The Earring

Hidden beneath the forest canopy of the Uncompahgre Wilderness, a single man pushes distance from the mechanized world that dogged him.   A light wind stirs the aspen trees, their leaves sounding like feathered wings of wisp set off in flight.  He stops at a snowmelt rivulet cascading down a mountain crease, and waits for his lagging sons.

They hike up and over occasional hard packed drifts of thawing snow until they escape the forest shadow and emerge onto a sunlit alpine meadow.  The trail then begins a progression of switchbacks as it ascends above the tree-line.  The trail’s summit provides an unencumbered view of Lone Cone, Mount Dolores and Dunn Peak, the snow-crested crown jewels of the Uncompahgre that sparkle in the sunlight.  

Here at trail’s end, they halt to pay homage to the panoramic view while they nosh and imbibe the rarefied air that separates heaven and earth. As he readies to depart, the man espies a single earring found in the tundra grasses and diminutive flowers that grew between the gaps of the summit’s shattered rocks.  The handmade Huichol jewelry consists of small beaded strands of alternating colors. He picks up the earring, hooks it to the third buttonhole of his blue jean jacket, and then gathers the boys for the descent back to camp.

Returning to camp that evening, the two exhausted sons soon fall asleep inside the tent leaving their father to order the campsite. Before retiring for the evening, the man removes the earring from his jean jacket for a closer look, the sight of which causes him to muse about an ear that listens not to his voice, but for his voice. 

His thoughts drift two weeks prior to that sunlit morning on the happenstance day that he met her. He recalls every detail.

************************************************************************

         That day a fortnight ago began with the early morning sun peeking over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and softly lighting the Great Sand Dunes’ wind swept forms of steep drifts and shadowed basins, each crest and drop built on another, rising 700 feet above the flats, extending 50 square miles of desolate splendor.  After breakfast, his boys attend a Ranger exploring program, and he embarks on a trek up the Mosca Pass Trail. 

            Hiking at the brisk pace of the newly freed, he stops in a shaded shelter where he observes a woman’s approach. She wears jean cutoff shorts; sleeveless sky blue shirt; a scarlet bandanna round her neck; dark, lustrous hair combed straight back and braided; a face with gentle features; brown, fervent eyes and a tanned countenance that brightens with a smile.  She exchanges greetings with him, and about to move on when a couple coming from the opposite direction meets them.  She asks them the typical ‘how long’ to the summit question:  

     “It’ll take y’all ‘bout half hour to get up yonder.”

         “What time is it now?”

         “Ten forty-five.”

         “It’s that late ?”

         “Well, uh, that’s Texas time.”

         “Oh. Thank you.” 

         “All right, y’all have a good hike.”

         There was an awkward lull after the Texans departed, which he broke as they both walked forward and out of earshot. “Only a Texan would stay on central time in Colorado, and give Texas time.”

         They both nervously chuckled as they continued on. “My name is John Travers. I don’t want you to think I’m stalking you by lagging behind. Would you mind if I walked a ways with you?”

         “My name is Consuela. I don’t suppose you’ve blown up any federal buildings so I guess I can trust you,” as she unconsciously runs her fingers through her hair.

         “You like my hair cut?  I get one every year before I come out West.  I call it my Wichita Buzz.  It’s a way of starting anew.  And that way, I don’t have to worry about it out here.  There’s no bad hair days with a buzz cut.”

         “It makes you look like the guy who bombed the federal building in Oklahoma.  I work for the government in a building like that one in Denver.” 

         “I don’t plan on doing that while I’m out here,” he grins. “I like it cut short for another reason; it saves me from looking the part of a tourist, and they in turn give me a wide berth.” 

         “Why don’t you want to look the part of a tourist? You aren’t from here, are you?”

         “No.  But I am not one of them.  Tourists are out for comfort. They wear new clothes.  They walk from their cars to gawk out at sights. They take gads of pictures to bore people about what they’ve seen. And after a hard day, they run to the comfort of a motel or their RV for another big meal.      

         “Well,” she smirks as she surveys his faded jean jacket and leather boots scuffed by dozens of rocky trails, “you don’t fit that description, though your view of them is rather bleak.  Tell me why you come here?”

