Chapter Forty-Eight

After leaving Bueno with the boat keys, Trapper unhitched the boat, and Leah drove toward Glenbrook. "Is there anything specific you'd like to do before dinnertime…gambling, sightseeing…anything?" she asked Trapper.

"What would you do if you were alone?" he asked louder than normal because of the wind noise of the open Jeep.

She shouted back. "Now that I have my wetsuit, I'd swim. It's about time I started exercising. Or maybe christen the four wheel drive of this Jeep." A quick grin took over Trapper's face, making her laugh. "It looks like we're going down the side of a mountain."

"Going down a mountain road isn't really going to test this thing, is it?"

"Who said anything about a road?" she answered, still laughing.

Trapper sucked in a cheek with wide eyes. "You realize the mountains here are steep…rocky…treed."

She just laughed as she turned up Kingsbury Grade again. When they got to the pass, she turned toward Heavenly ski resort, but slowed down, looking down the side of the mountain, and when she found what she was looking for, she turned the Jeep over the side of the road and down the mountain. Trapper's hands went up to the roll bar even as he let out a yell one might hear on the big drop of a roller coaster.

"This is actually an old road."

"Where? I don't see anything that looks remotely like a road," he shouted.

"It's called Jack's Road. Before the Van Sickle toll road was built, which is the old Kingsbury Grade, this was the only road down into the valley which at the time was called Jack's Valley. That was, oh, around a hundred and fifty years ago. It was probably a little better road back then, but not by much." She stopped and looked around as if she was lost.

"What is it?" asked Trapper anxiously.

"I want to go up there…to the top of that hill," she said, pointing. "I'm just looking for the clearest track."

Trapper looked ahead of them and turned back to her with his nostrils flared. "Clearest…there is no clear track."

"Sure there is…up between those two trees it's clear all the way to the top."

"That's a rock face," he said, chuckling nervously.

Moving the shifter into first gear, she popped the clutch and shot up the hill, threading between the two trees and spinning the tires all the way up the rock face. When she reached the top of the hill, she looked back at Trapper. His eyes were squeezed closed, and his knuckles were white from holding onto the roll bar so tightly. By the time he let go of the bar and opened his eyes, she was out of the Jeep and scrambling to the top of a boulder, looking almost straight down into the valley. "Come up here with me, Trapper. The view is breathtaking." Climbing carefully up the boulder, he realized there was a sheer drop from both sides and the front of the boulder. "Now, tell me this view isn't worth the ride."

He glared at her. "The view is most definitely not worth that ride."

"You haven't even looked!" Biting her bottom lip, she slowly sidled up to him, lifting her eyes to see his. "Would it make it better if I said you can drive the rest of the way down?"

Crooking his jaw, he shook his head incredulously and moved his hands to his hips. "We could've been killed on the way up here," he said, seething.

"Not really. That's what the roll bar is for."

"You've been up here before, haven't you?"

She chuckled. "You bet. This is the sweetest spot to watch the sunset, and then count stars. We're beyond the light pollution from Heavenly, and there aren't many lights in the valley to obscure the starlight. The only reason I'm not begging you to stay is because I haven't been out here for a long time, and I'm not sure the road still goes all the way through. I don't want to get caught in the dark."

Twisting his mouth, he looked at her for a moment and breathed deeply. "I'm driving out of here. And we are going to take it slow." She frowned and nodded. "And the next time we come up here for a picnic, we're wearing helmets." When she moved to throw her arms around his neck, he caught them before she took them both off the side of the boulder. "Down there," he said with an arched eyebrow, nodding toward the Jeep.

Arriving at the Jeep, Leah threw her arms around Trapper's neck, and both laughed, clinging to each other in a warm embrace followed by a kiss as intense as the hug. They climbed in the Jeep, and Trapper backed it up, but stopped before he pulled forward, looking down the rock she had driven up. He gave Leah a sideways glance before looking back down the rock face.

"There's a trick to this," she said.

"Mm hm. I'll have to keep the wheels rolling on the rock face. If I hit the duff with the wheels locked up, I'll slide, and I won't have control, so I won't be able to steer through those two trees."

Raising her eyebrows, she nodded. "Are you sure you don't want me to drive? At least if I don't do it right, it will be me wrecking my Jeep…not you."

He smirked. "Just hold on." Using the brakes off and on to get down the rock face, he let up off the brakes right before they hit the pine needle covered ground and rolled through the trees. Without stopping, he shifted gears, giving Leah a quick pretentious smile and continuing down the hill. In another half hour, he pulled out on the newer Kingsbury Grade. "Where to now?"

