A Red Leaf & Ten Orchids Ch. 01

Now Josh was back because she needed him for some jobs here and there. The truth of it, she knew, was that she also needed him because he was a light in her life. Especially now that her Sam's light had gone out.

She had struggled for months to decide if she should keep the old place or sell it and move to town. She thought about Kayla and Jillian. Even in her grief at Sam's death, she'd noticed that once they'd arrived after the funeral, the place had brightened a little. Kayla's eyes told a story she'd read before, but she knew that Jillian and Kayla had each other and had become a small family unit. Rose thought that unit was looking a bit fragile due to Kayla's circumstances.

Her thoughts kept coming back to her waiting decision about the ranch. She just could never decide until one night the thought came to her that her niece could use a fresh start. She herself needed something of a fresh start to feel useful again. Josh had needed one for years. Once that thought had taken hold, she sat up in bed and turned on the light. She found that she couldn't sleep. She was wide-awake.

She fixed herself a cup of tea and sat in the kitchen listening to the clock. Slowly the pieces showed up in her mind. She nudged them around in there, looking for possibilities. Once she had looked at everything, she smiled. Finishing the last of her tea, Rose went to bed. She was asleep within a minute.

The following evening she had called her niece and found that though they were doing okay, Kayla felt like they were getting nowhere in life, just treading water if that made any sense. Rose laughed softly and said, "Oh, I know exactly what you mean"

Over the course of the call, she suggested that it had been years since she'd spent any real time with her family, and with Sam and her own brother being gone now, maybe the few of them left ought to get together while there was time.

And that was that. Over the next months, they began to have email discussions over the realities of a long visit. It gradually became a life-changing plan. The only detail that Rose hadn't mentioned was Joshua. She'd just have to play that by ear. She knew her niece, and she knew Joshua. The two had never met, and if either of them knew of the other ahead of time, then neither of them would have been there.

"Sometimes you just have to throw things in and stir the pot," Rose told herself. At the very least, nothing would happen, and they would all hopefully enjoy the time together. The ranch would be more populated for a time, and in the worst case, could still be sold off. On the other hand.... well, they'd just have to see.

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By the time Kayla had gotten off Interstate 40 and onto Interstate 25, she was certain there was a problem. The engine temperature was climbing. The rate of change was imperceptible, but over time, it was definitely heading up there. She had gassed up, and they'd had lunch, during which time the engine had cooled off, but she knew that with the climbs that were in their near future, it didn't bode well.

At the gas station, Kayla had a brief conversation with the attendant who had mentioned the heat of the day. They'd left Phoenix with its 100-degree plus climate behind, but were climbing steadily. It was "only" 90 now, but they were at 6000 feet above sea level. The poor Cavalier was wheezing with the load, and the radiator fan was hardly ever shutting off now.

"Well, you're climbin', and with a trailer like that. It's not that big a car, Ma'am," the attendant offered.

"What does that mean?" asked Kayla.

"Well she's haulin' a full backpack, if you get my drift." He said. "You can help some by making sure the tires are up to the right pressure, and you might want to shut off the air conditioning, and open the windows. You won't feel any better, but your car will thank you for it."

"Thank you, I'll try it" Kayla said. Little Jillian was curious about that.

"No Jilly, the car can't talk. The man just told me how to help the car to not work so hard." As she checked the tire pressure, Kayla concluded that it was probably a good thing the car couldn't speak. She figured it would probably have a thing or two to say to her about now.

The temperature did go down some, but when they'd gotten off the main road, and onto the secondary roads it had begun to climb again. They had just gotten onto the dirt roads when Kayla heard the chime. She looked at the dash and saw that the engine warning light was on. The engine temperature guage was hanging just below the red. She pulled over and shut off the engine. The radiator fan kept running.

"Are we there yet?" asked Jilly.

"No, but I'm pretty sure we're close. We have to let the car have a rest for a bit, Jilly" said Kayla. "It'll be ok after a while, I ho... uh, I think."

Kayla scanned the horizon, and thought she recognized the old water pump windmill on her aunt's ranch in the distance. She figured they could walk the remainder, and Aunt Rose might know somebody that could help with the car. They began to walk up the gentle slope, and past the rusted fence.

