THE QUEST


"You're crazy!" she exclaimed.  "I've been to Snyder, and there is 
no wood there."

He snorted scornfully into the telephone receiver.  "Ha!  You just 
don't know where to look.  Ol' Bennie's got a pasture located where 
there's lots of firewood just waiting to be harvested."

"You West Texas bumpkins can't tell the difference between lumber 
and brush," she rejoindered.  "You'd better pack an overnight bag 
and a sack lunch before you leave because I think you're really 
going to Oklahoma instead.  In fact, I know that you're going 
some place other than Snyder if you truly intend to get a load 
of real firewood."

"You're as stubborn as a Missouri mule," he thought, but he 
didn't say that out loud.  Although he had never actually gathered 
firewood from the country-side around Snyder, he trusted Bennie 
implicitly, and Bennie had said that there were spots where mesquite 
was abundant, and the ranchers would be delighted if someone 
would save them the work of hauling it off.

She wasn't finished yet...not by a long shot.  "You can't fool me, 
Mister.  You're going to drive straight to the firewood distributor 
south of town and load up there and just tell me that it came from 
Snyder."

Now he was beginning to get into the spirit of the challenge.  
He wanted her to ride with him when he drove down to Bennie's 
to get the wood.  It was bound to be a fun day...being around 
Bennie always was...and he wanted to share the fun with her.  
"Well, the only way I'm ever going to be able to convince you 
that I can get firewood from Snyder is if you come with me and 
see for yourself."

"I'm afraid of what I might do to myself if I spend the entire day 
laughing," she countered.  "Lord, I can't afford to give myself a 
hernia or something worse like split sides."  She had not accepted 
his invitation, and it didn't sound like she was going to change 
her mind.

"And I'll tell you something else," he interrupted.  "I may just 
hook up the trailer so I can bring even more wood back than will 
fit in the back of the pickup."  God, he was loving this!  He 
delighted in the sound of her laughter.  He could imagine how 
her nose and eyes wrinkled as she laughed into the phone, and 
the image sent a pleasant shudder down his spine.

"I'll probably have to fix you a bowl of crow soup when you get 
back," she said."When you get back," he thought to himself.  
It still sounded like she had no intention of accompanying him 
on his outing.  He wondered if there was any way to convince 
her.  Maybe not, because she was very definitely her own person, 
and was not the least bit hesitant to exercise her personal 
prerogatives of acceptance and refusal of invitations as she saw 
fit.  He wouldn't have her change a thing.  She was certainly no 
snivelling steel-bellied air-head, and he had grown to respect her 
ierce independence almost as much as he admired her intelligence 
and quick wit.  He had never met anyone like her before..."a real 
class act in a beautiful package" is what he had confessed to one 
of his friends...and he sometimes cursed the Fate that had kept 
him from meeting her years before.

He knew a little of her story.  Some of what he knew had not been 
pleasant for her to recall, and he hated the things that had happened 
to her that had made her seem so reluctant to take the risk of getting 
to know him better.  She had described herself to him as being 
"vulnerable", but she did not act like it.  It seemed to him that she 
kept herself "holed up" within the confines of her emotional 
fortress so that she could avoid the risk of yet another hurt.  He 
knew that the emotional bruises would eventually begin to heal, 
and he wanted to be there when she decided to take a chance on 
having some fun again, so he continued to ask her to spend some
 time with him.  If she ever re-entered the playground, the potential 
for fun between the two of them was enormous.

"I thought you didn't cook any more," he parried.  "Looks to me 
like you go out for Chinese pretty regularly.  Your eyes are getting 
slanted, and you're starting to walk with little short steps."

"Well, I guess it's helping my vision for me to develop slanted eyes 
so that I can see through your crookedness.  I think you're lying 
like a dog when you tell me there's firewood in Snyder.  I didn't fall 
off the hay wagon yesterday, but I still can't fathom how you could 
think I am so gullible as to believe that."

It was obvious to him that she was not going to accept his 
invitation despite his persistence, and he decided not to pester her 
further.  "I don't know how else to convince you," he said, "so I 
may just drop by your house when I get back so that you can see 
for yourself."

"You may end up with a pickup load of wood, but you'll never convince 
me that you got it from anywhere even close to Snyder."  She never 
budged an inch from her position of obstinate disbelief of his claim.  
He loved a worthy intellectually playful adversary, and she was proving 
to be more than a match.  They bantered on for a while longer, and, 
although he did not want to, they allowed the conversation to end.  
Then he lost himself in his reverie about what might have been and 
what might yet be.

