Talking took a little more time, but a few minutes later Danny was back out in the Lumina, heading around the block onto Second, crossing Central, and going a block past the intersection. There was plenty of parking out in front of Spearfish Lake Appliance, so he got a space right in front of the store. Again, it was pretty familiar; it really hadn’t changed much in the time he’d been gone, but it seemed likely that there was more change than he’d seen.

As usual, his father was alone in the store, which was packed with large household appliances, washers, dryers, stoves, freezers, refrigerators, microwaves, and the like. There was a display of hot tubs in the back, and several other things. A few new lines had been added, from what Danny could see at first glance, and some were gone, but really it was pretty much the way it had been. Thank goodness. His father looked up at the sound of the bell at the door, and smiled. "I was wondering if you were going to roll in this afternoon, or what," he said, getting up.

"No reason to drag the agony out any more than necessary," Danny grinned as he walked back to the office area at the back of the store. "You get into get-it-over-with mode. If it hadn’t been for getting a late start out of Nevada, and then running into the tail end of a snowstorm, I’d have been tempted to try it on one night stop."

"Been there and done that," his father smiled. "Good to see you again, Danny."

"I’ll tell you what, it’s good to see you, and good to be back home," Danny told him, as there was another hug. Once again, Danny was surprised to see that he was in fact a couple inches taller than his father – he had been for many years, but in his mind, his father still towered over him. His father was solidly built, all muscle as he’d always been – and considering what he did to stay that way, it wasn’t surprising. "Mom said to tell you that she’s going to wrap it up early at the Herald and head home."

"Gonna have to stick around," his father said, breaking the hug. "Got a woman coming in whose washer crapped out on her for about the fourteenth time. She’s sick of it and wants a new one."

"No problem," Danny told him. "I can hang around, or whatever. So, what’s happening around here?"

"Not a whole heck of a lot," his father told him. "Always seem to have a few installations right after the holidays, but that’s pretty well done with, now, so it’ll be slow here for a bit. So, how’s snow looking to you?"

"Looks good, after not having seen it much," Danny said. "Didn’t have any in Nevada, but there was a pot load of it coming over the Rockies. Going to have to get some serious winter clothes, this is the heaviest jacket I’ve got and it’s nothing much."

"Should be able to find something," his father nodded. "Your mom gave me a parky year before last Christmas, it was just a little big, might fit you pretty well."

"Well, if not, I can buy something," Danny told him.

"How you fixed for cash, anyway?"

"Better than I expected," he shrugged. "I figured on being several thousand in the hole by now, but it worked out. The job I had out in Nevada only paid minimum, but I worked a lot of hours and got good tips, so I didn’t have to live off the credit card. I’ve still got a couple credit cards out. I can pay everything off, but it would zero me out, so maybe I’ll just make minimum payments for a while until I can get to work at something."

"If you got to start over," his father smiled, breaking the hug, "it’s better to start over at zero than it is in the hole. So, are you still pretty well fixed on staying here?"

"More or less," Danny said. "Like I said, I want to try to repair some of the damage that Marsha did over the last few years."

"I can appreciate that," his father said, heading back over to the desk chair he’d been sitting in. "Just a word of advice, though. Don’t expect things to be the way they used to be, because they ain’t. I learned that thirty years ago. Remember, I left to go to the Army, and didn’t come back for twenty years. Well, I was home, oh hell, maybe six or seven times, but never really got into living here until your mother and I decided to come back after I did my twenty. I’ll tell you, twenty years had passed and things were a damn sight different. I had to work pretty hard at becoming a local again there for a while, and it wasn’t an overnight process. There was things happened here while I was gone that I still don’t quite follow." He leaned back, stretched his arms and yawned. "You know I’ve been good friends with Harold Hekkinan and Bud Ellsberg for a lot of years. Well, them and Harry Masterfield, before he died. They all played football together in high school, must have been six or seven years after I left. We’d sit out in the café and they’d replay those games, and I never did figure out what the hell went on. There was some referee that stole a big game out from under them, must have been about ’56. I’ve heard about that for thirty years and I still haven’t figured out what happened."

