And twice, with two different girlfriends, he had tried to hike into parts of this area. Both times his girlfriend of the moment had freaked out at the isolation and left him a short time after returning to civilization.
So now, being paid to take a trip to the edge of the big primitive area was a joy for him. If he didn’t have to make a living, he would be up here in these mountains all summer.
But since he was an architect, his main building season was in the summer in Idaho. So that limited his trips in here.
But now Duster, who had been a friend back in college down at Stanford, had come to him to design a huge lodge out of natural materials on the top of an 8,000 foot ridgeline on the edge of the Idaho Primitive Area.
It sounded like a challenge and Ryan loved challenges.
Duster now seemed different than he was back in college. Older, sure, but more than the ten years that had passed. And he seemed calmer and far more mature than the math geek that Ryan had known. Duster had always been the smartest person Ryan had ever met, but now Duster seemed to also be the calmest.
And the richest.
Ryan had no idea where Duster got all his money and hadn’t asked.
Duster had offered Ryan more money than Ryan could ever imagine to design the lodge. And to spend the summer with Duster and the rest working on the lodge to get it started.
Ryan had done some research on the site Duster was talking about and he knew, without a doubt, that this entire project was a fool’s errand. The government owned the land and no amount of money or influence was going to get it into private hands.
Or allow any kind of construction on it.
But Duster had assured him that the project was very real.
And Duster’s money had been real. So that was enough for Ryan for take on the fun project, even if it never got beyond the planning stages. That wasn’t unusual in his business.
He had also gotten to meet Duster’s wonderful wife, Bonnie, and the two professor friends who would be working on the project as well. He knew both of the professors by reputation and from their many books on the history of the west.
He had been honored to meet them both and they seemed very nice and were happy to meet him as well.
They would be coming up tomorrow with an interior designer from Denver they had hired. An April Buckley. He also knew her by reputation as one of the top historical designers in the country. He knew nothing else besides that about her and until now hadn’t had the privilege to work on a project with her.
Clearly Duster was hiring some top talent on this crazy lodge idea. Even if the lodge never got built, it would be fun designing it. Especially with the challenge Duster had given him of only using the natural stone and trees from the area.
Ryan liked challenges.
And he liked working with good people like Duster and Bonnie and the two professors.
Duster got the big Cadillac up to almost thirty along the single-lane dirt road. The trees seemed to flash past the window.
Ahead Ryan could see some light through the trees and clearly it seemed they were almost to their destination.
A few more corners and the road came out onto a flat, forested area between two high ridges on either side. It was called a “saddle” because it was the low area between two higher mountain areas.
This one didn’t seem to be much more than a hundred paces across.
Duster pulled off the road and shut off the engine.
“We’re here.”
With that, Duster put on his cowboy hat and slid into his oilcloth duster as he climbed out of the car.
Ryan climbed out on the other side and was instantly struck by the fantastic fresh air, slightly crisp from the coolness of the May day, with a fresh smell of new grass and pine trees.
The engine of the big car pinged a little, but otherwise there was no sound except for a faint breeze through the pines.
Ryan was wearing only a light dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves and jeans and tennis shoes. He reached back inside the car for his light cloth jacket and slipped it on against the chill of the crisp air.
“Take a look at this,” Duster said, heading toward one side of the ridgeline.
As Ryan followed Duster through widely-spaced pines, the view of what seemed like a thousand miles of mountains and valleys sudden spread out below him. To his right was a high peak and another to his left, but the view in front of him and to all sides of the peaks caught him by surprise.
Duster stopped on the edge where it seemed the ridge just dove straight down a thousand feet.
Ryan had seen a lot of mountain vistas, but never one like this.
He just kept staring at it, shaking his head.
Duster pointed to the peak to their right that climbed about a thousand feet higher than they were. “That’s Thunder Mountain, the peak that this entire area is named after.”
Ryan just nodded.
“Monumental Creek drainage,” Duster said, pointing down.
“The town that’s under water is down there, right?” Ryan asked.
“Roosevelt,” Duster said, nodding. “Now called Lake Roosevelt. About a thousand feet downhill and five miles in that direction is the lake. We can take a trip down there in a day or so if you are interested.”
“I am,” Ryan said. “I read Professor Edward’s book about it, would love to see it.”
The two stood there for a moment in silence, just staring out over the mountains.
Ryan knew exactly where he was at now.
Monumental Creek drained into Big Creek, which drained into the Salmon River. He could follow the line of the valley down to the big river where he had rafted.
He could almost visualize a map over what he was seeing. It was all so clear.
“How about this for a view from a lodge?” Duster asked.
“It would be stunning,” Ryan said. He stepped back from the edge and looked around the fairly flat ridgeline. Through the thin pines he could see about a hundred yards to his right, but to his left on the other side of the road, the ridge just cut up dramatically toward the peak of Thunder Mountain.
