Hannah interrupted by saying, “Wait a minute. Samson’s a year old. Aren’t you trying to marry him off too early?”

  “I’m talking later on, not today.

  “Anyway, if you help build the schools you’ll not only have a paycheck for awhile, you’ll also absorb all kinds of knowledge about building. You can use that knowledge later on to build your barn or your son’s house.”

  Tony should have known he was getting set up.

  Hannah saw it coming. So did Gwen and Melvyn.

  Finally the payoff came when Jackson wrapped up his comment.

  “And the best part about it, my friend, is this…

  “While you and Melvyn are gone every day at the construction site, I can hang around here and flirt with both of your wives.”

  Chapter 26

  Tony complained occasionally about Jackson.

  But only to Hannah, and only in jest.

  Actually they were becoming very good friends.

  And Tony couldn’t help but admire a man who’d accomplished so much.

  Not only was Jackson a former governor, he’d served a two year stint as Ambassador to Italy, appointed to the position by his good friend the president.

  Before he became governor he was a United States Marine. He’d commanded his own battalion in combat during the Desert Storm conflict until he was wounded.

  He was awarded the purple heart and the bronze star for heroism, but forced to retire because of his wound.

  Gwen got curious one afternoon and asked him where he was shot.

  He answered, “Well, I could show you the scar, but I’d have to get naked to do it.”

  That was the other thing about Jackson. He was a shameless flirt.

  He saw it as a birthright of every American man who was lucky enough to live into his golden years.

  As a boy he saw his grandfather flirt with all the ladies in the neighborhood.

  It was that grandfather who imparted a pearl of wisdom to young Jackson: “My job, as I see it, is to make everyone I come across feel happy and good about themselves. For you, Jackson, I give you my extra nickels and dimes and pennies and take you fishing.

  “For my male friends, I play dominoes or drink a beer with them or offer a bit of advice.

  “And for my female friends, I remind them that they’re still beautiful enough to turn heads. It makes them smile and puts twinkles in their eyes. And it reminds their husbands that they’re lucky to have them in their lives and to treat them well so somebody else doesn’t try to take them away.

  “And the best part about it is, none of that costs anything. Well, except for the spare change that goes from my pocket into yours…”

  Cancer took Jackson’s mother at the tender age of forty one and his father never remarried. He told his son there was no point in it, for if he lived twenty more lifetimes he’d never find anyone as wonderful as Jackson’s mom.

  That didn’t stop him, though, from flirting with every woman he came into contact with in his later years.

  He claimed it was the responsibility of a southern gentleman to brighten the lives of southern women. Jackson saw for himself in his teenage years how his father could pay a single compliment to a woman, whether he knew her or not, and turn her frown into a wide smile.

  He learned from his father that all women, without a single exception, are beautiful and that they need to be reminded of it often.

  His grandfather was right. Compliments cost nothing but can make a world of difference in someone’s day.

  It was a lesson Jackson would carry with him for the rest of his days.

  Tony could be forgiven in thinking that Jackson led a very blessed life.

  He always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. He went to school at the Naval Academy, was a war hero. Then a politician and a diplomat. He knew all the right people and had filled some very prestigious jobs.

  He counted some very famous and very influential people among his close friends.

  Jackson was married once, to the girl of every man’s dreams. Stacy was beautiful and bright and everything Jackson could possibly hope for.

  Except that she was medically unable to have children.

  It meant the end of Jackson’s blood line. But it was okay. He took the news with a grain of salt, telling Stacy, “So it wasn’t meant to be. We still have each other. That’s good enough for me.”

  And they did indeed, still have one another.

  They made the most of it. They traveled the world together and tried everything which struck their fancy.

  They skydived together and went on jungle adventures.

  They were absolutely fearless, determined to see everything there was to see and do everything there was to do.

  Many people, including Tony, thought that Jackson had it all.

  But it wasn’t all sunshine and roses.

  They say into every life a little rain must fall. And that was true of Jackson’s life too.

  He, like everyone else, had suffered along the way.

  Jackson’s world came crashing down during a trip to Medellin, the third largest city in Colombia.

  They’d been there for two weeks, touring the country from one end to the other. They camped beneath a waterfall so high the top was obscured by clouds. They witnessed first hand the majesty of the Andes Mountains and made friends with Colombians they expected to last their lifetimes.

  Then kidnappers took his beloved Stacy their last morning in country.

  Had Jackson been there he’d have fought to the death to keep her from being taken.

  The kidnappers knew their stuff; they’d done such acts several times before.

  They’d seen the pair out drinking the night before; with the manager of the hotel and his assistant, no less. They knew the pair had way too many cervezas and canelazos. They knew that Jackson would still be a bit impaired by morning.

  That was when they intended to strike, by pretending to be room service workers at their hotel. They’d knock on the door and claim they brought breakfast, courtesy of the hotel management.

