"THERE ARE NO RULES ABOVE 10,000 FEET." I read this cryptic message on no fewer than four car bumpers during my brief lunch at the Tenmile Cafe. I knew immediately I would like it here -- who could not love a place that so revered anarchy?

After a morning filled to the brim with activity, I was almost too tired to ponder any deeper meanings for this curious slogan. Leaving my home in Philadelphia before dawn, I had flown into Denver, rented a Jeep Wrangler -- the most macho, stud vehicle I had ever seen in my life, one that made me feel like the reigning Miss Kick-Butt Colorado -- and arrived at the mouth of the Tenmile Canyon, all by 11:00 a.m.

My growling stomach, still on Eastern time like my watch, forced me to pull into the first restaurant I could find upon reaching the tiny mountain town of Columbine, where the city limits sign optimistically proclaimed: "Welcome to Columbine -- All the Civilization You'll Ever Need." We'll see about that, I thought with a doubtful smirk.

As I finished my scrambled eggs and toast, I casually studied the other diners in the Tenmile Cafe. They seemed to fall into two distinct fashion categories. They wore either jeans with hiking boots or neon spandex. The latter group presumably belonged to the expensive mountain bikes parked near the door. I belonged to neither camp, with my khaki slacks, my tailored blouse, and my sensible sandals which now proved a little too bare for this chilly mountain climate.

My waitress was a pretty young woman with long, straight brown hair and jeans-with-hiking-boots. She wasn't wearing make-up and she wasn't wearing a bra. Her ample breasts bounced noticeably when she walked, a fact not lost on the male mountain bikers who openly ogled her every time she passed their booth. If she minded this attention, she didn't show it. I asked her for directions to Leap Year, Colorado.

"You got four-wheel drive?" she queried first.

I nodded confidently, but her question made me nervous. I had been warned that Leap Year was off the beaten path, but I hoped there would at least be a path. She proceeded to give me directions so elaborate, I ended up writing them out on a napkin.

"What sends you up to Leap Year?" she asked, sitting down in my booth with a friendly intimacy that caught me off guard. I instinctively stiffened, but reminded myself that this was the West and everyone was friendly out here or so I'd been told.

"I've inherited some property there," I responded. 'Some property' was actually a modest understatement. I had inherited the entire town of Leap Year. Not that this was saying much -- Leap Year was a ghost town. When Grady died -- Grady was my great, great-aunt who lived to be over one hundred years old -- she left me everything she owned and that included the entire incorporated space of Leap Year, Colorado.

"Good luck, honey," the waitress called as I left. I don't know which bothered me more: the fact that my drive required "good luck" -- not exactly a confidence builder -- or that the waitress called me "honey." Why would a woman of about my own age -- twenty-six -- be calling me honey? Oh well, maybe that was just more of this Western friendliness thing.

I pulled out of the cafe parking lot feeling mild irritation at the lecherous mountain bikers and their adolescent breast worship. Being recently divorced, I was admittedly not objective on the subject of the male gender. Suffering more from an angry, bitter spirit than a broken heart, I had resolved to spend a summer traveling and inheriting Grady's "town" had given me a perfect opportunity. Leap Year was to be but the first stop on a wide-open itinerary. I would stay here only long enough to get a look at the place and list it for sale with a real estate agent.

I was convinced this experience would cleanse me somehow, improve my bruised outlook on life. My older sister Jane feared my self-esteem was at ground zero after my divorce and encouraged me -- no, browbeat, me into coming on this trip.

"Jump right back into the saddle," she advised. "You need to get your confidence back. Seduce the first handsome cowboy you meet out there, preferably one with trail dust still in his hair. Have a lightweight summer romance. Nothing serious. He wouldn't even have to be a cowboy. A carpenter would do -- they're good with their hands, right? Don't pick anybody too deep. No late night debates on the origin of the universe. Just into bed by ten, lights out by eleven."

I sighed after getting these marching orders. Another relationship was the last thing I wanted or needed just now, but I assured Janey I would do my best.