         “To kiss the sky as Jimi Hendrix once said. A lot of reasons, really.  Being in the great wide open let’s me feel free. Hike, eat simply, sleep the ground.  Get in shape.  Commute with nature.  Escape the heat up in the mountains.  But tell me, why are you here?”

         “That’s a long story.  Why don’t we hike on?  There might be a group of tourist behind us who will spoil our view.”

         Upon reaching Mosca Pass, they find a rocky outcropping that affords a view of the distant 14,0000 foot Mount Blanca awash in the sunlight above them, and the flat land of the eastern valley below.  Consuela unaffectedly shares her simple lunch of cheese and crackers, fruit and trail mix, which he initially refuses but accepts with a little coaxing.  As they nosh, their disparate lives are revealed to the other in so many sentences:  That he a widower with sons, ages 10 and 8 down below at the Dunes; works free lance offering his services to law firms as a contract attorney so as to maintain a family schedule; that they come out West annually, the highlight of the year.

         That she his age though fitness and an unlined face made her appear younger; born to a large family in New Mexico and married young; followed her husband to Denver; divorced and raised two sons alone, now grown and out of the house; here in Southern Colorado on temporary assignment for the Department of Agriculture. 

         As they chat, Consuela arranges her daypack and leaves two pieces of chocolate on a rock ledge. 

         “Why are you leaving chocolate behind?”

         “I leave a bit of my food behind whenever I am out here for my ancestors.  I believe that their spirits reside here in the mountains.”

         Travers felt a sudden urge to draw her close, to gently kiss her in welcome instead of good-bye.  But a cloud covers the sun, and shadows of doubt cool his ardor. He gazes at the valley’s empty expanse below, and abruptly announces that he must return to his children back at the Dunes, thanks her for lunch, hops down from their perch and heads back alone on the trail.

         Gravity accelerates his jog downwards as if to break him free from her allure while he reproaches himself for not having held her close; for not having touched his lips with hers; for not having told her something more though not knowing what it was he should have said. He only knew that heart runs contrary to reason; his mind tells him that such thoughts are foolish, that duty calls below.

         A half-hour after his return to corral his boys, Travers drives back to the trailhead to place a note on Consuela’s vehicle inviting her to join them at the Dunes.  As if choreographed, she arrives at her car at the same time, and agrees to join them.

         “So these are your sons.  Such good-looking boys.”

         “Thank you. The older one is Jake; the younger one, Luke. Say hell-o to Consuela, guys.”

         The boys stir and push on each other like corralled ponies, and then demand: “We want something to drink!” 

   “Ask nicely guys,” his father intones.

         “That’s all right, John. They don’t know what to make of me.  Why don’t we all have something to drink?”

         “We don’t have anything cold; I don’t buy ice out here.”

         “You are roughing it.”

         “Not really.  We just have this small cooler with barely enough room for anything, much less a bag of ice.  I usually throw a couple cans of frozen juice that helps keep cool whatever little we have.  Ice is for wimps.”

         The boys slam down their drinks, and run off to Medano Creek. 

     “Your kids seem nice, but they didn’t have much to say. Aren’t they used to women being around?”

         “Guess they just aren’t used to visitors out here. We keep pretty much to ourselves.”

         “You know, I admire you for bringing your children out here, and spending time with them.”

         “Heck, that’s not much to admire.  I enjoy it. But I do hit my breaking point sometimes.  They can be relentless, and I can get ugly with them when I’ve hit my limit.”

         “You have to careful what you say, or at least how you say it. You are affectionate with them, and tell them that you love them, don’t you?

         “Sure, but probably not as much as I should.”

         “You should whenever you can.  But what am I doing telling you how to raise your children.  Heavens, we’ve just met; I don’t mean to lecture you.   I guess it just comes from being a mother.” 

         “No offense taken.  I need to be reminded.  Unfortunately, there’s nobody around to tell me so they face my wrath alone.”

         “I couldn’t check my ex.  He was hardly around anyway.  After we divorced, he’d promise to be at the house on Saturday mornings to pick up the boys, and then not show up till mid-afternoon; sometimes not at all.  The boys would be so disappointed, but he never seemed to notice.  He was usually mad about something.  He’d spew his anger at them if they stepped out of line.  After a while, they quit listening.  Then he just quit coming around all together. I guess that’s why I respect you for bringing your boys out here.”         

