Untitled Beginnings

Book 1

The Laborer

Freshly clothed trees complimenting a backdrop of bright blue skies slid past Evan Palletaun as he drove toward his future. Commencements, a ceremony he hadnt cared for and had immediately forgotten, were an hour gone and the empty leather carrier for a forestry diploma he hadnt yet received lay disregarded in the passenger seat of his Subaru Forester. (That choice had been obvious enough for him)
College was the past, and Evan had never dwelt on the past. Ahead was the future; a job he could see the outcome of. There had been a safer route, a route more than a few had goaded him to take, which would have lead to just enough of a life. But in Evan's mind a safe and known path lead only to stagnation, which was far from living and worse than any death. So he had chosen the unknown. Or, rather, the short-sighted. It was a GS-4 position within the forest service, a job he was more than capable of and qualified for, but a job that would allow him to see a number of options from a vantage point that was secure enough to allow for clear assessment, but not comfortable enough to make an assessment seem unnecessary.
Still, he shook his head as he drove on, wondering at the safe route. Why had he always taken ways more challenging? True, he'd graduated after four years at the age of twenty-one and was on track to become a doctor by thirty, but it was not without its complications, putting things mildly. There were people, he knew, that were quite comfortable with mediocrity. It was obviously plausible or there would be no middle class. Yet he was repelled by the thought of everything that lifestyle encompassed as if it were a disease one could contract through apathy.
How was entering below that tier justifiable? Truthfully he did not know. It had just felt like the way to go about it. And Evan was never one to let emotion cloud reason. It wasn't something he was about to delve into in the hour he had left on the road. While it was true that not knowing one's course of action could be detrimental he felt that a certain amount of uncertainty was necessary. After all, to know the future is to be trapped by it.
These thoughts persisted in Evan's mind even as he first saw the sign pointing to the Forest Service headquarters where he was to report. It was by then Sunday evening and he was to start Monday morning as a maintenance man. The air had lent itself to a crispness reminiscent of a dryer fall rather than spring as he felt it through an opened window while slowing down to try to catch the attention of a bearded, shaggy young man determinetly mowing the entrance to the place.
"Excuse me! I'm starting here tomorrow! Is there anyone to let me in the place?" His cries were heard and the man turned a key to silence the machine.
"Are you Evan, then?" Evan nodded, wondering at an accent he could not quite place. "Right. Natalie's waiting for you at the office. Just keep going straight down this road. You really can't miss it. There's the sheds where these are parked..." he slapped the side of his steed, and then the office. "They're both on the right. Only two places on the right. Half a mile down." Evan thanked him without even thinking to ask his name and headed down the winding road, hearing the lawnmower growl back to life behind him.
The office, like the fellow mowing the lawn had said, was obvious when Evan came upon it. There was a lone yellow light shining in one room along a small series of windows but no movement within. He assumed, since he had been told, that the office would be open and that a woman named Natalie would be waiting for him. He had no idea what she did or why she was there on a Sunday (for that matter, why was the lawn being mowed on a Sunday?) But he was glad for it when the handle turned easily under his hand.
Evan immediately noticed that there was only the most subtle change of temperature in the building. There was also almost no smell. The place seemed as though it wanted to not exist even in a memory. He walked through the dark that wasn't dark at all until he came upon the small office hed seen the light from. Sitting at a computer was a beautiful young woman with long dark hair constrained by a loose ponytail wearing a modest wool sweater and jeans. This surprised Evan because he had never thought of anyone with any kind of position within the government as being so near his own age. Yet here she was.
"You must be Evan." There was nothing unusual in her tone or voice and that in itself seemed to belong to the place. She looked up at him with a practiced warm expression obviously waiting for him to speak.
"I am. You must be Natalie." Not knowing what to expect from her forced him to replicate the inflections in her voice. He had seen people before like what he presumed her to be. People who were not taken seriously; judged on age rather than ability. That made some people strive to achieve such a perfection and prestige that it took something of their humanity away from them. Sometimes it ground them into something unrecognizable. Avoiding those things was the reason Evan had chosen the path he had.
"I was told you were waiting for me."
"I was." The tone in her voice made it obvious that his being there was hardly the reason for hers. Evan found himself internally shaking his head with a sadness for her he knew he had no place in expressing. She was so beautiful, but what she was doing to herself would turn hideous so quickly...
He dismissed it and continued because he knew she wouldn't. "If you could just point me to where I can unload, Id be grateful."
