Touching Cottonwood

by Randall Simpson

  Ranger Kenton thoroughly cleaned the wound on Ranger Duncan’s forehead and applied a sterile bandage. During that time, I radioed Ranger Vallejo to update him on the situation and requested that he return to the station and call the medical center in Edgewood to arrange for a possible phone consultation with the emergency room there.

  While treating Ranger Duncan, we noted that missing from the immediate area was his hat, which would normally be worn as part of his uniform. I proceeded to look for it in the immediate area and was at first unsuccessful, but then I climbed up to the top of a short rocky outcropping above where he was seated and found the hat on the rocky ground there, along with a pair of sunglasses.

  Though this is only speculation, as at the time of this report Ranger Duncan has still not communicated the nature of the accident that caused his injury, it is my opinion that he had been at the top of the rocky outcropping, where I found his hat and sunglasses, and slipped or fell to the ground below. The top of the rocky outcropping where I found Ranger Duncan’s hat is fairly wide (15 feet or so) and is also fairly flat, so it is hard to understand how he could have fallen to the ground below. Also uncertain is what he was doing up on the rock, as it is not in the immediate area where he had been working on the trail markers, though you could see the work area from on top of the rock. The distance from the top of the rocky outcropping, where his hat and sunglasses were found, to the ground below is approximately 15 to 20 feet.

  After retrieving his hat and sunglasses and climbing back down to the base of the rock, I said to Ranger Duncan, “Do you think you can stand up?” or “Do you feel like standing up?” Ranger Duncan continued to make no verbal or other gestures that would indicate he understood what I was saying, though he did make eye contact, and his pupils were not dilated. During that time, Ranger Kenton checked Ranger Duncan’s pulse and noted to me that it was only slightly elevated. We found no other cuts or scrapes on his body, besides the previously noted gash, and nothing appeared to be broken.

  After a few moments of asking Ranger Duncan if he could stand up, with no response from him, I finally said to him, “We’re going try to help you stand up now, Matt, okay?” Assisting him under each arm, Ranger Kenton and I gently and slowly lifted Ranger Duncan from the ground to a standing position. Though he seemed confused, he offered some assistance and seemed able to stand by himself. We continued to hold his arms as an extra cautionary measure while we continued to check his eyes for any signs of dilation or fainting, and they appeared normal.

  Ranger Kenton held on to Ranger Duncan’s arm as I gathered all the gear into the backpack and put it on. I then held Ranger Duncan’s other arm, and the three of us very carefully and slowly began to walk down the hillside toward the trail. Ranger Duncan seemed completely sturdy and had no problem navigating the hillside down to the trail. Ranger Kenton and I remained on each side of Ranger Duncan all the way down the trail to the trailhead and parking lot. He said nothing at all during this period, but did glance back and forth at Ranger Kenton and me with a somewhat confused look.

  Upon reaching the trailhead, we placed Ranger Duncan in the passenger seat of my vehicle, and I instructed Ranger Kenton to go back up the trail to retrieve the hammer, shovel, and any other items left in the area. I proceeded back to park headquarters where I was met by Ranger Vallejo. He assisted me in helping Ranger Duncan inside the building where we had him lay on the cot in the main office. I immediately called the emergency room at the Edgewood Medical Center. After conferring with their on-duty physician, he was especially concerned that Ranger Duncan wasn’t responding vocally, and he advised that we bring him in as soon as possible.

  Ranger Vallejo assisted me in helping Ranger Duncan back into my vehicle, and I then left park headquarters, leaving Ranger Vallejo in charge. It was approximately 1:45 p.m. when I left Rainer. I drove directly to the emergency room at the Edgewood Medical Center, arriving at approximately 4 p.m. During the trip, Ranger Duncan never once spoke but remained awake the entire trip. Ranger Duncan was admitted for evaluation, and I was informed that he’d be in at least overnight. I left the medical center at approximately 6:30 p.m., stopping only briefly for dinner and arriving back at park headquarters at around 9:50 p.m.

  Submitted by: Kenneth Tatum, Senior Ranger Supervisor, Mount Rainier National Park

  Agent Westmore finished the report and placed it upside down on the table next to the remaining stack of unread documents. One down, he thought as he turned in the chair and stared out of his dirt-streaked window at Seattle’s evening skyline.

  The day was unusually clear, and in the distance was the impressive snow-capped exclamation point that lords over this part of Washington State—the eternally majestic Mount Rainier, with the setting sun painting the snow with a touch of orange and pink.

  He had long ago taken his shoes off, and now the agent leaned back in his chair and plopped his feet, in floppy, worn, dark socks, onto his desk. He put his hands behind his head as he continued to look out at the mountain in the distance. He felt the soreness deep into the bones of his feet from all the walking he’d done on his previous case. To solve it, he’d been in twenty towns and cities across the Northwest in fourteen days. He sensed this new case might take him even longer.

  Agent Westmore took a deep breath and let it out. He thought to himself—Is it twelve or thirteen years until I can retire? Probably thirteen. Unlucky thirteen.

