Off the Beaten Path (2 page)

Kristin's pulse was still racing as she came around the next corner and saw a wide spot in the road. The gravel area looked like a place for tourist to pull over and snap a few pictures of the scenic beauty that surrounded her as well as for fishermen to park and walk across the highway to do a little fishing. There was a rushing waterfall that spilled out of the mountainside and into a small pool at the far end of the parking area. It was a perfect place to stop, and right now more than anything she needed to stop. 

The Mercedes jerked and twitched as the tires grabbed at the loose gravel and the brakes pumped feverishly in an attempt to bring the car to a stop. Neither her, nor the Mercedes were accustom to being off the smooth asphalt highway.

The day was getting warmer, and she needed to feel the warm rays of sunlight bouncing off the canyon walls and onto her face. She reached up and undid the clips that held the convertible top in place, and hit the button that folded the convertible top back into its hiding place. Kristin did not realize how tense her body was until she opened the car door and stepped out onto the gravel apron of the road.

Kristin Palmer was a tall athletically built beauty with long legs and a body that looked like it belonged on a cover of a magazine. In fact, at one time or another her 
body had been on the cover of almost every major fashion publication on the magazine stand. She had long dark wavy hair that had just a hint of auburn at the tips and voluminous brown eyes that made her face seem narrower than it really was. In her bare feet she was just over five foot eight, but the way she carried herself made it seem to most people like she was over six feet. When she slipped on a pair of her favorite stiletto heels is when she actually hit the six foot mark.

Kristin was not one of those women that
were embarrassed by her height or her beauty, she was modestly proud of all of her dimension. She had always been about ten to fifteen pounds heavier than most models, a feature that gave her the gentle curves and style of a Rachael Welch or a Sophia Loren, unlike her anorexic fashion peers.

Years ago, a young, want- to-be rock star had burst out into a pretty good imitation of the old Rod Stewart song, “You wear it well,” when she had walked into a fashion party. Everyone at the party had applauded loudly as She made her way through the crowded room and planted a bright red lipstick kiss on the young man's cheek., the kid had turned almost as red as the lipstick stain on his cheek.

Standing there on the side of the road between the gravel under her feet and a bright ray of sunlight on her dark brown hair she didn't look anywhere near too her thirty fifth birthday. Her best
friend Becca was fond of saying that the cosmetic industry was never going to get rich off of Kristin Palmer. She had a flawless complexion that had even her closest friends routinely wondering whether she was wearing makeup or not. Friends and family, that had known her all of their life thought that she was more beautiful today than when she was twenty years old. She possessed the perfect mix of beauty and maturity, and she never took either one of these for granted. Yep, to put it mildly Kristin Palmer was a hands down knock out.

Kristin closed her eyes and leaned back against the car with her hands resting behind her on edge of the rolled down windows. The sun was starting to break out of the pine trees and illuminate the narrow canyon. She could feel the heat of the day about to begin. She pulled off the University of Washington Huskies sweatshirt that she was wearing and threw it in the back seat of the Mercedes.

She thought with a mild amusement as she pulled off the sweatshirt that it was a good thing the old highway was deserted. She could imagine some unsuspecting trucker speeding down the canyon and around the curve in the road just in time to see a women that breathtakingly stunning peeling off a layer of clothing, he probably would have dumped his eighteen wheeler right into the river.

She could see herself giving the highway patrol officer her statement,

“Yes sir, the cause of the accident was a U of W sweatshirt that fled the scene.” Kristin laughed out loud at the absurdity of the movie playing in her head. The thought about being the cause of a tractor trailer rig upside down in the river was damn near ludicrous. The drama continued with the dazed trucker standing waist deep in water and pointing at her and screaming, “She did it officer; she made me drive off the road.”

Kristin knew that these little moments of fantasy and levity teetered on the verge of insanity. She understood that as long as she could separate absurdity
from reality and laugh at both of them, she might be okay.

Kristin opened her eyes and looked up and down the road. She could not remember if she had seen any other cars since she had left the main highway twenty minutes ago. She listened for other cars echoing off the canyon walls, but all she could hear were a half a dozen different birds calling to each other and the slow casual gurgle of the river thirty feet from where she stood in the dirt. All of a sudden she felt very alone.

She swung her legs over the side of the car door without opening it and settled back down into the leather seats of the Mercedes. When she fired up the engine and punched the gas pedal the tires spun as they tried to gain some traction in the gravel. The tires produced a high pitch scream that she could hear bouncing off the canyon walls when the tires finally made contact with the road. The next curve in the road turned into the longest stretch of straight road that she had seen since she had turned off I-90. The straight-away had a slight incline to it as she pressed down hard on the gas pedal. The Mercedes leaped like a thoroughbred race horse coming out of the starting gate at the Kentucky Derby. Kristin went through the gears as the Mercedes speedometer passed ninety and the flash of the trees in her peripheral vision made it feel like her and the car might just lift off and fly.

Twenty minutes ago she had been driving west on highway 90 toward Seattle. Her plan was to spend the night in one of the small towns along the way and get up early the next morning and make it back to Seattle before Saturday night. She had told her staff that she would not be back to work until Wednesday, but she figured she could rest up for most of Sunday and be back in the agency by Monday morning. She had some work that she could get caught up on she didn’t need to wait until Wednesday. Work would help her get through the next few months, or years, or the rest of her life.

Kristin had no idea what had made her abruptly turn off the four lane highway and head north up highway 200 along the Blackfoot River. It was probably the same sensation that had made her take I-15 out of Los Angeles instead of heading straight up I-5 toward Seattle; she was in no hurry to get back to her empty apartment.

