Ms. Got Rocks by Jacqueline Colt Read Free Book Online Page A

battered red truck was bouncing all over the road. The dogs and Rocky were slamming back and forth up the steep slope to the meadow overlooking the American River where the cabin was situated. She was excited to finally see the cabin again. Happy memories of spending the summers out here with Dad and Devlin were reeling through her imagination. Pitching rocks and fishing,learning to cook on the wood stove, but mainly outdoors playing and being a kid.
    This was the last portion of the road into the cabin. Rocky could see the face of the black and gray speckled granite monolith on the opposite side of the meadow. The grass in the meadow around it was already turning golden brown.
    The tools that Devlin packed into the truck bed were rattling to distraction with the driveway so rough and pitted. Rocky and the dogs felt as if they have been on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride for miles.
    “Note to self, get gravel to repair the biggest potholes,” Rocky said aloud. “Further note to self, make that next year to get the gravel,” she replied to herself over the noise.
    Rocky was laughing, she was happy to be home.
    The old truck was loud and with the tools rattling around in back she could not hear the river roaring over the rapids east of the historic stone bridge.
    This was going to be great, her own place with quiet and time to heal herself to get ready to cope with the city and a flying job with a major company.
    Rocky’s mind was off daydreaming somewhere when the rattletrap truck pulled them over the rise onto the flat meadow and there sat the cabin, the garage and the shed.
    It looked the same as when she was last there. The metal junk Dad collected was everywhere in the yard. The shallow, narrow, river was still sparkling and merrily gurgling fifty feet from the cabin, the willows on the riverbank were a lot taller. The cabin looked much shabbier; it was in desperate need of coat of paint.
    The dogs barreled out of the truck and started the canine investigation of the place. Rocky got out of the truck and looked at her home.
    The cabin was actually the size of a small house. Built from Cedar logs in the era after World War II, the logs had weathered to a pretty gray. There were three windows in the front with trim coated with peeling Forestry Service green paint.
    A porch swept around from side to side of the front shading the windows from the western sun. There was another smaller porch at the back door facing the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The roof was a mansard style covered with green grit tar paper which in spots flapped in the slight breeze coming off the river. The stovepipe from the kitchen stood well anchored with guide wires. The windows cut into the mansard roof were missing glass; the window trim on that level also needed painting.
    The front screen door was hanging by a memory of its former self. There was no screen to speak of in the screen door. The scraggy green painted front door was the old style with three-quarters of the door from floor up in wood and then a large square of glass. There was no privacy curtain, Dad would not want or need one. The gulch of a driveway made it very apparent that someone was arriving long before they were at the porch.
    The woodpile stacked at the backside of the cabin was full of split dry wood for the cook stove.
    The view was of the river, the huge rocks and rapids at the bend. A bit farther downstream it was possible to see the top of the bridge constructed in 1914.
    The cabin was located in Whiskey Gap, a collection of small ranches snuggled into a wrinkle in the Sierra Nevada foothills a few miles northeast of Auburn. The population at last count topped out at thirty-five including the dogs.
    Whiskey Gap squatted on the beginning of rolling foothills of the majestic Sierra Nevadas rising from the Big Valley of California.
    The natural grasses were brown and dry this time of year. The willows and cottonwoods at the edge of the river were the only green to rest the eyes from the