  He sat up and pulled from his briefcase several tattered and stained maps of Washington State and the Northwestern United States. The stains on the maps were from the years of coffee, soda pop, hamburgers, hot dogs, whiskey, beer, and a hundred other different foods and drinks he’d consumed while traveling the road solving cases. These stains were splattered, smeared, smudged, dripped, dropped, and wiped on the maps while he was eating or drinking in a car, in a fast-food restaurant, or in some budget, roadside motel room. Each stain was like a badge or sign that told the story of the agent’s life on the road—a coffee stain by Redmond while catching a rapist, a ketchup smudge by Olympia while pursuing an armed robber, or the whiskey stain by Spokane while closing in on a drug dealer. For the person with the eyes to see it, the story of Agent Westmore’s career was revealed in the stains on the well-worn maps—for him, they were just maps.

  On the Washington State map, he traced the highways leading southeast from Seattle to Mount Rainier National Park. He glanced at the round, green, government-issued clock on the wall and then back at the map.

  Agent Westmore folded up the map and put it back into his briefcase. He then slipped on his shoes, finished the last sip of cold coffee, picked up all the documents from his desk, and put them in the briefcase as well. He stood up and headed for his office door, stopping and turning around as he reached it, taking one last look back at his messy desk and office.

  “Be back in a few weeks,” he said as he flipped down the light switch and left the office, slamming the door behind him.

  Most employees in the building had long since gone home for the evening, and as he headed down the quiet, empty hallway toward the elevator, he thought to himself—All right, Mr. Matthew Duncan, let’s see how much of my life you’ll get to waste.

  When he was on the sidewalk outside, heading toward the parking garage, he tried to recall the last time he’d actually been to Mount Rainier. It had been more than twenty years—that much he knew. He remembered visiting it with his first wife, or was it his second? It didn’t really matter anyway. His feet were sore, tomorrow would be a long day, and he wanted a beer. The warm Seattle evening called to Agent Westmore, begging him to join her for one of their regular, private toasts.

  Nine

  The Reunion

  Rebecca D’Arcy’s favorite pastime was gardening and not shopping, but in order to spend time with her mother, she would sometimes accompany her on regular shopping trips down to Main Street. Though many shops were now boarded up, the primary purpose of these trips was seldom to shop anyway. It was more of a chance
to go from store to store and talk with the other ladies of the town they had known for decades. Many of these visits turned quickly into hen sessions, where seeds of gossip fell freely and were picked up again and scattered readily about. Virtually anything that happened or might happen to anyone in Cottonwood was quickly spread throughout the town through these sessions—they were the town’s oldest information network.

  Rebecca had never been particularly interested in the gossip of the town, and when the gatherings turned toward gossip and the hens began clucking loudly, she would shy away from them, often leaving the group and her mother behind.

  There had even been one time, a few years back, Rebecca recalled walking into a store looking for her mother. As she walked in, the abrupt change in conversation, quiet looks, and subdued expressions tipped her off that the hens had been spreading seeds about with her name on them. Later that night, her mother innocuously asked Rebecca about her thoughts on getting married. “You’re over thirty now, after all,” her mother said.

  God forbid, Rebecca often thought, that something significant in her personal life would ever actually occur to be shared at a hen session. She knew the sharp beaks of the hens could be merciless.

  On this particular morning, Rebecca had a day off from work, and she and her mother had gathered with some of the ladies at Irma’s Quilt & Sew. The gossip was reasonably tame, and the general conversation was actually more about quilting and sewing, for a change. Other favorite topics of the morning included the new porch on the Reynolds’ house, the wonderful blueberry pie at Ernie’s Diner, and how high the Little Bear River was running this summer.

  It was Rebecca’s mother, Diane D’Arcy, who sat facing the windows and first spotted something outside the shop that caused her to suddenly stop quilting and break the flow of normal conversation.

  “My god, Rebecca!” Diane exclaimed loudly, pointing toward the windows. “Is that Matt Duncan?!”

  Rebecca spun around and stood up. She looked toward the windows and then out through them and saw a man walking northbound on the sidewalk across the street. She focused her eyes and studied the man for a few moments. He was too far away to be certain, but her heart began racing anyway. His height was about right, and even the very way he moved looked familiar. She could feel the heat flow into her face.

  “I…” Rebecca began with a bit of a stammer and then continued, “it sure sort of looks like him.”

  Diane stared at Rebecca for a moment, glanced toward the windows, and then back to Rebecca. “Well, are you going to go out there or what? What are you waiting for?! Get out there!”

  Rebecca immediately rushed toward the windows, glanced out again, and then moved to the door and outside onto the sidewalk. The man had moved further down the street, toward the north, on the other side of the street. He was now maybe fifty feet away, and the less-obstructed view of him, that being outside offered, made her heart beat even faster. His movement, height, and hair were now converging into a deepening feeling that the man was Matthew Duncan.

  The man wasn’t walking very fast, but he was much taller than Rebecca, forcing her to take many rapid small steps to keep up with his longer stride. She headed across the street and was now thirty or so feet behind him. She watched him closely as he occasionally turned and looked into the storefront windows. She finally caught a profile of his face during a turn. It wasn’t a straight on look, and he never fully turned around to see her, but the matching profile had shown her enough to renew the flush to her face and quicken the pace of her heart and steps.

