Solomon's Decision (5 page)

Oh, lord, what had she promised? Hurriedly she scraped the eggs into a bowl and
took the toast from the oven where it had been keeping warm. "Well, perhaps. Let's talk
about it, okay?" With luck they'd tell her what she'd agreed to do.

Both children reached for food. They always woke up ravenous, excited,
anticipating the wonders in store for them in another bright new day. She'd often wondered
about their father, who must have been a day person. Perhaps she should have specified
slow starting among the other characteristics she wanted in a sperm donor. She swallowed
more coffee. Two or three cups usually were required before she and the twins were
moving at the same speed. Especially on Mondays, after a weekend at the ranch.

"Steven said his dad has lots of extra inner tubes we can borrow," Ginger said,
between bites. "He said there's one really big rapid where lotsa people got drownded."

"And we can take a cooler inside an innertube, too, so we can have a picnic on an
island."

"Steven says sometimes there's so many people on the river that it's like a great
big swimming pool."

"But it's always fun, 'cause of the little waterfalls and the chan...channels around
the islands."

"All you have to do is call Steven's mom and she'll let us sleep in her family room
again."

"Hold it! Wait just a minute! We can't just go to Boise and stay at a perfect
stranger's house." She had agreed--actually, mindlessly agreed--to taking the twins to
Boise some summer weekend to go tubing on the river. Although she'd done it herself
once, with Jesse, she didn't think it was an activity she wanted to undertake with two
adventurous children. Not to mention descending on this Steven's mother like a horde of
locusts.

"Steven's mom said she likes having company. And besides, he's my friend,"
Ginger said, with the heartrending expression that never failed to melt Madeline's
resolve.

"We'll see," she told them, taking refuge in every parent's evasion. "It'll be quite a
while before the river's low enough to tube in, and we'll talk about it then."

Kyle's lower lip went out. "You'll forget," he accused.

"No she won't, 'cause we won't let her," Ginger promised. Her grin was pure
devilment.

Madeline knew she was in for constant reminders, until her good intentions were
worn away like rock under a waterfall. She glanced at the clock. "Finish your milk, Ginger.
Kyle, did you remember to feed King Alfred?"

Eventually they were on their way to school and she was alone, left with the usual
puddles of milk on the table, fragments of breakfast on the floor, and a house still echoing
with their childish laughter. Was ever a woman so blessed, she wondered, as she quickly
tidied the kitchen.

The decision to have Kyle and Ginger had not been arrived at easily. Madeline
had known she would cause more than raised eyebrows in Garnet Falls when she produced
a baby out of wedlock, particularly so soon after Jesse's death. But she had been so
desperately
lost.
The Zengers had contributed to her decision, too, with their
outspoken regrets that she and Jesse had been too good, too careful.

"I never thought I'd be wishin' one of my boys was careless with his seed," Jethro
had said, one of those Sunday afternoons when she had gone to the Z-Bar-Z, because she
had been going there with Jesse since they were in high school and had nowhere else to go.
"But if he had, and you was pregnant, nothin' would make me happier."

"That way we'd have something of him left," his wife agreed. "And so would
you."

She shared their regret. Jesse had been a part of her life since the awful day she
arrived in Garnet Falls, newly orphaned and unsure of her welcome in the big house where
her father had grown up. Her grandparents hadn't been easy with children, but they'd given
Madeline a home, and as much love as they were capable of. They had praised her
scholarship and her good behavior. They'd never been particularly affectionate.

Jesse gave her hugs. Jesse always gave her hugs, from the time she was eight and
he was eleven until she was sixteen and he showed her that there was more, much more
than hugs, to loving a man.

How desperate they'd all been to salvage something from the disaster of losing
their son and her lover. She and Jesse had stopped practicing birth control as soon as she
returned to Garnet Falls after her graduation from Boise State. They wanted babies. Lots of
babies. But he had died, alone and bleeding in the mud, just a week before their wedding.
When her period came, a few days later, it had nearly destroyed her.

