Naomi followed Grandpa Belcourt down the stairs, joining Winona and Chaska to say goodbye, the two of them speaking in Lakota to their grandfather.
“There’s no word in Lakota for goodbye,” Grandpa Belcourt told her. “Just say, ‘I’ll see you soon.’”
She gave him a hug. “Thank you for everything. I’ll see you soon.”
Doug stood there, looking uncertain about what to do or say. “A week ago, I had no idea you existed. Now, you feel like a part of me. I can’t wait for Star to meet you. I know I haven’t been there for you, but I’m going to do my best to make up for that if you’ll let me.”
“Thank you for coming all this way. Thank you for caring, for insisting on the paternity test. There are probably a lot of men who would have turned away.”
“It’s easy to care about you, Tanagila.”
“See you next week.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek and then walked around the vehicle and climbed in.
“Where’s that CD of sick powwow tunes?” Grandpa Belcourt asked.
“We arenotlistening to powwow songs all the way home.”
Doug started the engine, whatever Grandpa said next lost when they rolled up the windows. And then they were gone.
“Your grandfather is a real character.”
Chaska put his arm around her shoulders. “A real character—and sometimes a pain in the ass.”
Chaska droveNaomi to Estes Park and got a room at the historic Stanley Hotel. He wanted some time alone with her before he went back to work on Monday. They checked into their room and then went for a drive along Trail Ridge Road, Naomi getting out of the car time and again to take photos.
He knew it was frustrating for her to be stuck viewing the mountains from the front seat of his truck rather than from the trails, but there was nothing to be done about it. “Next time you’re in Colorado, we’ll come back. You’ll be able to walk then.”
He drove her over the top of the Continental Divide and back again, then found his way to Bear Lake in the shadow of Hallett Peak, dropping her off near the trailhead, then going to park his truck. He reached in the back, grabbed his jacket, knowing the temp would start to drop as soon as the sun was behind the mountains.
He found her sitting on a bench, waiting. “Bear Lake isn’t far. If you don’t feel like you can make it on your crutches, I can carry you as I did on Sugarloaf.”
But the trail was wide and not too steep, and she made it with no problem.
He found a bench on the edge of the lake, one that gave them the best view of Hallett Peak—and the sunset. They sat there for more than an hour, talking, Naomi leaning back against him and taking the occasional photo as the sun dipped behind the mountains. Sitting there with his arm around her, Chaska could feel the minutes slipping away along with the daylight, each second precious and so quickly gone.
“This is incredibly beautiful. Thank you, Chaska. Thanks for all of this.”
He kissed her hair. “You wanted to see mountains, right?”
He drove them back to the hotel after that, promising they’d come back to the park tomorrow morning. They ate dinner at one of the hotel’s restaurants, then went up to their room, where they made love until they were both replete and ready for sleep.
The next morning, they had a quick breakfast, then made the short drive back to Rocky Mountain National Park, where he hoped she’d be able to see the bighorn sheep that often came down from the steep slopes at dawn and dusk to eat the mineral-rich grass and drink at Sheep Lakes.
“Where are these alleged sheep of yours?” she asked, looking down at the lakes, which sat slightly downhill and just off the road.
“There they are.” He pointed with a jerk of his head toward the slope opposite the lakes.
As if on cue, a herd of dozens of bighorn ewes and lambs ambled down the mountainside and into the road.
“Oh, my God! Look! There’s so many of them!”
The sheep made their way nonchalantly across the road and down the embankment to the lakes, where they grazed and drank.
Park rangers did their best to keep tourists from encroaching on the sheep, cars piling up along the roadside in no-parking zones.
Naomi leaned out the window, her camera buzzing. “Where do they spend the rest of the day?”
“They live higher up, where it’s cool and rocky. I’ve seen herds of a dozen or more males with the big horns up above timberline.”