Two Medicine (54 page)

Lunches were a
little faster paced, but Buster kept up with
burgers, chicken and salads well, and my experience at the snack
bar kept things in line too. My second job in Montana, and I was
back in the kitchen!

Sky worked nights, mostly, so I didn’t see
very much her after I started working. But that was okay, as we
were able to take care of Maddy in shifts, to prevent her from
destroying the rental house.

There were times, I’ll admit, when I would
feel a stirring in me when I looked at Sky, an attraction and
desire to touch her, to be close to her – despite my resolve to
forego any romances for a long while; but those times were few.
Sky, also, had other friends still in Browning, and family too, so
I quite frequently had the house to myself.

The days settled into a comfortable routine,
but the weather started growing colder. When I was off work, I
would borrow Sky’s car and return to Glacier to hike some of the
trails I was missing, and also I’d drive to see other parts of the
park, although those trips were rare. I didn’t have a great desire
to travel, not anymore; I liked my spot in the world and I felt a
peace at where I was. Just like the others I had met when I first
go to Two Med… I mused.

One evening Ronnie and Jamie came over when
both Sky and I had off from the diner, and we had a bonfire in our
backyard with some food that Ronnie and Jamie brought over. We
played with Maddy and talked about the summer that was behind us,
remembering odd moments at the store. After a while I pulled out my
guitar and strummed some chords, leaning back and looking up at the
stars. Ronnie was sitting next to me and had lit up a
cigarette.

“
Things have quieted
down,” he said, blowing a puff of smoke away from me by twisting
his mouth to the far side while watching me. “The store closes next
week. I think I gotta plan together for what to do
after.”

“
Well,” I said, “there’s a
third bedroom here.” I smiled, but I really wasn’t joking – it
would be good to have him there. But I knew, somehow, that he
wouldn’t be staying.

“
No, I’m thinking of going
up to Waterton, into Canada, to fight the wildfires. They’re
looking for alotta of people to hire. Anyway it’ll be good to get
away from Browning.”

The fires had been making big news in
Montana the last couple of weeks. Forest fires were common in that
part of the mountains in that part of the year, but the park’s land
in Canada, officially called Waterton, was getting out of control
with a massively large one. Some smoke had even made its way in the
air down to Glacier.

“
They are paying good
money, and providing housing and everything,” Ronnie said, flicking
ash off his cigarette.

“
Yea, I heard. Dangerous
though, too.”

Ronnie shrugged. “I’m drawn to danger – what
can I say? You of all people should know that, Chiefy… But why not
come up with me? You can still get back down her for the park job
in a couple of months.”

I looked over at Sky, who was talking to
Jamie and wrestling with a stick that Maddy had clenched in her
teeth, and then I glanced back at the house we rented.

“
I’m not leaving; I really
feel this is where I belong. It feels right to be here doing what
I’m doing, and seeing what I’m seeing, meeting the people I’m
meeting. I’ve never felt that before, really.”

I thought about it for a moment, all I had
been through. “I feel like I absolutely belong in this moment now
and this place – it’s where I should be.”

Ronnie nodded. “Then that’s a rare thing,
Chiefy. Enjoy it.”

We hung out for a long time that night, late
into the evening. When Ronnie and Jamie finally left it was around
two a.m. I helped Sky clean up and get Maddy into the house, and
then I collapsed on my bed and slept like a log.

Forty-Six

Katie called and made me swear, one last
time, to go with her to church that Sunday. It was the last time
the park was going to have a preacher available for the camper and
tourists, what few were left. So, the next Sunday found me driving
Sky’s car up to Two Med to meet Katie at the store. I pulled
outside the store in the gravel parking lot, but didn’t go in. I
didn’t belong in there anymore.

Katie eventually came out and we walked the
same trail again that led to the empty camp used the last time for
the church service. She carried a Bible with her this time, and I
saw at a glance that it was the same one she had hurled into the
woods. She must have searched it out after her breakdown, I
figured. This day was a little cloudy, not like the sun-drenched
morning of our first service. But the sun peeked out here and there
and cheered my somber mood as we got to the pace and sat down on
the benches again.

The young preacher was there again, standing
next to the little wooden fence that ran around the edge of the
camp site. Only two other people were there this time, besides
Katie and I, an old couple, who seemed more amused at the odd
church setting than worshipful.

The young man thanked us for coming, and
opened up with a prayer. After speaking about this being his last
time for the services and the closing of the season, he began his
short sermon.

He read from the Bible to start. It was
Lamentations, and he identified it as chapter three, verse
thirty-one and thirty-two. Katie opened her Bible and pointed to
the section with her finger, nudging me playfully with her
elbow.

“
For men are not cast off
by the Lord forever,” the preacher read, “though he brings grief,
he will show compassion.” The young man then spoke very briefly
about grief, and how, given enough time, God can turn the grief
into a blessing, both in terms of overcoming personal tragedy. But
he also said that we could use that knowledge to help others in
grief. He finished and told us that we should all hold hands to
pray to close out the service.

We stood and I held Katie’s hand and,
awkwardly, the preacher’s in my other hand. The older couple held
hands on the other side of Katie and joined the preacher in the
circle. He asked if anyone would like to pray, and to my surprise,
Katie volunteered.

“
Lord,” she said in a
quiet voice, “we thank you for this place to meet, this beautiful,
majestic place that we have been fortunate enough to come to. We
thank you for your creation: the sky, the lake, the mountains and
the creatures. And I thank you for the relationships I’ve made, and
the friends I’ve found. I thank you for helping me. You are a
wonderful father to me, and I thank you for loving me. You have
definitely shown
me
compassion, after my grief.”

She looked up and then shut her eyes again.
“And I pray for safe travels for the campers here, and for us
staffers. And I hope you bless us with another great summer.”