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CHAPTER 2

Joshua Taylor sat sweating on the steps of the porch reloading the ancient Colt as the day's heat shimmered on. Looking at anything out beyond 100 yards caused him to wonder about the tales of the old West. He suspected that the waves of heat which came off the ground and distorted the view must have saved at least a few cowboys and Indians.

That, and lousy aim, he thought.

At 36, he was not what you'd call thin. He wasn't round either. He'd been lean and muscular as a young man and that had carried on, though he'd never seen the inside of a gym. His build came from working for a living. And maybe some genetics, he supposed. Over the years, he'd filled out a bit, but he still had a trace of a six-pack instead of the paunch that some of the men of his age group were sporting. Then again, he wasn't a sporting kind of guy. He and his television weren't exactly on a first name basis, and when he could find the remote, it usually wouldn't work since the batteries had given up waiting for the day they'd be put to use.

He flipped out the loading cover on Sam's antique pistol, and began to work the spring-loaded rod under and to the right of the barrel, turning the cylinder each time to the next stop with a quiet click. One by one, the spent cartridge casings dropped to the step at his feet, ringing softly. He reached into the box to his right and grabbed a few new rounds, the rest squirming out of his sweaty grip. One by one, he slid them into a chamber in the cylinder, and rotated it to bring the next empty chamber into view. Once he'd loaded five of them, he rotated the cylinder again so that the single empty chamber was the one aligned with the barrel, and under the hammer.

Just me and my trusty five-gun, he thought.

The old Colts had no safeties to prevent accidental firing, and since the hammer rested lightly against the back of the cartridge itself, it was possible that just the right impact on that hammer would cause the pistol to fire – like if you dropped it. For this reason, it was always wise to load just five, and leave the hammer over the empty sixth chamber. Hollywood had never caught on to the old safety rule. Josh didn't care what was written on his tombstone, and long as it didn't include the words, "He shot his own dumb ass".

Josh lived alone, and he'd told himself that he liked it that way for so long that he believed it. He appreciated women, and found them fascinating. But he'd never found the right one, and he'd eventually come to the realization that if there really is someone for each of us, then there must be an island someplace with hopefully a beautiful woman shipwrecked on it. Besides, in his mind he'd had his big chance, and he'd blown it.

He closed the loading cover, picked up the empties, and placed them on the porch rail with the rest. Wiping his damp palm on his jeans, he stood squinting at the empty chili can on the old saw horse 15 paces away.

He marveled at its immortality. The damn thing had been there since lunch.

There was now so much lead buried in the rise behind from his misses that he wondered if it qualified as a mineral deposit.

He extended his arm, and pulled back on the hammer with his thumb to bring a live chamber into line with the barrel. Concentrating on his breathing, he leveled the pistol, and exhaled slowly as he started to squeeze the trigger at the bottom of the breath. It would still be a race – either he'd get the shot off, or the drop of sweat that threatened to run from his right eyebrow would get to his eye.

The can disappeared as the Colt roared in his hand, and then his eye stung from the sweat. He chuckled with a slight smile as he rubbed his eye with the back of his hand. "No pain, no gain." he sighed.

He'd never been the type of guy who'd had to step over the women on his walkway to get to his car in the morning and go to work. He'd been introverted following an accident as a child, but he'd mastered his shyness to a large degree during the intervening years. He'd had to.

The one time that he'd given his heart, he'd meant it. That wasn't something that had been easy for him to do. But it takes two to tango, as they say, and the other one preferred to dance without him. Married at 21, separated at 22, and divorced as soon as possible. One day she just told him that she wanted a divorce. He never did find out if there was another man, though he assumed there must have been. He just blamed himself. His wife was in such a hurry to leave that she signed over her share of the place to him, and was gone. And it was her idea. Since there was no equity at that point, she was really just leaving him holding her half of the debt. That kind of thing could work wonders for a guy's self esteem.

