Whatever Happened to Enos' Little Girl?
by KayCee1951
Part One
Mount Jiri, South Korea
Theme Song:
You Are the Reason
by Calum Scott, Singer/Songwriter
Chapter One
One year, three months, and twenty-nine days ago
August 3, 2022
"Yah! Thief! That's my bike," Esme yelled in Korean to the man who had jumped on her bicycle and taken off like a bat out of hell. Because the wind was rustling the branches of the Mongolian Oaks, she wasn't sure if he had even heard her.
"I need it more than you do right now. I'll bring it back. You have my word as an officer and a gentleman," the thief yelled back with a smile and a wink and then, looking back again, nearly collided with a hiker. Perhaps it was because he'd never seen so much red/orange hair and curls. Maybe it was because the diminutive Esmeralda Strate, barely five feet tall, reminded him of...no, that would be silly. More than once, she was accused of trying to mimic the character. The thing is, she owned the look first. You could say she was born with it. It was assumed by those who did not know her that the red, as well as the tangled web of curls, came from a bottle. However, it was all natural and came from her father's Scottish/Irish heritage.
The 30-ish man peddled ever faster away from Esme. For a criminal, he was noticeably polite, in a larcenous way, and apparently full of self-confidence or himself. The scar along his jawline added 'rugged' to that description…He was way too old to steal bicycles. Esme took off running after him. She was, after all, Enos Strate's kid. Instinct, imprinting, self-defense classes (something her abeojineun had insisted upon for all his girls because his work and the ranch were so close to Los Angeles). Enos Strate was still Enos Strate, and his kids were sometimes like carbon copies – other times, they were polar opposites.
The physical gap between Esme and the 'bike thief' widened more and at a faster pace…, which made it more impressive because he was peddling uphill.
"Is he stupid or just cocky as all get out?" she wondered aloud, puffing due to the elevation herself. She needed to explain, in Korean, to the woman who had stopped to see the commotion. "At these altitudes, he could become hypoxic from that much exertion without a hyperbaric chamber within several hundred miles."
"Are you a nurse or a doctor?" the older woman asked.
"No. My oldest sister is the doctor…I pay attention."
"Ah…," the woman said, "I see." The elder looked back at the space from which the bike thief had disappeared. "He did not look as if he was affected by the altitude. A lot of adrenaline junkies come to Jirisan to do endurance training…A few are military, but most are just into extreme sports. They keep the rescue teams busy. I would say he is military."
The elder looked to be in her late sixties or early seventies. Apparently, age had not dulled her senses even a little bit.
"What makes you so sure he's actually military?"
"The way he carries himself. And he said he was an officer."
"And a gentleman," Esme laughed. "What kind of gentleman steals someone's bike?"
"You do have a point."
Esme learned that the elder's name was Dae, but most people attached Auntie to it. She had lived all her life in one of the towns at the base of Mount Jiri and worked for the park service for the last ten years.
Auntie was delighted by Esme's accent when speaking Korean, nearly giggling once or twice because of the strange mixture of Southern California (the Valley, no less) mingled with a backwater Georgia twang. She was definitely Enos Strate's kid, but Auntie Dae wouldn't know about that. And, it was apparent that the mountain didn't get many visitors from central Georgia unless they were from Hotlanta, and that hardly counted.
"Excuse me, Auntie," Esme said, "I still have to catch up to that so-and-so and get my bike back." Then Esme took off again…giving chase to the good-looking, possibly military, adrenaline junkie.
Fifteen minutes later, Esme had made little progress catching up when one of the older Intercity Buses slowed and pulled alongside her. Auntie Dae leaned out the window and shouted over the old bus's engine, "I found us a ride…You know, so we can catch up to that so-and-so who stole your bike."
Esme jumped on, and the bus continued its journey up the mountain. It wasn't long before they came upon the scene of Jirisan National Park rangers and officers from the KNPS police force gathered around a man whose hands had been zip-tied behind his back…Esme jumped from the steps of the bus, with Auntie Dae close behind, to find the zip-tied man was not the man she expected it to be…it wasn't the bike thief but some character who kept yelling epithets at the authorities, with particular intensity toward the man who'd taken Esme's bike.
