The Cold Storm

EPIPHANY

3 EPIPHANY

Bozeman, Montana.

IT WAS NOW the end of October 2018. Roger reminisced about those earlier times often. Before his wife, his children, he had his Ranger brothers. He missed the camaraderie of being a part of something greater. They were a close group of guys. As he gazed at the picture frame on his office wall, Roger recalled the moment they pinned that Purple Heart to his chest. He would have gladly given it up if he could bring back the ones they lost.

He also thought of his grandfather and wondered if he would be proud of who he had become, or ashamed of what it took to get there.

Sitting in his law office all these years later, Roger questioned where his life had gone. Everything occurred so fast, and time seemed to slip away from him. Thinking about his mishaps weren’t going to improve them. Staring through his office window, recollecting of the past, it hit him in the gut like a hammer—what his grandpa had tried to teach him all of those years before.

Roger had aspired to be a lawyer for as long as he could remember. He took advantage of his Veteran’s benefits to make that dream become a reality. But, with a great expense. He was slowly becoming a workaholic. And, as he had seen with his father, there remained a high price to be paid for a man who was never home.

Roger returned home early from work that day, which was something he hadn’t done in quite a while. But, there was a good reason for it. He was drained and burned out and felt a deep-seated need to reconnect with his children, Patrick and Emily. He had been feeling it for some time. And it wasn’t a great feeling.

Roger swung the front door open.

“Guys. I’m home.”

Kate met him in the foyer.

“You’re home early,” she said.

Roger and Kate were high school sweethearts. They had broken up for a while, during Roger’s stint in the Army. But, they got back together shortly after his enlistment ended, while he was in law school.

“I decided to take the rest of the day off,” said Roger.

Kate felt Roger’s forehead.

“Are you feeling, ok?” She asked.

“Very funny,” he responded. “I’m fine. Just work stuff. I need a break from that mayhem.”

“Bad day at the office?” She asked.

“More like a bad year,” he replied.

Kate was an attractive brunette, pretty brown eyes and long flowing hair, and a ball of fire in a five-foot-three frame. She was a registered nurse at the local hospital.

Roger continued to Patrick’s bedroom to check up on him.

“Hey, son. What are you doing?”

Patrick rolled his eyes.

“Nothing, dad,” he replied. “Just playing XBOX.”

“You want to go throw the ball or something?”

“Nope. I’m good right here,” said Patrick. “Besides. It’s freezing out there.”

He was right. But, Roger felt a sense of guilt. It appeared to him that he abandoned his principles and had slowly grown more like his father; something he swore that he would never do. But, he wanted to change that.

“Ok. Well, I’ll be in the study if you change your mind,” Roger continued, as he shut the bedroom door behind him.

He started to think about his grandfather’s passing years before and how hard it was to lose his best friend. The only things he had to recall those precious memories were Buck’s old war pictures and the cabin they had spent so much time together inside. But, it was looking more and more like Roger had skipped the most important lesson that he had acquired.

It was an easy trap to fall in. That rat rice of our lives can get ahead of us if we aren’t careful. Regrettably, that was certainly the case for Roger and Kate. They were both juggling careers and trying to raise two children.

Having the money to keep nannies at home sure didn’t make up for not being there. It wasn’t a matter of keeping up with the Jones’s. No. For them, it was about losing track of what was truly important. Roger had been working so hard in his career that his personal life was beginning to suffer.

He approached Kate from behind, wrapping his arms around her.

“I feel like I can’t relate to our kids anymore,” he mentioned, as she gently caressed his hand in hers.

Roger had recognized that if they didn’t fix their family situation, the children might end up resenting them as they got older. Ashamed, he was beginning to feel as if he had somehow let his grandfather down, having allowed the lessons that grandpa had taught him to fall by the wayside. He wondered if Buck was looking down on them, shaking his head in disbelief as he stood in Heaven.

That night, as they got ready for bed, Roger suddenly had an epiphany.

“I got it. I got it!” He said.

Kate placed the novel she was reading on the nightstand.

“You got what?” She asked.

“The Cabin. We can take the kids to the cabin!”

Kate gave Roger a bewildered look.

“I thought you didn’t want to go back there,” she stated.

“Well, I didn’t before,” he said. “But it’s perfect. What better way than to be in the middle of nowhere?”

They planned the trip. Two weeks later, during the kid’s winter break, they would be high up in the Montana mountains. Roger hadn’t been there in years and felt a little eerie about it. But, the hope was that it would bring them closer together as a family. And hopefully help to strengthen the bond with their children, much like Roger had with his grandfather so many years before.

Roger had been thinking of those times a lot recently. Years after his world seemingly ended, he was about to return to the place he never thought he would. But, he had hoped the tranquility of it all would be enough to restore relationships and help them forget about the distractions that had plagued him and his family for so long.