"Yeah," Danny nodded, leaning against the counter. "I just had a dose of that myself. I never knew the Record-Herald had moved until I drove into town, and I never heard a peep about that deal with Carole Carter all that time. Absolutely news to me."

"That was a little weird, all right," his father nodded. "Me and the boys upstairs, we taught her some self-defense moves, had to get on handcuffs ourselves to work them out. I can’t believe you never heard about it."

"Never did," Danny shook his head. "I knew about your martial arts, though, but that’s all." Although most of it had taken place after he’d pretty much left, he did know a bit about what went on upstairs. Blake, Jennifer’s husband, had been an accomplished martial artist when he’d moved to Spearfish Lake with her. There hadn’t been much he could do to keep his skills sharp, until his dad had offered to work out with him. His dad didn’t know much about formal martial arts, but he did know plenty about unarmed combat – a decade of teaching those skills to Green Berets, along with other things, had made him pretty sharp. It turned out there were some others with interesting unarmed combat skills, if not formal martial arts. Over a period of several years a small, close-knit group formed. They’d turned the upstairs floor into an informal gymnasium, and usually met a couple times a week to work out, teach each other, and just hang out. It was hard to believe that his dad was still doing it at his age, pushing seventy, but then, he didn’t exactly look like he was nearly seventy, either.

"I am slowing down a little," his father shrugged. "Reflexes ain’t what they used to be, can’t always outmuscle the kids like Randy anymore, but I can still pull out a move or two on experience. You ever see any of those bad kung fu movies that have the little old guy with the wispy beard, who looks like he’s about ready to dry up and blow away, that has to show the smartass young shit that it’s a matter of skill and experience over youth and enthusiasm? That’s what I’m getting to be, that little old fart."

"Randy?" Danny frowned. "That’s like Randy Clark?"

"Yeah, he’s one of the regulars up there anymore. He’s been with us, oh hell, six years now, I guess. Some of that was only when he was home from college. He was a state-level wrestler when he was in high school. Got two black belts now, working on a third, supposed to go for it in a month or so. Blake can still slip a few by him, Rod can if they’re boxing, but he’s getting to be the master up there, anymore."

"There you go again," Danny shrugged. "You say Randy Clark to me and I think of that pesky little kid who used to hang around the neighborhood, and hell, that had to be close to fifteen years ago."

"He still ain’t the biggest guy in town," his father smiled. "But there ain’t anyone on a construction site that will tangle with him, except maybe Rod."

"I heard he got married and was some sort of a cheese at Clark Construction," Danny commented.

"For practical purposes, he’s the manager out there," his father told him. "He still ain’t real thrilled about it. The deal was that he was supposed to have a few years to learn how to take over from his grandfather, but his grandfather came down with heart trouble and really can’t do a whole hell of a lot anymore, so Randy’s got his hands full. Doing a hell of a job though, his dad says."

"Time does pass, I guess," Danny nodded, thinking about all the time he’d wasted in the last few years with Marsha.

"Yeah, it does," his father nodded. "Hey, I don’t really want to get to talking serious stuff right now, but you done any thinking about working with me in here?"

"Thought about it a little," Danny admitted. "Short term, I’ll be glad to do what you need done. Long term, I don’t even want to think about committing to something this afternoon."

"Figured that," his father said. "You need some time to catch your breath, get your head back straight, and like that. I’ll admit, I haven’t thought it all the way through myself. I do know that doing something with this place is gonna have to happen in the next few years. You’re one of several possible options. We don’t have to reach a decision on that right now, anyway. The big problem is that there really ain’t two incomes here. I’ve gotten along for years on part timers helping out when I need it. And, I’ve probably passed up some opportunities to build the business up because it seemed like too damn much work at my age, so maybe there’s an angle or two there."

"Could be, I suppose," Danny shrugged. "I’ve been away from it too long to know."

