Three Days of Snow

	Three Days of Snow A boy never really forgets that first love. I’ve always believed that we’re shaped more by our mistakes than by our successes. There’s a thing called an error of omission; that is, a mistake that results from your failure to act, rather than an error of commission, where you do something to find it’s the wrong thing. Years ago – all too many years ago – I made an error of omission. The error involved my best friend, the best friend I ever had, and the one thing I never told her before we both left our hometown for college. It started the summer after we graduated high school. For years, I thought it had ended when we both left for college. Many years afterward, I was fortunate enough to be given a second chance.
Prairie Ridge, Minnesota – the late Seventies She was tall and slim, with dancing russet hair and flashing green eyes. Her name was Ceilidh O’Connor. ‘Ceilidh’ is an old Gaelic word meaning a ‘dance or celebration,’ and no girl was ever more aptly named. Life was a never-ending celebration for Ceilidh; her lopsided smile was infectious, her laugh enchanting, and her carefree nature made everyone love her. She had a temper, too, of course – her Scots/Irish background, no doubt – but I always knew how to bring her back, how to make her smile again. Yes, everybody loved Ceilidh. I certainly did. Ceilidh was my best friend. We spent a lot of time together, although we probably seemed an odd combination. She was the pretty, vivacious, ‘popular’ girl that everyone knew. I was the quiet kid everyone ignored. I’ve never been the social type, and at seventeen I was maybe even more retiring than I am now, but somehow with her it was different. Somehow Ceilidh always knew how to bring me out of my shell. We talked about everything. She came to me for advice about boys. I let her – and only her – read the stories I’d tapped out on the old Remington typewriter I kept at home. But we never once went out, not on a ‘date.’ We spent a lot of time together, at movies, at my house, at her house, riding around in the horrible old car I’d managed to buy, but not as anything other than friends. Then we graduated. We left Prairie Ridge, Minnesota. I went to the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Ceilidh went to the University of Iowa’s pre-med program. I never told her how I felt about her. And I always figured I’d never see Ceilidh again. And, for almost thirty years, I didn’t. Friday October 9 Blizzards are unusual in early October even for the Colorado high country, but they sure do happen, and when you live at almost ten thousand feet, they can get nasty early. The weather forecast had called for snow, and sure enough, it started on Friday afternoon, big fat flakes drifting down out of a gray sky. By nightfall, the wind had picked up, and the snow turned hard and gritty, blasting sideways against my cabin windows. No matter – I had a big stack of firewood, a full LP gas tank, and plenty of food. My cabin isn’t big, just a front room, a tiny kitchen, a tinier bathroom and a bedroom – but there’s always been just me, so it’s always been big enough. “Bring it on, Mother Nature,” I called into the wind when I went out for an armload of wood. I figured on stocking up a bit, so I went around to the big woodpile in back to stack a couple armloads on my little front porch before the snow got too heavy. That’s when I saw the headlights coming down the highway. Not too many people drive down my stretch of state highway at the best of times, and certainly not during a blizzard. The road always turns icy in these kinds of storms, and sure enough, the headlights wavered as the car skidded – right into the ditch about a quarter-mile down the road. The mountains have a code, just like the sea, so I went inside, got my parka and my big searchlight and went out to help. My old green Bronco started right up, but I had a heck of a time getting the front hubs locked – they were half-frozen. By the time I got them hammered loose, I looked up to see a parka-clad figure walking up my drive, face turned away from the wind, a small overnight bag clutched in one hand. I reached in, turned the truck off and went out to meet my unexpected guest. I couldn’t see anything other than a parka, a pair of blue jeans, boots, and an expanse of darkness in the hood’s opening. “Come on in – it’s warm inside,” I shouted over the wind. “I was just coming down to see if you were alright. Is there anyone else down there?” The figure’s head shook. We went inside. I took a moment, stomping snow off my boots, and turned around to greet my unexpected guest. She had her back turned, and was just taking off her parka, letting a cascade of red-brown hair fall out of the hood. She turned and smiled at me, her eyes shining brilliant green in the light. “Thank you so much,” she said. “I was afraid I’d freeze! I never guessed there was a house out here.” “I, uh, guess you’d like to use the phone,” I stammered. It couldn’t be – could it? “Yes, please,” she beamed. I showed her to the phone on my little desk in the front room. She picked up the handset, listened, turned the phone off and on again, and then frowned. “No dial tone.” “Phone’s kind of iffy way out here,” I told her. “Storm may have taken the lines down. Do you have a cell phone?” “I tried it when I went in the ditch. No signal.” She laid the phone back down, still facing away from me. I stood staring, watching a last few snowflakes slowly disappearing, melting into her shining red hair. “My name’s Nick,” I finally managed to say. She didn’t answer. Her back was turned to me, and she was standing very still. When she moved at last, she turned around, holding a framed portrait of a young, green-eyed girl in her hand. “Nick Eldridge,” she said at last. “How’ve you been, Ceilidh?” There were a few streaks of gray in her hair, but the lopsided smile was still the same. “Nickie, Nick Eldridge, who’d have ever thought it, after all these years?” She laid the picture down, and came over to hug me. “How long has it been?” she asked. I thought a moment. “Twenty-eight years, four months, and eighteen days,” I answered, and we both laughed. “You’ve got my senior class picture on your desk? Nick, it’s been almost thirty years!” “For old time’s sake, I guess. Who wouldn’t keep a picture of their best friend from high school? Please, sit down!” I scrambled to move a stack of magazines off my battered old couch. “Sorry about the mess – I don’t get many visitors out here.” We sat down facing each other. Ceilidh looked around the tiny cabin, at the desk, the computer, the stone fireplace, the door to the tiny kitchen. “So, what do you do out here?” she finally asked, breaking a moment of uncomfortable silence. “Is this a vacation cabin?” “No, this is my home,” I told her. “Such as it is, along with about three hundred acres of spruce timber, aspens, and high meadow. Ever heard of Owen Bradley?” “The writer? I’ve heard of him, nature and outdoor guides, right?” “Yes.” I picked up a copy of my latest, Colorado’s Secret Wilds, and tossed it to her. “That’s me. It’s a pen name.” “Nick, that’s wonderful! You’re famous!” “Well, not really. Owen Bradley is famous. Good old Nick Eldridge is known around here as some odd old hermit that lives alone in a cabin on the Uncompaghre. I’ve come a long way from Prairie Ridge.” “I’m really very happy for you, Nick. Do you ever get back home?” “Not since Mom passed away. And you? What have you been up to the last twenty-eight years?” She laughed lightly, making me tingle all over. “Oh, nothing that exciting. First medical school, then a horrible internship, a worse residency, and now I’ve got a practice in St. Paul.” “Sounds exciting enough to me. So it’s Doctor O’Connor now, then?” I knew better, but I had to ask. I could swear Ceilidh blushed before she answered, even though I’d spotted the ring when she took her coat off. “Well, actually, it’s Doctor Ross,” she said, looking down for a moment. Why are you looking away from me now, Ceilidh? I thought to myself – at one time I’d known her better than I knew myself. How much could change in almost thirty years? A lot, I had to admit. Still… “Anyone I know?” “Ryan Ross,” she smiled now, looking at me with a faintly defiant air. “Well, that’s good news!” No it isn’t. “How is Ryan? Last I knew he was all hot and heavy with, oh, who was it? Beth English, wasn’t it?” “Back at Prairie Ridge he was, yes. But Beth stayed in PR, and Ryan went off to Iowa, like me, and since we knew each other already, I guess we just took to hanging around together – we were driving home on weekends together, and so on.” “And the rest is history?” I teased her, but gently. “Yes,” she answered, “the rest is history. We had our twentieth anniversary last year.” “Kids?” Please say no. I’m not sure why that thought popped into my head. “Tom’s seventeen, Ann’s fifteen.” “And you said your life wasn’t exciting!” I laughed. “Sounds pretty exciting to me! Two teenagers, an M.D., your own practice! So, what brings you out here to the middle of the Uncompaghre anyway?” “Well, that’s a long story. I was in Durango for a conference – the Third Annual Mountain Medical Conference – and I decided to get away to spend a little time by myself when the whole thing wrapped up. I was actually heading for Vail when this hit.” “You were taking the scenic route, coming up here through Montrose, weren’t you?” “Well, sure! I’ve only been to Colorado one other time. It seemed like a good idea until this snowstorm hit. I guess I should have listened to the weather report.” “First rule of the mountains,” I chided her. “Always know what the weather is supposed to do, especially in the winter. It gets pretty wild out here, even this early in the year.” I realized I’d left her an opening. “So what are you doing out here, all on your own? Don’t you have a family, Nick?” “Me?” “Yes, you!” She reached out to poke me in the chest. “No, Kaye,” I answered, retreating to an old nickname I’d used for her, way back in high school. “No family. No wife, no kids, no girlfriend. Mom passed away the year I left for college.” “I remember. It was in the PR paper. I sent you a note at Boulder, remember?” “Yeah, I’ve still got it around here someplace. Anyway, that’s it. If you recall, Dad disappeared when I was fifteen. Mom was the only family I had.” We sat in silence for a few moments, both of us a bit uncomfortable. So many years, so much water under the bridge. Ceilidh had gone so far, and I had gone, well, into myself. I’d retreated into a tiny cabin in the Rockies, making my living writing about rocks, trees, and birds under an assumed name. I was just an anonymous hermit alone on the Uncompaghre. Ceilidh wore a worried look for a while, but she didn’t press the subject any further. Instead, we talked about Colorado, about the mountains, about Ceilidh’s practice, about my books, until it was quite late. The fire burned down to coals as we sat there, talking oh-so-seriously about things neither of us really wanted to discuss, avoiding the questions we both really wanted to ask. After some debate, I managed to persuade Ceilidh to sleep in my tiny bedroom, while I made myself comfortable on the couch. “I sleep here lots of nights anyway,” I lied, “It’s closer to my desk, anyway, in case an idea hits me in the night.” The bedroom is only a few feet away from the living room, of course, but Ceilidh was polite enough to leave that unsaid. Without further ado, we said our goodnights, and I lay down to stare at the cabin ceiling until well into the small hours. My first love, the only girl I’d ever really loved, had just walked back into my life after almost thirty years, thanks to an early