“By the way, did you folks know the road we took for the last half mile is part of the Appalachian Trail?”
He walked them through the upper level, the long-unused logging trail winding its way across the slope of the mountain, its ruts filled with bushes and small trees.
The old man made a sudden motion to keep quiet then pointed to his right. Galen and Cathy saw two deer peacefully drinking from the free-flowing spring that bubbled up between two glacier-strewn boulders. No doubt, like the rest of the area, the mountain was honeycombed with limestone caverns that served as subterranean rain cisterns, until the water found an escape route.
She took his hand and whispered “a buck and a doe,” and he understood.
He immediately fell in love with the place, and when he looked at Cathy he knew she had instantly read his mind in that way of all women.
“Yes, Tony.”
That was all she needed to say.
In short order they signed the papers, paid the deposit, and arranged for the bank loan. It was all theirs now.
“Cathy, I don’t think we should build anything on it. Let’s leave the animals to their home. We can always come to visit, maybe even camp out or stay at a local motel. I don’t want to spoil the beauty of this place.
“Besides, Mr. and Mrs. Deer were here first.”
Once more she answered him, as he knew she would.
“Yes, Tony.”
Then came that fateful dinner and his nervous question: “What’s the matter, honey?”
An MRI followed, sketching his beloved wife’s fate in glowing electrons on the monitor screen: metastasized pancreatic cancer. Like Leni before her, and like nearly everything else that had mattered in his life, Cathy was soon taken from him.
Afterward he had made the pilgrimage to their special place every chance he could, walking the trails, pretending that Cathy and Leni were by his side, rushing to be the first to name the plants and animals each had spotted. He felt thankful for the isolation. Not that it mattered, but anyone watching him as he talked to himself surely would have considered him crazy and fled down the mountain. Yet alone, he said what he wanted—his heart exposing its deepest feelings—and even talked to the animals. They didn’t mind.
* * *
He hadn’t returned to the hideaway for quite a while. His relentless workload had acted as a diversion. Truth be told, as the years passed, he had built up a reluctance to go. The relief and exhilaration he originally felt had been replaced by creeping sadness. And now the children had become the focal point in his life.
Maybe it was time.
Alone in his room he sat at his desk and mapped out the logistics of the trip in his mind before approaching the others.
“How would you all like to take a quick trip to my Fortress of Solitude?”
Edison and Nancy responded with looks of puzzlement. This was the most energetic their friend had sounded since he had moved in.
Even Galen realized the incongruity, so he tried to lighten the mood.
“I figure we might have to hide out there if the government ever decides to avenge their man Thornton, after we dissed him so badly. I still can’t believe we got away with becoming guardians of the kids.”
They immediately relaxed.
“It needed to be done,” Nancy replied. “People shouldn’t just be pawns for the powerful to play with. I still think if Thornton hadn’t been convicted on federal charges the children would have been sent back to Cuba.”
Edison quipped, “Yeah, imagine, a federal official lying. Who would have thought it possible?”
The three burst into spontaneous laughter.
“Besides,” Edison continued, “they wouldn’t blame us, they’d blame Judge Todwell. She’s the one who went to bat for us and made it easy for us to adopt the kids.”
Galen interjected, “Mirabile dictu, an honest public figure. Amazing!”
Edison paused.
“I wonder if she and that lawyer … what’s his name … Comer are still … uh … friendly.”
Nancy shot him a quick conspiratorial look, and he blushed. Then she turned to Galen.
“When would you want to go?”
“How about tomorrow?” Edison piped up.
Now Galen paused.
“Hmm, that way, if the black helicopters come for us, we’ll be gone.”
That did it. Once more the three shared a burst of laughter.
The children, who had witnessed the exchange, studied their guardians, and then nine-year-old Freddie turned to his sister.
“Que loco!”
Carmelita, who had just celebrated her tenth birthday, promptly smacked the top of his head and told him to stop being so disrespectful.
“Si, mamacita Carmelita!” he replied, mocking her.
She smacked him again.
Eight-year-old Antonio kept his mouth shut.
Edison drove them in his “kidmobile,” as he now called his minivan, down Interstate 81 through Harrisburg. There they picked up U.S. Route 15 and followed it south to Frederick, Maryland, where it joined I-270 into the Washington, D.C., area. Edison surprised Galen by veering from the plan and taking Route 340 west for a few miles before resuming on Route 15.
“I really hate the Beltway,” he grumped, but Nancy understood. They knew that even a brief approach to Galen’s old home would sink their friend’s mood, and though they had dealt with him patiently since he had moved to the mountaintop, both were becoming a little weary of it all. And they knew the visit to his former refuge would be emotional enough.
As it turned out, the detour provided some scenic benefit, meandering as it did through some gorgeous countryside before widening through the now-sprawling outskirts of Leesburg, Virginia, then shooting straight down to join I-66 west near Manassas.
Nancy took in the gigantic outlet malls and sea of townhouse clusters lining both sides of the wide highway. She wondered what the many men who had fought and died in this area in the Civil War nearly 150 years ago would think of it all.
The interstate began a detectable rise, as the surroundings gradually changed to horse and dairy farms, and they could see the first row of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance, their tops appearing volcanic in the heavy mist. They were part of the vast Appalachians, which run more than a thousand miles from Georgia to Maine and are among the oldest ranges on Earth.
They rode through a cleft in the hills near Delaplane then descended into a valley outside the small community of Linden.
“Here’s our exit,” Galen called out.
They pulled off the highway and stopped at the roadhouse where he and Cathy had closed the deal so many years ago. It had changed a bit, not quite as rural or folksy, but it still featured cider and donuts.
“Okay, guys and gals, pit stop and eats,” Edison called out. He knew Galen needed the break as badly as he did.
Ah, the pleasures of senior-citizen bladders!
Newly relieved, they reconvened at one of the tables that reminded the three adults of the old diners populating every rural roadside after World War II: chrome-trimmed, Formica counters and the long soda bar with red vinyl, mushroom-pedestal seats that stretched the length of the room.
After wolfing down donuts with apple juice—an act for which Edison’s dyspepsia would punish him later—they wandered through the adjoining