Thankfully the barbershop was deserted. Pulling up in front of the large glass windows displaying the name of the shop, I looked nervously inside before cutting my pickup’s diesel engine. Back for another haircut, I hesitated in the safety of the cab before continuing my wanderings from the morning sun into the hinterland of urban hip and hair touched by Sun-In. Procrastination only takes you so far. Locking up my truck, I wondered if adventure or self-discovery might be on today's ticket. Or maybe just the standard fare, fourteen-dollar haircut. I never knew at this place, a salon surrounded by fast-paced city traffic and faster talking, constantly changing circuit scene addicts. The stylists, always different, came bearing the same scissors and clippers, but with each encounter told a different story. Second verse wasn't the same as the first. Like rodeo, the ride you draw is always subject to luck. Some are memorable because they are so good. Others are memorable because they are so bad. In the case of my impending haircut, I could only hope for the former.

Three barbers stood on duty at their posts. One, already with a customer, silently went about his work. The remaining two waited at their vacant stations, distractedly watching as I jumped out of the truck and silently walked in. The more dressed down of the two motioned me to his chair.

Sitting down, I took off my glasses while he studied me. Friendly but reserved, he seemed to be withholding judgment. My response was equally tentative. Managing a nervous half smile, I met him halfway as he reached for my glasses. Placing them carefully next to bottles and jars and all the utensils of a hair surgeon, he paused in full view of the huge mirror. Eyes unfocused, I studied him in the mirror. Thin, but muscular, he stood there almost as if lost in thought. His unthreatening pose held a self-confidence that could pass for welcoming and easygoing. That same air could also be the calculated pose of a well-rehearsed devil. Leaning back in the chair I decided on the former and noted that he made the whole necessary evil about to be initiated seem not all that evil.

I am not really sure what a guy is supposed to think about his hair stylist. Is it wise to be attracted to him in the same way that one desires the larger than life, black and white, models plastered on the walls at Abercrombie & Fitch? The photos that inspire obsessive clothing purchases? Surely one isn't supposed to be repelled by the person cutting one's hair. But what is the appropriate manufacturer’s suggested response to one's barber? Is lust acceptable? Slight interest? Discrete phone numbers left paper-clipped to the gratuity? How about the appropriateness of desperate begging? Certainly the stylist’s tip jar will overflow if the client drools throughout the procedure, just as a client's chance to be noticed increases when a twenty dollar tip is left for a fourteen dollar cut.

I am not proud to admit this, but I'm intimately acquainted with the proper spelling of desperate. Born lacking immunity to the harmful effects of attractive salespeople, service workers, and other caregivers, this lack of common sense results in expensive and financially irresponsible purchasing decisions, horrible haircuts and ghastly acquisitions. I owned a totally unreliable Nissan because of the evil, yet admittedly skilled charms of a very handsome salesperson. Satan comes in many forms. I nearly purchased a Chevy Silverado after the GOD of all salesmen smiled just right. Asking me over and over again if I bought the truck if could he buy me a beer after the deal was done, he zeroed in on my weaknesses. He with the wink-wink. Me with the drool-drool.

Get thee behind me SATAN!

Most people, by the time they are thirty, know that a nice looking salesman does not equate to nice karma. A barber sporting a tight fitting tee shirt does not mean that the resulting haircut will stall one's entrance into the "Geek Hall of Fame."

Knowing all of this, and sporting a complete litany of past failures, I should have insisted that once my glasses were off and everything went into that blurred space that replaces vision, that I would refuse to speculate or wonder about the handsome fallen angel working the scissors.

Been there, got the bad hair cut, left a big tip. More than once. Run, Timmy, run!

But instead of listening to reason, and ignoring past experience, I sat in the chair and thought about the man hovering over me. OK, it was more like obsessed. How would I introduce him to my parents? Does he like log beds? The adjectives I'd use to describe him to my friends? More educated and in the know circuit scenesters would label him as post-goth, pre-WTO, post anarchist. Sort of dangerous and on the edge, but with a very compelling attitude. Someone who could be good for me and bad for me all in the same package. A man who looked equally good whether he was being arrested or bailed out of jail. In other words, a "catch."

"So what will it be?" he asked.

I shrugged as I looked at his blurred image looking at my blurred image reflecting back through the mirror. What would it be? I wondered that myself. The question rang familiar and brought me back to another time. I'd heard the same question posed by a certain lesbian barber a year previous, just after my last, ten year dance ended with another who was good for me and bad for me all in the same package. What a difference a year makes.

I thought about the friendly, hip lesbian who gave me a cut in this same shop. Distracted, I lost track of my thoughts as I tried to remember the exact blades that she used. Stalled, mid thought, by returning memories of that day, I never answered the current barber's question, "What'll it be?"

What blade did she use? The number 5 blade or was it the 2? What do mere blade lengths say about a man when those implements have so much power and hold everything in the balance? Choose the wrong one and it’s three months of geekdom.

I lost time as I remembered the short-haired woman who rummaged around in my life for the relative bits and pieces of whoever it was that she thought I was as she cut my hair. Skillfully she clipped, shaved, and trimmed more than just hair. Finally when her task was complete, she sent me out the door on that surreal day with a new understanding, a smile, and a stranger's business card.

I looked up at the wild posters plastering the walls and listened to the alternative band rampaging from the speakers. For sure they were a "happening" band. On their way up the charts, doing whatever it was that new hip bands did that was fresh, original, and probably marketed to the niche niche. The kind of narrow focus that all but guarantees being on the verge of being on the verge of hitting it big.

The barber waited silently. Nothing jogged my memory.

Running his fingers through my hair, which a minute previous was concealed by a baseball hat, he stopped suddenly as if he'd just had a revelation.

"Been awhile since you've been in?"

I nodded. Actually three and a half months. Sighing, I inhaled deeply and smelled the aroma of lotions, potions, and dyes. The tickets to beauty and handsome good looks and everything that is one's ticket to getting a ticket or a front row seat these days. I could learn to cherish the smells of the shop. Imagining what it would be like to breathe deep those same scents on the still damp hair of someone I could be lucky enough to hold. Those same scented fragrances also intermixing with the smell of bull pines and alfalfa and horses. Maybe even the scent of diesel fuel.