Colorado blizzard. But way back then, I’d never been able to tell her how I felt. Was this a second chance? What was I going to do now? It was past three before I finally fell asleep. Saturday, October 10th I awoke the next morning to the sound and smell of bacon and eggs cooking in my tiny kitchen, just around the corner. I followed the smell around to the kitchen/dining room – such as it is, in my tiny place – to find Ceilidh, long hair tied back, wearing my ancient bathrobe, padding back and forth from the stove to the little table with bacon, scrambled eggs and toast. “Well, good morning!” she chirped at me, smiling warmly. I tingled right down to my toes. Almost thirty years and more than a few gray hairs later, her smile still made me feel weak in the knees. “Have you looked outside yet?” I stole a glance at the window, and saw a solid sheet of white. The wind rattled the glass, and when I stopped to listen, I could hear the tin chimney from my little gas furnace rattling in the gale. “I bet it’s ten below out,” I said. “Almost twenty below,” Ceilidh confirmed, “according to your little indoor-outdoor thermometer in the bathroom.” “I’ll have to go out and get some wood. The living room gets cold fast if you let the fire go out.” “Well, you can eat first. Although, Mister Eldridge, as a doctor I should take you to task for your diet. I didn’t see any dry cereals, no bran, just eggs and about four pounds of bacon in the fridge. Do you eat this way every day?” “Well, a lot of days,” I demurred, “but I work it off. You don’t think I just sit here and write all day, do you? I’ve got almost three hundred acres of land to take care of. I cut, split and stack three cords of firewood every summer, in addition to everything else.” “Well, alright. I guess you do look pretty fit.” We ate in silence, accompanied by the howling wind outside. I don’t own a television, but I did dig out my weather radio and we listened for a while: A Canadian cold front has stalled over the central mountains and the Western Slope. Much of the area is experiencing winds of up to 60 mph, and whiteout conditions. Today’s highs will range from an expected 16 above in Grand Junction to 20 below in Aspen, Leadville and Eagle. Vail reports twenty-two inches of snow in the last twenty-four hours, Eagle twenty-five, Glenwood Springs twenty-four, Leadville twenty-five and Grand Junction nineteen. Travel advisories remain in effect for most of western Colorado and Wyoming. The storm system is expected to remain stalled for another twenty-four to forty-eight hours, bringing as much as an additional thirty-six inches of precipitation to the area. Mountain residents are advised to remain at home. Most state and county roads are impassible. I-70 remains closed over Vail Pass until at least tomorrow. “Well, I guess I won’t be back on the road today, will I?” Ceilidh looked down at her plate. “Are you complaining about the company?” I teased. “No, not the company,” she laughed. “I just wish we could have run into each other under better circumstances. I mean, here I am, sitting here in your bathrobe, with my car buried in six feet of snow down the road and no way to even let anyone know I’m alive.” “Speaking of your car, is there anything in there you need?” I asked. “I’ve got to go out to get some firewood, so while I’m dressed up I could just as easily walk down to your car.” She shot me a wry look. “Well, I’ve got most of what I need in my overnight bag, right here. I may have to borrow a clean shirt if we’re snowed in another day, but other than that…” “Ceilidh, I live up here, remember? It might be three or four days before the highway gets cleared. This isn’t exactly the main thoroughfare.” “Well, I guess I could use my big suitcase. If you’re sure it’s okay for you to go down there.” “I’ll be fine.” Thirty minutes later I was dressed to go out in my felt-lined pacs, my old Swedish Army parka, an ancient pair of insulated ski pants I’d picked up someplace, and my heavy mittens. “I’ll pile some firewood up right outside the door first,” I told Ceilidh, “and then I’ll take a hike down the road to your car. I’ve got a good pair of snowshoes right outside.” “Be careful, Nick.” “Hey,” I told her, “It’s me!” That bit of bravado was a little over the top, as became apparent the moment I stepped outside. The wind was screaming in from the open ground across the highway. The first real gust hit me right as I walked around the corner of the cabin towards the woodpile, snapping me sideways and tearing away my breath with a sharp pah. I gasped a couple times, and forged on for the woodpile, which I could just make out as a lump of white surrounded by white, glimpsed through the howling white of driven snow. I made at least a dozen trips, slogging back and forth with armloads of wood dug from under the drifting snow. Each trip, my footprints had almost disappeared by the time I beat my path back to the house with another load. I stacked a pile six feet wide at the base by about four feet tall before I decided that it was enough. At least the overhanging roof of my porch would keep the wood reasonably free of snow. My snowshoes were stashed in the rafters of that overhang, so I retrieved them and lashed the old willow and rawhide frames to my boots. Ceilidh’s car was three or four hundred yards down the highway. I figured I could trace the driveway the hundred yards to the highway, and then follow the highway south to the car. It worked, after a fashion – I strayed into the ditch twice from my own driveway. The highway was a little better, kept blown clear by the wind for a stretch in front of my property. I floundered through two big drifts, though, the snow so powdery that even my snowshoes didn’t help all that much. It seemed like a year before I found Ceilidh’s car, a brand-new blue Lexus, nose-down in the steep ditch near where a tiny creek passed under the road. Wow, I thought. Expensive. I knew doctors did pretty well financially, obviously a lot better than writers. But, doctors have to live in towns. I decided then and there that I wasn’t interested in trading occupational places. Her big suitcase was in the trunk, right where she said it was. I got the trunk open without too much trouble, and manhandled the big case out. Another ordeal – I had to get back up to the highway. I only fell twice, and managed to fill my ski pants halfway up with snow, but at least carrying the big suitcase back up the highway and driveway to my house sufficed to work up a sweat. Ceilidh was waiting in the house when I fell through the door. She looked anxious. I imagine I looked exhausted – I was. And I hiked ‘fourteeners’ all summer long, just for fun. I was in great shape for a man of forty-six. “It’s worse than I thought,” I told her. “The highway is sure in bad shape.” I shucked off my boots, parka and ski pants. My jeans were covered with melting snow that dripped on the rug. “Are you all right?” she demanded. “Here, I’ve got some hot tea waiting for you – you don’t have any coffee.” “No coffee, I never touch the stuff,” I gasped. A long gulp of the hot lapsang souchong lit a fire inside me. “You know what? I’m going to take a hot shower. Do you mind?” “Not at all,” she answered, laying a hand on my arm. “You shouldn’t have gone out there, but thank you for bringing my case in.” She dimpled. “Now I won’t have to drag around in one of your shirts, anyway.” “Or my bathrobe,” I added, and headed off for the bathroom. A long, hot shower restored me. At least the gas was still on! I hopped into the bedroom, put on an old pair of sweatpants, a heavy sweatshirt with a bull elk on the front, and a thick pair of fleece boot socks. A thought hit me, and I grabbed a second pair of the heavy socks and headed for the living room. Ceilidh had changed as well. She was standing in front of my tiny stereo stand, glancing over my music collection, dressed again in jeans and a black t-shirt. “You’ve got quite a collection.” “I don’t have a TV, but I do like to have music, especially when I’m snowed in.” I picked up a CD. “Remember this one?” She laughed. “I remember you playing it in that horrible old Chevy of yours!” I handed her the socks, noticing her bare feet. “Here. My floor gets pretty cold. There’s just concrete under the carpet pad.” She put the socks on hopping on one foot at a time, giggling a bit as she almost lost her balance. I caught her arm to steady her, and I could have sworn she blushed a little. She picked up another CD from the rack. “Oh, Bob Dylan!” “Yeah, I got into his music in college. Boulder’s kind of an odd place,” I explained. “I guess you’d say it’s kind of eclectic.” I put an album on to play, and we sat on the couch again. “So how did you end up writing your Owen Bradley books, Nick? I remembered you were going off to learn to be a newspaper journalist – it’s all you talked about.” “It’s a long story.” “Well, we would seem to have plenty of time, Nick,” Ceilidh answered, gesturing towards the window. A particularly nasty gust of wind rattled the pane. “Good point,” I had to admit. “So, give,” she said. “Tell me your long story.” I told her. While Stevie Nicks sang “Gypsy” in the background, I told her about my five years at Boulder. I told her about running out of money and joining the National Guard to pay for school. I told her about my six months in the Persian Gulf, and how I wandered from place to place for five years or so after my return. I told her about the job as a reporter with the Baltimore Sun that only lasted three months before I was laid off. I told her about driving through Prairie Ridge once – only the one time, to visit my mother’s grave in the little cemetery north of town. I told her about my year in Denver, living in a crummy apartment on Capitol Hill, tending bar in a lower downtown watering hole while I tried to find a job with one of the city newspapers. About three albums and a big plate of sandwiches later I got to the point where I took up backpacking one summer, hoping to get some fresh air and exercise. “I had pretty much given up on finding the reporting job by then,” I told her. “My heart wasn’t in it anymore. The city was too much of everything – too much crowding, too much noise, too much pollution.” She nodded, eyes closed, as though she knew just what I meant. “But when I got out into the mountains, it’s like everything came together for me, like I finally knew where I ought to be. So, since I was spending more and more time up here, I moved. I got an apartment in Eagle first of all, and made a living tending bar there – a bartender can always find work – while I wrote my first book, Summer on Hardscrabble Mountain. I was still in Eagle when I wrote Autumn in the Holy Cross, and when that book started selling I had enough money to come out here. This piece of land was for sale, so I picked it up and lived in a camper trailer one summer while I got the cabin built. I’ve been here for eight years now. I wrote Walking Winter Wildernesses and Spring in the Maroon Bells right there at that desk.” I got up and went to my bookshelves, retrieving copies of all four books. I dropped them on the couch next to Ceilidh. “Here,” I smiled at her, “signed originals. Those will tell my story better than I could tell you here.” “Aren’t you lonely out here, Nick?” “Me?” I tried to look astounded. “Lonely? No, not me.” “Come on, Nick,” Ceilidh admonished me. “I know you, we were best friends once, remember?” She picked up one of the books and waggled it at me. “You’re pouring everything of yourself into these books, and you aren’t even putting your own name on them.” She stood up, leaning over me. “You’ve built yourself into this little cabin, and nobody around here