Needled to Death

by Sefton, Maggie

  “Nothing much. Errands, that’s all,” Vickie said as she joined them at the table.

  “When are you bringing some of your weavings?” Lisa asked. “I’ve got a friend who’s been dying to buy one ever since she saw mine.”

  “That’s great! Thanks, Lisa,” Vickie said, her suntanned face breaking into a grin. “I hope to have some more ready by next week.” She brushed her dark brown hair off her shoulder.

  Vickie was one of the few fifty-plus women Kelly knew who could still wear her long hair hanging behind her back in a ponytail. Even mixed with gray, it still looked good on her. Kelly admired Vickie not only for her lively personality, but also for her artistic creativity and her shrewd business sense. Vickie was a successful alpaca breeder and rancher as well as a talented spinner and weaver. Instead of knitting on Tuesdays, Vickie would spin, sometimes on the drop spindle. Other times, she’d borrow a wheel from Mimi.

  “Boy, if I lived in that gorgeous canyon, I wouldn’t want to leave,” Megan said.

  “You would if you wanted to buy groceries and eat,” Vickie said with a laugh. “Plus, it’s good to get a break from the ranch. Makes me appreciate it more.” She poured herself a cup of tea from the always-present teapot at the center of the table.

  “Are all your baby alpacas born? Any more deliveries?” Kelly asked, remembering Vickie’s concern for her herd.

  “Yep,” she replied, brushing dust from her jeans. Ninety degrees or not, boots and jeans were necessary around the ranch. “All the cria are safely delivered—thank goodness and natural alpaca mother instinct.”

  Lisa looked up from the ribbon vest. “Cria?”

  Vickie nodded. “That’s the name for baby alpacas. We’ve got twenty new ones.”

  “Wow. Is that a lot to care for?” Megan asked.

  “Actually, the mothers do most of that. I just have to make sure the moms are well-fed and cared for.” She grinned, and her eyes lit up. “Just like with humans, moms do most of the work.”

  “Doesn’t your cousin, Jayleen, help out?” Mimi asked as she rearranged a bin of eyelash yarns. “You have nearly forty animals.”

  “Thirty-eight with the babies, and, yes, Jayleen comes every day.”

  “Oops, I almost forgot! I need to ask you a favor, Vickie,” Mimi said, abruptly turning from the bins. “There’s a group of out-of-town knitters from the Midwest who’re visiting Fort Connor. They’re a touring group. Apparently they take yearly trips to different areas of the country.”

  “Wow, touring knitters. Now that’s something new,” Jennifer observed.

  “Actually, there’re several knitting groups that tour, I’ve heard,” Mimi added. “This group is coming to see the shop after July fourth, and they asked if I knew of any alpaca ranches they could visit. I know this is short notice, Vickie, but would they be able to tour your ranch Friday afternoon?”

  Vickie leaned back in the chair and sipped her tea. “Friday. Yes, I think that would be all right. What time would they come?”

  “They’re planning to have lunch at Pete’s, so we can drive them into the canyon afterward. Probably about two o’clock. Does that work?”

  “That’ll work,” Vickie agreed, smiling. “I take it they’ve never seen an alpaca before, right?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Okay, I’ll give them the grand tour.” Vickie drained her teacup before she stood up.

  “Vickie, you’re a doll,” Mimi said, her face losing its worried expression. “Thank you so much. Now all I need are some volunteers to take them to the ranch.” She surveyed the table. “Any of you girls want to take a drive into the canyon Friday? We’ll need shepherds for this flock.”

  Kelly started to speak up, but Jennifer beat her to it. “I’ll be glad to escort them, Mimi,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to drive past some property in the canyon anyway.”

  Picturing herself driving through the shady, deep green canyon northwest of Fort Connor, Kelly chimed in, “Count me in, too, Mimi. I could use an afternoon in Bellvue Canyon.”

  Mimi beamed. “Thank you so much, girls. I’ll take care of all the arrangements.”

  “I’ll see you two on Friday, then,” Vickie said as she headed toward the doorway. “If your flock behaves, I’ll show them my looms. I’m weaving a new piece now with some of my herd fleeces. It’s really striking, if I do say so myself.”

