The Sage After Rain A love story

by Jaclyn Hawkes

  The one quickly handed him a business card. "Well, if you ever do hear of a woman sheepherder, give us a call, huh? We'll make it worth your while."

  Matt smiled. "Dude, you see any telephone poles out here? This is the end a the earth. Even if there was such a thing as a woman sheepherder, I couldn't call you, but this is a nice card. Shiny and all. Thanks." Both of them hastily turned back to their vehicle, leaving Matt to wonder why two slick guys with eastern accents and expensive clothes were looking for her.

  They had driven away and the dust had completely settled before she appeared over the edge of the rim that fell away down into the creek bottom below. Zeus was at her heels, and though he didn't growl this time, he sniffed at Matt with raised hackles just to let him know that he didn't necessarily have to put up with him here. Matt indicated the Styrofoam container on the table. "I don't know if it's still hot, but I brought dinner."

  She opened the carton and looked inside. "Thank you. It smells wonderful. I love Mexican." She sat down on the plastic bench of the little table and picked up the disposable fork he had brought. The only thing that gave her agitation away was the fact that the fork wasn't completely steady when she went to use it.

  Matt nodded lazily at the highway. "Friends of yours?"

  She was a little hesitant as she replied, "No. No, they weren’t."

  "Did you hear all of it?" She nodded. "Do you get many types like that out here looking for you?"

  Finishing her bite, she shook her head. "They're the first."

  "Yeah, well I'm just gonna guess they won't be the last." He put the safety back on on the rifle and returned it to the scabbard. "Don't forget that you're a bullet short now. Thanks for today by the way. Louis L'Amour would have been proud."

  She looked at him and nodded. "I guess after these two we're even."

  "Not really." He looked at her steadily. "The guys I work with aren't anywhere near as dangerous as those two were."

  She swallowed hard and looked away at the horizon for a minute or two, and absently fidgeted with the brace on her left hand. Finally, she changed the subject, "Are the guys you work with always like that?"

  "No. Typically they're relatively harmless. Unless you're the wife who's home trying to make ends meet without the money that’s being spent on other women and booze. Something else must have been bothering him today. Usually he's happy as a clam to have me do it all."

  "How can you stand to live with them?"

  "I don't live in the same room as them anymore. That ended the other day when I inadvertently walked into a game of strip poker with some rough local women in our room. Since then, it's just been a matter of avoiding them in the lounge or the coffee shop. After today, I'm not sure what to do about them. I'm generally pretty slow to rile, but today ticked me off."

  "Why don't you just camp? Wouldn't that both keep you out of their scummy lifestyle and closer to your work as well?"

  "I have to have electricity to run my laptop to process the data every night. And I'm like you. I've gotta have a shower after being out here in the dust and sand and heat all day."

  She was quiet as she ate for a few minutes, and then she asked, "If you had electricity and a shower, would camping be an option?"

  "Yes, probably, but I can't be rigging up a setup like you have. He waved at her "neato, high-tech" shower rig. “I'm working five in the morning 'til ten at night most nights, and I'm still hopelessly behind."

  "What if you just camped close enough to me to share mine? Don't get the wrong idea, but it would be mutually beneficial. You could avoid dealing with the unsavories and I'd have one more set of eyes and ears nearby."

  At first he thought she was joking, but she wasn't smiling. Then he wondered if she was hitting on him, but she wasn't flirting in the slightest. He didn't understand what was going on here. He shook his head. "You're forgetting that I need electricity to run my computer."

  "I have a small solar power system on top of the trailer. Just for things like charging my phone. It produces far more than I need even after heating the shower water." He studied her for a minute in the lantern light. At length she said, "Never mind. It was just a thought."

  "Whoa. Whoa. Just give me a minute. I didn't say no. I'm just a little caught off guard. You don't know anything about me. How do you dare to have me stay near you out here?"

  She looked out across the sage flat to where the SUV had just disappeared. "I don't know. Intuition maybe. Instinct. I'm not sure. If you weren't trustworthy, you would have just sold me out when they offered you money." She hadn't come right out and admitted that she knew someone was looking for her, but it made a lot of things fall into place. What didn't compute was figuring out how much danger he was putting himself in if he actually did this and why that didn't even matter to him.

  He hadn't figured out all the questions in his head, but he knew he was going to do it. The main reason was that even more importantly than the fact that she was beautiful and fascinating, she was afraid.

  Before he'd even met her he'd respected the fact that she was gutty enough to do something no other woman he knew would dare do. Whatever had scared her must have been a big deal. So far, she hadn't frightened easily. Tonight she was good and scared to suggest he come camp nearby.

  Casually, he said, "Camping would actually solve more things for me than you know. I'll have to go back to Steamboat to get some of my gear, but I think I could go get it tomorrow night and come back Wednesday with it. Will your trailer still be here Wednesday night? Or will you move it before that?"

  "Zan will come and move it for me on Wednesday during the day while I'm with the sheep. It will just be another couple of miles up the road, but after these guys tonight I'll see if he can put it further down the hill more out of sight from the road. So if you don't see it right off, keep looking."