even knows what you do. Everything about you is turned inwards!” “It’s easier that way, Kaye.” “Why? Why is it easier to tell people whom you are anonymously, with the whole world, than to tell who you are with one person for real? The Nick Eldridge I remember never had that problem!” “I don’t know, Kaye!” I was a little flustered by her response. “Maybe it’s because the one person I was ever able to open up to walked out of my life thirty years ago, and never came back. Maybe the Nick Eldridge you remember just never had that problem because that Nick Eldridge had a best friend he could always turn to.” Ceilidh had walked over to stare into the fireplace, and now she turned to look at me. Her eyes were red, and brimming with tears. “I’m sorry,” I said. “That wasn’t fair.” “It’s OK,” she answered. “I’m just a little concerned about you, Nick. You’re out here all alone. I had thought… Well, I had thought you’d have found someone.” I did, thirty years ago. “Maybe we should change the subject,” I offered. “Is that really how it’s been for you, Nick?” “It’s not like that, Ceilidh. I’ve got a great life up here. I’m not tied to a job or an office. I hike and backpack all summer, I live out here away from the city, and I make my living writing about things I love. What more could I want?” I could see that she wasn’t about to answer that one, so I dodged. I’m such a coward, I thought to myself bitterly. “Listen,” I said, “I’ve got a deck of cards around here someplace. You still play peanuts?” “Yes,” she smiled, wiping her eyes. “Oh, it’s been years, but I think I still remember how to play peanuts.” I rifled my desk looking for a deck of cards, all too aware that Ceilidh was looking over my shoulder at her senior picture framed next to my computer monitor. “Here we are,” I said, producing a deck of cards. “Would you believe I got these in Las Vegas? I spent a week there while I was writing an article about the Desert Wildlife Range north of town.” Giant hotel-casinos aren’t really my cup of tea. That week had been a real eye-opener. “I’ve never been there,” she answered. “Vegas, or the Desert Wildlife Range?” “Either one. You know, I’ve only left Minnesota twice since I finished medical school? I’ve taken one skiing trip to Vail, and one trip to St. Louis for a conference. This trip was the first one I’ve ever taken alone.” “Yeah, well, I’ve been around rather more than would suit me. Iraq isn’t anything to write home about.” “I don’t expect I’ll ever find out!” We sat at my tiny kitchen table and played cards while the wind howled outside, and the snow drifted up. I had to duck out twice for firewood, and the drifts were piling up across my drive. “Good thing I went out to your car this morning,” I reported as I tossed some wood on the fire. “Drive’s drifting shut now.” “How do you get it cleared after a snow like this?” “I’ve got a little old tractor with a loader blade on the front in that shed back of the house. I can get out to the highway easy enough, but it doesn’t do any good to get out there until the road crews get the highway plowed.” We kept on with the card game while the windows slowly grew dark and the storm raged on. Ceilidh took her turn to bring me up to date on what medical school was like, how her practice ran in an upscale area of St. Paul, a city I’d never visited, and how her two teenagers were a constant source of frustration. “And what’s Ryan up to these days?” I finally asked. She hadn’t mentioned him twice since she walked through my front door the day before. “Lost in his career,” she told me. “He’s a sales rep for a big pharmaceutical wholesaler in Minneapolis, he travels a lot. Some weeks the only time I see him is when he drops off samples at my office.” She smiled. “This week he got stuck at home with the kids, though.” “I remember how he was in school,” I reflected. “Hell of a guy – always driving, always focused. A real type A personality, wasn’t he?” “Oh, he still is. Peanuts!” she shouted the last word, slamming a card down. “You always were better at this than I was,” I grumped. “Tell you what, why don’t you have a look through the books I gave you, and I’ll get us some supper? It’s, what, six o’clock already.” “That’s a change, having someone cook for me.” Ceilidh laughed. “Sure, I’d love that. The summer book is the first one, right?” I nodded and headed for the freezer. Fortunately I’m a quick rough cook. Years of living alone have seen to that. Forty-five minutes later I had a pair of elk tenderloin steaks broiled, a salad mixed, and some hot garlic bread and steamed vegetables ready. Ceilidh poked her head around the corner from the living room as I was setting plates on the little table. “Smells wonderful.” “I’ve had lots of practice,” I explained. We ate in silence for the most part, except for an account of the source of my elk steak – a big cow elk I’d brought out of the Flat Tops Wilderness the previous month, during the archery elk season. “I’m a pretty fair hand with a bow. I use a hand-made English longbow, there’s a guy I know in Michigan that makes them. Keeps it interesting.” Ceilidh insisted on cleaning up – “You cooked, it’s only fair.” I brought in some more wood, stoked the fire up, and tuned in the weather radio again. A Canadian storm front remains stalled over the central Rockies. Severe winter weather has resulted in a Traveler’s Advisory being put in place until Sunday evening. Vail, Rabbit Ears and Loveland Passes remain closed. The weather front is expected to move to the east beginning Sunday afternoon. The winter storm will be followed by a high-pressure system that should bring some sunshine and rising temperatures to the Western Slope by Monday morning. “Looks like this will last most of tomorrow,” I called to her. She walked in to the living room, drying her hands on a towel. “Then it lasts until tomorrow,” she said. “And no, I’m not complaining about the company.” There was a lot we needed to talk about that evening, and nothing else to do but talk. We sat on the couch and talked about the old days, about Prairie Ridge. All the funny memories, all the sad memories, everything we’d both half-forgotten. It took a while for Ceilidh to get to the question I’d been expecting. “So how come you never asked me out, Nick?” “What do you mean?” I dodged. “We went out lots of times. Sheesh, Kaye, we were together all the time.” “You know what I mean,” she replied, very serious now. “Would you have said yes?” “Yes.” She nodded. “I would have. That’s what I wanted all along.” I didn’t need to know that now, Kaye, after all this time. I felt the weight of my life’s biggest missed chance slamming down on me now, and I guess it showed. Ceilidh leaned over and hugged me hard. “I’m sorry, Nick, I shouldn’t have dredged that up. I’ve just always wondered…” “It’s hard to explain, Kaye. How do you tell your best friend something like that?” “Like what?” “I guess I was afraid of losing what we had, the friendship. I didn’t want to take a chance on losing my best friend in a messy break-up. You know how often high school relationships crack up in a big mess? I couldn’t take that chance.” “You didn’t answer the question, Nick. What couldn’t you tell me?” “How crazy I was about you. How I went weak in the knees every time you smiled at me.” Or how I still do! “How my heart raced when I walked in the school every day, knowing you’d be in the building waiting for me?” Or how much I loved you? She was holding both my hands now. “That’s what I was afraid to tell you, Kaye.” “I wish you had, Nick.” “Would it have made a difference, Kaye? We both had our own directions to go in life. We were just kids. We didn’t know any better.” And we do now? “We already had our lives planned out. You were going off to Iowa to pre-med, and I was going to Colorado. That’s what we were going to do, and that’s what we did. Nothing was going to change the plans we made.” Reluctantly, it seemed, she let go of my hands. My fingers tingled. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have brought it up. I guess I just needed some closure on that… I’ve always wondered.” “It’s best this way, Kaye,” I told her. “We were best friends. We still are friends now.” “And, my old friend, I have to admit, I’m exhausted,” Ceilidh stretched her arms, yawning. “Would you believe it’s ten-thirty? Where has this day gone?” “It’s been a day well spent,” I had to admit. “What could be better than catching up with your best friend?” I had to insist on Ceilidh taking my bed again, and once again I stretched myself out on the couch and lay down to stare at the ceiling again. Unbidden, my mind wandered back to the young, dark-haired, green-eyed girl that had haunted my thoughts for the last twenty-eight years. On some level I realized I was being handed a second chance of sorts. But a second chance to do what? To say good-bye? Again? Sunday, October 11th I woke up to the sound of the wind blowing as it had the previous thirty-six hours, but the light from the windows seemed a little brighter. I got up and peeked out the front door. The wind was dying down however slowly, and the sky was brightening up. I could see across the highway now, and when I leaned out to look around to the south I could even make out the back of Ceilidh’s car sticking up out of the ditch. I brought in some more wood, hopping from one foot to the other on the cold boards of the porch, got the fire roaring up again, and then I went looking for Ceilidh. She was still asleep I stood in the bedroom doorway for a moment, riveted to the spot. Ceilidh was laying on her back on the old double bed I’d picked up a few years before at a garage sale in Grand Junction. Her hair played out across the pillows, like a spill of some red-gold honey. Her chest rose and fell, softly, as she breathed. She was wearing some kind of black silk nightgown, and the effect was shattering. As I watched, enthralled, she roused slightly, rolled to one side and pulled the covers up. I shook myself, and turned away, closing the door softly. I felt all the old feeling; my heart pounded like a jackhammer in my chest. “Oh, crap.” I caught a quick shower and put on some water for tea. By the time the kettle started to whistle, I heard noises from the bedroom. A moment later, just as I was pouring hot water into the pot, Ceilidh came into the kitchen, wrapped up once more in my old robe. “Good morning,” she said, brushing my cheek with her lips. “Sleep well?” I asked. “Pretty good. It’s so quiet here. The wind’s dying down, don’t you think?” “Yes, I had a look outdoors. I can see all the way down to the creek now. In fact, I can see your car. If things brighten up, I’ll get the tractor out and see if we can’t get it out of the ditch this afternoon.” And then you’ll drive away out of my life again. “Are the phones working yet?” “No,” I answered. I hadn’t tried the phone, but I had looked at the computer. The Internet connection was down, and I still used a phone line for that connection. “That’s OK,” she said, sitting down across the table from me. “I’m not in that big a hurry. Won’t it take another day or so for them to get the roads cleared?” “The radio says the road crews will be out late this afternoon,” I said. “That is, if the storm moves off to the east the way it’s supposed to. It will be morning before the passes are open again, though.” “And, it’s a four hour drive from here to Vail, right?” “In good weather, yes,” I answered. “Right now, better figure on six.” “So it looks like you’re stuck with me at least another day, Nick.” She smiled at me, making me feel all weak and watery. “I guess so.” “Good,” she said, sipping her tea. “That will give us a chance to talk some more.” We didn’t talk much