Remembering the scent of petroleum combined with the other familiar smells I've known in my life seemed like warm place to linger until the handsome man cutting my hair interrupted my thoughts. He with his old baseball shirt, tousled, jet-black dyed hair, and disarming, assured hipness; that "Best Friend you never had in high school" magnetism. A jock on the edge, but blessed with enough culture to keep even the critics on their toes. A role model, a fantasy figure, a person who usually stepped up to defend the defenseless and never thought twice about the risk to reputation, social standing, or exposure to danger. The stuff of heroes.

Closing my eyes and listening to the magic dance of scissors against wet hair, I did my best to forget his attractiveness, convincing myself that he is straight because that is the way these situations are deemed by the Gods to work themselves out. Unsolvable tension. That catch of breath and then the senselessness of it all. The unmet longing that settles in that unsettling way in a place so deep it is off limits to even the professional therapist's skills, never mind the probing of the next lesbian barber to set my scalp alive.

He reminds me that I still haven't given him direction as to where the cut is going and that we are nearing decision time. I tell him I'd like to look respectable, with a haircut that won't make my mother wince, but which doesn't make me appear any older than puberty. His hesitation before proceeding seems very real. Reevaluating the mess left by the baseball hat now sitting innocently on the counter, he dives for the clippers. "You don't ask for much do you?"

Masses of hair fall and I try to gauge through my blindness if he has a nice girl to call his own or if he is even ready to settle down. "Settling down", the words that scare men worse than rumors of war, testicular cancer or woman "A" finding out about woman "B". I wonder if he will someday have a minivan filled with screaming kids and his very own soccer mom who is the best room mother at Lakeshore Elementary.

It happens to everyone…this going from hip to hop to flop. The baseball shirts don't look as cool at thirty as they did at twenty. At forty they scream denial and that a red sports car and a partnering with a twenty something receptionist from the office isn't too far off. The stereotyped male bashing that women love to recall and that men seem destined to repeat. When you are an American male, the obstacle course of heart seems riddled with relationship book reminders that less than half of us are capable of sticking it out for the long haul but that all of us are worthy of being stuck with the blame.

My introspection towards the stylist comes full circle back toward another blurred image in the mirror. Me. My own status as a single gay man. These days the thought of a casual date brings about a terror that flash freezes every single muscle in my body. Nearly every man I know within a three hundred-mile radius is either partnered up, married with children, or straight and married with children. Over the last year there have been plenty of gentle souls to hang out with while the heart healed and the net result was an uneasy truce between all things platonic and all things passionate. My status as an eligible whatever hangs in the balance.

The cutting stops suddenly.

First he spins me to look at him and simultaneously I notice the blurred images of the suddenly full bench of waiting customers. I don't look up. I look for someplace, anyplace, somewhere neutral to rest my eyes and as he leans into me to adjust something I decide that at this closeness there is nowhere neutral now left to look. I can see the hint of 0% body fat as his shirt lifts and once again I try to rest my eyes and my mind on somewhere far away. The handsome stylist moves the conversation back toward himself and the fact that he is bisexual, has been in numerous relationships of both sexes, and then drops the bombshell that he once attended the same Christian university I just graduated from.

Then I feel myself spinning again….and once more, I am looking at him in the mirror.

There is a pregnant pause until I have to look at him to figure out if we are done. Meeting his eyes in a squint he asks me with a blinding grin that I can make out even through my blindness, "So Tim…Are you single?"

Pulling into the driveway in front of my parent's suburban Seattle home, I came to a sudden stop. What was that?

Something stood completely still, looking out from the front of the garage. Something was waiting for me with piercing eyes. I struggled to focus through a tired gaze. A dog? Hitting the bright lights on the truck, I finally recognized the form and shape.

Staring back at me was a coyote.

My parents live in the city. Within sight of Interstate-5, and right in the middle of a metropolitan region boasting over 3 million people. The land they built their McMansion on is not prime coyote habitat. At least, I'd never seen a coyote there before.

Easing into the driveway, I cut the engine of my pickup. The coyote remained motionless. Staring at me, eyes fixed on where I sat in my rig. Chills running down my spine, I swallowed hard.

My grandfather's superstitions returned to me. Coyotes can equal trouble. "Timbo, when those coyotes…when they pay attention to you…that’s when you worry. Then you know for sure that some kind of trouble is on the way."

I looked at the animal quivering in the artificial light created by my headlights and the street lamp. He seemed to be taunting me. Daring me to get out of the truck. Prove that he wasn't real. After several seconds, he slowly turned and trotted off across the lawn. Occasionally looking over his shoulder. Looking back at me. Daring me. Daring me to stop him. Daring me to stop him from walking across my life.

I sat in the truck for a minute and I thought about the coyote. I thought about my grandfather. I tried to convince myself that the coyote's appearance was nothing. A fluke. Coincidence. I tried to reassure myself that this was just one of my grandfather's crazy superstitions and that I should put it out of my mind. Groundless. Sort of like the dangers of walking under ladders. Crossing the path of a black cat. Splitting posts. The dangers associated with goodbye and watching someone you love leave. Watching them until they disappeared from view and knowing that if you did, you would never see them again.

Those were the insane little quirks that my grandfather left for me to sort through as an adult. I could talk myself out of them and rationalize that they were harmless and had no power. But there was always that nagging suspicion. What if I was wrong? What if he really was on to something, some unseen power that if you stepped over the line meant you were screwed.

I tried to calm myself with explanations that these were simply the superstitions of a man of the First Nations, something from another time. His time. Not my time.

But for some reason I couldn't shake the chill.

The first call came the next morning. It was our accountant. Aubrey seemed to be in a fine, upbeat mood. Speaking to me in a joking manner, his conversation came sweet and easy. Long drawls and brief side trips into southern culture and translations of slang always populated our phone conversations. Once we were on the phone, Aubrey and I usually talked for hours. He telling me about the mysteries of alligators that inhabited his southern woods. Me telling him about the bears in mine.

