Chapter 6

It was a while before they moved back into the living room, with a nice fire still going in the fireplace and fresh cups of coffee all around. It proved to be an interesting evening, and it was clear that they'd found that Nellie was an older but kindred spirit. She had a lot of stories, more than had come out around the dinner table, and once in the living room some of the other people's stories began to be heard. Nicole and Crystal spent quite a bit of time talking about their adventures on the Appalachian Trail. They'd done their end-to-end hikes as different trips, but Nicole had been with Crystal for three weeks on Crystal's end to end. It had hooked her so thoroughly that she'd done it with another friend two years later. Almost everyone there had heard the stories of Crystal's crewing on the yacht to Hawaii, and her beautiful but dangerous trip down the Inside Passage as crew on a salmon fishing boat, racing winter back to Seattle. And, of course, there were lots and lots of Grand Canyon stories.

All too soon the evening began to wind down. "Goodness, it's late!" Nellie finally protested. "I'm afraid it's hours past my bedtime, but I can't tell you when I've enjoyed an evening so much. You young people have got so much sitting in front of you I really envy you."

"We'll have you over again sometime," Nicole told her honestly, entranced by their new acquaintance. "Preach and Crystal will be leaving in about a week, but the rest of us are here in town and we get together frequently."

"I'd love to join you again," Nellie replied. "It's so refreshing to be around active young people who see a future in front of them! Please feel free to invite me anytime."

"Oh, I'm quite sure we shall," Myleigh smiled. "You have given us many of your memorable stories. I know even thinking about them has expanded my own horizons. I should not find it surprising were many of us to find considerable inspiration as a result."

Nellie was still a while getting out of the house; Randy accompanied her to her car, and gave her a wave as she drove off. He headed back into the house, to discover Nicole setting up a fresh round of coffee. Randy helped her with it, and settled back in his easy chair. "Well, Randy," Preach grinned, "I'd say you did a pretty good job of casting your bread upon the waters with that one."

"Yeah, no fooling," Randy shook his head, getting Preach's Biblical allusion without comment. "You know the old saw about small towns being where everyone knows everyone?"

"Yeah," Preach smiled. "I'm from a town smaller than this one, so I'm familiar with it."

"I'm beginning to think Spearfish Lake isn't a small town," Randy smiled. "I mean, I know I've seen her around here and there, but I'd never talked to her before today that I recall. And to think she has a past as interesting as that! Boy, you never know, do you?"

"No, you never do," Preach agreed. "That's one thing we get out on the river. I mean, stories of other people's adventures. Some of them are pretty wild. This summer we had a guy tell us about crashing his motorcycle on the Bonneville Salt Flats at over 300 miles an hour. I mean, we are talking a serious case of a hole right straight through his head! But you only rarely come across someone with as many stories as Nellie."

"It makes me a little jealous," Crystal admitted. "It's almost like I'm getting to be a stick in the mud, comfortable with what I'm doing and not quite ready to strike out and do new things." She shook her head, let out a sigh, and continued, "And, I guess that's what I am. Preach, we need to do something new, and maybe before rafting season starts."

"We could probably scrape together three or four weeks, if we have it planned before your folks come back from Truk," he said. "We'd need to have it pretty well firmed up, or else your father is going to find something for us to do."

"It would still be kind of a short notice to come up with anything that's really new," Crystal protested. "And the season would be all wrong to do a lot of the things on my list. I'll admit, I sort of envy Duane and Michelle, up there in Alaska."

"I'm not all that crazy about cold weather," Preach said. "But they wanted the adventure of spending the winter up there training Phil's dogs, rather than doing it here in Spearfish Lake."

"We've missed them this year," Randy said of the two – Duane and Michelle were Canyon Tours trip leaders like Crystal and Preach, and they'd spent the last several winters in Spearfish Lake helping to train Danny's brother-in-law Phil's Iditarod dogsled teams. The year before they'd talked Phil into letting them do the training in Alaska, just for the change in scenery, and to get a little better acclimatized to the winter weather before making Duane's rookie run in the race. "And winter in Alaska isn't exactly my cup of tea, anyway. It gets cold enough around here, thank you."

"You could have done that if you'd wanted to," Nicole pointed out. "You had the time for years, and you've always complained about how boring the winters are."

"Well, yeah, I've considered it more than once," Randy admitted. "But, well, it really hasn't appealed to me, and I'm not all that free in the winter, especially late in the winter. I probably could have done it a few years ago, but since Brent started having his heart attacks I really haven't been able to take that much time off while we're getting ready for construction season."

