1 Chapter One

Life is good except for the parts which suck, and being homeless sucks almost as much as being old.

In the cold light of autumn dawn, under the uncaring eyes of the Sheriff's eviction team, I shoved the last cardboard box of my belongings into the trunk, and slammed the hatch closed.

Resisting the temptation to render a one-finger salute, I kept my opinion in my pocket and jumped into the Toyota RAV4's passenger seat and shivered. Darlene flipped several strands of flyaway hair out of her eyes for the umpteenth time. She squinted to read the tiny letters with directions to our new home: some godforsaken prepper hideaway in the western mountains. Mapmakers tend to hide the most critical information in the smallest print known to man.

She was like that--a stickler for details.

Finally finished, she smiled. "Let's go!"

She adjusted the mirror and shifted her vehicle into gear. We were on our way to start a new life off the grid.

Her soft and innocent musical voice accented her thoughts with honey and desire. To me, her voice tasted like exotic ear-candy.

She was more than she seemed and used a different song for every mood and season. When angry, sarcastic sandpaper replaced honey as words sandblasted lies and bullshit away from facts until only the unvarnished truth remained.

We met at a nearby saloon where we developed an unlikely May-December romance. Darlene played the part of May at a youthful thirty-six. I fulfilled the role of Daddy December at the Grandfatherly age of sixty-mumble.

Through the process of elimination, we become drinking buddies at our neighborhood tavern. I'm not sure "buddies" is the correct word. More often than not, we happened to be the last people still standing when the bartender bellowed out, "Last call for alcohol!"

Initially, geography was our common bond. The tavern, built in the 1890s, featured a walnut and mahogany bar with an odd little 'L' shaped hook at the far corner of the saloon. The counter and a back wall of brick formed a naturally cozy alcove spacious enough to accommodate three stools.

According to local legend, the original owner ordered the hook's construction to allow him to follow the activities of untrustworthy bartenders while also keeping an eye on equally unreliable patrons. The voyeur and hermit in me loved the obscure hideaway, and I had the place all to myself for several months until the day Darlene arrived. She also fell in love with the strategic lookout post.

At first, I was annoyed by her invasion of my secret space. After a while, I looked forward to her companionship. Like commuters sharing an across-town bus, we got used to each other's presence on the installment plan. Familiarity grew comfortable, and silence gave way to conversation as we observed the ebb and flow of tavern life.

It all started with casual flirting. She flirted. I was casual.

Hell, she flirted with everyone: men, women, and even the bartender's mangy tomcat. While I enjoyed the sometimes risqué banter, I never considered Darlene as potential girlfriend material. She was a young vixen, and I was an old wolf. I entertained myself by sneaking a peek down her v-neck or up her skirt when I thought she wouldn't notice.

One Friday evening, the stars governing our relationship aligned like the bars on a slot machine. Heads turned as Darlene strutted into the tavern: a blur of legs, cleavage, and the predatory smile of a fox. Her apparel left little to the imagination. Her mini-dress might have been a belt in a previous life, and her tissue-thin unbuttoned blouse was open down to her navel. She wore no bra.

"Interesting outfit you're almost wearing."

She hopped up on the adjacent barstool, and I did a double-take.

"Panties optional dress code?" I nodded my head and filed the image in my long-term memory vault.

"Like it? I'm getting laid tonight. One of these stud-muffins will be going home with me," she chuckled with a little shiver and scanned the tavern for targets of opportunity.

I grimaced; my envious glance flavored a bit oddly by jealousy. What a curious blend of emotions for a virtual stranger? I did an inventory of my own.

The tavern was a working man's watering hole. Most of the guys looked like drop-outs from Blubber Buddies or some such weight-watching group. Too many six-packs left many on the greasy side of flabby. Over the last few years, I had gone from two-hundred-seventy-six to a slimmer one-sixty-seven. I had earned the right to gloat.

Wives or girlfriends escorted most of the men. Boyfriends with rainbow rings accompanied several others. Darlene's field of viable partners appeared limited unless she lowered her standards or went in for a threesome.