more for a while. We had some toast, and Ceilidh went off to take a shower, emerging in jeans and a white sweater. She sat on the couch with my Summer on Hardscrabble Mountain, paging slowly through the book as I spent a little time at my desk catching up on some correspondence. It was strange how comfortable the silence was, as the morning passed with only the sound of my computer keyboard tapping and Ceilidh turning pages. My mind wandered for a moment; when we were teenagers, I can remember sitting with Ceilidh in the Prairie Ridge High library, both of us with a book, just like this, not talking, just together. It was as though, in silence, we regained a measure of the intimacy that we’d left in that little town in Minnesota all those years ago. I felt like I had my best friend back again. But for how long? The question nagged at me. I was finishing up answering letters and thinking about lunch when Ceilidh finally spoke up. “I think I understand you a little better now, Nick Eldridge.” “You always did, Kaye.” “No, I don’t mean the high school Nick Eldridge.” She held up Summer on Hardscrabble Mountain. “I mean the guy who writes as Owen Bradley. Today’s Nick Eldridge.” “Is that right?” I had to smile. “Yes, that’s right.” She stood up, walking to the window. “And what have you figured out about the new, improved Nick?” She stood, looking out the back window of the cabin to the dim form of the mountain, just now beginning to be visible through the snow. “You haven’t changed as much as you think you have, Nick. You’re still that shy kid in lots of ways.” More than you know, I thought, but kept it to myself. She turned away from the window to smile at me again. “You put everything of yourself into your writing. You always were a generous soul, Nick. There wasn’t anything you wouldn’t do for a friend.” “And?” “And, you’re still doing it. Your writing works because you’re writing about something you love, and you’re writing as though you were telling it to your best friend. Your heart just flows out onto these pages, do you know that?” “That’s pretty much it,” I answered. “And yet, it’s a one-way street for you, Nick. You pour all this love you have out into the pages, but nobody’s returning the favor.” “That’s not quite true,” I told her. “The mountains are always there for me. The meadows, the aspens, the dark timber, it’s always there when I need it to be.” “And you’ve never felt the need for a person in your life? Someone special to share all this love with?” “Not for a long time now, Kaye.” Not for twenty-eight years. “I’m glad we ran into each other again, Nick.” We stood for a moment, looking into each other’s eyes. The sparkling in her green eyes was familiar enough. I’d seen it often enough, way back then. I didn’t know what it meant then. I was afraid I did, now. “You know, I think we might be able to get your car out now.” I was beginning to sweat. Ceilidh looked out the window again, at the slowly clearing sky. “OK, let’s give it a try.” We bundled up – it was still around zero outside – and I got the old tractor out. Ceilidh sat perched on the fender as we chugged down the driveway, using the snowplow blade to clear the snowdrifts. The Lexus was buried worse than I’d thought. We shoveled snow for at least two hours, trying to clear the wheels. Finally I got a log chain fastened to the car’s rear axle, covering myself in snow in the process. I hooked the other end to the drawbar on the rear of the old Ford tractor, and we were finally ready. “OK, start the engine and watch the chain. When you see me take up the slack, put it in reverse and give her just a little gas, just enough to keep the wheels turning. Keep the front wheels straight, and I’ll try to pull you right out onto the highway the way you went in. As soon as you’re all the way up on the highway, we’ll stop so I can unhook you.” Amazingly, it worked. I stuck the tractor in low gear and pulled gently, and in a few moments the Lexus slowly began to move, wheels slipping and spinning, easing slowly out of the ditch, backing finally on up to the highway. I put the tractor in neutral and dropped the blade on the pavement. “OK, back up a few feet,” I called. Ceilidh’s mitten-clad hand waved out the window, and the Lexus eased back a little. I climbed under and unhooked the chain. I bundled the heavy chain back into the toolbox behind the tractor’s seat and walked up to the car. “Drive right on up to the house,” I told Ceilidh, “park right in front. I’ll follow you up the drive and put the tractor back in the shed.” She was waiting for me when I came around the corner from the shed. A snowball hit me right in the chest, followed by Ceilidh’s triumphant shout. “Oh, it’s like that, is it?” I grabbed a handful of snow, flinging it after her retreating, laughing form. I let out an old Prairie Ridge High battle cry, “Boo-yah!” and raced after her. We ran back and forth for the rest of the afternoon, throwing snowballs and laughing. At least growing up in Minnesota gets you used to snow and cold at an early age, and a good thing, too, because we were both covered with snow by the time the sky began to grow dark. I finally caught her as she ran into a drift at the edge of the aspen grove behind the house, and we both ended up falling into the snow, rolling over a few times, laughing. She lay in the snow, her green eyes glowing. “OK, Nick,” she mock-scolded me. “Now my jacket’s full of snow, and I’m freezing, and it’s getting dark. You’re going to have to build that fire up.” She blushed suddenly, perhaps realizing her unintentional double meaning. “Beats shopping in Vail, doesn’t it?” I asked, helping her to her feet. We went inside, bearing armloads of firewood, the last of the pile I’d stacked up on Saturday morning. After we both changed into dry clothes, I built the fire up to a roaring blaze that radiated heat into the tiny living room while Ceilidh bustled about in the kitchen, heating up some canned soup for our supper. We drank our chicken soup from mugs as we sat on the floor in front of the fireplace. A faint steam rose from Ceilidh’s snow-dampened hair. “I suppose you’ll be able to be on your way again in the morning,” I finally said. “The road crews will be out all night, now that it’s clearing up. They’ll have the passes open by morning.” “Yeah – so much for my little vacation at Vail,” Ceilidh laughed. “That’s OK – I wouldn’t have missed this reunion for anything.” “Me either.” She leaned against me, her red hair warm and fragrant against my shoulder. “I wish we were still seventeen,” she sighed. “Why? A chance to do some things differently?” “Yes, Nick. At the least, I’d like a chance to do one thing differently. At least a chance to tell someone how I felt about him, way back then.” “I know what you mean.” “I thought you would.” “Oh, hell, Ceilidh,” I confessed. “There hasn’t been a day gone by that I haven’t thought about you. You wanted to know why I’m up here all by myself? Hell, I’ve had relationships. I lived with a girl for a year in Boulder, even. But it just never worked.” She took my hand. “Why not?” “Because I never met anyone who I felt about the way I felt about you, Kaye. The way I guess I still do.” “The picture on your desk,” she said. “Yes, the picture on my desk. There’s more than just the love I put in my books, Kaye, more than the love I have for the mountains. I could tell people about that. I never had anyone I could tell about my best friend, about how much I loved her.” “You just did, Nick.” “Yes, I just did. But that’s all there is ever going to be to it. Kaye, you’re going to leave in the morning,” I husked. “There’s a place in here,” I tapped my chest, “that will always be yours, Kaye. But tomorrow morning, you’re going to get in your new Lexus, and go back to St. Paul, to Ryan, to your kids, and your practice. And I’ll stay here, in my mountain cabin, writing my books.” “But not until morning.” She stood up, pulling me to my feet. “Nick, I think we’ve waited long enough, don’t you?” “Long enough?” It took me a moment to understand. “Long enough,” she repeated, and led me to the bedroom. Monday, October 12th I woke up that next morning to find her gone, only the faint scent of her on the sheets. My framed print of her high school senior picture lay on the pillow she’d used, with a note on the letterhead of Ceilidh Ross, MD of St. Paul. Her neat, flowing handwriting had changed hardly at all since high school. My vision misted as I read her message. “Nick,” the note said. “I’ve always loved you. I always will. Someday, please let someone write something for you. Goodbye - love always, Ceilidh.” I went to the door, and looked out to see the tire tracks in the snow where the Lexus had gone down my drive and turned north onto the highway, towards I-70 and Vail. Someone has written something for me, Ceilidh. My best friend finally wrote me something that took her twenty-eight years, but it was worth the wait. I folded up the note, tucked it under her photo in the frame, and placed her portrait back on my desk. I realized, suddenly, that for the first time since I’d moved in, the little cabin seemed empty. For the first time in the adult life that I’d spent mostly alone, I was lonely. Epilogue In the months that followed, I thought of many things, entertained many notions. I thought of getting in my old green Bronco and heading for St. Paul. I thought of calling her, at her home, at her office, just to hear her voice. But I didn’t do any of those things. I just buried myself in my work, getting through the rest of the fall and winter as I usually did. Working, a bit of snowshoeing on nice days, a trip to town once a month for canned goods. Spring came, as it always did, and summer, and in July I decided to pack my gear and head up into the Holy Cross Wilderness. I drove out to a trailhead up the road from Edwards, and spent a day hiking in to Rainbow Lake, where I’d camped many times before. One sunny day found me perched on a ridgeline, sitting on a granite outcrop eating a strip of elk jerky, watching chipmunks play and thinking, as I often did, of Ceilidh. The afternoon slipped past as I sat on the ridge, and the sun dropped behind me, shadows marching up the face of the mountain across from me as the light faded. I sat there until dark, thinking, watching the endless cycle of light turning to shadow, thinking how the light would come back in the morning, striking down into the valley below me through the firs on the mountain to the east. I thought about how fall would bring the snows again, how Rainbow Lake would freeze over, and how this valley would lie frozen until the sun came back in the spring. Everything has a cycle, a season, I thought to myself. Everything has its time. Ceilidh and I had our time, all those years ago. We left some things unsaid, and it’s good that we got to say them, at last. But that snow has melted. It’s time my own spring finally came. A boy never really forgets that first love. I’ll never forget Ceilidh – not the best friend from school, not the three days in the storm. But now I realized what happened that last night, the acknowledgement that what we had between us wasn’t of the future, or even the present, but of the past. We were tying the last loop in a knot we’d begun thirty years before – and now that loop was closed. Now I realized that after almost thirty years, it was finally time to move forward. For the first time since that October night, I smiled, as a million stars began to wink on overhead. I laughed once, feeling suddenly free, and got up to pick my way down the ridge to my camp. When I got back home four days later I took Ceilidh’s portrait, wrapped it carefully in tissue, and packed it away.

