~~~
The conversation turned out to be very enjoyable, despite the cold and an occasional start of sprinkles. Rachel mostly told stories about Mesa Verde and some of the other desert national parks she’d worked in as the Smiths asked her questions. Daniel learned the Smiths, who were likely in their 60s he guessed, had stopped at the KOA en route coming home from Texas. Apparently they’d just sat in, watching grandkids for a couple months while their daughter got settled from a divorce. Other siblings had gotten involved and the elder Smiths seemed to be avoiding getting back home to whatever phone calls, emails and other interferences were likely soon coming from their several children and grandchildren. A short break to enjoy some crickets and quiet evenings in the middle of now-where, Colorado, seemed appealing to Dan just as much as the Smith’s made it sound.
Rachel’s hot cocoa was some fairly neutered Swiss Miss from a packet in a vending machine, just as she had told him earlier. Dan put three packets into his one big mug of steaming water from the fire that he was offered and that carried him through the hour of chatting before they’d all agreed they were ready to get some sleep.
Both Dan and the Smiths offered to help douse the fire and clean up a bit. Rachel was using a vinyl tent that was much smaller than the ones like that which he rented. He thought it looked a bit cold, but didn’t remark upon it. After getting to know Ranger Rachel a bit more, he thought he would offend her, insinuating that she couldn’t handle it or something. A crappy song he’d heard on the way down about some Ms. Independent throbbed in his head as he thought about it and he decided just to leave it alone for now.
In the end, Rachel wrapped up her blanket and a few other items and wished them all a good night, stepping into her tent. Daniel and the Smiths left somewhat together, although it wasn’t much of a walk. Each lot was about 20 or 25 feet wide by 30 or 40 feet deep. It didn’t offer a lot of privacy from tent to tent, but in some ways without much else immediately around the campground there was comfort in that too.
As Dan stepped around a little spruce planted in the igneous rock décor at the corner of his camp lot Mrs. Smith said to him in a lowered, gravel-y voice, “She sure smiles a lot, doesn’t she?”
Mr. Smith chuckled but the comment still took Dan unaware, so he turned to look at the Smiths. Mrs. Smith turned back as they continued on and gave him a friendly wink. Without a suitable response Dan just smiled awkwardly and raised a hand to say goodnight, stepping into his tent much the way Rachel had when it was decided the visit was done. Only after he’d gotten inside the heavy canvas and turned off the front entrance light did he smile a bit and huff at the thought. I’m smiling too, though, he thought, glad he’d left Woodland Hills behind for a while.
December 5
Hearts on Sleeves
Through the night and morning of December fourth and fifth Daniel’s dreams were not as pleasant as his arrival in Cortez. When he awoke he recalled voices repeatedly telling him he can’t do this and won’t be able to do that. David and Ruth’s voices were in the mix. His own father’s voice, though long dead, lectured him too. Among many familiar voices there was also one which seemed the most unkind of them all, and it was that voice which spoke to him most frequently through the night.
He did not recognize to whom the main voice might belong. It was deep, and it rumbled through his sleeping ears as it spoke like thunder from a nearing storm. Indeed, wrapped in the sound of it there seemed to be multiple voices echoing the same words repeatedly. Upon waking later in the morning it occurred to Dan that the speaker he heard might not be a human at all, so gravely and distorted as it was. The words were more felt than heard in the dreams, as if another mind were forcing thoughts upon his own rather than conversing with him.
The last dream of the night was a singularly imposing dream which he was able to recall focused on the dread and degrading owner of the voice. It frightened him from the onset, though Daniel did not know entirely why. He could not wake from it despite his efforts and he was forced to run through its course to the end.
In the dream Dan found himself in a forest, dark and wild, but beyond the fairly small clearing in which he stood there seemed to be a glow of light outside of the ring of trees encasing him. He would take a few steps towards a wider gap in the thick and interlocking trees, but each time as he got just close enough to the gap to see that each opened to a trail beyond the ring of trees which lead up the hill towards the light, a shadow stepped from between the trees and blocked his path.
“You cannot go that way. It is not for you,” the shadow would say, the owner of the cruel and deranged voice that had been berating him all night long.
Its rebuttal to Dan’s attempts at escape came across as a challenge as well, but the shadow loomed so large in his dream, that Daniel knew it best to continue to look for another way. Yet every time Dan would find a break in the tree line as he scanned the perimeter of the small field the shadow barred that way too and told him the same thing.
Finally, Dan gave up his pursuit of an escape path in disgust. Standing in the center of the clearing he then looked up for some encouragement. Indeed the trees parted slightly just above his head but the vision changed in that direction and confused Daniel even more. He felt as though he were sitting at the bottom of a pool looking up through the shimmering surface and he could see Rachel, the ranger, moving about, preparing a meal at the edge of the pool as she might in her own camp stall. Dan raised his hand to her and could not reach nearly far enough to break the water. As he did, many faces gathered about the edge of the pool and glared down at him, smirking, some pointing and mocking. David, Ruth, several other neighbors and former co-workers, even the recently-met Smiths were there and deriding him for his inability to reach out of the hole in which he stood.
As Daniel began lowering his hand in frustration, Rachel noticed him from the view above. She looked down and flashed her beautiful smile, extended her own hand, breaking the shimmering surface above, and asked, “Do you want my help?”
Dark mist intruded above and hid the view of Rachel as well as all the taunting acquaintances and Dan’s arm dropped to his side again. The dark voice spoke to him again immediately in front of him and Daniel jumped as he looked down.
“You can’t leave here, Daniel,” the shadow said in a grumble. “And you must come back.”