         “How’d you raise your children alone, Consuela?”

         “I’m not sure I did.”

         “Well, they’re raised now, and you did it.”

         “They’re raised, sure.  But did they get what they needed?  I don’t know that they did.  I had to work so they only had half a mother.  They spent too much time alone.  Pablo is quiet, and used his time to study.  He’s in college, and doing well. Roberto did not like school, and hung with a wild crowd.  He needed a father’s firmness. As he grew older, I could not put a stop to him.  He had no direction.  It’s too late; I cannot help him now,” she says ruefully.

          “I’m sure you did your best.  One person can only do so much.”

         Consuela sighs.  “I loved my children, and put a roof over their heads.  Their father never sent us much.  Sometimes work took too much out of me.  I fear that I wasn’t enough for them.  That’s why I at least tried to speak gently to them when they were young, to tell them always that I loved them.  Children need to hear that.” 

         “We all do, Consuela.  You should be proud of what you accomplished alone.”     

         “I am.  But your children are young yet.  At this age, one cannot know how they will turn out.  We all have plenty of time to second guess ourselves after they grow up.”

         “Hindsight’s 20-20.  We’re our own worst critics.  You say you respect me.  Well, I respect you for raising your children alone. At least I’ve been lucky enough to not have to work all the time.  And I am envious that your struggle is over.”

         “Our struggles are never over, and worries over one’s children never end” she grins indulgently.  “Tell me, how are you able to get so much time to spend out here each summer.”

         “Well, I continued to work full bore for a while after my wife died.  I soon realized that my children need me more, not less.  So I cut back my work.  I didn’t want hired help raising my children.”

         “Most men would not do that.”         

         “Who knows what one will do until such things are forced upon him.  I’ve had the luxury of choosing.  I will tell you though; I am not good at this.  Women seem better suited to dual roles; you all can do things in half the time that men do.  And my ego suffers.” 

         “Because you do women’s work?” she asks incredulously.

         “No, because my career is nothing now.” 

         “But your children seem happy.  You must be doing a good job.”

         “I tread water,” he half-laughs.  “It makes me angry sometimes.  In our society, men are taught to view their value in terms of money.”

         “I don’t understand that”.  

         “I wish I didn’t either.  But it gnaws at me.  But at least I get to come out here every year.  When people ask how I can spend several weeks out here camping with my children, I tell them that it’s easier to clean out a tent and to brush off a picnic table than it is to clean a house.  Women understand the part about the house, but don’t understand the part about sleeping the ground. Men like the idea about camping, but they don’t get the house cleaning part.  Anyway, I figure if I’m going to spend time with my kids, I’m going to spend some of it out here. We get a kick from the road.”

         “Speaking of your children, let’s join them at the creek.”

         They walk from the parking lot where the tourists stop to view the Dunes.  Only a fraction of them venture more than a quarter-mile beyond the parking lot, now nearly empty in late afternoon.  They venture out to Medano Creek, which spreads its five-inch deep waters along the expansive sand flats at the base of the Dunes.  From there, the creek flows to a secluded tree-lined retreat beyond the open sand flats. Narrow leaf cottonwoods tap into the creek’s fount while affording shelter from the sun and aviaries for native birds.

         Within its secluded corridor, the shallow stream whimsically splits in twos and threes, randomly shifting channels, leaving tiny, bordered sand bars and elongated fingered islets, the abandoned channels sketched in breezy, rhythmic imprints and fine combed arterial lines sketching the rill’s soulful course.  Where two divided tides of the stream converged, a series of swells revealed the watercourse’s latent vibrancy until the combined waters melded serenely into a single course.    

         Consuela and John walk the stream, the cool sandy bottom conforming to each bare-footed step, a soothing respite from Mosca Pass trail’s stony path.  They find a place to sit quietly amidst some spindly trees along the bank where they watch the birds glide in pursuit of quarry or on the shore to sip from the creek.

         Travers takes off his dark sunglasses, looks into Consuela’s eyes in hope for a signal that he can put his arm around her.  Suddenly, as if tired of waiting for the advance or fearing that it is coming, Consuela announces that she must go.