  As he kept walking, her more rapid steps narrowed the distance between them until she was only ten feet behind. She could scarcely contain herself, and she wanted to call out his name, but restrained the urge. She closed the gap. Seven feet…six…five…four…three…

  She could contain herself no longer. “Matthew?” she burst out.

  He stopped and turned around. Her eyes went to his like a bee to the sweet nectar of a favorite flower. Her heart was bursting. A great dam had broken somewhere and released a flood of emotions over her, tumbling her mind into a tailspin.

  “Rebecca!” he said, and before she could speak again, he had rushed to her and held her tightly in his arms. The moment was at once sweet, painful, and unreal.

  It was only then she realized she was crying. She pulled back from him, wiped the tears away once with each hand, and studied his face. She was shaking. It was the same face she remembered—the strong chin, eternal blue eyes, and brown wavy hair.

  “Where have you been?!” she managed to say, her voice weakened by the tears.

  He didn’t answer right away, but seemed to be soaking up the presence of her. He stared at her momentarily, but finally said, “That’s a fair question.”

  His answer seemed distant and ridiculous to her, even absurd. It didn’t fit. It had been so long. They had been so close. He had disappeared from her life. Her question was the only question for such a moment—or almost the only question. She studied his face to see if there was some hint of the meaning behind his words. Was it a fair question in the sense that there could be better questions, or was it fair in the sense of justified?

  “Of course, it’s a fair question!” she said, surprised by how loud her outburst had been. It didn’t matter to her, and she didn’t bother to look around to see if anyone on the street was staring at them. “You disappeared off the face of the earth three years ago. Poof! Just vanished! I couldn’t find you anywhere, and now you suddenly just appear back on the streets of Cottonwood? I think where have you been is more than fair!”

  Matthew smiled at her. “I really didn’t vanish or disappear.”

  “What would you call it then? No phone calls or letters or emails or anything! I’d call that disappearing.”

  “I had an accident and spent some time in a hospital,” he said simply and without emotion, his eyes staying firmly fixed on hers.

  She studied those eyes. They were clean, bright, and pure, just as she’d remembered them, but three years of waiting and wondering was a long time. Eyes can change.

  “Hospital?” Rebecca asked. “Are you telling me you were in a hospital for three years?”

  Without missing a beat, Matthew replied, “No, then I was in prison.”

  Rebecca thought she’d heard him wrong. “Excuse me, did you just say prison?”

  “That’s right. I was in the Monroe Correctional Complex in Monroe, Washington. I only got out a few weeks ago.”

  Rebecca could only stare at him. The situation had become so unreal that the thought crossed her mind that she could be dreaming, like the many other times she’d dreamt of his return to her life. Only this return or dream, if that’s what it was, had a peculiar quality unlike all the others. The other dreams made sense. He returned and held her tightly, and her heart was full of joy, and then she woke up to disappointment and loneliness. Those dreams were simple and made sense. The circumstances of this moment made no sense at all to her, as his statements were becoming more outrageous by the moment.

  “Either I’m dreaming,” she finally said, shaking her head, “which I now strongly suspect, or that’s the lamest set of excuses any guy has ever given any woman in the history of lame excuses.”

  Without warning, Matthew stepped closer to her and touched her cheek. His hand was warm and familiar, even after three years. “I sure hope this is not a dream,” he said to her, keeping his eyes fixed on hers. “I’ve waited too long and come too far for this not to be the most real thing I ever waited for.”

  His touch felt good and right, and as much as she wanted that touch and needed that touch at the moment, more than anything she’d ever waited for, she knew she wasn’t ready. She pulled back once more.

  “Don’t do that,” she said. “Real or not, waiting three years is too long. Didn’t they allow you to write letters or make phone calls from that hospital or prison you were in?”

  “They did,” he said calmly while maintaining his distance from her.
“And I don’t blame you for pulling away. It’s a natural reaction—just as natural as me wanting to touch you. I’ve thought about you constantly. Have you thought about me?”

  “Of course, I have,” she said, before she could even think about it, but unable to contain her emotions. “But three years! So much has changed.”

  She could now feel his eyes studying her closely, looking for something.

  “You’ve found somebody else?” he finally asked.

  Rebecca paused, then said, “No, and I haven’t really been looking—but that’s not the issue here.” She couldn’t seem to focus her thoughts. Her mind and emotions were drifting and moving into a conflict. Part of her just wanted to end all the words and rush up and hug him again. Another part wanted to keep the self-control and return the moment to the answers she needed. It was this second part that won, for now.

  “The issue, I suppose,” she continued, “is why, even if you really were in a hospital or in a prison, as you claim, you couldn’t just make a quick phone call—or even drop me a plain one-sided post card? Maybe just, ‘Dear Rebecca, I’m in prison now. See you in three years.’ Anything would have been better than silence. Do you know how much that hurts?”

  “Rebecca,” he said, reaching out to touch her hand but stopping himself as she pulled back once more. “Something happened to me that I want to tell you all about. But let me ask you one simple question—it’s all that really matters. Do you still love me? That’s all I need to know, and then everything else will fall into place.”