"Someday, the mountain might get 'em, but the law never will." Esme sang the words, in English, softly under her breath.
Auntie Dae, who stood beside her, looked puzzled.
"Forgive me, Auntie; it's just something I heard as a kid. I don't even remember from where."
Auntie Dae returned to watching the scene. It was so close to the edge of a mountain precipice that it gave her the shivers.
"Are you cold?" Esme asked her.
"No… I'm fine. So, your handsome bike thief isn't the one under arrest?"
"It doesn't appear that way, does it? And who said he was handsome?" Esme said, making like the curious puppy with her head. "He stole my bike."
Auntie Dae caught the attention of one of the park rangers and asked her, "Bong-cha-ah. What's going on over there?"
"I'm not sure myself, Auntie. I gather that the man on the ground in zip-ties is an international bad guy. That's all they'll tell us." Park Ranger Kang Bong-cha lowered her voice to a whisper and leaned in, "But I did hear the word Interpol before they told us, very politely…bowed and everything…that the ranger personnel could return to our assigned duties. The park police wouldn't do that unless there was more to it than the run-of-the-mill purse snatcher. I'm thinking murder, human trafficking…"
"Or both," Esme said. "And the civilian…the tall, good––the tall one? Why is he allowed to stay?"
"He was the one who caught the guy. Witnesses said he arrived on a bicycle, tackled the bad guy like Jet Li, and kept him subdued until the police arrived. He didn't speak a word until the KNPS got here." Kang Bong-cha looked closer at Esme and asked, "And you are…?"
"She's my new friend," Auntie Dae proudly declared.
"Is she now? Does your new friend have a name?" Bong-cha asked, peering around the Auntie and expecting a response.
"Uh… I'm not sure I'm required to answer th––."
"Bong-cha-ah is my niece…my actual niece. She gets her rudeness from her father's side of the family. Bong-Cha…Apologize to our young visitor immediately."
Before Bong-cha even began her bow, as ordered by an elder, Esme stopped her. "That's totally unnecessary, Auntie. My name is Esmeralda, Esme-for-short."
"And you and Auntie Dae are here because…?"
"Jet Li stole her bike, and we've been chasing him up the mountain to get it back." Auntie Dae smiled mischievously.
Ranger Kang didn't try to hide her annoyance at Auntie Dae. However, she was a goodwill ambassador for Korea and would not want to leave a park visitor with the wrong impression.
"Where are you from Esme-for-short?" This time the ranger asked with a slightly forced smile.
"Hazzard County, Georgia… it's a small county to the East of Atlanta." Esme's response was distracted by the bike thief's interaction with the suits that arrived a few minutes earlier. "My father is the Sheriff there."
"Then a small county in Georgia has a Korean sheriff?"
"Uh…no.," Esme said with a chuckle. "My Dad was born and raised in Hazard. My Mom gave us the Korean DNA."
"Us? You have siblings…?"
"Four sisters…," Esme answered. But she was barely engaged in the exchange with Ranger Kang. Esme was too focused on Mr. Mysterious, aka Jet Li, aka the 'bicycle thief,'…and why he kept stealing glances at her. Of course, she knew her wild hair and short stature made her stand out. No matter how hard Esme tried, blending into the crowd was not an option.. Though she had spent fifteen minutes that morning wrestling her mass of hair into a ponytail, it was still a wild mess of red curls. Yaya had encouraged her to cut it short, but Esme liked her hair very long, even though it was several handfuls to deal with every morning. Sometimes, she just gave up and let it go wild to do what it wanted…as if the wind-blown curls had their own agenda.
Esme, Auntie Dae, and Kang Bong-cha stood watching for another fifteen minutes, during which Bong-cha scolded her aunt about over-exerting herself.
"Nonsense. When am I going to have this much fun again?"
