Page 53 - WTP Vol. IX #7

Star lifted the glass to him in a salute. “Okay. Can I ask you a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Can I stay here with you?”
Holt stood up as if he sat on a tack. “You mean to- day?”
“No,” Star looked at Holt, “I mean stay here.”
Holt stammered, “I don’t think the Forest Service will allow that. I’m the lookout they hired.” He moved away and fiddled with the rotating ring of the Os- borne rangefinder hoping to deflect the question. Where exactly was this going? A woman shows up
at his lookout and unabashedly decides she wants
to encamp there. There was nothing in the Forest Service paperwork about how to deal with a situa- tion like this, probably because it never happened before. Holt didn’t normally care one way or another about rules; like anyone else, he cared about the ones which worked to his advantage and frowned on those that didn’t. Her request was probably cross- ing a line. He repeated: “I don’t think it’s allowed.” There—that should do it. He made himself pretty clear on the government’s position.
“I wasn’t asking if the Forest Service was okay with it.” Star circled around to the other side of the range- finder and put her hand on the ring so Holt couldn’t move it. “I was asking if you were okay with it. There’s a difference.”
A gentle thrumming flared in Holt’s head. One min- ute he’s alone in a lookout, miles from anywhere. The next minute he’s a got a perfect stranger asking to share his fourteen-by-fourteen-foot lookout for an indefinite period. Sure, she was female, and not bad-looking, but it was more than Holt was able to
process in the short course of their conversation.
Star seemed to be reading his mind. “Who’s gonna know, anyway? It’s only the two of us up here. I
doubt whether the U.S. Government is going to be all worked up I’m here. I’m not some kind of saboteur or anything. I’m minding my own business.”
“Here’s the thing.” Holt stalled, trying to make her understand or to help him grasp what was going on. “It’s kind of an unusual request and I’m trying to sort out what it is you want or are looking for.”
“I should start over because I can see why you think it’s a bit out of the ordinary.” Star maneuvered around the rangefinder further and got within an arm’s reach of Holt. “It was a vision this is the place I need to
be. It’s the right time to be on a mountaintop—this mountaintop. I was camping and saw a light at night way up the valley and I feel like a moth drawn to it. I can’t explain it any more than a moth knows why it is attracted. Something spoke to me about it and I can’t help you were here first.”
There was silence as Holt parsed her logic and his comfort level. Instead of leveling off slowly, the men- tal scale in his head kept clanging up and down. He enjoyed his isolation and doing whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Now, the dynamic shifted. At the same time, she was harmless and it would be
nice to talk with someone from time to time. The place was pretty small but Holt knew couples were lookouts before because the logbook went back many years containing all their ramblings. Of course, Holt and Star weren’t a couple. Where would she sleep? He glanced around the lookout and remembered
the folded up cot in the corner when someone extra needed to stay over. She must have brought her own food because her pack weighed a ton. He settled in to the notion there’d be no harm in it.
“I guess we could try it out on a day-to-day thing. I won’t say anything to my boss as long as you don’t interfere with my job.”
Star put out her hand. “Deal.” ~
They shifted a few things around the lookout and pushed the assembled cot against the opposite wall across from Holt’s bed. Star took out a down sleeping bag from her backpack, fluffed it up, and set it on the cot, while Holt made room for her food on the shelves in the tiny kitchen cabinet. Everything else was in
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