Three Days of Snow

A boy never really forgets that first love.

I’ve always believed that we’re shaped more by our mistakes than by our successes. There’s a thing called an error of omission; that is, a mistake that results from your failure to act, rather than an error of commission, where you do something to find it’s the wrong thing.

Years ago – all too many years ago – I made an error of omission. The error involved my best friend, the best friend I ever had, and the one thing I never told her before we both left our hometown for college.

It started the summer after we graduated high school. For years, I thought it had ended when we both left for college.

Many years afterward, I was fortunate enough to be given a second chance.

Prairie Ridge, Minnesota – the late Seventies

She was tall and slim, with dancing russet hair and flashing green eyes. Her name was Ceilidh O’Connor. ‘Ceilidh’ is an old Gaelic word meaning a ‘dance or celebration,’ and no girl was ever more aptly named. Life was a never-ending celebration for Ceilidh; her lopsided smile was infectious, her laugh enchanting, and her carefree nature made everyone love her. She had a temper, too, of course – her Scots/Irish background, no doubt – but I always knew how to bring her back, how to make her smile again.

Yes, everybody loved Ceilidh. I certainly did. Ceilidh was my best friend.

We spent a lot of time together, although we probably seemed an odd combination. She was the pretty, vivacious, ‘popular’ girl that everyone knew. I was the quiet kid everyone ignored. I’ve never been the social type, and at seventeen I was maybe even more retiring than I am now, but somehow with her it was different. Somehow Ceilidh always knew how to bring me out of my shell. We talked about everything. She came to me for advice about boys. I let her – and only her – read the stories I’d tapped out on the old Remington typewriter I kept at home.

But we never once went out, not on a ‘date.’ We spent a lot of time together, at movies, at my house, at her house, riding around in the horrible old car I’d managed to buy, but not as anything other than friends.

Then we graduated. We left Prairie Ridge, Minnesota. I went to the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Ceilidh went to the University of Iowa’s pre-med program.
I never told her how I felt about her. And I always figured I’d never see Ceilidh again. And, for almost thirty years, I didn’t.

Friday October 9
Blizzards are unusual in early October even for the Colorado high country, but they sure do happen, and when you live at almost ten thousand feet, they can get nasty early.

The weather forecast had called for snow, and sure enough, it started on Friday afternoon, big fat flakes drifting down out of a gray sky. By nightfall, the wind had picked up, and the snow turned hard and gritty, blasting sideways against my cabin windows. No matter – I had a big stack of firewood, a full LP gas tank, and plenty of food. My cabin isn’t big, just a front room, a tiny kitchen, a tinier bathroom and a bedroom – but there’s always been just me, so it’s always been big enough. “Bring it on, Mother Nature,” I called into the wind when I went out for an armload of wood. I figured on stocking up a bit, so I went around to the big woodpile in back to stack a couple armloads on my little front porch before the snow got too heavy.

That’s when I saw the headlights coming down the highway.

Not too many people drive down my stretch of state highway at the best of times, and certainly not during a blizzard. The road always turns icy in these kinds of storms, and sure enough, the headlights wavered as the car skidded – right into the ditch about a quarter-mile down the road.

The mountains have a code, just like the sea, so I went inside, got my parka and my big searchlight and went out to help. My old green Bronco started right up, but I had a heck of a time getting the front hubs locked – they were half-frozen. By the time I got them hammered loose, I looked up to see a parka-clad figure walking up my drive, face turned away from the wind, a small overnight bag clutched in one hand. I reached in, turned the truck off and went out to meet my unexpected guest.

I couldn’t see anything other than a parka, a pair of blue jeans, boots, and an expanse of darkness in the hood’s opening. “Come on in – it’s warm inside,” I shouted over the wind. “I was just coming down to see if you were alright. Is there anyone else down there?” The figure’s head shook.

We went inside. I took a moment, stomping snow off my boots, and turned around to greet my unexpected guest. She had her back turned, and was just taking off her parka, letting a cascade of red-brown hair fall out of the hood.

She turned and smiled at me, her eyes shining brilliant green in the light.

“Thank you so much,” she said. “I was afraid I’d freeze! I never guessed there was a house out here.”

“I, uh, guess you’d like to use the phone,” I stammered. It couldn’t be – could it?

“Yes, please,” she beamed. I showed her to the phone on my little desk in the front room. She picked up the handset, listened, turned the phone off and on again, and then frowned. “No dial tone.”

“Phone’s kind of iffy way out here,” I told her. “Storm may have taken the lines down. Do you have a cell phone?”

“I tried it when I went in the ditch. No signal.” She laid the phone back down, still facing away from me. I stood staring, watching a last few snowflakes slowly disappearing, melting into her shining red hair.

“My name’s Nick,” I finally managed to say.

She didn’t answer. Her back was turned to me, and she was standing very still. When she moved at last, she turned around, holding a framed portrait of a young, green-eyed girl in her hand.

“Nick Eldridge,” she said at last.

“How’ve you been, Ceilidh?”

There were a few streaks of gray in her hair, but the lopsided smile was still the same. “Nickie, Nick Eldridge, who’d have ever thought it, after all these years?” She laid the picture down, and came over to hug me. “How long has it been?” she asked.

I thought a moment. “Twenty-eight years, four months, and eighteen days,” I answered, and we both laughed.

“You’ve got my senior class picture on your desk? Nick, it’s been almost thirty years!”

“For old time’s sake, I guess. Who wouldn’t keep a picture of their best friend from high school? Please, sit down!” I scrambled to move a stack of magazines off my battered old couch. “Sorry about the mess – I don’t get many visitors out here.” We sat down facing each other.

Ceilidh looked around the tiny cabin, at the desk, the computer, the stone fireplace, the door to the tiny kitchen. “So, what do you do out here?” she finally asked, breaking a moment of uncomfortable silence. “Is this a vacation cabin?”

“No, this is my home,” I told her. “Such as it is, along with about three hundred acres of spruce timber, aspens, and high meadow. Ever heard of Owen Bradley?”

“The writer? I’ve heard of him, nature and outdoor guides, right?”

“Yes.” I picked up a copy of my latest, Colorado’s Secret Wilds, and tossed it to her. “That’s me. It’s a pen name.”

“Nick, that’s wonderful! You’re famous!”

“Well, not really. Owen Bradley is famous. Good old Nick Eldridge is known around here as some odd old hermit that lives alone in a cabin on the Uncompaghre. I’ve come a long way from Prairie Ridge.”

“I’m really very happy for you, Nick. Do you ever get back home?”

“Not since Mom passed away. And you? What have you been up to the last twenty-eight years?”

She laughed lightly, making me tingle all over. “Oh, nothing that exciting. First medical school, then a horrible internship, a worse residency, and now I’ve got a practice in St. Paul.”

“Sounds exciting enough to me. So it’s Doctor O’Connor now, then?” I knew better, but I had to ask. I could swear Ceilidh blushed before she answered, even though I’d spotted the ring when she took her coat off.

“Well, actually, it’s Doctor Ross,” she said, looking down for a moment.

Why are you looking away from me now, Ceilidh? I thought to myself – at one time I’d known her better than I knew myself. How much could change in almost thirty years?

A lot, I had to admit. Still…

“Anyone I know?”

“Ryan Ross,” she smiled now, looking at me with a faintly defiant air.

“Well, that’s good news!” No it isn’t. “How is Ryan? Last I knew he was all hot and heavy with, oh, who was it? Beth English, wasn’t it?”

“Back at Prairie Ridge he was, yes. But Beth stayed in PR, and Ryan went off to Iowa, like me, and since we knew each other already, I guess we just took to hanging around together – we were driving home on weekends together, and so on.”

“And the rest is history?” I teased her, but gently.

“Yes,” she answered, “the rest is history. We had our twentieth anniversary last year.”

“Kids?” Please say no. I’m not sure why that thought popped into my head.

“Tom’s seventeen, Ann’s fifteen.”

“And you said your life wasn’t exciting!” I laughed. “Sounds pretty exciting to me! Two teenagers, an M.D., your own practice! So, what brings you out here to the middle of the Uncompaghre anyway?”

“Well, that’s a long story. I was in Durango for a conference – the Third Annual Mountain Medical Conference – and I decided to get away to spend a little time by myself when the whole thing wrapped up. I was actually heading for Vail when this hit.”

“You were taking the scenic route, coming up here through Montrose, weren’t you?”

“Well, sure! I’ve only been to Colorado one other time. It seemed like a good idea until this snowstorm hit. I guess I should have listened to the weather report.”

“First rule of the mountains,” I chided her. “Always know what the weather is supposed to do, especially in the winter. It gets pretty wild out here, even this early in the year.” I realized I’d left her an opening.

“So what are you doing out here, all on your own? Don’t you have a family, Nick?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you!” She reached out to poke me in the chest.

“No, Kaye,” I answered, retreating to an old nickname I’d used for her, way back in high school. “No family. No wife, no kids, no girlfriend. Mom passed away the year I left for college.”

“I remember. It was in the PR paper. I sent you a note at Boulder, remember?”

“Yeah, I’ve still got it around here someplace. Anyway, that’s it. If you recall, Dad disappeared when I was fifteen. Mom was the only family I had.”

We sat in silence for a few moments, both of us a bit uncomfortable. So many years, so much water under the bridge. Ceilidh had gone so far, and I had gone, well, into myself. I’d retreated into a tiny cabin in the Rockies, making my living writing about rocks, trees, and birds under an assumed name. I was just an anonymous hermit alone on the Uncompaghre.

Ceilidh wore a worried look for a while, but she didn’t press the subject any further. Instead, we talked about Colorado, about the mountains, about Ceilidh’s practice, about my books, until it was quite late. The fire burned down to coals as we sat there, talking oh-so-seriously about things neither of us really wanted to discuss, avoiding the questions we both really wanted to ask.

After some debate, I managed to persuade Ceilidh to sleep in my tiny bedroom, while I made myself comfortable on the couch. “I sleep here lots of nights anyway,” I lied, “It’s closer to my desk, anyway, in case an idea hits me in the night.” The bedroom is only a few feet away from the living room, of course, but Ceilidh was polite enough to leave that unsaid. Without further ado, we said our goodnights, and I lay down to stare at the cabin ceiling until well into the small hours.

My first love, the only girl I’d ever really loved, had just walked back into my life after almost thirty years, thanks to an early Colorado blizzard. But way back then, I’d never been able to tell her how I felt.
Was this a second chance?