         They return to her car, and exchange contact information.  He tells her they that are heading farther west.  She suggests that they stop in Alamosa to see her on their way back home.       

****************************************************************

Travers rises early the next morning, rouses his sons, breaks camp, and they leave the Uncompahgre heading east towards home.  They re-cross the Continental Divide at Wolf Creek Pass, and coast down the backside of the San Juan Mountains, to the San Luis Valley, pulling into Alamosa in late afternoon.

         The Spanish named the town for the cottonwood trees that line the Rio Grande that flows out of the San Juan Mountains and meanders across the San Luis Valley.  The river and aquifers have transformed the arid ground into a patchwork oasis of potato farms and pasture land. 

         Travers did not call Consuela in advance of his arrival having wrestled with a strange mix of anticipation and foreboding.  So he left it to fate.  If he caught her in town, it was meant to be.  If not, he and the boys would continue home.  They arrived at the Rio Inn, a large framed two-story boardinghouse painted cadet blue with pink coral trim.  The front porch with cushioned rocking chairs and a porch swing looks out into a tree-lined residential neighborhood.  The boys impulsively jump on the chairs and start rocking.  Travers’ rap on the screen door emits a wooden echo.       

         The proprietress cradling a stack of linens appears at the door, and informs them that Consuela’s car is parked ’round back so she must be home.  She directs them to a side stairway that leads to an upstairs entry where Consuela resides in a two-room studio with a small kitchen and bath. 

         As he climbs the stairs, Travers begins to fret about his scruffy appearance.  He spent the last two weeks hiking and sleeping the ground, but now he is in town with its conventional norms.  He resigned himself to fate, and not having had much luck with it, assumed that he would not see her so there was little reason to suddenly become fastidious if only to sleep the ground again that night.

         He and his sons crept up the creaking stairs to the doorway where Consuela stood waiting:  “I was wondering if you would ever get here.  Come in. I am happy to see you”. 

         They enter a small, tidy living room furnished with a thread-worn Persian rug, a divan, wicker chair and high-back rocker. The boys nervously pull and tug on one another.

         “Say, you guys want something to drink? I have some soda in the fridge.  But you have to drink it in the kitchen.”

         “Yes, please,” they answer at once, and follow her into the kitchen.

         When Consuela returns to the living room, she is surprised to see John still standing near the door.  He smiles self-consciously as he gazes upon her as if seeing her for the first time.  She appears differently, dressed in employment attire:  Knee length, pleated skirt, short heels; pressed blouse with business jacket, a blue ribbon in her hair.  Her handsome apparel subtlety reveals a lithe figure, which she carries with a grace unique to Hispanics.    

         His appearance provides a study in gender contrast: clothes dusty and matted; sun bleached cap; unshaven, face ruddy with sun and wind.  In a phrase, the look of a field hand after a summer’s day of sunup to sundown and a night’s sleep on the hay.

          She invites him to sit.  Not wanting to soil the furniture, he sits down on the radiator.  He compliments her attire, then apologizes for his.  He reassures himself that his time in the backcountry gives him a favorable, rugged look that only a man can get away with.

         She asks him about his travels, which he briefly describes. She offers and he accepts use of her bathroom to shower, shave and a change of clothes, after which Travers relaxes in the living room and sips a beer.   

         “Do you know of a babysitter here in town.  I could leave the boys at your place, and get them a pizza, and we could go out for a dinner.”

         “The Innkeeper knows a babysitter,” she suggests.

         “Really?  Let’s see if she’s available. Do you know of a good restaurants in town?” 

         “Not here.  But I know a good restaurant in Monte Vista.”

         A half-hour later, they traverse west out of town, passing the valley’s tired green fields being revived by enormous sprinklers that hydrate the parched earth. The setting sun illuminates scattered clouds a downy orange as daylight slowly leaves the sky. 

         Light conversation and laughter prevail as the waiter takes their plates when they grow pensive as if each waits for something from the other.  John speaks first:  “I asked you at Mosca Pass why you were out here working; you said it was a long story.”

         “It’s not so long. It just takes some history that I wasn’t ready to share.

