Читать книгу Rocky Mountain Miracle - Leona Karr - Страница 9

Thick stands of ponderosa pine trees hugged a narrow mountain road winding upward into the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Allie Lindsey’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as her thoughts raced ahead.

A few miles more and she’d be meeting Scott Davidson again for the first time in nearly six years. When they were both in high school, the two of them had spent the summer as teenage counselors in a youth church camp, and Allie had had a crush on the good-looking young man. She smiled inwardly as she remembered an adolescent kiss that had sent her heart pounding on the last night at camp.

After that summer, Allie had lost track of Scott when he and his younger brother, Jimmy, quit coming to Colorado to spend summers with their divorced father, and instead remained in California with their mother. But now Scott was back. Allie gave her chin a determined lift and mentally braced herself for the confrontation with him that lay ahead. As she navigated the twisting road in her blue Chevy she went over in her mind once again the events of the day before.

“What do you mean, we have to cancel the church camp?” Allie had stared at the church secretary as if she’d suddenly taken leave of her senses. “You can’t mean it, Harriet.”

The older woman sighed, “I’m afraid so.”

Allie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She’d stopped by the church to help with last minute preparations for the summer camp only ten days away. For months, the junior youth group had been raising money to spend two whole weeks in the Colorado Rockies at a place called Rainbow Camp. Anticipation was like a live wire sending sparks in every direction as twenty boys and girls, ages eight to twelve, prepared for the June camp.

Allie was a middle school counselor for Denver public schools, and she knew how important this outing was for some of the city kids. Although they lived in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, most had never camped out beside a mountain brook, breathed pine-scented air or sang songs around a dancing campfire.

“We got this in the mail today.” Harriet handed her a letter.

Allie’s greenish-blue eyes widened in disbelief as she read it. Mr. Sam Davidson who owned the land and buildings that had been used by churches and charity groups for years had recently died. His son Scott was cancelling all summer reservations in lieu of making preparations for selling the mountain property. Allie remembered Scott’s father, Sam Davidson, as a generous soul who was extremely patient with the hordes of young people who flowed in and out of his camp all summer.

“Apparently Mr. Davidson passed away several weeks ago but no one notified us,” she added. “I guess the lawyers were waiting to see what his son was going to do. And now we know,” Harriet said with a tightening of her lips. “I just talked to Reverend Hanson on the phone. He’s out of town attending a regional conference in New Mexico, and won’t be back until next weekend. He knows that at this late date there’s no chance of finding other accommodations, so he says to break the news as gently as we can.” Harriet looked at Allie hopefully. “Maybe you’re the one to do it. I mean, with your background and all.”

“Oh, sure.” Allie shoved a long strand of honey-brown hair behind her ear. “I know exactly how to break a bunch of kids’ hearts.” She read the letter again, and then straightened her shoulders. “Well, I suppose it has to be done.”

Breathing a prayer that she would handle the situation as well as possible under the circumstances, Allie walked slowly down the stairs to a full-length basement room used for all kinds of church activities.

As she approached the door, she could hear Lily Twesbury’s voice enthusiastically describing various wildflowers to be seen in mountain meadows and along the riverbeds. “We’ll have lots of fun hiking all over the place, and making our own nature books to bring back home.”

Some of the kids clapped and cheered, sending daggers straight into Allie’s heart. As inconspicuously as she could, Allie slipped to the back of the room. As she stood there, looking at the circle of children sitting on the floor, her eyes settled on Randy Cleaver’s dark head.

Randy was a ten-year-old boy who had been on the streets most of his life because of a home situation with alcoholic parents. Allie knew the boy from escapades that had sent the wiry little troublemaker to her counseling office at school. Randy was tough as nails. A real handful. Just recently he’d been put in a foster home with church-going guardians who thought that sending him to church camp might help straighten him out. Now that hope was down the drain.

She had been the one to convince the boy that he ought to give summer camp a try, but she wasn’t sure he’d agreed for the right reasons. A city kid, raised in one of the toughest neighborhoods, Randy showed little appreciation for wildflowers and nature studies. But he’d been surprisingly cooperative when it came to washing cars in order to earn money for the outing. She hated to think how he might act out his disappointment.

Randy was sitting beside Cathy Crawford, a small eight-year-old girl with a mop of yellow curls. She had contracted meningitis when she was only four, and it had left her with a significant hearing impairment. Tiny for her age, she was terribly shy. She wasn’t inclined to do much talking even when she was in a friendly group and understood what was going on. The little girl was so sheltered by her parents that she rarely made any decisions on her own. Allie really felt that Cathy needed this time away from her parents, and it had taken a great deal of coaxing on Allie’s part to persuade her family that attending a summer camp would be a positive experience for their daughter. Now all of that effort was going to be wasted.

