the road by an overzealous road hog.”
“Do you want to pull it out?”
“Do we have time? You’d be proud of me. I didn’t lose it over the side and I didn’t bury it axle deep. It just seemed a little risky to keep trying, so I started walking instead.”
“I was a little worried when you called me the first time. You know, we need to come up with a rating system or something. I never know if ‘I’m not going to make it back to town by six’ means ‘I’m going to be late’ or ‘I’m fighting for my life out here and if I survive I’ll probably be there after six.’ So I want to drive up there and see just what you got yourself into and I want you to tell me how serious this was in your eyes.”
“Okay. So is a one a mild situation and a ten an extreme emergency?”
“If that’s what works for you.”
“Okay, then this was a two.”
We drove up the highway a mile or so and turned off onto the road to Mount Pacifico. He drove the five miles to where my Jeep was hanging off the mountain and pulled over.
“A two. You rate this a two?”
“Sure. No danger, food and water in good shape, five miles, easy walking. Sounds like a two to me. If you change one of those factors, the number changes a lot though. If I didn’t have water I would have called it a three, and if it was five degrees hotter it would have jumped to a four.”
“So what would a ten have been?”
“The Jeep would be down there,” I said pointing over the precipice, “And I’d have no water and the temperature would be five degrees hotter. I guess that would make it a ten, if I was down there with the Jeep. If I was up here and the Jeep was down there I’d make it a four again.”
“Cassidy, what am I going to do with you? You wouldn’t have called at all if we didn’t have an appointment set up, would you?”
“I would have flagged down a ranger or a police car and gotten a ride to town and called a tow truck.”
“And what would you do if somebody else stopped and offered you a ride?”
“I doubt I’d accept it. I’m not very trusting and the walk wasn’t too bad.”
“You’d walk ten miles in the hot sun before you’d accept a ride from a stranger?”
“As long as I had water.”
He shook his head, although he seemed relieved that I wouldn’t accept rides from strangers.
“As long as we’re here we might as well pull it back up onto the road.”
I took the towrope from the back of the Jeep, latched it to the bumper and handed him the other end. Rusty attached it to his Explorer, and then pulled the Jeep gently from the edge and back onto the road. The Jeep sat crooked across the narrow dirt road so I got in and straightened it to let other cars pass.
“I better drive it home. You know what’ll happen if a ranger finds it here. Kelly or Paul would have a fit.” Kelly and Paul were the two rangers I knew best: Paul worked at the station I checked into on my many treks into the wilderness, and Kelly was Rusty’s friend. I’d tracked him down when he went missing in the spring and we kind of kept in touch through Rusty.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said to Rusty, “I swear, tomorrow I’ll go buy a winch for the Jeep.”
“Then when would I see you?”
“Very funny, you can see me whenever you want.”
“Then how about going out to dinner with me?”
“Sure, what kind of dinner?”
“I don’t know. Surprise me.”
“Surprise you?”
“Yeah, surprise me.”
“I can’t surprise you. Nothing ever surprises you. The only thing that would surprise you would be if I wore a dress.”
“Okay, don’t surprise me. Wear that dress you wore for your birthday party.”
“You want to go out for that kind of dinner?”
“I don’t care about dinner. It’s just a side of you I don’t get to see very often.”
We got into our cars and he followed me back to town before splitting off to return home to change. I didn’t know what he was going to change into. He was already wearing a sports coat and slacks. I, on the other hand, was covered head to toe in mountain dirt and sweat. And he wanted me to go out to dinner in a dress? I wondered if he knew how much he was asking. Asking me to put on a dress was like asking a wrestler to wear a tutu in the ring. There was only a handful of people I’d dress up for and even fewer occasions. Dinner was not one of them, unless Rusty asked.
I rushed home, brought Shadow into the house and took a quick shower and shaved my legs. I put on the evil panty hose and the dainty slip and pulled the dress over my head and felt the slightly slinky, clingy material settle into just the right places. I looked in the mirror at the stranger that looked back at me. I curled my hair and put on make-up and wore the matching pumps my mother had made me buy. I put on a little lip gloss and then paced nervously. I could fight. I could wrestle skittish horses. I could hike to the ends of the earth and back, but put me in a dress and I was a nervous wreck.
The doorbell rang and Shadow barked at it excitedly. I opened the door timidly and Rusty stepped in. He had changed to a different suit and he’d put a tie on. He was always so confident and sure of himself.
“Rusty, why do you do this to me?”
He smiled, amused by my uncertainty. “No matter how much mountain dirt you manage to get on you, you can’t hide that beautiful woman I see. I’m just hoping someday you’ll feel as beautiful as you look to me.”
Over dinner we started talking. “So, what was this important appointment I missed out on? You never did tell me. Since it was at the station, I assumed it was work related.”
“It was, in a way. I wanted you to meet Lou Strickland. He’s the commander of the local search and rescue team. You seem to need some work to do and occasionally he has need of a good tracker. I just didn’t know if you would work with a team, and you’d have to if you worked with him.”
“Would he even consider me? You know the first impression most people get of me. He’ll think I’m more of a liability than an asset.”
“If he gives you a trail and sees you work, he’ll know you’re a natural. I told him about the times when you tracked Silva and Kelly. I didn’t fill in all the details but he knows you followed a week old trail to find Kelly. I told him about other times I’ve observed you tracking and that it is a natural talent you have. Not many people have that talent and it’s even rarer when someone with the talent actually has a chance to develop it. He may ask you to go out with him and give him a demonstration, but it wouldn’t be anything you couldn’t handle.”
“Okay, I guess I can at least talk to him. Why do you want me to do this?”
“You wanted a way to contribute. If you got into this, you would be doing some good, doing what comes naturally to you, in an environment that you enjoy, and it would be safe. You’ll also learn a thing or two along the way.”
The food was excellent and the atmosphere was pleasant. Rusty had chosen a more formal restaurant and the waiters were all dressed in suits and opened wine bottles for diners. They tended to bow a lot and poured a little taste of wine into the goblet so you could smell the aroma and taste the wine before they filled the glass half full. The tables all had starched white tablecloths and silver trimmed dinnerware. I wasn’t used to formalities. I felt like I could shake out my own pepper and sprinkle on my own Parmesan cheese. I tended to frequent do-it-yourself type restaurants. Rusty seemed to be at ease no matter where we went.