         “You don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t want to.”

         “I’d like to really.  There’s no one here to talk to about it.”  She pauses to gather her thoughts and rein her emotions.  She takes a shallow drink of wine, tugs at her sleeve, and slowly exhales.  “I have to go back a ways so you’ll understand.” 

         “After my husband left me with two sons to raise alone, I began to date again.  Different men, none of whom seemed interested in my children, and therefore not really of me, though they said otherwise.”  

         “Men.”  She pauses in exasperation.  “They’ll say anything.  I soon became cynical of men, and especially of love.” 

         “Love,” she repeats the word slowly, emitting the word like a tired musical note.  “I knew of love.  Or at least I once did.  But for them it meant the moment.  I suppose one can love for the moment so long as honesty is there.  But too many times it was just a lie to feed lust.  And their own ego.  After they spoke of love, they went out casting their lines elsewhere.”

         She lifts her eyebrows, her brown eyes open wider as if to better read Traver’s reaction.  He softens his countenance, and says, “It seems to be the nature of the beast.  But not all of us are that way.”

         “I know that.  But that wasn’t my experience.  After a while, I played the game on their terms.  Not in bitterness, because I grew beyond that.  But I developed a certain detachment, which I learned over time. I had my needs, too.  They could take me out and treat me with favor.”

         “But after a while, I just tired of it all together. Relationships without emotional commitment are too difficult for women, I think.  So I became a stoic; I took care of my children and forgot about men.

         “But as my children became independent, I grew lonely.  Two years ago, I became acquainted with the Regional Director.  He took a flattering interest in me.”

         She hesitates and looks out absently towards the bar. “At first, we were just friends.  I let my guard down because he was married.  I felt safe; but I was vulnerable.  He must have sensed it.

         “It had been a long time since I let a man be kind to me.  And he was such a gentleman, so different from the others. Somehow we became involved.  At first, I was glad that he was married; my expectations were low, and I could keep my emotions at bay.  But my heart betrayed me, and his, too.  For I thought we loved each other.  

         “It ended, but not because of his wife, for whom he cared nothing, nor she of him.  But a divorce would have proved too complicated, and he was a man to follow the path of least resistance. 

         “We broke it off six months ago; but our meetings at work became too difficult. For both of us.  So he sent me here on temporary assignment to appease me because he knew it would bring me closer to my family in New Mexico, and I wouldn’t squawk about being sent down here.

         “So this is why I am here.  I hope you don’t think I’m terrible,” she said as her once animated face now bore crestfallen lines.

         Her faltering voice stirred his sympathy.  John places his hands in hers, shakes his head, looks into her sad eyes, and softly says so with his gaze.

         “Well, do you still love him?” he finally asks

         “No.  We’ve resolved not to become involved again.”  Then in an agitated tone quickly adds:  “It’s so difficult down here in such a small town, I feel as if everyone is watching me.  There is no one for me to talk to.  Just eating out in Alamosa is difficult.  Men see me dining alone, and they think it’s an invitation. Especially the comareros. Their transparent desires aggravate me.  I’ve learned to give them the look, and they leave me alone.”    

         “Consuela, you are only guilty of needing to be loved.  And being unlucky.  We all need the human touch, to feel loved.” 

         “Do you remember when we last spoke at the Dunes?  All the while you kept your dark glasses on.  When you finally took them off, I looked into your eyes, and saw the gentleness, the pain that was there.  That’s why I decided I’d better leave right away.”

         John averts his eyes from hers for a moment, then looks back meaningfully.  “I kept my sunglasses on because I was afraid to meet your eyes on even terms.”

         Anxious to deflect his gaze, Consuela replies: “So did you find what you were looking for out here?”

         “Yes. Always.”  He takes too deep a drink of wine nearly coughing.  “But it’s always fleeting.”

         “What is it you find out here that is so fleeting?”

         “Well, I come out here with my sons to escape the material world of the city; to climb mountains, to feel free.”    

         “Is that enough?”

         “It is while I am out here.  But when I get back home, I slip back into the abyss.”  

         “So if you fall back to where you were, why go at all, John?” 

         “Because I just can’t keep on living life continuously numb.  At least out here, I feel alive here in the fresh mountain air.”

