Ten Miles Beyond the Asphalt

A pair of 3000amp-hour industrial batteries, hooked to a jerry-rigged together windmill, made of welded together I-beams and parts from an '73 International pickup truck, scrapped for the cause. Now I was too young to have ever seen this masterpiece of redneck construction but I'm told it worked beautifully ... till the first storm blew through. At which time it was struck repeatedly by lightning and finally tore itself to pieces under the wind load of the storm.

The batteries, however, worked perfectly with the propane generator Mom sent them to buy the next day. After she made them pick up pieces of broken metal all over the mountain top. Now that generator is a decade's old beast. I've tried without success to talk them into replacing it. But I always get the "If it's not broken don't try to fix it." speech from Dad and then any and all factual reports I might have gathered concerning voltage versus fuel consumption of a new generator end up ignored.

So ... first step upon arriving at the cabin ... unlock and turn a valve on the 300-gallon storage tank, and awaken the monster of Reese Mountain. Now, yesterday, I had done that and I had let the damn noisy assed thing run enough to put a small charge on the batteries--enough to heat water to shower with and power a few LED lights--but I was not going to listen to that thing grumble while I tried to sleep ... in a thunderstorm.

Alright, so I'm not logical at times, but I was drunk so I have a good excuse.

Anyway, this morning I woke up the birds a mile away by flipping the interior generator "on" switch (i.e. the second of two light switches by the back door) and let those two deep cycle batteries get themselves a good drink of juice.

Then I went to work.

As always starting at the top and working your way down is as good a plan as any, if I had something resembling a plan. Dragging a ladder from out the storage shed and getting my butt up onto the roof and working took about an hour, as I kept forgetting things. My hammer hatches for cutting and nailing cedar shakes. The cedar shakes. The nails. Want to.

Day one and I'm already about out of want to. Fuck.

On the roof, on my knee with my toes in a very uncomfortable position, I worked at prying loose a broken shingle and replacing it. My mind going over and over this morning's both pleasant and disturbing awakening.

The storm had passed after midnight like most here do. I didn't even bat an eyelid when that happened. In fact, it was the morning sun, filtering through the edge of the curtains in just such a way as to strike me dead in the eyes, which woke me. With a breathy sigh, I snuggled up to the pleasant warmth next to me, smiling at the handful of soft breast I had acquired during the night. I let my morning wood hard on having some fun as well and pushed against the nicely plump ass I was pressed against. Letting my hand roam down and then back up under her shirt, I took her appreciative moan as encouragement. It was just as my hand slipped into the damp heat under her breast and she again moaned that I woke up enough to remember where I was at. And just who this was that had started to grind her ass back against my crotch.

Gold metal gymnasts can't perform the maneuver I executed at that moment. A mixture of a one arm press, some pommel horse actions and a back summersault that put me halfway across the small room and on my ass on the floor. Yeah, I didn't stick the landing; I'll probably have to settle for the bronze. But that aside ... Oh, great Holy Fuck!

Megan rolled over, looked down at me, tilted her head and smiled. "Morning, graceful. Problems?"

"Ah, no ... ah ... I've got to go get to work," I stumbled over my words and to my feet.

"It's early still, come back to bed." My sister lifted a corner of the bed sheets exposing one side of her long bare leg to me, all the way to her hip, covered in pink (of course) high-rise panties.

"Ah ... nope."

And thus is the reason why I'm up on this damn roof at this ungodly hour of the morning, and why I'm making no plans to go back inside till lunch. Or maybe I'll skip lunch. I could sleep up here ... no, it will rain tonight. How about in the truck? Or maybe the generator shed? Or maybe ....

With a sigh, I tried to get the memory to go away.

"Hey!"

Looking down, I spotted my sister below. She waved a bottle of water at me and, at my nod, tossed it underhanded, lofting it right into my hand. I yelped and had to quickly shift hands as a second unexpected one followed. With my hatchet tucked under my arm and a bottle of water in each hand, I watched my sister scramble up the ladder and the steep angled roof like a squirrel. She took the second bottle from me and opened it without as much as a thank you or what-not.

"So, going to hide out up here all day?" she asked after a moment's silence. When I didn't immediately answer she picked up a piece of cedar and tossed it at me. "Talk to me."