As soon as the last slide was shown, Trudy Daniels, a plump Sunday school teacher in her early twenties, came in with refreshments. “Here you go, gang.” With squeals of delight the youngsters rushed toward the trays of cookies and drinks.

Allie’s spirits sank lower just thinking about Trudy’s reaction to the news that all of their work was for naught. The young woman was a spark plug in the youth program and had become Allie’s good friend. They’d spent numberless hours seeing to a hundred details that two weeks in the mountains with twenty children and five chaperones entailed.

After Allie told her the news, Trudy sighed. “Well, I guess if it’s God’s will, we should accept it.”

Allie stared at her and echoed, “God’s will?” The words hung in the air. How could it be God’s will? The Bible was full of praise for His wondrous creation of rivers, mountains and open sky. Why would the good Lord want to deprive these children of experiencing that heavenly wonder?

With inspirational insight, the answer came bright and clear. He wouldn’t! It wasn’t divine intervention standing in the way of these children enjoying God’s out-of-doors—it was Scott Davidson.

Allie turned to Trudy, her eyes flashing. “I’ve got an idea. Reverend Hanson is going to be out of town for the next few days. Let’s hold off saying anything to anyone about this until he gets back,” she said, and then made a quick exit before her puzzled friend could ask any questions.

Hurrying upstairs, Allie made her way to the church office, and got Scott’s number from Harriet.

Allie dialed the number, moistened her lips and was ready with her persuasive argument. But after a few rings, a recording kicked in.

The voice was one she remembered, and just hearing it threw her off balance for a moment. She gave a nervous laugh. “Hi, Scott. This is Allie Lindsey—a voice from your past. I’d like to talk with you about the cancellation of our church camp, and I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a call.” She gave him her telephone number and then added, “Nice to hear your voice again.”

After she hung up, Allie stared at the telephone for a long minute. A mixture of emotions she couldn’t quite define made her uneasy. Maybe she shouldn’t have told Scott why she was calling? Maybe she should have waited until he called back to tell him? No, better to be up front about it. He might think she was trying to renew a personal relationship with him. For all she knew he could have married in the six years since she’d seen him last.

“Well?” Harriet prodded.

Allie reined in her wayward thoughts and gave Harriet a reassuring smile. “Don’t say anything to anyone about the letter until I talk with him. Hopefully, he’ll give me a call later today.”

But he didn’t.

Allie jumped every time the phone rang, but it was only someone wanting to clean her carpets, or soliciting donations. She spent a restless night, and by nine o’clock the next morning, Scott Davidson still hadn’t returned her call.

With stubborn intent, she phoned him again, and got the same recording, but she could tell from the short signal that he’d picked up his earlier messages. That’s when she made up her mind to confront him face-to-face. Rainbow Camp was only a couple of hours from Denver. If she left right away, she could get there a little before noon, and make it back by nightfall.

She took a moment to study her reflection in a mirror, trying to decide if Scott would find her terribly changed from the high school girl he’d kissed in the moonlight. Her slender figure was still in good condition from routine jogging and watching her diet. Her honey-brown hair had darkened slightly but it still had golden highlights and a soft natural curl that framed her face and highlighted her blue eyes. A summer sun had begun to touch her arms, legs and face with a warm tan.

Not movie star material, she thought as she playfully blew a kiss at her reflection. “But you’ll do.”

As she left the city behind and headed west into pine-covered hillsides, thick aspen groves and vaulting rocky cliffs, Allie realized how much she’d missed these mountains. She’d only returned to Colorado late in September, having left the state after graduating from high school in order to attend an eastern college where her parents had moved in their retirement. Allie had been born to them late in life, and after their deaths, she had accepted the middle school counselor’s position in Denver because the memories of growing up here were warm and inviting.

Her six-year’s absence faded as the miles sped by, and she was again filled with awe at God’s magnificence as the narrow road climbed in a serpentine pattern over mountain passes and then dropped down into beautiful valleys where green meadows and white-foamed streams flowed in silvery ribbons. Sam Davidson had built his Rainbow Camp in one of these beautiful mountain canyons. The buildings of the camp were set along a mountain river fed by melting snow from glaciers in the high country.

As Allie turned off of the highway to follow a graveled road through the trees, her heart quickened with expectation. A narrow bridge built of weathered timbers crossed the fast moving stream, and when a familiar panorama of cabins and other buildings came into view, a nostalgic lump caught in her throat.

