Harlan heaved his bulk out of his squeaky office chair and walked with her to the door. “I’ll be out tomorrow to take some pictures,” he said.
“I’ll be there. I have a guide trip day after tomorrow, so I’ll be getting everything ready.” Right now, that one guide trip, with a repeat client, was the only thing on her books. Three years ago, before Dare Callahan had returned home and begun carving huge holes in her business, she had gone weeks with just enough time between guide trips to replenish supplies. Even two years ago, with him set up in competition, she’d done okay, and had actually been glad to have a little time to rest between trips. Last year had been slow. This year had been disastrous.
Harlan patted her arm as he opened the door for her. “I hate to see you leave, but you know best.”
“I hope so. I’ve done some research, and I think I’ve found a good location, up past Missoula.” She wasn’t getting her heart set on any particular place, though; she’d isolate sections where hunting guides were thin on the ground, and work from there. Moving wouldn’t accomplish much if she put herself back into a situation with steep competition.
He glanced out the door, at the mountainous scenery he’d seen thousands of times, and a faintly sad expression crept over his face. “I’m thinking about leaving, too.”
“What?” The unexpected confession jerked Angie out of herself and her own problems; she stared at him in shock. He’d always been here, been in these parts, and a fixture in her life from the time she and her dad had moved to the area. She had moved away a couple of times, once to college and then afterward to Billings, but Harlan had always been here, as reliable as the sun rising in the east. She couldn’t imagine this place without him. “Why?”
There was a faraway look in his eyes, as if he’d turned inward. “Because the older I get, the closer I am to the people who’ve already gone on, and the harder it is to relate to the ones still here,” he said softly. “Some days all I can think about are the dead ones. I catch myself talking to Glory all the time.” Gloria was his dead wife; Angie had never heard him call her anything other than Glory. “And your dad … I still talk to him as if he were standing right here. And there are more, too many more.”
He sighed. “I don’t have an unlimited number of years left, you know, and I’m spending too much of my time alone. I need to move closer to Noah and the grandkids, connect more with them while I still can.”
“You’re talking as if you have one foot in the grave. You aren’t old!” She was still too shocked to be diplomatic, but then diplomacy had never been her strong point. Afterward she could always think of what she should have said, but in the moment she tended to blurt out whatever she was thinking. Besides, Harlan wasn’t old; he was probably in his mid-sixties, close to her dad in age.
But her dad was gone, and suddenly Angie thought she knew what Harlan meant. He was hearing the call of the beyond; sometimes she caught the echo of it herself, in the stillness around her that would suddenly be filled with memories. Maybe it was nature’s way of transitioning from life to death, or life to another life. He knew he was probably in the last quarter of his life, and he wanted to make the most of it with the people who meant the most to him.
“Old enough,” he said, and looked again at the looming mountains. “If I don’t make the move now, I might run out of time.”
And that was it in a nutshell. She was doing exactly the same thing, though for a different reason. She was running out of time.
“Yeah,” she said gently. “I know.”
Abruptly he hugged her, a one-armed, rib-crushing hug that was over before she could do more than gasp. “I’ll miss you, Angie, but we won’t lose touch. I promise you that.”
“Back at you,” she said awkwardly. The emotion of the moment left her flailing way out of her depth, as usual, but she managed a smile for him as she stepped out onto the landing. Some people instinctively knew the right thing to say, the right thing to do, but she wasn’t one of them. The best she could do was, well, the best she could do, and hope she didn’t screw up too much.
As soon as the door closed behind her, though, her smile turned sad. She didn’t want to leave. She’d grown up in her house, she liked the small community here even though God knows there was absolutely nothing that would qualify as a nightlife, unless you counted frogs. But so what? She’d enjoyed living in Billings, and she enjoyed living here. After a while, wherever she moved to would become home. She was who she was, no matter where she lived. Fiercely she shrugged off her sadness. She’d better get over her pity party or risk turning into what she disliked most: a whiner.