I took a deep breath. "I'm not sure what to say. I'm sorry hardly covers it."

"For what? It was rather a nice way to wake up. Beats the hell out of two hundred pounds of mastiff paws and a bucket of drool."

I smiled at that. Loki, our horse of a dog that thinks he's a lap dog, has a terrible habit of nosing open bedroom doors and waking people up with a slobber mauling of epic proportions. And then, to make matters worse, he wants to hop up into the bed with you and lay down on top of you. Having been the victim of that morning drool bath and crush, several times, I chuckled. "I miss the big brute; wish I could have brought him here with me. I suppose I could have asked Mom and she might --"

"I wouldn't mind seeing his ugly mug myself but you're not going to get away with changing the conversation to an 'I miss the dog' monolog. We were talking about this morning." She cocked an eyebrow.

It was such a Mom thing I had to look away.

"Jake?"

With a sigh, I placed the bottle of water and my hatchet into the angled bottomed bucket with the nails. Trying to figure out what to say I let my eyes roam up the rope tied to the bucket, following it to the crest of the roof.

"I've already said I don't know what to say." Deciding to rest my ankles, I sat down on the roof. The shingles were not comfortable but what the hell. "If I hadn't woke up when I did, I would have gotten to second base with my own sister."

Megan laughed at that. "Second base? God, you listen to Uncle Tim too much." She shrugged. "It's not like you've never seen them before. Remember?"

I nodded my mind flashing back to walking in on Megan changing shirts once. Here at the cabin in fact, when we had to share the same bedroom due to Reese family overcrowding. Without meaning to my eyes went to her breast, my memories placing those dark brown nipples where I knew them to be. When she placed a finger over one and tapped it to confirm, I looked up to find her smirking at me.

"Right there. But then you know that, huh? Oh, come the hell on! Loosen up. So what? You got to cuddle-snuggle your sister's ass. Honestly, I can't say I minded. Felt nice to wake up to a guy next to me. The ones that have shared my bed always split while the sheets are still wet." She sighed. "I guess I'm a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am kind of girl to them."

Two emotions went to war in me then. Rage and jealousy. The rage I understood, brotherly protectiveness kicking in ... but the other, not so much. Why was I feeling jealousy? To be jealous would mean that I wished I had been those guys that had slept with Megan, right? Oh sure I've had a few fantasies, certain after that time seeing her topless. But really? Jealous?

"You shouldn't play cards." Megan was grinning. "To judge by your face you're thinking some very naughty things." My sister placed a hand between her breasts, drawing my eyes back to them "About little old me? Naughty, naughty."

I rolled my eyes, and then I denied the truth with a look and a shake of my head. "I was doing nothing of the sort."

"Ah huh, yeah sure." She gave me a wink and then a shrug. "Look, like I said, I don't mind. Kind of flattering really. Anyway, show me what you're doing here. I'll help."

"No, I got it."

She gave me a look. "Same crap Dad pulls, huh? Look, I'm more of a hands on person than you have ever been. I can tear down a bike to the last screw and put it back together. I would rather have grease under my nails than paint on them. You know that and the sad part is Dad does too, but he will never let me help out around here." My sister picked up another cedar shake and threatens me with it. "Show me."

So I did. You know what? I had fun ... we had fun. And we got a lot of work done working together like that. Would have gotten more done if she had stopped teasing me.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

For her ride up to the cabin, my sister was very careful in packing food supplies, given that she was going to a cabin with no food. But you can only stretch a few cans of spam and a bag of Fritos chips for so many days. Of course, myself, the far more practical of the two of us, had packed much better ... but for only one person. Not exactly like I had ever given a thought to having to feed two people up here on what I brought.

We were not "out" of food. We were not even close to being at that point. We were out of beer and a few essentials by the end of two days. By the time I was hitting my stride caulking the windows, the desire for some variety in my diet had begun to creep in. Alright, fuck it I wanted a beer, or three. And bacon. Lots of bacon.

"Get your tail in gear if you're going!"

Standing by the truck, the early morning sun pinking the jagged horizon, I grumbled at the delay. Only at the last moment had Megan decided that she wanted to go with me to town this morning. But of course, she wasn't dressed for such a trip.

"I'm coming!" she screamed from within the house.