"No," she said, "I'll give you a little orientation." There were so many meaning in the first complete sentence she had given him. Meanings within meanings. There was a sense of relaxation there which almost downplayed the overriding inconvenience she was not purposely making obvious. It was where that hint of relaxation in her had sprung from that stirred Evan. It seemed as though she would have been perfectly comfortable giving him two word answers to everything she would ever say to him except that she had come to a decision about something. What that decision had been was the mystery Evan grappled with as he climbed into a spotless white government truck with her.
They went first down a strip of pavement which horseshoed around the office. It lead to a large and well built log cabin guarded by a few antique trucks. She put her vehicle in park but did not turn the engine off.
"This is where you'll stay. I assume you've already met Frederic. He and two others live here. You'll meet them tomorrow morning. We can go in if you'd like."
"As long as it's open I can figure it out. I don't mean to take up too much of your time." Her shoulders relaxed at this small implied courtesy and he had her. His initial assumptions had been correct. Instead of pleasing him he felt a sadness for her in its certainty. Natalie was one who thrived on a fearful respect because it was the only thing she saw as a form of admiration. But to come to that end at such a young age left Evan reeling at the implications the realization demanded. In the second he thought things through she shifted gears and they retreated from the cabin and back up the road past the office to travel to the other end of the horseshoe.
This is my house. Again, there were nuances that couldnt be ignored. It was as though she didnt want to reveal so much about herself, as if everything in her had been laid out to be scrutinized with this tiniest personal admittance. She wasted no time in retracing their steps but Evan took in the scene in that narrow window. Hers was a small ranch style home with a well manicured lawn and a gated backyard. A Subaru Outback was the soul occupant of a driveway crested with a basketball hoop in disrepair. He noticed the log cabin could be seen from the driveway across a small bog that made a better fence than any person could erect. He also noticed how ugly the cabin looked in the same frame as her house. And in that frame he saw what shed decided him to be: fitting that cabin. He must have been far from someone who could appreciate what she was; had achieved. He saw that she was embracing and perpetuating the prejudice she must have spent so much time trying to prove she was not a part of. It was the easy out. A new wave of sympathy for her washed over him as they went past the office and down to what he knew must have been the garages and shops. She confirmed it and they quickly went on.
Darkness was setting in when they got back to the office and suddenly Evan felt tired. Pity had a strange way of doing that to a person. They went into a conference room consisting of a decades old library along one wall, tables and chairs for twenty, and a small tv and VCR. She found and put in a tape and joined him in one of the padded office chairs. It was a fifteen minute video about the forest system her agency managed. It was nothing terribly engaging. Evan spent the duration of the film taking in his surroundings and trying to read the only person on the property hed spent any length of time with.
When the video was over it was clear the orientation was as well. Natalie stood up and busied herself with shutting down the conference room. Evan stood up as well noting the complete lack of attention she paid to whether he was still in the room or not.
"What do you do here?" He asked blatantly. She looked up from the cabinet where she was replacing the video with a shocked expression on her face. Their eyes met briefly before she regained composure and put her eyes back to her business.
"I'm the Refuge Biologist." She closed the closet and faced him. "What are you doing?"
"I'm a maintenance worker."
"That's not what I meant." Evan knew it. "I saw your application. We all saw it. You have a Masters in Forestry. What are you doing-You know what? It's none of my business."
"The danger in any absolute lies in what happens when you discover that there are no absolutes." He stared blankly at her as she furrowed her brow and dismissed the sentence. "Well. I should get going. I'm sure I have a busy day ahead of me." He turned to go but before he had gone a step-
"Wait. What did you mean by that?" Evan turned slowly and deliberately to meet her questioning gaze. He thought about passing it off as he had her first question but decided against it. She did not strike him as a person that would have too much patience for idle banter.
"What you think you know, especially what you think you know of someone, is rarely entirely true. It's all dynamic." He waved a hand at the walls. "We're," he pierced her stare with cold sobriety, "Always moving. Changing. Thats all." He turned again.
"I didn't mean to offend you..." It wasn't the right thing to say, but Natalie had felt the need for some kind of rebuttal, however feeble.
"You didn't offend me." He said with his back to her and an uncontrolled sadness in his voice. "You just didn't see it." He walked resolutely out the door, leaving her holding onto a chair in the middle of an empty, darkening room wondering what she was supposed to have seen.

