The Sage After Rain A love story

by Jaclyn Hawkes

  When the FBI had tried to force her to go into the witness protection program—which had been absolutely frightening, recovering from surgery as she had been, somehow, she hadn’t been able to feel comfortable about it. Every time she’d considered it, she’d felt it was the wrong decision. In the end, she'd followed what she believed to be a prompting to “fall off the planet” this way instead.

  She and Madeline had met their sophomore year of high school at a youth leadership camp and were now more like sisters. Taya had told off some girls who were teasing Madeline because she was half Navajo Indian and it had begun a life changing friendship that had strengthened with the years. Their completely different personalities complemented each other beautifully. Madeline had given Taya roots and had introduced her to God and Taya had given Madeline wings and encouraged her to go for things she wouldn’t have dared try for earlier.

  Being with Madeline again those few days had been positively therapeutic. Under her sweet, solicitous care, Taya had been able to deal with both the physical injury and the heartbreak of that awful night. And watching Madeline and her husband and children together had made Taya grateful she hadn’t gone as far as actually marrying John. Even if he hadn’t turned out to be violent and corrupt, marrying someone she wasn’t in love with would have been a huge mistake. She realized that now.

  The day Madeline’s brother Zan had invited her on a day trip to get out and see some of the surrounding country was the turning point. Although he was the consummate educated business man who worked for the Navajo Nation, and in fact, handled their most delicate and demanding business dealings, he was also involved in the more basic, close to the earth lifestyle many of the natives lived because his father, Joseph employed a number of them in his farming operations.

  Zan had remembered that the nomadic sheepherders had fascinated Taya years ago when she'd first come to Colorado to visit, and offered to take her out to see them again. She had wondered if it was just an excuse to be with her, but she wanted to see them and agreed to go. That complete unworldly serenity was incredibly evocative and watching the herders and the dogs bring the sheep around and move them exactly where they wanted was thrilling to her every time.

  That day it had stormed and the smell of the sage after the rain had been like a drug. The sheepherder’s nomadic lifestyle and the sense of peace that permeated the open country they lived in had done something to her very soul. It was so totally and completely opposite from the high profile and worldly life she had been living that it really did feet like another planet and it made her realize that she not only needed time to ponder what she was going to do about the FBI, she also needed some time for personal introspection about her life in general.

  On the ride back home through the broken, high desert she'd begun to get an idea and it had stayed with her and grown until she finally decided to seriously check into it. Although it at first seemed crazy, she knew it would be far less difficult to stay off the radar here than in any kind of safe house situation. After doggedly working at it, she talked Madeline's father, Joseph Bear into letting her try going to work for him as a sheepherder.

  Odd as it was, the scenario was perfect. She could stay out near the Bear family so she wouldn’t be completely alone, but not be where she would put them in any danger. She would be away from people and have the time to herself that she truly felt she needed right now, but she'd still be able to do some engineering on her laptop in the sheep trailer after settling the sheep for the night. It would take some serious security measures, but that was doable. She'd have a home of sorts and stay busy, and the best part of all, no one in Washington D.C. would ever dream she would do something this far removed from the black tie party world she had so recently walked away from.

  Both Madeline and Zan had tried to talk her out of it over and over, telling her it wouldn’t work and that she would be too lonely and the nights would frighten her, but Taya knew this was the right thing for right now. She had a peace when she prayed about her decision that left her with no doubts. Once she had the FBI’s blessing and their agreement to facilitate shipping her plans back and forth, and an insanely technical secure new cell phone in case of an emergency that made her feel like some kind of Navy Seal, she threw herself into her idea with enthusiasm.

  Joseph had arranged for her to stay with his oldest and best herder for several days so she could learn how to work the dogs and handle the sheep and how everything in the trailer worked, and Taya had felt like she was on the grandest adventure of her life. It took her most of two days to learn to whistle right, but she finally got it down, and felt like she had been awarded a new college degree when the old Indian gave her a toothless grin.

  All of it was new and strange, but the only thing she was going to truly struggle with was the personal hygiene issue. The old sheepherder smelled just like an old sheepherder and the woman in Taya who still sported her last manicure, demanded that the engineer in her figure out an answer to that dilemma.

  She had enlisted Zan's help and with a little ingenuity, constructed a strange looking shower set up that consisted of two fifty five gallon plastic garbage cans she painted black and set on a pipe frame with a shower head below. From the garbage cans to the nearby creek she ran a small water line hooked to a ram-jet pump that worked off the smallest of currents in the creek and siphoned about a quarter of a cup of water per second up the hose and into the garbage can tanks. It would take a good portion of a day to fill and heat from the sun, but she was thrilled with it when she was done.

  She strung a shower curtain on a heavy wire around it and put a small chemical toilet just inside, and hoped she wouldn't begin to smell like an old sheepherder by the end of the summer. The whole rig could be taken apart and put back together in minutes so moving her trailer every few days to a new grazing area wouldn't be that big of a deal, which was important because she was still essentially one handed.