That night he fiddled around with his chain saw, but he could not get 
it to start.  He set his alarm clock for very early because he wanted to 
get back from Snyder in plenty of time to shower and clean up.  She 
had suggested that the two of them take in an "amateur night" of  music 
at a little town not too far from where he lived.  Although he would like 
to spend a great deal of time with Bennie, he wanted even more to spend 
an evening with the Lady, so he would make his wood-gathering 
excursion a somewhat abbreviated one.  He fell asleep as soon as his 
head touched the pillow, and, when the alarm blared at him the next 
morning, he could not remember whether he had dreamed or not.

"It's just like you to show up with a chain saw that ain't workin'," Bennie 
said as they bumped down the road to the pasture where the mesquite 
was waiting for them.  "Sounds like you must have believed the Lady 
when she said there wasn't any wood around here."  Bennie was in his 
usual good mood, and the two of them made short work of getting a 
pickup bed full enough of cut mesquite that the pickup's suspension was 
groaning from the weight.

"Show her this load of 'imaginary' wood, and tell her I said that we 
would have picked up a load of 'real' wood, but we couldn't find an 
'imaginary' pickup to put it in."  Bennie, as was his custom, had fallen 
immediately into the spirit of the game, and was being his charming, 
gently sarcastic self.  Bennie reached high with his chain saw, and 
cut down a branch from a live mesquite tree that had a large sprig of 
mistletoe attached to it.  "Here ya go...give her this 'imaginary' mistletoe 
and see if ya can't get her to give ya an 'imaginary' kiss."

"Sure wish you'd stay a while longer," Bennie said.  "Seems like ya 
just got here, and now you're wantin' to scramble on home.  I wish the 
Lady woulda come with ya so y'all could visit a while.  It's been way 
too long since you was here."

"Maybe next time, Ben," he said.  "When you gonna come see me?"

"Well, I'll surprise ya one of these days.  Hope ya still leave your doors 
unlocked, 'cause I don't wanna hafta knock down a window or somethin' 
to get in to steal your stuff."

"Hell, Bennie, most of it is junk you wouldn't have anyway.  You in the 
market for a busted chain saw?"

"Yeah, I see what ya mean.  Well, have a safe trip back, and tell the Lady 
I hope the pictures we took don't hurt her eyes from lookin' at all the blank 
spaces where the 'imaginary' wood ain't.  And good luck with the mistletoe, 
too, compadre."

"Thanks for everything, Bennie.  I'll see ya in a couple of weeks."

The ride home seemed interminable.  He had been in the best mood he 
had experienced in months, and the best part of the day was still to come.  
He kept hoping that some long-haul trucker would pass him at about 
seventy so that he could kick up his speed and get home more quickly 
without risking a ticket.  "Why do I have to have support in order to take 
a little risk?" he thought to himself.  "Why can't I decide for myself what I 
want and then just go for it?  What am I afraid of?"  He thought about his 
own questions for a few more minutes, but decided that he did not know 
the answers yet, and eventually his mind wandered back to his driving.  
He glanced at the speedometer and discovered that he had, indeed, 
sub-consciously decided to risk a ticket, because he was driving much 
faster than his usual five miles or less above the speed limit.

He parked in front of the Lady's house, and walked to the front door.  The 
Lady emerged, and he was struck once more with her clean-cut beauty.  
She was dressed in her yard clothes, and told him she had been working 
outside most of the afternoon.  He had to look again to see that she had 
grass clippings and dust on her clothes because he had not seen anything 
but her face until she resumed the game.

"I figured I'd be getting a call from you cancelling out this evening, because 
it's a long way to Oklahoma."  She sang the last phrase to the old tune about 
Tipperary, and her resonant voice was perfectly on pitch.  She sang the 
phrase once more, and then laughed.

"You're absolutely right!" he said.  "It is a long way to Oklahoma, and that's 
why I'm glad I only had to drive to Snyder to get this load of wood.  Come 
out here and stand beside the pickup so that I can gloat for just a little bit."

She perched herself at the side of the pickup, and he took a couple of snap 
shots of her.  It wasn't until later when he had picked up the prints from the 
film developer that he noticed that she had dropped her eyes on the second 
picture, and she had feigned a look that appeared contrite.  When he saw 
the picture he couldn't help but laugh at the way she had continued the 
banter without saying a word.  The pose she had assumed might have been 
accidental, but he believed that she had known exactly what she was doing 
and was just subtly jabbing him one more time, albeit ever so gently.

The rest of the evening was a blur of fun and excitement.  He had not 
enjoyed himself as much in a very long time, and he resolved to commit 
some of the events to paper so that they would be remembered forever.  
Once again he fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow, but, this 
time, he did remember his dreams when he awoke.