I got inside and shook off the cold. I wanted to blurt, “Talked to Steve,” but I didn’t. Instead, I hung my hat and tossed my coat on a chair. I settled on the sofa, and we talked about long drives alone, public meetings, and hidden agendas.
I needed to ask, “What are you going to do?” but I didn’t, and I knew nothing more when Thursday came around. I watched from the gallery over the Senate chamber as the first test came for the little urban/rural alliance we hammered together. I hurried out once I knew we’d won, and I congratulated Sam Gutierrez in the hallway and Dale McMillan outside his office.
There were going to be bigger tests, but I took a moment before lunch and sent a text to Hope. “Where are you now?”
Hope didn’t answer until nearly mid-afternoon. I leaned against the rail over the rotunda and read, “I’m on NM4. I stopped in Jemez Springs and found your text.”
“How is it there?” I asked. “Will you be in town for dinner?”
“Beautiful. A little snowy. Dinner with Steve, but I’m going to stop at Tyonyi before I deal with either one of you.”
I imagined that Steve was still in town to play round three and checked the time on my phone. I had to catch Hope at Tyonyi. I was going to save her, you know.
The road north was busy, but the traffic thinned when I turned west. I crossed the river and climbed the canyon between tan-pink cliffs. Traffic disappeared completely when I passed the turn to Los Alamos, and there were no cars in sight when I pulled into the national monument.
I stopped on the overlook and gave myself a chance to back out. Tyonyi’s sacred ruins spread among tall pines below me and the sun dropped toward the peaks to the west. Hope might hate me for butting in, but I clenched my jaw and climbed back into the driver’s seat.
The road switched back down the canyon side to the visitor’s center where Hope’s white crossover was alone in the parking lot. A volunteer sorted pamphlets at the welcome desk, and I asked, “Have you seen a woman with a long, red braid—probably wearing a long dress?”
He answered without looking up from his work. “Folks come here this time of year to be left alone.” He wasn’t going to tell me anything.
The footpath at the base of the cliffs gave me the best chance of finding her. The sun angled low between the canyon walls and left deep shadows. The paths were clear, but remnant drifts of snow hid among the trees, among the talus at the foot of the cliffs, and against the broken walls.
I followed the trail around a sharp bend and found Hope perched on a boulder overlooking the ruins. She sat motionless in that golden light with her back to me and her hands in her lap.
She must have seen me coming. “What are you going to do?” I asked—getting to the point, I guess. She didn’t even turn to look at me.
“Did you come here to help me make up my mind?” The hard edge to Hope’s voice told me that going there was a mistake.
“In a nutshell.” I was already in the toilet, so I decided to flush. “I talked to Steve.”
“I talked to Steve, too,” she said. She lifted her hand out of her lap and raised her middle finger over her shoulder. “Go away, Cowboy.”
I didn’t have anything to say that wouldn’t make it worse. The gravelly soil on the path crunched under my boots when I turned to leave, and I heard Hope behind me. “I’ll call you.”
Almost told her “Don’t,” because I didn’t want to talk to her just to say goodbye.
Hope called on Saturday night. She took me by surprise. “Where are you? Can you talk?” she asked.
I dropped on the sofa and put my feet up on the coffee table. “Home, and I have some time. Legislature recessed for the weekend, and I’m catching my breath.”
She hardly paused. “What were you thinking—I mean, when you showed up at Tyonyi?” The sharp edge to her voice was still there.
“Maybe the time for this conversation already passed.” I tried to control an anger I couldn’t completely explain.
“No, it’s now. Did you think you were going to tell me something about my ex, or about myself, that I didn’t already know?”
That was as long as I could sit. I stood up from the sofa and paced from the front door to the kitchen. If nothing else, that helped me calm down. “Maybe I did. Maybe I just wanted to save myself some trouble.”
Hope was quiet for a moment, and her voice was a little softer when she went on. “Maybe I didn’t want to hear what you had to say. Why did you talk to him?”
“Wasn’t my plan. I ran into him, and we talked over dinner. I led him a little to find out where he was coming from. He didn’t hide his plans very well.”
“He’s an idiot that way. He didn’t hide them from me, either.
“Look Cowboy, my relationship with Steve was a balancing act, and now it’s pretty obvious that I let it tip too far.”
Controlling my sarcasm was suddenly an insurmountable problem. “What, with the nooner after your meeting at the hospital?”
“Asshole.” Hope bit off the word and said nothing for a moment. “Yeah, that was part of it. That’s why I was at Tyonyi—to balance what I had to gain against what I had to lose.” The edge in her voice faded away. “I told Steve he lost again. I told him to go back to LA. What are you going to do?”
“Me? I’m not going anywhere until the session is over—two more weeks. Then I’ll spend some time at the ranch. My sister’s kids wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Hope sighed into her phone. “That sounds like salve for your soul—something I don’t have right now.”
I felt like I was telling her something obvious. “You know, you could come with me, and it could be salve for your soul, too.”
Hope was quiet for a moment then said, “I don’t understand why you care.”
I’d struggled with that question for days. I gave her the best answer I had. “Because I do, dammit. What do I have to explain?”
“I have to go,” Hope said. “Henry and I—we need to think about that.”
* * *
I was licking my political wounds when DeeDee called. “I caught you on the news last night,” she said. “So did Hope.”
Hadn’t talked to DeeDee since the day we met, but I hid my surprise. “Did they make me sound like an idiot?” I hadn’t seen the interview myself. I climbed off an uncomfortable chair and whispered into my phone as I left the committee room. “They usually manage to edit interviews so I sound like an idiot.”
“I thought you sounded like someone who’d won a few and lost a few.”
Cecilia’s coffee cart was outside the chamber. I pointed to what I wanted and talked to DeeDee while Cecilia poured. “The minority whip’s a little weak,” I said, “so one of our bills just got tabled. Another check for the loss column. We won’t have an alliance if there’s many more of those.”
DeeDee was tired of me talking. “Can you stop worrying about that for an hour or so? I’m across the street on Santa Fe Trail. Hope is meeting me. Come see us.”
“On my way.” I was already heading for that door, so I kept going. I squared my coat on my shoulders and tugged on the brim of my hat. I was happy to see Hope again, but only if she was happy to see me.
Took my time so I didn’t spill my coffee. I was halfway there before I spotted DeeDee across the street with a little dog under her arm, and I was about to cross the street when Hope touched DeeDee’s elbow and pulled her into a hug.