We'd never once spoken about coyotes.

Then he shifted the conversation. "So Tim have you talked to Dallas today?"

"No."

"Oh, well I suppose he isn't as lonely as he usually is."

I heard a subtle change in the tone of his voice. Something different. Something I had never heard before.

"What do you mean? You talked to him today then?" I had no reason to be alarmed.

"Yes, I talked to him. But he has Doug on the truck to talk to as well."

"Doug?"

"Yes. You knew that didn't you?" There was a long silence.

"No. I didn’t know that. Doug is on the truck? Really?"

Doug was somebody we knew only very slightly. I had talked to Dallas yesterday morning and he hadn’t said a word about anyone being on the truck.

Aubrey was silent. Thinking back on the previous day's conversation, I recalled that Dallas seemed short and not very talkative. But he often sounded that way. Especially if he'd just woken up or was pushing himself hard. Yet in hindsight, yesterday did seem odd. It wasn't the same old Dallas. The man I thought I knew so well, who eventually warmed up and began to joke and cut up or tease. During the conversation the previous morning he'd remained cold and non-communicative.

"So," I asked not really wanting to know the answer, "how long has Doug been on the truck?"

Aubrey answered in a soft and sad voice, "Tim, he's been on the truck for a little over a week. I didn't think you knew."

"No, I didn't. Thanks." There was a long silence between us. "I guess I had better go."

"Yeah Tim. Hey, take care, OK?"

The chill from the coyote remained in the air. Now my mind raced as I tried to understand what Aubrey was telling me. Maybe it was a simple oversight. Maybe Dallas thought he'd told me about having a rider on the truck but just forgot.

Maybe.

Resuming preparations for spring quarter finals, I tried to force the passenger riding in our truck out of my mind. I tried to forget the gnawing sensation in my gut. I tried to focus.

Two days later I received a second call from Aubrey. "Tim, how you doing, Hoss?" That new tone, that disconcerting quality was back in his voice. Unmistakable. Crystal clear.

"I'm OK. Working a lot, and you know finals are coming…" I tried to make the small talk sound convincing even though I knew it wasn't why he'd called. "What’s up?"

I didn't want to ask the question but time was short and I could feel that chill. The unsettledness was back again, stronger than ever.

"Tim, I think I have real bad news for you. Real bad. You need to get home. You need to get there as soon as you can." Gone was the light-hearted kidding that was usually a fundamental part of our interaction.

I sat in my parent's home and felt his words sink in. Instinctively I knew that he was right. My gut, as much as I didn't want to listen to it, told me as much.

"You still there, Tim?" he asked.

"Yeah, still here." I sat frozen, unable to move. Thoughts flew by and none of them made much sense. Disillusionment. Fear. Anger. Denial. And finally, hope. Although, as I stared at the wall and tears wet my eyes, hope seemed the smallest emotion.

Accountants make their living by looking at the numbers. Columns and ledgers, facts and figures, adding it all up. If it balances, they have done their job. If the data doesn't make sense, they investigate, try to make sense of the information and come to a reasonable conclusion as to what might be hidden. Aubrey was impartial, saw things that I couldn't. He wanted me home so that I might see the addition and the sum total for myself.

"You need to get going, Tim. Whatever you find there, I just want you to know that I'm pulling for you. And there are a lot of people who love you out there…remember that."

I hung up the phone and the next twelve hours blurred into a frantic mesh of conflicting modes of survival. Calling my advising professor at Seattle Pacific University, I tried to explain the unexplainable. I called my employers and arranged to suddenly disappear indefinitely. I faced my family and through their shock they asked if they could stand by my side. I told them this was a trip I had to make alone.

The road from Seattle to Spokane is a bittersweet highway. Raising up from the lush green lowlands of the Puget Sound, Interstate-90 crosses Snoqualmie Pass, one of the lowest passes in the Pacific Northwest. The freeway snakes through high alpine meadows and rests in the shadow of the jagged, snow covered peaks of the Stuart Range before dropping first into the Teanaway valley, then the Ellensburg valley, and finally the Columbia basin. Each successive drop in elevation is a transition from lush, to high desert steppe, to arid scab lands.

Leaving Seattle under stormy skies, as I made my way the nearly 400 miles east to the ranch, I seemed on a perpetual chase towards blue sky. In the distance, against the horizon of the desert I could see sunny skies. Behind me a wicked frontal system out of the gulf of Alaska pushed at my back.

East of Moses Lake, I once again gained elevation climbing out of the basin towards the high, dry coulees of the Palouse. Finally catching up with the crystal, wide-open, big blue skies of eastern Washington, for a brief moment, I thought that all of this might be a dream. If I just stayed under that deep blue sky, everything would be OK. Ever present on my back door, that cold front kept me in her sights. Everything seemed tentative.

As I drove, the radio seemed to be my worst enemy. Playing song after song that was either special to Dallas and I, or that foretold of unhappy endings, I finally turned off the radio when, Amy Grant's "Baby Baby" came on. As pathetic as it might sound, that song was "our song."

Without the prodding of the radio, I concentrated on the scenery. But the familiar landscape that I drove through also brought back memory after memory. Dallas and I had traveled this route together thousands of times. Mile markers keeping time like faded photographs noted the Sprague Lake white out, or the Ryegrass Summit wildfire we'd seen together. Other images chased past long forgotten moments. The ghosted CB voices of drivers we'd run down I-90 with echoed in the truck. Passing a few rigs that we'd actually driven together, everything was all about gut punch and ricocheted emotions. Each recollection seemed bitter and ill timed.

Finally, I could stand the silence no more and turned the radio back on. Memories again crowded the airwaves. Amy Grant was now silent, but she was replaced by a thousand other songs that sent my brain cart-wheeling. As much as turning off the radio seemed to quiet some emotions, I realized at the same time there was one thing that I could not turn off. That was my mind.