         “Do you think that you can love anyone again?”

         “Everyone assumes that if a man’s wife dies, and he does not re-marry that it’s because he cannot love anyone like he loved his wife, that no woman can touch him like she did.”

         “Is that true with you?”

         Travers responds defensively.  “I don’t know.  I just know that when she died I was left behind with that hollow feeling of being abandoned, and at the same time feeling that I wasn’t kind enough to her before she got sick.  She was such a gentle soul.  

         “We hit a rough patch before she was gripped by cancer that quickly squeezed the life out of her.  If she had lived, we probably would’ve worked through it and lived happily ever after.  But we never got that chance.  And now that she’s gone, I’m left alone not knowing.  But there was no time to wallow in it anyway.  I had small children to take care of.  So a part of me closed down. I became leery and uncertain.

        “You can’t blame yourself for her death.”    

         “In my head I know.  But guilt resides with the survivor.”

         “You love her children, don’t you?  You gave up your old way of life to be with them, to give them your love.  There is forgiveness in love, John.”   

         “I figured that out finally.  It took a few years, but the kids taught me that without their knowing it.”

         “How long ago did you say your wife died?”

         “Five years.”

         “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I can’t believe that you haven’t been snatched up yet.  Decent, available men at our age are few and far between.  Most are married and the available ones are usually self-indulgent jerks or divorcees with family woes and scary child support bills.  Surely, you haven’t been wanting for a woman’s attention?”

         John emits a hollow laugh.  “The ones I’ve met all want to take care of me.  They drown me with care and competence; makes me nervous as hell.”

         “Why?” she implores. “Care and competence are good things.”

         “Yeah, but I would owe her everything. I don’t want a woman who wants a man indebted.  I want a woman who needs me.”

************************************************************************

         The moon’s milky light illuminates the drive back to Alamosa.  John knows how he feels about her, but the uncertainty of her thoughts weighs on him as the car pulls up to the curb at the Rio Inn.

         When they enter her apartment they find the babysitter and children asleep in front of a droning television.  John follows Consuela back to the kitchen where she pours two glasses of wine.  She sets the bottle down, turns and their eyes meet in mutual solicitation.  He reaches round her waist, her arms wrap around him as their bodies relax in the other’s secure embrace, their kiss liquefying their hardened exteriors to emotional surrender. 

         They look contentedly in the other’s eyes when a TV commercial suddenly blares to remind them that they are not alone.  “You’d better take the babysitter home,” Consuela whispers.

         Upon his return, he finds that Consuela has settled his children on makeshift pallets.  John slowly opens the door to her bedroom, illuminated by a candle lit receptacle with a colored imprint of Our Lady of Guadalupe with an inscription: “Miracles Happen to Those Who Believe in Them”.  The valley breeze stirs the white window curtains that flutter like apparitions. 

         He finds Consuela already in bed awaiting him, her head and shoulders propped by downy pillows stacked against the bed’s headboard.  Her white, satin slip seems almost luminous in the soft candlelight.  She welcomes him with a composed smile and beckoning eyes. 

         Travers slides in beneath the sheets and nestles his body next to hers.  Cradled in each other’s arms, their bodies soon entwined. Their emotions held so long like a placid lake, come bursting through the walls that they had built.  Their souls join together, swaying in gentle affection, then with primal urgency.

         Later, in the stillness of the night, John speaks the words a woman longs to hear, but sends her running if spoken carelessly or too soon.  He looks into Consuela’s eyes, as if to say it first without words, then declares, “I love you.” 

         Consuela hazards no response though not in her nature to be impassive.  She learned of men—that cut flowers in her vase soon wilted; words of love were too often manipulation; that men held women in passion, then pushed forcibly away; that words spoken in a fleeting night dissipate in the light of day.

         Yet, they had already held each other close; there is no future to manipulate.  Honest emotion differs from naked carnal passion.  The moment was true.  She silently accepts his avowals of love as she re-assuredly strokes his arm and shoulder. She neither replies nor attempts to dissuade him from expressing the oft-abused declaration that can mean so much, can mean so little.

