still sitting here waiting, and that chick is still pecking pretty hard at the shell. Come on, honey. Let it out.”
Sandy pursed her lips, inhaled, and tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “It’s probably nothing, but, it’s just that . . .”
“Keep going.”
Sandy spoke in a halting, tentative voice, groping cautiously, slowly through her concerns as the truck followed its course along the old river road, up around Willard Lake, and down the county access road to the gate on the fire road that followed the headwaters up to Keefe’s bungalow. She tried to play it down, admitting she had precious little evidence on which to found her fears. One minor mental slip about her gate key and a couple of faulty trout flies hardly amounted to proof of developing dementia. And yet, it was out of keeping. Keefe was focused, thought carefully about what he was going to say before he said it, and his flies were always tied with such precision and expertise. Working in a nursing home, she’d obviously become quite familiar with the various signs and symptoms of dementia, but then again, she wasn’t a specialist, just an LPN, and residents in the home with serious forms of dementia were housed in another wing of the facility, one in which she’d never worked. Keefe was normally a withdrawn, introspective man, and even an expert would have found it difficult to catch signs of aberrant behavior. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that on that day she’d met up with Keefe in the clearing, he’d been lost, unable to remember the way back to the bungalow. That he’d been sitting there, waiting, confused, hoping she’d come along to guide him home.
When they turned into the entrance of the fire road, Sandy stopped the truck and got out to open the gate. “Like I said, it’s probably nothing. I’m probably just overthinking it all.” Sandy stood by the open door of the truck, lightly shaking the ring of keys in her hand.
“Maybe. This stuff is tricky, you know. So, what do you want from me? A second opinion?” Margie leaned forward in the seat and looked past Stink as she spoke.
“I guess so.” Sandy stepped around the open truck door and started toward the gate. “What I really want is for you to tell me I’m full of shit and to stop fretting about nothing.”
Margie leaned her face out the open window on her side of the truck cab. “I can do that for you right now, without further investigation.”
Sandy worked her key into the rusted padlock that fastened the link of heavy chain holding the gate closed. As was often the case, she struggled with the old lock, inching her key back and forth, seeking the right spot where the key would catch with the corroded tumblers.
“You sure you’ve got the right key for that lock?” Margie’s head leaned all the way out her window, a wicked grin on her face.
Sandy scowled good-naturedly over her shoulder at her friend. “There’s a trick to it. Gotta catch it just so. There,” she said, as the lock finally gave way and she walked the gate open. Sandy moved her truck through the open gate, got out to relock the gate, and returned to the truck cab.
“All right,” Margie said. “Let’s go see what your aging boyfriend is up to.” She lifted her hand from Stink’s back and reached to Sandy’s shoulder and squeezed it gently. “I’m sure it’s nothing, honey,” she said. “Really, now that I think of it, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that you’d think too much about such things. Think about it. You spend almost all your time with the elderly, so to speak. James, not that he’s really elderly, bless his heart. Your residents at the nursing home. And let’s not forget about this old guy right here.” Margie patted the top of Stink’s head, causing his tail to slap back and forth between the two women beside him. “I think I may be the only person you know who’s actually your own age.”
As was his wont, when they arrived at the bungalow and let him out of the truck, Stink walked around to the front of the cottage, hiked his leg on the bottom step, then walked up the remaining steps to wait on the front porch. Keefe was fishing in the wide, gentle pool across the small clearing in front of the bungalow, but Stink didn’t appear to have seen him. Neither did Sandy and Margie, until they retrieved their gear from the bed of Sandy’s truck and followed Stink around to the front of the house. When she saw him, Margie froze in place, her arms limp at her side, and her mouth dropped open slightly. Sandy paused, ran her fingers over her forehead, and chuckled softly, before moving in beside Margie and dropping their gear to the ground.
Keefe stood in the middle of the pool, fly rod in his right hand, plying the seam of the current with his usual deft, efficient casts. As always when fishing, he wore his weathered brown fedora. Otherwise he was completely naked. His forearms, neck, and face showed only a slight tanning of the skin from limited spring sunlight; the rest of his body, surprisingly sinewy for a man his age, displayed a predictable winter pallor. No sooner had they spotted Keefe than a fish responded to his elegant cast with a strike. Sandy had always admired the graceful serenity in Keefe’s retrieval of a caught fish—never rushed, never any undue strain, never a hint of excitement or uncertainty. Caught up in her appreciation for Keefe’s technique, Sandy forgot for a moment they were watching a naked fisherman. Keefe squatted as he brought the fish to hand, the tension in his thigh muscles visible even from their distance as he did so.
As Keefe released the brook trout back into the pool and retrieved his loose line, a vague sound began to rumble up in Margie’s throat. “Uh, much as I’d like to say otherwise right now, you’re not overthinking it, honey.”
Keefe emerged from the stream, revealing that, in addition to the brown fedora, he also wore a pair of old deck shoes. He started across the clearing toward the bungalow, and his pace remained steady when he saw Sandy and Margie there.
“Well, this actually is nothing, believe it or not,” Sandy said to Margie, recalling her own awkward embarrassment the first time she encountered this particular eccentricity of Keefe’s. “Does it from time to time. Has since I’ve known him. Says it’s good for the soul to fish naked every now and then.”
Keefe’s stride continued evenly as he approached the two women. He raised his thumb and forefinger to the brim of his hat and tipped it slightly toward them.
“Ladies.” His voice was as steady as his gait as he continued past them, up the steps, and opened the front door. As he did so, he looked down at Stink, whose bent tail had begun to wag vigorously when he noticed Keefe’s approach.
“Come on, old fella,” Keefe said to the dog as they both passed through the doorway. “Let’s see if we can stir up a pot of coffee and make ourselves decent. It appears we have company.”
Sandy sighed, shrugged, and knelt to her gear on the ground while Margie tried hopelessly to stifle a giggle behind her hand.
“And this is normal, you say?” Margie asked.
“Sort of,” Sandy answered.
“Oh, honey. I’m sorry, but if this is normal, well, what you were talking about before is going to be even trickier than I thought.”
Sandy began to assemble her fly rod.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”
Ain’t Been No Mountain Lions in This Part of the Country for a Hundred Years
From over the crest of the ridge, wind sheared off down the slopes through the trees, pushing before it a wave of scent and sound, lush markers of survival in a season of plenty. Swept through the air over the mountain, the promise of a means to live.
The fawn had been
