Chapter 7: Terry

I lay there in the dark, in the unfamiliar room. Sleep was both desired and not. To sleep was to still the mind of turmoil, of pain. Yet sleep would call forth unwanted dreams, dreams of happier times, times now gone.

I had been back in Lima for two days, back at the Crillón, back to a new world of confusion, loss, and anger. Yes, anger. It was God that held the power of life and death for us. How could I be angry at God? Yet there was the interminable bureaucracy of trying to solve the simplest problem in a Latin country. "Si, Señor. Mañana, por favor." "No, Mister Fisher. You must go the Mayor's office to do such a thing."

Even the Embassy with their pretentious, "You just have to wait, Mr. Fisher." Or, from a friend, a soon to be ex-friend, "Terry, you just have to keep hoping. Maybe she was at a nearby village. You can imagine the horrendous confusion."

I knew she was gone. I saw the incredible number of photos of the devastation. I saw the video's that ran over and over on the television. It was like the worst war scene, nothing left standing. It was disaster beyond imagination. If I had written about this as a book, I would have been laughed at as being too fanciful. I saw Annie in a crude room with a dirt floor. She was leaning over a patient with an ophthalmoscope in hand; the characteristic crease in her forehead as she squinted in deep concentration at the mysteries to be found in the eye of a twelve year old girl with a cancerous retina.

I tried to imagine the wall of mud, rocks and water that came hurtling down the valley floor at a hundred miles an hour. Was there a moment when some small distant noise made her stop and think about her impending doom, the end of her destiny? After the forty-five seconds of the quake ended, did she pause and think of me, a brief smile lighting up her face? Was there instant oblivion, with some god-like referee in the heavens putting his hands together in a divine time-out, calling a halt to life, love, pain ... hopes and dreams, even the most basic sense of "I am?"

Restless, I got up and turned on the light. I looked on the unopened bottle of Pisco, the local brandy, sitting on the dresser. I knew that offered nothing for me other than momentary oblivion. I had to decide what to do. Should I stay here, wallowing in my anger and despair? Should I go home and try to put my life back together, making something when I felt as if I had nothing?

I made a commitment to myself to end this indecision tomorrow. I had cadged a flight on a news helicopter with a photographer who had done the photo work for several of my wine articles—not his usual line of work, but as a favor to me. We would be making low and high level flights over the devastation zone, and would land on a hill about a half-mile from of where the clinic had stood. I resolved to move on, and try to invent a new life without the sweet girl that had meant so much to me since that kiss in the rain fifteen years ago.

The flight was a combination of catharsis and confusion. From high above it was beautiful in a way, majestic in the sheer size of the flood of mud. As we flew low over Yungay, my friend waved his hand at what had been a moderate sized city. "There were twenty-five thousand people living here. They have found ninety-two survivors. Most of these were on a slightly higher part of town where the cemetery and stadium were located." Neither of us could find a possible remark on the horror of that.

We parked on the hill, and the pilot pointed out where the clinic was. He had been there a number of times and remembered a group of three palm trees, close together, making a perfect triangle. We could see the top part of these trees standing forlorn above the mud. A quirk of nature allowed the palms to remain standing as sentinel over the graves of those who were working at the clinic. It was a sad tribute to a former place of hope.

I wanted to go to the trees and dig deep looking for my love but I knew it made no sense. It would be like looking in the ocean for a particular drop of water. Later the Peruvian government would make this town a national cemetery, forever not allowing excavation of any kind.

I cried my tears, and left to go home and search for life. A new storm was upon me and I didn't have Annie to help me reach the point when the storm would inevitably end, as storms always do. I

had no one to hold my hand, no one to make the sun shine.

"Dammit, Terry! I know how you feel but you just can't sit around and mope."

"I know, Dad. I've thought a lot about it and I guess it's that there isn't any closure. I know Annie died in that mudslide. I know it in my mind and in my heart. But still..."

"Yeah, I know. Listen, I know you've been helping around the vineyards, but there really isn't that much to do at this time of year. Why don't you take your boat and go up to Shasta for a week. Rent a houseboat and just fish for a week. Or, hell, finish that Western. I tell ya, if he kills off her dad he will never ride off into the sunset with her."

I laughed a little at that. Actually, that was the problem with my latest novel I was trying to solve. I'd been keeping dad up to date with the story as I wrote it, but with a tough plot problem and what happened to Annie I was kinda stuck. The protagonist was in love with the girl at the ranch next to his, but he had just found evidence that her dad was rustling cattle all over the basin, including his. I needed to make some progress, because I'd been avoiding calls from my agent. I had a lot riding on the success of, "Death Rides the Range." Mostly, it was I wanted to do more work like this but I had to do a good job on the one in hand first.

"You are right, Dad. That sounds like a great idea. I'll call and see if they have something available, and maybe take off tomorrow."

I called and was pleased to find that they had a small one available. They had sizes from sleeping over twenty to sleeping eight. In reality, it was just a one bedroom with beds that pull out, and a kitchen/living area. It would do fine for one person. I'd find a quiet cove and stay there for a week, taking my boat out to find some good fishing holes.

I left early the next morning, knowing that it would only take me five or six hours, even stopping off for breakfast at a great place just east of Red Bluff (the other great breakfast place—we're talking world-class—is in what passes for downtown Yreka, about twenty miles below the Oregon Border on I-5).

I pulled into the marina around noon and was on my way just before one. I'd stocked up at a Safeway in Redding with everything I'd need. I took it slow towards the east on the Pit River arm of the huge lake ... it has a surface area of about thirty-thousand acres. About six I turned off to a side arm that cut off to the south, where a small creek flowed into the lake. It was a place I knew well and as expected, there was no one there. I got the houseboat anchored and everything set up, and then made a light dinner.

I read for a while. I'd found a book written by some cattlemen's association about the history of cattle in the area of Wyoming I was writing about. It was interesting reading, but that had no effect on keeping me from nodding off from time to time, finally into a restless sleep and into the middle of a range war.