To no one’s surprise, the new work schedule on the railroad got off to a shaky start. It was enough of a change from past practice that everyone was sure there were going to be some rough edges to be filed down, but it offered advantages enough to want to try. Danny was scheduled days on Peddler that week, the first time in a while, and he’d been looking forward to days for some time. That would mean his schedule would be lighter, and he’d be home in the evenings for once. With Debbie increasingly a part of his life, that was much more important than it had been even a week before.

One of the kinks in the schedule that week was that Stormy had a family party to go to Wednesday evening. He was scheduled on the afternoon trick that week, the first time it had been done that way. Back on Friday he’d worked out a deal to swap the first part of the trick, the north half of Beepit, with Danny for the north half of Peddler Monday afternoon. That meant that Danny was off Monday morning without being scheduled in the store, and a morning with time to kill hadn’t happened for a while.

He and Debbie got up Monday morning, and he pulled on dirty clothes from the day before while she got dressed in work clothes. They went out to the café for breakfast, like they had the previous Monday. Then, while she headed for the Record-Herald, he headed home to throw his dirty laundry in the washing machine and get into clean clothes, all the while reflecting that if he thought the weekend before had been something else, the one just past had been even wilder. He and Debbie had slept late on Sunday morning well, at least stayed in bed late – and then around noon got up and headed back over to Three Pines for another long discussion with Ellen and Ruth, which included another lesson from the masters of the Shakahatche language, and lots of talk about the culture and beliefs of The People.

One of the things that had a lot of the underbrush cleared away from it over the weekend was that the future came a little more sharply into focus. Both he and Debbie were a little tentative about using the word "love," since they realized they’d each used it a little casually in their previous relationships. It was still pretty early in this one to be throwing it around that much – but it was where they were heading and both of them admitted that.

That put a very different spin on the question of what would happen after the rock season in the fall. Back last winter, the plan had been to get through until the railroad work slowed down, and then sort of reassess where things seemed to be going. As he got a load cycling in the washing machine the thought struck him that he had been thinking about the issue of a possible move of the store during the slow days last week, which seemed like half a century ago after the weekend he’d just had. He’d been meaning to raise the issue with his father without actually making it a proposal just to get his reaction, but they hadn’t seen much of each other last week for one reason and another and what they had seen had been hurried. This might be a good morning to head over and float the idea past him without it being a proposal. He glanced at his watch; plenty of time, so long as he got back in an hour or so to change washer loads, but no time to waste, either.

He did go far enough to swing by Rick’s to grab a cup of take-out coffee, and it wasn’t much after nine when he was walking into the store. "Well, good morning," Gil said when he saw him. "Didn’t expect to see you down here today."

"Some schedule switching around," Danny said. "It won’t affect what we worked out for your schedule this week. Hope you won’t mind sitting around here this week."

"Actually, I’ve been looking forward to it a little," his father smiled. "I don’t want to say it’s dull hanging around out there, because there are things to do. But it’s nice to be back in the real world once in a while. I take it you had a fairly decent weekend yourself?"

"One of the more interesting ones I’ve had in a while," Danny grinned. "Debbie and I headed over to Three Pines."

"So how much did you win or lose?" Gil replied with a smile on his face.

It took Danny a second to figure him out. "We didn’t go to the casino," he said. "Well, we did for breakfast Saturday, but mostly we spent time with her friends, a couple of old women who are for practical purposes about the only family she has."

"Danny," his father shook his head, "that’s not exactly what I expected to hear when I discovered you’d been out of town all weekend."

"I wasn’t out of town all weekend," he protested. "We came back Saturday night."

"Oh," Gil got a broad grin on his face. "That must have something to do with why you didn’t hear the message I left on the answering machine." He enjoyed Danny getting flustered for a moment, then let him off the hook. "Relax, Danny," he laughed. "I do remember what it was like to be young and full of shit. I really was once, you know. I don’t know Debbie real well but what I do know of her I like. Is this getting serious?"

"Showing signs," Danny admitted nonchalantly.

"Good," Gil laughed. "I know you’ve been having some troubles putting Marsha behind you. The best way is to quit moping over it and do the next thing."

"I’m discovering that, along with a lot else," Danny admitted, and seized at the straw his father had just left him to change the subject. "So, have things cooled down with Bob and Linda? Are they accepting what happened?"