Natalie glanced out her kitchen window as she washed the few dishes that had accrued there and saw Evan in front of his cabin stretching before a run. She had not spoken to him since the awkward exchange in the office the first day he arrived almost two weeks before but she could see that he had indeed been right. He was not like the others he lived with; the two drunkards and the French-Canadian. There was no waste to him. Not his body, nor his mind, nor his time. Everything he did seemed to be accounted for. It seemed as though he had such control over everything in his surroundings. He was a human machine, nothing extra or frivolous that she could see.
For instance, she knew that he was stretching to run because shed seen it every day since he'd arrived. The others in his cabin would be drinking as soon as they stepped in their door and wouldn't stop until they ran dry or passed out. She didn't know where he ran, only that he was gone for an hour. His stretches seemed to be something more, a fluidity derived from a disciplined regime she didn't know.
The more she watched, the more she wondered. Here was a person who had put himself in an environment he wasn't meant to be in; didn't have to be in. And she knew, even though it was an invasion on him and out of character for her, that after his physical ritual there would be a mental one. Her kitchen faced his living room and shed watched him reading mammoth dusty volumes she couldnt see but doubted were filled with pulp. An occasional game of cribbage with Frederic was the only deviation. Even as Phil and Randy drank their minds away and watched trash movies he sat and read in an ancient orange easy chair by the fireplace oblivious to the debauchery.
She turned away from the window and started putting away dishes. There was a knock on the door that almost made her drop the Pyrex measuring glass she was holding. She immediately thought there was something happening on the property that needed her attention and with a sigh strode to the door. What greeted her was not a problem but a question.
"Would you like to go for a run?" Evan was at her door leaning on the sill as though he came to her house every day to ask the same question. She stared because she didn't know how to respond. She had only turned her back to the window for a second!
"I see you watching me every day. I thought it would be rude to not ask you along if you were interested." Her eyes went uncontrollably wide. "You're not the only one who pays attention to their surroundings, Natalie."
"I..." But she was a very intelligent woman and composed herself beautifully. She countered: "What do you read?" Even as she said this she was reeling from his knowledge of her actions. She suddenly felt how terrible it would be to disappoint this man in her doorway. Her attempt to put him off by seeming in control of the situation was pointless. She saw he was more comfortable than she could be.. And why not? She was the eavesdropper. A wry grin almost showed itself on her outwardly stern face. Of course that was not the reason, she knew. It mattered not who was the instigator. Calmness was the nature of this man. She knew it as surely as she knew nothing else about him.
"Ahh. I read about things I aspire too. Histories of great people who are still remembered today. Immortals, as much as anyone could be."
"Who?" She cursed herself for not being able to defend her pride in a more dignified or intelligent manner.
"Alexander the Great. Cleopatra. Winston Churchill. Kings. Queens. Rebels. They all have a place. Surrounding yourself with greatness-"
"Is the surest way of achieving it." She found her voice in a quotation memorized in highschool. He nodded an acknowledgment befitting an equal and she realized what had confused her about him. He didn't think of her as a greater rank. Even his house mates, though she knew they despised her, payed her a courtesy because of this. He held no malice toward her simply because she was somewhere he wasn't. It was because, she realized, he could be her equal. Was her equal. Why he didnt act on it was still as confusing to her as it had ever been.
"What are you doing?" She asked, more to herself than him.
"Asking you for a run." She knew he wasn't teasing her or trying to avoid anything. It was in fact the only reason he had come over.
"I...I dont run." He smiled and nodded once quickly and curtly as though shed dismissed him. She didn't want to give him that impression. She had lied, of course, and he knew it. Of course she ran. Why she had lied she wasn't sure, but immediately wished she hadn't. Wait. Damn him, she never admitted a wrong! What was he doing to her? "I didn't mean that. I do. Run." She stopped and after a pause of silence from both sides he spoke.
"Right then. You just don't want to." His smile wasn't sarcastic or smart. Natalie saw in his expression a look of sadness for her which inflamed her with a need to justify herself to him. He had hinted before to her that night in the office that she shouldnt judge him, and here he was- But looking at him waiting for her she realized another wrinkle in the ways of him. He wasn't judging. There was a lack of it in him that shed never seen before. Evan was leaving it to her entirely to let him know her. The thought of that empowerment frightened Natalie and for a moment they shared an empathy for one another not born of the same reasons but carrying the same weight. And they knew it.
She knew that if she didnt revert to her comfort of being in control she would lose him to uncertainty.
"Would you like to come in?"
"Well, I'm in no condition to enjoy your company right now... But perhaps later this evening." She nodded. He smiled and was gone before she could breathe.
