Last Safe Place, The (13 page)

“Not the only road, son, the only
jeep trail.
There’s a road up the other side of the mountain for prospectors. Folks have staked claims to about every square inch of that side of the mountain to mine the aquamarine.”

Gabriella found her voice and hoped she hadn’t been caught gawking.

“You have the key to the cabin—right?”

“Not just the key but a warm welcome to go with it for Jim’s mystery guests.”

Gabriella’s gut clenched into a knot and she had to struggle to make her question seem more surprised/bemused than desperate/frightened.

“Mystery guests? So what’s Jim been telling you about me?”

“Oh, he didn’t call you that. It was … I … a few years ago, five or six I guess, he said he’d invited someone to stay at the cabin whose family spent a summer there back in the 80s.”

“We were here when I was seven … almost eight years old.”

“He talked about it a time or two after that, never mentioned your name though, and I …” Pedro grinned and Gabriella noticed how comfortably a smile fit on his face. “Well, I got to thinking of you as his ‘mystery guests.’ Before he left for Sudan, he called and said he’d invited you to stay the whole summer and if you showed up, to give you my spare key to the cabin and the gate, and to play host for him, make sure you have everything you need.” His smile grew wider. “As I’m sure you know, Jim”—pronounced with a long “e” sound in the middle—“may be a little … scattered … but he ees an amazingly gracious man!”

Gabriella felt the knot in her stomach slowly relax. This was the last hurdle. She had no idea how much Jim Benninger knew about her. He obviously knew her name and her parents’ names, but did he put it together with the famous Garrett Griffith, or somehow link it to Rebecca Nightshade? And how much had he shared about her and her family’s connection to St. Elmo’s Fire with the person who kept the key? If Jim had given out her identity, poured out her whole story, maybe—at least as much of it as he knew—it would have been too dangerous for her to stay here. She’d have been forced to move on and find another hiding place, take Theo’s advice and throw a dart at the map.

She first heard from the Rev. James Benninger in a Christmas card in 2005—the first Christmas after Garrett’s death. Getting that card was the only thing she could remember clearly about that Christmas. It shone like a single, bright star in the black depths of her grief.

She’d never sent out cards, thought it was crassly commercial, and over the years most folks had marked her name off their Christmas card lists, too. She remembered the envelope lying by itself on the table by the front door, addressed to Gabriella Griffith in care of Phillip and Natalie Griffith at her parents’ old address on Old Boston Road in the Whitehall neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The family had lived there until Grant’s death and then moved away. But years later, Garrett bought the house—said it was the only place they’d ever lived that felt like home. He could have afforded a mansion, but he lived for years in that modest house. Died there, too. After his death, she couldn’t bear to sell it, just left it empty. Mail delivered there was forwarded to her address.

She’d only opened the envelope because of the address. She remembered sinking down to the floor and staring at the picture on the front of
the Christmas card—a stunning photograph of St. Elmo’s Fire. Not the simple, rustic cabin she remembered but freshly painted and beautiful with the unchanging rise of mountain behind it and the waterfall in the background.

Written inside the card in a fluid script not usual in a man’s handwriting, was a message:

You don’t know me, Gabriella. My name is Rev. James Benninger and I pastor St. Stephen’s Presbyterian Church in Biloxi, Mississippi. I purchased St. Elmo’s Fire in Colorado ten years ago and have gradually been renovating it ever since.

The next line kicked her heartbeat into a loping gallop.

When the carpenters tore off the roof to add a second floor, they found a box of items in the crawl space of the attic that had belonged to previous owners or tenants. One of the things in the box was a bunged-up family Bible in which a little girl named Gabriella Griffith wrote a diary and drew pictures during the summer of 1982. The final entry sent me digging into your family’s connection to St. Elmo’s Fire and I learned about the horrible tragedy that occurred at the end of that summer. I am so sorry for your loss.

I hope I am not invading your privacy by contacting you. But given the significance the cabin has in your life, and the obvious strong feelings you must have about the time you spent there, I thought you might like to visit sometime, and I want you to know you are welcome to stay at St. Elmo’s Fire anytime you would like.

This is my address and phone number. (I got your address from a blank check in the Bible. I hope someone in your family still lives there to forward this on to you.) Give me a call to arrange a time when the cabin is free.

