Two Medicine (39 page)

I turned to look where the
call had come from, and there was Scott himself, smiling at me near
the front door, a backpack on his shoulder. His sandy blonde hair
was a bit longer than when I had last seen him, and he seemed,
healthier, bolder. As I stood up, I couldn’t believe what I was
seeing – Scott from Georgia, last seen at Coco Joe’s, there, in the
store amid the sweatshirts and coffee mugs in Montana, 2000 miles
away... Larry’s bald head poked up from a couple of aisles away and
regarded him and me respectively with a suspicious look.

“Scott!” I called out to
him, smiling, and got up from the chair. “What the hell are you
doing here, man?” I went up to meet him and we hugged; he laughed
and slapped me on the back. Larry’s bald head slowly ducked back
down to whatever he had been doing.

“Look at you!” Scott said.
“I thought you’d have a beard down to the floor by now – Grizzly
Adams.” He laughed and looked around the store. “So this is where
you’ve been working?”

“Yea,” I said, following
his gaze. “
This
is
the place.” I knew how strange it must have looked to him. “We live
upstairs.”

“I see, I see.” he said,
taking it his surroundings.

I felt really pleased to
see him, like I’d just found a lost, treasured gift that I didn’t
even know I had been missing. Scott somehow made that new place
more real, more legitimate for me when he walked in. It would have
been so different with Holly… if she had shown up it would have
completely wrecked the harmony and peace I had found of
late.

“
So what’s with the
surprise visit?” I asked. “I don’t here peep from you and then you
just walk in here out of the blue?”

“
I
didn’t hear a peep outta
you
!” he said. “So I had to come make
sure you were still alive.” He explained that he had two weeks to
burn and was doing a “mega road trip” across the West, and had
decided to make the trip to Glacier.

“We got in yesterday and
stayed the night at the big lodge down the road. Brooke’s outside,”
he said, meaning his 20-year-old girlfriend.

“Ah, you’re still with
Brooke, good… You guys are gonna love the trails around here. Let
me show you around.”

We retrieved their bags
(they had brought the appropriate backpacks to the park); and we
retrieved Brooke, who had been taking pictures of the lake, and
then I showed them around the store.

Ronnie saw us and wandered
over and said “hi.” He kept gawking at Brooke, and I got us away
from him quickly and went back to the kitchen. Katie was friendly,
at least, and offered them some shakes she was making. Later on
Larry came back to the store, and I introduced them to him, and
even that grumpy bastard managed a smile – more tourist dollars to
be spent in the store he probably figured. But that was Scott all
around; he just had an energy and positivity that brought a smile
to the face. He was always good company.

They had arranged
for a campsite nearby, and had a new tent that
they planned on finally breaking in that night. I couldn’t think of
the last time Scott had ever camped, but then again he now looked
like he could handle the outdoors better than before. In fact, he
looked a lot different. His face was unblemished, his ears were
clearer, and his overall figure was solid and healthy
looking.

I told him as much as we
settled into a table in the snack bar area of the store. He nodded
like he expected the comment. “I cleaned up, Will,” he said. “Been
completely sober now – 29 days.”

“And Brooke here’s been my
savior,” he continued. “She got me into yoga and meditation, and
it’s allowed me to really reach some strength that I needed, inner
strength.” He looked over at Brooke.

“He’s really been doing
great, Will,” she said, her blue eyes sparkling under her mass of
black hair held back with a headband. “He’s got a new sales job
with Verizon, and he’s working out again.”

“Glad to hear it – very
glad.” I said, and I meant it. Scott’s fate was still a concern for
me, whether I was conscious of it from day to day or not. “What do
you think finally brought this all on?”

“Well,” Scott said,
“honestly? You did.”

I rolled my eyes in disbelief.

“
No, really,” he
protested. “When you up and left and went after this crazy idea –
your dream – and left it all behind like you did, at first I
thought you had some kind of breakdown… But when I realized why you
did it: you had reached a breaking point, and you had to find a
change. You inspired me to leave my shit behind and start over
again, too.

He took a sip of his
shake, and then shook his head. “It was a big risk for you to come
out here – I know you don’t have any safety net to land on… So I
decided to go without the safety net too.”

I shook my head. “I don’t
know about that. You had it in you to break those habits man, you
didn’t need me moving to Montana to get there.”

“No, I did,” he said, with
a frown. “I’d tried cleaning up a dozen times before – you know
that. But I think,” he put his hand out and holding Brooke’s, “that
when you up and got a new life out here I had to get a new life too
– that or just get busy dying. It’s nothing complicated man;
sometimes it’s as simple as following the lead of your best
friend.”

He nodded at me for a
moment, with a serious expression on his face. So, in a way, that’s
two times you’ve saved my life.”

We talked for
about an hour there in the snack area, and I made
them some sandwiches for their lunch at camp. I showed them the
rooms upstairs on our side; and I took them outside and pointed out
the mountains and the various trails you could see around the lake.
I felt an irrational but very personal pride in showing off the
rugged beauty that had become the backdrop of my daily life; and I
described the terrain with the pride of a land baron looking over
his vast acreage.

They eventually left to
set up their campsite after the rain stopped; and after finishing
up work I got to their camp site later and found a fire already
blazing with some fold-out chairs stationed around it. Behind the
chairs was their rental car and I saw their big tent set up
nearby.

“There he is,” Scott
called out when he spotted me. “Just in time for
desert!”

Scott gestured over to
Brooke who was concentrating on a marshmallow stuck onto the end of
a coat hanger she carefully held over the fire. He tossed the bag
of marshmallows in my lap after I sat down in one of the
chairs.

“Don’t mind if I do,” I
said, untwisting one of the hangers lying by the fire.

