“Actually, it’s a luxury. I was hitting the gas stations for one last bathroom visit before bedding down in the car for the night. Usually I could make it till morning, but if I couldn’t, I had to make do. That usually meant a quick squat behind a bush on a deserted road. And it’s been real cold lately.”

As he looked down at her, his eyes were both warm and curious. “You don’t look as tough as that.”

“I don’t know how tough I am—look at me, sick as a pup. But I bet I can match you for stubborn.”

A sound came out of him.

“Holy shit, Ian—was that a laugh?”

“A cough,” he lied. “You probably got me sick.”

Five

B ack inside the little cabin, Marcie took her place on the couch while Ian went to his little propane stove and gave the pot a stir. “Can you eat a bit of soup?” he asked.

“I think so. It sure smells wonderful.”

“It’s not much. Just boiled down chicken…some vegetables,” he said simply. She watched as he ladled some into a large mug, plopped a spoon in it and put a slice of buttered bread on a saucer. Then he loaded that onto a flat board and brought it to her. “I don’t have things like a lot of different dishes—just what I need. Be careful, it’s hot.”

She balanced the board on her knees. “You sure can do a lot with a little bit, can’t you?”

He grunted an affirmative reply and went back to the pot, ladling some into a mug for himself. Then he sat at the table with his meal.

She took a couple of spoons of chicken soup. It was either delicious or she was ravenous. Then she walked over to the table with her board-tray. She put it down opposite him, then dragged the other chair the short distance to sit with him. He just lifted his eyebrows and watched her. “It’s very good, Ian. You suppose we could eat together?”

He just shrugged. “If that’s what you want.”

“We could actually talk,” she suggested.

He put his spoon in his mug and leaned back in his chair. “Look, let me put this as simply as I can—I’ve spent the last few years trying to put all that business about Iraq out of my mind. Sometimes it would show up unannounced, give me headaches and cause dreams that weren’t so nice. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to answer a lot of questions about it.”

She swallowed. “Perfectly understandable,” she finally said, her voice soft.

“If that’s what you came here for, you wasted your time,” he informed her.

She lifted a spoonful of soup to her lips, looking into the mug. “I didn’t waste my time.”

“What did your family say about this thing you did? Looking for me like this?”

She gave a little shrug. “My sister didn’t like it much…”

“Didn’t like it? Much?”

Marcie took a breath. “She said it was foolish and reckless. That I had no idea what I was getting into. That I didn’t know you.”

“Well, she’s right about that,” he said.

“Technically,” Marcie agreed. “I couldn’t be sure what you would be like now, but I couldn’t believe you’d changed that much. And see—I was right. You turned out to be a nice guy.”

He snorted.

“We could talk about other things.” She touched the book that sat on the table, gave it a close look. “Like what you’re reading. You go to the library?”

“It’s free,” he said dismissively. “I use the old library card that was left behind by the man who lived here before. No one questions that, though I’m sure they know. But I’m regular and never late, so it doesn’t matter to anyone.”

“That’s something you could tell me about. The man who lived here before. Dr. Mullins said you took care of him.”

Ian took a couple more bites. “After a while. First he took care of me, in a way.”

She waited, but nothing came.

“In what way?” she asked.

He lifted his mug and drained it of soup, putting it back on the table. “I was camping on his land and he spotted me. He was old—older than dirt. Didn’t have hardly a tooth left in his head, skinny as a pole. He’d been out here, alone, long over fifty years with no wife, no family, and he found me asleep in my sleeping bag under about four inches of snow. And he kicked me.”

“He kicked you?” she repeated, appalled.

“Kicked me, and I jumped a foot. And he said, ‘So, you’re not dead yet. Good thing, because you’d just be food for the wildlife if you were—I sure as hell can’t bury you. Ground’s too hard and I’m too old.’ That was our introduction. After a little glaring back and forth, he said that if I wanted, I could sleep indoors and eat from his cupboard if I’d keep the stove fed and help out when he needed it. I wasn’t thinking real clear back then and didn’t have a lot of options. I hadn’t even thought about winter at five thousand feet. I froze my ass off for a couple more nights before knocking on his door and all he said was, ‘’Bout time. I figured you were dead.’ It was a pretty simple arrangement. We hardly talked.”

“Ever?” she asked.

“After a month or two conversation picked up, but not a lot. He’d been alone so long, he didn’t much care to talk, kind of like me.” He added a brief glare. But then he went on. “So I chopped wood, caught fish sometimes and used his rifle to shoot a bird or rabbit now and then. I kept the snow off his roof and the shed and the outhouse roof and drove the truck for him when he went for errands, like to pick up his social security check and to buy food. We ran out of firewood pretty quick and I had to chop more. I wasn’t even sure how much of this land was his, but it’s all trees and you can’t see a neighbor. First tree I cut down damn near hit the house. He talked then—I thought he’d never shut the hell up. Then a few months later, we went for supplies and to the post office and he took me to the library and told me to pick out a book if I felt like it. He checked out picture books and sometimes children’s books—small words and big print. I never asked but I don’t think he got much school. When the weather warmed, he told me where he wanted the garden, made me re-dig the outhouse and showed me the tools in the shed. He said if I chopped enough wood in spring and summer and cured it, I could sell firewood out of the back of the truck if I wanted to. I got right on it, having no other way to earn money. That’s just about the whole story.”