And may the blessings of this special season soothe your heart and restore your soul.

God bless,

Jim Benninger

She’d certainly needed a soothed heart and restored soul that Christmas, but it would have taken more than a Christmas card—however kind and sincere—to assuage her pain. She’d stared at the photo through her tears, then threw the card away and never thought about it again.

Another card arrived the next Christmas, and every Christmas after that. The message in each of them was different, but they all contained the same offer to visit St. Elmo’s Fire. She had thrown every card away, never wrote down Rev. Benninger’s address or phone number or made any effort to get in touch with him. But she had grown to anticipate and enjoy his cards—seeing the changes in the cabin—the new second-floor deck, new wraparound porch, the trees in the aspen forest taller.

The card this past Christmas varied from the usual message, however. Rev. Benninger said that he and his family would be working at a refugee camp in Sudan from March until October, 2010.

“We won’t get to enjoy St. Elmo’s Fire at all next year,” he wrote. “So there’s no need for you to schedule a time to visit. In fact, the cabin is yours for the whole summer if you want it. I’ve asked my good friend Pedro Rodriguez at St. Elmo’s Mercantile to give you a key. If you are able to come, he will take good care of you and your family!”

He also ended his message differently.

“Ever since the first of November, you have been in my thoughts often. I have learned over the years not to question it when the Lord places someone on my heart. Perhaps you have some need I don’t know about, some need St. Elmo’s Fire might meet. I urge you to take advantage of my offer and spend time there. The beauty of creation all around cannot help but draw you closer to the Creator.”

Since the first of November … Yesheb had shown up in her life on Halloween.

When she decided to run, to hide, she instantly thought of the cabin, as if it had been waiting in the back of her mind for her to summon it. She had never made any connection to Rev. Benninger. She’d never mentioned him to anyone and had thrown away all his correspondence to her, including the card last Christmas. Her family had traveled the country like gypsies every summer of her childhood. There was no record of where they’d gone, no possible way to connect her to a single cabin where they’d stayed once
almost 30 years ago
. St. Elmo’s Fire might be … an answer to prayer.

“We’ll need directions, too,” Gabriella said. “I’m not sure I could still … find it. Maybe you could draw us a map.”

“You will not need a map. Head down Chalk Creek Canyon Road for another four miles until you come to a big house on the left. It ees not your
typical mountain cabin, it looks like … well, you will see for yourself. Steve Calloway,
Dr.
Steve Calloway, lives there—a retired GP—and the trail up the mountain runs right beside his place. You can’t get lost on the trail because like I told the boy,”—he reached out casually and ruffled Ty’s curls, and Ty didn’t seem to mind a bit!—“the trail doesn’t even show up on maps, except the most detailed ones for hikers.”

“People hike up the trail?” Gabriella didn’t mean to sound so alarmed but she could tell Pedro picked up on it.

“Not that I know of. There’s nothing on this side of the mountain to hike to.”

“But, the aquamarine …”

“Years ago people looked for aquamarine up there, but that was before they found huge deposits of it on the other side of the mountain. And prospectors can’t take a jeep up the trail to St. Elmo’s Fire—there’s a gate on it that’s locked when Jim’s not here and I’ve got the only key.”

Pedro smiled again, such an engaging infectious smile, Gabriella found herself smiling back. “I’m the St. Elmo’s Fire gatekeeper/custodian/maintenance man/tour guide/service department/technical support and concierge. Mostly I check on the place, keep it in good repair and make sure it’s stocked with supplies for Jim when he comes.”

Before Gabriella could say anything else, Pedro’s eyes turned to a woman approaching the counter with a handful of mostly wilted wildflowers.

“Hóla, Contessa,” Pedro said. “What have you got there?”

The woman had salt-and-pepper hair in a windblown frizz and wore a man’s suit jacket over an Indian-design long skirt. With sparkly bangles of jewelry hanging off her everywhere she could dangle something, she looked like a gypsy fortune teller. Or a Christmas tree. If Gabriella had met her on the streets of Pittsburgh, she’d have thought she was a bag lady.

As soon as the woman spotted P.D. she issued a little squeal of delight and got down on her knees in front of him. He endured her “oh-what-a-pretty-doggie-you-are!” stoically. His guide-dog training had disciplined him to sit quietly under the gushing ministrations of dog-loving humans.