I looked at her when we had finished, and
her eyes were watery. She then hugged the preacher, who seemed
surprise at it, and then for good measure she hugged the old couple
too, who told her the prayer was “delightful.”

Katie and I then walked back in silence for
a while. I felt like I had witnessed some upheaval in her, a flash
of her thoughts and emotions that had shown itself in a different
light than I had seen before.

“
I signed on to work at
Two Med again, next summer,” she said as we crunched along the
gravel path.

“
Really? Good,” I said.
“That means I’ll see you next year, if I’m still working
then.”

“
You better be,” she said,
taking my arm in hers.

She sniffed and looked up to the sky, wiping
a palm across one eye quickly. “I called my dad last night.”

“
How’d that
go?”

“
I told him I forgave him
for everything and that I loved him... I said I could never forget
it, but that I loved him and forgave him.”

“
Unbelievable…” I
said.

“
I signed on to be the
preacher next summer, too.”

“
Ahh, so you’ve come to
terms with the divorce?”

She looked at me and then shook her head.
“I’ll never come to terms with it… but I love him and I want to
heal my family.”

We walked on a bit. “What on earth did you
father say when you told him all that?” I asked.

Katie cleared her throat. “He said ‘I love
you, too.’” She wiped another tear preemptively from her eye. “I
think he was more shocked than anything else.” She laughed. “He
asked me if I was ‘ok,’ like I sounded crazy.”

“
You’re not crazy,” I
said.
You were the least crazy person in
the store,
I thought to myself.

“
So are you going to
preach next summer?”

“
I’m still deciding…” she
said. “One epiphany at a time.”

I walked beside her for a while, gravel
crunching under my feet. As the store came in sight, she suddenly
turned to me and held my hand.

“
I’m leaving in a couple
of days Will, to go back home. I’m gonna call you sometimes to
talk, see how you’re doing. Ok?”

“
I’ll miss you too,
Katie,” I said. “And this is the second time we’ve had to say our
goodbyes.”

“
I know, and I don’t like
it,” she said. “But I wanted to see you again… you helped me this
summer… and you forgiving that hit and run driver for killing her…”
She faltered, and quickly looked over at the store and back at me.
“When I got here I was
totally
lost.”

“
And now you’ve been
found,” I said, watching her.

She turned and gave me a little kiss on the
cheek and then hugged me, hard.

I hugged her back and said to her, “So was
I.”

She smiled and let me go, and then turned
and walked off towards the store. She turned back to me as she
walked, and called back, “I’m going to call you when I get back
home – answer the phone!”

Later, I drove
back to my house and thought about her father.
Fathers were difficult; and I think daughters and father share a
tenuous bond that is easily tweaked into the wrong direction, like
flicking the strand of a spider web and sending all kinds of wrong
vibrations through the web. Katie’s vibrations were way off when I
first met her; but now she seemed to be… in tune. Thunderbird would
be proud of my spiritual radar, I smiled to myself.

Most of all, she seemed to have gotten over
making her father’s infidelities personal, which is a common and
tragic mistake children make. Forgiving him was necessary and
vital, and I think she was on her way. On her way, but not totally
there, I suspected.

It takes a long time to truly forgive.

One morning
that
next week, right at
eight a.m., the face I least expected to see walked into the diner.
Larry sat down at a small table by a large window and gave me a
little nod.

I walked over in bewilderment. “Hello
Larry.”

“
How ya doin’ Will?” he
said, softly. I saw him glance over the scar on my neck. “You doin’
all right?”

“
I’m good,” I said,
“nothing permanent, except a lovely scar to tell stories
about.”

He smiled slightly, and then looked around
the diner. “Years past I would come in here all the time, but last
couple summers being as busy as they were, I never had time.” His
voice took on his usual Kansas up and down rhythm he used to chat
with customers and discuss the weather. It was his way of
controlling his feeling, this morning, resorting to his practiced
rhythms.

“
Katie told me you were
working here,” he said. “We closed down the store yesterday, all
packed up for the winter. So we were ok without ya.”

“
Yea,” I said, “sorry
about…”

He interrupted me with a wave of his hand.
“No need to say anything, son, I understand.”

I nodded, “Good.”

I pictured the first day I had walked into
the store, seeing Larry hunched over the grill, scrubbing with
gusto and dire enthusiasm. He seemed scarred now too, but
internally. But, I felt, like a scarred veteran healing from a
bitter fight, he was stronger now, more solid. His demons were
gone. It made me sad to think back on that morning, so much ahead
of us at that time, me standing there with my suitcase and guitar.
But things had worked out ok in the end, I figured.

I served him coffee and
gave him a menu. “I don’t suppose you guys have sourdough
pancakes,” he said, raising his eyebrows and looking over the menu.
“Though I doubt they could compete with mine.”

“
Uh…. no, they couldn’t,”
I said, remembering Ronnie’s contribution to Larry’s “prized”
concoction.

He ordered regular
pancakes, and I had Buster give him some bacon and sausage as an
extra, on the house.

After he was done I set the bill down, and
said, “So where are you going now that the store’s shut down? Back
to Kalispell?”

He shook his head and
looked out the window at the slow morning sun pouring in warmly
from the sky.

“
No, Phyllis and I are
taking a long trip, taking an RV out of retirement, and seeing some
sites. Gonna see my son down in Kansas too. There’s even a
lumberjack festival in Clinton, Iowa we might visit.” He
smiled.

“
Sounds good,” I said,
chuckling a bit. “I’ll be working for the park this winter. So
maybe I’ll see you next summer.”

He shook his head. “I
think I’m retiring from the store. It’s time I retired for good.”
He sipped his coffee. “I told Katie she should manage the place, if
the park lets her.”