Five hours after leaving Seattle I arrived at the entrance to the ranch. Holding onto that small bit of hope and not knowing what I would face, I parked a mile away and walked up the long road that terminates at our home. I hesitated at the last stand of trees and walked slowly. Beneath me the Pend Oreille River shown the deepest blue on her quiet progress towards Canada. Above her, the land suddenly slid off the end of the bench and hurled three hundred feet down towards the river's banks. Overhead, a southern wind stirred in the ponderosas and bald eagles rode the thermal currents. The eagles seemed to circle in silence; respectful, but far overhead. I listened to the wind gently caressing the pines as my pulse raced and I dreaded the next few steps. Steps that would either confirm or put to rest my worst nightmare.

Walking out from the edge of the clearing, I looked towards the house that Dallas and I built and watched in silence as my former life disappeared in one prolonged gaze. My eyes could barely acknowledge what they were witnessing. In that impossible to believe worst moment of reckoning, everything I saw was joined by a single image from the previous Sunday. The unforgettable sight of that coyote, poised in my parent's suburban driveway, waiting for me. A lone coyote haunting, looking back wild-eyed and sleek. Looking over his shoulder as, tongue lapping, he'd replaced contentment with a chill.

The same chill that now settled heavy and undeniable on me from the edge of a clearing. Near my former life.

A year later, US Highway 2 beckoned. Airfreight delivered, I was homeward bound and destined for a rendezvous with my friend Corey and countless others. Like many highways, this was one I'd not traveled since Dallas disappeared from my life. They say that life is supposed to get easier, that time heals wounds. I wanted to believe the truth in such common sense. But as my gut returned to that familiar emptiness, I knew my heart was still hijacked.

I believe western big skies root to a man's blood, creating a very different understanding surrounding space. Wide-open places, in spite of their loneliness, seem comforting to those weaned on quiet, wind, and windmills that squeak out a rhythm. Or breezes that flap empty against abandoned rail-sided grain elevators. Out here, children learn to play alone and find their own entertainment. The simple hour drive into town isn't seen so much as a hardship, but rather the way things should be. Trips to fetch needed supplies are efficient and neighbors are spread far enough apart to keep them speaking to each other and grateful for their seldom enough appearance. The silence, occasionally broken by the wind or a far off thunderhead, is welcome. The stillness comforts, and is a familiar companion. The radio stations, if they come in at all, come complete with old jingles, crackled static, and few choices.

Highway 2 between Wenatchee and Spokane is the dividing line through that kind of country. The highway is short on traffic and long on loneliness. A driver's thoughts wander if they are allowed. And they have time to settle. The July wind whistling warm through a cracked window, or the snow swirling aimlessly across a January highway seems all about time on your hands.

Time to think. Time to remember other times. Time to look ahead. Time to be human again without the interruption of traffic, conversation, or a lot of population. Time on Highway 2 can be threatening to the unsettled. Scary to the lonely. Overwhelming to the heartbroken.

But as a man of the west and not much of a city boy, even lonely, I would prefer Highway 2, with all its silence and my thoughts waiting to confront me, to a busier interstate. Lonely and big space and silence can be friendly if you let them. Familiar, like an old blanket, the spirit curls up inside and remains safe from the draw of distraction and unfocused interruptions.

As I drove up out of the Columbia River gorge, playing leap frog with a temporary tree line, ghosts danced on the horizon and I couldn't help but wonder just how long this haunting would last. As I skirted Waterville, and looked at the fortress the north cascades impose on the wheated plains, I thought about the emptiness in my stomach and wondered when would I feel sane again? When would these highways get easier?

Especially highways in places like Wenatchee.

A place Dallas almost died on me.

Trucking is all about accepting certain things as part of the job. A long haul driver can count on the mandatory case of crabs every two or three years, usually originating from some cheap truck stop towel. A towel that wasn't cleaned, or wasn’t dried hot enough. Crabs are a reminder that no matter how careful you are, life is messy.

Food poisoning is a regular hassle. Once the gift is given, routes are carefully plotted to determine if the digestive system can make it from the rest area at mile marker 20 to the rest area at mile marker 47.

Along the typical year's worth of miles, drivers know some of those miles are walked over for help, prayed through for safety, and cussed over due to the roughness of the ride. Important events are sacrificed, good dirty fights with dispatchers and love interests occur in ass freezing phone booths and intimacy is shared over a daydream. It is part of a thankless job that few understand and that those of us who truck know all too well. Ours is a lifestyle of addiction.

Dallas and I endured all of this together. Sometimes we walked one behind the other for help. Sometimes the weather turned us inside out. And sometimes as a result of all that time spent in close confines we had really good arguments and even better making up. Hardship, lying dispatchers and broken trucks bound us tightly. Then one early summer day, a breakfast sandwich nearly ended everything.

Meeting up with Dallas in the Spokane yard after he'd just run a solo leg from Arizona, I was beyond glad to see him. Apart for a week, I climbed into the Peterbilt, and Dallas, exhausted, thankfully slid over to the shotgun seat. Although tired, he was frisky and playful. When I pulled in at a truck stop, he jumped out, bee-lined for the C-store and grabbed something to eat while I did my logbook. Dallas ate while we deadheaded to Wenatchee to pick up a load of cherries. The last sight I saw of him was near Wilbur. Naked, he climbed into the bunk, flashing me from the shelter of the sleeper. Pressed for time, there was no time to stop. I had to think about THAT for three hours.

Arriving in Wenatchee, I learned the packing shed for the first cherry pickup was on lunch break. Backing into the dock, I waited for the crew to return. The place was noisy and the ruckus of frantic harvest kept me sitting in the truck safely out of the way. Normally I would have gone for a walk or joked around with the forklift truck operators. For some reason I stayed in the driver's seat and began to compose a letter to an Australian aunt.

At first, I didn't know what I heard. A strange noise came from the sleeper and I halted mid sentence, my pen aimed at the letter. I began writing again and a few sentences later, I heard the noise again. Something wasn't quite right in the sleeper and pulling the curtain back, I saw a sight that I will never forget.

Dallas wild eyed, frantic, and nearly blue, sat on the edge of the sleeper clutching his throat. His chest looked caved in, hollow and oddly shaped. A haunting rasping sound came from his lungs and the entire sleeper was covered in vomit. I thought he was choking. Jumping behind him, I began administering the Heimlich maneuver and forced pressure up from under his rib cage. Weakened, he leaned into me as fluid emerged from his lungs and dripped over both of us as it came out of his mouth and nostrils.

