The Mountain Between Us (18 page)

“I was just wondering,” she said. “In case we can't get our money back from Gerald.”

Bob cleared his throat and everyone turned to look at him. “As long as we're all gathered here, I'd like to make a proposal,” he said.

“What's that?” Paul asked.

“Since we've got all this snow and the side streets aren't plowed, I think we should close off a route to traffic for a day and have a snowmobile race. Sort of a winter grand prix.”

“Why would we want to do that?” Junior asked.

“Because it's fun. And because it would be another way to raise money for the town. The racers would pay to enter and local businesses could pay to advertise. We could make it an annual tradition. Y'all are always talking about wanting to find ways to get the tourists here in winter. I'm betting this would do it.”

“It's a little late in the game to lure any tourists here this year,” Paul said. “You have to advertise that kind of thing for months.”

“So consider this year the trial run. See how things go and if it's a hit, we go on from there.”

“It sounds dangerous,” Lucille said. “We can't expose the town to liability.”

“We're not talking Evel Knievel here,” Bob said. “Make everybody sign a waiver. Put up barriers the crowds have to stay behind. Limit the number of racers, if you like. C'mon . . . don't you people know how to have fun anymore?”

Lucille exchanged glances with the other council members. “It does sound like fun,” Junior said.

“I can draw up a waiver, though it won't necessarily stop a lawsuit if someone gets hurt,” Reggie said.

After dealing with Gerald, Lucille felt reckless. “I don't have any objections, if Reggie will see to the legal paperwork and Bob and Junior will design a route that's least likely to expose racers and spectators to injury.”

“I make a motion we allow the snowmobile races,” Doug said.

“All in favor?” Lucille asked.

Everyone but Reggie raised his hand. Reggie shrugged and then put up his hand, too. “What the hell.”

Lucille smiled. “I leave the planning to you gentleman.”

 

“Is there really such a thing as Yule Night, or is it something people around here made up because there weren't enough holidays already this time of year?” Olivia frowned at the revelers who filed past the Dirty Sally. Eureka's Yule Night celebration was in full swing, complete with a bonfire in the park, horse-drawn sleigh rides, and strolling carolers.

“Isn't yule another name for Christmas?” Jameso drew a pint of beer and passed it across the bar to Bob.

“Yule's what the pagans celebrated at the winter solstice,” Bob said. “Then the Christians came along and appropriated it.”

Olivia tried not to look surprised. Bob might come across as a half-crazy old coot, but he was actually pretty smart, especially when it came to history.

“Mostly, it's an excuse for the stores to stay open late and encourage people to do their Christmas shopping here instead of ordering off the Internet,” Jameso said. “Plus, it's a great party. Nothing wrong with that.”

“What are you looking so sour about?” Bob asked. “You don't like Christmas?”

“Not especially, no.” She waited for the sort of shocked protest she usually heard when she admitted she didn't care for America's most-loved holiday.

“It's a little much sometimes, isn't it?” Jameso said. “All that pressure to buy gifts and have a good time.”

“Yes!” She whirled to face him, pleased to have discovered a kindred spirit. “All that forced gaiety and togetherness. It makes me want to gag.”

“I thought maybe it would be better with a kid,” he said. “I mean, a lot of stuff about the holiday is geared toward children.”

Was he thinking of his own future child? “It's worse.” She pulled a plastic bin from the refrigerator and began refilling the lime, lemon, and cherry container on the bar. “They want everything and you know no matter what you do, you're going to disappoint them.”

“You two are just regular Scrooges, aren't you?” Bob shook his head.

“Bah, humbug,” she said. “When was the last time you had a really good Christmas—one like in the storybooks or TV shows, full of warm fuzzies and good cheer?”

“Maybe when I was really little?” Jameso shrugged. “I don't remember.”

“But not when you were older, right? I dreaded Christmas when I was a teenager, shuffling back and forth between my parents. My dad had remarried and had new, little kids and I always felt like an afterthought . . . a couple of presents under the tree that my stepmother obviously bought at the last minute. Being with my mother was even worse. It was always just the two of us, so pathetic.”

“So you had it rough as a kid,” Bob said. “Get over it. You're grown up now . . . celebrate however you want.”

“That's just it. All this”—she waved her hand to indicate the carolers and decorations and postcard-perfect snowfall—“all this tradition and sentiment have programmed us to want all those warm fuzzies and peace on earth. We're guaranteed to be disappointed no matter what.”

