He paused for a moment, examining the pint of beer in front of him as if seeing it for the first time. A smile dimpled the edges of his handsome face. “As to what he is, well… all I can say is that I’ve lived long enough to know that a person who’s after something never really reveals what or who they are until they have it. And as much as I hate to say it, I’ve learned from long personal experience that the best endings come from planning for the worst possibilities.”
Tom nodded his head. “So if I’m hearing you right, and applying your reverse logic, we should assume that the funny, romantic, and seemingly harmless guy who’s writing these letters is–”
“Anything but harmless,” Chip replied, finishing Tom’s sentence as he held him with his stare. “Until I know otherwise, I think it’s safe to assume this guy could be capable of anything.” His mouth curled into a wry grin. “Hell, for all we know, he could be an international terrorist.”
Tom considered the older man’s statement before smiling back at him.
“I suppose he could.”
An hour later, sufficiently drunk enough to wade through the crowd, Tom shuffled his way to the corner of the room where the shrine of letters and pictures were hung. He stared with fascination at the various sheets of exotic hotel stationary and read every one of the odd, neatly scripted letters, all of them signed by the Mysterious Joe’s Last Stand Guy. He examined the Polaroid photos and smiled at the clever obscurity of the writer’s face in each one.
Then, for reasons even he wasn’t quite sure of, Tom pulled a pen and sheet of notepad paper from his pocket and began slowly writing down the dates and origins of each letter.
19.
Jeri sat under the heavy flannel-covered comforter of her bed and stared silently at the cover of the book that sat on her lap. The bottle of red wine she’d opened moments after getting home now sat half-empty on the nightstand, perched precariously on a stack of books along with an empty wine glass. Outside her bedroom window, light wisps of snow fell with lethargic effort against the frost-covered panes of glass.
Her mind was now reasonably calm, the wine having successfully dulled the edge of anger she’d felt since leaving the saloon an hour before. She once again picked up the romance novel Allie had given her and started to read. Two pages into it, she reminded herself how much she hated fiction – romance novels even more so – and resignedly tossed the book onto the already overburdened nightstand next to her. With nothing left to distract her, Jeri sank deeply into the thick pillows of the bed and sulked. Her thoughts drifted randomly for several minutes before inevitably settling on the events from earlier that evening. The image of a packed room of people watching her move through the bar filled her mind, causing a tinge of nausea in her stomach. She shook her head to dislodge the thought, desperately searching her mind for something else to concentrate on. As she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, a favorite memory slowly drifted into her thoughts. Jeri focused her mind on the memory, and within seconds she was asleep.
They were hiking.
The morning sun filtered through the emerald-green leaves of the aspen trees and fell in beautiful, shadow-wrapped patterns around her as she walked. The mid-summer air was already warm, filled with the orchestra of countless buzzing insects as they whirled and zagged around her. She brushed a nagging fly away from her face and looked up. Ahead of her, the thin trail along the Coconino National Forest’s Inner Basin turned and disappeared within the green underbrush of the forest. Jeri sighed loudly. She knew from the map she’d studied during their pre-dawn drive into the park that the trail continued towards the peaks of the San Francisco mountains in the distance; a long and grueling hike that her dad was convinced would be a piece of cake. She looked back at him and frowned.
“What’s up, buttercup?” her father asked. His large brown eyes peered down at her from his tall, thin frame with an ever-present glint of curiosity and humor.
“I don’t feel like dying in the mountains today,” she replied grumpily. “And please stop calling me buttercup.”
Her father replied with a deep rolling laugh that echoed through the forest, forcing Jeri’s frown upward into a smile. She loved her father’s laugh, loved the way its low, staccato rhythm surrounded and embraced her like a comforting hug. Even her nascent sense of teenage independence was no match for its disarming warmth. She swatted at the tall blooming stalks of yellow columbine in front of her and continued walking.
“Anything you want to talk about, honey bunny?”