My friend Gwen almost never asks herself whether something is a dangerous or bad idea. Sometimes, standing on a precipice, she’ll give it a second thought, but she almost always goes for it.
In January a couple years ago, Linda, a ranch woman we knew and respected for countless reasons, passed away. Immediately after her stepdaughter called to tell me, I looked at the weather report and saw that for the first time in weeks, Donner Pass would be open – there was a 3-day stretch with no storms predicted in the Sierra.
“I’m picking you up tomorrow morning, we’re going to Cedarville.”
As usual, Gwen tried to put it off for a couple weeks, but I insisted, “Now is when I have time.”
The next morning, I drove from San Francisco to Reno.
We were in her car because is it’s AWD and mine wasn’t. We’ve both got our seatbelts on. The transmission is in D. We move a few feet. Then she puts the transmission back into park. I’m not surprised.
“What’s the purpose of this trip?” she asks.
Without even a pause, I said, “This is your ‘welcome back into the tribe’ trip. We won’t let on to Katie, we’ll make it seem like we’re there to help her, but that’s what it is.”
“Oh.”
Why did she need to be welcomed back? Years ago, the two of us were ranch hands. While we were staying at a cow camp far from home, rounding up cattle in the wilds of Nevada, Gwen fell in love with and had sex with one of Linda’s married cowboys. The cowboy was equally in love and told Gwen he was going to leave his wife for her.
Of course, Linda found out about it. Her iron-clad rule about cow camp was, “Stay away from my married cowboys.”
She had not spoken to Gwen for years.
Everyone in Linda’s world knew why things were the way they were and, while we were visiting, they welcomed her back.