"A little," Gil grunted. "Bearing in mind that in their eyes you can’t do much right and Marsha can’t do much wrong, they’re at least glad that much is over with. I don’t hear much about Marsha from them, in case you’re wondering."

"Mildly curious, not to the point of wondering," Danny smirked. "That part of my life is behind me, and has gotten further behind this weekend. I’d just as soon keep it there. I’m just sorry I put you guys in the middle with Bob and Linda like that."

"Doesn’t matter much," Gil shrugged, "at least most of the time. We just realize that there’s a couple of subjects we have to stay away from. But anyway, what brings you down here?"

"I’ve been thinking about something I want to run past you, just to get your reaction," Danny said. "About where we’re going with this place."

"Good that you’re thinking about it," his father nodded. "What do you have in mind?"

Over the next few minutes, Danny went over the discussion that he’d had with Debbie a week ago, mostly leaving her out of it. It included the need to expand the variety of things the store carried, in order to make it a big enough business to generate two incomes or more, the potential shakiness of appliances in the first place and the need to be more flexible, the size limits of the store, the poor location, bad parking and unwieldy loading and unloading, all leading up to the idea of looking for a larger location if Danny was going to stay in the business for the long haul.

"I don’t disagree with any of it," his father summed up finally. "There’s not much there that I haven’t thought about at one time or another, except maybe the interior lighting fixtures, and that might even be something we could cram a bit of in here. In fact, I’ve got two or three more points that I’d add to that, the biggest one being that this building isn’t exactly in the best of shape. Back before he died, Harry Masterfield used to have a hernia at the wiring every time he came in here. Plus, the roof is getting pretty bad, and something’s going to have to be done about that sooner or later, maybe even sooner than later. That isn’t going to be cheap, and why in hell they ever thought they could get away with a flat roof with the kind of snow loads we get around here is beyond me. This wasn’t a first-class building when it was built and it was built a hell of a long time ago. About the only quibble I have with your thinking is that I’m not so sure how bad I want to move way out on Central, away from downtown. But if there’s no place to move downtown, there’s no place to move downtown, so I guess there’s little choice."

"That’s about my thinking," Danny said. "It’s not like we have to do anything on it this week, but it’s a direction to consider. I mean, I don’t have any idea of the specific things I’d want to get into to expand, or what the costs would be to do that, or to get into a new building in the first place."

"It’s definitely something to think about," Gil conceded. He let out a sigh and continued, "I figured the old place would hold together for a few years yet, and that there was no point in going to a major effort if I was just going to sell out or close up some day, maybe when your mother retired. With you potentially coming into the picture, that changes things a lot. So, my initial reaction is for you to keep looking at it, firm up your numbers, get an idea of what you want to do. The only thing I think I need to point out to you is that if we do decide to go ahead with this moving and expansion, it’s going to have to be pretty much your baby, simply because I may not be around that much anymore. That could mean motor home as much as it means anything else. What I can’t afford to have you do is to get us in the middle of this, maybe with a pretty big debt, and then say the hell with Spearfish Lake; I’d rather go do something else."

"That’s pretty obvious," Danny nodded. "That seems to be the way things are turning for me right now. It’s not all the way settled yet, and it can’t be. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t look into developing a business plan that we could drop into place at some point in the future. I won’t have a lot of spare time the rest of the summer, but I could chip away a little at it here and there. Then, maybe when I quit rolling rock, we can have something solid to talk about."

"Sounds like about all the plan we can have at this point," his father nodded. "And, I’m not opposed to the idea. So, yeah, as far as I’m concerned, go ahead and push on with it. Kinda keep me informed of your thinking on it, I may have some pearls of wisdom."

"Thanks, Dad," Danny nodded. "I’m glad you’re not seeing it as me trying to push you out, because I’m not. I’m just trying to make enough room for me so I don’t have to work every day and run Beepit every night all summer to make ends meet. I mean, I’m doing all right since I’m living with you, but that’s not going to last forever. The point where it could become an issue might be getting a little closer."

"It has been a little inconvenient," Gil conceded. "But there have been some advantages to having you keep an eye on the place. I mean, when you do. This is the second weekend in a row the Saturday mail didn’t get taken in, or the papers from Friday through Sunday. Not that it’s a big deal, but it does make it look like we’re gone."