As he'd lain on his back asleep, the breakfast sandwich he'd eaten in Spokane, created a violent reaction. Food Poisoning. His stomach rejected the source, and unable to wake up in time, Dallas had violently vomited the contents of his stomach. Lying on his back, he inhaled the stomach’s fluid into his lungs. I learned later they call it aspiration; drowning in the contents of one's own stomach.

Taking all of his strength to sit up, with each attempt to breathe he inhaled more fluid into his lungs. I believe angels were in the truck that day and that God had watched over both of us. Normally I would have been out of the cab assisting the loading of the truck. Normally, I wouldn't have heard the ruckus due to the radio. Normally I wouldn't have known what to do. Normally the shoes would have been reversed and it would have been Dallas saving another's life. Over the years he'd rescued battered women from hell bent men, reunited scared kids with frantic parents and assisted no end of strays, forgotten or lost souls, and abandoned animals.

As I drove across the wheat fields bisected by Highway 2, I thought back on that long ago day. I thought about how loss and loneliness and going it alone can have many faces. I thought about the differences between the two extremes and how I never once thought that I would know both sides of the equation. First the threat of loss by death. Later the reality of loss by separation. Somehow I always thought that ours was an infinity. I believed that when loss did come, death would be its messenger.

After his brush with death, Dallas was admitted to a Wenatchee hospital, while I was forced to keep loading cherries. With each pickup, the severity of what occurred seemed to intensify. Unable to contact the hospital to check on Dallas, I found myself in a phone booth near Chelan. It was my grandfather whose voice brought calm and certainty back from the edge of chaos. "He'll be OK, Tim. Dallas is tough. You did good, Timbo. Remember we love you both and we're pulling for you."

My grandparents and I prayed over a dusty phone line in muted tones. We prayed that Dallas would indeed be OK. That God would calm my nerves. That the love I felt and that they acknowledged would continue. Yet the close call with Death and loss left me shaken. Over the next few weeks, Dallas played a long game of tag with normally fatal aspiration pneumonia. For many months after that day in Wenatchee, I nearly jackknifed every time I heard a weak cough originating from the sleeper. When those heartbeat-skipped moments finally passed, I was grateful to be spared further worry or brought front and center back to that nightmare. Eventually Dallas recovered fully and things settled back into routine. My sense of calm returned.

My thoughts returned to the present as eastbound and still down, I finally rounded the sweeping corner pointing towards the wide open scab lands. Passing a sign pointing to somewhere called Withrow, I remembered it as a road I'd often contemplated on our travels together. Wondering each time I passed, if Withrow was a place Dallas might share more than a last name with.

As the sign faded behind me, loneliness again appeared front and center and the constitution of loss finally made sense to me. As the tumbleweeds caught wind and the skies opened up for hundred mile views of incredible saged nothingness, I drove toward Spokane wondering at the irony. How surprising that a loss so common unsettles, catches humanity off guard and finds us ill-prepared on a regular basis. Loss signals the end of taking things for granted. Whether the pain occurs through death or separation, saying goodbye is much more than the world of psychobabble’s "one size fits all" stages.

Letting go in all its complexities, the movements and intricate dances of emotive anger, denial, bargaining, and depression, is not as neatly defined or compartmentalized as we want it to be. Life gets messy. People sometimes do very strange things as they cope. And individuality creates unique opportunities for eccentric actions. Hopefully those grieving and left behind eventually wake up. One day, realizing they've hightailed it towards a place of nirvana called acceptance, the pain becomes inseparable from the laughter.

Some never find that peaceful place and wander uncomforted.

But loss is more than just those familiar ending places. Loss is also about the remarkable feat of understanding change. Knowing that no matter what, in spite of the desire to look back in the mirrors, life is also about moving on. Yes, tomorrow is going to be different. And "different" doesn't have to be anything special or remarkable or noteworthy. Different is neither golden, nor is it dark and dreary.

Different just is. Especially when one is recently single.

I pulled into the Texaco station and idled up to the diesel pump. Huge mercury bulbs bathed everything in a bright silver light. As I jumped out of the truck and swiped my fuel card, a tall man stood on the opposite side of the island. He wore tight Wranglers and a flannel shirt that was sawed off sleeves, revealing a tattoo of barbed wire circling muscular biceps. His wild blond hair was barely contained under a baseball cap, the stray ends curling up and touching the top of his neck. He still wore the dreaded mullet cut.

"Bless your ever-loving redneck heart," I thought.

As I grabbed the fuel nozzle he smiled and said, "Good evening."

I returned the greeting and looked over my shoulder as I dumped the nozzle into the tank and began pumping. Striking, he stood tall under the lights. I figured he was nearly 6'2" or more. I kept playing eye tag with him.

I have never had very good "gaydar." I think I got the earliest released version: "Gaydar for Windows 1.1." A test edition released before it had a search engine or any of the press and play features, my gaydar has to be kick started. The aim on it is terrible. The system is prone to crashing, error messages abound and the results aren’t reliable as I try to figure out the all important question, "Is he or isn't he?" Especially in the west, where just about everyone says howdy to each other, waves, and makes extended eye contact. Even obvious is never obvious enough to me.

Is he just being friendly? Is he interested in making my acquaintance? Is he both?

Looking at the man opposite me I wonder, "Is that a ring he is wearing on that finger?" OK, friendly. End of story.

Or maybe not. Mr. "Just Dangling in his Wranglers" remained leaning against his truck. I wanted to ignore him. "Just let it go Tim," I told myself.

Of course I couldn't. I had to know. The disaster magnet was calling out to me. I love that sound. "Here Timmy…I have an adventure for you. I dare you to run Timmy…you might miss something..."

I've never been very good at "Just let it go."

Ignoring my own advice, I noticed that Mr. "Wrangler Butt from Heaven" was still there. Still facing me looking toward my truck.