What was I going to do now?

It was past three before I finally fell asleep.

Saturday, October 10th

I awoke the next morning to the sound and smell of bacon and eggs cooking in my tiny kitchen, just around the corner. I followed the smell around to the kitchen/dining room – such as it is, in my tiny place – to find Ceilidh, long hair tied back, wearing my ancient bathrobe, padding back and forth from the stove to the little table with bacon, scrambled eggs and toast.

“Well, good morning!” she chirped at me, smiling warmly. I tingled right down to my toes. Almost thirty years and more than a few gray hairs later, her smile still made me feel weak in the knees. “Have you looked outside yet?”

I stole a glance at the window, and saw a solid sheet of white. The wind rattled the glass, and when I stopped to listen, I could hear the tin chimney from my little gas furnace rattling in the gale.

“I bet it’s ten below out,” I said.

“Almost twenty below,” Ceilidh confirmed, “according to your little indoor-outdoor thermometer in the bathroom.”

“I’ll have to go out and get some wood. The living room gets cold fast if you let the fire go out.”

“Well, you can eat first. Although, Mister Eldridge, as a doctor I should take you to task for your diet. I didn’t see any dry cereals, no bran, just eggs and about four pounds of bacon in the fridge. Do you eat this way every day?”

“Well, a lot of days,” I demurred, “but I work it off. You don’t think I just sit here and write all day, do you? I’ve got almost three hundred acres of land to take care of. I cut, split and stack three cords of firewood every summer, in addition to everything else.”

“Well, alright. I guess you do look pretty fit.”

We ate in silence, accompanied by the howling wind outside. I don’t own a television, but I did dig out my weather radio and we listened for a while:

A Canadian cold front has stalled over the central mountains and the Western Slope. Much of the area is experiencing winds of up to 60 mph, and whiteout conditions. Today’s highs will range from an expected 16 above in Grand Junction to 20 below in Aspen, Leadville and Eagle.

Vail reports twenty-two inches of snow in the last twenty-four hours, Eagle twenty-five, Glenwood Springs twenty-four, Leadville twenty-five and Grand Junction nineteen.

Travel advisories remain in effect for most of western Colorado and Wyoming. The storm system is expected to remain stalled for another twenty-four to forty-eight hours, bringing as much as an additional thirty-six inches of precipitation to the area.

Mountain residents are advised to remain at home. Most state and county roads are impassible. I-70 remains closed over Vail Pass until at least tomorrow.

“Well, I guess I won’t be back on the road today, will I?” Ceilidh looked down at her plate.

“Are you complaining about the company?” I teased.

“No, not the company,” she laughed. “I just wish we could have run into each other under better circumstances. I mean, here I am, sitting here in your bathrobe, with my car buried in six feet of snow down the road and no way to even let anyone know I’m alive.”

“Speaking of your car, is there anything in there you need?” I asked. “I’ve got to go out to get some firewood, so while I’m dressed up I could just as easily walk down to your car.”

She shot me a wry look. “Well, I’ve got most of what I need in my overnight bag, right here. I may have to borrow a clean shirt if we’re snowed in another day, but other than that…”

“Ceilidh, I live up here, remember? It might be three or four days before the highway gets cleared. This isn’t exactly the main thoroughfare.”

“Well, I guess I could use my big suitcase. If you’re sure it’s okay for you to go down there.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Thirty minutes later I was dressed to go out in my felt-lined pacs, my old Swedish Army parka, an ancient pair of insulated ski pants I’d picked up someplace, and my heavy mittens. “I’ll pile some firewood up right outside the door first,” I told Ceilidh, “and then I’ll take a hike down the road to your car. I’ve got a good pair of snowshoes right outside.”

“Be careful, Nick.”

“Hey,” I told her, “It’s me!”

That bit of bravado was a little over the top, as became apparent the moment I stepped outside. The wind was screaming in from the open ground across the highway.

The first real gust hit me right as I walked around the corner of the cabin towards the woodpile, snapping me sideways and tearing away my breath with a sharp pah. I gasped a couple times, and forged on for the woodpile, which I could just make out as a lump of white surrounded by white, glimpsed through the howling white of driven snow.

I made at least a dozen trips, slogging back and forth with armloads of wood dug from under the drifting snow. Each trip, my footprints had almost disappeared by the time I beat my path back to the house with another load.

I stacked a pile six feet wide at the base by about four feet tall before I decided that it was enough. At least the overhanging roof of my porch would keep the wood reasonably free of snow. My snowshoes were stashed in the rafters of that overhang, so I retrieved them and lashed the old willow and rawhide frames to my boots.

Ceilidh’s car was three or four hundred yards down the highway. I figured I could trace the driveway the hundred yards to the highway, and then follow the highway south to the car. It worked, after a fashion – I strayed into the ditch twice from my own driveway. The highway was a little better, kept blown clear by the wind for a stretch in front of my property. I floundered through two big drifts, though, the snow so powdery that even my snowshoes didn’t help all that much. It seemed like a year before I found Ceilidh’s car, a brand-new blue Lexus, nose-down in the steep ditch near where a tiny creek passed under the road.

Wow, I thought. Expensive. I knew doctors did pretty well financially, obviously a lot better than writers. But, doctors have to live in towns. I decided then and there that I wasn’t interested in trading occupational places.

Her big suitcase was in the trunk, right where she said it was. I got the trunk open without too much trouble, and manhandled the big case out. Another ordeal – I had to get back up to the highway. I only fell twice, and managed to fill my ski pants halfway up with snow, but at least carrying the big suitcase back up the highway and driveway to my house sufficed to work up a sweat.

Ceilidh was waiting in the house when I fell through the door. She looked anxious. I imagine I looked exhausted – I was. And I hiked ‘fourteeners’ all summer long, just for fun. I was in great shape for a man of forty-six.

“It’s worse than I thought,” I told her. “The highway is sure in bad shape.” I shucked off my boots, parka and ski pants. My jeans were covered with melting snow that dripped on the rug.

“Are you all right?” she demanded. “Here, I’ve got some hot tea waiting for you – you don’t have any coffee.”

“No coffee, I never touch the stuff,” I gasped. A long gulp of the hot lapsang souchong lit a fire inside me. “You know what? I’m going to take a hot shower. Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” she answered, laying a hand on my arm. “You shouldn’t have gone out there, but thank you for bringing my case in.” She dimpled. “Now I won’t have to drag around in one of your shirts, anyway.”

“Or my bathrobe,” I added, and headed off for the bathroom.

A long, hot shower restored me. At least the gas was still on! I hopped into the bedroom, put on an old pair of sweatpants, a heavy sweatshirt with a bull elk on the front, and a thick pair of fleece boot socks. A thought hit me, and I grabbed a second pair of the heavy socks and headed for the living room.

Ceilidh had changed as well. She was standing in front of my tiny stereo stand, glancing over my music collection, dressed again in jeans and a black t-shirt.

“You’ve got quite a collection.”

“I don’t have a TV, but I do like to have music, especially when I’m snowed in.” I picked up a CD. “Remember this one?”

She laughed. “I remember you playing it in that horrible old Chevy of yours!”

I handed her the socks, noticing her bare feet. “Here. My floor gets pretty cold. There’s just concrete under the carpet pad.”

She put the socks on hopping on one foot at a time, giggling a bit as she almost lost her balance. I caught her arm to steady her, and I could have sworn she blushed a little. She picked up another CD from the rack.

“Oh, Bob Dylan!”

“Yeah, I got into his music in college. Boulder’s kind of an odd place,” I explained. “I guess you’d say it’s kind of eclectic.”

I put an album on to play, and we sat on the couch again.

“So how did you end up writing your Owen Bradley books, Nick? I remembered you were going off to learn to be a newspaper journalist – it’s all you talked about.”

“It’s a long story.”

“Well, we would seem to have plenty of time, Nick,” Ceilidh answered, gesturing towards the window. A particularly nasty gust of wind rattled the pane.

“Good point,” I had to admit.

“So, give,” she said. “Tell me your long story.”

I told her. While Stevie Nicks sang “Gypsy” in the background, I told her about my five years at Boulder. I told her about running out of money and joining the National Guard to pay for school. I told her about my six months in the Persian Gulf, and how I wandered from place to place for five years or so after my return. I told her about the job as a reporter with the Baltimore Sun that only lasted three months before I was laid off. I told her about driving through Prairie Ridge once – only the one time, to visit my mother’s grave in the little cemetery north of town. I told her about my year in Denver, living in a crummy apartment on Capitol Hill, tending bar in a lower downtown watering hole while I tried to find a job with one of the city newspapers.

About three albums and a big plate of sandwiches later I got to the point where I took up backpacking one summer, hoping to get some fresh air and exercise.

“I had pretty much given up on finding the reporting job by then,” I told her. “My heart wasn’t in it anymore. The city was too much of everything – too much crowding, too much noise, too much pollution.” She nodded, eyes closed, as though she knew just what I meant. “But when I got out into the mountains, it’s like everything came together for me, like I finally knew where I ought to be. So, since I was spending more and more time up here, I moved. I got an apartment in Eagle first of all, and made a living tending bar there – a bartender can always find work – while I wrote my first book, Summer on Hardscrabble Mountain. I was still in Eagle when I wrote Autumn in the Holy Cross, and when that book started selling I had enough money to come out here. This piece of land was for sale, so I picked it up and lived in a camper trailer one summer while I got the cabin built. I’ve been here for eight years now. I wrote Walking Winter Wildernesses and Spring in the Maroon Bells right there at that desk.”

I got up and went to my bookshelves, retrieving copies of all four books. I dropped them on the couch next to Ceilidh. “Here,” I smiled at her, “signed originals. Those will tell my story better than I could tell you here.”

“Aren’t you lonely out here, Nick?”

“Me?” I tried to look astounded. “Lonely? No, not me.”

“Come on, Nick,” Ceilidh admonished me. “I know you, we were best friends once, remember?” She picked up one of the books and waggled it at me. “You’re pouring everything of yourself into these books, and you aren’t even putting your own name on them.” She stood up, leaning over me. “You’ve built yourself into this little cabin, and nobody around here even knows what you do. Everything about you is turned inwards!”

“It’s easier that way, Kaye.”