  “I’ll bet it is,” Kelly said. “I remember that beautiful rug you showed us last month. The patterns were gorgeous.”

  “You can see it when you come. It’s on my floor now. Take care, folks.” Vickie gave a wave as she left.

  “Boy, Kelly, I didn’t think you’d be up for supervising knitters after the last time,” Megan teased.

  Kelly remembered helping Megan last spring when they escorted a group of senior knitters to the regional Colorado wool festival. “Ohhhh, yeah,” she grinned, recalling one mischievous knitter’s antics. “Well, let’s hope we don’t have any ‘Lizzies’ in this flock.”

  Mimi threw up her hands in remembered horror as she scurried back to her office while Kelly and her friends laughed out loud.

  Kelly sat down on one of her teammates’ blankets that dotted the ridge above the city reservoir. She’d forgotten to bring a blanket of her own. Heck, it was all she could do to get to the field this morning.

  After a long night spent poring over her client accounts, Kelly had overslept, awaking to the sound of an angry golfer’s shout outside. “Damn dog! I knew he stole my ball,” the man yelled.

  Bolted awake, Kelly was about to go to Carl’s rescue when she saw the time. It was past eight o’clock, and her softball team’s first game was at nine. She vaulted out of the bed and into the shower, setting a new speed record even for her. She raced through the kitchen, poured a double ration into Carl’s doggie dish, and shoved it under his nose. The golf ball scolding would have to wait. Carl, clearly ecstatic at the unexpected bowl of plenty, dug in.

  Grabbing her first baseman’s glove and her dad’s USS Kitty Hawk baseball cap, Kelly raced out the door and into her car, hoping she had all her clothes on. There was no way she’d let her teammates down by not showing up on time. Thanks to uncommon good fortune with traffic lights and an unexpected parking spot, Kelly raced onto the field where her team gathered. Two minutes to spare.

  “Boy, girl, you like to live on the edge, don’t you?” Lisa joked.

  “No, she just likes to give us all heart attacks,” Megan said over her shoulder as they took the field. “I’m backup first base, and I’m lousy at it. So don’t do that again.”

  Kelly swore alarm-clock vigilance and took her base, grateful for green lights.

  Relaxing now under the blue velvet night sky, Kelly let out a sigh. So many stars. She was always surprised when she returned to Colorado and noticed the night sky. Not only was she a mile closer to the heavens, but there were more stars to see. Big-city light pollution kept her from stargazing back in the D.C. metro area. Occasionally, she’d driven out into the Virginia countryside to find a beautiful Blue Ridge mountain knoll just so she could see the heavens more clearly.

  But it wasn’t the same. The sky looked different here. And this ridge was right on the edge of town. She gazed up and tried to spot her favorite constellations, the ones her dad had taught her to see back in her childhood. She visually outlined the Big Dipper, then found the North Star and was looking for the Little Dipper when a familiar low voice sounded beside her.

  “Want one? It’s your favorite,” Steve Townsend said as he sank to the blanket beside her.

  “Thanks,” Kelly said, accepting the bottle. “You read my mind.”

  Steve seemed to be doing a lot of that lately, Kelly noticed. Whether it was running interference for Carl with the angry golfers or taking time from his busy construction business to appear at her door with coffee when she needed a break from corporate accounts, Steve showed up. He was a nice guy. A really nice guy who had turned into a good friend—even if he was the s
tar player for a rival team.

  Kelly tipped the bottle with the colorful label and drank. Her hometown had developed into a center for special microbrewed boutique beers. The amber ale’s cold, crisp tang fit perfectly with the summer night. The intense heat of the day had subsided now, and the air was gradually cooling, especially up on the ridge—one of the many benefits of mountain living.

  “How’s your knee?” Steve asked as he leaned back on his arm, stretching out his long legs, which were even longer than Kelly’s.

  Kelly checked her newly-scraped right knee. The sting of injury had lessened so much that Kelly had forgotten about it.