“So I’ve been wondering…”
Scott said. “What’s it actually like living here? What’s a typical
day like?”

It was a little unsettling
listening to him, only because I wasn’t used to his voice being so
clear and straightforward. I had gotten so unconsciously used to
hearing just a shadow of that person over the years, always buried
under stress, fatigue and chemical inducements over the years. Now
he was a different person. He was so often, in the past, either
drunk or almost there, or on some pills, or snorting coke, that he
was always compromised in some way or another, in speaking or even
just physically moving about. Here he was though, in the evening,
in front of me, as sober as a man can get. It was a bit strange,
but completely refreshing.

“Well,” I thought for a
moment, “it’s complicated..”

Scott and Brooke both
looked at me, and I waived a hand dismissively, the other hand
slowly rotating the marshmallow hanger, getting a nice browning on
each side. “It’s just that it’s a lot to take in. I mean it’s
beautiful up here, of course; but it’s a strange place to
live.”

“I bet,” Scott said,
looking out past me at the mountains barely visible in the cloudy
moonlight. “I still can’t believe you actually live out
here.”

“Are you lonely?” Brooke asked.

I thought for a moment.
“Sometimes, yeah. But I was in Georgia, too.”  I smiled at her
and removed the melting marshmallow with two fingers, and then
popped it in my mouth.  

“
I
have
met some folks up here.” I hesitated yet again as I sensed the
conversation possibly heading to Alia’s death.
Why did I resist it? To Scott, of all people?

“I bet,” Scott said
again.

“But are the people here
nice?” Brooke asked.

“
Yea, there’s some good
people here…” Then I figured what the hell? If I couldn’t tell a
guy like Scott about Alia, a guy who I trusted the most in the
world, then who could I tell?

“
There was this girl...
too.”

“
Ahh, of course,” he said,
grinning, apparently taking my meaning wrong. “You replaced Holly
already?”

“
No, nothing like that.
This girl was special, man, and her name was ‘Alia.’”

“
Alia.” Scott tried the
name on for size, saying it slowly. “I like that.”

“
Was?” Brooke asked,
always one to pick up on important details, as women so often can.
“Where’d she go?”

“
She didn’t go anywhere.
She’s dead.”

They both stared at me for
a moment.

“
Dead?” Scott finally
broke the silence. “You didn’t kill her, did you?” he said, with a
smirk.

“
No… But the local cop in
charge thinks maybe I did, now that you mention it.”

“
What?” Scott asked, his
smile fading. “The cops think you killed somebody?”

I sighed, it was too much
– this is why I avoided talking about it. “I don’t know, man.” I
shook my head. “I really don't know anymore. I’ve been running
around since she died trying to find out what happened to her, and
all I've learned is that nobody aside from a couple of people know
anything more than I do. Nobody cares.”

I then told them the whole
story, from the first time Alia came into the store with her
friends to the visit to Clayton’s and my talk with the old neighbor
lady. I found, however, that once I got over the initial hesitancy,
it felt good to tell Scott, someone I trusted, the whole tale. Here
was someone who wouldn’t judge Alia because he wasn’t prejudiced
against Browning like others. Here was someone who had known me for
years, and someone who could actually see the whole thing from my
angle.

“
This whole thing,” Scott
said, shaking his head after I was done, “it sounds like it has
taken over your life here, buddy.”

“
You think so?” I
asked.

“
I wonder,” Brooke
interjected, “what would your life be like if that hadn’t of
happened – if she hadn’t had met you?”

I wasn’t sure I could even
picture that. What
would
it be like if I had never met Alia at all? Just
working the store, hiking around the mountains, hanging out with
Ronnie and his steady harem of hook ups, maybe even hooking up with
Katie, which would have been a mistake, but, overall just existing
and living.

“
I can't even imagine,” I
said.

Scott said he understood,
and after I had answered some of his and Brooke’s questions about
the murder and what I had found out – which didn’t take long –
Scott went on to tell me about things back home.

“
You know that magazine
you worked for shut down,” he said, causally.

“
It did?” I was
shocked.

“
Yeah, it was taken over
by Garrett Publishing; and they moved the operation out to
California.”

I assumed Linda and John
Jeffries must have been let go then; companies didn’t usually
relocated editorial staff – too easily replaced.

“
I guess you got out while
the gettin’ was good,” Scott mused.

“
How did you know about
the magazine folding?” I asked.

Scott and Brooke looked at
each other as if sharing a secret. “Well,” he said, “thing is,
Brooke and I are moving out to Cali soon… as a matter of
fact.”

"California?” I asked.
“You are?”

“
To LA, actually, and I
saw some news about the magazine opening up there in some trade
publications that I’ve been scanning for ad sales jobs.”

I looked at Brooke. “What
are you gonna do, Brooke, what about school?"

She shrugged. “Just get
back into school out there. I’m thinking about transferring into
film school, actually.”

Jesus
... Scott not in Georgia pretty much changed Georgia for me
for good.
As if reading my thoughts, which he had always been able to do even
in his boozy past, Scott said, “You’re better out of Atlanta, Will.
The whole scene is a sewer.”

He crunched an empty coke
can and tossed it into the fire. “That’s sort of why we’re out
here. We’re going to visit LA for a few weeks, get acclimated, look
for a place to live; and we thought we’d drive out and see you on
the way.”

I nodded, staring into the
flames, processing it all. The end of the summer had just taken on
a new color. As I sat there I realized that I had always
subconsciously knew that, worse comes to worse, I could just return
to my old life in Atlanta if I absolutely had to, if I didn't end
up getting some job out here in the winter. Now moving back seemed
impossibility.