Chapter 18

Wednesday, December 12, 2001

Michelle joining Duane in Spearfish Lake started new rounds of socializing for him with some of the people more or less connected with dog sledding or rafting. Over the next few days, they had dinner a couple times with Josh and Tiffany. Phil and Brandy's legendary mutual inability to do anything constructive with cooking meant that they took the two out to dinner at the Spearfish Lake Inn, the big motel out on the highway that was considered the best eating place in town. Even Danny and Debbie invited them to dinner, which turned out to be one at Blake and Jennifer's. They were all good people, all of them interesting, all of them with fascinating stories to tell – but the people both Duane and Michelle felt most comfortable with in Spearfish Lake were Randy and Nicole Clark, mostly because they were, to some degree, Canyon Tours people. They'd each made a couple trips down the Canyon, more as crew than as customers, so Randy and Nicole were about the only people Duane and Michelle could talk Grand Canyon with and know what they were talking about.

Duane had been to Nicole and Randy's house before, but the night the two of them showed up was the first time Michelle had been there. Her eyes were wide from the moment they drove up to the new, striking avant-garde structure. "Wow, this is quite a house," she said to Duane, who was driving the two of them in his Jeep.

"Wait till you see inside," Duane grinned.

"I don't get it," she protested. "I didn't know the two of them were rich."

"They aren't hurting, but if you want a house like this it helps if you run the construction company," Duane told her. "You don't see it on the river, but in this town Randy is a moderately big cheese and getting to be a bigger one."

Randy had been watching for the two to drive up, and met them at the door. "So, Duane, Michelle," he said as he held the door for them to come in, "How's it been following the huskies around?

"It's going pretty good finally," Duane reported. "According to Tiffany, we're getting caught up a little. At least we're not lacking for snow now."

"Yeah, we've been having a fair amount," Randy agreed. "Let me take your coats. So, Michelle, how do you like working with dogs?"

"It's not as good as the Canyon," she smiled as she peeled out of the parka she'd just bought the other day. Skiing clothes and the things she'd brought from Flagstaff weren't quite cutting it on the back of a dogsled in Spearfish Lake. "But it's fun for a change, when I can't be running in the Canyon, anyway. Randy, this is quite a house."

"Nicole and I like it," he replied. "Actually, it's a little overboard for what we need, but it was intended as a model home, a demonstration of how the company does building houses, so that makes up for it somewhat. I can show you around a little if Nicole doesn't have dinner ready yet."

Randy's house was intended to be a showpiece, and he enjoyed showing it off, especially the great room with its huge windows overlooking the lake, now shrouded in darkness but showing the lights on the far side of Hannegan's Cove. Michelle was suitably awed, but with a reservation, of course: "Now if this was overlooking the Canyon, it'd really be something."

"You know, Michelle," Randy laughed, "I think you have Canyon Fever about as bad as anyone I've ever seen. Even Al takes a trip off every now and then."

"What can I say? I like the Canyon," Michelle smiled.

"Maybe you need a little variety in your life," Randy laughed. "I would have thought that dog sledding would give it to you."

"Oh, it's fun and all that," she agreed. "But it reminds me of just how good I have it when I'm in the Canyon."

"If you two are about through yanking each other's chains," Nicole called out from the kitchen part of the great room, "We could be sitting down to dinner."

"Ah, food, one of my other favorite things," Michelle laughed.

The four of them gathered around the dining table, all in a good mood. Duane had told Randy to tell Nicole not to go to anything special for dinner, but what she served was an old family beef and noodles recipe, which Randy enjoyed a lot and didn't get very often. It was probably just as well, since it was possible to put on weight just looking at it.

"So," Randy said as they settled in to eating, "Did you hear that Scooter and Jim aren't going to be here for Myleigh's wedding after all?"

"No, I hadn't," Duane replied. "I haven't heard anything from her since I went back for the weddings and the crew party."

"Me, either," Michelle added. "Did she say why she wasn't coming?"

"Yeah, they talked it over with Dave and Mary and are going to do some trip down there, Al told me when he called today. It seems they decided they want to go over to some place named Punta San Jose so Scooter and Jim can teach Dave and Mary how to surf. Beyond that, Al said they're having a great time, wish you were here. I guess we'll find out more when we see them. It's not a surprise to me that they're not coming. I sort of got the impression that their coming was more or less a maybe, anyway as Scooter and Jim don't know Myleigh and Trey all that well."

"It doesn't surprise me, either," Nicole snorted. "If I remember correctly, Punta San Jose is over on Baja somewhere. I'll have to admit if I was given a choice between surfing in Baja and going to a wedding of someone I barely knew, off in a frozen wasteland somewhere, I probably wouldn't have a hard time making a decision, either."

"Yeah," Michelle agreed. "I guess it doesn't surprise me all that much, either. I think she originally planned on coming just because the rest of the gang was planning on being here, especially with Crystal being here. It wouldn't surprise me if she's starting to realize that things aren't the way they used to be, and that she and Crystal aren't living in each other's pockets anymore."

