KING OF THE MOUNTAIN

Ed pushed through the last of the Hemlock trees emerging on the bare rocky outcrops making up the summit of Hatch Peak. Slipping off his daypack, he removed his sweatshirt and t-shirt, letting the warm sun air dry his back and chest. Stretching, he pulled the t-shirt back on and settled on a flat-topped boulder. He slowly ate the sandwiches he brought, washing them down with coffee and looking out onto a staggeringly beautiful view. Life, he reflected, was good. Very good. Hatch Peak was where he was found most Sundays. His church rose ten thousand feet from the valley floor, and he felt closer to God than any formal place of worship. His childhood belief in a generous, loving, compassionate God began eroding in Vietnam as he watched his friends die fighting a war they didn't understand. Then, what little belief he had left crumbled when his fiancée Anne Carson was murdered. He was stoical, cynical, and distrusted anything other than facts and evidence. Ed kept his true feelings deep inside him. Then Fran Belding arrived.

When he first met her, he didn't know how to behave. Ed felt like he was walking blindfolded into a Viet Cong minefield. She was full of self-righteous anger over how she felt the department treated the murder of her father. She was prone to rushing headlong into things. The Chief had known her since she was a child. Her father was the Chief's former partner. He couldn't treat her like another rookie. Instead, he went out of his way to deal harshly with her, at one point telling her she wouldn't ever be able to count on him for help.

The night they solved Dave Belding's murder, Ed had a change of heart about his temporary partner. Joe Julian had not murdered Fran's father as they had thought. It was his girlfriend, Betty Anderson. Two uniforms attempted to pull her away as she keened over her lover's body. Fran stopped them.

"No. Let her have all the time she needs with him".

Ed was stunned. He was positive that she had not gotten any time alone with her father after his death, yet, here she was, offering grace to her father's killer. She was still a rookie, but there was a maturity, a spirituality, about her he hadn't noticed before.

Ed was in the hospital a year later, wondering if he'd ever walk again. Experimental surgery was successful, but he faced a long rehabilitation in Los Angeles, and his friends were four hundred miles away in San Francisco. Fran visited him two or three weekends each month. Every morning she'd arrive with a look of serenity about her, prepared to help him through his day. He asked if it was because she'd run her usual 5 miles. She had, she replied, but she'd also attended Mass. After her father's death, she'd started the two habits, trying to run her anger out and figure out where God was in all this chaos. When Gary Glenville almost killed Fran two years later, Ed was there as she went through an equally difficult recovery.

The question haunted him. Where had God gone after everything that had happened to him, to the people he cared about? Mark, the Chief, his mother, Fran, and Eve. It wasn't until he moved to Denver that he began to find an answer. It started by first reconnecting with his friend Steve Timmins. Steve was an old friend from San Francisco who had been a priest at St Bartholomew's. They often talked about God, faith, and life, when not playing basketball over a beer in the rectory. Those conversations ended when Fr. Steve became involved in a case of theirs. After they solved it, he left, not telling anyone where he was going. When Ed took the job of Assistant Chief of Police in Denver, he was delighted to find his old friend had been assigned to a parish on the west side. Steve was more than willing to continue their theological reflections over coffee, beer, and basketball. He encouraged him to get more involved in the many communities that made up the Denver Metro area. After the current administration's redefinition of what constituted a legal immigrant. Ed and Steve took their talks and basketball away from St Michael the Archangel. There was a tacit understanding between Ed and Fr. Steve that St Mike's Sanctuary would be broken only if there was evidence of illegal activities at the church and Ed or Sam MacAllister would make the arrest, no one else.

One Friday night after their usual game of HORSE, Steve asked him what he was doing to get out of his rut, asking in particular how long he would mourn his breakup with Fran. Ed looked dumbly at him, saying he was fine. The job kept him busy, and he found time to date. Early the following day, there was a banging on his apartment door. Peering through the spyhole, he saw Steve and three other men he didn't know in the hallway.

"Get dressed. We're going fishing", Steve ordered.

An hour later, they were eating breakfast in the town of Black Hawk. Steve introduced his friends, Jack Peters, Bob Trujillo, and Pete Sánchez. Once a month during the season, they met to fly fish in Clear Creek Canyon for Cutthroat Trout.

"Catch and release unless you pack and camp for a couple of days. Then it's called dinner." Jack said.

Ed hadn't fished since he left San Francisco. For him, fishing was being on a charter boat on the bay or with the Chief at one of his favorite lakes. Fly fishing was an art form. Standing in the creek, feeling the water cold against his borrowed waders, he tried emulating the graceful casting his new friends performed effortlessly. Sharing stories with them over a lunch of grilled trout, none of which he had caught, he was more relaxed than he'd been in months. Steve was right. He needed to reconnect and decided that being outdoors was how he would do it. His eyes kept looking up at the canyon walls, watching as climbers ascended and descended, looking like Spiderman.