In retrospect, her decision to be inseminated had been for all the wrong reasons. It
was a good thing there hadn't been any kind of psychological evaluation to determine her
suitability as a parent. She would have failed spectacularly. Four months after Jesse's
death, she was in Portland for her first attempt. She'd specified a sperm donor with Jesse's
physical characteristics: sandy hair, brown eyes, long and lanky. On her second try, she'd
caught.

Jesse's mother hadn't approved. But Jethro had, saying, "It ain't like having Jesse's
own blood children, Linnie, but the babies do make me feel almost like a grandpa." He
remembered them on birthdays and at Christmas. His approval made it possible for her to
be an unwed mother--by choice--in a small town where the sexual revolution was merely a
topic on the evening news.

Now Jethro was selling out and moving to Arizona. "The winters are just too
much for these old bones, Linnie. If Jesse had lived...well, never mind. But I'm tired of
fightin' the beef market and the weather and the government. I've worked hard all my life
and I want to do a little playin' before my time comes."

She couldn't blame him. But oh, lord, she would miss him. He was as dear to her
as her own father would have been.

The telephone's ring brought her back to her kitchen. Harry Lindholm's request
made her wish she could cancel Monday and go back to bed.

* * * *

Erik looked down onto Main Street as he sipped his instant coffee. The studio
apartment above the Wooden Nickel was a far cry from his condo in Vienna, Virginia.
According to Lester Wood, who owned the building, the only time noise could be a
problem was on Friday and Saturday nights. "If you're like most young bucks," he had said
when he was showing Erik the place, "you'll be out whoopin' it up with the rest of 'em, so it
won't make no never mind."

Erik had refused the free use of Amelia Warren's mobile home, for taking favors
from a County Commissioner would have been a conflict of interest, not to mention
putting him all too close to her interested view. But he hadn't been able to resist this
apartment, particularly when his own search for semi-permanent lodging had proved futile.
Amelia had sent him to Lester, and the furnished apartment had been cleaned and made
livable on Saturday.

Home! For the next few weeks, at least. When he wasn't off on another of his
active projects. He'd certainly have to get back to Mississippi no later than next Tuesday,
to check on the progress of the coastal wetland the Trust was attempting to restore.

Damn, but it had been inconvenient, arriving on a Thursday, in order to meet with
all the commissioners. Friday had been wasted, too soon to make arrangements for a
helicopter to fly them in to the site. The only good thing about the delay was finding this
apartment. He'd spent Saturday exploring as much of Hells Canyon as he could reach by
road, Sunday moving in and getting settled. And now, finally, he was going to see the
supposedly incomparable wetland that had brought him almost three thousand miles.

He was willing to bet it was a mess. A century of cattle and sheep grazing had left
little of the West in its pre-settlement condition.

He rinsed the cup under the tap and set it to drain. It was a good thing he was
compulsively neat, for a single thing out of place in this tiny apartment would make it look
unkempt. Time to go.

Harry Lindholm wasn't at the airport--a grassy landing strip with a single
unattended hanger. Neither was the helicopter, which was flying down from New
Meadows. Perhaps he should have insisted on chartering the helicopter himself, since
NWT funds were paying for it. But Harry had said using the flying service in New
Meadows would be much cheaper than chartering out of Boise, so Erik had let him go
ahead and make the arrangements.

Erik leaned against the fender of his rental car, enjoying the quiet, the solitude.
Except for a distant mechanical murmur from the sawmill on the other side of town, he
could hear nothing but birdcalls, the whisper of wind in the cottonwoods along Garnet
Creek, and his own thoughts.

Moments like this were becoming more and more precious to him, the longer he
stayed in D.C., and more and more necessary. Perhaps it was time he did what he always
said he'd do when he got tired of life in the fast lane--settle down.

There were worse places to settle down than Sunset County, Idaho.

The distant thwump-thwump of a helicopter reminded him that he was only here
to do a job. When he settled down, it would be someplace where the hand of man had
touched the land but lightly. He wanted no reminders of civilization in the view from his
front porch--if he ever had one.

