The Long Road Home. Mary Monroe Alice

up to her chest. John Henry’s bitter warnings repeated in her mind. She was terrified that she’d made a mistake. Afraid that she was already feeling sorry for herself.

      The bleating of lambs echoed in the valley below. Nora strolled along the road under the noonday sun, passing pastures of brown and gold that were littered with milkweed pods. Some hung fat upon their stalks; others were already bursting forth their feathery seeds, reminding Nora of days she had blown upon the seeds and sent them sailing like a fleet of white ships upon a golden ocean.

      She wasn’t headed anywhere specific; she was just getting a sense of where she was. Compared to the confined spaces of the city, everything here seemed expansive: the broad sky, the looming mountains, the vast acres. On her head Nora wore earphones and hummed along. Her pace slowed as she passed a field bordered by a rickety fence. The timber teetered and the wire sagged. Veering from her path, she ran her hand along the fence’s splintered wood and smelled autumn’s ripeness.

      Nora imagined how the field must have looked generations ago when the old fence was new. It might have contained a herd of black-and-white cows that grazed on a pasture green with forage. Now the cows had long since vanished from the rocky fields and scores of thistle weed and scrubby pines reclaimed the land.

      RRRRRRRRRrrrrrr. The throaty call of a chain saw was audible over her music. Curious, Nora followed the sound, trotting around the grotto called Mike’s Bench. There, standing in the sun, jacket off, plaid flannel shirt rolled up at the sleeves and knees bent in a steady stance, a man was cutting away at a damaged maple. He wore goggles and large ear protectors over wild golden hair, but there was no mistaking the powerful visage of C.W. He had already cut and stacked the limbs into neat piles of firewood, but the trunk stooped over a large gaping wound.

      She recognized the tree as the one she’d hit. The maple was cracked and bent. A lump formed in her throat as she spied the golden sap oozing from the flesh-colored wood.

      Nora watched with fascination as C.W. cut a deep wedge into the mangled trunk. Seeing him doing chores that she could never do made her appreciate how valuable he was as an employee. Logging was hard and dangerous work; the muscles in C.W.’s forearm were rippling as he guided the chewing metal through the wood.

      The throaty roar of the chain saw was an exciting sound. To people in the mountains it was the sound of man’s control over the wilderness. The maple trunk began to weave and wobble. The acrid scent of fuel mixed with the sweet scent of freshly cut wood and rose up. A strong, heady odor that drifted her way. She felt the thrill of anticipation.

      The chain saw droned again, longer, louder. Then the noise abruptly stopped, leaving her ears ringing in the sudden silence.

      C.W. stepped back, setting down the chain saw, and took a last check of the area. She knew the moment he spotted her, for he stiffened, whipped off his goggles and called, “Get out of the way!”

      Instantly, she understood her danger and tore off her earphones. Now she heard the tree creak, wood against wood. Looking up, she saw she was standing directly in its line of fall. She had miscalculated the distance. The leaves rustled, the tree groaned, and Nora took three steps back, eyes on the tree. It was shaking, wailing, then it began falling.

      Before she could run she felt two muscled arms grab her under her arms and yank her, dragging her feet in the rush, farther down the road. They hit the ground as the tree did—with a graceless thud. Birds cried, squirrels scrambled, and all around her dust and leaves scattered and filled the air. Coughing and rubbing her eyes, she leaned back on her elbows and felt the earth shake around her. When the dust finally settled and she peeked up, she realized it wasn’t the earth shaking, just herself and the thin branches that extended to within inches of her head.

      C.W. lay half beside her, half over her, covered with broken twigs and crushed dried leaves. He swatted the debris away with harsh, angry swipes and stood, centered between her bent knees. He stared down at her with a look of controlled anger.

      “Are you all right?” he asked gruffly.

      She coughed again. “Yes. My God.” She coughed. “I didn’t see it coming.” Her breath was coming fast and her hands were still shaking. “I could have been killed. You saved my life.”

      C.W. ran his hand through his hair, then extended it to her. When she placed her small hand in it, he felt it tremble. That was enough to shake away his anger and allow him to see how frightened she really was.

      “Don’t mention it.” The lady was turning out to be a nuisance, but he kept Seth’s admonishment in mind.

      “And don’t wear that damn thing out here,” he said, pointing at her earphones. “Leave it in the city. Learn to listen to the woods,” he said, placing his free hand on her elbow and helping her up. As she reeled up alongside him, he caught sight of the bruise beneath her hair.

      Nora nodded, accepting his words as a given.

      “Listen,” he said as she steadied herself on her feet. “What is it with you and this spot? First you run your car into that poor tree, then you stand under it as it falls. If you have a death wish, please let me know and I’ll stop interfering.”

      He was smiling and she couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of his words. She laughed, then laughed harder, then suddenly felt herself on the verge of tears, overwhelmed by that sudden switch in emotions that comes when one is uncertain and desperately hiding pain.

      He saw the shift of emotion in her expressive eyes. He heard it in her sudden high-pitched hilarity. This was a lady in pain. He recognized pain—knew it well—and felt an immediate empathy for her.

      “Come. Sit down and rest,” he said, lowering his voice and guiding her to a marble bench set into the mountain.

      Nora crossed over crunching twigs, small flakes of wood and sawdust. When she reached the cool shadows of the bench, she settled herself in a prim and upright manner.

      Remembering his rude comment in the kitchen, C.W. thought it was his company that made her so sour. “Perhaps you’d prefer to be alone?”

      “No, please, don’t leave me. Not here.”

      He raised his brows in question.

      Nora scanned the marble grotto, covered now with moss and mud. Then they traveled to the surrounding slopes. Scores of maple saplings had sprouted through the rocks, and uncounted weeds and wild berry bushes bordered them. What was three years ago a hillside of fern was now little more than a wooded jungle.

      “Mike built this,” she began slowly. “The house we designed together, but this bench he built himself. Wouldn’t let anyone help him.” She gave a short laugh. “I thought he’d get a hernia lifting this thing,” she added, patting the marble slab under her.

      “You must miss him.”

      She gave him a quizzical look. “Miss him? No. Not at all.”

      C.W. didn’t know what answer he expected, but certainly not that one. It left him nonplussed, and that was unusual for him. He kicked his toe in the dirt.

      “Must have been something to build that,” he said, gesturing toward the big house. “Quite a place.”

      “Yes. The main beam is forty-five feet of solid redwood. Half the county came to watch it go up. Mike climbed this mountain, decided this was where he wanted his house site, and bulldozed it into reality.”

      C.W. could envision Mike MacKenzie bulldozing any vision—though he had to admit the result of this one was spectacular. Yet, as he looked at the small frame of Nora sitting prim on the bench, still rubbing her ring finger, he wondered what else the Big Mac had bulldozed. Seeing her empty ring finger focused his attention.

      “Oh, I found this on the road,” he said, digging into his pocket. “Could it be yours.”

      He handed her the small gold ring he had found glistening in the afternoon sun atop a quartz rock.

      Nora stared at the gold band lying in her open palm. Her lips worked but no