Around 3:00 a.m. it was time to find the old pickup and get some sleep.
It was clear by now that I would be sleeping with Rick. We climbed under his down sleeping bag, and by morning, I was his gal.
For a week we traveled the Colorado interstates and highways, getting to know each other in ways that only come with the intimacy of traveling. Rick opened up, telling stories of growing up on a ranch in southern Colorado. He and his father had hunted in high country, and he’d hauled elk and venison out of the hunting camp and back to the butcher in Durango. He’d been in Vietnam, was wounded at nineteen, and sent home with a Purple Heart. His stories tore my heart open. Since he’d been back home, he and Victor had traveled together, like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, selling belt buckles, making some kind of living. I vowed then to love Rick into wellness, to do my part for the war effort and help him heal his wounds.
In this land of cowboys, Rick was the sweetest man around. When he wasn’t selling belt buckles with Victor in bars from one end of the state to the other, he spent nights with me. He rode in rodeos, carried a can of Skoal chewing tobacco in his right hip pocket, lined up three pairs of cowboy boots in my closet below his western shirts with their various horse and horseshoe designs, and wore fitted boot-cut Levis. Sometimes he’d fill the freezer with elk and venison steaks from his hunting trips in the high country with his dad, then cook up meat-and-potato dinners that tasted like sweet home on the range. And sex was great with this cowboy. He knew about pleasuring me in some of my favorite ways before riding his cowgirl into the open country of abandoned passion. He was quiet much of the time, but he was easy to be with, so I didn’t care.
That summer we took a month-long mule pack trip into the mountains together. I quit my job at the tavern in late spring, gave up my cabin, and Rick and I moved in with his folks on their ranch near Durango to get ready for our trip. It would be the next big adventure in the life of this young pioneer.
Rick’s folks were old-fashioned farmers, the kind who don’t say much and get a lot done. They went to bed at 8:30 so they could rise before dawn to start the routine all over again. Fried eggs, bacon, and potatoes were eaten before sunrise, and then Rick fell into step with his dad, who was happy to have his strong young son around to help with chores. We baled hay and rode and worked with the horses that would come with us on the trip. I learned to knit scarves with Rick’s mom in front of the daytime soaps, and every day I sketched the shapes of clouds, studied their forms, and worked in my jewelry studio, which we set up in the junk shed near the hay barn. The old pot-bellied stove in there kept me cozy and warm while I worked. But sales were slow at best in that area, and we had to make do with what we had, which wasn’t much in terms of money but was a lot in quality of life. We filled our gas tank from the supply on the ranch, ate elk and venison with those yummy fried “taters” Rick’s mom cooked each night, scraped up enough cash to take in a drive-in movie, eat popcorn, and have hot sex in the privacy of our pickup in the parking lot. At night, while lightning storms lit up the western sky, we made love quietly in Rick’s childhood bedroom in this farmhouse on the mesa while his folks slept only feet away in the next room. Sometimes, for more privacy, we spent the night on haystacks in the barn with our little family of dogs—Rick’s two Australian Shepherds and Jeremiah Johnson. It was peaceful out in this simple farmhouse under a big Colorado sky with my man, my dog, and my chance to experience more of life.
In early July we packed huge leather saddlebags with cans of beans, tuna, milk, Spam, and other basic survival food, dog food, cartons of Marlboros and cans of Skoal, and a supply of marijuana buds. Fishing lures, lines, and poles went in, too, along with rain gear and changes of denim and flannel. We would follow an old Spanish trail along the Continental Divide at an average altitude of 12,000 feet and stay out for about a month. It was wilderness wilder than any I’d ever known, but Rick knew the area like some kids know their backyards. I trusted my guide completely.
Rain came the week we headed out, unseasonable rain, strange in July. But it didn’t stop us. Rain or shine, we were going.
Those first days with the well-grazed mules were tough on Rick, who had the responsibility of tying the gear onto the animals every morning and re-tying it throughout the day when it slipped out of balance. The dogs chased rabbits as we rode trails so steep I was sure one of our round-bellied mules would slip and roll down the mountain with our gear tied to her back. But we all were making it just fine. Rick led the animals, and I pulled up the rear.
Lightning storms were frightening events. You could feel them coming—your hair would stand up on your arms. When a lightning storm approached, you had to tie up the horses and mules and take cover crouched against an embankment and away from tall trees. Rick said more people died in those mountains being struck by lightning than are killed driving the highways.
Rick taught me all about mountain life as we camped by crystal clear mountain lakes, catching trout and frying them up within minutes out of the icy water. The flesh was succulent and the pinkest I’d ever seen. Even the boxed mashed potato flakes tasted like pure heaven when they were drenched in butter, and the instant biscuits from a mix melted in our mouths in seconds flat. We watched herds of elk cross the green velvet meadows, humbled by their majesty and their number. Wildflowers peeked out of the undergrowth in the pine forests, and every night we warmed our fingers and toes in front of a roaring campfire. Many times I was sure we were lost, but Rick always found the disappearing trail and led us through the wilderness until we finally dropped low enough in altitude to follow the railroad tracks into the old mining town of Silverton.
In Silverton, a nineteenth-century mining town, I felt on top of the world. Tourists seeing us ride into town might have taken us for real prospectors as we rode in pulling our mule train, dusty and covered with the proof of having lived in the wilderness for thirty days. We tied up our horses and mules to the wooden rails lining the unpaved road and walked into town with our dogs. Rick had an old girlfriend in Silverton, and we visited her and rested for a few days, until Rick’s dad could come to collect us with his horse trailer. We loaded the horses and mules into his trailer and climbed into the pickup, eager for our familiar roof and real bed.
Back at Rick’s family ranch, it was time to consider our next move. I had no plans besides creating more jewelry to sell at local craft fairs and galleries for food and gas money. Rick had an idea: let’s take the top off your jeep and drive to New York to see your daughter, then see what’s around the bend. What a grand idea! Four days later, windblown and sunburned, we pulled into the driveway of the older house further in the country where Arnie had moved with Robin after selling our New Rochelle house. My old life was completely gone except for the people who inhabited it and some familiar furniture.
Robin squealed when she saw us pull up in the jeep, three dogs barking in the rear, and she ran into my open arms. Arnie welcomed us warmly, giving Rick a warm handshake. When we had a few private moments, Arnie admitted to me that Robin often woke during the night crying for her mother. It broke my heart to hear it, but I didn’t know what to say. I knew Arnie had climbed his own mountains: packing up a life that had split wide open, selling the house, finding a simple place in the country to live. He was writing and working freelance so he could be home with our daughter and serve as both mother and father to her. I ached hearing all of this, yet I praised him, as did Rick, for the good man he so obviously was. We regaled him with stories of our high-country adventures, and somehow his heart opened to Rick, who from then on he called “brother.” I swore to him and to all who would listen that our friendship would remain with us for life.
Robin was another story. Right away, Robin and Rick were inseparable. With me, though, Robin was cautious. She hung back. In later years I would learn that the scarlet letter had left its mark, as it had on me, although I wasn’t willing to admit it.
All the way home to Colorado, I blamed myself for failing as a wife and mother. I hadn’t kept up my part of the commitment. It was a hard reality to take. Another reality I couldn’t avoid was that I had to find work. Victor asked us to go with him to his uncle’s uranium mines in Gateway. “You oughta join me up there for a while. He needs a few hands,” he told Rick.
We were clearly “on the run,” though from what I’m not sure. All I knew was that adventure and travelin’ that lonesome highway were leading us where we needed