Chapter 5

Clara woke with a start in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. The dark that surrounded her made her heart beat faster for a moment or two until she finally remembered the events of the day before. Settling back down under the covers of the warm bed, she stared up at the ceiling of Jesse's spare bedroom. The sounds the cabin made were almost comforting in a way and the sound of the wind in the pines right outside her window lulled her back into a half sleep.

After an hour long horse ride back to their cabin, Cody and Jesse helped her unpack her gear and store it in the barn and cabin then turn the horses loose to graze. Cody had disappeared to take care of assigned chores and Jesse began working on fixing supper. She'd been ordered into shower and settle in for the night. Supper had been stew and fresh corn bread, the kind she remembered Uncle Jake making.

She hadn't been up for much conversation and after Jesse poured her another shot of a hard drink, he ordered her off to bed as the sun was sinking into the west. The shot of booze had done the trick and she barely remembered climbing into bed. Her body was awake now and her mind was catching up as thoughts of the past few days began to speed up, making her want to pull the covers over her head and disappear.

The smell of coffee tickled her nose a few minutes later and that brought her head out from under the covers as she realized that someone was awake so she'd best get up and make an appearance since she was a guest. Getting out of bed with a slight gasp at the cool air, she quickly got into a pair of jeans and an old flannel shirt before making her bed and padding downstairs in stocking feet.

The lamp was lit in the kitchen and she made her way towards it, finding Jesse moving around as he began to prepare breakfast. "Good morning…," she said in a quiet voice.

Jesse turned a little, "Good morning. Did you sleep well?"

She nodded a little and sat down on a chair, pulling her feet up into the chair and hugging her legs to her chest. "Yeah, more or less."

He nodded and began preparing what looked like the fixings for scrambled eggs. "Feeling a little better today?" he asked.

Her only answer was a shrug.

Jesse looked at her for a moment and pursed his lips but said nothing for a few minutes as he continued to work. Once the food was ready to be started, he left it to the side as he waited for Cody to come downstairs. Finally he sat down at the table next to her and faced her.

"Clara, what's happened to you? It's been fifteen years since I last saw you and yes, people do change but this…," he indicated the woman sitting the chair next to him, "…is nothing even close to the eight year old girl I once knew."

Blue eyes looked back at him for a few seconds and then she looked away. "My life sucked. My family sucked. Only person that ever cared about me was Uncle Jake and they stopped letting me see him after that summer. A few months ago, I'd had enough of everything and so I made plans. I saved up what money I could and I left. Bought a horse trailer, a truck and supplies, two horses and gear then came up here. Doubt they even remember that Uncle Jake left me the cabin. I thought I'd come up here and everything would be all right….everything would be just like it was when I was eight…," she snorted bitterly and looked back at Jesse. "…instead it just turned into one big cluster fuck." There was an angry edge to her voice.

Jesse raised an eyebrow at that, "If you had a truck and trailer, why didn't you drive it up to Jakes instead of riding the horses up?" he asked, trying to keep her talking. There was something more to this and he needed to start pulling answers out of her somehow.

She gritted her teeth and let her legs drop down off the chair, her feet thudding heavily onto the floor boards. "Because, the truck broke down on the way up here…something underneath busted and impaled itself into the road, caused the whole mess to come to a sudden stop and bent up the trailer frame. So there just went most of six hundred bucks. It's sitting out there on that road with the rest of my supplies and horse feed locked up in the cab." She crossed her arms in a huff and glared at the table.

With a sigh, he got up from the table as he heard Cody's footsteps on the floor upstairs and began to fix breakfast. Jesse didn't need her to tell him much else about the trip. The truck had wrecked, the horse trailer bent and then she'd had to try and pack up as much as she could to make it to the cabin. That night, she'd lost a horse and by the next morning had to pare down her gear even more. When she finally made it to the cabin, she found it with a huge hole in the roof.

There was silence in the kitchen as he worked. His ears were long ago tuned into listening to Cody move about and soon heard him coming downstairs. "So what do you do for a living Clara?" asked Jesse as he worked to fry up some sausage.

Clara looked up as Cody came into the kitchen then looked back down at the table. It was quiet for awhile and when she finally spoke, there was hesitation in her voice. "I traveled a lot, worked a lot of long hours, manager was a real asshole but the money was good…not that I really ever saw any of it," she said, fiddling with something on the edge of the place mat.

Jesse looked over his shoulder at her, "That doesn't tell me what you did though…," he stated evenly.

She glanced up at him, then at Cody, her cheeks flushing slightly. "Honestly, I really don't want to talk about what I did for a living."

Giving her a long, measuring look, Jesse nodded finally, "Fair enough," he said and went back to working on breakfast as Cody got up to set the table, looking at her curiously. She was certain he had manners enough not to ask the questions he wanted to but she knew they were making up their own conclusions.