         In the silent space between them, Travers recalls the adage: Never send flowers too soon; hold her close but keep your distance; use the L word at your peril.  He has said so much more than flowers, so he tries to explain to her and to himself what overcame him, speaking in a state of wonder.

         “I know I have no business telling you that.  I cannot believe I’m saying this.  But I cannot not tell you; I have to tell you that I love you.”          

         Consuela seeks to relieve her inner tension: “I think you’ve had too much to drink.”        

         “No; no, I’m not,” he replies rapidly.   “You know what I’ve had to drink tonight.  I’m no lightweight.”        

         “Well, what I meant was that the alcohol and the altitude have hold on you; you flatlanders get lightheaded out here.”

         “Consuela, I’ve been out here for weeks; hiking almost everyday, often above the tree line. The San Luis Valley sits at 7600 feet. I’m acclimated by now.”

         She says nothing, waiting to hear more. 

         “No, I think it must be what a soldier feels just before he leaves for war, when he reaches out for the woman he has known for just a short time.

         “Everything speeds up when a man knows he may never return.  When a man and a woman have time to let things develop, to observe each other, to take into account their fears and agendas, to compare dreams with reality, then everything takes time as the intellect reins in emotion.  Falling in love that way involves a certain gamesmanship. 

         “But when two people meet in time of real need, and yet might not ever see each other again, it seems that pure emotion can instantly decide all those things that takes the mind so long to decide.  Who can say that a rationalized love played out over time and futures considered decides better than intuitive love?”

         Consuela nestles closer to him and confides:  “I think it is the magic of the Valley.  I am glad that we have rescued each other.”

         John made no reply.  Maybe it was true because the feeling was magical, and he always felt most alive in the mountain air.  Adding his ardor for her was like drinking too much Champaign.  In a sense, he was intoxicated; but not on altitude, nor alcohol.   It was enchantment.

         Consuela did not understand the war analogy, he thought to himself.  But how could she really appreciate that when he returned home, he returned to a mental war of attrition?

         He tried to live without love, without letting anyone know the depths of his despair.   Rather than tell her of his sorrow and loneliness, he revealed to her a basic, positive emotion—he loved her.  In just two days.

         Consuela falls asleep in his arms content with his fleeting statements of love.  But John’s mind stirs in the wee hours before dawn, distressed by thoughts that the morrow would turn the inches between them into miles, extending on and on until they became worlds and lives apart.  

         Consuela rises from bed in the gray light of early morning.   Half-sleep, Travers listens to her ritual heard from the other side of the bathroom door.  The clink of sundries, the opening and closing of drawers and cabinets sound in routine’s rhythm, which seemed to him not unlike the cadence of a distant train, its fading sounds echoing into empty, unknown spaces.

         Consuela emerges clothed in her profession, sits next to him and puts her arm around his shoulder.  He tells her: “I meant what I said last night.”  

         She does not answer but looks into his eyes, which tells her it is so.  No more words are spoken for everything remains understood.  They exchange home addresses, embrace and say good-bye.  He listens for the ignition of her car’s engine, and watches her drive slowly away from the curb and on towards town. 

         Travers looks about the room with equivocal feelings.  He feels more alive now than for as long as he can recall, but a well of melancholy builds within him.  He sits down to write, the words flowing freely from his pen:

 Western Love

Traveling West
across parched plains;
Feeling destitute,
desolate, pain;
Tumbleweed style,
hopelessness, bile.

High Elevation,
blue pristine skies;
Majesty, green,
inspiration cries;
Trust intuition,
time and the place;
Dark eyes removed,
accepts open grace.

         He leaves those words on her dresser, rouses the boys, looks one last time about the room, and locks the door behind them.

         *******************************************************************

         As they motor beyond the distant Great Sand Dunes, Travers falls prey to gloom.  They drive over the LaVeta Pass down to Walsenburg and the empty plains.   Consuela will soon be a mirage like the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in his rear view mirror he thinks to himself. A memory like the pine and aspen forests, the clear streams, the pristine air. Gone and far away. 

         They continue on the empty two-lane highway descending gradually in elevation, traversing the arid, beige earth of sagebrush and barbwire that pen the High Plains, a vacant expanse as far as the eye can see. 