"I thought she was just breathing hard," I mumbled to myself. Hopping into the truck, I cranked the motor, not sure how much longer I was willing to wait. Afternoon storms, the road back up here, and this truck do not go together so well. It was not in my plan to even try that crap. "Megan!"

"Alright already, I'm here." In cut-off shorts and a tank top, she hustled out the front door and around to the other side of the truck. "Would almost think you wanted me to go to town buck naked for all the time you're giving me."

Silent grumbling, I shifted into first and started down the long, multi-curved road of crushed stone. To be honest, her teasing me about seeing her naked, or her being naked, or anything sexual linked to her had begun to rub a bit raw. A situation not made any easier by the fact she was climbing into bed with me every night due to the storms. I mean, it's not like she was twelve. My sister is a grown damn woman scared to death of storms and here I am--a grown man--waking up with a sexy woman in my arms and, damn it, I can't help that I get a hard on in the morning. Like this morning for example. A near repeat of the first morning when I had a hand under her shirt. Hell, the way she had acted when she woke up almost made me think she wanted me to grope her breasts. Or maybe even to--

"You're awfully quiet."

Distracted from that line of thought I glanced over to see she had placed her feet on the dashboard in front of her and was leaned back in the seat. Her long pale legs drew the eye.

"Just wondering about Dad," I lied. "When we get to town I'm going to give Mom a quick call, see how he's doing."

"You're not going to tell her I'm here, right?" Megan asked.

"Not going to mention it. Unless she's heard some news from the college, I can't think you will come up."

My sister got very quiet after that mention of her schooling. But then she had avoided any conversation about leaving college since that first night. It puzzled me a bit, she and I were dissimilar as everything, true, but I would not have thought that much. I was "almost" missing my classes already. I was itching to get back to learning; it was a hunger in me at times. Now I knew that in high school Megan had not had the best time. She often attracted the wrong type of boy, guys that saw her ride up on her bike and thought the wrong thing. But surely at a big college that was not so uncommon.

Looking over at her legs again my eyes went to the long scar above her knee. Remembering when she got that, the blood on white snow, broken skis and twisted ski pole, that jagged piece of wood stuck in her leg again and again, like a half dozen spear points.

See my eyes on her leg; my sister moved her hand to cover the scars.

"Sorry," I said. I put my eyes back on the road. "Remembering that day is all.

"It's okay. I get my fair share of stares from them." Megan absently rubbed at the line of white quarter-sized dots. "I tell people I got attacked by a bear." She spread her fingers out till each covered a dot. "That he had paws this big."

"Yeah," I chuckled. "Because telling people you zigged when you should have zagged and skied full on into a small spruce tree, that broke and then Shish-Kebabed you, is much less exciting. Bear mauling, right."

She reached over and punched my arm as I dragged out the last word.

Twenty minutes down the road, after we got off the family's mountain that is, the chime on my phone told me we had arrived back in the civilized world where cell phone service exists. Megan reached over before I could stop her and unclipped my phone from my hip.

"Well, looks who's a popular boy. You have forty-three unheard messages." She ignored my look and continued scrolling. "Oh, of course. They're all from Mom."

She tossed the phone back at me.

"Jake! Have you seen your sister? Jake, have you heard from her. Jake has your sister called you by any chance. Blah, blah, blah yackety smackety. I swear that woman hasn't changed her spiel since I was twelve." My sister stomped her foot on the dashboard, then sat up and crossed her arms under her breasts, hugging herself. "Anytime I do something wrong or, more to the point, do something the way I want to do it off she goes on a huge rant. Calling everyone a dozen times, to get the whole family roped into guilt tripping me back into the path she wants me to walk." She grabbed back up my phone. "Let's see. I must be the talk of the whole damn Reese clan by now."

Keeping my eyes on the road and watching the estrogen-powered lunatic next to me play with my phone was becoming problematic. With the choice of pulling over being a no go, since the evening storms wait for no one, I let her have her way with my messages.

Crying was not one of the reactions I was expecting from her, though.

"Megan?"

"Daddy had a stroke."

"What?" Shocked, confused, bewildered, I eased the truck over to the side of the road. "What? What happened?"

Crying too hard, my sister handed me back my phone.