"I sometimes wonder which of us is the elder, Auntie."
"It is all right; you just keep on wondering."
Bong-cha, shaking her head, left with another ranger but not before saying to Esme, "He is good-looking, isn't he?"
The park police left with their prisoner, and the suits disappeared into their black vehicles. However, Mr. Mysterious, aka Jet Li, aka the 'bicycle thief,' stuck around. He walked the bicycle in their direction and stopped a few feet away. Up close, Esme could see the mud splashed on his khaki hiking pants and her rented bike, and the perspiration accumulating in the folds of his army green hoodie. Auntie Dae had been right; he was definitely military.
"I brought it back, as promised."
"Yes, I can see that," Esme dragged out in a slow, soothing Southern voice she sometimes found helpful, like calming down one of her unruly students. She could turn it, as well as the persona, off and on at will. (Carbon copy…remember?)
"You gave me your word as an officer and a gentleman. Question is, are you?"
"Am I what?"
"An officer and a gentleman."
"Officer? Yes. Gentleman?…you could find out for yourself if you have dinner with me."
"You're very cheeky, aren't you?" Auntie Dae said, crossing her arms and trying to look intimidating.
"That's something I've never been accused of, Halmeoni," he said, giving a deep bow to show he was raised with manners, "But I suppose it might have sounded that way." He turned back to the girl with the mass of red and orange curls.
"So, you'll have dinner with me? I can't promise anything fancy. For fancy, we'd have to go Seoul or make a trip to Jeju-do…which might not be a bad idea since the ferry is slower and the view is spectacular–."
Esme cut him off right there. "That line might work with other women but not with me. I've lived in Southern California for years and heard them all. Besides, I don't have a Visa to Jeju. And fancy or not, although you may have inferred it…I never said I would have dinner with you no matter whether it's Jeju or Namsan Tower."
"Yet," he said. "You haven't said or even implied you won't, either."
"Maybe I'm saying it now…with no wiggle-room for implication or inference."
Throughout the back and forth between Esme and the 'bike thief,' Auntie Dae was either stifling a laugh or snorting one she couldn't hold back.
"You really are the suspicious type. Maybe I'll give you a good reason to be. What if I don't return the bike until you agree to have dinner with me?"
"That's extortion," Esme shot back.
"And she would know," Auntie Dae said, wiping a laugh tear from her eye. "You better mind your manners, young man. She's from a cop family. Back home in the states, her father's a sheriff."
Esme leaned in to clarify with Auntie Dae, "Actually, on my Dad's side, I'm from a long line of moonshiners and ridge runners. Daddy's the only one that besmirched the Strate family name and defied the code of the hills by becoming a police officer."
"Interesting," chuckled the bewildered and bewildering bike thief.
Esme reached for the bicycle handlebars, thinking the thief was only engaged in childish games and wouldn't really use her rented bicycle as leverage. Then, she remembered that he had taken down an international criminal. But some people were like that, were they not...? Superhero one minute, petulant child the next…
He proved her conjecture by snatching the bike out of her reach before she could make contact. That's when she saw red, and not just in her hair.
"Look here, whoever you are," she seethed. "That bicycle is rented, and I'm responsible for seeing it gets to the drop-off station – undamaged!" As Esme took a more inspective survey of the bike, she took inventory of the scratches, scraped paint, and dented front fender, none of which were there when she put her name on the rental contract. She was definitely NOT getting her deposit back!
"Are you going to pay for the damages and my lost deposit then?!" she asked sarcastically, "What if I have to pay for the bike?"
"My, my. Aren't you the feisty one?"
"I take after my mother." (True to a certain extent. She certainly had Soonie's short fuse.) "And don't change the subject. I don't even know your name to give to––."
"Then, we're even. You haven't told me yours either. You tell me yours, and I'll tell you mine."
"How do I know you'll do that? And how do you know I won't report you to park police for stealing my bike?"
"In answer to the second question, I already told the park authorities I was forced by circumstances to commandeer the bike. As for the first question…Do what?" He asked, looking all innocent.
