Far Country (59 page)

           
“Almost ready?” He asked her solicitously.

           
She made a face and lifted her dress slightly to peer at the boots.  “I
think so. Are you sure that everyone will be doing this?” She asked him again,
as if the boots might be a joke he was playing on her.

           
Steve pointed to his own black boots.  “I’m part of the wedding party, and
these were required,” he assured her again.  “So I am certain that your
shoes will be the height of Hanging Rock Fashion!”

           
She smiled only half convinced, and then she looked around.  “Your mother
is joining us, I hope?”

           
Steve shook his head.  “She has a bad knee.  She’s elected to stay
below and watch the movie version.  I already dropped her off at
Headquarters.”

           
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Lee Ann said, her disappointment evident. “I was
looking forward to walking up with her.”

           
“She’ll be at the reception, of course,” Steve reminded her.  “I’ll ask
her to save you a seat for later out on the deck.”

           
Next door, Deborah and her parents stepped out into the yard.  Steve’s
eyes widened.  He’d always considered Deborah to be exceptionally pretty,
but today, she was breathtaking! She was wrapped in a creamy A-line tea length
gown that set off her green eyes and red hair perfectly. Instead of a veil, she
wore a soft crown of white flowers, and carried a spring bouquet of local
wildflowers. Her green eyes sparkled and glowed with happiness and
excitement.  He walked over and offered her his arm. 

           
“You are a vision!” He told her sincerely.  Pete’s going to fall off the
rock when he sees you!”

           
Deborah gave Steve a happy smile, but blushed just the same at his
compliment.  “As Best Man, remember that it’s your job to stand below and
catch him then!” She teased.

           
“Me?” Steve asked, raising an eyebrow. “Why not Chuck?”

           
Deborah raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Because you owe me!” She retorted.
She reached up and touched the faint outlines of the angry red welts, the
remnants of the wasp attack only the week before.

           
“I don’t think that you can hold that against me,” Steve argued seriously,
“when it was Pete who threw stuff at the nest.”

           
“But it was your stuff that he threw!” She pointed out spiritedly. “And he
wouldn’t have even been up there in the first place, if you hadn’t made him
go!”

           
“It’s not like I forced him to go with me!” Steve said in exasperation,
choosing to forget Pete’s near mutiny early in the hike.

           
“Well, fortunately for you, Pete’s stings have faded even faster than yours, so
you are pretty much forgiven,” she pronounced, tapping his cheek lightly with
her bouquet.

           
“Well, I am glad that I wasn’t the cause of you having to postpone the wedding.
Heaven knows, marrying a guy covered in welts puts a little too much reality on
the phrase ‘for better or worse’!” He told her heatedly.

           
“Oh, get over yourself, Steve!” Deborah said with a laugh at his attitude. “I
love Pete, and I’d marry him today if he was laid up in a hospital bed, if it
was my only option. But when you’ve put this much time and planning and money
into something, you get a little out of sorts when the day gets unnecessarily
sabotaged!”      

           
Steve relaxed a little and grinned. “You’re right, of course,” he admitted.
“Truce?”

           
“Truce,” she agreed.

           
Just then, Deborah’s two maids of honor, Jill and a college girlfriend named
Terri, came out of Jill’s trailer, wearing tea length light blue sundresses.
Wildflowers dotted their hair, and they also carried small wildflower bouquets.

           
Steve held out his arm.  “It looks like everyone is here now. May I escort
you to the Wedding Bells Express?”

           
Deborah smiled up at him, and took a deep breath. “Let’s do it!”

           
Steve walked her to one of the Park trucks, scrubbed to a sparkling white and
strung with bells, bows and streamers to mark
it’s
elevated status. A special three step stair placed against the back, allowed
him to hand her into the truck bed in a dignified manner, where she took a
seat  on one of the two long padded benches that ran along either side of
the bed.  Her mother sat across from her, with Lee Ann next to her, and
the two men took seats on the opposite side from the women.  Gracie
crowded in next to her grandmother, and Fiona sat down contentedly next to Richard,
her head in his lap.

           
Having finally gotten the wedding party settled in, Steve climbed into the cab
next to Chuck, who was decked out similarly to Steve in black tux and tie with
black tennis shoes.  “Head ‘
em
up, move ‘
em
out!” He announced, waking Chuck, who had dozed off in
the driver’s seat.

           
“Right,” Chuck said, sitting up and blinking his eyes, as if he was trying to
remember why he was here.  He stretched and switched on the ignition.
“Here we go!”

           
They drove from the compound and made a loop around the campsite, where the
campers lined up at their sites and beat on pans or clapped as Deborah and the
wedding party waved happily from the truck. Then they sailed down the road to
the park headquarters, where once again, the family and friends who could not
make the climb were lined up to wave and cheer them on their way.  Chuck
paused at the far end of the parking lot and stuck his head out the window.
“Y’all brace yourselves!” He reminded them. “This section gets kind of bumpy!”

           
Chuck eased the wheels over the sidewalk and onto the shallow-stepped path that
also served as the access road to the Hanging Rock Trail. Even with Chuck’s
warning, the passengers found it difficult to steady themselves as the truck
lurched and rumbled down the slope. Thankfully though, they were soon cruising
slowly up the wide gravel trail.

           
Between the growl of the engine and the gravel crunching under the wheels,
conversation was a little difficult.  At first, Robert Graham took a few
moments to study his daughter, and allowed her obvious joy fill his own soul.
He was so proud of the young woman she had grown into, and Pete was a man he
would be proud to call his son.

