I arrived mid-afternoon at the Boulder
Residence Inn, home of the University of Colorado. Sitting in the breakfast
room with a cup of coffee, I went through the Hamilton file. Embry had vanished
seven years ago and Louse Hamilton had hired me to take one last look before
officially declaring her wealthy husband dead.
The search had taken me to Las Vegas
where Embry had gone to visit a friend, then vanished. Now the search had
brought me to Boulder where years ago, Embry had a dalliance with Becky Sue, a
southern transplant who had started a herbal drink shop, now a thriving health
enterprise. Louise asked me to visit Becky and ask if she knew the whereabouts
of Embry. It was a stretch, but I agreed as Boulder is an interesting college
town.
I called the herbal office and
arranged a visit with Becky Sue who was the enterprise’s CEO. She agreed to
meet me at four. I returned to my room and studied the painted tin that a hitchhiking
girl on I-80 in Wyoming had given me, a gift in exchange for the lift to
Laramie. I opened the metal box and poked at the speckled beans inside. Ariel,
the hitchhiker, had intimated the beans were magical, telling me to “use them
sparingly”.
It was past three, so I concealed the
tin in my overnight bag and then departed, driving over to Pearl Street where
the herbal company had its flagship store. I parked and found the store and
upon entering was immediately hit with an enticing array of aromas, which
included teas and spices, the appealing scent of clove and cinnamon.
Apparently, the staff had been alerted for my arrival, as a young man dressed
in khakis and a white shirt asked me if I had an appointment with Sister Becky.
I gave him my card and he nodded. We wound our way to the back and I noticed
all the men were dressed like my escort, while the women were modestly attired
in long, prairie dresses, an eccentric, missionary touch.
We went upstairs and I was shown into
a large, office with a wooden desk set diagonally in one corner. My guide
closed the door and I was startled when a slender woman in the uniform long
dress glided to me. She introduced herself as Becky Sue, motioning me to a
leather couch that faced the windows. The day was darkening as the sun slipped
to the mountains in the west.
Becky Sue was angelic, a heart-shaped
face with startling blue eyes, a cupid mouth and long, blond hair that cascaded
down her shoulders. Before I could explain myself she gave me a beatific smile.
“Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you shall find.
Mathew 7”, Becky added softly, as if reading my mind.
I introduced myself and explained my
brief, then summarized my efforts to date, the trip to Las Vegas where Embry
had gone seven years ago and vanished. I noted that I had no idea what happened
to Embry, that I had intended to submit my report, ending my search, but Louise
Hamilton asked me to visit Boulder as a final effort.
Becky stared at me with steady
sky-blue, no expression, not curiosity nor disapproval. Finally, she sighed and
nodded, accepting my explanation of what had brought me to Boulder.
“Embry came to see me in August
seeking redemption, as he had done a terrible thing.” Becky said. She went on
to explain she had counseled Embry to seek forgiveness and redemption,
supplying him a soothing potion, then arranged seclusion for him in a foothills
canyon.
We looked at each other, and then she
added: “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out”, the
Sister intoned.
“What had Embry done?” I asked. “Why
was he seeking redemption?”
Sighing Becky sat back, “The darkness”, she said
simply.
I pressed her for Embry’s transgressions, and then asked
where in the foothills Embry was, but she shook her head, saying I was too
late, that in September the 100-year rains had come and a raging flood swept
through the canyon. Embry was gone, swept away.
Nodding silently, I changed course and
chatted with her about the company, but flattery got me nowhere and Becky
looked at her watch.
Somehow the
young man got the message and he opened the door, looking at me with a bland
smile. I thanked Sister for her time and information, then left. As my guide
led me downstairs, he looked back at me, holding out his hand passing me a
folded note, which I slipped into my pocket.
We came down to the main floor and I
noticed a back room that was softly lit; over the arched doorway was the
inscription, “Inequities”. I broke away from my guide and went in, seeing
immediately that it was a presentation of various plants such as tobacco,
marijuana, hemp, and others. At the back was a pedestal which held a small
plate and a glass cover. To my surprise, it was a plate of speckled beans,
exactly like the ones that Ariel, my hitchhiker, had given me with her warning.
“Inequities and woes.” The young man
whispered, waving his hand at the assorted presentations, implying the botanical plants were evil. He took my arm and steered me back to the main room.
I waited until I got into my car and
was heading back to the Inn before I took out the paper and unfolded it. It was
a hand-drawn map starting at North Boulder and winding up into the foothills.
Half way up was a large X to the left of the road. Was this Embry’s retreat?
And why was the young man helping me? Or had Sister Becky directed him to pass
me the map?
When I got back to the Inn I paused at
my door with my no service sign. I went in and a chill ran down my spine, the
hairs standing on the back of my neck. On the coffee table my ornate, blue tin
was sitting open and empty. My speckled beans were gone.
The
next morning I took the crude map to the lady at the desk. She was a Boulder
native and confirmed the starting area as fashionable North Boulder. The narrow
road wound into the foothills towards Jamestown, a small settlement devastated
by the flood. The site with the X appeared to be a lone house beside the stream
that had flooded. She nodded; saying said she had heard a house had
miraculously survived when the water raged down the canyon. There had been
deaths, but she was not sure if it was the occupant of the house, or from other
parts of Jamestown.
I left and followed her directions, driving
the steep, winding road into the mountains until I came to a pull off on the
left where I parked. About 30 feet below I saw the small house on the bank of
the stream. There was noticeable flood damage to the house, but it was
remarkable the house was still standing.
Suddenly, a tall, thin man in ragged
clothes and broad-brimmed hat came down the hill road and eyed me sourly. He
leaned on a carved staff and gazed at the house. I smiled pleasantly at him,
thinking he was a local and might know about the occupant.
“I had a friend renting that house.
Any idea what happened to him?” I asked the itinerant stranger.
The man’s horse face softened and he
shrugged, and then shook his head. “The water came at night and swept down the
stream and around the house, isolating it. Most folks say the occupant was
swept away as he tried to escape. His body is lodged under a rock downstream
somewhere. They’ll find him this summer in the low water.”
I nodded, thinking I had closure.
Embry was dead, having come to this lone house for solitude to seek atonement
and salvation. What had Embry done? Becky had cryptically said the darkness.
What did that mean…the Devil?
“But the recluse” says different,” the
man continued, interrupting my thoughts. He pointed his staff at the dense
evergreen forest on the other side of the stream. “The recluse who lives yonder
swears he saw someone try to cross the raging stream and tumble in the water. A
few seconds later that person emerged downstream among the rocks and managed to
crawl out. The recluse says the man vanished among the trees on the other side.”
I followed the point of the man’s
staff where there was a line of rocks which could catch Embry if he were
tumbling in the flood, then possibly allow him to crawl out of the white water.
As I turned back, the wanderer nodded at me and moved down the road. “Of
course, everyone knows the recluse is crazy.” He called.
I studied the
deserted house. Was this Embry’s last stop before getting caught in the
100-year flood? Or had, as the recluse reported, Embry managed to struggle to
the other side and vanish among the evergreens.
If so,
where was Embry Hamilton?
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