“So you just don't celebrate?” Bob asked. “Ignore the holiday and hope it will go away?”

“I wish.” She put the lid on the fruit with a resounding snap. “But I have a kid. I have to go through the motions for him.”

“Last year, Murphy and I spent the holiday shooting off fireworks and getting drunk.” Jameso looked sheepish. “When you're single, Christmas just reminds you how alone you are.”

“Yeah.” She rested her elbows on the bar, chin in hand, and watched a laughing family—mom, dad, and two little boys—stroll by. Last Christmas, she and D. J. had been together. He'd brought home a tree and they'd decorated it together. They'd seemed almost like a real family. It had been her best Christmas ever, but it hurt to think about now.

“What are you going to do this year?” she asked Jameso.

“I guess I'll spend Christmas with Maggie. Holidays like this seem important to her, so we'll do whatever she wants.”

“So you're putting all the responsibility for the day on her. So like a man.”

“Don't you give me that,” Jameso said. “It's you women who are responsible for all this decorating and gift wrapping and celebrating. If it were up to men, we'd settle for a day off work and a stiff drink and call it good.”

“Doesn't sound like a bad way to celebrate,” Olivia said. She wasn't a big drinker, but she wouldn't mind a bit of oblivion on the one day of the year so soaked with sentiment and expectation that she was guaranteed to end up depressed.

The front door flew open, letting in a swirl of snow and the sound of sleigh bells and laughter. “Mom! Can I go with D. J. in the plow truck?” Lucas shouted.

“Shut the door,” Olivia said. “And come here.”

He did as he was told and came to stand in front of the bar. He was panting, as if he'd been running, and the transition from frigid outdoors to the warm saloon had fogged his glasses. “He has to plow the road into town and he said I could ride in the truck with him if you said it was okay.”

“You know you're not supposed to come in the front door like that,” she said, stalling while she processed his request. “The sign says twenty-one and older. You need to come in through the kitchen.”

“I forgot. Can I go with him, please?”

“He's not going up on the passes, is he?” The bar patrons had filled her full of horror stories of cars being swept off the mountain by snow slides, or driving over the edge during whiteouts.

“No, he's just going to plow Main down to the intersection with the highway. He says you sit up real high in the truck and can see everything.”

What they'd see in the dark, she couldn't imagine, but clearly the prospect of this special privilege elated Lucas. “All right, you can go. But you have to be home by nine-thirty. Grandma's closing her shop at nine and she'll be waiting for you.”

“I will. I promise. Thank you. Bye!” He shouted the last as he raced out the door once more.

Maggie caught the door and came in. “Lucas is certainly excited about something,” she said, unwinding a scarf from around her throat. Her auburn hair curled around her face and her nose was bright red from the cold.

“He's going to ride in the plow truck,” Olivia said.

“Ah. That's better than a horse-drawn sleigh for a boy that age, I imagine. Hello, Jameso.”

“Hello, Maggie.” His smile was so warm and welcoming, Olivia had to look away, suppressing a sharp stab of jealousy. “Can I get you something?” he asked. “Coffee? Hot chocolate? I think we have some cider.”

“Nothing, thank you. I had hot chocolate from the Friends of the Library booth. I just came in to get off my feet for a bit.” She eased onto a bar stool. She looked tired, but good, Olivia thought. Her face was a little fuller than it had been a few months before, and her cheeks glowed from the cold. She'd be one of those pregnant women who looked more beautiful as the baby grew—all glossy hair and glowing skin. Not haggard and swollen, the way Olivia had felt with Lucas.

“Are you working tonight?” Olivia asked.

“Of course. Rick's driving the sleigh, so that leaves me to take pictures and interview shoppers and store owners.”

“Our business has been good,” Jameso said.

“I stopped by Lacy's and Lucille was busy,” Maggie said. “And the Historical Society booth sold out of baked goods about a half hour ago. I guess we have a few more tourists than usual because of all the news stories.”

“The shop owners will like that,” Jameso said.

“Yes, and maybe some people will come back next year.” She glanced toward the front window as a group of carolers passed, strains of “Jingle Bells” drifting in. “I can't blame people for wanting to visit,” she said when the singers had moved out of hearing range. “Everything is so beautiful: the Victorian buildings, the snow and evergreens and candles. It looks like a movie set.”

