Naked and Wet in the Wooden Hot Tub

Then, in a moment I remember still, a look of amusement crossed Cade's tan face. And that strange, restless energy burned in his eyes. Pointing to the fine print, he invited the attention of the contest judge to the old territorial provision that called for left-handed arm-wrestling to break a tie. Rikker was shocked. Never once in his 40 years of arm-wrestling had it ever come to this. But I had watched Cade climbing ropes in the barn, watched him doing his arm exercises. He always did precisely the same number of repetitions with each arm.

That strange light again appeared in Cade's eyes. Like a restless energy, it pulsed through his body. Rikker felt Cade's strength immediately, in the initial grasp alone. And then Rikker felt the dismay, the sinking feeling of impending defeat, that he had given to so many other opponents over the years. Cade was just as strong in his left arm as his right. Rikker had not trained for this possibility and he watch in horror as his left arm was slowly and steadily taken down to the table. There were audible gasps from the crowd. Pale, humiliated, Rikker staggered from the area, beaten in more ways than one.

I watched as the light burning in Cade's eyes turned fierce during the struggle. And then, after his victory, I watched it ebb. I followed as he walked decisively to the livery stable, where his big, black horse was waiting. As he saddled up, he explained that I was to take the prize money to Marion so she could buy her farm. And then he said, by way of explanation to a youngster, that a man could not run from his past, for it had a way of stalking him, tracking him down.

I did not understand it at the time, but I remembered his words. And they remained, etched in my memory. The words were there, years later, when I needed them to confront problems in my own life, when I needed them to make difficult decisions. At the time, though, all I could do was watch in sadness and confusion as Cade once again put on the clothes in which I had first seen him. The buckskin jacket, the hat, and the Peacemaker.

Dressed like that, mounted on the big horse, he seemed almost a stranger again, remote and threatening. But I knew he was not a danger to us. Not him. And then he swept up into the saddle in that fluid motion I knew so well, and the horse turned, and he was proceeding in that slow, methodical way up the hill. I watched him take the trail toward the mountain gap, the trail that would take him out of our little valley, out of my life and Marion's, and into the red glow of the West.