“Is this the site?”
Duster laughed. “This is it. Come on, I’ll walk you around it.”
They went through the trees to the right, away from the road and along the edge of the cliff dropping down into the valley below.
Suddenly the ridgeline climbed, with some scrub trees, but almost all rock.
At that point the ridgeline itself was not more than thirty paces wide.
They moved through the trees, avoiding snowdrifts that were still remaining from the winter to the other side of the ridge.
Ryan could see that the view of that side was just as spectacular looking out over a different part of the Idaho Central Mountains. The hill didn’t drop off as fast, but fast enough to not make anything beyond the edge worthwhile except secondary buildings.
They then worked their way back toward the road.
From what Ryan could figure, his task was to design a huge rugged lodge made out of stone and large logs on what felt like basically the top of the world, on an area about as big as three quarters of a football field.
“Well, what do you think?” Duster asked as they got back to the big SUV.
“It can be done,” Ryan said. “A real challenge.”
Duster laughed and started unloading camping gear. “I expected you to tell me it would be impossible.”
Almost impossible, he started to say, then didn’t. He really wanted the challenge of the design. “Nope, not completely impossible, but almost.”
Ryan knew that the design of this lodge would be his biggest challenge ever. And he would make the lodge the most spectacular place to match the spectacular views.
Too bad it would never be built.
CHAPTER THREE
May 22, 2015
BY THE TIME BONNIE pulled the big van up on the ridge beside a Cadillac SUV and shut off the engine, April was more excited than she had ev
er remembered being.
She had hiked a lot of mountains in Colorado and Nevada, but she had never seen anything as rugged and beautiful as these Central Idaho Mountains. And the road up the side of this mountain had taken them almost an hour with numbers of places where Bonnie had been forced to stop and back up to make a tight corner.
April had been in the passenger seat from the time Bonnie and Dawn and Madison had picked her up at her hotel near the Boise airport just after six in the morning. She had flown in the night before and gotten a good night’s sleep as Bonnie had told her to do.
She was rested and excited to see an area of the country she knew little about beyond books.
For the first hour or so of the drive, Bonnie and April just sat, not really talking. In the back seats, Dawn and Madison were sound asleep, sort of leaning against each other as much as their seat belts would allow.
They were clearly a very cute couple and loved each other dearly. April admired that and hoped that some day she would find someone who could share her likes and dislikes as well.
So far, her three major relationships had led to nothing but relief when they were finally over.
On both sides.
She remained friends with all three men, and all three were now happily married to very nice women.
April had never been up the road out of Boise into Central Idaho and she was surprised it was only two lanes. At one point, where the pavement got so narrow between a river on one side and a rock cliff on the other, she couldn’t imagine meeting a truck coming at her on that stretch.
She said something about that to Bonnie who laughed. “This is the only major north-south highway in the state. This is as good as it gets.”
“Oh, joy,” was all April said, which made Bonnie laugh.
At a small town called Cascade, they stopped for breakfast and Dawn and Madison began to wake up, with the help of some greasy bacon and eggs and two cups of coffee each.
April just felt excited about the entire adventure.
And she flat loved the mountains around them.
For the rest of the trip they talked about the history of Idaho and the west. They had a lunch at an old bar in a tiny town called Yellow Pine where history just kept staring at April from every direction.
At one point, April asked Bonnie how she had known about that light fixture in the museum. Again Bonnie had only laughed and said, “Right now you wouldn’t believe me. But we’ll show you. Honest.”
There were other offhanded comments that the three of them made at times about something from history that made April just frown. But she was so amazed at the beauty she was seeing around her on the mountain roads, she just let it all go by, filed in her mind as questions to be asked about and answered later.
“We’re here,” Bonnie said after almost a two-hour drive from the lunch in Yellow Pine, up some of the roughest single-lane roads April had ever been on. Bonnie turned off the big van and stretched. “Just about five hours from Boise. Not bad.”
“Not bad at all,” Madison said from the back as he slid his door open.
April climbed out into the brisk afternoon air, stretching as she went. She had enjoyed the ride up here, but it had still been tense and rough.
The sun was almost directly overhead, but there was snow all around under the trees. The air smelled of pine trees and not much else.
In a wide area on the ridge, there were four tents set up, scattered around a campfire ring and a stove set up beside the ring. All four tents looked very modern and large, like small bedrooms.
When April hiked on her own or with friends, she either slept out under the stars or in a very small lightweight tent barely big enough for her to crawl into.
Those four tents you could stand upright in. The value of car camping, of that there was no doubt. She wouldn’t mind.
It seemed that nothing Bonnie and Duster did was second class.
April stretched again, looking around at the incredible forest and just letting the crisp, clean mountain air fill her lungs and clear her head.
“Take a look at this,” Bonnie said to April as Madison and Dawn went around to the back of the van to unload supplies.
