Funny how life twists away from your plans.
I noticed that Tess had not spoken in a few minutes. I moved closer to her and placed a bare hand in hers. Immediately, I could feel her emotions. I grinned but didn’t interrupt her trance. The view was breathtaking. She deserved to immerse herself in it without my comments. Several minutes passed before she sighed deeply and turned to me. There was moisture in her eyes.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” I said.
She nodded. “Magnificent. I can’t believe your friend gets to look at this every day.”
“I asked him once if the view ever became blasé.”
“What did he say?” Tess asked.
“He said that if he ever thought that, it would be time for him to move on.”
“Where could he move to with a more magnificent view?” Tess asked. She released my hand and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Nowhere, he meant dying and moving on.”
Tess glanced at me to see if I was joking and saw that I wasn’t.
I heard the sound of worn hinges and glanced toward the cabin to see Joe step out onto the porch. I raised an open palm in salute to the old shaman.
He raised his right hand in a similar gesture and then nodded in my direction. He looked older than the last time I saw him. When I first met Joe, he looked like he was in his fifties. He had been taller than I was and had a heavy bone structure and tightly knitted muscles that formed thick bands on his arms and legs. He’d had a little extra weight on his torso, a cushion of fat that hid the tight core muscles of his abdomen. Now his hair was going gray, and lines crisscrossed his face. He’d lost weight, also, and couldn’t have weighed as much as I did, even though he was at least three inches taller than me.
“Hello, old friend,” I called. I motioned for Tess to follow me and we walked side by side across the narrow driveway and across the dirt yard that was covered more by pine needles than grass. The steps to the cabin’s porch were half logs, hand-hewn like the rest of the cabin. The steps had been flat when I’d first walked up them, but now there was a definite groove along the left side from the decades of Joe’s footsteps.
Joe waited patiently until we reached him, then he smiled and raised his arms. I stepped into his embrace and was disconcerted to feel how thin his frame had become beneath his shirt. We hugged tightly for a few seconds and then simultaneously dropped our arms and took a step back from each other.
“How have you been, Joe?” I asked, hiding the concern from my voice.
“I’m getting old, Rafe. I had begun to think I’d not see you again before I pass from this world. But then the visions started, and I realized you would be here soon.”
“Visions?” Tess asked.
I placed a hand on Tess’s shoulder and introduced her. “Joe, this is Tess Sylvan, my apprentice. Tess, this is Joe Leatherneck, my friend.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mister Leatherneck,” Tess said as she held out her hand.
Joe smiled deeply and took her offered hand in both of his. “You must call me Joe, and I will call you Tess. I am very pleased to meet you. I had worried about Raphael ever getting an apprentice.”
He released her hand, and Tess tilted her head to the side. “Why did you think he was slow in getting an apprentice, Joe?”
“Because he’s not getting any younger. From what he’s told me, Wanderers usually find an apprentice a few decades after they become full-fledged Wanderers.”
“Yes, and I am right on schedule. Don’t forget I didn’t get the usual training time, so I wasn’t really a fully trained Wanderer until a little more than a decade ago,” I said.
“Nonsense, you were trained enough. Walt did a good job with you,” Joe said.
I shook my head. Little did he know. Joe had always overestimated my capabilities as a Wanderer. He hadn’t known Walt that well and didn’t know any of the other Wanderers. He saw what I could do and assumed that must be as good as Wanderers got.
“About these visions,” I said.
Joe nodded. “Come inside. There’s cold beer in the fridge.”
“You knew we were coming?” Tess asked.
Joe held open the cabin’s front door and impatiently waved us inside. “Of course, now come inside.”
I motioned for Tess to lead the way and then followed on her heels.
The cabin hadn’t changed much in the years since my last visit. Originally, a one-room cabin, over the decades Joe had added a bathroom and a pair of bedrooms at the back of the structure. The kitchen still occupied a corner of the original living space. The rest of the room made up Joe’s living room. There was a fireplace against the left wall; it was made of flat rock with wide mortar joints. The mantel was a split log with the level side up. It was a common feature in modern log homes, but not so common one hundred years ago when Joe put
