Long lost

12

We were looking for a place called Breakhorse Ridge. It's odd how some names stay in my memory. Twenty-five years earlier, that was where Dad had taken Petey and me on our camping trip. Somebody at the furniture factory where Dad was the foreman had once lived in Colorado and had described to Dad how beautiful the Breakhorse Ridge area was. So Dad, who'd already committed to taking us camping in Colorado, had decided that would be our destination. But back then, all during the long drive, I'd had a horrifying mental image of somebody breaking horses in half. Not knowing anything about how cowboys "broke" wild horses so people could ride them, I'd been afraid of what we were going to see. Dad finally got me to tell him what was bothering me. After he explained, my fear turned to curiosity. But when we arrived, there weren't any horses or cowboys, just a few old wooden corrals, and a meadow leading down to a lake and an aspen forest with mountains above it.

I never forgot the name. But as Petey, Jason, and I had made plans, I couldn't find the place on a map. I finally had to phone the headquarters for park services in Colorado. A ranger had faxed me a section of a much more detailed map than I was using, showing me the route to Breakhorse Ridge. I'd spread my general map on the dining room table, put the fax over the section we were interested in, and shown Petey and Jason where we were going.

Now we were almost there, turning to the right onto Highway 9, heading north into the Arapaho National Forest.

"It gets tricky from here on, guys. Keep comparing the map to what's around us," I said.

Jason crawled into the front, and Petey buckled his seat belt over both of them.

"What are we searching for?" Jason asked.

"This squiggly line." Petey showed him the fax. "It'll be a narrow dirt road on the right. With all these pine trees, we'll have to watch closely. It'll be hard to spot."

I steered around a curve. The trees got thicker. Even so, I thought I saw a break in them on the right. But I didn't say anything, wanting Jason to make the discovery. Petey must have read my mind. I saw him look up from the map and focus his eyes as if he'd noticed the break, but he didn't say anything, either.

I drove closer.

The break became a little more distinct.

"There!" Jason pointed. "I see it!"

"Good job," Petey said.

"For sure," I added. "I almost went past it."

I steered to the right and entered a bumpy dirt lane. Scrub grass grew between its wheel ruts. Bushes squeezed its sides. Pine branches formed a canopy.

"Gosh, do you think we'll get stuck?" Jason leaned forward with concern.

"Not with this four-wheel drive," Petey said. "It'd take a lot worse terrain than this to put us in trouble. Even if it snowed, we wouldn't have to worry."

"Snowed?" Jason frowned. "In June?"

"Sure," Petey said. "This time of year, you can still get a storm in the mountains." The trees became sparse. "See those peaks ahead and how much snow they still have? Up here, the sun hasn't gotten hot enough to melt it yet."

Taking sharp angles, the lane zigzagged higher. The slope below us became dizzyingly steep. The bumps were so severe that only those cowboys who'd ridden bucking wild horses here years earlier could have enjoyed the ride.

"Who do you suppose built this road?" Jason asked. "It looks awfully old."

"The forest service maybe," I said. "Or maybe loggers or ranchers before this area became part of the national forest system. I remember our dad saying that in the old days cattlemen kept small herds here to feed prospectors in mining towns."

"Prospectors? Gold?" Jason asked.

"And silver. A long time ago. Most of the towns are abandoned now."

"Ghost towns," Petey said.

"Gosh," Jason said.

"Or else the towns became ski resorts," I said, hoping to subdue Jason's imagination so Petey and I wouldn't be wakened by his nightmares about ghosts.

The road crested the slope and took us into a bright meadow, the new grass waving in a gentle breeze.

"It's the way I remember it when Dad drove us here," I told Petey.

"After all these years," Petey said in awe.

"Are we there yet?" Jason asked.

The age-old question from kids. I imagined that Petey or I had asked our dad the same thing. We looked at each other and couldn't keep from laughing.

"What's so fu

"Nothing," Petey said. "No, we're not there yet."

13

It took another half hour. The meadow gave way to more pine trees and a slope steeper than the first one, the zigzag angles sharper. We crested a bumpy rise, and I stopped suddenly, staring down toward where the barely detectable road descended into a gentle grassy bowl. Sunlight glinted off a picture-book lake, aspens beyond it, then pine trees, then mountains towering above.

"Yes," I said, my chest tight. "Just as I remember."

"It hasn't changed," Petey said.

On the right, old corrals were the only variation in the meadow. Their gray weathered posts and railings had long ago collapsed into rotting piles. We drove past them, nearing the lake. There weren't any other cars. In fact, I couldn't find an indication that anyone had been around in a very long time.

We stopped fifty feet from the lake, where I recalled Dad stopping. When we got out of the car, I savored the fresh, pleasantly cool air.

"Look at this old campfire, Dad!"

Petey and he were on the right side of the car. I looked over toward a scorched circle of rocks that had charred hunks of wood in the middle.

"Old is right," Petey said. "I bet it hasn't been used in years." He looked at me. "I wonder if this is the same place you and I and Dad built our campfire?"

"It's nice to think so."

Jason brimmed with energy. "Where are we going to put up the tent?"

"How about over there?" I pointed to the right of the old campfire site. "I think that's where Petey and I helped Dad put up our tent."

"Can I help, Dad?"

"Of course," Petey said.

There was a moment after I lifted the back hatch and we unloaded our gear when the deja vu I'd been feeling reached an overwhelming intensity. Everything seemed realer than real. I looked over at Jason and Petey as they pulled the collapsed tent from its nylon sack and tried to figure how to put it together. Jason's glasses and freckles, his sandy hair at the edge of his baseball cap, his baggy jeans and loose-fitting shirt, made him look so much like Petey had looked as a boy that I shivered.

Jason noticed. "What's the matter, Dad?"

"Nothing. This breeze is a little cold is all. I'm going to put on my windbreaker. You want yours?"

"Naw, I'm fine."

"Big brother," Petey called. "You're the expert in how buildings are put together. Do you think you can show us how to put this damned tent together?"

The three of us needed an hour to get the job done.