"I thought we'd drive through Genoa, and then head out to Gardnerville for dinner at a Basque restaurant. Have you ever had Basque food?"

"Yes, but I'm not sure how authentic it was. I have a friend in San Francisco who's Basque. I took care of him while he was at the hospital as a patient, and after I released him, he brought in some Basque food."

At Genoa, they stopped in front of a building touted to be the 'Oldest Thirst Parlor in Nevada.' "Is that true?" asked Trapper, walking arm and arm with Leah toward the building.

"It's true. The bar was built in the early eighteen hundreds, and it's functioned as a bar non-stop ever since." They stepped into the darkness of a single room with only three tables plus the bar. The rest of the room was occupied by a pool table. "There were gunfights here, though no one was ever killed. Up there on the antlers is Raquel Welch's bra. A good number of country singers have played in this bar, and several movies were shot here." Sitting on a bar stool, Leah patted the stool next to her. "We have to have a beer so you can say you've been here and had one."

As they drank their beers, Trapper studied the mirror behind the bar in front of him. "That's original, isn't it?"

"Yes. That mirror traveled around the horn and got here by covered wagon. If you get right up on it and shine a flash light into it, you can see the diamond dust it's made with. The chandeliers above us are original, too, but were converted to electric at some point. And you can say you drank at a bar that Sam Clemens frequented as well as President Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Carol Lombard and Clark Gable among others. Clark Gable used to come here for high-stakes poker."

After Trapper had a chance to look around, they drove to Gardnerville where they dined in a Basque restaurant. The proprietor, Belasco Zornoza, who had known Leah since she and John had arrived at the lake, insisted the two join his family for a traditional Basque meal. Belasco and Trapper laughed all through dinner, and afterword, Belasco proudly showed Trapper rubbings of hundred-year-old Basque aspen carvings.

On the way home, Trapper asked Leah about those rubbings. "I'd like to take some back. Do you know where I can buy them?"

"I can do better than that. I can take you to a grove of aspen where you can make your own."

"I would have thought that was a highly guarded secret."

"It is, but I happened upon some in Hope Valley. It was in the fall, and I was walking through the aspen there taking pictures. We have quaking aspen here. They turn bright yellow in the fall, but what makes them so sought after for pictures is what the wind does to them. The leaves don't blow like other trees. They sort of wobble in the wind, and the way they catch the light, they look like they sparkle in yellow. Belasco confirmed that was one of the groves where his rubbings came from."

"It'll be dark by the time we get back to the house, and we'll be on the lake tomorrow."

"We can go home through Hope Valley. The road comes out near Placerville, so we can take Highway 50 from there." She bowed her head while her hands fidgeted. "I'll be going home either that way or by I-80 anyway. I don't want to drive 50 by the river." Trapper reached over for her hands and smiled reassuringly as he waited for the gate to open at Glenbrook.

As they entered the house, Leah asked, "Would you like something to drink; maybe some hot tea?"

"That would be nice," he said, bringing the hand he was holding up to his lips and kissing it.

Turning into him, she placed her hands on his chest, prompting him to move his arms around her and rest his hands on her behind. "Why don't you sit out on the deck? The stars ought to be bright tonight. I'll be out with hot tea in a few minutes."

He smiled and kissed her gently, then watched her go to the kitchen before he left for the deck. Sitting in one of the reclining deck chairs, he clasped his hands behind his head and enjoyed the view while he thought about the day. It had started pleasant enough, but he had been prepared for the worst when he saw her face upon their arrival at the house. When she saw the neatly hung sets of skis, he was sure they would spend the rest of day at the Glenbrook house. She had recovered from their time at the Fallen Leaf Lake house more quickly than he thought possible. The rest of the day was quite enjoyable. She had shown him so many sights in the area, and there seemed so much more to see and do, he was beginning to regret that they had to go back day after tomorrow. Well, he had to go back. She really didn't, but would she?

"Here we go," she said, setting a tray on the table between the two lounge chairs. "This is one of my two favorite times of day here. The other is early morning. How do you take your tea?"

"Do you have honey?"

"Yes. Honey it is. Any milk?"

"Uh…no."

"Have you ever tried it?"

"No."

"I see," she said, passing his cup of tea to him, and then making her own. She held her cup in front of him. "I want you to try this." He cut wary eyes toward her. "Please." Taking a small sip, he grunted, and handed the cup back. "Well?" Lifting his cup, he smiled without a word.

"Oh. That's the way it's going to be. You know, you can say you don't like it. It won't hurt my feelings."

Laughing, he took her free hand. "Are you sure?" She raised her eyebrows. "I don't like it."

Harrumphing, she swung her feet up on the lounge chair and leaned back, sipping her tea.