Jesse sighed as he allowed Clara to take over cleaning up breakfast dishes. He went in search of several old books he'd tucked away years ago that he'd first been given by Aaron Bass when he'd come to these mountains. They were basically a form of survival guide…how to books. He figured it would give Clara something to start reading while he did some checking around.

Her words that morning at the breakfast table basically told him she was either running from something or someone. Could she possibly be involved in some form of adult entertainment services? Why wouldn't you want to talk about what you did for a living if you weren't trying to hide from someone or escape your past and start over? He wasn't going to push the issue so long as she wasn't involved in anything illegal.

Finally finding what he was looking for, he took them back into the kitchen and set them on the table. Cody had gone out to the barn to take care of morning chores and Jesse took this time to speak to her about this.

"I found a couple of books you could use to begin reading," he said, sitting down to watch her work as she washed dishes.

She looked over her shoulder at him and then at the books, before nodding. "Thanks."

"Clara, I'm willing to help you in any way that I can. I owe that much to Jake. But if you're in some kind of trouble, I need to know. If you are, maybe I can help. But if you're running, someone is bound to catch up to you sooner or later," he said, trying to get her to open up.

Her shoulders tensed a little and she stopped moving. Finally she turned and wiped her hands on a towel. "I appreciate what you're trying to do. No, I'm not in trouble with the law. I've just had enough of not being in control of my own life, of being someone else's puppet. I cut the strings and I left. For good or bad, I'm here and I guess I'm going to have to do whatever I can to survive and start over without someone jerking me around and dictating what I can and cannot do," she said, her voice growing angry.

Jesse realized the anger wasn't at him but at what had been done to her. Whatever that was, she obviously had buried it and was not willing to discuss it with anyone. He nodded, "All right. Just know that if you ever want to talk about it, I'm here. I'm not the most worldly individual but I'm at least good at listening," he said with a careful smile.

Clara's hands unclenched from the towel and her shoulders sagged. She looked to the floor and then nodded. "Thanks," she mumbled. With that, she turned around and went back to finishing the dishes as Jesse got up and went outside.

Jamie whistled softly at the state of what was left of Clara's truck and trailer. Cody had radioed him that morning and asked him to meet him on the logging road at the wrecked truck with his Blazer.

"Damn…," he said as he walked around the wreck and looked underneath to see the cause of the whole thing. "Pretty much scrap at this point in time. Trailer isn't worth much either. How she managed to keep it from flipping, I've no idea."

Cody shrugged, "Don't know. Come on. Help me get these supplies loaded up. Think your dad knows someone who'll be willing to come up and haul this away and pay her for it?" he asked.

The young Native American kid shrugged, "Don't know. I'll ask him though. Brought the Polaroid so I can get some pictures so he can look it over and I'll radio in a day or two. Might let Matt know it's here."

The two used the keys Clara gave Cody and unlocked the cab of the truck, then unloaded the extra supplies into the Blazer. The hay was last to be shoved into the back on a tarp and when they were done, both sat on the tailgate of the wrecked truck, drinking from a canteen.

"So who's this Clara chick?" asked Jaime.

Cody took a swig of water, "Apparently Matt knows her back from like when they were kids. I guess I wasn't quite a year old the last time she saw me. She's Ol' Man Jake's Great Niece…you know, the one he left the cabin to?"

Jaime was about to take the canteen from Cody, "That's her? Holy crap! Grandfather's going to be glad to hear that. He's been storing Jake's stuff for eight years in that back shed. Won't let anyone touch it or put anything in there. Says that only Jake's Great Niece can get the stuff out of there." he said. "Maybe now I can have some room to put my dirt bike and a place to put a workbench or something…," he rambled on.

Cody looked at him curiously. "You mean your grandfather hauled all of Jake's stuff down off the mountain when he died? I was just up there the other day and the roof is half caved in. Don't even know if the place is even sound enough for her to salvage it."

The other young man shrugged and took another sip of water and changed the subject a little. "Is she cute?"

"Who?" Cody asked looking at Jaime.

"Jake's Great Niece...Clara," Jaime verified.

Cody raised an eyebrow and shrugged, "I've only seen her when she's either just got done crying or in a bad mood or depressed. Looks like she tried cutting her hair on her own and got a bad dye job. She might have been cute but right now…you don't really want to be around her, so no, I wouldn't call her cute."

Jaime looked at Cody for a moment, "Why would she cut her hair and dye it?"

Cody shrugged, "She's a woman. I don't understand half the stuff my mom or Robin talk about when I'm around them. Do you understand half of what your female relatives do or talk about?"

The Native American boy shook his head, "You've got a point…."