I pitied the lucky guy who won Darlene's attention. She possessed the uncanny ability to read people like a book and play 'em like a deck of cards.

"Compliments of the house."

Our ogling barkeep placed a beautifully mixed and handcrafted White Russian in front of my lady friend, and did a visual inventory of his own.

She nodded and took a small sip, savoring the drink like a gourmet. "Splendid!"

Tilting her head back, Darlene wolfed it down in one long gulp. Yikes! Talk about thirsty.

:Ahhh!" She wiped her lips with the back of her hand, smiled and bounced down from her seat. Like Alexander the Great, set out to conquer the known world.

I had to admire her style. Radiating sexual availability like a neon sign in the night, she was the Alpha-Fox loose in the hen house, The lass was in a class by herself, and that was a problem. She sparkled like diamonds in a coal bin and scared the daylight out of the men she approached.

If anything, she was too beautiful and too self-assured. With titters, giggles, and seductive glances, she worked her way around the tavern. The males she flirted with were flattered, flustered, and fearful of her aggressive attention. No man dared to take the bait.

After ten minutes of flagrantly flirting, Darlene returned to her seat to regroup and refuel. Our bartender presented her with another complimentary White Russian as his sacrifice to the gods of Wishful Thinking.

"Thank you so much! You are such a sweetheart. Can I have another one to keep this one company?"

Darlene touched his hand, and if her smile had been any warmer, the barkeep would have sparked into flame. A few moments later, our generous drink master reappeared with a trio of tall White Russians.

"One is for you, and the other two are honor guards for the poor dead soldiers." He pointed to the two empty glasses.

"I love this drink."

She inhaled the beverage and sloshed it down in one long gulp. I widened my eyes in puzzlement. How can anyone love a drink without taking the time to savor the subtle by-play of flavors?

Thirst quenched for the moment, Darlene resumed her quest for the night's bed partner. Her second expedition of seduction ended in bewildered disappointment.

"What the hell? I usually have to beat guys off with a stick." Shaking her head in disgust, she demolished another White Russian.

"Maybe you should offer to beat them off with a stick, you know, Fifty Shades of Kinky?"

Darlene's head turned, her eyes narrowed, and her lips thinned to white. She was not amused. "Why? Do you want to get beat off with a stick?" she smiled coyly before dispatching the last White Russian.

"Hell no! I hate splinters," I said.

"He shoots. He scores!" Darlene laughed. She raised her finger and traced a point on the invisible blackboard in the air. "Nice one."

I shrugged my shoulders. The rising heat of a blush warmed my body, and I squirmed in my seat under her gaze. While she studied me, her dark frown of frustration gradually brightened, and her emerald eyes glistened. Her grim expression transformed into the predatory smile of a fox once more.

"I'm as horny as hell," she lowered her voice, "Wanna screw?"

She leaned into me and brushed her nose against mine. I inhaled a cloud of warm vodka breath flavored with the sinful and delicious scent of winter pleasure. Her lips parted into a grin and her little pink tongue licked the outline of milk from her mouth. She rested her forehead against mine and moved her hand to my knee. Slowly she slid her fingers along the inside of my leg. I answered by placing my hand on her thigh and mirrored her journey of exploration.

"Your place or mine?" I whispered.

It was as cliché as shit, but I couldn't help myself. What could I say? She had made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Thus began our strange love affair.

We became romantically involved as much out of laziness as out of lust. Neither of us cared to invest the necessary time to search for the ideal mate, so we settled for close enough for the moment. After we moved in together, I joked about "robbing the cradle." She would giggle and respond, "I guess that would make me a grave robber."

Several things attracted me to Darlene. The first was her personality. She was so easy going I once tried to give her the nickname "Lake Placid." Still waters run deep, and it didn't end well.

"Enough! Dennis, that was a twofer."

The book she was reading sailed across the room, missing my head by less than an inch.

"Watch out! You nearly hit me! What the hell is a twofer?"

"My love, a twofer is the first and last time something happens. I loathe nicknames. Why the hell would I want to be named after a stagnant pond?"

