Trails Merge

by Rachel Spangler

  Now back among her family, she was beginning to feel secure in herself once more. The pain of losing her first love was fading, and while lessons she associated with the loss were still fresh, she was finally finding the strength to consider her future. She loved her work at Bear Run and could imagine taking over the resort someday and moving it from a winter playground to a year-round outdoors destination. She looked forward to watching her family grow and change, to helping her cousins grow into adults and being there for Sammy and his kids when that time came. Only occasionally, on the most restless of nights, did she let herself long for more.

  She still dreamed of having it all, the lesbian Leave it to Beaver scenario, as she secretly referred to it. In that dream her wife was her partner in both love and life, someone with whom she could share everything. Someone who sent her heart racing with just one look and heated her up even on the coldest winter nights. Someone who accepted and loved her for who she was while still challenging her to be better. Someone to create a family and grow old with.

  She never indulged in those fantasies for long. They weren’t productive. She had the love and support of her family, and she had a job she was passionate about. Wasn’t that enough? Nobody ever really had it all.

  The sun was only beginning to creep through the half-open window of her bedroom. She lay still, breathing deeply, each breath filling her lungs with the crisp, cool air. The temperature had dropped at least twenty degrees and the scent of frost washed over her. Snow was still a few weeks off, but today, for the first time all fall, she could feel it coming. It was only the first weekend in November, but the sensation was unmistakable. It ran through to her bones. Snow was on the way.

  Campbell pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt she had left on the floor. She couldn’t go back to sleep. This morning held too much energy, too much promise for the season ahead. And everyone else on the mountain would know it, too, because they had spent their life on the slopes. Her family, their livelihood, everything was tied to the weather on this mountain and the change of every season. Early snow meant good times ahead. It always had, and after several years away Campbell was ready to face that promise.

  She went outside, pulling on an orange windbreaker as she climbed onto an old four-wheeler. Slowly she rolled the ATV onto the slope that ran along the back of her house. A solid layer of frost coated the grass that was already turning brown. Life ebbed and flowed on the mountain in ways it didn’t seem to in other places. Just now as the leaves were falling and the grass had stopped growing, the world seemed to be brown and dying, but actually in a few months everyone who lived here would be filled with life. They cared for the land, and in turn the land cared for them. This symbiotic relationship had served her family well for three generations, starting with her grandfather, who had built the lodge and installed the first rickety lift.

  She urged the four-wheeler across the slope and turned along the line of trees that ran up the side of the mountain. Moving slowly, she breathed deeply as she climbed higher. As the sun peeked over the ridge, its light reflected off the frost and shimmered across the ground.

  Campbell was completely lost in the peaceful beauty of her surroundings when she noticed movement in the woods up ahead. She slowly edged closer, not wanting to disturb whatever was working its way through the timber. It was probably a deer, which were thick in the woods this time of year. Her family worked hard to take only as many as they needed and to leave what the land could sustain. The hunters had just a few weeks to bag their prize, so they made the most of that time, and even though she hadn’t seen any yet this morning, there were likely several out there.

  Something was moving among the trees again as she slowed to a stop and squinted into the woods along one of the many narrow cross-country trails they had cut between the trees. As her vision adjusted, she realized she wasn’t looking at an animal, but a person. And as the person moved closer, she could discern a woman jogging along the trail, dressed in a designer, chocolate-colored track suit. Campbell immediately hopped off the four-wheeler, her heart beating faster as she realized that if she had mistaken the jogger for a deer, a hunter could very easily do the same.

  “Get out of there,” she shouted, just before she recognized the woman. Parker glanced up, seeming startled to see her standing so close, then pulled some small headphones from her ears.

  “Hi, Campbell.” She smiled and slowed to a walk as she approached.

  Campbell grabbed Parker’s arm and pulled her onto the cleared slope. “What the hell are you doing? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  Parker stared at her like she had gone crazy. “I was just jogging. I run here every day.”

  “In the woods? Dressed in brown? In the middle of hunting season?” Campbell fought to control the tone of her voice, but she couldn’t hide her fear and disbelief.

  The color drained from Parker’s face. “Hunting season?”

  “Yes, it’s deer season. Don’t you watch the news?” Campbell knew she was yelling, but she couldn’t get her nerves under control just yet.

  “Of course I watch the news. I have CNN on constantly.” Parker sounded incredulous.

  “Well, I’m sure you think our local news is below you, but if you turned it on occasionally, you would know there are hunters all over these woods right now, and they’ll shoot anything not wearing an orange jacket.” Campbell was unsure where her anger came from. She hadn’t intended to lash out at Parker.

  “I can’t imagine anyone allowing hunting when they could stop it. It’s a barbarous activity that I won’t even dignify with the term ‘sport.’ Killing helpless, innocent animals just for the fun of it, and to somehow prove your superiority. It certainly says a lot about your family to let it happen so close to home. That’s practically teaching the children to do it when they get big enough to hold a gun. Why, someone could have shot me?”

