HOPE.....2

 chapter 2. Idaho. HOPE.


 The highway  traced the lake's shore. The Blue of the Idaho sky was mirrored in it's
choppy waters. The wind moved the trees along it's shores. Water lapped at the earthen
beaches and birds and other animals made a living on the many ponds and mud flats along the highway.
Deer, elk , and other animals were often seen crossing the road. They were no
minders of Deer crossing signs. No one taught them to read. They were often found
dead along the side of the road where they were hit by swift moving traffic in
the dark of night.


        I could smell Idaho. It smelled like home. Truth was, I was very close to
smelling Montana, and Canada. I didn't think of that when I tossed a very well worn
cd into the car's player. If it was warmer I would have her windows open. Not this time
of year. Not this car. That was another car, another time....another dream..


     The music took me back to the bad old days. The days of "pushing" that "ss
390" as hard as it would go along a broken one lane highway into HOPE. The road
way was nothing but a connected series of pot holes back then.Somewhere close
to Clark Fork it became a dirt track. At times Highway 100 hung precariously
over the lake and crumbled down it's banks. This could be very dangerous if
you got to close to the side of the lake in the spring of the year. The "sluff offs"
as  I called them claimed many cars by pulling them into the icey waters of the
big lake. Idaho 100 into Montana was known as one of the most dangerous
highways in Idaho. Many lives were claimed in these icy waters. Now, it
is much wider with guard rails and much safer. It is beautiful. It ranges from
Marsh to deep lake...the dark blue of islands can be seen off the shores and
Hurons can be seen standing "knee deep" in the waters off these shores.
Osprey soar. Their nests are atop specially placed poles on the lakes edge.
They build nests on power poles and any other place they can get above
the water.

      Many many times you cross the Clark Fork River on bridges. These
are now new bridges made to carry the heavy loads of goods brought
many days down this road from Montana and points east. In the late
sixties they were in deplorable shape. They were narrow and this was
LOGGING truck habitat. It was best to stop and let them go through
first. I believe they spent a lot of time laughing at me.


I remember how we sat by the hour while  we watched for the Moose
 outside of Sandpoint
There was a sign along that marsh that promised us a moose to gawp at.
I stopped nearly every day on the way home from work.. I never did get to see that moose in our
travels. I noted many times this was prime Moose area.....not far from
a golf coarse that is often teaming with men and their machines. This time
the sign is gone. There is no need for us to stop and see if we can see
Mr Moose as we travel this new improved concrete path to Home.


I remember
breathing a sigh of relief as I crossed the  last bridge and thought of another  sign I'd once
seen. The sign read,"turn your clocks back 20 years you have just entered Idaho!"

There was a new sign now. A new road way. they were both welcome.
This sign said,"You have just entered HOPE IDAHO!" I remember thinking
I hoped it would be
prophetic. I'd had enough of "No Hope!" we were newly weds and he
was drafted. He was gone and I was left all alone to make choices
for both of us. some of those choices he would love. Others he would
loathe. It would take a while to discover which were his choices.
It would take a long time to see there was more to this man I was in
love with. There was more to him than I had ever dreamed. None of
it was really in my dreams. This was strange times. We were in a time
of war.

    On that first trip out of Hope. That trip that was so full of hope cause
I was going to get my man. I remembered, listening to the Eagles, "Hotel
California!:  Everything in Idaho seemed to have been washed clean by a midnight
rain. I knew it was midnight rain as I had sat through it at midnight. It was
raining so heavily. I wasn't comfortable driving in it's rush! It rained so hard that
night the wipers wouldn't handle it. It poured while I cuddled into a blanket
in the back seat and waited for it to slow. It rained in Athol, it rained in  Hayden,
and in Coeur d'Alene. It rained and I waited in a park along the highway watching
the lightening flash into the splashing waters that were big enough to be
an inland sea. A lake that had once held a secret submarine training base
for world war II. I shivered and thought of other times and how
lonely I was with out Ray to lie beside, while I watched
"God's Fireworks" and dreamed of once more being in my Man's arms!


     This time as before I came up through Idaho 95. Highway 95 was narrow twisty
and dangerous.
My car was a good one. I'd been lucky with  husband's choice in cars.
That Super Sport tore up the highway. It was known to need a new set of
tires more often than other cars cause I couldn't resist burning the tires
that were on it. It hugged that road and never frightened me. Even in
winter it never became unsafe or recalcitrant. It went where I aimed it.
I usually aimed it at break neck speeds. I was 18 by then. A grown woman
with a home to make for my husband, responsibilities. I even had a job in
a Sandpoint nursing home. It wasn't so much that I needed the money. I
had the tribal allotment. I had Ray's money from the service. He had a tribal
allotment. We were "well set" for young people of the viet nam era. With my
little job I could make our home comfortable and get it ready for his homecoming.
War is hell on families. Specially this one. There were so many people who
cursed the warrior, not knowing he can not choose where he is sent. They
ought to know most of them would rather be home in their loved ones arms
then away over there in their loved ones thoughts and hearts. These people
ought to know just how empty my bed is without him.


   In memory, Eagles Desperado blared from the radio of the Chevy.
That 67  was fast, sleek and comfortable! It held the road like a champ. I'd loved
it on sight, with it's automatic on the floor and wooden look Dash.The back seat
was big enough to sleep in. It was more than accommodating to make love in,
My husband wasted no time in illustrating that, the day he presented me with
the keys! It was fire engine red and just my style. It was FAST and FLASHY.
It suited my personality  to a tee. I thought. It was ME!


