Far Country (44 page)

           
“What?” He asked, his mouth still full.  For a moment Steve found himself
captured by Deborah’s green eyes.
Kelly McGuire had green eyes too
, he
recalled.

           
“Something’s happened to you,” she answered, studying Steve critically.

           
Steve laughed, suddenly self-conscious, as if Deborah really had read his
thoughts.  He swallowed and scooped out a forkful of potatoes. “What do
you mean?”

He asked, refusing to look at
her.

           
“You tell me,” she countered. “Something’s happened since you went on duty,”
she stated with absolute certainty.

           
Steve rolled his eyes. “Nothing out of the ordinary,” he said with a shrug. “I
almost hit a fox leaving the woodpile; I sold twelve bundles of firewood and
registered five new campsites. Same
ol
’ same
ol
.” 

           
Still refusing to look her in the eye, he contemplated a pale orange vegetable,
deciding that it might be a turnip. He scrunched his nose, thinking that
turnips were kind of iffy among his vegetable choices. Still, he popped it in
his mouth not wanting to give Deborah something to nag him about, and prepared
to swallow it quickly. It had a slightly earthy taste, with a sweet
overtone.  Steve was pleasantly surprised and decided that turnips might
be vastly underrated. He stabbed a second piece. When he finally looked up from
his plate he found Deborah and Pete both watching him with interest.

           
“Come on you two,” he said in exasperation. “You’re acting pretty strange.”

           
Deborah was not deterred. “You’re the one acting strange, you’re grinning at
your vegetables!” She accused him.

           
Pete cocked his head, eyeing Steve as if he were a new species of salamander
that had just climbed out from under a rock.  “You’re right,
hon
,” he agreed slowly. “His face is,..well – he looks
younger, I somehow.”

           
Steve glared at Pete, feeling betrayed. “Not you too,” he growled, attempting
to appear irritated, but the effect was ruined when his lips crooked into a
smile.

           
“That’s it!” Pete slapped the table. “You’re actually smiling!”

           
“You’re nuts!” Steve replied defensively. “I smile all the time!”

           
Pete shook his head slowly. “No, you don’t really. You joke around, but you
never really let your guard down. Tonight you’re…” he searched helplessly for
the correct adjective. “You look lighter, somehow,” he finished lamely.

           
Steve shook his head. “You’ve lost your marbles, my friend.”  He swallowed
the last crumble of chicken and chased down a couple of errant string beans,
then he pushed back the plate and sighed in contentment.

           
“Thanks for dinner and for the free psychoanalysis.” He said with a nod.
“Deborah, let me know if you figure out what’s wrong with me!”

           
Suddenly Deborah snapped her fingers and grinned
mischieviously
. 
“I’ve got it!” She cried out excitedly. “You’re
twitterpated
!”

           
Pete and Steve both stared at her as if she had suddenly grown a second
head.  “I’m what?” Steve finally managed to ask, aware that he was in
dangerous territory. He knew that word.

           
“You’ve both had deprived childhoods,” she informed them, shaking her head.
“You must have seen the old Disney movie, Bambi!
Twitterpated
?
”
She repeated, emphasizing each syllable as though they were deaf. She appealed
to Pete. “You see it, too!  Steve met someone interesting on one of the
campsites. In one hour, he’s gone from scruffy and out of sorts to goofy
smiles! It’s not normal behavior!”

           
Pete looked from Deborah to Steve and shrugged in uncertainty.

           
Undeterred Deborah smiled expectantly at Steve. “Out with it, Steve!” She
demanded. “Who is she and what site is she at?” There was a sparkle in her eyes
that once again made Steve think of Kelly’s green eyes smiling at him as she
invited him to return later…”

           
Abruptly, Steve realized that he was smiling in response to the memory, and he
stifled the impulse, trying to regain his former composure.  He looked at
Pete. “You need to take your fiancé home. She’s loony tunes tonight,” he
declared as seriously as he could.

           
But Pete was staring at Steve now with dawning comprehension. “She’s right
about your face!” He agreed. “You have got a silly perpetual smile. What
happened? Did you rescue a damsel in distress?”

           
Steve let his shoulders slump a little. “Okay,” he confessed. “I guess I did,
sort of. I helped her set up her tent and she invited me back after I got off
work,” he answered truthfully.

           
Deborah pounded her fist on the table in excitement. “I
knew
something
had happened!” She exclaimed delightedly. “Who is she and what does she look
like?” Deborah begged, hungry for details.

           
Steve thought for a moment.  “Cute,” he admitted. “Her name is Jenny.
Light brown hair, brown eyes, and freckles.”

           
“Freckles?” Deborah repeated in surprise.

           
Steve nodded in confirmation. “Although, I expect that they will fade when she
gets through puberty. She’s maybe, fourteen years old?”

           
Deborah sat back, crushed. “I was so sure,” she said, still watching him
suspiciously.

           
“It’s the truth,” Steve confirmed. “Her little friend was sulking over
boyfriend troubles, and had left her to set up their tent all by herself. So I
offered my assistance.” He tugged on the sleeves of his uniform in an attempt
to appear less scruffy. He’d forgotten how rumpled he was.
What had Kelly
thought when she saw him looking so rough?
He stood up and stretched.

           
“Huh,” Deborah said beginning to accept that perhaps she had been wrong. Then
her eyes narrowed.  “Teenage girls do not travel alone, Steve. Who was the
adult on the site?”

           
Busted
! Steve thought to himself. He scooped up the keys on the corner
of the table. “Her name was Kelly,” he told them, turning toward the truck.
Instantly, Steve was grateful that Deborah could no longer see his face,
because he couldn’t control the smile that appeared as soon as he said her name
aloud for the first time. “Kelly McGuire.”