"That still seems a little strange when you stop and think about it," Duane said thoughtfully. "I mean, as long as I've known them, you hardly ever see Crystal without Scooter being there, or the other way around. Or, if it was off season, Michelle being with them. I ran with both of them last summer, and it really was a little strange to see one and not have the other close by."

"Yeah," Michelle nodded. "I don't think we're going to see much more of that. I mean, Preach and Jim seem to get along all right, but I think if you get right down to it, they don't really like each other all that much. I mean, not that they're sworn enemies or anything, it's just, well, they have different interests and see things a different way."

"In spite of the fact that Preach isn't a minister any more, he's still pretty spiritual," Duane observed. "Jim, well, he's not. Scoot is right with him on that. They're much more physical, more dedicated to the way things are now, so to speak. I'm with Michelle, I don't think we'll see them hanging out together all that much. Sharing the house, that's a different thing, they'll rarely both be there at the same time. But raft guides have to be able to get along with people, so maybe it'll work out."

"Things change when you get married, that's for sure," Nicole said. "I mean, I didn't think things would change all that much for us, but they changed a lot. Even though I was gone for college and everything else, I still was living at home when I was home and had a solid relationship with my family. Randy and I were close, but nothing like as close as we got to be when we finally got married and started living together."

"You didn't live with him before you got married?" Michelle asked, almost incredulous at such a concept in this day and age, even though she'd just seen Crystal and Preach do much the same thing. Of course they were on the river together all the time, and that made things a little different.

"We would have liked to," Nicole sighed. "And we managed a couple vacations together. But this is a small town, and people talk, so we really couldn't do it while we were living here. I mean, both our families are here, and I don't think either of them would have minded if this was a big city where we could be relatively anonymous, but it isn't and we're not. But it all worked out for the best, I think."

"I think so, too," Randy said. "Sure, Nicole and I had a few things we've had to work out, but I don't think either of us have yet come up with what would have been a show stopper if it had surfaced before we got married. Of course, we've known each other since we were little kids, so that counted for something too. Actually, I think we have a pretty good understanding of each other now."

"Didn't you get close to marrying Crystal once?"

"Not really," Randy shook his head. This was a long and complicated subject that he didn't want to get into. "I had a standing offer to marry her after she turned her back on her family, but she never showed any interest in it. I guess it's just as well. The last year proved I didn't know Crystal as well as I thought I did. I mean, I don't think I misread her or anything; it's just that there were things in her I didn't see when she, Myleigh, and I were messing around in college. I always expected she was going to have the wild geese calling after her, and I guess I was right. Of course, the last few years, we haven't seen all that much of each other, and I guess we've developed in different ways. Everybody I've talked to has said that they're surprised that Crystal wound up marrying a preacher, and I guess I'm one of them, too. But when you stop and think about it, maybe it's not all that surprising."

"I don't know," Michelle frowned. "I guess I always pretty much figured her as being a lot like Scooter. I mean, an action person, not a head type or a spiritual type. But I guess I was wrong about that."

"She kept it pretty well hidden from everyone, at least while I was with her a lot." Randy said. "Myleigh and I haven't talked about it in those terms, but I've never heard Myleigh say anything like that, either. I talked with Preach on that trip last spring enough to know that he and Crystal were pretty good buddies when they were running rafts on the Ocoee, down there in Tennessee. I got the impression that he saw something in her that was different from what I saw. I take that to mean that there was something in her that I never got to see."

"Maybe I did see a little bit of it," Michelle said with a frown. "I mean, when we were down in the Bahamas the past two winters, Scooter and I were always ready to party, to pick up some guys and get it on. But Crystal never wanted to do any of that. I mean, it wasn't like she was down on us or anything for doing it; she just didn't want to do it herself. It was always, 'You guys have fun.' I guess now that she was starting to show signs of settling down, I mean as much as a raft guide ever settles down."

"Do you think things are going to work out for them?" Duane asked.

"Hell, Duane, you can make just about as good a guess as I can," Randy snorted. "Like I said, the wild geese were always calling after her. You've got the same disease, you know what I mean. I don't think Preach has it near as bad. That's something they're going to have to work out with each other."

Duane started to say something, thought better of it, and shrugged. "Time will tell, I guess."

"It usually does," Randy agreed. "I'd like to think that I'm going to stay friends with Crystal, but I suspect that we're going to be seeing even less of each other now that she's married. No regrets, though. We had some good times, kayaking, surfing, lots of stuff. But as far as I'm concerned, some of the best times were just sitting around the campfire with our guitars, just hanging out."

"Oh, God, that's right," Michelle exclaimed. "You play guitar with Jennifer, don't you? You must be pretty damn good."

"I'm barely adequate with a bass guitar but I'm usually available if needed," Randy smiled. "That's all. I'm no magician like Blake, or like Jennifer, for that matter. I've had some fun getting together and playing with the gang, but I'm sure glad I'm not trying to do it for a living."

"I've seen you playing bass guitar," she smiled. "You play a six string too, don't you?"

"Oh, yeah, I fool around with it. You can't hang around Blake and Jennifer with a guitar in your hand and not learn something."