She made the trek to L.A. two times during the year for business. This was the first time since that she had decided to drive herself instead of the usual airport, rental car chaos that surrounded one of these trips. She needed some windshield time to get her bearings and feel like she was in charge of something, anything.

At the last possible second Kristin had jerked the steering wheel hard to the right and angled the Mercedes off the interstate and onto the highway 200 exit ramp. She felt the car fish tail and the tires squeal as she maneuvered around the sharp turn of the exit ramp. As she rolled to a stop at the bottom of the ramp she remembered a movie she had seen a
couple of years ago about two brothers fly fishing on the Blackfoot River. The movie had painted a tranquil, almost spiritual portrait of life and fly-fishing in Western Montana. She wondered if it really could be that beautiful and serene. There was only one way to find out.

Kristin turned right and drove north through a quaint little lumber town where all the houses were lined up in a neat row right across the street from the massive Weyerhaeuser lumber mill. The buildings of the lumber mill seemed to run the entire length of the town, and she could imagine every adult above the age of eighteen working at the lumber mill.

As Kristin left the small lumber town in her rear view mirror she drove past a massive rock formation that was the entrance to the narrow canyon along the Blackfoot River. The closeness of the narrow canyons gave her a feeling of security she needed. The gently flowing river that ran along beside the road provided the calm that she had not felt for years. And the giant evergreens clinging to the rocks on the sides of the mountains gave her the strength she had been looking to discover for this entire trip. She found herself wishing that the twisting turning road would go on forever. There was something revitalizing about taking a sharp corner faster than the roadside signs suggested. She caught herself leaning into the corners as she turned the wheel as if the tilt of her body was attached to the skeleton of the car. She could sense the road slightly raising in elevation just enough to make her keep a constant pressure on the gas pedal but not enough that she needed to down shift except when she was coming out of a particularly tight corner. The echo of the roaring engine off the canyon walls sounded like a scream coming from way down deep in her gut.

At the end of the long straight stretch of road the car burst out from the narrow canyon and onto a slight rise that felt like the sudden drop of a roller coaster in her stomach. What she was gaping at now literally took her breath away. Extending out in front of her in every
direction was a pristine valley that appeared to be almost imaginary, like she had stepped into a canvas painting by one of the masters.

The valley spread out in front of her seemed to be a mirage of light and color. She eased her car over to the side of the road and got out to take in every detail that had unfolded in front of her. There was something extraordinary about how the valley appeared to be both vast and secluded all at the same time. The mountains that surrounded the valley looked like their sole purpose was to hold the valley in place, to hide it from the outside world. The sky was bluer than anything she had ever seen and the valley itself had the character of the old painting that jumps off of the canvas at you. The pastures were so green they looked like they had a fresh coat of wet green paint on them. There were houses and barns scattered around the valley, none of the buildings were new but they all looked well kept. From her vantage point slightly above the valley it seemed as if she looking across the billowing clouds instead of up at them. And for a moment everything froze. Her vision didn't just expand it unfolded in front of her like she was being pulled into the valley, sucked into the painting.

The deafening blast from the air-horn coming up the road behind her collapsed her vision and forced her back to reality. It was not a malicious get out of the road honk or a the sexy, hey sweetie want a ride honk, it was more of a,

“Hey, lady don't step out in front of my truck and get run over,” type of warning honk. Although, two-hundred yards down the highway the trucker did give Kristin the “Hey sweetie,” honk. At least she hadn't put him in the river; she laughed and waved at the disappearing truck. He shot back a long blast from the air-horn until he was out of sight.

Kristin climbed back behind the wheel and eased the car back onto the highway. She had gone from launch speed coming out of the canyon to a slow roll taking in every detail of the valley. There was an old schoolhouse with what looked like a national monument marker in front of it. There were a handful of roadside billboards that advertised a local diner and bait shop. The road was neither straight nor windy; it appeared to be part of the land rather than an intruder on it. 

The canyon road that she had just emerged out of had been carved out of the mountain with men and wagons pulled by mule teams as well as a lot of sweat and dynamite, and it showed it. This stretch of highway she was on now was unlike any other road that she had ever driven on. It seemed to caress the valley floor like the men that had built it went to painful ends not to disturb the valley itself. It was the first time in her life that she realized that every road that she had ever traveled was only a visitor on the earth and that the earth would eventually
reclaim that narrow piece of ground that lay under it given enough time and inattention by men.

As she rounded one of the long slow curves in the road her eyes became fixed on an old barn sitting in the middle of a pasture surrounded by a fence that looked damn near as old, both of them refusing to give up and fall down. The old structure looked as natural standing in the middle of the valley as a rocking chair sitting on a front porch. The barn was built near the intersection of the main road and a long straight gravel road that appeared to spring right out of the mountains off in the distance.

Without thinking she slipped her foot off the gas pedal and the car slowed. When she reached the intersection she cranked the wheel hard to the right off of the asphalt and onto the gravel road. She skidded to a stop in the middle of the dirt road and stared at the barn like it was as old friend that she hadn't seen in years.

Kristin climbed out of the car reached into the back seat and grabbed her camera out of her camera bag. Although her camera had been sitting in her backseat for the entire trip this was the first time she had felt the urge to take it out and shoot any pictures since she had left Seattle over a week ago. Kristin walked up the road with her camera held out in front of her like a hunter holding his rifle ready never taking her eyes of the barn. She would stop every few feet and stare at the old barn, but not just at the barn but everything around and beyond the teetering old structure. Despite her years in front of a camera she still loved being on the viewing end of the shutter.