The woman straightened up finally and answered Pedro’s question.

“Just painting out in the meadow above Buffalo Creek—still life.” Gabriella noticed paint smears in various hues on the woman’s hands and
clothing. “Larkspur and loco weed—blue and purple—and a touch of red king’s crown.”

The woman noticed Gabriella for the first time and gave her a silly little wave that animated the bracelets on her arm in a jingling, clattering dance.

“Oh, excuse me—I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said, then flashed a be-friendly-to-tourists smile. “Hope you enjoy our mountains.” She turned her attention back to Pedro as Theo hobbled toward them. “And when I saw these golden asters and blanket flowers—oh, Pedro! The yellows and rusts must have been blended by angels from a celestial pallet …”

Theo leaned toward Gabriella.

“Couldn’t find no licorice,” he muttered, then whispered into her ear. “Bet the only angels that screwball knows is Hark and Herald.”

Gabriella flashed him a
behave!
look.

“… and I had to stop and pick a bunch for Angelina,” the woman continued. “She seemed to like the smell of the Indian paintbrushes I brought her last week.”

“Gracías. I am sure she weel enjoy them.”

“Why don’t you put them on her pillow,” Anza said, and turned toward the double saloon doors with the paint-splattered artist in tow. When the doors swung open briefly to admit them, Gabriella caught a glimpse of an elderly Hispanic woman working at a long table in what appeared to be a large living room-kitchen combination. Something else in the room caught her eye, but then the doors swung back shut.

“I apologize for the interruption,” Pedro said. “You were asking about hikers and I was assuring you there were none. Anything else you would like to know?”

“Just us!” Ty said to Theo. “There’s nobody but us on the whole mountain, Grandpa Slappy!”

Gabriella cringed. They’d agreed to leave references to their past life—like Slap Yo Mama Carmichael—behind them.

But Theo was quicker on the uptake than she expected. Extending his hand to Pedro, he said, “Name’s Theodosius X. Slapinheimer.”

Gabriella burped out a giggle she managed to disguise as a cough. Theo’s face remained expressionless.

“Growing up with a name like that, I just mailed my milk money to the school bully.”

Gabriella was grateful for the rumble of Pedro’s laughter so she could let go of her own.

“My friends call me Slappy,” Theo said, still deadpan. “You can call me Mr. Slapinheimer.”

“Theo!”

The whole exchange blew right by Ty. The boy had other things on his mind.

“And the cabin is waaay up on the side of the mountain, Grandpa Slappy—and the only way to get to it’s a rutted jeep trail!”

“Goody,” Theo said.

“As you can see, Ty’s grandfather is less than thrilled to be here.” Gabriella struggled to keep a straight face.
Slapinheimer?
“He’s never been in the mountains.”

Pedro didn’t patronize him.

“The mountains aren’t for everybody; some people hate it here. As for me …” The halogen smile lit his face again. “This ees as close to heaven as I will ever be on earth—literally as well as figuratively. My mother used to tell me God had to work nights and weekends to create the Rockies.”

Theo softened a little.

“Maybe that’s why He brought us here—so He could show off.”

“Maybe so.” Then Pedro turned back to Gabriella. “I am not going to lie to you, Mrs. Underhill. That jeep trail, it ees a bear. Seven switchbacks and lots of overhangs and drop-offs.” He fixed her with a pointed, anxious look. “You sure you can handle it?”

What choice did she have?

“Bring it on.”

Pedro studied her for a moment, then continued. “I keep the cabin stocked with the essential nonperishables—canned goods, salt, pepper, sugar and bottled water.” He stopped, turned to Theo. “About water. Be sure to—”

“One more person tell me ‘drink lots of water,’ or ‘yeah, but it’s a dry heat,’ I gone smack ’em!”

“Same go for ‘the air ees very thin up here’?”

Theo nodded.

Pedro addressed Gabriella. “Just a reminder for
you,
then.” With that thick mustache, she could see a full-on smile, but a mischievous little grin
was harder. “Do not expect to do what you always do. You will tire out quickly. Sit down and rest or we will be sending a medevac helicopter to pluck you off the mountain.”