Chapter One

From a distance, Majestic Mountains appeared to be clothed in woolly green, unlike its traditional orange autumn robe, customary white, winter blanket or black off-season granite. Becky, a nineteen-year old freelance writer, was driving homeward on an unfamiliar, gravel mountain road that traversed the Majestic Mountain range. Angrier than she had ever been in her entire life, she was almost unaware of its majesty and beauty.

Earlier, she had driven many miles for a scheduled meeting with a potential book publisher. He had sounded like a gentle man on the telephone and had agreed to read a fiction manuscript that had taken her almost an entire year to write. Trusting him, because he owned his own publishing company, Becky had submitted it to him by mail.

The publisher immediately, politely and flatly rejected her manuscript, as soon as she entered his elaborate office in the huge, publishing complex. Becky was stunned, to say the least. Her first instinct had been to run, to get out of there as quickly as possible and never return. She had never felt so humiliated in her life.

She turned and did just that, before he had time to say another word to her.

"I don't handle rejection well," she reminded herself. "I know that I never have and probably never will."

Becky had been writing professionally for several years and had sold a number of her articles and documentaries, but she had received very little financial remuneration for them. Now she almost dreaded checking her e-mail and her mailbox, as some of the work she sent out to publishers,  was being returned to her, unopened. She had even offered to be a ghost-writer for a company, but nothing came of that either.

“How can I possibly survive as a writer?” she asked herself.

As Becky rushed out of the building, she felt so torn apart emotionally that she almost stumbled on an elderly, gray-haired transient with a long beard, perched like a hungry bird on the front steps.

"Excuse me!" he yelled at her arrogantly. "What is your rush? I am a person too, you know!"

"Sorry," she replied and hurried past him. Later, wondered, “What on earth did he mean by that?”

When Becky reached her old car on the end of the huge parking lot, she unlocked the driver’s door and tossed her manuscript on the passenger seat. She got into the car and tried to start it.

"Oh, no!"

The car had groaned, but did start. It was not the first time that she had problems with it and knew it needed a tune up. 

Becky, heart broken and almost blinded by salty tears that she tired to hold back, headed homeward.

“I have to get out of here now!”

A while later, she looked at herself in the rear view mirror and was startled to see her empty, blood-shot eyes staring back.

“That is not me! I look so horrible. What am I doing, and just who I am trying to kid? My whole life has been a disaster, a series of disasters, one after another. Each one has been worse than the last." 

Her mind turned back to her devastating interview with Bart B. Barkley, the owner of BBB Publishing Enterprises. He was a short, stout, partially bald man of about sixty, not what she had envisioned him to be at all. 


"Whatever happened to the tall, dark and handsome men who own publishing companies?" she asked herself. 
  
Bart B. Barkley had seemed pleasant and gracious enough on the telephone and when she first arrived. She thought that everything was going well when she entered the room, other than the fact that he obviously did not approve of her attire. She was dressed in t-shirt, blue jeans and runners, appropriate for her long drive. 

The publisher did not say a word about what she was wearing, but Becky understood immediately when his young, blonde secretary entered the office wearing a professional black suit with a lacy, white blouse and high patent leather heels. She had tied her hair back with a black velvet bow and her long, gold earrings hung down to her shoulders. She wore a matching gold watch, necklace, bracelet and several diamond rings.


"That is not me either! She certainly did not have red hair and freckles, and was dressed in professional business attire. I will have to make a note of that for next time, if there is a next time, that is!"

She laughed at the thought of having to dress like that for an interview with a publisher, and kept on driving.

Mile after mile quickly flew by.

She only wanted to get home as soon as possible, and it was a long drive. It was not as if she could outrun her frustration, embarrassment and humiliation. She was extremely disappointed because she had bared her soul in her manuscript, and pinned all of her hope for career success on this particular writing project. Inwardly, she felt like she was suffocating.

“Letting him read my manuscript was a really dumb thing to do!” she said aloud. “Now he knows all about me and my past. It is a good thing that I wrote it as fiction. Maybe that will keep him wondering. Still, that is not good!”

The publisher had just shaken his head sadly.

“I am sorry,” he said apologetically, as he handed the manuscript to her. “This is not what we are looking for.”