He thought of the years afterward as the earthbound equivalent of Purgatory, a terrible time to be a trapped young man. Always broke, trying to pay for the mortgages he'd taken out to buy the house that his bride had just had to have, and eating dog food because it was all he could buy with what was left. He liked the Irish Stew flavor the best. It didn't taste too far off the real thing if you heated it. Once things finally got better for him he'd never touched even the real Irish Stew ever again.

At the same time, it was positively raining women. He'd run into them every damn place, and his friends kept trying to set him up. But he seemed to be bound to the whipping post. His looks, though rugged, tended to frighten off the girls that he tended to be most attracted to. If he did seem to be hitting it off with a girl, he knew that out of fairness, he'd have to tell her of his status. Those ones would disappear just as fast as that old can – he was damaged goods.

He smirked as he remembered the one from his doctor's office. It had gone well, until he told her over dinner in a restaurant one evening. She'd paused with a forkful of food at her lips, and looked at him for 4 seconds. Then she put the fork down, wiped her lips with her napkin, got up and walked out without a word. He hadn't really eaten for a week so that he could take her there.

Then there was that long string of women who had shared only one common trait between them; they were serious nut jobs. He hated the bar scene, and gave those ones a pass as politely as he could. He began to think of ways to effectively search the South Pacific islands for one with a stranded girl on it. He doubted that his ex-wife ever had been "that one" for him. Plainly he hadn't met her expectations anyway, whatever they might have been. She'd never told him.

Eventually, it stopped hurting so much, and he just lived his life. It never occurred to him that with this adjustment, he had effectively shipwrecked himself. He just knew that he never wanted to be that close to someone only to feel that kind of pain again.

He'd worked his ass off to deal with the mortgages, but there wasn't much he could do to get more hours where he worked. When he could, he rented the place. The rent didn't cover all of his costs, but went a ways in the right direction.

Josh himself joined the military. The structure didn't give him time to "wallow", as he put it. Besides, it was free room and board, and a job that made sense to him. His folks looked after the place, and helped him to sell it when a buyer appeared who wanted an investment with a tenant in it. Josh took the tiny profit and ran.

Straight to a motorcycle dealer. He paid cash, got his license endorsement and was on the road the following week. Riding became his therapy. He didn't care where or when, and most weather didn't faze him. Where there's a will, there's a road. Whenever time permitted, he was riding. His postings took him all over, but he made every effort to keep a bike close by wherever the job took him if possible. The only thing that stopped him was winter.

By spring every year he was ready just to go anywhere. He had very few ties; after his father had died of cancer, his mother seemed to have no interest in life anymore, and faded out soon after. That was sort of how he wound up here in the scrub land of New Mexico. He smiled, thinking of his old friend Sam as he holstered the Colt and walked forward to put another can on the sawhorse.

It was during his second time riding Route 66 when he was 27 that he had met Sam and his wife Rosie. Josh had decided to take the old pre-1937 alignment through Santa Fe that time. As he poked along in no hurry, he was thinking of pulling over to have a cigarette when he saw an apparition about 200 feet off the road. He pulled over and flicked down the side stand as he killed the engine. He unzipped his jacket automatically, and pulled off his helmet.

As the engine ticked quietly, the hot dry breeze began to cool his wet hair and damp T-shirt. He was staring at what looked like an old Harley police model from somewhere during World War II. He got off and walked over slowly to admire it. Other than looking a bit tired, it could have been on patrol the previous week. He noted some tracks leading away from it. As he was about to turn around to see where the rider had gone, he heard a low voice that had all the finer tonal qualities of a cement mixer.

"It's not f'sale if that's what you're thinkin'."

Josh turned on his heel to look at a middle-aged man who might have stepped out of an old nondescript western novel. He wore an open vest over what had probably been a white shirt when it was new. The jeans looked like they held enough dust in the fabric to seriously hurt the old bike's fuel economy, if that were possible. There was no telling what color the boots had started out life as. He had a walrus mustache over at least a week's growth of beard, and longish hair that brushed his collar. All of it might have been black once, but the salt and pepper mixture was leaning towards the salt part now. Josh hoped that he looked a bit like that when he got to where this man now was.

"I wasn't thinking, just daydreaming." Josh smiled and held out his hand. "I'm Joshua Taylor."