  Her knees were always skinned when she was growing up. Softball, basketball, soccer—all took a toll. She was used to bandages. But living in the corporate world these last several years had taken her far away from simple pleasures like sliding into base, knees be damned. Suits and stress were the uniforms and routine of the day with no time allowed for standing outside in the sunshine. The clock inside Kelly’s head ruled her schedule in six-minute intervals—billable hours. These last three months had given Kelly a taste of a different kind of life, delicious and tempting like a forbidden dessert. If only she could find a way to stay here and not starve.

  “Oh, it’s fine. I completely forgot about it. Actually, it feels kind of good to have skinned knees again.”

  Steve grinned. “How’s that?”

  Kelly let out a sigh and leaned back on her hands, staring out over the brightly lit city spread out in a carpet below. The fireworks display in City Park would be starting soon. “It reminds me of when I was growing up here and all the other places my dad and I lived. I was always playing ball and getting hurt. It’s amazing I have any knees left.” She laughed softly in the gathering darkness. The blue velvet sky had turned to black. “I didn’t know how much I missed it until I came back and met Lisa and Megan and started playing again.”

  “Wasn’t there a team in D.C. where you could play?”

  “Oh, sure. Lots. But it was always a question of time. Never enough time. I worked late a lot at the office. Until my dad got cancer, that is. Then I made sure I visited him every night.” Kelly felt an old familiar tug of remembrance as she pictured her father.

  “That must have been tough.”

  “It was.”

  The aroma of hot dogs and hamburgers drifted by. “Last chance for hot dogs and burgers,” Lisa called to the scattered players relaxing along the ridge. She wound a path through the blankets and chairs, a platter in each hand piled with cookout leftovers.

  “Hey, I’ll take another burger,” a guy said as he slipped up behind Lisa and made off with his prize. “Who’s got the beer?”

  “Beside the grill, over there,” someone else called out.

  “I’ve got some chardonnay, if anyone wants it,” Wendy, the team’s catcher, said, waving from a nearby blanket.

  “Boy, hot dogs and chardonnay,” Steve joked. “That just doesn’t work.”

  “Hey, I can’t help it,” Wendy explained with a laugh as she grabbed a glass from the guy beside her. “I don’t like beer.”

  “And you call yourself a catcher.”

  Kelly let the sound of relaxed laughter float over her like the evening breezes that came over the mountains. It felt good here. Really good. Deep inside, she felt the warmth that always came whenever she considered staying in Colorado.

  “Well, for what it’s worth, you sure look a lot more relaxed and happy than when you first came into town back in April,” Steve said.

  “Yeah,” Kelly admitted with a sigh. “That’s because I am.”

  “Relaxed or happy?”

  “Both.”

  Steve didn’t reply. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, which Kelly spent tracing star patterns, he spoke up. “Well, maybe that means you should stay.”

  “If it were only that easy.”

  “You know, Kelly, there’s a huge amount of business going on in this town. There’re all sorts of ways to consult—”

  A collective “Ahhhh!” spread along the ridge as the fireworks display blazed into the sky.

  “Whoa,” Kelly said. “I’d forgotten how pretty it is from up high. Even prettier than being right beneath. That’s where I usually was back in D.C. My dad and I would go find a spot near the Washington Monument.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “Yeah, it was. If you don’t mind being crammed in with several thousand people. We could barely move.”

  “More than at City Park?” Steve teased.

  Kelly sent him a look. “Ohhhh, yeah. Way more.” She watched a spectacular flare of reds, blues, purples, and greens shoot through the black mountain sky. “It’s nicer here,” she said softly. “It’s good to be back.”

  “Well, for the record, I’d be glad if you could stay, too.” He gestured to Kelly’s teammates, oohing and aahing at the colorful displays. “Even if you guys did beat us this afternoon.”

  Kelly grinned. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Do that.”

  Two

  Kelly eased the huge SUV around the curving canyon road more slowly than usual. These monster vehicles had a different feel to them, not at all like her sporty, super-responsive road car. She glanced into the rearview mirror. Jennifer was right behind her in Mimi’s blue minivan, loaded like the SUV with touring knitters.

  “How much farther is it? I thought you said it was ‘just up the road,’” the knitter in the front seat asked for the third time in twenty minutes.

