Chapter 7

One of the nice things about having the huge windows in the great room facing to the east was that Randy and Nicole could be treated to some spectacular sunrises when everything was right, which included being up in time for them. Since they were so far north and Daylight Savings Time got involved, in the summer it was usually well after sunrise before they got up – but this time of year the way their schedules worked they often had a nice sunrise to greet the day as they ate a light breakfast together.

They didn't have to get up early on Saturday several days later, but they were creatures of habit and didn't need an alarm clock to get them going at their usual time. Preach and Crystal weren't up yet, so Randy and Nicole were able to share a really spectacular sunrise by themselves, starting with low clouds in the distance being lit from below by the sun that was still below their horizon. Then, as the sun got closer to rising, a spectacular sun pillar developed, rising straight and bright in the bitterly cold air that came with the clear nights that followed the passage of the storm. They just sat at the kitchen table, taking it in while sipping at coffee, not talking much, just enjoying the show the sky was putting on for them.

As Nicole watched the upper limb of the sun just beginning to poke above the horizon, she said, "You know, sometimes this winter stuff gets awful long, but every now and then a sight like that makes it all worthwhile."

"Yeah," Randy agreed. "We get gray and gloom and glop often enough in the winter, but that almost makes up for it. Crystal and Preach may have all the sights of the southwest and the Grand Canyon, but at least we have stuff like that now and then."

"It looks like it's going to be cold all day," Nicole observed. "Do you still think you want to head over to Three Pines with the gang?"

"Well, if we're going to get over there with Crystal and Preach, we about have to do it today or tomorrow," he pointed out. "I could have gotten free for a day this week, but I know you wanted to go along, and there was no way to do it without you taking off from school. I feel like we ought to do something while they're here besides hang around and shoot the shit."

"I don't know how much Myleigh and Trey will want to go with us, as cold as it's going to be," Nicole pointed out. "Neither of them mind getting out and skiing a little if the weather is fairly pleasant, but it's going to be pretty chilly today."

"Yeah, probably a little beyond what they would consider fun," Randy agreed. "All we can do is ask. They might like to go along just to hang out in front of the fire in the main room in the lodge. In fact, as cold as it is we might be spending a fair amount of time there as well."

"That's what I mean, maybe it's not worth the effort. But I suppose you want to show it off."

"There's that," Randy admitted. Clark Construction did a lot of work at the Three Pines reservation, meaning mostly the resort complex, which included a lot of work on the golf courses, which were buried in snow, and on the casino. The casino didn't really interest him except as a construction project, but in the last couple of years the tribe had also been working on a multi-phase development of a big new ski resort. Clark Construction had done much of the design and most of the construction. The first year's work had been the basic ski runs, ski lifts, and supporting buildings, with a temporary warming shelter and an administration building, but last summer's project had been the core of the big new ski lodge, which opened only a couple months ago. Randy really did want Crystal and Preach to see it, just to give them an idea of what he did and what he really could do.

"How about Danny and Debbie?"

"We can ask," Randy said. Like Myleigh and Trey, Debbie and Danny were pretty much beginners as skiers; they could get out and enjoy themselves for a while, but were nowhere near as avid as Randy and Nicole, or Crystal and Preach. However, Danny and Debbie were North Country kids, used to the kind of cold that they would be facing today, so that might enter into the equation a little. "All they can do is say it's too damn cold out there for them."

"I'm not too sure it's not too cold out there for me," Nicole protested, "at least for that sort of thing right now. But I agree, we ought to do something outside with Crystal and Preach, or else they're going to think we're going soft on them."

"Well, aren't we?" Randy smiled. "I'm not trying to be sarcastic, either. I mean, here we have our big, comfortable house that we take a lot of pride in, and they're still sharing the girls' house in Flagstaff with two other couples, and that house would fit in our great room with space left over."

"This one reflects our priorities," Nicole pointed out, remembering the evening with Nellie a few nights before. "Their house reflects theirs."

"Yeah, maybe I was being sarcastic," Randy admitted, a little abashed at the realization. "But you know, I've thought about it more than once the last few days. We are drifting away from Crystal and Preach in more ways than one. We're a lot closer to Myleigh and Trey, and to Danny and Debbie, than we are to Crystal and Preach."

"It was bound to happen," Nicole said. "We don't see them often enough, and we don't have the common interests or the shared experiences with them that we used to have. We spend a lot more time hanging out with Myleigh, Trey, Danny, and Debbie than we do with Crystal and Preach. In fact, you really haven't spent that much time with her since you left college. That's getting to be a long time ago, Randy."