"Yeah, but the question I want to throw at you right off can’t wait for long," his father said. "You heard about Bud Ellsberg and Jane Masterfield, right?"

"Josh told me when I called him a few weeks back," Danny admitted. "Darn shame about the both of them. Harry was one of the good guys. I never got to know Kate well."

"Kate was one of the good ones, too," his father nodded. "She could be a little off-putting, but once you got through that she was solid gold. Anyway, the middle of next month, Phil and Josh have to head for Alaska, so Bud’s gotta be home, and it looks like he’s gonna have to stay home at least till Josh gets back from that Grand Canyon trip he’s going on. Your mother and I have often thought we could like motor-home living, so Jane offered to loan us hers for a couple weeks or a month to try it out. I never thought it would fly until I heard about you coming home, since there really wasn’t anyone to cover the place. I’d like to tell them yes so we can get started making plans. That means we have to get hopping on getting you up to speed around here to be able to watch the place for a month or so."

"Fine with me, you deserve a real vacation," Danny said. "Not just going out to the Club and sitting on your butt, either. The only thing is that Josh is planning on having me braking when the rock trains get running, so I’d say keep it to the early part of the window. Any idea where you want to go?"

"Don’t know," his father admitted. "Thought about Florida, thought about the southwest, New Mexico, Arizona, like that."

"I’d tell you to stay the hell out of Florida this time of the year," Danny told him. "Not because of Marsha, either. All the RV parks are pretty full, prices are higher than hell in them, and you get the roads crowded with people who really shouldn’t even have driver’s licenses. It gets damn scary sometimes. If you don’t want to go that far, there’s some interesting places around Louisiana, south Texas, and like that. But, as far as that goes, I’d like to get back out west and poke around sometime, at least when it’s a little warmer. There’s some neat country there, but I just blew through it, then hunkered down in Nevada since I didn’t have the money to do anything else."

"You ain’t the first person to tell me that," his father said. "Guess I’ll have to kick it around with your mother. Are you planning on living at home, or what?"

"For a while, anyway, so long as you’ll have me," Danny told him. "I don’t want to put you out, but I don’t really have many other options right now, either."

"Suppose it’ll be OK for a while," his father nodded. "We’ve long been used to having all you kids gone, so it’ll take some getting used to. And you’ve been used to being on your own, so it’ll be hard on you, too. So, it’s probably not going to want to be a permanent thing, we’ll just have to see."

*   *   *

The woman who needed the washer showed up early, and it proved to be a quick sale, with delivery scheduled for the next morning. She was hardly out the door before Danny was following his father across town to the house on Pine Street that he still thought of as home, although it had been many years since he had lived there.

It was the only home that Danny remembered. He actually had been born in Germany, while his father was still in the service, but had no memory of it. Refreshingly, the house hadn’t changed much – there’d been a new coat of paint in recent years, and the color was a little different than it had been when he was a kid. It was an older home, in an older neighborhood, two stories and fairly large, considering that there had been five kids in the household when the Evachevskis had first moved there in 1970.

Danny’s mother was already home and busy in the kitchen when he and his father walked in the back door, each carrying an armload of bags from the Lumina. A little to his surprise, the house was still decorated for Christmas, even though it was now well into January. There were still presents under the Christmas tree – dummies for the sake of decoration, he figured, being no other reason for them he could think of.

It didn’t take long for Danny and his father to empty the Lumina of the few things that Danny had salvaged from his house in Florida almost two months before. They just dumped the bags in the living room, ready to go upstairs later.

"Danny," his mother said as they were finishing up emptying the Lumina, "would you mind if we ate quickly, and then went to the basketball game? It’s a home game tonight, and we’ve been trying to show Brandy our support."

"No, fine with me," he said. "I’d love to go. Consider it the first step in becoming a local again."

"Good," she replied. "We’ll make it up to you tomorrow night. Your brother and sisters are planning on being here for a sort of welcome-home party. I’ve already called Garth and Tara to let them know you’re home."

"Well, jeez," Danny said, shaking his head. "Mom, you didn’t have to go to that much trouble."