She led April through some of the trees and to the edge of a cliff.
Spread out in front of her was the most spectacular view April had ever seen, and she had seen some amazing views in her years of hiking mountains on the Rockies front line.
On this clear May day, she felt like she could see hundreds of miles. And more than likely could.
“The town that Dawn wrote about in her book is down in this valley below us,” Bonnie said.
“Can we go down to it after we’re done here?”
She couldn’t believe how excited she was at the idea, even though she knew she would only see a small lake and some ruins. It was the idea that the town had been destroyed and then forgotten by history. She wanted to be one of the few to actually see the site.
“I can’t imagine how we won’t,” Bonnie said, smiling.
“So where is the lodge site from here?” April asked.
“You are standing on it,” Bonnie said.
“Oh,” was all April could manage.
Stunned didn’t begin to describe how she felt. She had been involved with a lot of building projects, but never one on such a fantastic location.
“Come on,” Bonnie said, turning away from the spectacular view. “Let’s get your stuff in your tent and a fire started. I imagine Duster and Ryan are exploring along the ridge looking for materials to use to build the place.”
With one more look over the vista of mountains and valleys, April turned and followed Bonnie back to the van to help unload her stuff and the supplies.
The tent Bonnie said was hers was amazing. It really was the size of a small bedroom, with a small heater beside the raised bed. And sheets and two quilts on the bed. Plus a few bottles of water near the top of the bed.
Stunning, just stunning comfort for being so far into the middle of nowhere. In fact, they hadn’t seen another person since leaving Yellow Pine.
When she came out of the tent, Bonnie pointed her toward a group of trees about fifty feet away. “Duster dug a latrine over there. Shovel and paper are beside it.”
April used the latrine, then came back to see what she could do to help. But Dawn and Madison and Bonnie were so good at everything and moved so efficiently, there was nothing she could help with at all as they got the fire going and started some water boiling and set up two tables to work on to prepare dinner.
“You three have certainly done your time camping,” April said at one point after standing and watching them for a few minutes.
“It becomes a way of life,” Dawn said to her, smiling.
“That it does,” Madison said.
After a short time, April went back into her tent to dig out a sweater and light jacket from her pack. Even though it still was early afternoon, the air had a bite to it.
As she slipped into the jacket, she heard Duster’s voice outside, along with another man’s deep voice. That had to be Ryan, the architect’s voice, since he was the only other one on this trip today.
She stepped out of the tent and looked up at Duster and another man dropping a few rocks beside the campfire.
She thought the view of the valleys had taken her breath away. No one had warned her that the architect on this project was the best-looking man she could remember seeing.
Ever.
She stopped cold and tried to just breathe the crisp mountain air as she watched him talk with Duster and Madison, laughing about something, his back slightly to her.
He was about six feet tall, with a thin runner’s body and short brown hair. He looked to be about her age, in his middle thirties. He had on a light jacket and jeans and tennis shoes.
And he seemed perfectly at home with the mountains, like he belonged in them.
“Ah, April,” Bonnie said, seeing her standing just outside her tent. “Come and meet Rya
n.”
April noticed that both Dawn and Madison stopped their work on dinner to look up.
Bonnie was smiling.
April managed to get her feet moving and not stumble over the rough forest floor, moving toward the fire.
Ryan, at that moment, turned around and looked into her eyes.
Damn.
Once again her breath was gone.
How could one man be so damned good-looking?
She hadn’t felt like this about meeting someone since high school. What the heck was going on?
Ryan was just staring at her, a slightly shocked expression on his face, his deep hazel eyes wide.
Looking at him directly, she could see how perfectly his face was shaped and his strong chin.
She managed to take the last few steps and extend her hand. “Nice meeting you, Ryan.”
He took her hand and the feeling felt wonderful to her.
She really, really needed to get it together or she was going to make a complete fool of herself very shortly.
“Nice meeting you as well,” he said.
His voice was deep and slightly husky.
Oh, crap, she was in trouble. A perfect body, a solid chin, a deep voice. She was in deep trouble.
They stood like that for clearly a moment too long, but she didn’t care. She didn’t want to look away from him.
And she sure didn’t want to let go of his hand.
At least not for a long time.
“Okay,” Bonnie said, “tell us what you found, guys.”
Ryan let go of her hand with a slight nod and slight smile and turned away.
April moved over beside where Bonnie stood working at a table chopping some carrots.
“A real looker, isn’t he?” Bonnie whispered to April.
“Just looking isn’t half of what I was thinking,” April whispered back to Bonnie.
And Bonnie burst out laughing.
April worked to help Bonnie where she could and watch Ryan and Duster explain about the rocks up the ridge to the left that could be used for the foundation and fireplaces. And how down the hill on the side they came up there was enough lumber that could be hauled back up the hill to build the lodge.
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