"Sam Marriott." The older man announced. "I was over the rise waterin' my sage bush when I heard your bike wind down and stop, and thought I'd better have a look at my old girl, just in case." Sam watched Josh's eyebrows begin to climb.

"Waterin' your...."

The man smirked, "I was havin' a piss. What would you call it?"

"Sorry, I'm a little slower than usual today." Josh chuckled, and pulled out his cigarette pack. As he lit up, he caught the look in Sam's eye, and offered. It was accepted with a grunt. They talked a while longer, and Sam learned that Josh was passing through. Josh found out that Sam and his wife had lived in the area "forever, give or take a week." When Josh ground out the butt, he bent down and picked it up, depositing it in his jacket pocket. He caught Sam's quizzical look.

"I'm not a tree hugger, but I don't see any of the other kids pissing in the sandbox as much as we are. No point leaving something else behind that doesn't belong."

Sam's curious smirk showed the humor in his eyes, and he answered the question that was in Josh's mind. "I picked up two of these at a police auction over in Albuquerque a long way back. Planned to use one fer parts, but I've never needed to. The old gal just keeps on goin', though I don't work her hard. Other one's in my driving shed. Least I think that's where it is. Haven't looked for it in a while."

After a few more minutes of talk Sam invited Josh to drop by his place if he was in the mood for dinner and a beer, and gave him simple directions as he walked to the old bike. He opened a saddlebag, pulled out an old open-face helmet, and traded that for the tired Stetson on his head, which took the helmet's place in the saddlebag. He fussed with the bike for a second, and jumped on the kick starter. The retired patrol bike came to life with a clatter.

As he shifted the lever on the tank into first gear, and maneuvered his "old girl" around to ride back down the gentle slope, Josh asked which one was Sam's sage bush in case he wanted to contribute as he was leaving.

The smirk grew into a slow smile as he winked and said, "Pick one out for y'self, boy. On this side of the road from here to the corner, they're all mine!" He laughed and was gone.

Josh had known Sam and Rosie for 9 years now. He hadn't intended to take Sam up on the offer that evening. He naturally shied away sometimes, but after getting lost later in the afternoon and backtracking a bit, he told himself that he was on vacation, and that meant meeting people, an integral part of any road trip. So he found himself in front of Sam and Rosie's home early that evening.

Inside of 20 minutes, Rosie had noticed the cold wound where Josh's heart should have been. She took to him like he was her own son and they insisted that he stay with them for a bit. At least they'd get some use out of the old bunkhouse. Rosie was a lovely woman in her mid-forties then with long thick auburn hair and light green eyes. They became his surrogate parents when he came to visit with them every year. He came as often as he could get time away, no matter where his posting was. Rosie was always telling him that for sure the "right" girl would come along, and to be open to it when it happened. Sam said that women were like buses; there'd be another one along in 20 minutes.

"Hell, they even come in from ev'rywhere twice a day now in Santa Fe." he chuckled. Rosie chewed Sam out in mock outrage for it, and Josh decided that he had no desire to be a bus stop. One thing he knew for certain; those two had a love that most people could only wish for. Josh held no such illusions for himself.

Sam had passed away the previous year. Josh was two weeks into a 3 week stay, but found Rosie pacing the living room floor one afternoon as he came back from town with some lumber to finish up the loft he had built in the driving shed. She confessed to Josh that Sam hadn't been well the past while. He had left that morning saying that he wanted to listen to the wind for a bit. He'd been gone for four and a half hours at that point, and she didn't know where he was. Josh knew exactly where Sam's "listening post" was. Sam had taken him there the year before. He'd found the spot as a boy, and had told no one about it until then. He loved to listen to the desert there. Together they drove out in Sam's old truck, grinding a bit over the rough patches.

They found Sam not far from his Harley in a gully. He was alive, but his "golden 2 hours" had long passed. He'd had a coronary, and his face was the color of his beard. Josh pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911. He didn't know if the municipality had a medevac bird, but he prayed fervently that they had. Sam and Rosie were on their way to the hospital in Santa Fe within 20 minutes on the helicopter, but by the time Josh got there an hour later it was over, and Sam was gone.