  "I'll be able to find it from the helicopter. In the mean time, watch yourself." He got up to go.

  "You too. Thanks for dinner. It was great to have real food for a change. Sometimes I don't cook like I should just for me."

  "You're welcome. G'night."

  Bouncing along back over the sage flat in his Jeep, he had to smile to himself when he realized he still didn't even know her name. He thought back to how discouraged he had been with the direction his life had been going a short nine days ago. He still had some huge obstacles to overcome both professionally and personally, but his life had just taken a very interesting twist and he looked forward to it immensely. He didn't look forward to dealing with Hyatt and the others at all, but then maybe he should do just what she had recommended the other day and see about renegotiating the contract.

  It made sense. Everything she had said so far made sense. Somehow tonight he had come to know that she wasn't a Native American sheepherder by birth. He didn't know what she was other than beautiful, and it didn't even matter. He just knew he was a lot more hopeful about the future tonight than he'd been in a long time.

  ****

  Taya sat at her little table finishing the dinner he had brought her and thinking about the strangers who had shown up and the plans she had just made. She had seen Matt several times by the time she came upon him on the edge of the ravine the other day, but she'd still been pleasantly surprised when she saw him up close. It had been forever since she had seen someone who was that masculine and that naturally attractive. He wasn't dressed up by any means. Jeans, hiking boots and a cotton button down he'd cut the sleeves off of, but standing there in the desert, with the Colorado sun turning his brown hair to gold where it was windblown, he had looked good. Really good.

  Later that evening when she thought back to when she met him, she had passed off her assessment as the result of spending too much time with nothing but animals, but after seeing him tonight she had to admit to herself that he was more than attractive. Moreover, it wasn't just a looks thing, although he had way more than his fair share. His intelligence and quick thinking had been almost a miracle tonight when those men had
shown up, and it was all wrapped up in a quiet confidence that left her knowing without anything being said, that he would handle whatever he had to, without making it a big deal. When he showed up in her camp it had only taken her a minute or two to discern that she was safe with him, and so far her gut had been right.

  She had surprised even herself by suggesting he camp near her, but she'd known at the time it was the right thing to suggest, and now after the fact, she still felt good about it. He'd told her her sheep were like a sign from heaven, but tonight that's about how she felt about him.

  It had been two and a half months since John had hit her and scrambled her hand. The hand was still in the process of healing, but her life had settled into a comfortable rut of peace. Days without stress and nights without conflict. Seeing those two men in her camp tonight ended all that.

  How had they found her? The only ones she had been in contact with were the police, the Talbots and the Bears. None of them would betray her willingly, so what had happened? And who here knew she was a woman sheepherder? She'd been to church, the grocery store and the post office. Oh, and the gas station. And she'd never told anyone what she did with her days. She had only met people out with the sheep a handful of times, but that must have been where she'd been discovered as a woman sheepherder. She was positive the Bears hadn't mentioned it to anyone.

  It was after midnight back east or she would have called the police and Joshua right then. Zan picked up on the second ring. When she told him what had happened that night and asked if he would help her conceal her trailer better, at first he tried to insist that she had to leave and find another place to hide, but she simply insisted that the men weren’t sure she was around and Zan finally gave up on trying to pressure her to leave. He ultimately agreed to come help her and arranged to be there to move it the next day actually.

  Taya had mentioned that a geologist had been in her camp, but she didn't tell Zan about Matt camping near her. He'd find out eventually, but she could just about picture the two of them. Zan would try to intimidate Matt, but she knew without a doubt that Matt wouldn't intimidate easily so she decided to postpone that showdown as long as she could. Zan was like a brother to her, but even brothers had to throw their weight around from time to time.

  For these months she had been okay even when she'd had to go out after coyotes, but tonight she felt afraid for the first time and it made her mad in a way. She looked at the splint on her hand and tried to nurture the fragile sense of forgiveness she had for the things John had stolen from her like security and a strong, whole, pretty hand. Knowing Matt would soon be nearby nights helped to calm her fears, but she still knew she was in a lot of trouble.

  Within the first two weeks after she had disappeared, the police had been able to video tape John accepting suspicious brief cases from people he should never have been accepting anything from clandestinely, and they had been able to ascertain that he was indeed taking pay-offs under the table in exchange for swaying legislation. They had a good case against him, but she was part of that case and the officer that first night had been right to assume there might be some truly nasty people who would try to keep her from testifying. The first trial for the assault charge was coming up in just three weeks time, but the other trial was still almost two months away. Tonight that felt like a long time to be able to stay invisible.

  Chapter 10

  Matt made it home to pick up his camping gear and spent another night talking to his mother in the porch swing. This morning as she tried to talk him into a third helping of a marvelous skillet breakfast his family had affectionately dubbed scrangled eggs, he thought about what the sheep princess had said about not cooking for herself, and asked his mom if he could take a plate of it with him. It couldn't hurt to soften her up with home cooked food.

