Chapter 4
Which only got worse, of course. He couldn’t bring himself to go over to her side right away, and apologize. And by the time he finally did, either she wasn’t home or she just wouldn’t answer the door.
So, shell-shocked though he was, and adjusting to the notion that he could indeed ”lose everything,” Morgan nevertheless forced himself to join the rest of the boys for their climb, that night. Nothing exceptional. Just a bunch of the guys, being sociable.
A simple skin-up, ski-down the front of Aspen Mountain. They were all a bit slower, going up, than they’d been twenty years ago, and there was less idle gabbing, more heavy breathing, and they usually didn’t smoke any dope nowadays, til they got to the top, but other than that it was the same old climb. You get to the Sundeck, after maybe pushing the last 200 yards, and then drop, pull out whatever food-stuff you’d packed, count off ten or twenty deep breaths, and try to recover. Convince yourself that you weren’t in such bad shape. Then lean back, relax, and enjoy the companionship.
Which was when Ed Nelson, who would always be assistant police chief (and assistant high-school hockey coach), offered the almost obvious advice: “Ask for a jury trial.”
To which everybody else nodded their heads. Justin would’ve been the go-to guy for legal advice, but he hadn’t shown up. Which was odd. He hadn’t even called anybody.
“A jury trial, and pack it with bachelors,” added Lindsay Cummins, who would always be the assistant middle-school principal (and junior golf #2 in the summer).
Which caused all of them, with the exception of Morgan, to burst into uncontrollable laughter.
“A jury trial,” Ed went one better, “pack it with bachelors, and make sure they know all about Risa.”
Which led to even more laughter, and lots of knowing nods. Morgan looked around at them all, sitting at the picnic tables outside the Sundeck, as comradely and comfortable as if they were watching a ball game in somebody’s living room. (Except that it was zero degrees out.) Paper plates, botas, the tin-foil trays of brownies that Ed always brought. Everybody seemed satisfactorily buzzed, and perfectly content, except for Morgan, who couldn’t help asking, “Am I missing something?”
To which there was an immediate, deafening silence. The other guys took a sudden interest in the surrounding landscape. Which was, admittedly, remarkable: Elk Mountain and Conundrum Peak to the south, Highland Bowl just across the way, the Williams Range crystal-clear and looking so close in the bright, cloudless sky. Like they hadn’t seen it all a thousand times before.
“I don’t think jury trials help anymore,” someone finally said. “I had jury duty last month, and I didn’t even recognize half the people there.”
To which there was unanimous, sadly grudging agreement. Ruing the loss of “the old Aspen,” where everyone supposedly knew everyone else (and we were all one happy family), was a long-standing way to criticize whatever it was about the new Aspen that you didn’t, personally, like.
“And the bachelors you did find, they probably wouldn’t know about her, anyway,” somebody threw in.
Which meant what, exactly?
But before Morgan could ask, Lindsay jumped up and mimed shaking off the cold, and as if on cue, all the other guys hopped up and started packing up, too. In what had to be near-record time, they’d flicked on their headlamps, policed the area, jumped into their skis, and headed off down Two-Leaf. Leaving Morgan standing there, speechless.
What the hell was that all about?
*
He never did get an answer. When they reached the bottom, after a pleasant-enough 2-mile cruise, everyone just grunted goodbyes and headed for their cars. Granted, it was close to midnight, and they weren’t the all-night party guys anymore, but even so, there was something that everybody seemed to know, except for him.
Something about Risa, and from the looks on their faces, something pretty strange. What did they know that he didn’t?
And then it struck him. All these guys– Ed, Lindsay, everybody– they were all bachelors. Was there something that every single guy in town knew about Risa, except for him?
But he didn’t get much time to gnaw on that, because the message light on his phone was flashing when he got home. The caller ID said it was from the Forest Service.
Which would be little Debbie. Debbie Samms.