“I guess that's the idea,” Jameso said. “Give people the perfect Christmas fantasy.”

“But it's not a movie set, or a fantasy,” Maggie said. “It's just the way it is here. Eureka is a special place. I hadn't been here long before I realized that.”

To outsiders and newcomers less cynical than she was, Eureka probably did look perfect, Olivia thought. But every place had its problems, and its unpleasant people. It was naïve to pretend Eureka was different or special. Yes, the town had a few things going for it—the Thanksgiving dinner had been a lot more fun than she'd expected, and she'd been impressed with the way everyone had rallied around her mom. But that didn't make the town perfect or magical, or the people who lived here special.

“What do you want to do for Christmas?” Jameso leaned on the bar in front of Maggie.

“Oh, I don't know,” she said. “Barb and Jimmy will be here, so maybe we could have dinner with them.” She took his hand. “Just spending the day together will make me happy.”

“You're an easy woman to please.” He moved in closer and they kissed.

Olivia moved down the bar to give them some privacy, a familiar ache in her stomach. Sometimes she thought the hurt was from the baby she'd lost. What would D. J. have done if he'd returned home to find her pregnant? Would a child have been enough to heal the rift between them?

The child would have been born around Christmas. Maybe that would have changed her feelings about the holiday and transformed it into a day of joy instead of sadness.

This year, the lost baby would be one more reason to dread Christmas. Being here among all the picture-postcard perfection made her sadness that much worse.

Bah, humbug indeed.

C
HAPTER TWELVE

“N
ow that we have snow, we might as well enjoy it while we can.” Jameso pulled a pack from the back seat of his truck and slipped it onto his shoulders.

When Maggie had accepted his invitation to “get out of the house for a while” she hadn't imagined he meant heading up to the top of Black Mountain Pass. She looked down at the snowshoes strapped to her boots. “I'd always imagined myself gliding gracefully along on skis.”

“Not while you're pregnant. Too much danger of falling.” He handed her a pair of ski poles. “These will help with your balance. Trust me, if you can walk, you can snowshoe.”

“I'm not sure tromping around in the cold on top of a mountain pass is my idea of enjoyment.”

“Come on. It's a beautiful day. And the doctor said exercise was good for you.”

His enthusiasm was contagious and she had to admit, the day was sublime. The weather had cleared and the world around them was a frosted wedding cake, the dark pines dusted with powdered sugar. Sunlight sparkled on the snow, the air so clear and cold it practically crackled. Colors were impossibly bright—the deep turquoise of the sky, the red of Jameso's parka, her own pink gloves and hat.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Sure. Let's go.”

Snowshoeing turned out to be only a little awkward, requiring a wider stance and a shuffling gait. She followed him up a slight incline and around the curve. The snow was soft underfoot, light and fine as beach sand, crunching with each step. The sharp cold stung her cheeks, but the bright sun mitigated the bitterness. Maggie was soon winded, panting, but she felt gloriously alive nonetheless.

Jameso strode easily ahead of her, a tall, broad-shouldered figure in a red jacket and a black wool cap, more at home out here than most people were in their own living rooms. How had Maggie Stevens, a girl from the city, ever ended up with a man like him? She might as well have tried to tame a mountain lion.

He half-turned to look back at her. “You doing all right?”

“Just a little winded.”

“We'll rest a little bit.” He unzipped his parka and pulled out the tube of a water bladder and offered it to her. While she drank, he pointed to a cluster of buildings in a clearing below. “That's the old Blue Bird mine.”

The buildings had the weathered, unpainted look she'd come to associate with the historic mine ruins that littered the mountains around Eureka. But these had a few modern touches—a rusting round-fender pickup truck on blocks beside one building, and the hulk of a yellow diesel tractor crouching in a shed.

“How long has the mine been closed?” she asked.

“I think it closed in the thirties, during the Depression. For a while the owners talked about reopening it, but nothing came of it.”

“I heard a rumor the town is thinking of mining some of the old claims they own.”

“I heard that rumor, too. I think Bob started it, which means there's probably nothing to it.”

“Why would Bob start a rumor like that?” She'd learned the old man didn't do anything without a reason, even if his reasoning was sometimes a little skewed.