"You're never too old to learn how to do that," Pete said.

"Huh?"

"Climb. I see the way you're looking at those guys. You want to be up there with them. Steve says you're a Denver cop. Didn't you know about the climbing rescue team? There's a rescue almost every day. They're always looking for members."

"Naw, I couldn't do that."

"I thought that too when I started." I'll pick you up at six am next Saturday. I teach a one-day course at Mestaa'ehehe. It's Cheyenne for Owl Woman. We used to call it Squaw Mountain. On Sunday, you and me, we'll go up Hatch Peak. Easy climb and a great view of Buttermilk Gulch."

"I don't have any gear."

"I got everything you need. You look like you need a challenge. At the least, get out of Denver on the weekend."

The following Saturday, Ed's muscles were screaming as he learned how to use the essential equipment for climbing. Pete was a stern teacher.

"Damnit, kid!" He exploded at one hapless student. "This isn't a place for selfies! I'm trying to keep your sorry butt alive on a mountain."

That night Ed reflected as he soaked his sore muscles in his hotel room's hot tub on what he was getting into. He liked the challenge of climbing. It was like solving a puzzle, but physically as well as mentally. Where to place a piton, how to clip, belay, fist jam, ascend and descend. Pete was his beta, the one who had done the routes before him. He knew the route they were taking tomorrow and would guide him up a ten-thousand-foot mountain. He was excited about what the next day would bring for the first time in a long time. As they drove north to Hatch Peak, the first thing that caught his attention were the views he saw as the sun rose, revealing a rock face. Some views were gentle undulations followed by the results of the seismic violence that had created the landscape. Denver was the place where the Great Plains ended, and the mountains began.

Pete pulled his truck off the paved road and followed a two-track for a time, finally parking in a pasture. "What kinda car do you drive?" he asked as they bumped along.

"Department car."

"Oh crap. A sissymobile. You're going to need a truck if you're serious about this."

Ed wondered how Pete knew the department nickname for his vehicle.

"There something you want to tell me?" He asked as Pete parked in a small pasture.

"Captain Pete Sánchez, Denver Metro PD. Leader of the Denver Metro Search and Rescue Squad….sir." He grinned, throwing a mock salute at Ed.

Ed smiled, threw the salute back, and unbuckled his seatbelt. "Ok, Cap, now we got that out of the way. Lead me to this mountain, and don't leave me hanging there, ok? I'd hate to get you and your boys out early on Monday morning to play "Where's the Assistant Chief."

Climbing the mountain and seeing the view for the first time, Ed felt a connectedness and peace he hadn't experienced for a long time. "Your works are so great, and I am so small," he whispered. He sat down on one of the outcroppings. Not only had he found God's majesty again, but he'd also made a good friend. "Thanks for bringing me here."

"Anytime, Boss."

The day on Hatch Peak became a ritual for Ed. He was on it at every opportunity he could. It was his mountain. He could climb it, hike it, snowshoe, and ski, and under Pete's tutelage, began the work that allowed him to become certified as a member of the department's search and rescue team. Work that meant more than just mountain climbing, he found out, after the ritual rookie dunking in nearby Summitt Lake.

"We do everything, Ed. We're a full-service search and rescue. You don't happen to ski, do you?"

Full service also included horseback riding; Ed found it wasn't required, but the squad preferred that he have his own horse and gear. He doubted the apartment manager would let him keep a horse in his storage shed downstairs, along with the equipment he needed. He began looking for a place of his own. He found it in Buttermilk Gulch, just north of the town of Idaho Springs and west of Denver. An elderly couple was intent on selling their 180 acres. At 8,500 feet, Colorado winters had finally gotten too much for them. The northwest boundary of their land butted up to Hatch Peak. It was a sign. He offered cash on the spot.

Over the years, the place had changed. Ed believed in being as independent as possible. The ranch reflected it. Its water, heat, and light were off the grid. He hired Patrice Gless to help with the animals, and his mother moved from Kentucky to run the house. Last year, after finishing her doctorate, he and Fran were married at the Chief's winery. Life seemed complete. He had everything he needed, family, place, and friends. For the first time in a long time, he was at peace. Looking down into the gulch, he saw a small dusty toy car moving down the road rapidly towards the main house. He grabbed his binoculars for a look. It was a red jeep. Fran's car. She was later than usual. She must have gone shopping, or back to her office after Mass, or maybe just had a post-mass chat with her friend and priest. He smiled. Sarah would have a roast in the oven, and Patrice should be in the garden pulling up the vegetables that would accompany it. He pulled his sweatshirt on and shrugged into his backpack—time to go home.