When the gravel road turned to rocky dirt path, I knew I must be getting close, just as the waitress had instructed. The drive proved more challenging than I was used to and at times I crept along, gently easing the jeep over boulders, large and small, that made the road an endless series of speed bumps. Too new at mountain driving to concentrate on anything but avoiding death, I largely missed the spectacular scenery included with the drive at no expense. The last fourteen miles of the trip took over an hour. The route switch-backed tortuously up the mountain. With one final, heart-stopping twist, a town appeared. A weathered sign announced for anyone interested: "Leap Year, Colo., Elevation 10,214." I smiled to myself, thinking at least I wouldn't have to worry about any "rules."

Leap Year, I was told, started as a mining town, boomed during the 1870's and '80's, then slowly died over the next few decades. Grady was its last living resident.

Now just one street remained with a collection of buildings on either side in varying states of decay. About a dozen were still standing, with the rest collapsed or nearly so. Some were just roofs on the ground, others were unrecognizable piles of rubble. The lawyer settling Grady's estate had warned me the land was virtually worthless when I told him I wanted to sell it. Now I feared he might be right.

I had no trouble locating Grady's house from the lawyer's description: a two-story Victorian with two bay windows, a large veranda stretching from the front to the south side of the house, and a mansard roof with a lot of shingles missing. Once-yellow paint had blistered off long ago in the harsh mountain sunshine. It was easily the nicest house in the town, standing tall over the tiny buildings and cabins that surrounded it.

I parked the Jeep in front of the house and waded knee-deep through weeds and wildflowers to reach the porch. I held my breath as I climbed each badly decayed step. They creaked and felt spongy, but held. The lawyer had promised to arrange for the electricity to be turned on. I flipped the switch next to the door and breathed a sigh of relief as the porch light snapped on.

I stepped inside the house and felt as though I were entering a time warp. The clock had stopped somewhere around 1930, judging from the style of the living room furniture. Without pausing to decide if I liked the place or not, I smiled with the realization this was my house. My house. I actually owned something, however briefly. I was thrilled.

I then headed straight to the study and located Grady's desk. In a note she enclosed in her will, she instructed me to find a very important letter addressed to me in the top drawer. I reached for the drawer handle, but sneezed first. The house was dusty.

The drawer was so tightly stuffed that opening it was a struggle and took several jerks. I yanked out a conglomeration of paper several inches thick and walked over to the bay window where I brushed off the seat of the wooden rocker and sat down to sort through them. I found old bills, junk mail, newspaper clippings, warranty information, receipts -- a little bit of everything.

I paused in my search long enough to walk out to the Jeep to collect some snacks I bought at a gas station. The wind picked up and turned sharply cooler. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The afternoon thunderstorm promised on the car radio would roll in soon. I looked up and down the deserted street uneasily, suddenly feeling too alone. The waitress back at the cafe had mentioned that sometimes drug dealers hid out up here. She said she thought they were harmless, though they sometimes looked pretty creepy -- "like they took more drugs than they sold."

I hurried back into Grady's house and resolved to drown my nerves with a healthy dose of diet soda and taco chips. The air in the old house was musty, so I opened one of the windows of the bay. The breeze smelled of the approaching storm. Munching away, I settled back into the rocker and I sifted my way through yet another heap of paper.

After about ten minutes of sorting, I finally caught sight of my name handwritten on one of the papers. It was obviously a letter -- maybe it was the letter. Grady's handwriting was difficult to read, all large and shaky, like she wrote it after drinking twelve cups of coffee.

Dear Darcy,

When you read this, I shall have passed on. Do not grieve for me. I have already lived far more years than any person has a right to. I have decided to break a promise I made nearly seventy-five years ago, but I think the truth must come out in all things -- that is the natural way of the world. My mother made a confession on her death bed that I feel I must now share with someone --

I chuckled. Family secrets? Deathbed confessions? Pretty heady stuff. I rubbed my eyes with a yawn. My four-thirty wake up call was telling on me.