"How do I know you'll tell me your name once I tell you mine?" Frustrating or not…by that time, she was almost laughing at the absurdity of their conversation…no matter how angry she was. It was one of her more endearing quirks. She could see the humor in almost any situation.
"Because I am both an Officer and a––."
"…yeah, so you've said."
"I challenged you to find out for yourself…over dinner."
"So, that was a challenge…? And here I thought it was a simple trade. You really are single-minded, aren't you," Esme said.
"Now that I have been accused of before. I'm a soldier. Soldiers require discipline, strict adherence to regulations…and a certain degree of single-mindedness. Goes with the job – saves lives."
"Because you're an ––."
"Let's shelve that subject for now and concentrate on my original question."
She was going to say, officer. Oh well.
His voice softened and dripped with sincerity. "Will you please have dinner with me?"
"And what would be my reward for agreeing to have dinner with you…finding out your name and if you really are…you know," Esme sighed. "I'm not sure that would be enough now. What if I demand more?" This conversation might have become tiresome had she not begun to secretly enjoy it. And they were obviously entertaining Auntie Dae.
"So you will?" Mr. Mysterious's voice perked up in hopeful anticipation. Even Auntie Dae seemed moved. "You'll have dinner with me? Fairtrade, I promise. No strings attached."
"I didn't say I would," she smiled back for the first time. She still had no idea why Mr. Tall, Handsome and decidedly 100% Korean, was putting such effort into getting short, plain, massively becurled Esme from Hazzard, Georgia, to have dinner with him. Perhaps she should put her glasses on and see if he was still interested. (She hated the contacts, but the left temple hinge of her owl specs had broken that morning.) Even if they could get past the hair and the significant difference in height (or rather the lack thereof), she would still wonder…why me?
"Actually, you did say you would…in a roundabout way."
Auntie Dae had been right. This guy was cheeky and working his way up to brazen. But she could see his point; she had hinted that she would be open to the possibility. "If I say yes, will you give me back the bike and stop harassing me?"
"Harass is such an unpleasant word. I prefer to think of it as being pertinacious."
"Okay, so you're smart too." Damn, now she had admitted he was other things. And he knew it. "Answer my question now or give me the bike!"
"What was the question again…oh yes, you agreed to have dinner with me if I returned the bicycle. Of course, I will. I'm also a man of my word. If you allowed yourself to know me better, such as having a nice dinner together, we could have avoided all the drama, and you'd have your bike back."
"Did they make any more like you at the Mr. Perfect…ly-full-of-himself manufacturing plant? Or are you the one and only?"
Auntie Dae snorted a tiny laugh.
"I'm the only one," he beamed and held out the handlebars for her to take. He didn't let go right away. Instead, he leaned down close to her ear and whispered, "I'll meet you right here at 15:15 KST. That is…"
Though she suddenly found breathing difficult, Esme whispered back, "I know how to tell military time."
The bike thief straightened up to his six-foot and one-inch height.
"Do you need any help explaining the damage to the people at the drop-off station? I will go with you and pay for any damages on the spot."
"No! I mean, I can handle it on my own," she said, attempting to regain some control over the situation. "Besides, I need to get Auntie back to where she belongs before it gets too late."
He turned to Auntie Dae. "You look like you can take care of yourself, right?"
"Whew, I thought I had turned invisible," Auntie Dae said, patting her heart and winking at him. "I always have,"
"And so can I," Esme said.
"Touché. Then I'll see you back here at 3:15 pm."
As the bike thief hurried off, like he should have been somewhere else and now he would have to explain something to someone, Esme shouted, "You never told me your name."
"Neither did you," he shouted, skillfully jogging backward, "…so we're still even. Let's save that for this evening." His smile was broad, and he looked sincere for someone who had manipulated the situation to his advantage and toward his own goal, whatever that was. She even found herself grateful and relieved that he hadn't given up.
"Besides the power of invisibility, do you read minds too, Auntie?" Esme asked.
The answer was a simple, "Maybe…"