“Must have been a little miserable—living with someone like that,” she said.

“I’ve had experience with mean old men,” Ian said unemotionally.

She finished her mug of soup and he shot to his feet to refill both their mugs. “Just half,” she said, nibbling on the bread.

“Listen, eat as much as you’ll hold. I think you lost a little flesh…”

“Yeah, maybe,” she said. “But I lose weight real easy. I know I get skinny and looking kind of malnourished if I don’t watch it.”

“And you haven’t been watching it,” he said.

“Well, I was saving money for gas,” she said softly.

“Did you just say you were saving money for gas? Looking for me?”

She looked up. “Have you noticed the price of gas lately?”

“Holy God,” he said, shaking his head. “While you’re here—you eat. There’s bread, peanut butter, juice, fruit, jelly—”

“So, he got sick, didn’t he?” she went on, interrupting him. “So I bet that was just the beginning of the story, you living here for chores.”

“It just kind of happened,” he said with a shrug. “I can’t say we ever did get chummy—but I owed him for the roof over my head and brought in more than my share of food. When he got sick, I went for the doctor. It was a lesson—when people out here get sick, they don’t go for tests and such, not if they’re in their late eighties for sure. The old doc told Raleigh…that was his name, Raleigh…Doc Mullins said he could take him to Valley Hospital and medicare would take care of him and Raleigh said he’d shoot himself in the head first. It was settled that fast. Doc left some medicine and came back a few times. Then after about six months of that, Raleigh died in his sleep, and I went and got the doctor. He showed me that Raleigh had dictated him a note while he was sick that said, ‘The man, Ian Buchanan, can have the house, truck, land and any money left, minus what’s needed for burial. No tombstone.’ He signed it, in his way, and Doc Mullins witnessed. I didn’t think it would hold up. There was just about enough cash in that tin box to bury him real simple like he wanted. When I asked the old doc what I was supposed to do about the cabin and land and truck, he said, don’t borrow trouble.”

She laughed outright. “Now what does that mean?”

“I took it to mean I should just carry on and not pursue the matter, but in fact old Doc Mullins has a friend who’s a lawyer or judge or something and he had done the transfer of title on the deed, so old Raleigh died penniless in my care and there was no probate. Slick as snot,” he said. Then he looked up and said, “Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “I looked at the truck title and when I saw he’d signed it over—or Doc had—I got the plates in my name so I wouldn’t end up in jail. I keep up my driver’s license and that’s the total extent of my official paperwork. When the taxes come due on this property, I pay them with a money order.”

“Ian,” she said, momentarily surprised. “Do you own a mountain?”

“A mountain full of nothing. Logging’s prohibited up here. I have what I’ve always had—a cabin and some trees. And taxes. I manage, but it costs more than it yields most of the time. It still seems temporary. It could always just go away the first time I don’t make the taxes.”

“And if the day ever comes you can’t stay here anymore? Because it’s not permanent enough?”

He shrugged. “I guess I’ll have to think of something.”

She was quiet while she finished her soup. Then she said, “When he was sick, was he very sick? Did you have to care for him a lot?”

“I’d have to say, he was very sick. He didn’t get out of bed much for a long time. There used to be a small bed in here—a bunk bed, just the bottom, with a mattress so thin it was almost no mattress at all. He had some of those old-age problems. He couldn’t feed himself. Et cetera. When he passed, I burned the whole thing.”

“And you slept on the couch until I came?”

“I’ve never slept on that couch—it’s too short and it sags under me. I unroll a pallet by the stove—it’s exactly the way I want it. I could buy a used bed, if that’s what I wanted.”

“But it was hard work, Ian—caring for someone you barely knew. He must have been grateful—he left you all this.”

He roared with totally facetious laughter. He wiped his hairy mouth on his sleeve and said, “All this? Mother of God, I don’t even have something you can flush!”

“Is it because you can’t?” she asked him.

“When I showed up at his door, there was no Coleman stove—he lit the place with lanterns. Washed out of a bucket, when he washed. I added the generator, strung some lights, bought the tub, the stove. Some of the furniture was older than him and I brought in a new couch and chair. Well, they’re used, but better than what was here. The only thing I really miss is a shower—but I’d have no idea how to plumb a house.”

She let him finish laughing and when he was done, she said, “You know, that first night? When you snarled at me and tried to scare me? Well—you scared me pretty good—”