           
His thoughts shifted to the set of parents who sat across from him. He felt a
momentary sadness for Lee Ann and Richard. They never had the opportunity to
see their own daughter married, and the birth of their granddaughter must have
been a bittersweet and difficult time.  Yet he was grateful that God had
left them with Gracie, who was a true light in their lives as she grew.

           
Especially with a son like David!  He was ashamed to feel how relieved he
was that it was Pete and not David Bolton who was marrying his Deborah. As hard
as it must have been to lose Sarah, how must Richard and Lee Ann feel to have a
son whose behavior was sometimes embarrassing and often destructive? What a
struggle it must be for them to love such a son!     

           
Robert’s thoughts drifted back to the suspicious vehicle that he and Hester had
seen in the parking lot earlier. He hoped that they had been wrong, yet he
remained edgy and disquieted by the possibility that David might find it
amusing to crash the wedding. The possibility nagged at him and undermined the
peace he wanted to feel in these last few minutes with Deborah before she
became a wife.

           
Lee Ann looked up at that moment and smiled questioningly at Robert. 
Caught in the act of staring, Robert forced a smile. “I’m glad that you and Richard
are here to share the day with us,” he told her.

           
Lee Ann rested a hand on Gracie’s shoulder.  “As grandparents of the
flower girl, we couldn’t have been anywhere else,” she replied, smiling fondly at
Gracie who, along with Deborah and Hester, was happily waving at the hikers and
various well wishers who were still out on the trail.

           
“You know that we always loved Deborah too.  There was a time when we had
hoped that she and David would be, would have…” she sighed and her words
trailed off, and then she began again.  “Well, we would have been proud to
call her our daughter,” she finished.

           
“Ah well, first loves are seldom last loves,” he commented in a neutral
tone.  “A lot of growing and changing occurs after high school.”

           
“Still,” Lee Ann persisted, “I was disappointed that they could not work out
their differences.”

           
“How is David doing? It’s been a while since we’ve heard from him,” Robert
said, trying not to recall too vividly the unpleasant scene at Christmas, when
David had arrived so drunk at the Bolton’s party, that he’d tried to make a
move on Kelly and then  accused Steve of trying to steal Kelly away from
him.

           
Lee Ann didn’t seem to want to remember that moment either.  It had taken
Pete, Robert, and Richard to stop David from physically attacking Steve in
front of his parents and their remaining guests.  Pete had actually taken
a punch for Steve, by stepping between the two men when David had refused to
back down!

           
“He’s done well enough,” Lee Ann replied vaguely.  “He’s almost done with
recruiting duty.  He’ll be back at Camp
Lejeune
next month.”

           
“Glad to hear it,” Robert said, then he blurted “Hester and I saw a car like
his in the parking lot earlier today.”

           
Lee Ann looked startled, and her cheeks reddened slightly. “It may have looked
like his, but it wasn’t,” she assured him quietly.  “After what happened
at the Christmas party, I felt it would be better not to tell him that Deborah
was getting married today.”

           
Robert felt his heart lighten considerably. “He doesn’t know then?” He
repeated, unable to hide his relief.”

           
“No, Robert,” she said again in a slightly brittle tone, “he does not know that
today is the day.”

           
“Yes he does, Grammy!” Gracie said suddenly, turning her head to look at her
grandmother.

           
Lee Ann’s face paled. “He – does?” She managed to say, although she was clearly
taken by surprise at Gracie’s words.

           
“Yeah,” Gracie confirmed.  “Uncle David called us last week while you were
out in the garden.  I told him all about my dress and how Uncle Pete and
Aunt Debbie were getting married on a mountaintop instead of inside a church!”

           
She turned and waved to another group of hikers who were whistling and clapping
on the side of the trail.

           
Robert sat very still.  He felt like he had just swallowed a
boulder.  He glanced over at his wife and daughter, who sat laughing and
waving happily from the truck bed, oblivious to what Gracie had just confided
to them.

           
“And, what did your Uncle David say about all your news?” He managed to ask the
little girl weakly.

           
Gracie suddenly looked guilty. “He told me not to tell anybody, cause he had a
secret gift and he wanted to surprise everyone.”  She frowned a
little.  “I guess it’s okay that I told you – as long as Aunt Debbie and
Daddy don’t know.”

           
His mouth was so dry suddenly that he could only nod at Gracie.  Slowly he
raised his eyes to look at Lee Ann. David’s mother sat with her hand resting
against her throat. Her lips were parted fearfully and her eyes were wide, as
if she were seeing all of the same disturbing possibilities that immediately
flooded Robert’s imagination.  In that moment, Robert knew that Lee Ann
Bolton had known the truth about David for a very long time.

           
The sunset was an inspired work of art created by the Master.  Royal
purples, pinks and liquid gold swirled gloriously on the backdrop of Moore's
Knob, yet it seemed to be merely a reflection of the radiant joy on Hanging
Rock, as Past Robert Graham pronounced the sacred words that joined the couple
as man and wife.

           
It had been a perfect wedding, Steve reflected, cheering and clapping wildly
with the rest of the guests.  From the moment when the Grahams and Mr.
Bergen walked hand in hand with their children from the ‘Over the Top Lounge’,
out onto Hanging Rock; to sharing Holy Communion with all the guests, including
those celebrating in the T.V. Room back at Headquarters, until this moment
when, kneeling on the massive rock in full sight of God and man, Pete and
Deborah had pledged their lives to their God and to each other.

           
Hester, Jill and her college friend, Terri, had stood with Deborah. Steve,
Chuck and Andre Bergen, Pete’s father, had stood beside him as the couple made
their vows.  About fifty guests had chosen to make the climb and be
present for the ceremony, while about fifty more waited at Park Headquarters,
watching the event on the huge plasma screen that Pete’s high school buddy from
channel 9 had helped to arrange.