“Why? Why is it easier to tell people whom you are anonymously, with the whole world, than to tell who you are with one person for real? The Nick Eldridge I remember never had that problem!”

“I don’t know, Kaye!” I was a little flustered by her response. “Maybe it’s because the one person I was ever able to open up to walked out of my life thirty years ago, and never came back. Maybe the Nick Eldridge you remember just never had that problem because that Nick Eldridge had a best friend he could always turn to.”

Ceilidh had walked over to stare into the fireplace, and now she turned to look at me. Her eyes were red, and brimming with tears.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That wasn’t fair.”

“It’s OK,” she answered. “I’m just a little concerned about you, Nick. You’re out here all alone. I had thought… Well, I had thought you’d have found someone.”

I did, thirty years ago.

“Maybe we should change the subject,” I offered.

“Is that really how it’s been for you, Nick?”

“It’s not like that, Ceilidh. I’ve got a great life up here. I’m not tied to a job or an office. I hike and backpack all summer, I live out here away from the city, and I make my living writing about things I love. What more could I want?”

I could see that she wasn’t about to answer that one, so I dodged. I’m such a coward, I thought to myself bitterly.

“Listen,” I said, “I’ve got a deck of cards around here someplace. You still play peanuts?”

“Yes,” she smiled, wiping her eyes. “Oh, it’s been years, but I think I still remember how to play peanuts.”

I rifled my desk looking for a deck of cards, all too aware that Ceilidh was looking over my shoulder at her senior picture framed next to my computer monitor.

“Here we are,” I said, producing a deck of cards. “Would you believe I got these in Las Vegas? I spent a week there while I was writing an article about the Desert Wildlife Range north of town.” Giant hotel-casinos aren’t really my cup of tea. That week had been a real eye-opener.

“I’ve never been there,” she answered.

“Vegas, or the Desert Wildlife Range?”

“Either one. You know, I’ve only left Minnesota twice since I finished medical school? I’ve taken one skiing trip to Vail, and one trip to St. Louis for a conference. This trip was the first one I’ve ever taken alone.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been around rather more than would suit me. Iraq isn’t anything to write home about.”

“I don’t expect I’ll ever find out!”

We sat at my tiny kitchen table and played cards while the wind howled outside, and the snow drifted up. I had to duck out twice for firewood, and the drifts were piling up across my drive. “Good thing I went out to your car this morning,” I reported as I tossed some wood on the fire. “Drive’s drifting shut now.”

“How do you get it cleared after a snow like this?”

“I’ve got a little old tractor with a loader blade on the front in that shed back of the house. I can get out to the highway easy enough, but it doesn’t do any good to get out there until the road crews get the highway plowed.”
We kept on with the card game while the windows slowly grew dark and the storm raged on. Ceilidh took her turn to bring me up to date on what medical school was like, how her practice ran in an upscale area of St. Paul, a city I’d never visited, and how her two teenagers were a constant source of frustration.

“And what’s Ryan up to these days?” I finally asked. She hadn’t mentioned him twice since she walked through my front door the day before.

“Lost in his career,” she told me. “He’s a sales rep for a big pharmaceutical wholesaler in Minneapolis, he travels a lot. Some weeks the only time I see him is when he drops off samples at my office.” She smiled. “This week he got stuck at home with the kids, though.”

“I remember how he was in school,” I reflected. “Hell of a guy – always driving, always focused. A real type A personality, wasn’t he?”

“Oh, he still is. Peanuts!” she shouted the last word, slamming a card down.

“You always were better at this than I was,” I grumped. “Tell you what, why don’t you have a look through the books I gave you, and I’ll get us some supper? It’s, what, six o’clock already.”

“That’s a change, having someone cook for me.” Ceilidh laughed. “Sure, I’d love that. The summer book is the first one, right?” I nodded and headed for the freezer.

Fortunately I’m a quick rough cook. Years of living alone have seen to that. Forty-five minutes later I had a pair of elk tenderloin steaks broiled, a salad mixed, and some hot garlic bread and steamed vegetables ready. Ceilidh poked her head around the corner from the living room as I was setting plates on the little table.

“Smells wonderful.”

“I’ve had lots of practice,” I explained.

We ate in silence for the most part, except for an account of the source of my elk steak – a big cow elk I’d brought out of the Flat Tops Wilderness the previous month, during the archery elk season. “I’m a pretty fair hand with a bow. I use a hand-made English longbow, there’s a guy I know in Michigan that makes them. Keeps it interesting.”

Ceilidh insisted on cleaning up – “You cooked, it’s only fair.” I brought in some more wood, stoked the fire up, and tuned in the weather radio again.

A Canadian storm front remains stalled over the central Rockies. Severe winter weather has resulted in a Traveler’s Advisory being put in place until Sunday evening. Vail, Rabbit Ears and Loveland Passes remain closed.

The weather front is expected to move to the east beginning Sunday afternoon. The winter storm will be followed by a high-pressure system that should bring some sunshine and rising temperatures to the Western Slope by Monday morning.

“Looks like this will last most of tomorrow,” I called to her.

She walked in to the living room, drying her hands on a towel. “Then it lasts until tomorrow,” she said. “And no, I’m not complaining about the company.”

There was a lot we needed to talk about that evening, and nothing else to do but talk. We sat on the couch and talked about the old days, about Prairie Ridge. All the funny memories, all the sad memories, everything we’d both half-forgotten. It took a while for Ceilidh to get to the question I’d been expecting.

“So how come you never asked me out, Nick?”

“What do you mean?” I dodged. “We went out lots of times. Sheesh, Kaye, we were together all the time.”

“You know what I mean,” she replied, very serious now.

“Would you have said yes?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I would have. That’s what I wanted all along.”

I didn’t need to know that now, Kaye, after all this time. I felt the weight of my life’s biggest missed chance slamming down on me now, and I guess it showed. Ceilidh leaned over and hugged me hard.

“I’m sorry, Nick, I shouldn’t have dredged that up. I’ve just always wondered…”

“It’s hard to explain, Kaye. How do you tell your best friend something like that?”

“Like what?”

“I guess I was afraid of losing what we had, the friendship. I didn’t want to take a chance on losing my best friend in a messy break-up. You know how often high school relationships crack up in a big mess? I couldn’t take that chance.”

“You didn’t answer the question, Nick. What couldn’t you tell me?”

“How crazy I was about you. How I went weak in the knees every time you smiled at me.” Or how I still do! “How my heart raced when I walked in the school every day, knowing you’d be in the building waiting for me?” Or how much I loved you?

She was holding both my hands now.

“That’s what I was afraid to tell you, Kaye.”

“I wish you had, Nick.”

“Would it have made a difference, Kaye? We both had our own directions to go in life. We were just kids. We didn’t know any better.” And we do now?

“We already had our lives planned out. You were going off to Iowa to pre-med, and I was going to Colorado. That’s what we were going to do, and that’s what we did. Nothing was going to change the plans we made.”
Reluctantly, it seemed, she let go of my hands. My fingers tingled.

“You’re right, I shouldn’t have brought it up. I guess I just needed some closure on that… I’ve always wondered.”

“It’s best this way, Kaye,” I told her. “We were best friends. We still are friends now.”

“And, my old friend, I have to admit, I’m exhausted,” Ceilidh stretched her arms, yawning. “Would you believe it’s ten-thirty? Where has this day gone?”

“It’s been a day well spent,” I had to admit. “What could be better than catching up with your best friend?”

I had to insist on Ceilidh taking my bed again, and once again I stretched myself out on the couch and lay down to stare at the ceiling again.

Unbidden, my mind wandered back to the young, dark-haired, green-eyed girl that had haunted my thoughts for the last twenty-eight years. On some level I realized I was being handed a second chance of sorts.

But a second chance to do what?

To say good-bye?

Again?

Sunday, October 11th

I woke up to the sound of the wind blowing as it had the previous thirty-six hours, but the light from the windows seemed a little brighter. I got up and peeked out the front door. The wind was dying down however slowly, and the sky was brightening up. I could see across the highway now, and when I leaned out to look around to the south I could even make out the back of Ceilidh’s car sticking up out of the ditch. I brought in some more wood, hopping from one foot to the other on the cold boards of the porch, got the fire roaring up again, and then I went looking for Ceilidh. She was still asleep

I stood in the bedroom doorway for a moment, riveted to the spot.

Ceilidh was laying on her back on the old double bed I’d picked up a few years before at a garage sale in Grand Junction. Her hair played out across the pillows, like a spill of some red-gold honey. Her chest rose and fell, softly, as she breathed. She was wearing some kind of black silk nightgown, and the effect was shattering.

As I watched, enthralled, she roused slightly, rolled to one side and pulled the covers up. I shook myself, and turned away, closing the door softly. I felt all the old feeling; my heart pounded like a jackhammer in my chest.

“Oh, crap.”

I caught a quick shower and put on some water for tea. By the time the kettle started to whistle, I heard noises from the bedroom. A moment later, just as I was pouring hot water into the pot, Ceilidh came into the kitchen, wrapped up once more in my old robe.

“Good morning,” she said, brushing my cheek with her lips.

“Sleep well?” I asked.

“Pretty good. It’s so quiet here. The wind’s dying down, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I had a look outdoors. I can see all the way down to the creek now. In fact, I can see your car. If things brighten up, I’ll get the tractor out and see if we can’t get it out of the ditch this afternoon.” And then you’ll drive away out of my life again.

“Are the phones working yet?”

“No,” I answered. I hadn’t tried the phone, but I had looked at the computer. The Internet connection was down, and I still used a phone line for that connection.

“That’s OK,” she said, sitting down across the table from me. “I’m not in that big a hurry. Won’t it take another day or so for them to get the roads cleared?”

“The radio says the road crews will be out late this afternoon,” I said. “That is, if the storm moves off to the east the way it’s supposed to. It will be morning before the passes are open again, though.”

“And, it’s a four hour drive from here to Vail, right?”

“In good weather, yes,” I answered. “Right now, better figure on six.”

“So it looks like you’re stuck with me at least another day, Nick.” She smiled at me, making me feel all weak and watery.

“I guess so.”

“Good,” she said, sipping her tea. “That will give us a chance to talk some more.”