A couple of weeks later

“You guys got everything?” Asked Roger, as Patrick came down the front steps dragging a heavy duffel bag.

He snatched the bag from his son and squeezed it tightly into the trunk.

“That should be about it,” said Kate.

“Ok. Let’s hit the road,” continued Roger.

As they pulled out of the drive, Patrick took a video game from his pocket and began playing.

“Son. Could you please put that thing away?” Asked Roger.

“But dad!”

“But nothing, son,” he said. “Just enjoy the ride, would you? You’ll have plenty of time to play later.”

“Why do we have to go to the woods anyway, dad?” Patrick asked. “There’s zero to do up there.”

Kate chimed in.

“Do what your father tells you, Patrick, please.”

“Fine!” He huffed, as he put the system onto the floor of the car.

Emily glanced over at Patrick, his arms folded as he looked through the fogged up window.

“You’re such a baby,” she said to him.

“Shut up!”

Observing them through the rearview mirror, Roger felt the sorrow of allowing his children to become so spoiled.

The cabin was a good three-hour drive from the house. They had left mid-morning, hoping to be there by noon. A thick coat of white capped the ground as far as the eye could see. An hour and a half into the trip, they decided to stop and grab a bite to eat. It was a nice little mom and pop joint, like so many of the other places around the mountains.

While eating breakfast, Roger had overheard a couple sitting behind them talking about a storm that was supposedly going to pass by the area that they were going to. Not giving it much thought, they left and proceeded to their destination.

Big Sky, Montana

As they neared the cabin drive an hour later, Roger had noticed that the trail was utterly impassable and blocked with debris and collapsed limbs.

“Damn,” he said. “Come on, son. Give me a hand.”

“Do I have to?” Asked Patrick.

“Yes. You do.”

Patrick’s complaining was starting to get to Roger. But, he was trying to maintain composure. After all, this was his son, however annoying he may have been.

It took them both a half hour to clear enough space for the car to pinch through. As they drove down the long path, everything seemed somewhat more run down than Roger had remembered. It wasn’t exactly falling apart. But, not pristine as it once was. He hadn’t kept up the property as much as he probably should have. At first, he never expected to keep it. He just couldn’t force himself to part with the memories.

Approaching the front porch, Roger noticed that the door was unlocked as if someone had been there.

“Honey, be careful,” Kate stated.

As he cracked the door open and walked inside, Roger took a long look around the room. It wasn’t in complete disorder, but things were strewn all over the place, almost as if someone had been searching for something.

“Well. Let’s start by cleaning up this pigsty,” Kate said.

They unloaded the bags, and she and Emily began picking up the loose trash and taking it outside to burn. The temperature outside was around ten degrees, and the inside of the cabin was freezing. They would need firewood if they wanted to stay warm.

“This sucks,” said Patrick.

“Do you ever stop whining?” Roger asked him. “Come on. Let’s get to work.”

He brought Patrick and the ax sitting by the fireplace, and they went outside to chop some firewood. While cutting away, Patrick spotted something that looked like rising smoke a short distance from where they were standing.

“Dad. I think someone is back there,” he stated.

Roger looked up toward the top of the trees.

“What the? There are no cabins back there.”

Roger began walking toward the smoke, with Patrick following closely after.

Reaching the source of the smoke, Roger noticed a scraggly looking fellow relaxing in front of a tiny camper in what looked like dirty overalls. This man could have easily doubled for Paul Bunyan. He was big enough to be a lumberjack and looked like he hadn’t showered in a while.

His hair was long and unkempt, as well as his beard. He hadn’t seen them hiding in the brush. The man seemed as if he was napping in his chair. Patrick and Roger quickly tiptoed back to the cabin, absentminded of what the future held for them.

They finally finished chopping enough wood for a few days, and later that afternoon the family sat in front of the fire making s’mores, something Roger dearly loved as a child. The children asked at least a couple of times why there was no internet.

“Guys, we are in the middle of nowhere, Not at Starbucks,” Roger said. “This is how people lived back in the day.”

“Well, this isn’t back in the day, dad,” Patrick replied.

Roger stretched over and put Patrick’s iPad onto the floor.

“You guys are too dependent on technology,” he said.

He and Kate were trying to stress the importance of simple, undistracted, family time. After all, they bore the burden for their children being brats. But, Roger assumed they would get used to it, eventually.

They planned for a trail hike the very next day. Roger figured if they got out and stayed active the kids wouldn’t be bored enough to miss their electronics. The mountains were fantastic in the wintertime. The snowfall made the trees sparkle with white. That morning they awoke at 8 AM, ate some breakfast, packed a little food and drinks in their bags, and scrambled out the door.

