May The Best Man Wed

“We’re number two in line for takeoff.”

“Thank you.”

The assistant disappeared back inside the cockpit.

“Bet you don’t know his first name either?”

Her eyes met his of emerald. “Are you going to move or am I?”

“Stan.” He rose to plop into the row directly across from her. He reclined, sprawling his long legs out into the aisle. “How’s this?”

“You should put your seat in an upright position.” Savannah tucked the microrecorder into her purse, made sure her cellular was turned off.

“Did you turn your cell phone off?”

Cash shook his head. “Don’t have one.”

“You don’t have one?”

“Hate the damn things. Reception doesn’t work half the time in the mountains anyway.”

Savannah set her paperwork on the floor underneath her seat, placing her purse flat on top. She checked the trays in front of her a final time. “Law, I couldn’t survive.”

“It’s a primitive lifestyle, but I’ve adapted. Man versus nature and all that, you know.”

“Yes, you’ve got that caveman mentality about you.”

She didn’t hear Cash’s reply. The plane began to taxi. She clasped the armrests, braced herself against the seat.

“Ahhh, my favorite part,” Cash declared.

She glanced over. “Put your seat belt on.”

The plane moved forward.

“It starts so slow, you don’t think its ever going to happen.” His voice was like poured wine.

“It becomes stronger little by little. The power, the strength surrounding you, building, starting to surge.” The plane gained speed. “Faster and faster.”

As if in response, the plane quickened. Savannah tightened her grip on the seat’s arms. The air outside began to moan.

“No more than wind now. On the edge. Not here. Not there. Unable to know if you can stand it.” All was Cash’s voice and the scream of air and the assault of speed.

“Deciding it can’t happen, it can’t be possible.” The plane heaved. “One last thrust.” Anticipation swelled Cash’s voice. A final jerk of metal and defiance slammed Savannah into her seat. The plane lifted.

“And you’re flying,” Cash sang out.

Savannah grabbed the bag from the pouch in front of her and threw up.

“Slick, you okay?”

She shot him an angry glance only to find him leaning across the aisle, offering a wad of tissues. She grabbed them, waving him away, then bent toward the bag as round two began. His weight was again beside her, the tentative pat of his hand on her rounded back.

“Go away.” She wiped her mouth with a tissue, threw it into the bag.

“Don’t like flying, do you, Slick?” His fingertips rubbed a light circle between the broken wings of her shoulder blades.

She patted the beads of sweat from her forehead, her upper lip. “I prefer my feet on the ground.”

She couldn’t help but appreciate his chuckle. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”

She glanced sourly at him. He patted her back.

“You should have your seat belt on,” she scolded, then twisted her head away. Oh no, round three.

WITH THE TWO-HOUR time change, the plane landed at Denver International Airport at almost the exact same time it had departed Atlanta, a fact that gave Savannah an odd comfort. The plane was needed back in Atlanta tomorrow but would layover at the airport for the night. Savannah would call in the morning to say if there’d be passengers or not. She was not leaving Colorado without McCormick.

“You ever been to Colorado, Slick?” Cash maneuvered out of the airport’s parking garage.

“I was at a seminar at the Brown Palace Hotel two years ago.”

“You’ve never been to Colorado then.” He turned right as they left the airport and onto the interstate heading west. At first, Colorado was only the endless tangle of traffic, the flat suburban sprawl, the strip shopping centers that surrounded all major cities. But when, worn from the flight and feelings, Savannah closed her eyes, she found the strong gold light of the western sun dancing beneath her lids. When she opened them, the city had fallen away and the Jeep was angling upward as if she and Cash were about to take flight again.

They moved into the mountains, the roads becoming as narrow and sharp as the terrain they traced. One-eighty curves were announced by no more than the bright display of an upside-down U on shivering signs. Still the turns leapt up like gleeful gremlins before twisting into the mountain’s blue shadows.

Up they climbed, the high wall of gray and green always beside them, so vast and close, the evergreens seemed to lean over the car. Yet Savannah only turned her head and there was nothing. No more than air and rusting guardrails angled toward the road’s edge as if in homage to the abrupt drop beyond. They climbed, the air becoming finer, lighter, bringing a dizzying clearness to the hard edges, steep planes. Here was none of the slow liquid heat of the South.

They turned off the interstate and moved straight into a deep V of green. Along the way, Cash pointed out various places, points of interest, but Savannah spoke little. When she did, it was a near-whisper, as if the mountains’ silent presence was already as strong and deep as a beat in her blood.

Cash made a sharp left turn onto an unpaved road snaking into the aspens and pines. At the corner, Savannah spied a propped half log. On its smooth side, Lost Ridge and an arrow were hand-painted in white. For a mile or more, the Jeep bumped along through untamed growth, climbing and dropping, until the green suddenly broke into a clearing blanketed with red, yellow and purple wildflowers. At its end was a towerlike structure with a clutter of vehicles and equipment in various stages circling its base. Several golden dogs came bounding toward the Jeep as it passed.

The raw road threaded past a dozen scattered homes of weather-darkened wood or thick logs, some one-story, others two, all with wide porches and many unshuttered windows. Farther on, set low as the land dipped, a cluster of buildings sat closer together, crowned by the bell tower of a simple white structure. “Downtown Lost Ridge,” Cash noted.

The vehicle veered away from the town’s center onto another dirt road that fell rapidly only to climb until it crested a flat plain. There, clinging to a hill’s steep side as if suspended in a sea of this magic mountain air, was a large, sprawling lodge.

Cash parked, turned off the engine, gazed out the window a moment as if, like Savannah, seeing everything for the first time.

“The town was originally a ghost town like others after the mines closed, but was re-incorporated in the 1980s to create the zoning to keep the growing ski resorts from coming in.”

She followed Cash up the wide timber steps to a long, split-rail porch.

“There’s about fifty of us. Homesteaders come and go. Population swells during ski season.” He opened the front door, inviting her to enter.

She stepped into a sense of immense, unbroken space. The first floor seemed one wide-open room swirling around a massive stone hearth stretching high to the cathedral ceiling’s great beams. Everywhere light leapt and danced, splaying from the wall of windows to bounce off the burnished floorboards onto the glossy log walls and the copper lamps hanging above. Fire moved golden like a great wind in the hearth. She imagined a couple entwined before it in the dark, a woman’s head resting on a man’s shoulder, his arms wrapped tightly around her, his cheek on her hair. What a shame she and McCormick couldn’t stay here longer to celebrate the end of this odd journey. Perhaps, if they were careful with their respective schedules, they could return here next year. An anniversary celebration.