Mom: ~Jake, call me. Your dad is in the Intensive Care here at County Memorial. Call me! ~

Mom: ~That damn mountain! Jake, call me! Your father is in bad shape; I don't want to go into it over the phone. I need to talk to you! ~

Mom: ~CALL ME! ~

Mom: ~CALL ME! ~

Mom: ~Sigh. When you get this your father had a stroke. We're still at the ICU. Call me, please. And see if you can get in touch with your sister. She's not answering my calls. ~

The rest were repeats of the same, with a few updates. Dad was awake but couldn't talk. They were doing more testing. He was on new meds, doing better, in and out of consciousness but couldn't talk still. The last call I saw was an hour ago.

Hand shaking, I keyed up Mom's cell phone. Then put it on speaker phone.

"Jake!"

"Yeah, Mom. I just got your messages." I didn't want to ask this question. I took a deep breath. "How's he doing?"

The long pause before our mom answered told me far more than I wanted to know. The shudder in her voice scared me to death.

"The doctors induced a medical coma about an hour ago. They are trying to bring down swelling in his brain." Mom choked on her words. "He was doing fine. He came through the hip surgery with no problems, was in bed grumbling about the Jell-O not being lime then he stopped talking and alarms started going off. They rushed him off down a hall and I waited hours till I knew what was going on."

"The stroke?"

"Yeah. They said it was brought on by a blood clot, something to do with the broken bone, I didn't understand it fully. They put him in a room in the ICU ... Jake, he looked terrible. They shaved his head and he has a tube under his nose. I ... it's as bad as in ' 98. He woke up though and was responding to questions for a bit, but then they took him away again. He's in a coma now."

Besides me Megan was rocking in the seat, holding her legs to her chest, crying into her knees.

Mom continued. I could tell she was talking just to have something useful to do. "I've called Elena, she's told, Tim. Your uncle is flying here just as soon as he can. I've tried to get in touch with your sister, but she's not answering the phone. I'm starting to worry about her now. Lord knows what she's gotten up to." I could hear my mom's voice approaching frantic levels.

"Mom, I'm here!"

I passed the phone to Megan, checked the road and pulled back out. As I shifted through the gears, I did a mental check to see if there was anything behind us at the cabin that was urgent enough to have to go back for. It was five hours drive from here to the house we grew up in, and a good nother thirty minutes beyond that to the hospital, every wasted second of which was ticking by while we sat parked. Beside me, Megan was dodging Mom's questions.

"We're on our way to the hospital now; I'll explain when we get there. Mom! Not now, okay? I'm still dealing with learning about Daddy. Give me a few hours, my drama can wait."

"Jake?" my mom's voice

"Yeah Mom, I'm here." I clutched and got the old truck into high gear. The big motor responding with a satisfied purr.

"Unless I call you because something changes, swing by the house first. Loki was in the back yard, I left him food but that was yesterday and you know how he is. The big baby is sure we've put him on a diet, he'll pine himself sick." Mom gave a chuckle that was half laughter half tears.

"I'll take care of Him. Be there soon."

"Love you," she said.

"Love you."

"Love you too, Megan." Mom spoke quickly as if afraid it might not get heard before I hung up.

"Love you, Mom." My sister wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. "Tell Daddy I love him, and I'll be there soon."

"I will."

The moment the phone went silent Megan curled up on herself and began to ball her eyes out. When I reached over and took her hand, she undid her seatbelt and lay down across the bench seat, her head on my leg. I let her clutch at my right hand as long as she needed it. I didn't need that hand for shifting for a long time anyway. I hardly took my foot off the gas the whole way home.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

"I'm going to go grab some clothes out my room; I can't go to the hospital in cut off shorts and a tank top with no bra!'

"Yeah, Dad wouldn't be the only one in ICU; Mom would have a stroke too. Let me feed Loki, right quick." I tossed her my keys since hers were back in her bag in the cabin. From behind the house, the thunderous barks were scaring squirrels a mile away.

Megan caught them, nodded, and rushed up to the front door while I walked around to the back. With his huge head above the wooden fence, Loki watched me walking up; he hopped down, barked joyously then stood back up, paws on the wooden boards. The drool level was epic. As I opened the gate I had to distract him with the hunk of three-inch thick rope he gnaws for a toy. Tossing it for him to chase, I headed to the garden shed where his food is kept.