I checked the air pressure on my tires, checked the oil, washed all the windows, shook out the floor mats, and emptied the trash. I looked again. He adjusted his baseball hat and winked.

Wait! Was that a wink or a twitch? Are you sure you saw a wink? Maybe it was dust.

I checked the radiator level, the air filter, and all the lights. Every time I looked at him, he was looking at me.

I checked the hubs on the front end to make sure they were out of four-wheel drive. I ran my fingers over the tread to make sure it was wearing evenly. I again glanced toward Mr. "Can I Get Caught Up in the Barbed Wire on Your Arms." He nodded my way.

What did I do now? Should I talk to him? Maybe he was from eastern Washington…everyone is extra friendly over there… I was on his side of my truck again. Cleaning the mirrors.

"Nice truck," I told him.

"Yours, too." He smiled. At me.

I felt that awkwardness where, heart pounding, I wanted God to tell me right then and there what to do. Even though nothing about the situation was obvious, I was feeling blatantly obvious. I was totally out of things to do to prolong the moment. Why was he still there? Was I making an impression on him? Did he really like my truck? Did he like me?

His Dodge Ram was already fueled. He wasn't washing windows, checking air pressure or nothing. He was just there.

I had no good reason to keep looking over toward him. But I did.

Of course he was still looking at me because that’s just the way these unexplainable situations work. These events have no right answer. But they are loaded with wrong ones. A single ill-thought move and the magic show turns into a horror show. Here I was minding my own business, just going to a rendezvous with that Texaco, "Five Tanks is All We Ask" Star, and look what happens.

I liked his belt buckle, a nice Montana Silversmith Edition. Bucking bull throwing soon to be bucked off rider. Should I tell him I liked his belt buckle too? His boots? Him?

Instead, I got in my truck and started it up. I released the brake and coolly nodded to him as I pulled out. Deep down inside I am a born again chicken shit. Maybe he would follow me and we could talk and go have coffee and be best friends forever…

I looked in my mirror on the sly. Was he impressed at how cool and aloof I was? He gazed my way as I pulled out. I knew he wanted to talk to me. Ask me about my truck. Ask me if I liked Denny's, and did I have an hour to kill for a cup of joe. I hoped, I prayed and…

An alarmed expression overcame his face replacing that killer smile. There wasn't time to warn me. He put his hand over his mouth and turned away. It looked like he was coughing.

I felt the pickup lurch and heard a horrible sound. A sound I never want to hear again. A long stretching sound. Followed by a shredding, grinding, ripping-the-hose-from-the-pump sound. And then a voice screaming, "Stop!" over the loudspeaker. The helpless cashier, hundreds of feet away and watching the whole event on the closed-circuit video surveillance system, prays that I hear her. Before it’s too late.

It’s too late.

Behind me, lying sprawled across the parking lot like a dead rubber rattlesnake, lies the fuel hose. Prone. Stretched. Really stretched. Dead. Decapitated, its metal head now protrudes from the side of my truck.

I didn't want to look in the mirrors. I didn't want to acknowledge that Mr. "Dangling in his Wranglers" was now doubled up, dying in his Wranglers. Laughing. I knew he no longer wanted to know me. We would not be best friends forever. We would not be going for coffee. Only one word would cross his mind if he ever thought of me again.

Dork.

I couldn’t just leave the hose lying there, even though all I wanted to do was just drive into the dark, disappear and die. A lot of people would have simply driven to an isolated dark lot and tossed the nozzle.

But obviously, I can't think that fast.

Instead, I chose public humiliation. I chose to face my fears. I put the truck in neutral and set the brake. I did not check to see if Mr. "Where Have You Been All My Life and Funny I Would Meet You at this Little Old Texaco and Sure I'll Go for Coffee" was still watching me. Instinctively I knew he was. I could hear him trying to stop giggling.

Funny thing about life. In less than a minute a man can go from being cool and in control to nominee for the Darwin Awards.

Walking over to the wounded hose still twitching on the concrete, my boot falls don't sound nearly as impressive as they had five minutes before. Bending over, I pick up the hose, reunite it with what’s left of the nozzle, and gently replace it on the fuel pump handle. As coolly as I can, I put my fuel cap back on and retrieve my receipt from the automated card reader. Looking straight ahead, I make eye contact with no one. Grief is a solitary prospect and I needed time to myself.

I will myself not to listen to the stifled laughter still coming from the opposite side of the fuel island. But it’s there. And then another sound intrudes. The very feminine voice of a young blonde in a tight halter top and even tighter Wranglers. She’s walking across the station lanes toward my handsome stranger.

"Honey, I’m so sorry I took so long in the bathroom. You know us girls… Honey? What's so funny honey? What happened?"

As I get back into my truck I do not see the once again doubled over Mr. "I Hope I Never Ever Run Into You Again" pointing at me and explaining 'what happened' to his pretty little lady.

I also don't hear the warning ding-ding or see that little red light on the dash telling me my parking brake is still engaged as I put the truck into gear.

But as I rounded the island and prepared to drive out I did see one thing.

The license plate on Wranglerman’s 4x4 Dodge Ram. "COYOTE"

Corey and I watched The Oscars in the pizza parlor on Newport's main drag.

"My hometown." Thinking those words, they seemed especially surreal as Garth Brooks sang "Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head" on a big screen TV. I'd not heard that song in years. The remains of several pizzas littered the table and like so many small towns on a Sunday night, the pizza parlor was prematurely deserted. Corey and I sat alone at a big table. The lone holdouts from another large weekend get together. The rest of the gang from the ranch was on their way back to Seattle.

"My hometown…" I repeated the words in my mind. They didn't feel that familiar or comforting.

Everything stays the same in places like Pend Oreille County. Much of my family’s history touches or revolves around this area, nestled in the shadow of the Selkirk Mountains, and hanging by a thread just this side of Idaho. My father spent his early summers herding sheep on Kallispel mountain and healing from abuse at his father’s hands. The mountain offered protection from the physical assaults as well as shelter from his family’s shamed cover of silence. The restoration of the boy's soul came slowly. But as the tears fell and the scars faded in the gentle shade of the ponderosa pine forest, my father found his way again near where the Little Pend Oreille River intersects with the big one.