  The couple would, of course, open the door, and would be rushed.

  It was a perfect plan. Well thought out and infallible.

  Then Jackson made it even easier when he snuck out of bed early that morning, ignored his hangover, and made his way down to the shopping district.

  Chapter 27

  His heart was pure, his intent was kind.

  He wanted to commemorate the visit to Colombia with a gift that Stacy would cherish forever.

  He’d seen her pick up a beautiful pearl and puka shell necklace from a vendor a couple of days before. From across the room, any room, he had a habit of admiring her. For he was still in awe of her beauty and knew he was lucky to have her. A woman like her, he well knew, could have any man she wanted. It still amazed him that she chose him to spend her life with.

  He’d watched her fall in love with the necklace.

  Then he’d seen her check the price tag, and put it back on the shelf with a slight look of disappointment on her face.

  His mission on this day was to retrieve that necklace, and to purchase it whatever the price.

  He’d pull it out of his pocket when they boarded the plane back to the United States, and give her a lifelong keepsake to remind her of the fun they’d had. And of how much he loved her.

  And he’d do all that just to see the look on her face. Because she was most beautiful when she smiled.

  That was his mission, but it went horribly awry.

  In his absence he wasn’t there to protect her when the kidnappers rapped on the door and claimed to have breakfast.

  Normally Jackson would have opened the door; he always had before.

  But in the palatial suite he’d booked for them, the bathroom was separated from the bedroom.

  She woke up at the knock on the door and couldn’t see him; she assumed he was in the shower. She answered the door for him.

  They took her easily, for she was petite and there were four of them. Four grown men, heavily muscled, trained in the combat arts by stints in the Colombian Army.

  In less than a minute she was bound, gagged, and rolled out the back door of the hotel in a laundry cart.

  The ransom was one million dollars.

  A nice, round, even sum that Jackson instantly set about raising.

  He immediately got a rich benefactor to pony up half the amount in cold hard cash, signing over their Los Angeles home on a promissory note. It was a crummy way of selling real estate, but it was fast. They’d have time to do all the paperwork later.

  He cleaned out his bank accounts. He sold everything he had of value. What he couldn’t sell he pawned.

  In less than a week he’d liquidated everything. He was ready to buy back his bride.

  But there was a problem.

  The men he was dealing with were brutal. They were men who were used to taking what they wanted.

  And at some point, while Jackson was hard at work attempting to meet their demands, two of the men decided they wanted Stacy.

  She fought them off like a wildcat. As small as she was she was determined not to be defiled.

  The struggle got out of hand.

  It went way too far.

  At some point Stacy fell limp, her neck broken.

  Jackson’s whole world was gone. Stacy was dead.

  He didn’t know it.

  He still showed up with the ransom.

  They took the money at gunpoint, leaving him empty handed and broken hearted.

  She’d be released in the city’s shopping district later in the day, he was told. She’d find her way back to their hotel before dark.

  Of course, she never showed.

  He spent all night walking the streets, calling her name. Hoping against hope she was still alive and well out there, lost and unable to find her way.

  It was a big city, after all, and he had to pin his hopes on something… anything, other than what was starting to become unbearably obvious.

  His last hope was dashed when the Policía Nacional found him the next morning.

  A body had been found in a nearby harbor, he was told. A tiny Caucasian woman with blonde hair.

  Could he look at the body and see if it was his missing wife, he was asked.

  It was, by far, the hardest thing Jackson had ever done.

  Jackson never remarried, or even allowed himself to fall in love again. He’d never find another Stacy, and he knew it. So he wouldn’t even try.

  Tony thought Jackson flirted with women so he could steal them away from their husbands. Husbands who were, perhaps, complacent and lazy and no longer told their wives how incredible they were; how much they were loved and valued.

  Tony wasn’t the first who thought that of Jackson. Many others had before.

  None of them knew the man’s true intentions.

  Sure, it was fun to tell women how pretty they were, how lovely their smile was. He enjoyed making women blush by hinting he’d carry them away with him and share with them a passion which perhaps had been lacking in their lives.

  It was also rewarding, knowing that he’d brightened their day and perhaps raised their sense of self-worth. Made them feel beautiful and wanted, if only for a short time.

  Most of all, Jackson flirted with other men’s women to soothe his feelings of guilt.

  No one knew it, for Jackson wasn’t one who whined and complained and carried on about his internal feelings.

  But since the day Stacy died he hated himself.

  The kidnappers were never caught, and it wouldn’t have mattered if they were. He could have torn them limb from limb with his bare hands and it wouldn’t have brought his Stacy back.

  He hated them as much as any man could hate another.

  But most of all he hated himself.

  It was a common trait among the surviving relatives left behind by murder victims.

  He blamed himself as much as he blamed the kidnappers.

  He questioned everything he did, every step he took, those last few days.