     Ray was so, ever so proud that day.Our wedding day,
 Ray with his coal colored eyes. Ray
with is broad shoulders and muscled arms. Ray with is fine fine six pack
of abdominal muscles and nice bum. The memory of him then still had the
power to make me lick my lips and settle deeper into the well worn seat
of the Subaru I drove with Hope strapped firmly into the back seat. She wasn't
with us then. She would come later. Not much later though. She was made
in the back seat of that Super sport. I always thought she was concieved on
his  first trip home.The one I remembered so well.

We were on our way back from Fairchild.
He'd come home for a few weeks before going to Viet Nam. We were just
a couple of Kids. I was in my late teens  and he was about twenty. we weren't really
old enough to have all those things we wanted. We wanted toys. We wanted
a nice home. We wanted Muscle cars. We wanted land and lakes and play
grounds. I thought I'd found them all in Hope Idaho.

I was in love with
life. I had no idea he was afraid of it. Maybe, it was death he feared. He was
going back into a land of death. He was going back  to a land of jungles, snakes and a war
no one wanted.  He was drafted, and I would be alone. he was going to
see our "new home town" for the very first time.

At seventeen, I was very tall, tall and red headed with eyes that mirrored
his. Our child would be beautiful! Our child would be tall and thin as
a willow. She would be built like her Mother, her Mother's mother and her
aunts before her. She would be as beautiful as My mother and as smart
as his! She would have the high cheek bones of our ancestors and the
laughing personality of her father. These were more dreams I held. More
dreams to be shattered in an instant!

I'd found this place while he was on his first tour. It wasn't on the
water but you could see the huge lake and high mountains from there.
You could almost see Montana from there. The breezes came off the
lake at night to cool the large old house. I was beginning to have it restored

It was an old farm house with the wrap around porch of another era.
The house sat on a knoll above the vast expanse of Idaho. From the many panes
of the wide front windows that opened onto the
front porch you could just make out the bridge crossing into Hope. From
the side porch you could see the lake. From the back you could see
the mountains where the bear, deer, moose and cougar lived.

There was
an old barn on the property for live stock. I already had my horse and
a milk cow. I had a big dog named Sandy and apple trees seemed to
grow wild in the back. It had just the place for a tire swing and a" lean
to" for the car. It was perfect with it's many rooms and high ceilings.
The place was heated with wood and was already being stocked toward  the
winters chill. I could see it in my mind as I drove round the lake. It
sat sparkling in the late spring sun like all dreams seem to sparkle in
memory. It was bigger grander and much more comfortable in my
memories than it ever was in reality.

Someday I would learn,Ray would hate it's every nail, and shingle.
He would hate it's old rusty barbed wire fence. He would hate it's breezes and it's waves
that lapped upon the edge of the lower road. He would hate the
sign at the dirt turn off.The sign that said Lightening creek Loop. He would probably
hate me.Most of all he hated the dust and bumps in the old gravel
road leading to the place.

The home that was my respite, my miracle
would be his prison. He was to hate it on sight, but keep it from
me in his stoic quiet way. It was alright with him till he got home
from the war. When he got home we would find something better.
Perhaps I would like to live closer to Spokane, Coeur d'Alene
or some town that was more suitable to the life he would like to
live. This time, the first time; he would act as though I had acquired
a miracle just for him.

On the way to hope, I swung my red Chevy into the  park along
the lake. I'd thought to pick up food for the ride home in Spokane.
I had stopped  for sandwiches, Deli chicken and drinks lay in a cooler
in my spacious trunk. I parked deep in the bushes  among the trees
looking off into the waters of Pend Orielle lake. I could smell
the lake, the perfumes of spring lay thick in the air. One could
lay quietly  and listen to the breeze in the
trees.The land seemed to call to me.The same land that sheltered
me through the storm the night before. This is where I sat sheltered
from the winds waiting for the rain to slow.

All at once I was shy with this man I'd known all my teen years.
I wanted to strip off the pretty blouse I wore for him. I wanted
to leave my jeans in a heap on the floor of my car and show off
the swim suit I wore under. I wanted him to put his big hands on
my body. I wanted his lips on my lips and I wanted to give myself
to him as I hadn't given myself ever before. Only to him. I wanted
no one else. I wanted him to smell the clean smell of my long red
hair and touch the secret places of my body. I wanted HIM...I was
his and he was mine. I WANTED those muscular arms around me
in the dappled sunshine of this hidden spot ...and I wanted him
to find all my hidden spots. It didn't take him long to find them or
the back seat. In our haste we had forgotten one key hinge to
this plan......Birth control.....Sooner than we planned, we would
be three.

I swung that old chevy expertly into the deep gravel that was
our drive. I loved the trees and bushes that lined that old
gravel road. I didn't even notice the dust. I was to busy avoiding
the washboard and the frost heaves that made up our
road.  It wasn't long before I could see our house setting midst
the ancient trees with it's pond and it's secret little creeks
that swelled to torrents when it rained.   Everything was
greening, the trees were budding and the apple trees were thick
with the song of the wild bees. The old house looked almost
like a castle. It sat alone in the forest. each gable had it's own
spire, title, and vistas of the huge lake. Each many paned  window looked
out upon a fresh view .....Every view was beloved by me.