Vineyard Chill by Philip R. Craig Read Free Book Online

the big people. Outside it was now too dark to see the falling snow, but I knew it was still coming down because it was so quiet. Silent snow, secret snow.
    â€œSo you had to go to Patagonia today, eh?” asked Clay, looking at Joshua.
    â€œOnly for five minutes,” said Joshua.
    â€œThat wasn’t too long,” said Clay. “I’ll bet you could serve that sentence standing on your head. I was in the real Patagonia once.”
    â€œThe real Patagonia is way down at the tip of South America,” said Diana, perking up. “They have penguins there. Did you see some? How did you get so far away?”
    â€œIt’s a long story,” said Clay.
    â€œTell us!”
    And he did, for among his other talents, he had that of a teller of tales, who could weave words into a web that captured his listeners and held them until his story ended.
    â€œWell,” he began, “I didn’t see any penguins, but it was a good adventure anyway. It started when I met a girl from Argentina who wanted to see America. I was driving from Florida out to Oregon, so I offered her a ride….”
    And she had accepted and they’d had a splendid trip, at the end of which she offered to show him Argentina. He’d accepted the offer and had ended up in Buenos Aires, some coastal towns west of there, and finally in a nameless little village in the Andes. The girl, it turned out, was rich, so for his first few weeks in Argentina, he had lived in mansions and on yachts, but then he’d grown tired of luxury and of people who, though charming and well-educated, never worked, and he had thanked them for their hospitality and traveled on toward the Andes until, at last, his money was gone and he had no way of getting home. With his last coin, he’d gone into a bar and bought a beer to sip while he figured out what to do.
    â€œIt’s what I do whenever I’m at the end of my rope,” he explained to my wide-eyed children, “I take my last dollar and buy a beer while I decide what to do next and hope for a miracle.”
    â€œDoes it always work?” asked Joshua.
    â€œSo far,” said Clay, and he went on to tell how the Patagonia miracle had happened in the form of a man who sat down beside him and who, they discovered as they talked, needed a pilot to fly a cargo to Peru.
    â€œSo you see,” said Clay, “miracles do happen, even in these days.” He grinned that infectious grin.
    â€œGosh,” said Joshua.
    â€œIf you hadn’t met the man, you could have gone to church,” said Diana, who had friends who did that. “God lives there.”
    â€œI guess I could have,” said Clay.
    â€œGod must live in bars, too,” said her brother.
    â€œNo more waxing philosophical,” said Zee. “It’s bedtime for you two. Off you go.”
    Following the usual gee ’s and gosh ’s and do we have to ’s, they left after getting the promise of another story from Clay the next night.
    â€œQuite a tale,” said Zee when the kids were gone.
    â€œAnd all true, too,” said Clay, “but that reminds me.” He went to his room and came out with a tiny leather bag. “I left out a few things that I didn’t think the kids needed to hear.” He sat back down beside Zee, loosened the drawstrings of the bag, and emptied its contents into his open palm. Jewels and gemstones glittered in the firelight.
    â€œTake your choice,” he said to Zee. “And take one for Diana, too.”
    â€œI can’t do that,” she said, catching her breath.
    â€œYou’ll give me great pleasure if you do, and make me sad if you don’t. The red ones are rubies and the green ones are emeralds. The yellow and white ones are diamonds. They’re very pretty, but I have no use for them, so help me out by taking two off my hands.”
    She touched them. “Where did you get them?”
    He smiled. “Well, without