         The miles roll by, the car punching holes in the endless waves of heat radiating from the blacktopped road running inexorably east, through La Junta, Los Animas, Lamar and finally Western Kansas.  The highway crosses and re-crosses the Arkansas River along the way, its waters tapped to irrigate the parched earth until Garden City where snarled, withered cottonwood trees rooted in the barren banks stand guard above a dry river bed where water once had flowed.    

         Onward eastward, until they arrive in Wichita where they stay with friends.  Though he had not imbibed the night before, Travers awakens the next morning with an inexplicable hangover.  They say their goodbyes, and drive on towards home, leaving behind the limitless expanse of the high plains. 

         On the high-density route of Interstate 70 in Missouri, the rhythm assault of commuter and commercial traffic afflicts his senses leaving him no rest as cars and heavy trucks vie for space and speed darting in and out of the passing lane in a competitive sprint to the next stack of vehicles.    

         The simmering sun bleaches the highway white, heaving weak spots in the road.  They stop at a manicured rest stop to relieve interstate fatigue; the horrific summer heat leaves them breathless. 

         The boys grow silent as the car pulls up the drive.  The back door swings slowly open; they wearily trudge into the stagnant air of the shut-up house.  Travers reviews his project list and eyes the three week pile of mail atop the table that his neighbor collected while they were gone. Dirt and grime and dirty laundry.  Camping gear to air and put away.  Business calls and court dates.  Another month of summer’s heat, humidity and restless children until school starts again.

         Travers sets about the chores and tries to close out the waves of relentless realities breaking upon his shore. He proceeds mechanically with his duties, barking orders to his children to fetch this or that, or to stop the mischief. Doors closed, windows shut; drapes drawn to keep out the sun; the air-conditioner’s monotonous hum negating the sounds of an outside world. 

         Shut inside his insular, temperate world, his rationale mind weighs options.  Nine hundred miles away.  After several tumultuous years since they lost their mother, a move to a new house and a change of schools, the boys are settled and comfortable with friends and study.  Moving is problematic from a business point of view.  No one in her right mind would move from Colorado to this oppressive heat and humidity.  She raised her family and finally free.   He remained tied down. He knew her not, nor she him, he reasoned to himself.     

         He recalls the ebullient manner in which he told his buddy in Wichita about Consuela.  Smitten was the word his friend used to describe it.  He knew the word literally meant that he had been attacked, struck or afflicted suddenly by love.  But the way his friend said smitten connoted being mud splattered during a hopeless pursuit of a swift running horse. Yet, what he had experienced had not felt that way at all. 

         Travers wakes early the next day and gazes out into the yard as the sun’s early light glistens on the morning dew.  He sleepily ambles to the kitchen where he notices a small express package within the stack of mail.  He opens it, and finds a Dream Catcher—fine strands of string crisscrossing a thin, circular reed, and within the web, a petite feather.  The printed card reads:

 The Dream Catcher

         The Dream Catcher has been used for many years in Indian ways. Dreams both bad and good they believed descended from the dark night sky.  The bad dreams were captured in the web and held there until the morning sunrays would vaporize them with the dew.  Good dreams simply slipped through the center hole to the one sleeping.  Sweet Dreams.

A note included with printed card scripted in flowing cursive read:

John,  

I read your poem, and agree that we were graced to find each other.  I was afraid when you told me that you loved me, so I did not reply in kind.  But I want you to know that I cherish your expression of love for me for your words were truly spoken.   When hope awakens in us, we can dream again, and with it love will follow. John, you have stirred hope within me. Last night, I dreamed of you, and woke up intent on sending this Dream Catcher to you.

                Consuela     

         He pulls back the drapes and opens the kitchen window to better appreciate the earring and the Dream Catcher in the morning light. A light breeze draws the fresh breath of the grassy dew as a pair of cardinals exchange their dulcet calls.

         Mesmerized, John sets about absentmindedly with the laundry. He opens a clothing bag and pulls out his faded blue jean jacket on which still hangs from the third button hole, the Huichol beaded earring of alternating colors found at the summit of the Uncompahgre trail.

         Travers smiles to himself as he hooks the earring to the Dream Catcher, which he then hangs from the empty plant hook above the window that looks out onto the open green.