  “Sorry to upset your fragile bourgeois sensibilities, but hunting is necessary in this barbaric part of the world. The deer no longer have any natural predators, so if we don’t control the population, they begin to starve to death.” Campbell didn’t understand why people from the city had such a hard time understanding the cycle of interaction between people and nature. “Hunting is a more humane manner of death, and we use them as food and clothing rather than leaving them to rot. That would be inhumane. Still, my family regulates hunting on our land. We grant only fifty permits a year, just enough to keep the deer from overpopulating the place but not enough to eliminate them. We sold all of the permits for this fall months ago, and the hunters have to abide by strict rules.”

  As Campbell talked, she noticed how stunning Parker was. Her dark hair was pulled back in a long ponytail, and her fair skin was slightly flushed from her workout and her anger. Her dark eyes were deep enough for Campbell to drown in.

  “Everyone has their reason for doing things. That doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Parker muttered. “I’ll be more careful. And I might even watch the local news once in a while. That is, if you’ll promise to watch CNN.”

  “Deal.” Campbell nodded and took a deep breath to help regain her composure. This woman wouldn’t last at Bear Run until Christmas. She’d probably run back to her sophisticated Chicago lifestyle any day now. “Where were you headed?”

  “To the office.”

  “At seven on a Saturday morning?” This woman was unreal. A wave of frustration rose in Campbell, but she wasn’t sure why she cared what Parker did on her weekends.

  “I’ve got work to do,” Parker said. “I don’t have time to play.”

  Campbell shook her head. “How can you spend a day like this in an office?”

  “I spend almost all of my days in an office. It’s what I do. It’s who I am.”

  “Really? It’s pretty sad that you don’t have anything more meaningful in your life than conference ledgers and marketing campaigns,” Campbell snapped, then realized how nasty the comment sounded.

  “Did you forget
that those marketing campaigns benefit your precious mountain?”

  Campbell nodded toward the four-wheeler. “Climb on.”

  Parker hesitated, eyeing the ATV suspiciously. Campbell swung a leg over, straddling the seat, then motioned for Parker to follow her.

  The woman took a deep breath as if preparing herself for the worst, then climbed on. Campbell was about to show her how to hold on to the carrier rack on the back of the four-wheeler when Parker’s hands came to rest lightly on her waist and caused an unexpected chill. She knew Parker’s action was completely innocent, but she couldn’t stop the goose bumps that rose on her skin as she started up the mountain. She hadn’t felt a woman’s touch in a long time, and her body reacted on its own accord.

  She drove faster toward the top of the mountain, then along the top of the ridge. The sun was shining higher above them when Campbell stopped. She dismounted the ATV and nodded for Parker to follow her, right up to the edge of a steep drop-off.

  As they gazed out over the edge, they could view the entire resort and beyond that more woods for as far as they could see. The view was breathtaking, even to Campbell, who had enjoyed it her entire life. They could make out a few towns dotting the landscape that rose and fell with each hill and valley, but mostly the vista painted with the last hues of autumn’s pallet was undisturbed. She wondered if Parker could appreciate what she was seeing. She certainly couldn’t find a view like this in Chicago.

  “This is pretty. I’ve seen scenes like it on TV and wondered if they were real. Of course, it probably doesn’t hold a candle to Aspen or the other resorts in the Rockies. I bet those offer some real scenery.”

  Campbell flinched. This woman was impossible. She would never realize that being on the mountain wasn’t work, but a way of life. Well, let her stick to her office and work herself to death. “You’d know better than I would. I’m not much on overpriced places and overindulgent people. I guess you’d be right at home.”

  Campbell stalked over to the ATV.

  Following her, Parker said, “Actually, I’ve never managed to get up there on my Colorado trips. I’d rather see a place firsthand than buy into stereotypes.”

  As they started down the mountain, Parker once again slipped her arms around Campbell’s waist, but this time Campbell felt none of the thrill she had on the way up. Instead, she wondered how she could have ever been drawn to a woman who was so self-absorbed she couldn’t see what was right in front of her.

  When they reached the lodge, Parker let go. “Well, that was different, Campbell. Thanks for the break.”

  “No problem.” Campbell was ready to get away from this irritating woman who didn’t appreciate anything the mountain had to offer.

  Parker began to walk away, but then, as if remembering something, she stopped and turned around.

  “Campbell, it may be none of my business,” she said quickly, “but in the meeting this week, your brother implied—”

  “That I’m a lesbian?”

  “Yes.”

  Campbell blushed. “I am.”

  Parker’s smile formed slowly, as though she were fighting it but couldn’t stop herself. “Me, too.”

  Campbell’s pulse quickened and her irritation melted. She wasn’t surprised by the statement, but by her own reaction to it. “Okay.”

  “Now that’s out of the way,” Parker transitioned awkwardly, “have a nice day.”

  “You, too,” Campbell replied, then as an afterthought added, “Be careful on the way home.”

  Parker chuckled. “Thanks. I’ll stick to the main roads until you tell me it’s safe in the woods.”

  As Campbell pulled away, she wondered at her luck. Finally, a smart, attractive, passionate lesbian at Bear Run. This should have been everything she’d been dreaming of, yet after a few minutes of conversation, Campbell had been dying to get away from her. The whole situation felt like a great cosmic joke.