"Yeah, you're right," he agreed. "And I guess it was bound to happen, even though I don't want it to be that way."

"Well, me either," she said. "Crystal and I share a lot, even a few things that you and I don't share, like the Appalachian Trail. We'll always be friends and compatriots, but I doubt we'll ever be close like that again. I don't think that is going to happen, unless they move up here and get some kind of real jobs. I really doubt that'll ever happen."

"Yeah, not unless something really weird occurs," he nodded. "If they ever leave the Grand Canyon it'll be to buy a sailboat and sail around the world or something."

"That's a lot more likely than their moving here, and it's still not very likely."

"You're probably right. But still, I hate the thought of them slipping away from us. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see them again for a while. Years, probably."

"It wouldn't surprise me. And I hate the thought of it too, but I guess it was bound to happen. So, what do you think about skiing?"

"Maybe we could wait till afternoon," he suggested. "It might warm up enough to be a little more tolerable. We could take the skis and snowboards along, but if we get up there and it turns out it's still too cold, we could just sit around the lobby, maybe have some coffee or something and come back. Maybe make a few runs, maybe not."

"It seems like kind of a waste, but yes, if we're going to get out with them at all this trip, it's probably our only chance. Why don't we wait till they get up, bounce the idea off of them? Then we can see if Myleigh and Trey want to go with us, or Danny and Debbie."

It turned out that Danny and Debbie were planning on going to Three Pines that day anyway, but not to the ski lodge. Because of her being a tribal katara, they put a lot of time into cultural activities there, something that Danny didn't begrudge, but joined enthusiastically. Although they didn't know the details, Randy and Nicole were aware that Danny was studying the Shakahatche language, and was fairly fluent in it – he was the only white on a list of something under four dozen people who spoke it at all. Danny and Debbie were also deeply involved in transcribing and annotating the journal of a missionary who had worked among the tribe well over a century before. It was an immense job that ate up a fair amount of their free time, but one they approached with a great deal of enthusiasm.

Between her literature and her harp, Myleigh also had other free time interests, most of which Trey lent support to – but the chance to spend a rare afternoon with Crystal overrode those. That got the group down to a size that would fit in Trey and Myleigh's minivan, which had a load of skis and snowboards strapped to the top.

It was close to an hour's drive over to the ski lodge at Three Pines, a trip that Randy was very familiar with considering the amount of work that the company did there. There had been times in the past that he had been over there every day, weekends included, for months on end – sometimes to just spend a few minutes coordinating something involved with the construction, but sometimes for lengthy meetings. Even in the winter, when construction slowed to less than a crawl, he usually was over there at a minimum of every other week, and in fact had been over for a half-day planning session for Phase III of the ski lodge project two days before. Needless to say, it was a route that he knew like he knew his way around Nicole's face, and for once he was glad to sit squeezed in the back seat and let Trey do the driving.

Randy and Nicole had been among the first to ski the intermediate hill back in the planning stages of the ski lodge, almost a year before there had been a ski lift there, and they had thought at the time that it made a very nice run. They'd also been among the first to ski the advanced hill, opened only this winter, and it was a challenging run that Crystal could handle with them, but not Trey, Myleigh, or Preach. So, with the exception of a single run to show the place off, they stayed with the intermediate hill.

The weather had warmed up considerably since sunrise; it was not bitterly cold, just bracingly cold, but the six of them got in a couple good hours before deciding to head into the lodge for coffee and hot chocolate. It gave them a chance to warm up in front of the big log fire that was always going in the lodge's main room.

"You know," Crystal teased Myleigh, "back when we were at NMU, I never thought I'd see you out on a ski run. Never. Ever. And wearing pants, no less."

"Well, ski pants," Myleigh pointed out, her language somewhat unrestrained since she was among friends. "Even a purist such as I would have second thoughts about wearing a skirt in such an endeavor. And even though to my surprise I have come to enjoy an occasional excursion to the snowy slopes, I still consider it near the limits of insanity to be making a run such as we have been doing whilst wearing but a string bikini. I am aware that you accomplished that insanity more than once."

"I still do it every now and then. "Scooter and I did it back in November, out in Flag."

"Neither of them exactly have what you would call bikini bodies," Preach observed. "Scooter in a string bikini, well, that's a little beyond words to adequately describe. Crystal at least looks athletic. Scooter just looks solid."