She could have taken the story to her grave, but she chose to tell it. I don't think she told the truth to "save her soul" -- my mother was never a religious woman and did not request a priest to attend her even though I know she was baptized and confirmed a Catholic. No, she unburdened herself because she knew I had a right to know the truth, even if lies are easier to live with. When I get through with this story (if I ever get started, you must excuse my rambling -- I guess I am getting old) you will know that the lies I grew up with were far preferable to the truth.

Please remember, before you judge my mother, that she always did what was best for her children. You may not agree with what she did -- who could? We are speaking of crimes, after all -- crimes of a shocking magnitude. But she did them for her children.

So, I will tell you of my mother's sins and I will also share with you her great secret. It was never of any use to me, but perhaps you will have better luck. I hope I am doing the right thing. This knowledge was a curse to my mother and everyone else who knew of it.

A LOUD banging noise interrupted my reading with a jolt. I dropped the letter and everything else slipped off my lap. Someone was knocking on the front door. Completely startled, I jumped up from the rocker and stared at the door, unable to decide what to do.

The loud knocking continued. A man's voice shouted "Hello? Hello?" I approached the door warily. I wasn't planning on company in a ghost town. The knocking grew more insistent and obviously was not going to go away. Adrenaline caused my heart to pound as I placed my hand on the door knob. Reasoning that intruders don't knock and yell "hello," I took a deep breath and opened the front door a crack.

"Yes?"

"Who are you?" demanded the man. So much for Western friendliness.

"Who are you?" I shot back, annoyed by his rudeness.

He glanced down both sides of the porch and then back at me, frowning. "Look, this is private property."

"I know. I'm the new owner." I frowned back defiantly.

He cocked his head, still skeptical.

"I inherited this place from my great-aunt." I was doubly annoyed at being required to identify myself to this stranger.

"Oh." He visibly relaxed now and looked like this explanation changed everything. "Are you Darcy? Darcy Close?"

I nodded dumbly, incredulous that he knew my name. Now this hostile, would-be intruder was all smiles and offering me his hand. I reluctantly shook it. He had rough workman's hands.

"I'm Evan Allender. Sorry I came on so strong," he explained. "They asked me to keep an eye on this place since your aunt died. You know -- keep the vandals away. The house was broken into a couple of times since she died. I threw one bunch out myself, called the sheriff on the others."

He looked big enough to throw squatters off the property. At least six-two, lanky, but strong-looking, he was maybe thirty. He had long, strawberry blond hair, pulled into a pony tail that stuck out the back of his ball cap. His freckled face was sunburned and he wore a drooping red-gold handlebar mustache. He was handsome in a funky sort of way.

Both his cap and his faded tee shirt bespoke an allegiance to the Chicago Cubs. He wore a plaid flannel overshirt with one elbow split out. As for the rest of his attire, he definitely fell in the jeans-with-hiking-boots contingent, although his shoes were more workman's boots.

"How did you know my name?" I asked.

"I knew old Miss McAllister real well. I did a lot of work for her. Did you see the bathroom?"

"Umm... no. I really just got here." Bathroom? Why would he be asking about that? He looked crestfallen that I had not seen it. "Is there something wrong with the bathroom?"

He seemed slightly embarrassed now. "Oh, I just did it, that's all. I remodel -- carpentry, plumbing, that sort of thing. Well, I'm not actually licensed to do plumbing, but your aunt didn't mind. She was kind of anti-government, anyway. I do good work, though. Here, I'll show you." He brushed past as if I had invited him in.

Did he say carpenter? Carpenter? A mere coincidence? Who's to judge? A carpenter had been sister Jane's second choice after cowboy. I smiled to myself at the thought of her invisibly shoving me in his direction. Once more unto the breach....

I obediently followed him upstairs, knowing all the while that back home I would never have allowed a strange man in my house for any reason on earth. He ushered me into the bathroom with a look of accomplishment on his face.

Copyright © 1996 by Michelle Black