"Sorry, Dad," Danny shook his head. "It was, uh, kind of busy this weekend."

"Oh, one of those kinds of weekends, huh?" his father grinned.

"Not to change the subject on you," Danny said, mostly to change the subject, "one point of information on the plans for moving. Are you going to want to keep this building, or maybe sell it to help finance a new one?"

"Can’t answer that, right now," Gil nodded. "Mostly because I haven’t thought about it, since there’s been no need to. Off the top of my head, it isn’t worth that much, so it might not matter. On the other hand, it needs maintenance worse and worse every year, so maybe I’d be better off out from under it than trying to rent it. And, as far as that goes, I wouldn’t necessarily want to lose the practice space upstairs. But that could be moved, too. It never was anything special, it was just there and empty, and the guys have chipped in a bit to help with the heat now and then over the years. How about you work on your plan a little, and we’ll blow the bridge about this place when we get to it?"

"Works for me," Danny nodded. "‘Don’t know’ is a legitimate answer for right now. We’re not far along enough for it to be an issue yet."

"Yeah," his father agreed. "It’s a long way between now and fall, anyway, and things could change a lot in that time. You just don’t know." He let out a sigh, thought for a second, and continued, "And on the topic of things you don’t know and things changing a lot, this is moving pretty fast between you and Debbie, isn’t it?"

"Yeah, it is," Danny conceded. "Not as fast as you and Mom, not by a long shot, but way, way ahead of me and Marsha."

"That’s a huge damn bracket," Gil snorted. "Look, this is one of those none of my damn business things, but you do know that Debbie has some things about her that are, well, a little different?"

"Not a fair statement," Danny grinned. "Try a lot different."

"Well, I was trying to be nice," his father laughed. "What I’m trying to say is to remind you that you got your ass burned pretty bad the last time, and that’s something you might want to bear in mind before things get too far away from you."

*   *   *

After the run on Peddler, Danny had a little time to head over to his parent’s house, get the clothes out of the dryer, and pack a few clean ones in his duffle bag. He remembered to take in the mail and the paper before he drove over to Debbie’s place.

Going out for a run had taken a back seat for the weekend, since both Saturday and Sunday nights they’d been over at Ellen and Ruth’s until after sunset, which came late this far north this time of year, just days past the summer solstice. Tonight, they tried to make up for it, getting a good one in, followed by a fast, running-clothed dip in the chilly waters of the backwater, just to shock the system a little. They headed inside, dried off and got into dry clothes, and Debbie offered to prove that she could actually cook something, rather than just raid vegetables and salads from the refrigerator or eat out. It wasn’t a terribly big issue with Danny – after all, he’d survived Marsha, who was only a slightly better cook than Brandy but thought that if Debbie wanted to show off her domestic side, he wasn’t about to stand in her way.

While she was getting started cooking, she headed into the spare bedroom, and came back with a black notebook, about an inch and a half thick. "Here," she smiled. "You wanted to have a look at this. This might amuse you for a few minutes."

"What is it?" he asked.

"Reverend Carter’s journal," she said.

"This is all of it?" he asked, realizing that it was a little on the thin side for the amount of information that Debbie, Ellen and Ruth had said there was in it.

"Oh, good spirits no," Debbie said. "This is just the first half of 1871. It happened to be on the top of the stack and I grabbed it. Some of the first few years are quite a bit thicker. He got arthritis as he got older, and they got pretty sparse the last ten years or so, just a record of births, marriages and deaths, along with an occasional sentence if they got a really nasty snowstorm or something. I’m told that the first ten to fifteen years have the best descriptions and discussions, but he kept getting insights all the way through to the end."

"You haven’t gotten all the way through them?" he asked.

"No, 1871 is what I’m working on right now," she said. "It’s slow going. Take a look and you’ll see what I mean."

There was a bookmark in the notebook, obviously the point that Debbie had been reading at. He opened to the bookmark, and glanced at the pages. "Beautiful handwriting, all right," he said. "Could be more legible, but I can make it out."

"Why don’t you read some of it?" Debbie smiled.

Danny took the ring binder over to the kitchen table, where the light from outside was a little better. "May 14" he began to read out loud a little on the slow side, since he had to stop and decipher some of the more illegible handwriting. "‘Little Bear came to me in the forenoon and said that his mother was ill again. The poor woman has been suffering from dropsy as long as I have known her. . .’ Debbie, do you know what dropsy is?"

