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Lieutenant Probst held the phone to his shoulder. "Hey, Cowboy," he said. "It’s for you. Some girl."
The man the announcement was directed to looked up from his computer screen. It had to be business; there were a lot of women in the Air Force, but there weren’t any who would be calling for a personal call. For perhaps the ten millionth time, he wished that he had been able to wrangle some sort of outside job, something besides being the Public Information Office Sergeant at Dover Air Force Base. He picked up the phone and in a slow and unenthusiastic voice said, "Sergeant Hoffman."
"Will!" He heard a voice he hadn’t heard for much too long say, "How have you been?"
"Gettin’ along, Miz Swift," he smiled. "I don’t think I’ve heard from you since I got your Christmas card."
"I’m not very good at writing and you know why," she replied. "So how are you liking Delaware?"
"At least Kuwait has a halfway decent desert," he snorted. "There’s just too many people here."
"Maybe you’ll get lucky next time and get assigned to Nellis."
"It would be nice, Miz Swift," he smiled, his mind rolling back to the week he’d spent with her almost two years before. "It would surely be nice. But I suspect the Air Force wants to keep me as far from Nevada as they can."
"Sounds something like Murphy’s Law," she laughed again. "God, Will, it’s good to hear your voice. It’s been too long."
"It’s been too long for me, Miz Swift," he smiled.
"Hey, Will," he heard the smile in her voice over the phone. "How are you fixed for leave time?"
"Got quite a bit," he said. "I was fixin’ to spend some time at home next month."
"That’s what your gramma said," she replied. "You remember when we were out riding fence a couple years ago?"
"I couldn’t forget that to my dyin’ day," he said. "My last memory on earth will be of those days."
"Me, too," she said, her voice bright with memory. "You remember you saying that about the only thing you’d enjoy more than riding on the range at the ranch was maybe to go down the Grand Canyon some time?"
"Yeah, I remember," he smiled. "We were talking about places we’d like to go, and that was about the only thing that I could come up with that wasn’t rodeos or stock shows. I’d still like to do it some time."
"Will, the time has come," she laughed. "Would you like to run the Canyon with me next month?"
"I’d dearly love to," he told her. "But Miz Swift, I can’t afford it, and I told you I don’t want to depend on your charity."
"This is the exception," she smiled. "One of the guys who works here has kids in a Catholic school. They’re always doing fundraisers. A couple months ago he came around hawking raffle tickets for a trip down the Canyon for two, and I figured, twenty bucks, what the hell. I won the trip. Will, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather go with than you, and I can’t think of anyone who would enjoy it more. And this time we’d both be going courtesy of St. Dismas School. If you want to get picky about paying your share, you can give me ten bucks to cover your half of the raffle ticket."
By the end of Jennlynn’s statement, Sergeant Hoffman’s eyes were wide and his mouth was hanging open. "Miz Swift," he said. "That makes things a mite different. When would we have to go?"
"The best time for me is about the middle of April," she replied. "I just got off the phone with the raft company, and they’ve got dates open on the sixth and thirteenth. I really need to be back before the summer interns come in since they’ve given me a piece of that project, so that means the sixth, second choice the next weekend. The trip is two weeks, but I could fudge it around, or go in the fall if you can’t get free. I don’t want to go in high summer, it’s too hot and I’ll have interns."
"Just a second." He put the phone against his shoulder. "Lieutenant Probst, is there any chance I could change the dates on my leave? Don’t know the exact date, but starting early April sometime for a couple weeks to a month."
"Yeah, no reason why not from my viewpoint," Probst said, just a little bit curious about the conversation he was overhearing. He’d only been there since the first of the year and didn’t know Cowboy well, but he suspected that no one did. He was always steady at his job and didn’t say much. He’d learned that he’d picked up the nickname from wearing cowboy boots and a Stetson when off duty, and at first he figured that he was some kind of a drugstore cowboy who liked country music and like that. He was supposed to be from some ranch in Nevada; at first Probst thought it was so much bullshit. But then, Colonel Loudermilk had mentioned that Cowboy spent many of his off hours helping out at a riding stable where his daughter was taking lessons, and the guy had forgotten more about horses than the stable owner knew. "A real horse whisperer," Loudermilk said. He was a steady guy, quiet, more mature than his age, more mature than you expected someone on the start of their second enlistment would be.