Picnic tables still nestled in the grove of lodgepole pines and white-trunked aspen. Inviting paths hugged the riverbank and skirted smooth huge boulders where one could sit for an idle moment or a few minutes of meditation. She wondered if Steller’s jays still nested in the high ponderosa pines growing close to the recreation and cafeteria building. This was the beauty she wanted to share with Randy, Cathy and the other children.

The abandoned air of the camp mocked her mission. The cabins were closed. No woodpiles had been collected on the porches to feed the fireplaces. The larger buildings were dark and shuttered, and as her eyes anxiously traveled over the rustic three-storied log-and-rock house that had been Sam’s home, she failed to see any sign that it was occupied. She had assumed because Scott’s voice was on the telephone answering machine that he must be staying here.

She forced herself to ignore a rising sense of frustration as she parked in a wide clearing in front of the main house, and let the car door shut with a bang that echoed her uneasiness.

As she hurried up a flight of wooden stairs leading up to a veranda porch that skirted the front of the log house, she thought she saw a flicker of movement behind the large front window. Her breathing quickened.

So someone was here!

The front door opened before she reached it. As he stood just inside, filling up the doorway, she let out her breath in giddy relief. “Scott, you’re here! I was beginning to think that I’d made the trip for nothing.” When he didn’t answer, she said quickly, “I hope you don’t mind…my coming like this?”

She knew nervousness was making her talk too fast, but the man standing there staring at her was not the Scott Davidson she remembered at all. Instead of soft lips easing into a boyish smile, his mouth was held in a firm line and his unsmiling grayish-green eyes narrowed. His dark hair no longer drifted in unruly waves around his face but was precisely layered in a short, fashionable cut that matched his expensive slacks and monogrammed sports shirt.

When his frown was her only answer, she added pointedly, “It’s important that I speak with you.”

Allie felt a rising sense of defeat just looking at him. This was a stranger who eyed her with obvious annoyance. What has happened to you, Scott? She firmed her chin. “When you didn’t return my call I decided to drive up and see you.”

His expression didn’t change. “I’m trying to get everything taken care of in a few days and get back to my brokerage business. I’m sorry, but I haven’t had time to return all my calls,” he added in way of apology, but there was no warmth in his voice. “You said on the phone that you wanted to talk about the cancellation of a church camp. I’m afraid you’ve made the trip for nothing, Allie. The property is already in the hands of the Realtor, and I’ve had several offers on it already.”

“I understand, but surely you can spare a few minutes to talk about it,” she said pointedly, determined that he wasn’t going to turn her away from her mission so easily.

A hint of a smile touched his lips. “Still got that streak of dogged stubbornness, I see. All right, come in, and we’ll talk. I have to admit that when I got your message, I thought about that optimistic nature of yours, Allie, and wondered if you were still looking at life as some kind of a great adventure.”

“You were pretty much of an optimist, yourself,” she reminded him.

He didn’t answer as he waved her into the living room that seemed unchanged to Allie after all these years. The same Indian rug was spread in front of the fireplace, and the lingering tobacco scent of Sam’s pipe still mingled with an aromatic residue of pine log fires that had warmed chilly evenings for many years. Small tables and wall shelves held bits of driftwood, polished rocks from the riverbed, dried wild-flowers and other treasures that Sam had brought in from the outdoors. The same Western pictures hung on the wall, and Sam’s old scarred upright piano stood in the corner with its wobbly piano bench. Allie remembered the evenings some of the young campers had collected around the old piano, singing a rollicking tune or quiet hymn. As before, a couple of lumpy couches faced each other in a conversational grouping near the large front window.

Scott must have been sitting there when she drove up because there were papers scattered on one of the cushions. He motioned for her to sit down on the clean couch while he scooted papers into a pile on the other one. “Would you like a cup of coffee? I’m afraid that’s all I have to offer.”

“No, thanks, I’m fine.” Her stomach was much too tight to even think about drinking or eating. “I’m truly sorry about your father,” she said, seeking neutral ground for the moment. “He was a wonderful man.”

Allie was taken back by the emptiness in Scott’s reply. “In some ways he was, and in other ways he was a fool. He lived from hand to mouth, barely managed to pay the taxes, let alone keep the place up the way he should have. Dad had dozens of opportunities to sell the property because of the nearby ski resorts, but, no, he turned them all down.” Scott ran agitated fingers through his raven hair. “Stubborn. Pig-headed. Wouldn’t listen to anyone. I begged him to come to California with me. I’ve done well with my investments. He didn’t have to die here alone, almost penniless.”