“Maybe he has a claim of his own he wants to sell and this is a way of getting people to think there's going to be a new gold rush in Eureka County.” He shook his head. “I don't think those old claims are worth anything. Even if they are, where is Eureka going to get the money for the kind of technology you need to mine nowadays?”

“I guess not. It's an interesting idea, though. I mean, the French Mistress didn't have any gold in it, but the turquoise was a pretty neat find.”

“Leave it to Jake to own the only mine in the county that was still worth anything.”

“Maybe the town could sell the claims it owns to investors who have the money and technology to make them pay,” she said.

“It's an idea. But first you have to convince an investor the mine could pay. Tough to do in this economy. Everyone's cynical.” He zipped up his jacket. “You ready to go on? It's mostly downhill from here.”

“Until we start back.”

“You can do it.”

“Yes, coach.” But she grinned. Jameso was good at getting her to break out of her comfort zone and try new things—though having a first baby at forty was a bigger challenge than she'd ever imagined taking on. If she could do that, snowshoeing down a mountain pass seemed like a day at the beach in comparison.

At the edge of the clearing where the mine was situated, a sign proclaimed the area to be the property of the Eureka County Historical Society and warned against trespassing. “Cassie would have a fit if she knew we were here,” Maggie said. The town librarian was also head of the historical society and regarded historical sites as her personal property.

“I'm tempted to tell her, just to see her reaction.” Jameso led the way down what must have once been the main thoroughfare through the mine, past a tall house where tattered curtains flapped in glassless windows. “That was the boarding house for the miners,” he said. He pointed to a smaller house farther up the canyon, with the remains of a green metal roof. “That was the mining superintendent's home.”

“It's amazing how much of this has survived,” she said, looking at the cables of a tram stretched overhead. Ore would have been transported in giant iron buckets along that tram, to the waiting mill on a slope above.

“There's talk of restoring all this and turning it into a mining museum,” he said. “But the location's a problem. They'd have to build a road, and the state's not likely to grant a permit. It's tough enough to keep the highway open in the winter, much less a secondary road to a tourist attraction.”

Wind stirred up whirlwinds of snow in the street and Maggie hugged herself, shivering. “Come on.” Jameso put one arm around her shoulders. “Let's take a break out of the wind.”

They moved to the shed that housed the yellow hulk of the tractor. Jameso took a thermos of hot tea and two almond butter and raspberry jam sandwiches from his pack and passed one sandwich and a mug of tea to Maggie. “My hero,” she said, as she sipped the warm, sweet tea. It was all she could do to keep from moaning with pleasure at this unexpected indulgence. She'd taken off the snowshoes and sat in the driver's seat of the tractor while he lounged on the hood.

He grinned. “I'm lucky you're easy to please.”

They ate in comfortable silence for a while. The shed wasn't warm, but out of the wind, cradling the mug of tea, she wasn't uncomfortable. “Does the tractor work?” she asked.

“It used to. A couple years ago Jake and I started it up and took it for a spin.”

She pictured the two of them trundling through the valley on a wilderness joyride. She might have known her father had been involved in an escapade like that. “How did you two become such good friends?” she asked. “I mean, there was a big difference in your ages.”

She'd asked the question before—each answer added another little piece to the picture of her father she kept in her mind.

“You don't really want to know,” Jameso said.

“Of course I do.”

“It's not a story that puts either one of us in the best light.”

“I already know my father wasn't a saint.” Jake Murphy had walked out on his family when Maggie was three days old and she hadn't heard a word from him until after his death. Yet since coming to Eureka to learn about him, she'd learned to pity him—and maybe even to love him a little. And to forgive him a lot.

“Yeah, and I guess you know all about my clay feet, too.”

She said nothing, but waited, sensing he would talk if she gave him the time.

“I told you we met the first time up on the mountain.”

“Yes.” She recalled the tale. “You were target shooting and he joined you and shared your whiskey.”

“Right. That really happened, but that's not really when we became such good friends. You might say that was how we first ended up on one another's radar. The friendship started a few months later.”

“What happened?” She leaned forward, fascinated at the developing picture of her father and his much younger friend.

“I was at a bar,” Jameso said.

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Don't interrupt.”

“Fine. You were in a bar.”

“I tried to pick up this woman and she shot me down. Jake laughed and I told him to shut up or I'd punch him. I think I called him grandpa, but that only made him laugh more, which made me even angrier. I suggested we go outside in the parking lot. We did and he laid me out flat with one punch.