The valley holds other history. Generations of my uncles logged its foothills, benches and ranges. They worked elevated and Jakebraked above the same country where my grandparents spent their early summer and mid-fall nights camping. I spent my teen summers at Sullivan Lake. Metaline. Gypsy Peak. And among the people of the Kalispel Nation. In college I hunted bear on Salmo Mountain and fished near Usk. This was my country.

Yet, even all those ghosted images, interwoven with the events of the last year could not railroad the sense of timelessness away from home. The difference I felt toward "home" felt more like a temporary deception. Hoping that if I just stuck it out, the warmth would return with another spring. The glow of home would not be doused. New memories would replace the older ones.

Still, I also knew that everything had changed. You couldn't see it or even define the change, but as much as I didn't want to admit it, nothing looked the same as it had before. "Hometown" now seemed a word invisibly marked and filled with as many evil spirits as friendly ones. The journey to putting life back together again seemed as much about stumbling, foolish moments, and manic optimism as opposed to simple routine.

Corey sat across from me. The gentle fireman, who over the last year had become a giant in my eyes, studied me in silence. A genuine full portion of kindness, grace, and concern combined in one unconditional hunk of a man. When I faltered, he kept me focused.

Tonight was no exception. Tonight was one of those milestone nights marking a return to the scene of something troubling. Tonight was all about facing fears, and moving on. Tonight marked the first time that I would spend the night up at the ranch alone. And it marked a year since that coyote showed up at my parent's place.

Over the last year, like Pend Oreille County and Newport, the feelings associated with the ranch changed in my mind. How could it ever be the same with so many memories to put in some sort of order? An endless parade of jubilant visitors kept silence to a minimum and the creation of new memories seemed to briefly halt the exodus of the old ones. Heart-lit souls laughed around crackling fires. Appearing rosy cheeked under the back porch, brushing powdered snow off of cold-footed boots, they were drawn to the smells of Colton's wonderful Italian cooking warming from the kitchen. In the spring, fresh picked wildflowers and a "I just couldn't help myself" look accompanied those same voices. Echoing long after their departure, their floral contribution to spring remained behind, dried yet bright in old vases and in baskets where petals dropped like leaves. Among so many saints, the ghosts never had a chance to walk unescorted through the halls, rekindle pained memories, or establish residency.

Until tonight.

Tonight I would be up at the ranch alone. It was time. Corey finally got up to leave. Out on the sidewalk, he gave me a hug and then was gone. I watched him leave and then I got into my rig and headed north.

Toward home.

Driving through town, the brightest starred heavens shone down in direct competition with the new streetlights a community development grant brought. Thinking about trade-offs, the gift of having so many close friends, and the awkwardness of dealing with sorrow, especially when concerned vested observers watched every move, I wondered what an impartial observer might make of the last year. Would they say my public and private dance became a uniquely pathetic process? How did others manage similar situations? I'd like to say I handled it textbook, and spent the appropriate amount of time at each stage visiting depression, denial and bargaining. I like to believe I did. The judges aren't so sure.

Some on the jury waited for anger and fury. Feeling I hadn't gotten mad enough they wanted to see fire in my eyes, a thousand pointing fingers and hear endless "how could he’s?" Other jurors liked the "hear no evil, see no evil, lets just pretend the last ten years didn't happen" approach. Friends, neighbors and all the collective people in our lives never knew what to say when they heard the news. Often I found myself consoling them and trying to help them through the shock.

One of my co-workers went so far as to find a bounty hunter. Without my knowledge he had everything arranged to bring about justice. He didn't understand my passive stand. Awkward as it was I had to explain that I wasn't in a position to chase, try, or seek retribution. Some fence lines are permanent. Some are subject to readjustment.

Yet, as much as everyone around me could put things into very concrete terms, I had difficulty. In my mind, things remained muddled and confused. If anger should have lit anyone's fuse, it should have been mine. But I flunked out of anger.

What was the point? Getting pissed only hurt me. The bitterness would only weigh heavy on my shoulders. That negative energy would stifle my soul. And if I deeply loved Dallas, his departure didn't change that emotion. While anger might seem like a sure fit, it wasn't.

I found denial to be far more fulfilling.

Moving around the house I’d find poems that Dallas wrote. I’d take beloved photographs of him out of the living room, put them in the guest bedroom, then return them to their original resting place in the living room. Back and forth those smiling images trekked. One friend announced upon returning to the ranch, "So Tim, where are we going to move Dallas' pictures today?"

Packing up mementos of Dallas, then quickly unpacking them, I didn't know how to determine what defined legitimate history and what was just more weighted baggage. Some days I forgot that I would never see him again and I remembered to remember to share something with him. Some parcel of news that later I would realize I wouldn't get to tell him because I would probably never talk to him again. Sometimes he returned in a dream, disturbing the peace. Other times someone who had been in contact with him crashed through the serenity. But mostly silence settled in my heart. Surrounded by memories and a chorus of voices, I was on the perimeter of my own life.

Catching that background noise and holding on, I found myself spending as much time as I could with people who had spent time with Dallas and I. We laughed through endless stories. My addiction to horrible shortcuts, my ability to meet the most compelling and strange people and the out of control situations that Dallas woke up to on a regular basis. As the laughter intensified around campfires and over shared road trips, friends affirmed that those ten years were indeed real. All of it, the high points, the memories, and the sadness legitimized by looking back in the golden glow of the rearview mirrors.

Clearing the last lights of town, I crossed into Idaho and began the final miles home. As the lights faded behind me, the sky lit up with a glow only high altitudes free of light pollution can provide. I stared into the unknown darkness framed by the dark mountains and realized the lonely highway served up a metaphor for my life. The future was upside down and unmarked. Heading forward alone, knowing that eventually one has to move on and rebuild, stepping out would be awkward, embarrassing, and clumsy. But I could make those steps.