She was tempted to swear at him, but she knew that it would do no good. So what if it had taken her a year to write that particular manuscript? Did he not consider her wasted hours?

About an hour later, Becky almost missed her turn onto the Majestic Mountain gravel road, but just in time, she spotted a hitchhiker who was standing on the corner. She was not about to pick him up, and was far too engrossed in her own world to stop to ask him where he was going, or if he needed help. As she sped up the gravel mountain road, she was not paying attention to road signs either.

"Why am I wasting my time writing?" She asked herself aloud. "What am I trying to prove to the world?"

She started to laugh aloud.  

"I can pretend to be a freelance writer, but I still have to work at my full time job elsewhere in order to survive financially. This was not my first rejection and probably won’t be my last, but somehow this one threw me for a loop.”  

Becky was growing increasingly devastated as more and more ridiculous thoughts clouded her mind. She drove on knowing better than to exceed the recommended speed limit for gravel mountain roads. Time flew by very quickly, as she bounced back and forth between silly laughter and ridiculous tears that were seeking an outlet for expression. She struggled to hold them back.

Suddenly her laughter became almost hysterical and turned into a full-fledged veil of blinding tears. Unable to focus on the mountain road any longer, she pulled off on the side, stopped the car and turned off the ignition.

“I need a break.”

Becky sat in the car and sobbed openly. After a good cry, she dried her tears and then got out and walked around the car. On one side of the gravel road, there was a huge, rock cliff. The other side looked like a deep green, woolly forest. There was no question that this was wilderness country.

She opened the passenger door, bent down to pick up the manuscript that had fallen on the floor, and hugged it tight to her chest. 

"This is my work and I know good writing when I see it! I am proud of my manuscript, even if no one else likes what I wrote. I don't care." Inwardly, she knew that she did care and was hurting badly.

Becky brushed back the red hair that had tumbled around her face, turned and reached into the back seat for her old leather briefcase, opened it, found her blue jean jacket and put it on. Then she placed her manuscript inside the briefcase, very carefully.

“There will be other publishers,” she said, patting the briefcase. She stretched her legs and did her best to regain her composure.

“I cannot let this devastating rejection destroy me, or my writing career.”

Becky was a natural born survivor, who had experienced many disappointments in her life. She also knew that it was getting late and she had to keep on driving in order to get through the mountains in daylight. She got back into her car. As she turned the key in the ignition, the alternator just clicked.

"Oh no!” she exclaimed. “I have killed my battery, too!

She tried to start it a second time, but nothing happened.

“This is a fine predicament that I have gotten myself into now! Here I am miles and miles away from anywhere and may have to spend the night in my car. I may be here indefinitely, or at least until a mountain ranger, or someone else comes along. I wonder how long that will take. Oh, well, maybe it will be a good looking, young ranger who likes red heads.”  

She smiled realizing that she had almost panicked, but knew that she had to remain calm. It would be getting dark soon and she had to be ready for nightfall.

“I hope someone will come along and offer assistance with my car, before it gets dark.”

Becky pulled her camera phone out of her purse, but there was no dial tone. She had not expected to hear one in this mountain range. The only possible exception might be if she was in the vicinity of some place that had a satellite dish. 

"No such luck. The last thing that I needed was to have this happen to me today of all days.” 

She set it on the dashboard of the car.

Becky had a sleeping bag and a pillow. She took them out of the trunk and tossed them on the back seat. She felt under the front seat for her flashlight, but could not find it. She did find her pen light in the glove compartment and it worked.

“That will suffice for the moment. Maybe my other one is somewhere in the trunk. I had better go easy on using the pen light, as the batteries will not last very long. I should save it for an emergency."

She laughed aloud again.

"An emergency…if this is not an emergency, I don't know what is!"

Becky checked but was unable to see any lights behind her and there were none up ahead either. She was alone in the wilderness. It was just beginning to get dark and becoming colder, too.

"I may have to wait a while!" she said to herself, as she climbed into the sleeping bag. “I might as well get as comfortable as possible.” She knew that the sleeping bag would keep her warm. "I am not afraid of the dark and I have been out camping in the mountains, many times." 

In the heart of the mountains, night begins almost as soon as the sun hides its face behind a mountain peak. 

"I might as well rest while I can," she mumbled, as she drifted off to sleep.