Tires on gravel signaled the arrival of Harry Lindholm, Chairman of the County
Commissioners, John Deere and Ford dealer, and his guide for today. He heard a door slam
and, without turning, he said, "We couldn't ask for a nicer day, Harry."

"Harry could." There was laughter in the husky, feminine voice.

He spun around. Madeline was pulling a daypack out of the back of a dark blue
minivan. Her black curls held glints of red in the morning sun and her pert little bottom
filled a pair of jeans quite nicely.

"What are you doing here? Where's Harry?"

"Harry and his hunting dog had a disagreement over which way they'd walk this
morning," Madeline said, walking toward him. "Ace won, but in the process he pulled
Harry off the porch and broke his leg." She smiled. "So I'm your guide."

Excitement flared in him. All weekend he'd done everything he could to avoid
thinking of her, for his thoughts always ended in the same place.

He wanted her, with an ache that was enormous, overwhelming, all-consuming.
Erik swallowed. "That's great," he said, wondering if she heard the quaver in his voice.
How the hell was he going to spend a day in her company and keep his hands off her?

The helicopter landed, preventing any further conversation. While he loaded the
duffel containing his field gear, Madeline returned to the minivan for a roll of maps and a
pair of rubber boots.

Soon they were airborne. Erik sat alone in the rear seat, not touching Madeline. It
was difficult enough to ignore the vulnerable line of her neck when he shifted his gaze past
her from one window to the other. He watched the world revolve under them as the pilot
turned the aircraft and soared over the high ridge that rose just west of Garnet Falls. This
wasn't the green and lush land he was used to, but it had a bleak beauty of its own.

Sagebrush gave way to scattered timber as they climbed higher. Soon ponderosa
pine and Douglas-fir grew tall and straight on steep mountainsides, forming an open forest
where deer and elk abounded, where grouse and squirrel, bear and bobcat lived in uneasy
proximity. Erik knew that if he were on the ground he would see signs of human
disturbance, but from up here, the forest looked as it must have for ten thousand years.

They swooped over another ridge, into a valley where a dirt road pointed to clean
white buildings on a knoll. The bottomland was green, spotted with red cows and their
gamboling calves. He caught the glint of a meandering stream as they turned to follow the
road.

"...cousin Jon...Double J...borrow a horse...." The noise from the rotor, carried
inside through the open window, stole Madeline's words.

"I can't hear you," he shouted as she looked back, obviously expecting an
answer.

"Never mind," she said, but he read the words on her lips rather than hearing them.
Her smile twisted his heart, it was so incredibly sweet.

They were in the air for almost an hour. After the ranch with the white
buildings--the Double J, he figured--they went over another ridge, followed another stream up a
narrow canyon, and then hovered above a hillside where the stream entered the canyon.
Madeline pointed and Erik looked as the helicopter slowly rotated counter-clockwise so
that the view was directly outside his window.

He looked. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. "Oh. My. God!"

There weren't any places like this left on Earth. Somehow they'd crossed a
dimensional barrier and come out in another time, on another planet.

"Wounded Bear Meadow." Madeline's words came clearly to him, despite the
rotor noise and the wind.

Erik knew that nine hundred acres was close to one-and-a-half square miles. He
knew that Wounded Bear Meadow was primarily a palustrine wetland comprising several
types: forested, shrub/scrub, emergent, and submergent. He'd seen from the map that
Wounded Bear Creek meandered through the valley containing the meadow, here dammed
by beaver, there running free over its rocky bed. And he'd read in Madeline's letter that the
meadow had never been plowed.

Nothing he'd heard or read or known had prepared him for what he was
seeing.

A touch on his shoulder broke his enchantment. With raised eyebrows, Madeline
gestured at the ground. He read her lips: "Do you want to land?"

Erik nodded vigorously.

As they descended, he wondered if the fizzing excitement in his blood was
because of Madeline's light touch, or because he was going home, to a place he'd never
been.

She was slipping into her daypack when he slid from the helicopter's door. "The
pilot has got another job that'll take him about three hours. I brought lunch, so if it's all
right with you, we'll look around until we get hungry."