Tantra Goddess. Caroline Muir

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      One bitter cold January day, two tall cowboys walked through the swinging saloon doors at the Little Bear. “Who is that?” I asked another waitress, as the doors swung shut behind them and the men looked around for a seat.

      “Rick and Victor,” she said. “They come in from time to time.”

      I hung back to get a good look. The men wore Stetsons perfectly perched on their heads, topping weathered faces. They looked like real cowboys to me.

      I maneuvered my way into getting their table, introduced myself, and asked for their orders. Rick’s emerald eyes sparkled when he looked at me, and chatting with them was easy. I accepted Victor’s invitation to join them for a drink at the end of my shift.

      Before we finished our second pitcher these cowboys invited me to join them on a road trip to Aspen the next day. They sold Western-style belt buckles for a living, twenty dollars apiece, and the bars in Aspen in January were good business. I was in. I traded shifts with another waitress before I left the tavern to go pack. The next morning I was back in Evergreen to meet up with my new companions.

      I climbed into the front seat of Victor’s pickup, settling in between two men who smelled like hangovers needing a shower. I was quite the contrast in my sunshine-yellow down vest, clean Levi’s, and flannel shirt, my braids tied with yellow velvet ribbons. It would be a grand adventure.

      Rick and Victor were friendly cowboys, good men with big hearts, but when it came to money, these two really lived on the edge. As we drove out of town in Victor’s camper pickup I realized that my new friends not only had a nearly empty gas tank, but they had no gas money. Victor said, “We’re pretty embarrassed, ma’am, but we wonder if it might be possible to borrow twenty dollars from you to git us to Aspen. We’ll pay you back, no problem.”

      “It’s true, Miss Kernie. We are terribly sorry, but we’re not gonna make it too far on no gasoline,” Rick said. I pulled out a twenty and we were on our way.

      About an hour down the road, another twenty bought more Coors, and the men entertained me without pause for the six hours over the Continental Divide and into the quaint ski village of Aspen. All day I wondered which one I would sleep with, Rick or Victor. Rick was the cuter of the two, and he was charming in that effortless way of mountain men. I thought it would probably be Rick.

      It’s freezing in late January at 8,000 feet, and the long, winding road into Aspen was terrifying and exciting with two singing cowboys in an old pickup with questionable brakes and no heater. What joy it was to see the glow of lights through a window at the Hotel Jerome and a big parking place for our rig at the side entrance.

      The moment we entered, the real fun began. Out of the men’s sacks came the leather rolls filled with brass belt buckles stamped with bucking broncos, horseshoes, pine trees, and “COORS.” In no time, these guys had sold enough belt buckles to the men at the bar to pay for the evening. I was ready for a hot buttered rum. After my drink I took a walk while they worked a few more bars, and we met up again in an hour for some elk and venison with “taters” and beer. They handed me a couple of bills to repay me for the help getting there and stashed rolls of bills in their wallets. It had been a good night. After dinner they taught me to play pool. We played darts, partied some more around town, and they sold more belt buckles. Around 3:00 a.m. it was time to find the old pickup and get some sleep.

      It was clear by now that I would be sleeping with Rick. We climbed under his down sleeping bag, and by morning, I was his gal.

      For a week we traveled the Colorado interstates and highways, getting to know each other in ways that only come with the intimacy of traveling. Rick opened up, telling stories of growing up on a ranch in southern Colorado. He and his father had hunted in high country, and he’d hauled elk and venison out of the hunting camp and back to the butcher in Durango. He’d been in Vietnam, was wounded at nineteen, and sent home with a Purple Heart. His stories tore my heart open. Since he’d been back home, he and Victor had traveled together, like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, selling belt buckles, making some kind of living. I vowed then to love Rick into wellness, to do my part for the war effort and help him heal his wounds.

      In this land of cowboys, Rick was the sweetest man around. When he wasn’t selling belt buckles with Victor in bars from one end of the state to the other, he spent nights with me. He rode in rodeos, carried a can of Skoal chewing tobacco in his right hip pocket, lined up three pairs of cowboy boots in my closet below his western shirts with their various horse and horseshoe designs, and wore fitted boot-cut Levis. Sometimes he’d fill the freezer with elk and venison steaks from his hunting trips in the high country with his dad, then cook up meat-and-potato dinners that tasted like sweet home on the range. And sex was great with this cowboy. He knew about pleasuring me in some of my favorite ways before riding his cowgirl into the open country of abandoned passion. He was quiet much of the time, but he was easy to be with, so I didn’t care.

      That summer we took a month-long mule pack trip into the mountains together. I quit my job at the tavern in late spring, gave up my cabin, and Rick and I moved in with his folks on their ranch near Durango to get ready for our trip. It would be the next big adventure in the life of this young pioneer.

      Rick’s folks were old-fashioned farmers, the kind who don’t say much and get a lot done. They went to bed at 8:30 so they could rise before dawn to start the routine all over again. Fried eggs, bacon, and potatoes were eaten before sunrise, and then Rick fell into step with his dad, who was happy to have his strong young son around to help with chores. We baled hay and rode and worked with the horses that would come with us on the trip. I learned to knit scarves with Rick’s mom in front of the daytime soaps, and every day I sketched the shapes of clouds, studied their forms, and worked in my jewelry studio, which we set up in the junk shed near the hay barn. The old pot-bellied stove in there kept me cozy and warm while I worked. But sales were slow at best in that area, and we had to make do with what we had, which wasn’t much in terms of money but was a lot in quality of life. We filled our gas tank from the supply on the ranch, ate elk and venison with those yummy fried “taters” Rick’s mom cooked each night, scraped up enough cash to take in a drive-in movie, eat popcorn, and have hot sex in the privacy of our pickup in the parking lot. At night, while lightning storms lit up the western sky, we made love quietly in Rick’s childhood bedroom in this farmhouse on the mesa while his folks slept only feet away in the next room. Sometimes, for more privacy, we spent the night on haystacks in the barn with our little family of dogs—Rick’s two Australian Shepherds and Jeremiah Johnson. It was peaceful out in this simple farmhouse under a big Colorado sky with my man, my dog, and my chance to experience more of life.

      In early July we packed huge leather saddlebags with cans of beans, tuna, milk, Spam, and other basic survival food, dog food, cartons of Marlboros and cans of Skoal, and a supply of marijuana buds. Fishing lures, lines, and poles went in, too, along with rain gear and changes of denim and flannel. We would follow an old Spanish trail along the Continental Divide at an average altitude of 12,000 feet and stay out for about a month. It was wilderness wilder than any I’d ever known, but Rick knew the area like some kids know their backyards. I trusted my guide completely.

      Rain came the week we headed out, unseasonable rain, strange in July. But it didn’t stop us. Rain or shine, we were going.

      Those first days with the well-grazed mules were tough on Rick, who had the responsibility of tying the gear onto the animals every morning and re-tying it throughout the day when it slipped out of balance. The dogs chased rabbits as we rode trails so steep I was sure one of our round-bellied mules would slip and roll down the mountain with our gear tied to her back. But we all were making it just fine. Rick led the animals, and I pulled up the rear.

      Lightning storms were СКАЧАТЬ