  Kelly took a breath and searched for patience. This woman was something else. She’d done nothing but complain ever since she’d gotten into the automobile. It was too hot. The air-conditioning was too cold. She was tired. She was thirsty. Weren’t there some alpacas they could visit in town? She didn’t like curving roads.

  Noticing the other women’s rapt attention to the beautiful scenery outside the windows, Kelly tried to distract the woman, or at least her impatience. “This canyon is much greener and more deeply wooded than some of our others. That’s because it’s a north-facing canyon, and it holds the snow longer. That means there’s more water available.”

  Fussy knitter piped up, pushing her glasses to the ridge of her nose. “Yes, and more snow to shovel, too, I’ll bet.”

  “Absolutely,” Kelly said with a laugh. “In fact, some of the upper roads don’t get plowed by the county. The home-owners have to pay to have it done.”

  “Now, I wouldn’t like that at all,” Fussy declared, setting her mouth. Kelly noticed hard lines already etched in her face. Too much frowning, she figured.

  “Well, the people who don’t like it usually move back into the city after a couple of years, I’m told,” Kelly observed. “You have to love being in the mountains to live comfortably here.”

  “Ohhhh, I’d love it,” a woman’s voice spoke up from the middle seat.

  “Me, too,” agreed another.

  “Is that the place, over there?” Fussy asked, pointing to a farmhouse nestled between trees. Cows grazed in the pastures.

  “No, but we’re getting close,” Kelly answered. “Just around this curve.” She spotted Vickie’s sprawling farmhouse in the distance and slowed as they approached the driveway.

  “Well, finally!” Fussy declared.

  Kelly kept her smile to herself as they bumped along the rutted driveway, listening to the stream of complaints coming from the next seat. The other women were laughing and chattering excitedly as they approached the farmhouse.

  “Oh, look! Alpacas!” a woman proclaimed, pointing to the corral and pastures adjacent to the weather-beaten red barn.

  “How do you know they’re alpacas?” Fussy asked. “They look the same as llamas.”

  “Well, you’re right. They are very much alike. But I’ve been to Vickie’s ranch before. Otherwise, it’s hard for most people to tell.”

  “What’s the difference?” a woman asked.

  “About a hundred pounds. Alpac
as are smaller than llamas,” Kelly replied as she pulled the SUV into a graveled area near the barn and parked beside Vickie’s beat-up gray pickup truck. Exiting the auto, she motioned to a parking spot for Jennifer, who was coming up the driveway behind them.

  “Okay, ladies,” Kelly addressed the women who were unfolding themselves from the vehicle. “Let’s get everybody together, then we can start our tour. Meanwhile, smell that mountain air.” She took a deep breath. Out of the close confines of the car at last.

  Jennifer parked the van, then hopped out and helped her charges alight, laughing and talking the whole time. Kelly wished she could be as entertaining as Jennifer, but she seemed to be missing that gene. Maybe she could foist Fussy off on her for the ride back into town.

  “Wow, this is one beautiful place,” Jennifer observed as she approached Kelly. “I haven’t been here before, have you?”

  “Yes. One time I came with Mimi when she was doing some weaving with Vickie. They were developing a workshop together.” She glanced toward the farmhouse across the drive, wondering why Vickie hadn’t come out to greet them. It certainly wasn’t for lack of noise.

  The gaggle of knitters had gathered around the fence, pointing and exclaiming at the alpacas scattered about the pastures. For their part, the alpacas simply gazed back with huge brown eyes and continued to graze peacefully. Kelly noticed one or two headed toward the fence, clearly as curious about the visitors as the visitors were about them.

  Of course, their approach delighted the knitters no end, and cameras appeared from purses. Digital and film, the cameras snapped away as the women leaned over the fence. Thank goodness it was sunny, Kelly figured, or the flashes would have spooked the gentle beasts for sure. It did halt their approach, however, much to the ladies’ disappointment.

  “Will they let you pat them?” one woman asked.

  “Some will. But we’ll let Vickie be in charge of that,” Kelly replied, wondering again why Vickie hadn’t come out to greet them.

  Checking her watch, she saw it was after two o’clock, so they were right on time. Maybe Vickie was in her sunny workroom in the back of the house, absorbed in her latest weaving project.