"I guess I have to give you that one," Nicole agreed. "I guess it really is a case of setting your priorities, like Nellie said. I guess I didn't realize it, but when I married you I had to marry your priorities, too."

"Are you saying you wouldn't have done it if you'd thought about it?" Randy asked.

"Oh, no," Nicole shook her head. "Yes, it would be nice if we could get out and have a few bigger adventures together, but I have priorities too, like a home and a family. I was able to get out and have some fun before I settled down to them, and I've always been a little sorry that you've felt jealous about it."

"I can understand," Danny shook his head. "Hell, I married a woman who didn't share any of my priorities. I spent years having to bend my life to fit hers, which I didn't care for at all. Fortunately, Debbie and I seem to share our priorities pretty well, so it's like night and day. But then, I've never been as much of an adventure freak as Crystal, like you seem to want to be at times, Nicole. I mean, don't get me wrong, that Canyon trip we did was a lot of fun, but please understand, Crystal and Preach, while it might be fun to think about, I don't believe I'd want to make a life doing it."

"Me, either," Debbie agreed. "I wish I could have made that Canyon trip with you that time, but the way it came down there was just no chance of it happening. But I don't have the great driving need to go out and have a great adventure just for the sake of doing it. And that's fine, I guess. It's like Nellie said, you have to decide where your priorities are." She leaned back and stared into the fire for a moment before she continued, "Randy, maybe I'm wrong in saying this, but as long as I've know you, it's always seemed to me as if you have a pretty good idea of what your priorities ought to be. But that vision of what they ought to be has always seemed to be at war with what you want them to be, and what you want them to be usually has been the loser."

"No, I don't think you're wrong in saying it," Randy sighed. "And, in fact, I think you just did a pretty good job of describing it. I manage to keep what I want my priorities to be pretty well stuffed back deep in the closet most of the time. If they weren't, it'd be all too easy to say the hell with it and turn into a Canyon Tours boatman." He shook his head and smirked, "Or buy a sailboat and set off on a trip around the world."

"But you don't think it would be the right thing to do," Debbie nodded.

"Yeah," Randy sighed. "And it'll probably never be the right thing to do."

It was getting pretty late before Randy and Nicole went to bed, but they weren't quite ready to go to sleep yet. Lying in bed before going to sleep was their favorite time to talk privately, even when they were alone in the house and especially with company like Crystal and Preach there. They could whisper softly in each other's ears, cuddle each other and let their bodies sometimes say what words couldn't.

"That was quite an evening," Nicole whispered. "You manage to meet some of the neatest people in the most unconventional ways. I'm sure glad you offered to clean out Nellie's driveway for her."

"I am, too," he said. "My God, how can one person do all those things? I mean, I thought Crystal had an adventurous life, but Crystal was sitting there just overwhelmed by the stuff Nellie was telling us about. It'd be nice to have a few stories like that, but I've come to the conclusion it's not going to happen so I really shouldn't wish for it."

"Randy," Nicole sighed, "ever since we got back together after you got out of college I've heard the same thing. Honestly, I'm a little tired of hearing about it. There are times I wish you'd just say the hell with your job, and say let's go buy a boat and drop out for a few years."

"It's not going to happen," he sighed. "And you know why."

"I know it, but do you ever think about it?"

"Almost every day. You know that. But realistically, doing something major like that just isn't on my list of priorities because it can't be. And, it's just going to get worse in the next few years, rather than get better. If I'd wanted to be able to do something like sail around the world, I'd have had to set some different priorities ten years ago. And if I had, Crystal would probably have been who I'd have been doing those adventures with, not you."

"I know," she sighed. "But you gave her up for the sake of those priorities. I've always known that, and in fact I'm grateful for it. I love you, Randy, and I especially love you because you take your responsibilities seriously. I know that sometimes you don't like having to do it, but at least you do it. It's never seemed like it's quite fair to you. At least we're doing a little better about getting out and doing stuff than we were for a while."

"Yeah, that trip to Patagonia seemed like the sort of thing we ought to have done more often," he said. "It's not like we can't afford it. We could afford to do more if we wanted to, but the problem isn't money, it's time. And that problem is not going to ease up, it's just going to get worse over the next few years, with little what's-their-name and their possible brother or sister involved. It was like pulling teeth to be able to get the time we took to go out to Little Woodlark last summer. Don't get me wrong, every minute of it was worth it, and I'm counting the days until we can do something like that again, but it's not going to happen very often."