"It’s not trouble," she said. "This has been the first chance to have all five of you kids together at the same time in years. We’ve managed four several times, but either you or Brandy or Garth couldn’t make it. Brandy and Jennifer and I were talking it over one day not long ago, and it’s been since Christmas in 1988. When we found out you were going to be here not long after Christmas, we decided to hold off on having at least part of Christmas for you."

"Oh, Mom," Danny said, shaking his head but touched at the thought, "you didn’t have to do that, but I appreciate it. I didn’t get anybody anything, I wasn’t expecting it."

"Don’t worry about it," she smiled. She let out a sigh and continued. "Danny, I couldn’t say anything about it at the office, but we’ve all known for years that you’ve been in a very bad situation with Marsha, and I know that everybody thinks that you stuck it out longer than you should have. I’m sorry it had to end the way it did – we all are – but I believe we all think it’s for the best. Having that settled in your life and having you back with us is the best Christmas present you can give us."

"Thanks, Mom," he said, feeling warmed by the special welcome. "It’s not all the way settled in my head, but being back among friends and family will go a long way toward getting there."

"We’re just going to have to find you a girlfriend," his mother teased. "That’ll straighten your head out."

"Hey, Mom," he laughed, shaking his head, "don’t go marrying me off right away, now. I want to be a bachelor for a while, see what I missed."

"You’ve had a couple months of it," she smiled. "I can’t believe you didn’t bring a girlfriend home with you, a big handsome guy like you are."

Danny held his mouth. Mom, you wouldn’t want to meet any of the girls I’ve known in the last couple months, he carefully did not say. That was something that had to be said soon, but right now was not the time. "That would have just complicated things," he shook his head. "Besides, I was pretty disgusted with women in general when I left Florida."

His mother smiled at him, knowing that her teasing was hitting home. "Well, you know what they say about falling off a horse," she laughed.

"Yeah, I know," he shook his head, thinking that Frenchy had already covered that ground with him. What could she be doing right now, he wondered idly. Baking cookies for the PTA bake sale? It seemed hard to believe. And, then, Shirley had driven home Frenchy’s point, pretty seriously, too. "No point in getting into a huge yank over it," he continued, trying to deflect his mother’s teasing. "It’ll come in time. What’s for dinner, anyway?"

"Just meat loaf," she replied, seeing that he wasn’t going to be pushed much farther – right now, anyway. It was by no means a dead issue, and he knew it. "We are going to have turkey and the whole nine yards tomorrow, so that’ll make up for it. Blake is doing some of the side dishes, so that’ll make it a little different from what we used to do years ago."

"Sounds wonderful," he told her. "Hey, look, maybe I’d better go haul some of that stuff upstairs to get it out of the living room. You want me in my old room, right?"

"Might as well," she said. "I’ve kept it set up as the guest bedroom for a while. I’ll have to set up Tara’s old room for Garth and Michelle tomorrow, and I guess Brandy’s old room for their kids. Tara is going to stay with Brandy and Phil, so that’ll help a little."

"Just as well," his father nodded. "Maybe that’ll keep hostilities down to a minimum."

"Hostilities?" Danny frowned.

"Tara and Michelle don’t get along very well," his mother explained.

"I can understand that," Danny snorted. "I never got along particularly well with Michelle myself. She got along just fine with Marsha, which explains a lot to me."

"Michelle does have her own ideas," his father admitted, sounding a little grumpy. "But she and Garth get along a lot better than you did with Marsha, so I guess there is that."

Sensing that he was getting into touchy country, Danny wisely changed course. "Boy, it was sure strange to drive into town and see the old Record-Herald building gone," he said. "How long has that been?"

"We moved right after the first of the year last year," his mother told him, obviously glad that Danny had changed the subject on her. "I’ll admit, I still find myself driving to the old place every now and then if I’m not thinking about it. I’m surprised you didn’t notice last summer."

"I only got into town a couple times," Danny shrugged. "Marsha didn’t want me wandering around town by myself. She wanted me out at the Club so I wouldn’t get the idea of looking up some of my old friends and possibly enjoying myself."