  *

  “Where did you go this morning?” Sammy asked Campbell over breakfast at her parents’ house.

  Everyone stopped eating and waited for her answer.

  Campbell’s face warmed as she remembered the brief, confusing moments she had shared with Parker. “I went up to the drop-off to enjoy the view.”

  Her parents glanced at each other quickly. They had clearly been worried about her since she’d returned to the mountain unexpectedly six months earlier. While they would never say it, they hadn’t agreed with her decision to leave when she first moved away to the city. Her dad had even tried to talk her out of it, saying the university was a waste of time, that they couldn’t teach her anything he couldn’t about running a ski resort. And he wouldn’t even charge her, he’d said, trying to kid her into seeing his point of view. Her mother, however, had merely remarked that it wouldn’t hurt her to see something besides Bear Run.

  When Campbell moved back, her dad didn’t say “I told you so,” but he didn’t have to. Whatever her parents thought, they let her know she was welcome there anytime.

  “I saw the four-wheeler parked at the base lodge when I went by this morning,” Emery said absentmindedly.

  “I dropped Parker off there before I came over,” Campbell answered, realizing that even a casual statement was bound to spark more questions.

  “You took Parker up the mountain with you?” Sammy asked, sounding more than a little surprised.

  “Well, I didn’t intend to. I saw her jogging on one of the cross-country trails.” She took a bite of pancake, hoping to avoid the subject, since her interaction with Parker had stirred emotions she was still trying to sort out.

  “That’s a pretty damn dumb thing to do this time of the year,” Greg mumbled with his mouth full.

  “Our next-door neighbor is out there hunting right now,” Irene said, sounding worried. “That’s a great way for Parker to get herself shot.”

  “I told her that. She didn’t even know it was hunting season.”

  “It’s been all over the news,” her mother said, shaking her head.

  “I told her that, too. You know, we should do some workshops on nature conservancy, maybe hold educational programs. People from the city would love that, and if they’re anything like Parker, they could use some instructions on how to get along out here,” Campbell suggested.

  “We’re a ski resort, not a nursery school.” Greg waved off the idea. “We should stick to doing what we know. It’s not our fault Parker’s too dumb to keep from getting shot at.”

  “Well, I hope she’ll be more careful from now on,” Emery said.

  “I think she will.” Campbell dropped the education idea. Her father was stuck in his ways, and now wasn’t the time to try to push him out of them.

  “So you took her to the office?” Greg asked. “She ought to get out more. No good can come of her being at work all the time. She’s probably got a full day ahead of her thinking up ways to fix things that were working fine to begin with.”

  “I told her she shouldn’t be working on a day like this,” Campbell answered shortly, taking a bite of bacon even though that tactic hadn’t helped so far.

  “You talked an awful lot,” Sammy said, a hint of suspicion in his voice. “I thought you didn’t like her much.”

  Campbell stared at him blankly. “I never said that.”

  “Well, now that you mention it, I talked to Parker last week and I think she might have gotten the same impression,” Emery said. “She mentioned something about you being awfully quiet around her. I thought that was odd.”

  Irene came to her daughter’s defense. “Why would Campbell have any reason to dislike Parker?”

  “Because Parker reminds her of Lynn,” Sammy suggested bluntly.

  The room fell quiet. Campbell didn’t miss the look of deep concern that passed between her parents. She knew they worried about the pain her breakup with Lynn had caused her, and she tried not to let the sting of the comment show.

  Likewise the expression on Sammy’s face said he would do anything to
take his words back. “I’m sorry, Cam. I don’t know why I said that.”

  “It’s fine.” Campbell shrugged, her throat tight. “Don’t worry about it.”

  She tried to shake the comment from her head. Though the mention of Lynn stung, she was afraid Sammy might be right. Had she been rude to Parker because she was afraid of being around another woman like her ex? Another power suit–clad lesbian with a ladder to climb and an ax to grind? Parker came from a similar background, highly educated and politically minded, and she never seemed to leave work. She had yet to mention her own family.

  Campbell shuddered as she realized she was comparing Parker to the woman who had torn her heart apart only half a year ago. Then as if on cue she recalled the way she had snapped at her earlier, her comment about the local news being below Parker, and her anger about Parker working on a Saturday morning. Was that where her outburst had come from? Had she been venting old frustration about Lynn to the next similar target? That would explain that mysterious sense of unease she felt every time Parker was around.

  Now that she thought about it, she realized she hadn’t done a single thing to reach out to Parker since she arrived. Campbell was the only one in her family who hadn’t offered to help her move in. Even Sammy had stopped by to check on her, and Campbell hadn’t gone along. At the time she hadn’t given it any thought. As the pieces began to fall into place, she was disappointed in herself. She knew what it was like to move to a new town, to start a new job, to be far away from everything familiar. She’d obviously let her own biases cloud her perception of Parker, and while she wasn’t yet ready to consider what that meant about her own residual feelings for Lynn, she did realize that she needed to make more of an effort to see Parker for who she was and not the image she had projected onto her.