses grazing in the background. When she finally set her charcoal pencil down, the sun had started its journey toward the horizon, signifying it was time to try her luck at fishing.

Niki stowed her sketches and made her way back to camp. She was surprised her grandfather hadn’t returned, but if the sheep had wandered in the opposite direction or had scattered it would be a time consuming project to gather and herd them to the new camp. She struggled to push the worry down as she grabbed her pole and tackle box and headed for the crystal clear water of the shallow creek.

For the first thirty minutes she didn’t get a single bite and started to fear her first real meal at camp might be beans after all. Niki spied a large downed tree upstream, which created a deeper pool and was shaded by overhanging willows. The stream would have been perfect for fly fishing, but she’d never been able to master the cast, so would have to make do with her current method.

Deuce had given her his old fly rod the summer after her freshman year in high school. He had taught her how to tie flies, but no matter how much she watched him or how hard he tried to teach her the cast, she just couldn’t do it. More often than not, she lost his flies in a tree or a patch of willows or snagged her own hair with a hook. She remembered his patient fingers gently entangling her hair from the miscast fly. He never complained and she wondered if his hands in her hair would still feel so good.

She still tied flies whenever she found time, an activity Kate teased her about unmercifully. Niki found the craft to be relaxing and it reminded her of the mountains and Deuce. She had tied some for him for Christmas, but hadn’t been able to summon the courage to mail the package, so the small cough drop tin of newly tied flies sat in the bottom of her tackle box.

Niki picked up the tin and opened the lid. She wasn’t even sure if he still fly fished, but these flies had been some of her best work and she had wanted him to have them. Niki snapped the tin shut and buried it at the bottom of the tackle box.

Damn you, Deuce, thoughts of you deserve to be filed with work and city traffic and that’s where you’re going.

She silently crept to the edge of the pool, careful not to let her shadow cross the water’s surface. She expertly dangled her hook and waited. Before long, Niki was rewarded with a slight tug on her line. Excitedly she reeled in her catch and had to laugh at the size of her tiny trout.

“I’ll need at least half a dozen this size to make a meal and I’m not sure I have enough daylight left,” she giggled while re-baiting her hook with a struggling grasshopper and casting it back into the water.

Within an hour she had caught enough trout for a hardy dinner, but tried to stall, hoping her grandfather would come wandering down to the creek just in time to clean the fish. Niki liked to catch fish and eat them, but wasn’t too fond of cleaning or cooking them, so her and her grandfather usually divided the labor. Niki admired the way he could clean fish with just several swipes of his knife. He tackled the chore like everything else he did in the mountains, with complete ease.

She once again wondered what was taking her grandfather so long and had to fight the urge to worry. To keep her mind off her grandfather, Niki decided to buck up and just clean the fish herself—he would be tired when he returned, and hungry. She secured the stringer of thrashing trout in the creek and headed toward camp to get a knife when a dull thumping sound reached her ears. The closer she hiked to camp, the louder it grew. Soon she was able to identify the noise as a helicopter.

Niki jogged the rest of the way to the tent and grabbed the binoculars. The helicopter was flying low and in the direction she and her grandfather had ridden from the day before. If they were still at the previous camp, the helicopter would have flown directly overhead. Here, the noise was loud enough to panic the animals, but she doubted the pilot could actually see their camp. Niki assumed the craft had something to do with the control tower—maybe they were relieving the guards or bringing in supplies—but as much as she strained her eyes, she saw no American flag on the helicopter, only what looked like a maple leaf.

The bleating of sheep drew her attention away from the craft. Several ewes had started to run and soon the rest followed. Stella took off after the leaders, but chaos erupted with only one dog to maintain order. Bess trotted after the sheep braying loudly, seemingly confused by the noise and commotion. Storm pranced with his tail arched, long mane flowing and head held high, but made only half an effort to run with his hobbles on.

Niki grabbed the lead ropes and ran after the horses and mules. She easily caught up with Deuce’s old pack horse, clipped its lead rope on and tied it to the high-line they had rigged when they arrived at camp. She whistled like her grandfather did and to her surprise, Bess stopped and trotted back. After tying up Bess she went after Storm.

She was out of breath by the time she reached the creek. Storm stood quivering at its edge, eyes wild and thunderous, clearly debating whether or not to jump into the shallow water with hobbles on. Under normal circumstances the horse had no problem entering water much deeper and wider, but being hobbled made him a little more cautious.

“It’s okay, boy. Just stand there,” she spoke soothingly, trying to calm the tense horse. “I ran out without a carrot, but if you let me catch you I’ll grab one when we get back to camp.”

Storm turned to her and snorted, nostrils flaring, but made no effort to flee and after several more moments he relaxed. She continued speaking to the horse in a low reassuring voice as she eased closer and clipped his lead rope to his headstall. Niki tied him up just long enough to remove his hobbles and then started back toward camp. As she crawled up from the creek bank, Niki realized she had chased the horse further upstream than she had originally thought. Using a downed log for a boost, she mounted Storm bareback and trotted toward camp.

Stella was making progress rounding up the sheep, but one small group remained out of the dog’s reach while dealing with the rest. Niki galloped after the errant group. The sheep didn’t respond as well to being herded by a horse rather than a dog and it took her multiple attempts to bring the young ewes back to the band.

Darkness had settled over the camp by the time the sheep were rounded up. As soon as the horses and mules calmed, Niki checked their hobbles and released them. She got back on Storm and did another quick loop around the sheep before deciding she had done all she could for now. Exhausted, Niki slid off Storm’s back and knelt down to pet Stella.

“Good girl. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

The dog licked her hand and wagged its tail, proud of the work it’d done.

“Come on. Let’s get you some food. You’ve more than earned it. I wish Papa and your Gracie would get back¾I’m not liking this one bit. They could have easily ridden all the way to the old camp and back by now.”

The dog cocked its ears and titled its head as if understanding everything Niki said and followed her and Storm back to the tent. She fed the dog, gave Storm a carrot and stared out into the darkness until her eyes hurt from the strain, but no light or familiar sounds came.

The silence of night after the pandemonium created by the helicopter and fleeing animals was unsettling. It didn’t feel right and she prayed her grandfather would come home soon. Deuce’s insistence that he was getting too old for the job ran through her head. She cursed Deuce out loud as her heart longed for his strength. She refused to ever admit she wanted him, but as worry settled in Niki silently confessed she needed him.