"Good enough," Cowboy said and turned back to the phone. "Miz Swift, let’s do the one on the sixth. I’ll leave out of here in time enough to see Momma and Dad for a few days, and maybe you can pick me up at the ranch."
"Can’t now, Will," she said. "The plane I have now lands too fast to take it into the ranch; you know that. But we could meet in Ely."
"Suspect I can get someone to haul me into town, so long’s you’re the one that’s gonna meet me there," he laughed.
"Fine, Will. I’ll get back with the guy at the rafting company. They’ve got a list of stuff to bring and I’ll send a copy to you. You’ve probably got most of it but if there’s anything you need, let me know and I can run it down if you need me to."
"That’ll be fine, Miz Swift," he said. "You still seein’ Gramma regular, I presume?"
"Oh, yeah, she’s just about as spunky as ever," Jennlynn beamed. "You make darn sure you see her because she wants to see you."
"You know I’ll do that," he told her. "Miz Swift, I dearly thank you for askin’ me. Just the thought of spendin’ time with you is like a drink of cool water in the middle of hell."
"That’s how I feel about you, Will," she laughed. "Give me a call when you get your travel arrangements worked out, and we can work out how to meet up, and like that."
"Lookin’ forward to it, Miz Swift," he smiled. "And again, I thank you for askin’."
"Like I said, Will, who else would I ask? Take care, and I’ll talk to you in a few days."
Cowboy hung the phone up and stared at it, just shaking his head. "Well, don’t that beat all," he finally mumbled.
"What happened?" Probst asked, more than a little curious. He’d just heard Cowboy pack about six times as many words into a short conversation as he’d ever heard out of him before.
"Miz Swift and I are gonna take a trip down the Grand Canyon," he replied, shaking his head. "Damn, I never expected that."
"Sounds like a girlfriend to me," Probst half-snickered. He’d never heard of Cowboy dating or messing around with women, or even drinking more than about one beer a month.
"T’aint," he replied. "Just a friend. She saved my life, back when I was in high school, and we see each other every now and then."
"Saved your life? How?"
"I was chasin’ strays on the dry lake out beyond the ridge," Cowboy said. "I had to take a leak so I got off the horse; never saw this damn rattler. Pissin’ on him kind of pissed him off, and he bit me on the leg. You don’t grow up in the desert without knowin’ how to deal with a snake bite, but I passed out before I could get to the snake bite kit. Gramma and Miz Swift come looking for me the next day in her little Cessna, found me about ready to die from the cold. They put me in the plane and Miz Swift flew me into the hospital in Ely, while Gramma rode the horse back to the house."
"This girl had her own plane?"
"Little Cessna 150," Cowboy confirmed. "She’s traded up a couple times since then, now has a Cessna 310. Runs a little charter service on the side with it, has a retired general flyin’ for her. She has a Ph.D. in electrical engineerin’ and works for some outfit in Phoenix as her main job." He shook his head. "She makes more money in a month than you or I make all year."
"Sounds like some woman," Probst said, wondering what the bullshit quotient of the statement was. He knew cowboys in general rated pretty high on the BS meter, but Cowboy had never come across like a bullshitter, himself. It was hard to tell with him, though.
"You leave Momma and Gramma out of it, and she’s about the finest woman that walks the face of the earth," Cowboy said slowly, almost agonizingly. "Couple years ago, we spent a week ridin’ fence out on the ranch. Just bein’ with her made it about the finest week of my life."
Probst shook his head. "Sounds like you’re in love with her."
"No," Cowboy shook his head. "I’m not. I wish I could be, but we’re just too damn different. She’s older than I am, real smart, real high-strung, and she’s goin’ different places than I could ever think of goin’. There’s not much we share, but a couple times we’ve gotten together for a while and shared each other. Those times make the times in between worth the wait."