Her smile was a funky combo of mischief and annoyance. I took pet names off my to-do list.

The other thing was her attitude toward lovemaking. Everyone needs a hobby, and sex was her diversion from work. She accumulated orgasms like some folks collected postage stamps.

She'd let me move in with her when my landlord evicted me because I refused to pay rent until he fixed the bathroom in my crappy apartment. He decided a new tenant would be cheaper than new plumbing. We shacked up to save money. Darlene and I believed two could live as cheaply as one. We were right, but only for half as long.

After a couple of months together, the real estate development corporation in which Darlene had invested a dozen years of her life went belly-up. Her last two paychecks retroactively bounced. The returning rubber checks set up a cascading overdraft chain reaction.

Darlene's condo payments went south, along with about twenty-five or thirty personal checks and a cloud of ATM transactions. Each bad draft racked up a thirty-five dollar bank charge and about the same again in returned check merchant fees. Soon her account was bleeding red ink by several thousand dollars.

The certified letter ordering our eviction was the last straw. Our financial camel lay mortally wounded with its back broken beyond repair. We needed a new place to live, and we needed it quick. Darlene and I crisscrossed Denver and the surrounding suburbs, chasing every "For Rent" sign in view. The story was always the same: an hour or a day late, or the price was beyond our reach.

~~~

"Well, if you hear anything, please give me a call. Thank you."

Darlene frowned, and she hung up the phone. She glanced at me, turned slightly, and examined the calendar hanging on the refrigerator door before returning her eyes to mine.

"There goes our last best lead; we're screwed." She slumped in her chair.

We sat across from each other at the kitchen table as, like an unwanted house guest, a shroud of gloom darkened the room. Out of options, the clock ran out of time. Eviction Day was the day after tomorrow.

Darlene's posture abruptly changed. She sat upright in her chair; the corner of her mouth turned upward, and a smile twinkled in her eyes.

"Yikes! I can't believe I forgot my sisters," she slapped the table-top with the palm of her hand and laughed. "Dennis, how would you like to live on a commune?"

"Huh?"

What kinda random question was that, and where was it going? Her exotic outlook on life tended to lean toward the spiritual rather than the religious. Oh! Boy. I braced myself for her answer.

"What kind of hippy village are we talking about?"

"Hippy? I'm not talking about Woodstock, my love. My friends from university have an off-the-grid cabin in the Rockies. They owe me some money--maybe we can stay with them."

"What's their address?"

If you learn where someone sleeps, you can start to make a good guess as to their culture.

"Sweetheart, they don't have an address, and they're not on the road or any highway."

Darlene moved to the living room sofa. I followed.

"How far are your friends from the world?"

She had my attention. In theory, the closer to the road, the more tethered her friends would likely be to conventional reality. I had visited many communes in my younger days, and each had a temperament ranging from boring to batshit crazy. We sat together on the couch.

"Twenty miles, give or take." She snuggled as we sat together. "We've been buddies for a long time. We were friends back in college."

"What kind of friends?" If they had been living off the grid for fifteen years, this gang had something going for it.

"You know, friends who help friends. Anyway, they are heavy-duty into the survivalist movement. They might let us stay with them."

After so many years in the wild, If her group was still holding its own, they might be an answer to our current housing crisis. Depending, of course, on the depth of the batshit. Too deep would be too weird.

"Okay, you got my attention." I kissed her. "Tell me everything you know. Who are these people?"

We talked until there was no more to say.

"Stay or go. Your choice," Darlene said. "Do you want to give them a try, at least for a few weeks?"

Living as amateur survivalists, her friends occupied an off-the-grid cabin located somewhere in the Rocky Mountains about two hundred and something miles west of Denver. The more I thought about it, the better it sounded. Living far from civilization was an attractive alternative to sleeping in a shipping crate behind a Safeway Supermarket. Besides, I liked the high country, and I had made several hiking trips into the peaks while stationed at Lowry Air Force Base before shipping out for an all-expense-paid tour of Vietnam.