Natalie closed the door and shook her head. When she took in her surroundings she realized she was leaning against the door staring at her feet. Had she invited him into her house? Was that herself that had done that? That pompous-! Remembering his eyes, cold-blue but honest, she stopped a useless and misdirected rant. The rumors that would begin if they saw him leaving her house in the middle of the night!

He came as he said he would an hour and a half later. It was dark out; she ushered him in hurriedly. What was going to happen this night? She secretly hoped that her worst and original suspicions about him would come true and she would be able to wash her hands of the whole matter.
He entered her house with an un-nervous fluidity that suggested he belonged there as much as Natalie belonged. "Would you mind if I made some tea?" He asked. She shrugged subtly and he moved to her stove. There was no kettle but he made due with a pan into which he poured water and honey. "It's a detoxifying tea. Very helpful." She stood next to him and regained her courage (after all, it was her house) as he watched the water boil and prepared his tea, which was brought out of a small mesh bag and looked more like twigs than leaves. When the water was hot enough she brought two thick mugs into which he steeped the tea. Before he finished he pulled out a flask and poured just a splash into each mug. She looked at him questioningly.
"With every bit of medicine must come a little poison." She immediately thought the worst.
"What is it?" She demanded, more pleading than she wanted to sound.
"Just spiced rum." He held it out to her and she smelled.
"It's just that..."
"I understand. Shall we?" He pocketed the flask and waited for her word. She silently walked into her living room and heard him follow. She sat in the lone chair making him sit on the couch to quell any intentions he might have. Truth be told, she planned to figure this man out that night. There was something to him, something he was, that she wanted to be able to know and place for her own piece of mind. Once this was done, she was finished with his enigma.
Except she didnt know how to begin.
"You want to know about me.' He began for her, pausing to drink deeply from the steaming cup held in both his hands like a treasure. "What is it you want to know?"
There could be nothing but honesty with him. She sensed that he would be able to discern anything else. "Why havent you used your degree?" She asked. "I know the work a Masters entails. To go through with that work you must have something in mind."
"Hmmm. What would you say if I told you I want to be remembered?"
"I'd say this was a poor way to start." She found herself leaning closer to him, aching for answers when he gave only riddles. "But I want you to tell me what you mean."
"The problem is, you look out of a very small window to see your world. Its all right; most people do. But I have a larger landscape in my head of what will happen to me. Everything I do is a part of it, no matter how off-track it may seem. You think I'm hiding from responsibility or what I've earned by choosing my work here." He paused to drink again. When he looked up there was a fierce blue fire in his eyes she had never seen in a man and for the rest of her life never would in another. "But I'm embracing it, Natalie." It looked as though he was about to crumble the mug to powder between his hands so intense was the sense of purpose he exuded.
The next realization that came to her was that she had moved to the couch. There was nothing rational about the change that she could have explained. She didn't know why she was there. Just that she needed to see that fire again. Her face was inches from his and yet he didn't move a muscle. She swayed to within a hair of those eyes and still he did not move. There was no expression in his eyes save a cold blue determination that had been there before her. Her mouth hovered in front of his until finally her lips pressed into his. They didn't touch one another and barely breathed. It was over as quickly as it had begun and Natalie pulled away while coming to the realization of her actions.
"You kissed me even though you think I'm a fool?" He asked. She knew he meant the physical act of what she had done and nothing more and had known exactly the words that would ignite a passion within her.
"I don't think youre a fool! I just don't understand you. But I need to."
He saw it was the most honest and straightforward sentence shed ever spoken to him."There will be time enough for that, if you like."
"You'll not get off with any passing comment in my house. You came here for a reason. You came to share." She had a confidence now not born of necessity but because she thought she was beginning to understand him. "Why do you want to be famous?" It was a wrongfully worded question and she knew it purposefully. He played into it, knowing as a person knows he must sacrifice a rook to gain a queen later.
"Not famous, Natalie. Remembered. Fame is for rock stars and baseball players. I want to be remembered. You'll ask me why so I'll say it now. I want to know that I've done everything I possibly can as a human being to be remembered. Do you want to know what terrifies me? What wakes me up at night in a cold sweat? Mediocracy. Being just another person on this planet making the same contributions as everyone else. I know I can do more than that. So I have to try. Selfish?"
He was offering her a way out with words but she knew better than to take it because he didnt himself believe them.
"I still don't understand, Evan. But I would like to try." She stared at a triangle of khaki couch between his thigh and hers trying to make sense of events shed never imagined would have happened ..."You were right. I didnt expect you."