Glimpsing a flash of color from the corner of my eye, I pulled my chainsaw up and out of the cut. Letting it idle down, I turned and spied my neighbor sitting on a 4-wheeler, just on her side of the fence. She smiled slightly, giving a small wave. Inclining my head and smiling back, I killed the saw and set it down. Wondering how long she had been sitting there, I unbuckled my chaps and ambled over.
In the five years I've owned this property, I had never met her or her husband face to face. As it sits about a half-mile from my house, the closest I had come to meeting them was waving as they drove by on their thrice-weekly way to church, or passing them enroute, me usually on a 4-wheeler or the old Massey 135. They always waved back as we passed, sitting in their little car with the windows rolled up even in summertime. Sometimes she'd pass me, driving alone, in what I assumed was her Toyota 4 wheel drive pickup- again a wave and a smile.
Speculating, as men will, that meeting a member of the opposite sex on a beautiful mid-October afternoon in an isolated woods held certain possibilities, I was suddenly aware that my tee-shirt was soaked with sweat and clinging to me in every uncomfortable way possible. Always a gentleman, albeit a somewhat rough-looking bearded one covered in wood chips, I tried not to stand upwind of her but a light breeze was blowing right at my back. She either didn't notice or didn't mind, or was just too polite to move to the side.
Thrusting my hand out, reaching over what remained of a barbed wire fence, I introduced myself, "Mrs. Wheatley, I'm Ben Davidson- it's a pleasure to finally meet you."
Looking at her, I guessed her to be about fifty-three, eight years my senior. She was long and thin, with that almost gaunt Scottish face that is so common in the Appalachias. Brown, naturally curly hair hung just to her shoulder, lightly sprinkled with gray. Her eyes were a nice nut brown in color, looking out from under a pair of thick dark eyebrows. It was her lips, however, looking slightly incongruous in such a thin face, that took me by surprise; tucked under her straight nose were a pair of full red lips that looked like they had been cut out of a picture of Renee Zellweger. They made her ordinary face something else entirely- I wondered if in the distant past some warm-blooded Neapolitan had sailed into one of her cold Scottish mothers.
As I stared for just a second too long, suddenly wanting to place my lips on her luscious ones, she smiled, saying nonchalantly, "Oh, just call me Ann". As we began talking, she got off the 4-wheeler to stand just across from me. Standing about 5'6", dressed in boots, jeans and a short sleeve button down checked shirt, I could make out a set of nice hips tapering to a trim waist, square shoulders above an almost flat chest. As our conversation flowed this way and that, first about the weather, then the neighbors, then how hard would the winter be, I surmised that what had brought her out here had been the sound of my chainsaw so close to the property line. She confirmed my suspicions, saying someone had been cutting firewood on them down at the southern end of their property. Wondering for safety's sake why it had been her and not her husband coming out to check, I said jokingly, "Wouldn't it be better to send Mike out to confront a timber thief?"
Wishing I could retract my words as her face dropped, she said quietly, "Michael is ...away".
Something in her tone made me ask, "Is he okay?".
