Curtis Streuli, A Blues For Eden

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It wasn t anything that any of them felt like talking about to others and
was all a bit of a surprise to them but their solution seemed to work.
Andy was a bit horrified at their suggestion and didn t want anything to
do with the idea at first, thinking that it sounded all too much like
something he would read in a magazine best kept from his family. But
then one night they drank more wine than they had planned on as they
watched the sun set over Cat Ear Lake. They crawled into the lean to
and all three of them quickly fell asleep. Andy woke out of a dream
sometime in the middle of the night to discover that Mountain Girl was
kissing him as she lay on top of him. The blanket was over both of
them and she was naked. He lay there in an enjoyable confusion
kissing her till he remembered where he was and paused to look around
and assure himself that Andrea was still safely passed out. To his
horror she was lying next to them, smiling at them both in the
moonlight. He started to say something but Mountain Girl took his face
in her hands to kiss him again and as she did Andrea reached over to
tickle him. And then he couldn t have said no to them even if he had
wanted to, which he most definitely no longer did. As they fell back
asleep later he thought that it wasn t anything like the stories he had
read. He could stop worrying.
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Jeff fell by the wayside a little later with Andrea explaining to him
that with the way he had treated her that he should have no trouble at
all finding a new girlfriend. She made sure that the other girls knew
she would not be upset if he got some attention from them and even
encouraged a couple of them to flirt with him. He was to have fond
memories of her for a long time along with more than a touch of relief
that she had done this before he did. He had discovered that she was a
great fantasy but not really who he wanted and with her reputation for
enjoying a good fight he had been wondering how to extricate himself
from the situation he had so eagerly gotten. It was okay. She had
Andy and she didn't have to worry as long as she had Mountain Girl to
share him with.
Fall came and as the weather became cooler she saw her new friends
less and less. One afternoon she lay sleeping in the sun after a solitary
swim and Ron and Kelly appeared over her. They were full of
questions. How was she? Why had she not been in school? What was
up with her anyway that they only ever saw her in this one place? It
was a small town, she must be somewhere sometime& & & They were
going to meet Lee and Hannah later. Did she want to come with them?
Taken unaware she replied that she had told her father she would be
home before dark that day and now they knew something about her,
that she had some sort of family. They offered to walk with her back
into town, just wanting to visit and now she had to think of a way out of
this situation that she had so easily gotten herself into. Well, she
thought, there was still a few hours of light left. She started down the
way they always came to the falls with them. She actually knew the
way pretty well; understanding every possible route to any given
destination was something she automatically made sure that she did and
she had actually followed the trail down to the town a few times alone
anyway. Just before they reached the road the path crossed an old
wood road. She extracted a promise to see them next week and to
accompany them into the town itself and then she paused for a moment,
looked at the abandoned road and said Well I go this way and
disappeared as quickly as she had with Andy and his family a couple of
years ago. But a visit into town with her friends sounded enticing. She
would have to find a way to have her father understand that this would
be okay. He was so accepting of her independence in the mountains
but seemed to have a complete horror of her having anything to do with
civilization. It was as if he feared the rest of the world would take his
daughter from him she thought as she tried to think of a way to reassure
him that one visit to town did not constitute her abandonment of him.
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The next weekend Andy and Andrea came to visit. She explained to
everyone concerned what she wanted to do and Zechariah thought that
this might be some sort of a turning point. He thought of how he'd
thought of telling her it would be okay to have Lee come see where she
lived and had been unable to do this; unable to tell her this. Andy and
Andrea lived a few hours away. Lee lived only a half days walk away.
It would be far better not to risk it. Mountain Girl watched her fathers
face as she told him. There wasn't a solitary flicker of emotion but she
could see every thought he was having anyway. The occasion didn't
call for any sort of a good bye but she went over and hugged him. "I
love you daddy." She laughed, an Andrea laugh. "But you know that"
And then to the astonishment of all three of them Andrea hugged him
and kissed his cheek. "Don't worry about us" she said in a voice he
seldom heard her use. He thought of her words as she left. "Don't
worry about us" Not don't worry about your daughter. Don't worry
about any of the three of us. Us. That was the word she had used. He
thought of that word the rest of the evening.
The three of them went out to the ledges which she had taken them
to a couple of other times already and on the way she told them again
of her concerns about Hannah. When to her disappointment her other
friends weren t there Andy suggested that they go down the trail and
into the town and try to find them. Mountain Girl knew their names
and it was a small town, it couldn t be that hard. But to everyone s
relief half way down the trail they ran Ron, Kelly and a couple of other
boys, Jimmy and Ricky, that Mountain Girl recognized from the
summer. They were astonished to see Mystery Girl, as they still
referred to her sometimes, with other people. But everything they ever
learned about her seemed to be another surprise so introductions were
made and they all continued back into town.
They told her that Hannah was at Lee s house and led Mountain Girl
and her friends through the small town. Mountain Girl could feel her
excitement fading, replaced with a strange fear as they walked through
the dusky streets. She tried to think of what it was that she was afraid
of but she couldn t think of anything. Her friends in the town were all
nice people and she trusted them. She had the absurd thought that they
were trying to take something away from her, but what did she have
that they could take? It couldn t be anything to do with them. Perhaps
it was being in the town. But no, she went to the town below her home
regularly now and it was reasonably comfortable. That couldn t be it.
She gave up trying to figure it out. Thinking about it just made her
more anxious and made her stomach hurt. It would be okay she told
herself. She had Andy and Andrea with her. Nothing could happen to
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the three of them here. She repeated that to herself until she felt a little
calmer and then they were at Lee s house. Lee and Hannah were
sitting on the porch, lazy and excited all at the same time, and started
exclaiming lets go when they saw them, running down off the porch
and leading them back the way they had just come towards some
unknown excitement that Mountain Girl had noticed in the distance and
had been wondering about.
The excitement was some sort of a carnival going on that weekend
and they all went to it, with Andy treating Mountain Girl. She loved all
the overpriced food, hamburgers and hot dogs and French fires with
extravagant gobs of ketchup and mustard and cotton candy and popcorn
and a host of other things she had never eaten before, all helped on their [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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