  Knowing that living in the desert was going to be miserably hot, she also talked Zan into helping her rig up a porch swing of sorts that she'd be able to sit on outside the trailer at times. They attached brackets to the trailer that she hooked to lengths of chain to support a small futon like seat that could be folded out flat into a small bed if she wanted.

  Although she’d ridden quite a bit, Zan had spent one whole day teaching her how to saddle and care for a horse in more depth, and then given her three different kinds of guns and taught her how to use them until her ears rang and her shoulder ached. She had a twenty gauge shotgun, and a lever action thirty thirty for four legged threats, and a twenty two caliber pistol with a clip should she encounter the two legged kind. Both she and Zan were pleasantly surprised to find she was a natural crack shot.

  At the end of the day, her left hand was tired enough from trying to grip the barrels with her cast that she decided it would take a major emergency to get her to shoot at least the shotgun again any time soon.

  The next day Zan had taken her into town to have her stitches removed and her hand checked and then on the way home he presented her with an exquisite black Appaloosa mare with a stark white blanket on her rump. She was gentle and sweet and Taya loved her on sight.

  After her apprenticeship, Joseph and Zan took her out one day to meet her own new herd of sheep and the three dogs she would be working with. Two were black and white Border Collies that did the actual herding and one was a huge, white Great Pyrenees named Zeus that was the guardian of the bunch. When he was out with the sheep it was hard to even tell he wasn't just another one of them, but he made the rounds of the herd and kept any threatening predators at bay.

  Joseph and Zan stayed with her throughout the day and then helped her bed the sheep down for the night before pulling out. Now, seated near her campfire, Taya was pleasantly surprised that she truly wasn't afraid to be by herself this far out in the wilderness with just a bunch of animals and a couple of guns to keep her company. The remoteness was actually very comforting. The only ones in the world who coul
d contact her were the Bears and the FBI and this was like living on another planet.

  She looked around her at the last light in the western sky that silhouetted the rugged hills, and the glow of the fire that reflected from the beat up old pickup truck Zan had laughingly said was named Lancaster and the sheep camp trailer that was hooked to it. A smile of satisfaction slipped across her face and she decided the only other thing she needed was an old cowboy sitting by the fire singing mellow country songs.

  It was the most unbelievable sequence of events she could ever imagine, but as she settled down for the first night she was alone, she knew somehow that this was right where she was supposed to be

  Chapter 5

  Three days later she had decided there were a few other things she needed and when Zan called to tell her he was coming to check on her, she asked him to bring a list full. He laughed when she told him the shower worked great, but that she needed a better way to heat it.

  And it had only taken her two days to realize she was going to have to find a more reliable way than the old truck Lancaster to charge up her laptop battery and IPod. The old truck battery wasn’t up to powering anything but the old truck. She still hadn't figured out what to do, short of a heavy and noisy generator, so she struggled through the process of placing a secure call to let Joshua know her first plans were going to take longer than she thought. Zan brought her a little battery operated radio to tide her over until she figured the electrical shortage out and she had never been so grateful in her life.

  Over the next few days she designed a minimal solar power system that would use two photo voltaic panels she could attach to the roof of her sheep trailer. In the strong desert sunshine, it would produce more than enough power barring any lasting overcast spells, to charge up her computer, phone and IPod and even to heat her shower water to what she hoped would be a heavenly warmth.

  Zan brought her the parts she requested and stayed to watch as she put it all together. He appeared to be a bit mystified that she was capable of designing it and building it, and his expression as he watched made her laugh and say, “What? What’s that face? Don’t you trust me to get it up and running?” She loved this kind of thing and probably should have become a mechanical engineer instead of a structural one.

  Zan only smiled his enigmatic Native American smile and said, “I don’t doubt that you can do anything you set your mind to, Taya Kaye.”

  Years ago Zan had thought himself in love with her, but she’d never given him a drop of encouragement, and now although he still looked at her with those deep, dark, native eyes occasionally, they had reached an easy friendship that felt more like a brother and sister. Before he left he asked her, "What's up with Zeus? How come he's here and not out with the sheep?"

  She grinned. "I can't get him to leave me. He takes a spin out through them from time to time, but mostly he just haunts me." She petted the huge dog’s shaggy head. "He makes me feel incredibly loved, don't you buddy?"

  Zan looked at her like she was losing it, and asked, "Aren’t you too lonely?"

  She shrugged. "With the dogs and sheep and horse, and a little music in the evenings, I'm loving this. This is the ultimate way to have inner peace."

  Zan shook his head and climbed into his truck. "I never dreamed you would actually go through with this. See you later, Taya. Keep in touch better now that you have more reliable electricity."

  When he was gone, she looked around her again. She went inside and began to get her dinner smiling to herself at the thought that if John or her parents could see her now they'd never believe it.

  ****

  By the fourth of July, she was completely at ease with her nomadic life. She was nearly as brown as the native herders and other than her left hand; she was in better physical shape than she'd ever been. Taking the time to cook much just for herself sometimes didn't seem worth it, so she ate a lot of fresh fruit and yogurt, and it made for a slender strength she hadn't felt since high school lacrosse.