Debbie was the daughter of the girl he maybe should’ve married, a long time ago. Back when he and Pam were in their 20′s, and Morgan was no-where near thinking about marriage. (Not that he was any closer, now.)
But that’s what Pam had wanted, and no hard feelings (sort of), but she finally just walked away. Found a guy from St. Louis who actually had a career and was willing to commit. And now little Debbie, their daughter, was a pretty 21-year-old, fresh out of C.U. and living in Aspen for the first time, herself. Working for ACES– the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies– living in the Forest Service dorm on Seventh Street, giving snowshoe/nature tours at Snowmass and thoroughly enjoying being outdoors most of the time.
Debbie and her mom had come out to visit nearly every summer, when she was a kid. Without her dad, who was either always working or preferred not to deal with somebody like Morgan. Which was fine: Morgan took Little Debbie and Pam hiking, biking, fishing and stuff. They even went gold-panning once, the three of them, up Castle Creek, with dinner plates they’d lifted from The Shaft (a mining-motif family restaurant). Never found a thing, and Morgan ruined a good pair of boots, but little Debbie still had the pans.
They had a special relationship, Morgan and Debbie. He was never “Uncle” Morgan. He was more like another father, or a big brother when that’s what she needed. She told him her secrets, such as they were. And Morgan, in return, had shown her the secret rock up Lincoln Creek that absolutely nobody else knew about. The place he could go and hide, if he ever needed to, and nobody ever could’ve found him. Without a helicopter, at least.
The phone call had come in around 11:00, and it was the dorm, all right, but it wasn’t from Debbie. A troubled young man’s voice mumbled something about an accident, and the hospital, and Debbie not wanting to worry her parents.
Morgan didn’t even bother to pick up the phone: The dorm was only six blocks away.
He hopped into his car, then remembered that he still had two Christmas presents for little Debbie back in the house. (She’d gone home to St. Louis for the holidays, and he’d planned on giving her the presents when she got back, but somehow they hadn’t hooked up.)
So Morgan shuffled back into the house, walked into the guest room to grab the presents off the bed, and stopped mid-stride. The carpeting in the middle of the room was soaked clean through. Totally squishy-wet.
He flipped on the ceiling light, and poof! went the breakers. All over the house. (On Risa’s side, too, most likely. Sepp had kept the electrical pretty basic.)
So he clumped down to the basement, re-set the breakers. Which, fortunately, seemed to stay on. Then he went back upstairs, left the guest-room ceiling light off, and checked the ceiling with a flashlight. Sure enough, it was dripping away. Which meant: the roof, somewhere. And if it was happening now, in mid-winter, it was probably gonna be bad. And get worse,
But he didn’t have time to deal with it now. So he dashed Risa a note, slipped it under her door. Hoped she didn’t have an early-morning appointment, cuz her alarm clock wouldn’t be working.
*
A few of her roommates were still hanging around the common room at the dorm when he showed up. Kind of subdued, but awake enough to tell him that Debbie was already at the hospital.
So he left the presents in her room, one of the girls gave him some of Debbie’s clothes to take with him, and he slid back into his car and headed for the hospital.
Now, as far as most Aspenites are concerned, if you absolutely have to go to a hospital, it may as well be Aspen Valley Hospital. It’s small, state-of-the-art, super-friendly, keeps a very tolerant open-door policy, and even the food’s pretty damned good.
When Morgan arrived, he knew most everybody there, and they weren’t surprised to see him. He’d been there often enough over tyhe years, with young Debbie, to joke about having a room with her own name on it. (Most families in town say the same thing.)
During ski season, especially, you can usually count on one fracture expert and one concussion guy to be on duty. The concussion guy just smiled and said, “It could’ve been worse.”
They’d put Debbie in a private room, given her a sedative, and let her fall asleep. And pieced the story together from the two young people who’d brought her in.