“But your father loved this place,” she protested. “And he gave of himself to many young people whose lives were changed because of him. He was rich in ways that really matter.”

Scott stared at her for a long moment, and then said sadly, “You haven’t grown up at all, have you, Allie? I can tell that you’re still caught up in the illusion that depriving yourself of all the good things in life is akin to holiness.”

“It would depend upon your definition of good things.”

The ring of a telephone in the hall stopped him from answering, and brought him to his feet. “Excuse me,” he said, “I’m expecting a call.” He disappeared through the doorway.

She heard him answer the phone and say, “No, Mother, it’s all right, things are moving slower than I expected.”

Allie had never met Scott’s mother, Madeline. The Davidsons were divorced when both sons were small, but from the things Scott and Jimmy had said about their mom, Madeline was a no-nonsense, worldly businesswoman. Allie could tell from Scott’s end of the telephone that he was being pressured to leave the property in the hands of a Realtor and come back to California. She wondered where Jimmy was, and if he was as eager to get rid of the property as Scott and his mother were. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring so there must not be any Mrs. Scott Davidson.

While waiting for him to finish his telephone conversation, Allie got up from the couch and idly walked over to one of the bookcases. Drawing out a couple of photo albums that caught her eye, she remembered that Scott’s father loved to take pictures with his small camera.

Sitting back down on the couch, Allie started thumbing through one of the albums. She smiled at photos of a boyish Scott and grinning Jimmy as the boys grew with each summer visit. Three years younger than Scott, Jimmy idolized his older brother and Allie chuckled seeing their grinning faces as they held up a prize fish, or showed off by walking across the river on a fallen log.

In the second album, she found some pictures taken the summer when she and Scott were teenage counselors at the church camp. Glowing-faced young people she’d forgotten were pictured eating hot dogs, or squealing as they dipped their feet into the white-foamed stream. She quietly laughed at a photo of herself sitting on a log, her shoulder-length blond hair flying in every direction and her bare legs dangling in the water. There were a couple of photos of her and Scott walking hand in hand, and she remembered the midnight walk with Scott that ended with her first romantic embrace and kiss.

How simple and wonderful life had been that halcyon summer, she thought, looking at a picture of the two of them taken the summer when they were seventeen. Then they’d gone their separate ways, and lost track of each other. Now their paths had crossed again, but she felt as distant from Scott Davidson as she would have with a stranger.

Closing the albums, she steeled herself for what lay ahead. Seeing the old Scott, smiling and carefree in the photos gave her the courage she needed to ignore his distant, cold manner. When he hung up the hall phone and came back into the room, she laughed and said, “Look what I found.”

“Dad’s old photos?”

Impulsively, she reached up, grabbed his hand, pulled him down on the couch beside her. Maybe, just maybe, he might be touched by the memories of the wonderful summers he’d spent in Colorado with his father.

Scott stiffened against her nearness as she sat close to him, turning the pages of the album. He didn’t need any old photos to remember the way her face glowed with animation and laughter, nor the way her supple body had felt as she walked hand in hand beside him in the moonlight. His first love had changed little in six years. Her honey-gold hair still glinted with highlights, and a touch of lipstick defined the sweet curve of her lips. Her lavender-blue eyes as soft as a summer sky still radiated an innocent warmth. How foolishly naive they’d been that summer between high school and college. Their childish faith had seemed enough to slay dragons, but the world had been waiting with its unrelenting harsh reality, and they hadn’t even known it.

Aware of his gaze traveling over her face, Allie suddenly felt self-conscious. What was he thinking? Was he remembering the kiss he’d given her, and his promise to keep in touch? They’d been separated by a whole continent when he went to college in California, and she attended an eastern university. Life had spun off in different directions for both of them, and even before the end of their freshman year they had lost touch with each other. Now, for the first time since she’d arrived, he seemed to be aware of her as a person.

Laughing softly, she pointed to a photo taken on skit night at camp when everyone dressed in costume. There they were in the front row, Scott as Robin Hood, and she was Maid Marian. Jimmy stood next to Scott, a pillow stuffed in his pants, playing chubby Friar Tuck. Jimmy had made up a corny skit about Sherwood Forest. The boys had run around, pretending to use bows and arrows while rescuing Maid Marian from the castle.

Allie glanced at Scott’s face, expecting a brief smile, but his expression was as tight and full of pain as any she’d ever seen. Stunned by his response to the photo, she stammered, “What…what is it?”

