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Goldie stayed behind, getting a ride back to town with me and the boys. For a woman who was high maintenance and a serious primper, Goldie loved to fish. In fact, she put everyone around her to shame. Sure, she wore designer jeans and the least wilderness-worthy shoes a woman could find to camp in, but once she slipped on a pair of waders and picked up a rod, she was a different woman. Fly fishing was her favorite. She said it calmed her, just like golf did for my mom. She easily picked up the plastic Mickey Mouse rod of Bobby’s and would hook a worm for him.
Goldie and her grandsons were up at the crack of dawn and spent the morning fishing in the reservoir in front of our campsite hoping to pull out a whopper or two. I wasn’t quite as worm friendly, so I left the three to their fishing fun while I packed up.
Even after two days, my body was sore from the full body slam I’d taken at the fair. Ty had felt like a ton of bricks whenhe’d landed on me and my muscles still complained about it. I’d wanted to have Ty on top of me, but not like that.
Anything was better than being run over by a car, so I was grateful for my aches and pains. My mind had spent the weekend processing the fact that someone was trying to kill me. I’d tossed and turned reliving the terrifying moments. I’d woken up in a cold sweat dreaming about the car’s broken grill. Someone hated me enough to want me dead. But why? My brain spun its proverbial wheels in the mud trying to answer that question.
“The only thing I caught this morning was a four-foot wiggle-fish,” Goldie said, laughing. They’d returned from their fish catching mission. Next to her stood a grinning, wet four-year-old who had clearly fallen into the reservoir. His shorts and T-shirt clung to his skin and his dark hair stood up in wet spikes.
I’d put all the cooking gear back in plastic bins and had been rolling up the last sleeping bag.
“Ah, so do we get to gut him and eat him?” I asked as I hugged and tickled Bobby, all the while he shrieked with laughter. I felt my front get cold and damp from his clothes. Oh well, at least he didn’t smell like dead fish. A shower was only a few hours away.
“It will go well with the Jell-O mold I plan on making for dessert tonight,” the Colonel added, joining us in front of my camper. “Lemon and whipped cream.” He wore his usual tan shorts and white collared shirt. Somehow, his clothes were pressed and starched. How he looked immaculate after two days I’d never know. He didn’t have a speck of dirt on him. I, however, probably looked like I’d wrestled a baby black bear.
“Man, we didn’t catch anything,” Zach grumbled. His hair was tousled, his cheeks a rosy hue of exertion and exercise.
“Good thing we’ve got carrots and celery for snacks then,” the Colonel replied, half joking.
Zach and Bobby both grumbled some more, debating what was worse, the lack of fish or the lack of junk food to eat.
“It’s hard to catch fish when you yak all the time and someone falls in,” Goldie commented. “We’ll have to stop and try a spot on the creek as we head home. Maybe those fish won’t recognize us.” She wore gray neoprene waders which came up waist high, held up with a pair of black suspenders. You could wade into water up to your belly button in them and stay dry. With the water around Bozeman all fed by melting snow, it was never warm fishing around here.
A hot pink short sleeved shirt looked strange beneath the waders, especially with bits of thin gold chain that hung in swags about the round neckline. Goldie wore a matching hot pink visor, her blond hair teased into a poof out the top and a full ponytail curving down the back. It wouldn’t surprise me if the blinding bright pink and gold bling had scared the fish away instead of the boys. “After that we’ll stop at the Dairy Queen on the way home.”
A smile lit up Zach’s face as he fist-pumped the air. So much for eating carrots and celery. “Go get dried off and cleaned up while I finish packing up,” I told them. More fishing. Yippee.
After packing and loading up,we found another spot at a pull-off about a mile down from the reservoir. Goldie and the boys spent another hour attempting to hook something besides overhanging tree branches and rotting sticks without success. The Colonel joined them, although he chose a deep swirling eddy upstream. Without the ruckus of Goldie and the boys nearby, he caught three small rainbow trout before releasing them. Not to be a party pooper, I joined them at the water’s edge, but found anice big boulder in the sunshine, laid back and savored the rock’s warmth against my back and the sun on my face. I promptly fell asleep.
“I swear I’ve seen old people climb a hill faster,” Goldie said once we were on the road. “You could barely make it up the river bank to the car. What’s wrong with you?”
It wasn’t hard for Old Eagle Eye to notice how gingerly I’d moved up the steep bank to the car. All I needed was a cane and I’d be ninety. Muscles I didn’t even know I had were sore. “I think I pinched a nerve sleeping last night.”
Goldie nodded sympathetically. “Sciatic. Sometimes happens during more”—She lowered her voice—“intimate moments, although I’m guessing that’s not the reason in this case.”
“GG.” I used my warning tone and the name the boys called her, reminding her of their presence.
“Mmm, right,” she replied, obviously remembering herself. “When you playfield hockeywith someone else, sometimes you hit theballtoo hard with yourstickand you get hurt.”
I peeked in the rearview mirror. The boys weren’t listening. “Like you said yourself, I wasn’t playingfield hockeylast night, I was camping.”
“Camping’s a great place forfield hockey. Especially when you have a really good stick. You can definitely score. Sometimes you feel like playing more than one game.”
“Mommy, what’s field hockey? Is that some kind of sport?” Zach asked. Apparently, he had been listening after all. I gave Goldie a pointed look.
“Yes, it’s a sport you can play when you’re thirty,” I replied. “And married.”
“Huh. I thought you used to play soccer. You don’t need a stick for soccer,” Zack added.
“You’re right, love, I did.” I gave Zach a quick smile in the rearview mirror, then darted a look at Goldie. “I don’t have lots of experience with games that use sticks.”
“Then maybe you should find someone who does,” Goldie added. “I bet Ty is really good at games, and I’msurehe’ll let you use hisstick.”
I thought of the feel of Ty’sstickwhen he’d pressed me up against the fire truck.
“Yeah, Mommy, Ty told me he played lots of sports as a kid. I bet he’d teach you!” Bobby added, breaking off that line of thought.
I rolled my eyes at Goldie.