           
Nervously, Steve cleared his throat as he approached the campfire.  Four
pairs of eyes turned in his direction.   “Ah, Ranger Williams, you
did come back!” Kelly McGuire said, and once again, Steve felt his insides flip
over at the sound of her voice. 
Deb
might not be so far from
the truth
! He thought ruefully.

           
He cleared his throat again. “Call me Steve,” he managed to say. “And how could
I refuse your request, Jenny?”  Jenny grinned, unable to speak for the
moment. She jumped up and handed him a long sharpened stick. “Here,” she
managed at last. “We cut an extra one just in case you did come back tonight.”

           
“Thanks, Jenny,” Steve acknowledged, sitting down on a folding camp stool. He
nodded a greeting to Kelly, who passed him a bag of marshmallows. Steve speared
one with the pointed stick and held it carefully over a patch of red embers,
turning it slowly so it would brown evenly.

           
“You look like a pro!” Kelly laughed, watching the care with which he toasted
the white blob into a golden brown confection.

           
“Three years and three summers as a Park Ranger had to be good for something,”
he answered with a deprecating smile.  He looked around the circle. 
“I’ve met Kelly and Jenny. Now who are you two?” He asked.  The girls
grinned and giggled a little, pleased by his attention. A dark haired, slightly
plump girl of about ten answered him.  “I’m Megan, and this is my friend,
Rachel,” she said with a shy grin.

           
Steve nodded a greeting. “Pleased to meet you, Megan and Rachel,” he said. “But
you are still short a young lady…what happened to Alyssa?” He asked glancing
around the shadowy areas of the campsite.

           
“Now she’s sulking in the tent,” Jenny replied glumly.

           
“Well, maybe she’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep,” Steve told her
encouragingly. He checked his perfectly tanned marshmallow. “This one looks
good enough to eat plain!” He decided, popping it into his mouth.  He
speared a second marshmallow and resumed toasting it just as carefully.

           
Jenny shook her head unhappily, her frustration with Alyssa spilling over in a
flood of words. “She never used to be like this! She used to like to do all
kinds of things. Now all she does is cry about this boy, and he’s mean to her!
I don’t really get it,” she complained.

           
Kelly and Steve exchanged a glance and smiled at each other. “You will in a
couple more years,” Steve assured her, “you’re pretty enough to have a ton of
boyfriends.”

           
“I don’t think I want any boyfriends,” Jenny muttered. “They’re all such a
bunch of babies and they act all stupid when they try to ask you out. Alyssa
used to laugh at them until Justin started calling her. Now she acts all stupid
about him!” She paused long enough to spear another marshmallow and position it
over the fire. “She’s not much fun anymore.” Jenny grumbled.

           
“
Twitterpated
,” Steve murmured into the silence that
followed Jenny’s diatribe, thinking back to Deborah’s observation earlier that
evening.

           
Kelly laughed appreciatively, but Jenny only made a face. “That’s just a line
from a kids’ movie,” she informed him dismissively.

           
“No,” Steve replied, lowering his voice as if he were telling a ghost story.
“It happens to almost everybody at least once,” he warned.  Then in a
theatrical whisper, he continued, “It sneaks up on you when you least expect it
and… WHAM!” He shouted, causing the younger girls to shriek in surprise. “The
twitterpaterer
catches you!”

           
“The
twitterpaterer
?” Kelly questioned him, leaving
no doubt at how corny she thought the word sounded, even though she had gasped
in surprise just as loudly as the girls.

           
Steve decided to stick with his version. At least, he thought, everyone was
smiling now. Alyssa’s bad behavior had clearly taken the fun out of the day for
the girls. “You can’t deny something happens when you’re young,” he resumed
conversationally, turning his marshmallow another quarter turn. “Call it the
love bug or the kissing disease –“ At that Megan and Rachel both scrunched
their noses and said “
Eeyeew
!”  Steve grinned,
and shook a finger at them again in warning.

           
“You say that now but beware – the
Twitterpaterer
is
not that far behind you, and once it gets hold of you…” Steve trailed off
shaking his head, leaving no doubt of their unspoken fate. “There’s nothing you
can do.”

           
“Does it really make you act all goofy?” Rachel asked Steve with a doubtful
grin on her face.

           
 Steve nodded and reported the symptoms as if he was describing a real
disease.  “You laugh, and then you cry, and then you float on air. You act
like a dummy over stupid things. And there’s
nothing
you can do to stop
it once you’re caught!”

           
“Sounds like you’ve been a victim before,” Kelly said dryly.

           
For a moment Steve’s thoughts flashed back to Sarah. “Once,” he admitted,
staring at the patch of glowing red embers. Then he looked up and saw Kelly
watching him from across the flames.  Her green eyes looked huge in the
firelight.  “Maybe, twice…” he answered without realizing he had said
it. 

           
As soon as the words were out though, he could have kicked himself. 
How
hokie
could he get? What was wrong with him?

           
Rachel giggled, and the sound of her voice brought him back.  He looked
across the fire pit at her.  “What are you laughing at?” he asked.

           
She looked at him and then at Megan, and both girls giggled gleefully, watching
him.  “I think you are
twitterpated
right now!”

           
“Not me!” Steve declared too quickly, grateful that the firelight hid the
sudden flush to his face.  “I’m too old to get
twitterpated
.”

           
“That’s sad to hear,” Kelly said. “As I recall,
twitterpation
was a rather wonderful way to be.”

           
“You think so?” Steve asked cautiously.

           
She laughed softly.  “It had its moments.” The husky tone of her voice
made Steve’s heart skip a beat. Suddenly he glanced down at his slow roasting
marshmallow, and realized that it had burst into flames. “Oops,” he said,
scraping the caramelized meteor off onto a log.