We didn’t talk much more for a while. We had some toast, and Ceilidh went off to take a shower, emerging in jeans and a white sweater. She sat on the couch with my Summer on Hardscrabble Mountain, paging slowly through the book as I spent a little time at my desk catching up on some correspondence.

It was strange how comfortable the silence was, as the morning passed with only the sound of my computer keyboard tapping and Ceilidh turning pages.

My mind wandered for a moment; when we were teenagers, I can remember sitting with Ceilidh in the Prairie Ridge High library, both of us with a book, just like this, not talking, just together. It was as though, in silence, we regained a measure of the intimacy that we’d left in that little town in Minnesota all those years ago. I felt like I had my best friend back again.

But for how long? The question nagged at me.

I was finishing up answering letters and thinking about lunch when Ceilidh finally spoke up.

“I think I understand you a little better now, Nick Eldridge.”

“You always did, Kaye.”

“No, I don’t mean the high school Nick Eldridge.” She held up Summer on Hardscrabble Mountain. “I mean the guy who writes as Owen Bradley. Today’s Nick Eldridge.”

“Is that right?” I had to smile.

“Yes, that’s right.” She stood up, walking to the window.

“And what have you figured out about the new, improved Nick?”

She stood, looking out the back window of the cabin to the dim form of the mountain, just now beginning to be visible through the snow.

“You haven’t changed as much as you think you have, Nick. You’re still that shy kid in lots of ways.”

More than you know, I thought, but kept it to myself.

She turned away from the window to smile at me again.

“You put everything of yourself into your writing. You always were a generous soul, Nick. There wasn’t anything you wouldn’t do for a friend.”

“And?”

“And, you’re still doing it. Your writing works because you’re writing about something you love, and you’re writing as though you were telling it to your best friend. Your heart just flows out onto these pages, do you know that?”

“That’s pretty much it,” I answered.

“And yet, it’s a one-way street for you, Nick. You pour all this love you have out into the pages, but nobody’s returning the favor.”

“That’s not quite true,” I told her. “The mountains are always there for me. The meadows, the aspens, the dark timber, it’s always there when I need it to be.”

“And you’ve never felt the need for a person in your life? Someone special to share all this love with?”

“Not for a long time now, Kaye.” Not for twenty-eight years.

“I’m glad we ran into each other again, Nick.”

We stood for a moment, looking into each other’s eyes. The sparkling in her green eyes was familiar enough. I’d seen it often enough, way back then. I didn’t know what it meant then. I was afraid I did, now.

“You know, I think we might be able to get your car out now.” I was beginning to sweat. Ceilidh looked out the window again, at the slowly clearing sky.

“OK, let’s give it a try.”

We bundled up – it was still around zero outside – and I got the old tractor out. Ceilidh sat perched on the fender as we chugged down the driveway, using the snowplow blade to clear the snowdrifts.

The Lexus was buried worse than I’d thought. We shoveled snow for at least two hours, trying to clear the wheels. Finally I got a log chain fastened to the car’s rear axle, covering myself in snow in the process. I hooked the other end to the drawbar on the rear of the old Ford tractor, and we were finally ready.

“OK, start the engine and watch the chain. When you see me take up the slack, put it in reverse and give her just a little gas, just enough to keep the wheels turning. Keep the front wheels straight, and I’ll try to pull you right out onto the highway the way you went in. As soon as you’re all the way up on the highway, we’ll stop so I can unhook you.”

Amazingly, it worked. I stuck the tractor in low gear and pulled gently, and in a few moments the Lexus slowly began to move, wheels slipping and spinning, easing slowly out of the ditch, backing finally on up to the highway. I put the tractor in neutral and dropped the blade on the pavement.

“OK, back up a few feet,” I called. Ceilidh’s mitten-clad hand waved out the window, and the Lexus eased back a little. I climbed under and unhooked the chain. I bundled the heavy chain back into the toolbox behind the tractor’s seat and walked up to the car.

“Drive right on up to the house,” I told Ceilidh, “park right in front. I’ll follow you up the drive and put the tractor back in the shed.”

She was waiting for me when I came around the corner from the shed. A snowball hit me right in the chest, followed by Ceilidh’s triumphant shout.

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” I grabbed a handful of snow, flinging it after her retreating, laughing form. I let out an old Prairie Ridge High battle cry, “Boo-yah!” and raced after her.

We ran back and forth for the rest of the afternoon, throwing snowballs and laughing. At least growing up in Minnesota gets you used to snow and cold at an early age, and a good thing, too, because we were both covered with snow by the time the sky began to grow dark. I finally caught her as she ran into a drift at the edge of the aspen grove behind the house, and we both ended up falling into the snow, rolling over a few times, laughing.

She lay in the snow, her green eyes glowing. “OK, Nick,” she mock-scolded me. “Now my jacket’s full of snow, and I’m freezing, and it’s getting dark. You’re going to have to build that fire up.” She blushed suddenly, perhaps realizing her unintentional double meaning.

“Beats shopping in Vail, doesn’t it?” I asked, helping her to her feet.

We went inside, bearing armloads of firewood, the last of the pile I’d stacked up on Saturday morning. After we both changed into dry clothes, I built the fire up to a roaring blaze that radiated heat into the tiny living room while Ceilidh bustled about in the kitchen, heating up some canned soup for our supper. We drank our chicken soup from mugs as we sat on the floor in front of the fireplace. A faint steam rose from Ceilidh’s snow-dampened hair.

“I suppose you’ll be able to be on your way again in the morning,” I finally said. “The road crews will be out all night, now that it’s clearing up. They’ll have the passes open by morning.”

“Yeah – so much for my little vacation at Vail,” Ceilidh laughed. “That’s OK – I wouldn’t have missed this reunion for anything.”

“Me either.”

She leaned against me, her red hair warm and fragrant against my shoulder.

“I wish we were still seventeen,” she sighed.

“Why? A chance to do some things differently?”

“Yes, Nick. At the least, I’d like a chance to do one thing differently. At least a chance to tell someone how I felt about him, way back then.”

“I know what you mean.”

“I thought you would.”

“Oh, hell, Ceilidh,” I confessed. “There hasn’t been a day gone by that I haven’t thought about you. You wanted to know why I’m up here all by myself? Hell, I’ve had relationships. I lived with a girl for a year in Boulder, even. But it just never worked.”

She took my hand. “Why not?”

“Because I never met anyone who I felt about the way I felt about you, Kaye. The way I guess I still do.”

“The picture on your desk,” she said.

“Yes, the picture on my desk. There’s more than just the love I put in my books, Kaye, more than the love I have for the mountains. I could tell people about that. I never had anyone I could tell about my best friend, about how much I loved her.”

“You just did, Nick.”

“Yes, I just did. But that’s all there is ever going to be to it. Kaye, you’re going to leave in the morning,” I husked. “There’s a place in here,” I tapped my chest, “that will always be yours, Kaye. But tomorrow morning, you’re going to get in your new Lexus, and go back to St. Paul, to Ryan, to your kids, and your practice. And I’ll stay here, in my mountain cabin, writing my books.”

“But not until morning.” She stood up, pulling me to my feet. “Nick, I think we’ve waited long enough, don’t you?”

“Long enough?” It took me a moment to understand.

“Long enough,” she repeated, and led me to the bedroom.

Monday, October 12th

I woke up that next morning to find her gone, only the faint scent of her on the sheets. My framed print of her high school senior picture lay on the pillow she’d used, with a note on the letterhead of Ceilidh Ross, MD of St. Paul. Her neat, flowing handwriting had changed hardly at all since high school. My vision misted as I read her message.

“Nick,” the note said.

“I’ve always loved you. I always will. Someday, please let someone write something for you.
Goodbye - love always,
Ceilidh.”

I went to the door, and looked out to see the tire tracks in the snow where the Lexus had gone down my drive and turned north onto the highway, towards I-70 and Vail. Someone has written something for me, Ceilidh. My best friend finally wrote me something that took her twenty-eight years, but it was worth the wait.

I folded up the note, tucked it under her photo in the frame, and placed her portrait back on my desk. I realized, suddenly, that for the first time since I’d moved in, the little cabin seemed empty. For the first time in the adult life that I’d spent mostly alone, I was lonely.

Epilogue

In the months that followed, I thought of many things, entertained many notions. I thought of getting in my old green Bronco and heading for St. Paul. I thought of calling her, at her home, at her office, just to hear her voice. But I didn’t do any of those things. I just buried myself in my work, getting through the rest of the fall and winter as I usually did. Working, a bit of snowshoeing on nice days, a trip to town once a month for canned goods.

Spring came, as it always did, and summer, and in July I decided to pack my gear and head up into the Holy Cross Wilderness. I drove out to a trailhead up the road from Edwards, and spent a day hiking in to Rainbow Lake, where I’d camped many times before. One sunny day found me perched on a ridgeline, sitting on a granite outcrop eating a strip of elk jerky, watching chipmunks play and thinking, as I often did, of Ceilidh.

The afternoon slipped past as I sat on the ridge, and the sun dropped behind me, shadows marching up the face of the mountain across from me as the light faded. I sat there until dark, thinking, watching the endless cycle of light turning to shadow, thinking how the light would come back in the morning, striking down into the valley below me through the firs on the mountain to the east. I thought about how fall would bring the snows again, how Rainbow Lake would freeze over, and how this valley would lie frozen until the sun came back in the spring.

Everything has a cycle, a season, I thought to myself. Everything has its time. Ceilidh and I had our time, all those years ago. We left some things unsaid, and it’s good that we got to say them, at last.
But that snow has melted. It’s time my own spring finally came.

A boy never really forgets that first love. I’ll never forget Ceilidh – not the best friend from school, not the three days in the storm. But now I realized what happened that last night, the acknowledgement that what we had between us wasn’t of the future, or even the present, but of the past. We were tying the last loop in a knot we’d begun thirty years before – and now that loop was closed.

Now I realized that after almost thirty years, it was finally time to move forward. For the first time since that October night, I smiled, as a million stars began to wink on overhead. I laughed once, feeling suddenly free, and got up to pick my way down the ridge to my camp.

When I got back home four days later I took Ceilidh’s portrait, wrapped it carefully in tissue, and packed it away.