I immediately take out my money, and the man, Spencer, seems to understand, because he rings me up with no more than a moment’s hesitation.
I pay and back away, making room for Jake.
He rings Jake up but looks at me. “Staying up… on the peak long?” he asks, sounding hesitant all of a sudden.
The peak?
But Jake answers for me. “Yeah, possibly until next summer.”
The man’s eyes instantly flash to Jake, a look of apprehension crossing his face.
“Don’t worry.” Jake laughs, handing the guy cash. “We’ll protect her from the big, bad elements.”
“When have you ever been able to control Kaleb?” Spence shoots back, snatching the money from Jake.
Kaleb. One of his sons. I look at Jake, but he just meets my eyes and shakes his head, brushing it off.
Jake takes his change and his candy, and we start to leave.
“Thank you,” I tell Spencer.
He just nods and watches us as we leave, making me feel more unnerved than when I came in.
We climb back into the truck, and my uncle pulls out, heading back in the direction we were originally going.
The petals of the pink petunias flutter in the wind against the blue sky as they hang in their pots, and young men in sleeveless tees haul sacks of something off the loading dock of the feed store and into their pickup. I’ll bet everyone knows each other’s names here.
“It’s not Telluride,” Jake offers, “but it’s as big of a town as I ever want to see again.”
I agree. At least for a while.
We head past the last of the businesses, over some tracks, and start to wind up a paved road dense with evergreen trees, slowly climbing in elevation.
The highway narrows, and I look through the windshield, seeing the trees getting taller and cutting off more and more of the late afternoon light as we travel deeper, leaving the town behind. A few gravel and dirt roads sprout off the main lane, and I try to peer down the dark paths, but I can’t see anything. Do they lead to other properties? Homes?
We climb for a while, the engine whirring as Jake weaves and curves around every bend and I can no longer see anything of the town below. Rays of sun glimmer through the branches, and I blink my eyes against it, feeling the truck pull off the paved highway and onto a dirt road as I sway in my seat with the bumps.
I hold the dash with one hand, watching the lane ahead lined with firs. We climb for another twenty minutes.
“It’s quite a drive,” he tells me as the sky grows more dim, “so if you want to go to town, make sure me or one of my sons are with you, okay?”
I nod.
“I don’t want you to get caught on this road after dark by yourself,” he adds.
Yeah, me neither. He wasn’t kidding when he said ‘secluded’. You better have what you need, because it’s not a quick trip to the store if you need milk, sugar, or cough syrup.
He turns right and pulls up a steep gravel driveway, the rocks crunching under the tires as I start to see structures coming into view again. Lights shine through the trees, easy to see, since it’s just about dark.
“All of that road we just traveled gets buried in winter,” he informs me, and I see him looking over at me, “and with some terrain steep and icy, it makes it impossible to make it to town for months with the roads closed. We’ll take you to the candy store to load up before the snow starts.”
I ignore the joke and peer out the window, trying to see the buildings we’re approaching through the last remnants of sunlight, but with the trees everywhere, I can’t see much. Something that looks like a stable, a couple of sheds, a few other smaller structures buried in the thick, and then…
He pulls the truck up onto even land finally and parks right in front of a house with massive windows and a few lights on inside. I shoot my eyes left, right, up, and down, taking in the huge place, and even though I can’t make out any details in the dark, it’s big, and there’s three floors, as well as upper and lower sprawling decks.
A twinge of relief hits me. When he said cabin, I immediately registered “doomsday prepper with the barest essentials to survive,” thinking more of the solitude and space away from L.A., than the potential hovel I might’ve just agreed to live in. It wasn’t until I got here that I started worrying about my rash decision and what I had actually signed up for. I didn’t need the Internet, but I was hoping for at minimum, indoor plumbing.
And—I gaze at the house, still sitting as he climbs out of the truck—I think we’re in luck.
I only hesitate another moment before I open my door and slide out of the truck, taking my backpack with me. Maybe I overreacted. Maybe there wasn’t much to be nervous about. It’s quiet like I hoped, and I inhale the air, the fresh scent of water and rock sending chills down my arms. I love that smell. It reminds me of hiking Vernal Fall at Yosemite with my summer camp years ago.
He carries my two suitcases, and even though it’s a little chilly, I keep my pullover tied around my waist and follow him up the wooden steps. The front of the house is almost all windows on the bottom floor, so I can kind of see inside. The downstairs looks like one large great room with high ceilings, and even though there’s a lot of one color—brown wood, brown leather, brown antlers, and brown rugs—I make out some stone features, as well.
“Hello!” Jake calls out, entering the house and setting my suitcases down. “Noah!”
I follow him, gently shutting the door behind me.
Two dogs rush up, a brown lab and another one, scrawny with gray and black hair and glassy black eyes. Jake leans over, giving them both a good petting as he looks around the house.
“Anyone here?” he yells again.
I immediately look up, seeing a couple levels of rafters, although the ceiling drops to the left and also where the kitchen is to the right. There’s not a lot of walls down here as the living room, dining room, sitting room, and kitchen just all melt together, not leaving much privacy.
It’s spacious, though.
“Yeah, I’m here!” a man’s voice calls out.
A young guy walks out of the kitchen fisting two beer bottles and shakes his head at Jake. “Jesus Christ. Fuckin’ Shawnee got out again,” he says.
He strolls up to us, looking like he’s about to hand Jake one of the beers, but then he looks at me and stops.
His dark blond hair is slicked back under a backward baseball cap, and he doesn’t look much older than me, maybe twenty or twenty-one. His body, though… His strong arms are tanned dark under his green T-shirt, and he’s broad. His crystal clear blue eyes widen, and his mouth hooks in a half-smile.
“This is Noah,” Jake introduces us. “My youngest.”
It takes me a moment, but I raise my hand to shake his. Instead of taking it, though, he just puts one of the bottles in it and says, “Learn to like it. We drink a lot here.”
The sweat from the bottle coats my palm, and I shoot Jake a look. He takes it from me and looks to his son. “Your brother?”
“Still in,” Noah replies, but he doesn’t take his eyes off me.
“Right.”
In? I start to wonder what that means but shake it off, wiping my wet hand on my jeans, still feeling his eyes on me. Why is he staring?
I meet his eyes again, and he quirks a real smile. Should I say something? Or should he say something? I guess this is weird. We’re essentially cousins. Am I supposed to hug him or something? Is it rude not to?