  It was a mistake, he realized, to eat at the nicest of restaurants; to buy strangers rounds of drinks. To an outsider looking in he came off not as a friendly foreigner enjoying his last few days in a country he might never see again.

  He came off as a rich American, capable of coming up with a large amount of cash.

  He also made a dreadful mistake by leaving Stacy alone that morning.

  Of course he had no way of knowing they were coming after her. But he blamed himself anyway. Husbands of murdered women almost always do.

  Tony and the others who thought Jackson flirted with their women so he could spirit them away and make love to them were wrong.

  Jackson’s true mission, and one he never shared with anyone, was to protect the women of the world, to make up for the way he failed to protect Stacy.

  It was his quest not only to make the women he came across remember their inner beauty and inner value; things that their husbands no longer bothered to remind them of.

  It was Jackson’s new mission not only to remind every woman he came across she was still beautiful, for he truly believed all women were. It was also to make their husbands and boyfriends just jealous enough of Jackson’s flirting to guard their women a little bit closer. To treat them a little bit better. To hang on a little bit tighter.

  So maybe, just maybe, none of them would suffer the same fate as his Stacy.

  Most women thought Jackson was a shameless flirt, but felt appreciated when he turned his flirting toward them.

  Most men thought Jackson was an accomplished man, but a man of questionable morals.

  As it turned out, he was mostly just misunderstood.

  Chapter 28

  The group of friends sat there, at the row of picnic tables set up between the long line of RVs and Etlunka Lake.

  The waters were a bit choppy, but the breeze was unseasonably warm.

  A dazzling sun was setting on the far side of the lake, bathing everything in an orange glow as they enjoyed the company, the camaraderie, the food.

  It was as an idyllic setting as any of them could want.

  Nothing could spoil it.

  Well, nothing except a blood-curdling scream.

  Several conversations had been going on at once within the group. All manner of topics, from the rumor that Anchorage was getting a professional soccer team to why a Hollywood starlet had taken an overdose of pills earlier in the week.

  All conversations came to a screeching halt the instant the scream was heard.

  It was a woman’s voice, coming from perhaps a hundred fifty yards to the north.

  “Help! Help! Oh, God! Help!”

  All the men and half the women were off and running.

  Only those women with small children, like Hannah, stayed behind. For a mother’s first instinct is to protect her young.

  Once they were on the run, the screams changed.

  It was the same voice, only this time the cries were even louder.

  This time she yelled, “Help! Bear!”

  On the one hand, those rushing to help at least knew what they were dealing with.

  Half the men kept running, headlong into what could be a very dangerous situation.

  The other half peeled off to get rifles to use against the animal.

  The screamer was a twenty year old woman named Katie, there to build a home with her husband Jacob.

  She was three months pregnant with their first child, and she was absolutely terrified.

  Jacob was fishing on the far side of the lake. Too far away to hear her screams, and far too far to get there in time to help anyway.

  Katie had had the presence of mind to climb the ladder on the back of their RV and was now on the roof, looking down at a two hundred pound black bear which was sniffing the ground in search of food.

  At least it wasn’t a grizzly.

  One of the first things everyone learns when visiting Alaska is to carefully get rid of their food waste.

  Garbage attracts not only bears, but all manner of other creatures as well.

  So does food stored in the open.

  The Corps of Engineers who laid out the Etlunka Lake site carefully placed dumpsters and burn pits every two hundred yards.

  Signs were posted all over the place.

  Signs which were quite specific: burnables were to be placed in the burn pit, and someone was to be tasked to burn the pit every afternoon.

  Nonburnables such as tin cans and other metals were to be placed in the dumpsters. The Corps would empty the dumpsters twice weekly and take the waste to a landfill outside of Anchorage.

  New arrivals tended to take note of the signs and followed the instructions to the letter.

  At least at first.

  Man is inherently lazy.

  For the same reason most men leave the toilet seat up, throw gum wrappers under the seats of their cars, and won’t dust or do dishes to save their lives, they avoid picking up after themselves whenever possible.

  The longer men were at the lake the sloppier they got.

  Trash bags meant to go to the burn pit were more and more often left outside the RV door overnight.

  Beer cans and half-eaten sandwiches were left on the picnic tables after everyone had gone to bed.

  Bears are like most animals in that they have amazing senses of smell.

  It was just a matter of time before their curiosity overcame their fear and they started venturing closer to see what smelled so yummy.

  Chapter 29

  Despite his age, Jackson was the first on the scene.

  Some, like Tony, might have assumed he was Johnny-on-the-spot because it was a woman who was screaming.

  They’d have been wrong, for Jackson wasn’t trying to be a hero for a damsel in distress, with the hopes she’d feel somehow indebted to him.

  Jackson was always ready to help when needed, and would have run just as fast if the screamer were a man.

  He saw the bear from a hundred feet away, yet kept going.

  Most men would have stopped short and looked for a safe place to take cover.

 

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