Modoc County took her by surprise. This was a less cluttered California than she was accustomed to.
She planned to spend a week or so in Alturas, exploring the Clear Lake National Wildlife Refuge, the Lava Beds National Monument, the Modoc National Forest and the Shasta National Forest.
What she hadn’t been planning on was a return to Southern California. After quitting her forensic accounting job and getting her resume online, which she fussed over far too long, she was in the mood for solitude.
The rewards of solitude struck her as more appealing, more necessary than the rewards of knowing what she had been left by her father.
Not all questions required, or even offered answers.
There was no reason to barrel down to Tarzana to examine the contents of the safe deposit box. They had presumably been sitting there for years. A few weeks poking around the volcanic highlands of Modoc County wouldn’t make any difference.
So she settled in at the Niles Hotel in Alturas.
One night at the bar downstairs she fell into a conversation with a fishing guide.
His arm was in a sling. He told her he’d slipped on some moss on a ledge he was wading across along the Pit River. He’d waded out across these flat rocks, not quite smooth enough to be slippery, for forty years.
There had never been any moss there to speak of, certainly not enough to slide on.
He told her it had grown suddenly, probably because the water temperature was changing. There was also algae in the water that hadn’t been there before, not just in Modoc County but all up and down the river.
She liked sitting at the bar in the Niles Hotel, wearing her green velvet jacket, her tall boots and her black jeans, drinking a Coors Banquet and listening to the fishing guide with his arm in a sling.