"He’d referred to her before," she said. "I looked it up one time; it means ‘abnormal accumulation of fluid in the body.’"

"OK, there’s probably a modern medical term in Latin I wouldn’t know anyway," he said. "Anyway, to continue, . . . and she suffers from it greatly. She is never totally well but sick to lesser or greater degrees. Little Bear asked me to come and comfort her, and of course I could not refuse even though there would be little I could do for her. I gathered my medical apparatus . . . Debbie, was he a doctor?"

"What passed for one in those days," she said. "You’re really reading that right off, though."

"It’s better than my great-grandfather’s handwriting," Danny snorted. "There are some words that take digging out the context." He continued, " . . . while Little Bear bridled my horse. As the path to Arzant, no, Argent."

"Arzantal," Debbie told him. "It was a village about four miles from the mission. All gone, now."

"As the path to Arzantal is level, I did not bother to saddle my horse but rode in the Indian fashion as usual. When we arrived, Little Bear bade me enter the lodge, where I found his mother in great pain . . . "

The phone rang. Danny quit reading aloud and glanced ahead as Debbie went to answer it. She exchanged a couple sentences. Just glancing down the page, this journals didn’t seem to Danny to be the one-sentence earth-shattering revelation that would explain the Shakahatche once and for all. It was just an account of a kindly and interested man knowing he was as far in over his head as any doctor would be at the time, and doing the best he could. "Danny, guess what?" Debbie smiled. "It’s for you."

"Me?" he said, getting up to go to the phone. "I didn’t think anyone knew I was here."

"Guess again," she grinned, holding her hand over the mouthpiece until he took it from her.

"Hello, this is Danny," he answered upon taking the phone from her.

"Hello," he heard Jennifer’s voice say. "Fancy finding you there."

"What do you mean?" he replied. "How did you know I was here?"

"Where else would you be?" she snorted. "Come on Danny, this is Spearfish Lake. There are no secrets, at least not for something like that. Carole told me the two of you were getting to be quite the hot item."

"Carole?" Danny frowned. "How would she . . . oh, never mind. I ought to know better than to ask. What can I do for you, Jennifer?"

"I knew you were on days this week," she replied. "Myleigh and Trey blew in the middle of last week, and I wanted to invite you to dinner, introduce them around. This is Trey’s first time here, he doesn’t know anybody except Randy and Nicole and us. I thought we might invite Brandy and Phil, too."

"Don’t see any reason why not," he said. "I can’t do it Wednesday night, I’ve got a late afternoon trip."

"Tomorrow would work fine," Jennifer told him. "I wanted to have you over last weekend but nobody could track down you and that hot squeeze of yours. I thought about sending Phil out with some bloodhounds but all he had available was huskies. Bring her along, she’ll like Myleigh, and Trey’s pretty cool, too."

"Just a sec," he said, and put his hand over the mouthpiece. "Debbie, do you want to go to dinner at Jennifer and Blake’s tomorrow night? I don’t know what they’re having but it will be good."

"Sure, that’s one invitation I’ll never turn down," she grinned. "I know what Blake’s cooking is like."

Danny took his hand off the phone. "We’re coming," he told his oldest sister. "What time do you want us there?

"Oh, let’s not make it real, real early," Jennifer said. "Somewhere around seven is fine."

"Great," Danny said. "We’ll see you then."

As he hung up the phone, Danny just shook his head and commented, "Mom always said that the reason they don’t have gossip columns in the Record-Herald is because it would be stale news before it made it into print. I guess that just proves it."

"I guess we should have expected it," Debbie sighed. "I mean, I don’t think either of us has been trying to keep this a secret, but we haven’t been shouting it from the housetops, either."

"You know, sometimes it’s good to live in a small place where everybody knows everybody," he snorted. "And there are times when it isn’t so good. I guess my romance with Marsha sort of snuck under the town radar, but it sure didn’t out at the Club, which made up for it. I think that sort of herded us into it, anyway."

"I guess I don’t mind if you don’t mind," Debbie sighed. "Not that we get much choice in the matter anyway. I mean, I got half a dozen comments while I was out doing ads today. I mean, nothing catty, but friendly. I guess that’s what we get for a couple of hot kisses in front of the Spearfish Lake Café at eight-thirty in the morning."

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.