Seems that they’d been out in the parking lot at the dorm, earlier that night. The Forest Service has this… policy… against smoking in the dorm. So they’d gone outside to smoke a number and check out the full moon, after which they decided it was a perfect night for some hoops. Basketball. Seeing as how with all the snow, the backboard was only eight feet off the ground. (And even though it was maybe five degrees above zero.)
Once they found the ball, and got a little warmed up, Debbie did some reverse lay-up thing, and all of a sudden her feet slipped out from under her, and before she knew it, she’d landed smack! down on the back of her head. Hammer-on-concrete hard. And she just lay there, unconscious, til they finally woke her up, got her to her feet, and helped her inside.
Scary.
Most everybody who enjoys the outdoors knows the warning signs for concussion, and knows you don’t take chances, so packing Debbie into a car and getting her to the hospital was a real simple decision.
The official diagnosis was subdural hematoma. When Morgan looked in, the back of her head was a mass of clean bandages, but her eyes looked like she’d just gone two rounds with Hillary Swank. The X-rays and CAT-scan were negative, but you could never tell with a rap to the head. They were going to keep her under observation for 24 hours, then probably let her go home. More probably, to Morgan’s place, so he could keep an eye on her.
So there wasn’t much more for anyone to do, right away.
Which meant that Morgan could just thank everybody, and go back home for a while.
Which he did.
Which just gave him more time to think.
Which can often be not the best thing in the world to do.
And his thoughts, unfortunately, turned right back to the problem with Risa.
Yesterday, when he’d gone back to apologize, he knew she’d been in there. Probably conjuring up the day he got marched out of town. (They used to say: “getting run outta town on a rail,” but Aspen didn’t have a train anymore. So he guessed they’d have to drive him. Drop him at the 7-Eleven in Basalt, which was right over the county line. The coffee there was terrible.)
Justin had said: “Be prepared to lose everything.”
On the spur of the moment, Morgan picked up the phone and dialed.
“Private number,” Justin mumbled, when he finally picked up. After about ten rings. “It’s 3:00 in the morning, so this had better be good, Morgan.”
And Morgan, who hadn’t really expected Justin to answer, had to hustle himself into dialogue mode.
“Justin,” he stammered. “Sorry to call. I was just thinking…”
“Which, in itself, is often good,” interrupted Justin, who even half-asleep always had to get the optimum sentiment in.
“Right… Anyway, when you said, ‘Be prepared to lose everything…’ That was just a figure of speech, right?”
“No.” Morgan could hear Justin’s crisply-starched sheets crinkling, as he pushed himself slowly up in his bed. “In the sense that hyperbole, to which I assume you’re referring, is indeed a figure of speech. But that would be implying that I was intentionally exaggerating. For effect.” Justin paused a moment, to emphasize the gravitas, the seriousness, of the matter. Then he lowered his voice: a few decibels, and half an octave. “Which I wasn’t.”
“Oh.” Dumb (dumbfounded) silence, from Morgan’s end.
“Morgan, ‘Be prepared to lose everything’ was offered as practical, worst-case-scenario advice,” Justin sighed. “Tell you what: First thing in the morning… (pause)… after the sun’s come up… call Bev. You know, your insurance agent? Call her, and then get back to me. Okay?”
And then there was a click, and then nothing but silence from Justin’s end.
Which left Morgan sitting there, holding the phone, with several hours awaiting him before the sun arose and announced the opportunity to call the insurance office. Which he wasn’t looking forward to. Years and years before, the guy who’d founded the agency (and who’d long since happily retired from it) had confided to him: “The first rule of insurance: ‘You’re not covered.’”
So he had that to think on, for several more hours. So how, exactly, was he gonna while away the time?
By checking the guest room, for starters. Making some coffee, and deciding whether he should rip up the ceiling right now.
And he was supposed to be the wisdom guy. The answer man.
After which rueful thought, he leaned back on his lumpy, too-soft couch and fell promptly, soundly asleep.
…
Aspen, CO