The night was beautifully crisp and as I rounded the last bend in the drive, I cut the headlights. The lights of the ranch came into view. Lamps left lit warmed the darkness. Stepping out of the truck, the fragrance of pines seemed overwhelming. Overhead a million stars danced and several meteors shot towards their end in a fire breath blaze. I clomped across the back porch and entered the house. Walking in the back door, I found Sarah McLachlan’s voice still softly serenading stillness through the high mountain air. The presence of the day's guests hung heavy in the air but now the house was empty.

Quiet.

Walking over to the stereo, I turned off the CD player. Sitting down at the dining room table I looked at the guest book on another table and reached for it. Thumbing through the pages and reading the remarks, years of history flooded back. The sentiments on the first pages all began with "Dear Tim and Dallas…" Smiling and sighing I read those remarks and heard voices, some of whom I had not heard in years. Some of the voices I would never hear again as they were now silenced. I stayed with the moment and caressed the image and the softness in the afterglow of time long since departed.

Towards the later pages, the sentiments in the book began with "Dear Tim…"

Running solo and marking change, the change was abrupt. Like a cold water shower inhale. The catch of breath. Then adjustment.

I laid the book down, stopping at the pages filled in with that day's guests. I listened as in the distance the coyotes began to yelp. Tonight there were many of them. Running through the back woods, near where the bench rose up into the higher foothills. I imagined them in pursuit of a doe or a wild turkey or maybe even a young elk. I saw them in the darkness, their wild flight through silhouetted woods. Predator pursued prey, all of it ending in rapid fired cries. The coyote's shrill cries grew closer to the house and as I listened, they were haunting and evil. The emptiness I felt seemed to grow greater and greater. I could stand it no more.

I got up from my wooden chair and I walked from the dining room towards the stereo. As I walked, I thought of my friend Rob, a former rural teacher and rodeo rider turned heavy equipment operator. He would love a night like this.

Many times we'd run into each other late at night in the deserted old industrial area near where I managed an air freight airline. Our chance meetings were always spontaneous. Idle moments spent together next to silent tractor trailer rigs and abandoned warehouses, we'd spoken about life, about relationships and about our shared love of the wilderness. Our lives were laid down, spread out to contemplate and packed back up across pickup truck hoods. Examining everything to accompaniment of the Union Pacific switch engines and roaring Burlington Northern freight trains.

Originally from Washington's Okanogan County, Rob understood the challenges of twenty-foot snowdrifts, and being cut off from everything for weeks at a time. He knew about forest fire seasons where the skies turned rose. He knew about bears breaking into well-secured cabins and bull elk standing guard over the drive into town.

And he knew about Coyotes.

One night after getting off work at one AM I ran into him under a mercury street lamp in Seattle's historic industrial Georgetown district. He was restless. "Can't sleep tonight," he told me when I pulled up next to him.

We chatted and watched the desperate crack whores bedding down with street people. A Union Pacific freight idled to a crawl as another southbound freight train rocketed through. Finally he looked at me and said I looked different. He paused, waiting.

I nodded. "Yep, Rob, I am."

I told him about the coyote in my parents drive and about the repercussions of that night. Somehow, as I told the tale, I knew that Rob might be the only one who understood the significance of such a sign. He was from a wild place, as wild as my own. Schooled in Native American legend, he listened respectfully as, fidgeting, I told my story. Retracing my view of the coyote and my grandfather's words, he nodded as we both leaned up against his 4x4 under a wide full July moon.

When the story was finished, he opened his Carhartt jacket silently and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Tapping one free from the Marlboro pack with rough callused hands and cupping the lighter, he lit the cigarette and inhaled slowly as he turned his head toward the moon. He held the smoke in for a long time before he blew it straight up into the night sky like a dragon. Then he looked me dead in the eye, and with his several days stubbled growth, said in a upbeat voice, "Tim, I know all about them lone coyotes. I've met a few of them myself. But you always have to keep one thing in mind whenever one of them messes with your life." He paused, then continued when I didn't answer. "You know what that is?"

I looked at him and shook my head no. I didn't know what he was going to say. He was quiet for another second and then finished his thought.

"Well Tim," he inhaled from the cigarette again, "what you have to remember is that no matter what ends up happening or however disrupted your life gets, that coyote always gets his in the end. Always. You can bet on it."

The thought provided little comfort then. It provides little comfort now. I never saw Rob again after that night. Often, as I've turned out the lights at the airport, and driven down those dark warehouse rows I've hoped to see his 4x4. Wondering how the rugged man in his signature beat-to-shit Carhartt jacket was getting along. Wondering if his appearance in my life and then his subsequent disappearance meant anything. Was he just a temporary messenger on this journey or were his words to be taken a bit more seriously? I would probably never know. But maybe for tonight I could accept all of life's unanswered mysteries and maybe my mind would just linger in what was rather than the who, what, where, when, and why.

Outside the house, the coyote's cries gained a feverish pitch. I heard a deer scream. I shuddered. Reaching down to the CD tray I removed Sarah M. and fumbled for something upbeat. I finally found an old Jam n Spoon remix of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood song "Relax."

Putting the CD in the tray, I debated the emptiness and the silence inside the house and the ruckus and chaos outside. Pressing PLAY, I heard the first note and then the first lyric. The music still wasn't loud enough and reaching down, I pumped it up. The coyotes and their mayhem were silenced as synthesizers replaced their intensity.

Standing upright, I saw my shadow rise. Studying it from the distance, it appeared as a solid form cast on the wall. Catching myself by surprise, I realized that the image I stared at, my image, appeared uniform and strong. My shadow was unbroken. Maybe that was the image I projected to others while inside I felt like liquid.

The music increased in tempo. The beat gained speed. The shadow looking back at me felt the beat. I began to dance and my shadow responded in kind. Dancing like no one was watching. Dancing like it didn't matter if they were.

Dancing without risk, life seemed worthy of a beat. My silhouette became my partner. The darker shadows in the house were finally stilled. The ghosts left behind were forced to take up the beat and join the party. The house perched up on the edge of my former life rocked, while the night sky held court. And we danced and sweat and moved like there was nothing to stop us. Nothing. Not heartbreak. Not loneliness. Not loss. Dancing like last call was still hours away.

And somehow, despite my fears, I knew that it was.

To Be Continued