  There was something about living so close to the land and the animals that was very calming, and she was developing an inner stillness that made things like pondering and prayer come much more easily. Even though she'd only been to church three times in five weeks, she felt like she was closer to her Father in Heaven than she had ever been except for the fact that she was having such a hard time forgiving her parents. She knew she was hurting herself more than them, but it was a battle she hadn't learned how to win yet. She had been able to get over John easily enough that she was incredibly grateful to him for stopping her from making the huge mistake of marrying him, but the betrayal of her parents still weighed on her like a rock. Theirs was a much more powerful hurt that she was struggling to come to terms with.

  Zeus had become her shadow and she had learned to read his reactions to what was going on around her like a book. Three times she had heard him growl and then heard coyotes in the night and had been able to go out into the sheep to go after them without being afraid. At first she had wondered how she would react to a situation where she had to use one of her guns, but it had only taken finding one of her lambs mangled by coyotes to erase any qualms she had about gunning for the sneaking dogs.

  Her solar panels worked like a charm and she'd been able to get a surprising amount of work done in the evenings after it got dark, and she'd gotten to the point that she could pack up so she could move her camp in literally minutes.

  There were times, like at dusk or when she smelled the sage after the desert rain that she wondered if she'd ever want to go back.

  Joseph had told her to keep the sheep moving so they could find new food and she was steadily migrating down the wide valley the stream ran through. It was a rough and broken land and at times she had to call in to Joseph or Zan to find out where to take the sheep through or around obstacles. She only let the sheep graze close by the trailer on those times about every eight or ten days when she bumped the old truck back over the rugged terrain to take her projects into town to be shipped after she stamped them. She had only been into town six times in eight weeks and although there were occasional houses near where she grazed the sheep, there was not much civilization. As backward as it seemed, it was very comforting.

  Finally, one evening in late July, she came back to camp and realized she was lonely. She took Zeus and went out to talk to the horse she had affectionately named Horse, and stood looking up at the stars wondering what to do about this feeling she hadn’t experienced since she was an emotional young teenager. At least this time, even the loneliness was reassuring.

  Two days later, she topped a ridge with the sheep and not far away off to the south was the highway and what looked like a small motel or shop of some kind with a service station out in front. It was hard to tell exactly what it was from this distance. The rocky desert valley necked down somewhat and became much more rugged. It was intersected by another stream coming in from the west, and she recognized this as the place Joseph had told her about that would require taking the sheep over a series of small bridges that spanned several ravines in the area. He'd told her that when she reached this area the summer grazing would be about half over.

  She thought about that as she sat on the ridge and looked over the beautiful, high desert below her in the purple light of dusk. She hadn't planned for life after sheep herding yet. Finding somewhere to stay safe was a bit intimidating and right now there was no plan out there on the horizon, and no direction she felt terribly inclined to go. That wasn't like her. She turned her horse back toward camp, telling herself she'd better start thinking. When she was through here, she was going to need something to throw herself into.

  ****

  Washington D.C.

  In his opulent office comfortably removed from the Washington beltway, Mario Salvatore hung up the phone and rubbed his hands together with a self satisfied smile. Finally, after more than two months of looking, he had a trace of information about where to find Taya Kaye. If John Channing lost his senate seat
over this broad’s stupid assault charge, he’d lose more money than she’d ever seen in her life and just the thought made him want to assault her himself. Hopefully, now he’d found her and could make her disappear long before she could testify at any trial.

  He’d known money would talk and one of the other engineers at her work had been able to find a set of plans she had shipped to her boss via the FBI that still had an attached post mark from some Podunk place in the desert of western Colorado. It was a good cover. He never would have thought to look there, even after thoroughly checking into her friend in Denver. They'd watched the friend and even the friend's extended family, but no one had seen anything of her in months. It had been a good hiding place, but now it was just a matter of time. She was too strikingly pretty to be inconspicuous for long.

  For just a second he hesitated. John Channing would kill him himself if he knew what he had in mind. Even after she’d had him indicted he was still nuts over her. Mario made a mental note to make sure John never figured out she’d been found.

  Chapter 6

  Matt stood on the flat curve of the ridge wondering if the helicopter pilot had baled on him now too. The pilot had been the only one of the whole field crew who had stayed on task, but he had never been this late to pick him up at the end of the day. For a little while, Matt had been enjoying the chance to do the more physical part of this seismic study. It had been a refreshing change of pace to start out with, but between being overwhelmed with the huge workload, and struggling to manage all the hats he was trying to fill, it was threatening to chew him up and spit him out.

  He was usually involved with only processing the data that was collected by the linemen and the shooters. But since the field crew had gone MIA into the little bar at the motel, Matt was now not only trying to run all the lines and shoot the charges, but he was having to do all the pick up work after shooting the holes as well. It was a behemoth undertaking for one mere mortal, but if he didn’t find a way to pull this project out and soon, he was going to lose more than five months worth of income.