The trail they were taking was about two miles long and led to a little pond. It cut straight into the side of the mountainside. On the one hand, there was a wooden fence and a bluff that went almost straight down for a hundred yards. On the other side, the mountain shot practically straight up.

About halfway down the trail, the terrain started to even out and became flat. There were deer tracks and what looked like paw prints from a big cat, probably a mountain lion. Roger made sure to bring the shotgun with him. Although the forest was breathtaking during winter, it could also be cruel. Owning firearms in that wild country was a necessity.

They made it almost to the end of the trail. Roger could see part of the pond off in the distance, although mostly frozen. As they advanced toward the bottom, Roger had a bad feeling. It was a deep awareness as if something or someone was watching them. They continued slowly wandering until he heard a snap. Roger glanced to his right, and one of his worst fears came true. It was a big, hungry-looking cougar, a couple of hundred feet from them, crouched in the snow. He was, most surely, searching for food.

Mountain lions are very stealthy, opportunistic creatures. You usually don’t see them coming. But, on the white, icy ground, he stood out like gravy on rice.

“Damn. I hope it hasn’t seen us yet,” Roger remarked, trying to hide the fact that he was scared as hell.

“Everyone, just back up, calmly.”

They began to step backward, trying to get out of sight.

But, as he stumbled over his own feet, Roger unwittingly stepped on a branch and made a snapping noise, hoping to God the animal hadn’t heard him. But, he had. The big cat glared in Roger’s direction. Staring him down, he looked as if he was getting ready to pounce at any moment. Abruptly, out of nowhere, a loud c***k of a sound. The beast dropped right where he stood like a heavy sack of rocks, blood spilling from his forehead. Kate and the kids were trembling with fear as Roger tried to catch his breath.

“Who the hell was that?”

Roger began shuffling toward the cat, now lying lifeless on the ground. As he got a little closer, a man approached from the tree line, sporting a high-powered hunting rifle, and startling him.

“Hi neighbor,” he said to Roger, who jumped slightly backward.

“Damn. You scared the s**t out of me, mister,” Roger admitted. “I thought I was cougar dinner for a minute.”

“You almost were,” the old man continued. “These cats up here are ruthless, man.”

It was the same guy that Patrick and Roger had seen behind the cabin.

“I was just taking my family for a walk,” Roger replied, still shaking with fear. “Thanks for that by the way. I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t there.”

“It is dangerous out here, friend,” the man continued.

Was it just a coincidence, or was he following them? “I’m Walter,” he said to Roger, reaching his hand out.

“Roger,” he replied.

“You should be more careful, Roger,” Walter told him. “There are things out there that can kill you.

That was quite an uncanny response. Roger thanked him, and he and his family continued downwards toward the pond, trying to gain as much distance as possible from the strange fellow.

Who is that guy? What was he doing out here? His family was pretty shaken up at that point and just wanted to go back. That mountain lion scared the s**t out of his children. Walter seemed to pop up out of nowhere and kills it? Was he a hunter? Or something else? No matter. Roger preferred to put it in the back of his mind, for the time being.

They sat in front of the fire for a little while, trying to thaw their hands and feet, then made the trek back toward the cabin to make it before dusk. That night they sat around playing board games. Roger told the children stories of their great grandfather.

They never knew the man. But, they knew a lot about him, thanks to Roger. That cabin held a lot of emotional value to him as he got older, and he hoped to leave it to his children someday too. Maybe one day it would prove to hold the same meaning to them as well.

Roger had decided to take Patrick hunting the next morning. He taught Patrick to shoot many years before. But, he had never killed anything more significant than a squirrel. Roger was hoping they could bring a deer or something back to the cabin to cook. It was a frosty, crisp morning. All decked out in camouflage and hunting boots, he and Patrick began following some deer tracks in the snow.

Roger didn’t care if they killed anything or not. They had enough food. He was just appreciative of the opportunity to be with his son in nature, only the two of them, without hearing him moan about not being able to play video games. It appeared to be working.

Technology drove most of what they did daily. But it could also be a distraction. Most of the time, people forgot about the simple things. It did make their lives easier. But, Roger knew that too much reliance on technology made certain aspects of their lives lose purpose.

They hadn’t brought any food back that day. But father and son bonded in a way that they hadn’t in quite some time. And it was a very refreshing change of pace for them. Sitting on the edge of their bed that night, Kate by his side, Roger couldn’t help but wonder about the gentleman behind the cabin.

What was he doing up there alone? It was as if he was hiding away from society. And showing up out of nowhere, like he was stalking them, didn’t sit right with Roger. Something seemed off. And, Roger didn’t instantly understand how right he was about that.