"Well, that explains it," his mother said, not missing the sarcasm but not wanting to open the wound any further. "They didn’t get around to tearing the old building down till last fall, so you might not have noticed. Everybody figured moving was the right thing to do, since we were using less than a quarter of the old building, even with the junior reporter’s apartment, despite having to heat the whole thing. It never came together until United of Camden came along. Even George went along with the idea, but he couldn’t stand the thought of having to make the move, so he retired the week before."

"So, who’s the publisher?" he asked.

"Kirsten," she smiled. "Mike wanted to stay editor; he never had that much to do with the business side, anyway. Besides, Kirsten had been more or less filling George’s shoes for years. He was on unpaid leave for quite a while, taking care of his mother down in Crestone. That was pretty sad, she died last fall and we were looking forward to having George back, but he said he felt kind of like a fifth wheel after being gone so long, so I suppose it’s just as well. He drops in every now and then, anyway."

"That makes you the senior employee, doesn’t it?" Danny asked.

"Yes, I’m Chairman of the Board, for what it’s worth," she said. "We decided it goes with being the senior employee." Danny didn’t get into the details, since he knew that the Record-Herald had been employee owned for about twenty years. Stock accrued with seniority, but was frozen and turned into retirement benefits on retirement. He didn’t understand exactly how it worked, but he did understand that it meant that his mother was now the largest shareholder at the paper. Mike and Kirsten almost certainly owned more stock between them, but individually they were a few years behind her mother, who had gone to work at the weekly newspaper not long after she and his father returned to Spearfish Lake.

Back then, she had been running a typesetting machine, but with computerization and the retirement of the old social editor fifteen years before, his mother had moved into the position. She still did some typesetting, he knew, but between the computers, scanners, and e-mail, it was a fraction of what she’d once done. And, the social news wasn’t what it had once been, either. These days, it was rare to have every detail of a wedding reported, down to the brand of the bride’s underwear. Long, boring reports of dinner guests and minor club meetings were also pretty much a thing of the past, too.

"Well, congratulations, I guess," Danny told her. "I take it you’ll be getting a fairly decent retirement."

"Shouldn’t be too bad," she smiled. "I’m still probably six years or so from retiring, maybe more, but I’m going to start taking more time off. You wouldn’t believe how much I have built up on the books."

"Probably quite a bit," he said. His mother and father spent their summers out at the Club, he knew, but drove into town to work most days. There was no such thing as vacation time for his father; someone had to fill in while he was gone, even when he’d spent weeks in Vietnam ten years before, looking for the body of a missing soldier from Spearfish Lake. Danny had covered much of that for him, while he was on Christmas break. For all he knew, that may have been the last time Gil had been gone from the store for any length of time.

"More than I can believe," she shook her head. "Somehow, years ago, we forgot to put a maximum on how much you can accrue. Now, I’ve got to start taking some so I can spread it out."

"Dad was saying something about you taking off in a motor home for a while," he smiled.

"It seems a little strange," she sighed. "Both to be thinking about taking off for a while and to think about retiring not too far off. I don’t like to think that I’m getting that old, but I guess I am. The years slip by. I was thinking about it after you left today. I was thinking that Debbie is about the newest person in the office except for the junior reporter, and she’s been a shareholder for a couple years now. It doesn’t seem like that long."

That meant Debbie had been there at least seven years; he knew that it took five years to qualify to become one of the Record-Herald employee shareholders. "Could have been just last week, for all I know," he said. "I’ve never seen her before."

"She’s pretty interesting," his mother smiled. "A little weird. Three Pines band, of course, and she takes her heritage seriously. She’s some sort of shaman. Good at ad sales, though, and quite a talker."

"Shaman?" Danny frowned. "That is a little different. Takes all kinds, doesn’t it?"

"Sure does," his mother said. "Why don’t you two get hauling your stuff upstairs? If we’re going to get good seats and catch the JV game, we’ll have to get moving."

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