Solomon's Solution

Micah and I high-fived each other. It seemed odd doing it with a seventy-year-old man from New Jersey. Ottilie took that to mean that everything was okay. I had no idea what it was worth, but as far as I was concerned, it was found money.

It was a good day. Now we had to fill the barn again.

[]===[]

It was time to check in with my daughters.

"Hi, Rose! It's your Dad. Just thought I would check in to see how everything was going."

"Not well, I am afraid. Iris is here, so let me put the phone on speaker."

"How bad is not well?"

"Mom is in jail."

"Okay! I am all ears."

"We talked to Mom after our last conversation. She knew absolutely nothing about the phone call that that guy made. She admitted that she was there and that they had sex, but didn't know what he did or why he did it. Two days later she was arrested."

"Okay, but what was she arrested for?"

"She shot him five times."

"Was he dead?"

"No! She used your old.22 revolver with hollow-point bullets. She shot him five times, just below the navel. It didn't kill him, but it sure did mess up his plumbing."

"It held six bullets."

"Yeah! That is the funny thing. After she shot him, she called 911 and while she was on the phone, she intentionally shot herself in the foot."

"That doesn't make sense."

"We didn't think so either. She told us later that she did it so that she would have something to remember it by."

"Should I come home?"

"No! She will be out on bail in a couple of days. I don't think she is too anxious to see you right now. She regrets what she did, but she doesn't want to talk with Iris and me about it, let alone you."

"Okay! Well, I'll let it be then. I'll call back a bit later."

"Oh, Dad! One more thing. We think she is going to file for divorce. She said that you probably would not do it, so she decided that she would. She refused to discuss it any further. The bank repossessed the house."

Life goes on.

[]===[]

Things pretty much settled down. Ottilie got back to writing, and Micah and I got back to harvesting barkwood. The weather was nice so we took advantage of it. And then I got 'The Talk' from Micah. I wasn't expecting it. He hit me while we were having a lunch break.

"Solomon, my good friend, you are not carrying your share of the load."

"What are you talking about, old man. I do twice the work you do."

"I am not talking about that. I mean at the lodge."

"I don't understand. There is not much to do there. Ottilie takes care of just about everything and when I try to help, she pushes me away."

"That is not what I mean either, damn it. Solomon, Ottilie is a grown woman in the prime of her life. She needs the comfort of a man. She needs strong arms and a warm body. You are the best, and actually the only candidate for the job. It's time for you to step up and be a man."

"Damn it, Micah. You aren't insinuating what I think you are? You want me to sleep with your granddaughter? Hell, how do you know if she is even attracted to me? She has never said anything."

"Of course not, you idiot. She is waiting for you to make the first move."

"What if she turns me down. What will I do then? I'll have to leave and I don't want to. I like it here and I don't want to mess anything up."

"Solomon, believe me. She will not turn you down. Nuff said. Let's get back to work."

Micah was right of course. There was no great reveal or enlightening conversation. That night, Ottilie and I just excused ourselves and went to her room. I moved in the next morning. It was different, but it was still the same. She seems satisfied and I was ecstatic. Micah was smiling for a week.

[]===[]

The weather was starting to warm up. Working the bark was hit and miss over the winter. When it was tolerable, we worked. Otherwise, we relaxed. Micah was busy with his canes, and I tried my hand at bark carving. Teaching myself with the online videos was fun. I used up a lot of band-aids. Ottilie was still writing her novels.

Everything came to a grinding halt the next week. Micah and I were earmarking some trees for the next month's harvest. As we topped the hill overlooking the lodge we saw a state police car and two black sedans parked in front. We watched for a while as Ottilie talked with several of the visitors. She was being very expressive, waving her arms about and stomping her feet. I thought it was pretty serious, but Micah was sort of laughing. Two of the men finally talked her into letting them go into the house, I assumed to look around. I was pretty sure that they were not looking for me because I didn't do anything wrong. I wasn't that sure about Micah.

"Micah, do you remember the place where we first met?" He looked at me, smiled, and nodded his head.

"Can you meet me there in two days?" He repeated his nonverbal reply.

Micah took the few snacks we had with us, all the water, and quietly disappeared over the hill. I hope that Ottilie had his GPS chip fully charged. I continued down to the lodge and played the dim-witted hired hand.

They were indeed looking for Micah. Ottilie had no idea how they traced him to the lodge. In addition to the local police, there were two officials there from New Jersey and two federal agents. It appears that Ottilies' ex-husband was someone of importance. I have no idea what took them so long to locate Micah. They browbeat the hell out of Ottilie but were not interested in me at all. That was a relief.

They left after several hours but did not appear to be happy. Ottilie, however, was ecstatic because I hadn't brought Micah back with me. She did not ask me where he was. I didn't offer. We relaxed that evening and most of the next day.

"I assume that you and Micah have something arranged?" She phrased that as a question. I smiled and nodded. Something that I recently learned from an old man.

"Do you have his passport?" Now she smiled, got up, and left the room. A few minutes later she was back with an Israeli Passport and an envelope with ten thousand dollars in it. We checked several times during the day and evening to see if anybody was watching the lodge. There wasn't.

[]===[]

Micah was right where he was supposed to be the next morning. He was hungry and a bit chilly but in good spirits. Fifteen hours later I dropped him off at the Regina International Airport. I offered to go in with him, but he insisted that it was better if he did it himself. I was sure that he would be on the no-fly list in the states. After a nice steak dinner, I got a room and a good night's sleep. I was back at the lodge the next evening.

I called my daughters and found out that Marcie was now at Muncy serving five to eight. They didn't go into any details and I didn't ask them to. The good news was that I was no longer married. Some sort of prison advocate group had assisted Marcie in filing and processing the divorce in less than ninety days. Reluctantly, I gave Rose the address for the lodge. I really wanted that piece of paper and didn't see any downside.

Since Micah refused to come back to Wyoming for the wedding, Ottilie and I were married in Haifa. Micah gave us the ranch as a wedding present.

[]===[]

How many of you noticed the homage to 'The Wanderer'?