“Then he picked me up and took me back to his place and made coffee, and we stayed up half the night talking.”

“Classic male bonding.”

“I told you it didn't especially make either one of us look good. We had a lot in common.”

“Anger and liquor.”

Jameso nodded. “I hadn't been back from Iraq very long and I was pretty messed up. Jake helped set me straight. Part of it was seeing how he dealt—or didn't deal—with the demons in his own life.”

“What happened in the war?” She'd asked the question before and he always refused to talk. But she'd keep asking, determined to break down the silence that was another barrier between them.

“I was in a convoy that was attacked and more than half the men in the group died. I had a bad case of survivor's guilt. When they sent me home I had nowhere to go.”

“What about your family?”

“I stopped by to see my mom and sister up in Florida. My sister's married with two kids. Her husband made it clear he didn't think much of me. My mom is in a little one-bedroom apartment. I slept on the couch a couple of nights and I could tell I made her nervous. Like I was a bomb she was expecting to go off.”

She waited and he rewarded her patience. He drained his tea mug and set it aside on the hood of the tractor. “I haven't seen my dad since I was sixteen. That's the last time he tried to hit me. For the first time I fought back, and I won. I told him if he ever laid a hand on me or my mom or my sister, I'd kill him. I think he knew I meant it, so he left and never came back.” He glanced back at Maggie. “I learned later he had a shitty childhood, so he was just repeating all his father's mistakes with me. What if I do that with our child?”

“You won't.” She leaned forward and squeezed his arm. It was like squeezing an iron bar, but beneath all his toughness, she had seen his tenderness. “You're a good man, Jameso.”

He leaned forward, away from her touch. “There's a voice in my head that tells me I'm not good enough.”

She swallowed past the knot of emotion in her throat and struggled to find the right words. “I think that voice talks to all of us sometimes. We have to learn not to listen to it.”

He slid down off the tractor and began packing up the remains of their lunch. “You ready to go?” he asked. Conversation over. The words he had shared had been a gift; she wouldn't press for more.

“Sure.”

They made their way out of the mining camp and back up the trail. Maggie felt closer to Jameso than she ever had, touched by the secret parts of himself he'd shared with her today.

Without her having to ask, he stopped halfway up so she could rest. He stood astride the trail, poles planted, face tilted up to scan the mountaintops above. Maggie had her camera in her jacket pocket, but she knew if she took it out she'd break the mood.

“I like being out here because the mountains make my problems seem small,” he said. “I can handle myself out here.”

“You can handle yourself anywhere,” she said.

“You'd be wrong about that.” He turned toward her, but she couldn't read his expression behind the dark sunglasses he wore. “I don't always know how to handle myself around you.”

“You've done all right so far.”

“You turned down my proposal.”

“Because I don't want you marrying me out of a sense of obligation.”

“So you don't ever want to marry me?”

“Not until you prove it's what you really want.”

He made a noise between a growl and a grunt, a sound that was equal parts anger and frustration. Maggie felt the warm closeness of the afternoon slipping away. She shuffled up beside him and slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow. “I'm happy with things the way they are right now,” she said. “It's a beautiful day and I'm glad to be sharing it with you. That's enough for now, isn't it?”

He hesitated half a second, then patted her hand. “You're right. It's more than enough for now.”

 

Olivia fussed with the hem of the tunic she'd fashioned from an old formal she'd found at her mom's shop. She'd ripped the dress apart for the material, a sky blue silk embroidered with tiny butterflies, and reworked it into an asymmetrical mini dress she was wearing tonight as a tunic over skinny jeans. Bright yellow high-heeled pumps—another thrift-store find—completed the look. “You don't think I look like I'm trying too hard, do you?” she asked as she studied her reflection in the mirror tacked to her bedroom closet.

“You look too fashionable and hip for Eureka,” Lucille said. “But I think that's probably the look you were going for, right?”

Olivia flushed. “Maybe. Maggie said she was going to take a picture for the paper.”

Lucille patted her shoulder. “You look beautiful.”

“You do, Mom.” Lucas, wearing jeans and an oversized desert camo T-shirt she suspected he'd swiped from D. J., stuck his head in the doorway of Olivia's room. “We'd better go or we're going to be late.”