He turned hard eyes on her. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“You don’t know about Jimmy?”

Her mouth was suddenly as parched as a desert. Living with her parents in the east and going to college there had cut her off from any of her Colorado contacts, and since she’d been back at the start of the school year, she hadn’t heard anything of the Davidsons until the church letter from Scott. “What is it? What happened?”

She saw him clench his hands so tightly that the veins stood up like purple chords. “He was murdered.”

“Murdered,” she echoed, cursing herself for not knowing. Oh, dear God, why hadn’t someone told her?

“Two years ago.” He drew in a deep breath, trying to control the raging anger that was still there. “Jimmy was killed in a street fight that broke out during a demonstration against drug houses.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

Scott’s lips twisted bitterly. “If it hadn’t been for me, my brother wouldn’t have been killed that night.”

“You can’t blame yourself for something that was out of your control.”

“Oh, it was under my control, all right. When some Christian young people from various churches were trying to get a handle on some of the street gangs, I talked Jimmy into helping. He always did what I wanted him to do, and was my shadow growing up. My mother kept telling me whatever happened to him would be on my conscience. She was right. It should have been me, not Jimmy, who died in the streets.”

“But you couldn’t have known what was going to happen.” Allie tried to take his hand but he jerked it away.

“I decided not to go on the demonstration because I had a religious seminar that night, but Jimmy went. If God wasn’t going to protect him that night, I should have been there, watching out for him. Instead of wasting my time listening to someone preach about God’s goodness.”

“God is good. Jimmy was a victim of the free choice between good or evil that all people have—why blame God?”

“Because the shape the world’s in is proof enough for me that God is an absentee Lord. I’m through believing that there’s a divine power interested in me or anyone else. Someone else can carry the banner high—and get killed for it. Not me.”

“Aren’t you being a little self-indulgent?”

His jaw tightened. “Save your Sunday school lectures, Allie. I’ve heard them all before.”

She searched for some way to help him through the guilt that was obviously eating him alive, but her master’s degree in counseling seemed totally inadequate in the face of his bitterness. Not only had he changed on the outside, but a loss of faith was like a malignancy eating away at his soul.

He stood up. “I’m sorry you made the trip for nothing, Allie. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to working on a hundred details that have to be cleared up before the property sells. You can see for yourself how impossible it would be to get the camp in any kind of shape in less than two weeks.”

She grabbed the objection like a fish to a hook. “That wouldn’t be a problem. I know we could get a working crew from the church to come up and put the place in order.”

“I don’t have time to oversee—”

“I do,” she said brightly, standing up and facing him. “I’m on my summer break from my school counselor’s job. You could leave everything to me and go about your business getting ready to sell the place. You see, there’s this little boy, Randy Cleaver. He’s been on the streets most of his life because of alcoholic parents and there’s a little girl who’s losing her hearing—”

“Save it, Allie. I told you I’m way past trying to fix the ills of the world.”

“I know.” She paused, searching for guidance, and suddenly divine inspiration like a heavenly butterfly flitted through her thoughts. She knew exactly what approach she should use to touch his conscience. “I was really thinking about Jimmy and your dad. This place has always been special to them.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Even now, Rainbow Camp really belongs as much to your father and brother as it does to you, doesn’t it? If Sam and Jimmy were here, I don’t think they’d disappoint a bunch of kids who have their hearts set on coming to summer camp.”

“But Dad and Jimmy aren’t here, are they?”

“I believe they are, in spirit, and you know what they would want you to do,” she countered.

Of course he knew. Anger built up in Scott that he was the one who had been left to deal with the past.

Abruptly he walked away from her, and as he let his gaze travel around the room, his heart tightened. Jimmy’s worn baseball glove lay on the shelf where Allie had removed the photo albums, and in a nearby corner of the room stood several fishing rods where his dad had left them.

Scott put his hand on the mantel of the fireplace, and bent his head as his ears were suddenly filled with remembered sounds; his dad thumping out a hymn on the old piano, and Jimmy’s boyish voice on the stairs. His shoulders went slack.

You know what they would want you to do.

Finally, he lifted his head, turned around, and looked at Allie with those intense eyes of his. She drew in a prayerful breath as she waited for him to speak.

Please, God.

“All right, Allie. You win,” he said in a thick voice of surrender. “In memory of Dad and Jimmy, you can have your church camp one more time.”

“Thank you.”

She could have hugged him in joyful relief, but he was already walking toward the door, opening it, as if anxious to have her gone.