  By ten fifty that night, when he finally made it across the flat with his Jeep loaded down with gear, he was too tired to even care about dinner and was glad he had had the killer breakfast. It felt like it had been three full days since he had woken up that morning at his mom's. He'd stopped to fill his cooler with groceries, had words with Hyatt before even making it out of the motel lot and then put in a grueling day before calling for the chopper well after full dark. Once back at the motel he still had to load up as many coils of cable as he could fit into the Jeep so he wouldn't have to return to the storage area in the back parking lot of the motel any more often than necessary.

  When he reached her camp he went a couple hundred feet further down the valley and threw out his sleeping gear without even setting up his tent. He went to sleep under the stars listening to her sheep and the barely discernable, mellow music of her radio.

  Surprisingly, he was refreshed when he awoke as the sky in the east was just starting to lighten. He got up and started a fire in a ring of rocks and put the skillet breakfast in his little Dutch oven. While it heated, he organized his mess somewhat before stuffing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into his pack. He called for the helicopter and gave him the GPS coordinates for the new jumping off points and then quickly set up his tent and stowed his gear inside.

  He ate a couple of bagels smeared with cream cheese and washed them down with a quart of milk while he booted up his laptop to process as much of yesterdays data as he could before being picked up. In the crush of last night, he hadn't gotten any of it even inputted. When he could hear the chopper in the distance, he doused his fire and took the little Dutch oven back to her camp and left it on her table, and then headed out into the sage flat to lift off into a sky just turning yellow over the far horizon. It would be another long day trekking across the desert.

  ****

  When Taya stepped out of her trailer that morning to find a wonderful hot breakfast sitting on her table, she put back the yogurt she'd been going to make do with and decided that this set up might be even better than she hoped. It had been months since she'd had a breakfast like this. She'd heard his Jeep last night as he pulled in and it had been a comforting sound as she sat at the table inside her trailer calculating the engineering on a new home back east. He'd said Wednesday night and he'd meant it. It had been almost eleven before he made it in, and he'd been gone this morning before six. That kind of a work ethic would kill a person.

  She saw him at a distance every day that week at least a time or two, but except for Sunday, he was always gone by the time she was out of the trailer in the morning. That Sunday he must have slept in for once, and if the helicopter came, it was while she was gone for a few hours to church. He'd figured out how to use the shower by himself and the second morning she'd found his laptop plugged into the outdoor outlet she'd rigged up so she could work outside at night when she wanted to. That had surprised her, because she would have thought Zeus would come unglued with him that close to her, but apparently not.

  They fell into an easy relationship where he showered at night whenever he finally made it in, and she showered in the morning before she headed out, like she always had, so her hair could air dry decently. Twice he had left her breakfast on her table in the morning and she had left him dinner the one night she made real food. Invariably at night, she saw the glow of his computer either at the table he had set up or inside his tent.

  One night she was surprised to hear music through her screen door coming from his camp. At first she thought it was the radio, and then when she realized it was him playing a guitar, she had the most amazing reaction. She couldn't even begin to focus on her work and finally she shut her computer down and went out to sit on the little porch swing in the dark to listen, pushing with her foot occasionally to keep it gently rocking.

  He played for the better part of an hour, singing along a time or two, and by the time he was done, Taya wasn't sure what had happened to her, but she didn't think she'd ever be the same. His music had been like a spell that wove around her—a misty potion that floated across the desert floor in the night to enchant her. That sweet, mellow guitar evoked a stronger feeling toward him than she had fel
t toward any man ever in her life. It almost scared her, except that every time she had been around him from that very first meeting on the canyon rim, his presence had been reassuring to her. Knowing he was there those couple hundred feet away was incredibly comforting.

  She sat on the porch swing thinking long after he had quit playing and his camp had gone dark and quiet. The magical feeling of the night was so strong that finally she went in and got her pillow and comforter and brought it out to sleep on the swing, knowing that with the coming light of day the magic would be gone, but wishing it wouldn't be. She wished she could catch some of it and keep it in a jar in the window the way she'd kept treasures when she was little. She opened the swing out flat and lay looking up at the stars, thinking about nothing in particular and everything. Finally, she talked to God like he was right up there somewhere, looking down on her, having a pleasant conversation.

  When she woke up on the swing in the half light of dawn, the magic was still there. The desert felt cool and crisp and the sage smelled like heaven's own secret spice. She pushed her hair out of her face and turned over on her stomach to watch the sun turn the few clouds on the eastern hills into pale fire. Zeus lay on the ground below her and she let one arm hang over the edge of the swing to rest gently on his curly, loyal head.

  She was so happy this morning it was ridiculous, but it felt good. Matt must have had a guitar like the Pied Piper's flute or something to have had such an impact on her whole attitude. Thinking of Matt, she glanced in the direction of his camp, wondering if he was up yet. Probably up and long gone, knowing him. She closed her eyes again to think about his music last night one more time. There was something about it. She couldn't even explain it to herself, but it had definitely done something to her.