Far Country

by Malone, Karen

  “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.”

  Ch 36

  S’mores

  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.

  Megan reached into the bag and handed him a new marshmallow. “I did that to my first one, too,” she confided to him. “You’ll do better next time.”

  “Thanks,” he managed, feeling somewhat chastened, and spent the next few minutes concentrating on giving his marshmallow its usual even tan. When it was ready, Rachel had the chocolate square and the graham crackers ready, and expertly captured the gooey marshmallow between the two graham cracker squares. She gave the sandwich a firm squeeze to spread the fluff and handed the s’more to Steve.

  Steve whistled, impressed. “You’ve done that before!” he said.

  Rachel grinned sheepishly. “I’ve eaten six already!” She whispered.

  “Six?” That’s got to be a record!” Steve answered, properly awed.

  Rachel shrugged. “They were good,” she explained matter of factly, sucking the sticky remains of Steve’s marshmallow off her fingers.

  “Do you know any ghost stories,” Ranger Williams?” Jenny asked hopefully.

  Steve shrugged. “I might know a couple,” he conceded. “Have you ever heard the story about ‘The Viper’?”

  The girls shook their heads. So Steve spent the next twenty minutes, roasting marshmallows and retelling some of his favorite camping stories. Steve stuffed the last bite of his third s’more in to his mouth, and shook his head when Jenny tried to hand him the marshmallow bag again. “That does it for me,” he declared.

  “I think you girls have had enough for tonight, too,” Kelly announced, and handed out moist towelettes so they could wipe the stickiness off of their fingers.

  “Why don’t the three of you make a bathroom run?” She suggested, checking her watch. “You need to get to bed if you’re going to be in any shape to climb Hanging Rock tomorrow!” She looked over at Alyssa’s tent. “Alyssa, don’t you want to come out and at least sit with us by the fire?” Kelly coaxed softly. “We still have enough chocolate for a couple more s’mores.”

  “No,” came the sullen reply. Kelly sighed but said nothing more to her niece. She watched the other three girls make their way down past three campsites to the public bath and showers. The fire, little more than a few finger flames and embers now, still occasionally sparked and snapped. It was a cozy sort of sound, Steve thought. He stirred the embers with his marshmallow stick and watched the small tendrils of flames revive for a minute. Steve glanced up and found Kelly watching him with a bemused half smile on her face. “So,” he began. “You know who I am, what about you?”

  Kelly shrugged. “Not much to tell, really. I’m a school teacher, fifth grade. My sister and I live in the same town, right outside of Winston-Salem, and she’s all the family I have now. Lisa’s about five years older than I am, and got married right out of high school. She’s a dog breeder – Irish Setters.” Kelly sighed. “Our parents died about ten years ago, and I lived with Lisa and her husband, Andy, until I graduated from college. As sort of a ‘thank you’ gift, I started taking their little girls camping up here every year to give them a free weekend.”

  “You come here every year?” Steve repeated in surprise.

  Kelly nodded a tiny smile on her lips. “For about the past five years,” she told him.

  “Huh, I don’t remember seeing you here before,” Steve replied, frowning a little.

  She smiled impishly. “I remember seeing you, though.”

  Steve glanced up at her sharply. Was she flirting with him?

  “Really” He said, in disbelief. How can you be sure?”

  She laughed outright. “You’re crushing my ego, Ranger Williams! You are the one who has filled out our registration form for the last four years – except last fall.”

  Steve was stunned. She really did recognize him. Looking at her now, he could not imagine NOT remembering a girl who looked like her. How had he missed her?

  “I – uh, I was home last year, recovering from a rappelling accident,” he stammered.

  Kelly immediately looked concerned. “Oh! Were you hurt very badly?” She asked.

  “Bad enough,” he acknowledged quietly. “I actually just got clearance to return to work a few weeks ago.”

  She gave a low whistle. “Wow, that must have been some accident.”

  “Nothing I want to dwell on,” he answered dismissively. “I’m just glad to be back at last.”

  The slapping of flip flops on the road filled the air, and the three girls raced back into the firelight. “Guess what? We saw a raccoon at the bathhouse!” Jenny cried out excitedly.

  “He was huge!” Exclaimed Rachel.

  “He was trying to get the top off the trash can holder,” Megan added. “I think that he was trying to lift the latch!”

  Steve grinned at their enthusiasm. “It’s probably old Walter. He’s been working on that can for a couple of years now. He’s gotten it open once or twice when we’ve forgotten to relock the padlock, too. He’s a pretty determined critter!”

  Steve stood up. “Well, I’ll let you all get settled in for the evening. Thanks for the s’mores, and for inviting me to visit your campfire.”

  “Will you come back tomorrow night?” Jenny asked hopefully.

  Steve laughed. “We’ll see,” he said. “Miss Kelly might not want another mouth to feed tomorrow, too.”

  “Nonsense, Ranger Williams,” Kelly replied. “We all enjoyed your company, and I hope you will come back to join us.”

  Steve felt a warm glow in the pit of his stomach at the sincerity in her voice. “Well, we’ll see, then,” he answered noncommittally “Good night.”

  As Steve walked back across the campground in the direction of his home, he kept thinking of Kelly’s words: “But I remember you.” “You registered us”. How had he failed to notice such a beautiful girl? I must have been brain dead, he thought disgustedly. But now, the question was: what next? She certainly seemed interested in him…but he hadn’t asked a girl out on a date since high school! Should he ask her out tomorrow? Or maybe wait a week and call her? It would be less embarrassing that way if she turned him down, at least….and what if he was wrong and she wasn’t interested? Maybe he shouldn’t say anything at all….

  Steve unlocked his door, stripped to his boxers
and stretched out on his bed. As he drifted off to sleep, he was no closer to a decision than when he’d left the campfire.

  Ch 37

  Near Disaster

  Kelly stood on top of Hanging Rock and slowly turned to take in the view. She could see the Visitor Center, tiny in the distance, and fleetingly wondered if the enigmatic Ranger Williams was on duty this morning.

  It was true she had noticed him on past visits to the park – who wouldn’t? Thick black hair, startling blue eyes…not muscle bound but clearly in good shape – and no sign of a wedding ring.

  The first year they had seen him, Alyssa had been ten and Megan only six. Still the girls had noticed him too. Or rather, their Aunt Kelly had noticed him, and the girls had noticed her noticing him. Alyssa, in her no nonsense little girl manner had bluntly asked the tall ranger, “Are you married?”

  The ranger’s reply had been unsatisfactory in every way. “No, not really.”

  “No not really!” What did that mean? That could be anything to “I’m going through a divorce,” to “I live with someone but we’re not married, and it’s really none of your business.”

  It had become something of a game for the girls to look for Ranger Williams and to ask him some version of the “Are you married?” question every year.

  Always, the ranger had been politely detached, and the answer infuriatingly uninformative! Then last year he was gone, and the girls were both disappointed that he had not been there for ‘The Question.’ Kelly didn’t know if she was disappointed or relieved. Despite her many boyfriends over the last few years, her nieces had always seemed to hold onto a belief that she was supposed to be with Ranger Williams at Hanging Rock. They even compared her boyfriends to him. “He’s no Ranger Williams”, or “Ranger Williams has bluer eyes than he has.” Last year, she had concluded that he had moved on, and that little game was at an end forever.

  So Kelly had been almost in shock last night, when, not only had he appeared at their campsite as usual, but he had noticed HER for once! And she had no more idea what to do about it than if he had ignored her as usual!