"Hum, I'm in. Let's see if your friends will let us stay with them."

I listened as she dictated a text message requesting sanctuary for us, and shared her joy when she received an affirmative response a few minutes later.

"Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, off the grid, we go," I sang and did a happy dance.

"Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, off with the clothes we go," she chanted as she turned the dwarf song into a stripper-gram for two.

More efficient than artful, she had me barefoot from my toes to my chin in under a minute. Bare ass and laughing, we sealed the deal by morning with a wild session of lovemaking. We were going to make a new life for ourselves.

The next two days vanished in a rush as we raced to pack what we needed for our new lives. Our RAV4 got a new set of off-road tires along with a complete tune-up and oil change. We sold everything we couldn't take with us. What we couldn't sell, we gave away. We were done with Denver.

We departed a few minutes after sunrise and followed US-70 away from the city. Within an hour, we were in the peaks, and four hours later, we arrived in the small town of Rifle and elected to do lunch. I asked Darlene to stop at the village's smoke shop. I had learned our new home wasn't only remote; it was in the ass-end of nowhere. The idea of running out of cigarettes a million clicks from resupply was frightening. We parked in the alley next to the store.

I assumed our new off-the-grid home had some power, so I purchased an electric rolling machine. To cover my bet, I bought two hand-powered devices -- insurance for the addicted. I next cleaned out the store's inventory of Zen cigarette tubes (three cases), along with fifty-nine pounds of tobacco, two hundred disposable lighters, and five hand-carved pipes. Darlene stood next to me as the cashier rang up the largest single purchase in the shop's history.

"Are you out of your mind? What fool spends that kind of money on nicotine? My God! We're broke and almost destitute." She shook her head.

"Sweetheart, my VA benefits are direct deposit, and it came in last night. Where we're going, money ain't going to be of much use, so why not?"

I added another handful of Bic lighters to the pile of merchandise. The total bill of sixteen hundred and forty-seven dollars and twenty-eight cents wiped out half my available cash.

The Zen cigarette tubes and sixty pounds of tobacco were too bulky to fit in the Rav's cargo bay. I secured my newly acquired stash to the vehicle's rooftop by wrapping everything up in a tarp and triple tying it all down with rope and bungee cords. The car looked like a band of gypsies owned it by the time I'd finished.

We turned north on Route 13, passed the town of Meeker two hours later, and turned on winding unpaved road leading up into the hills. About forty-five minutes later, Darlene announced, "It won't be long now" for about the twentieth time.

My lady programmed a set of waypoints her friends had emailed her into the vehicle's satellite navigation system. We followed a dirt road through a thick pine forest until the way devolved into not much more than a poorly marked trail that shrunk down to a path as we ventured above the tree line. Soon our pathway became nothing more than a series of GPS waypoints connected by miles of barren rock.

I asked Darlene after an hour of traveling ever deeper into the highland wilderness, "How long is not long?"

"We should be there within the hour," Darlene said.

"Lord Almighty! Your friends aren't only off the grid; they're off the damn map. Do you have any idea of where we are?" I complained.

Darlene sneezed, smiled, and kept driving.

An hour later, our RAV4 reached a ridge crest, which afforded us a splendid view of a long, thin U-shaped valley nestled between two towering mountain ranges. We could see a building almost lost in the distance at the far end of the vale.

As we neared the dwelling, it became apparent the structure was considerably more significant than it had appeared from the ridge. The rustic cottage was as much a log-mansion as a log-cabin. Solar panels covered the south-facing steel roof, and a farmer's porch wrapped around three sides of the building. Buck Rogers meets Davy Crockett.

It was twilight by the time we rolled to a stop in front of the lodge. The setting sun had disappeared behind the snow-capped peaks. Night and the thermometer were both falling fast. The welcoming committee of at least two dozen women gathered on the balcony erupted in joyous shouts of celebration and hand waves when Darlene emerged from the vehicle. The boisterous welcome turned to a frosty silence when I stepped out of the car. It was as if someone had pulled the plug.