The next day I was feeling a lot more like my old self and was able to get up and around a bit. The little cabin I found myself in was typical for settlers in this area. Klein was proud to tell me he had built most of it himself, with a little help from a couple of drifters passing through who'd been happy to work for something to eat and a warm place to sleep.

I found it much easier to talk with Helga. She didn't have as heavy an accent as her father, besides, she was much prettier than he was. She shyly told me how pleasant it was to talk to a man who wasn't her father. Said she hoped to be married one day but didn't have many chances to meet anyone out in the wilderness. Seemed she and her father had been heading for Denver when they realized they wouldn't make it before winter weather set in. In fact, they had been talking about continuing their journey now that the weather was better.

I told Helga she'd have no trouble finding a decent fellow to marry, as pretty and sweet as she was. Heck, I'd buy the ring if I wasn't old enough to be her father, and there was Dallas to think of... maybe. Dallas could have gotten tired of waiting for me a long time ago.

Helga said I was selling myself short, I didn't look so old to her. Besides, she thought younger men didn't have much sense. The ones she had known spent most of their time drinking and looking for trouble. I told her I didn't go looking for trouble, but it sure found me often enough. And my drinking days were done.

I tried to fight it, but I felt myself growing closer to Helga, and the feeling seemed to be mutual. She was one of the kindest people I had ever met, and, no doubt, deserved a far better man than me. I was uncomfortable about what might be happening between Helga and me, not knowing where I stood with Dallas, even though we had never made any promises to each other or plans for the future. I found myself hoping that Dallas was happily married by now.

The fourth day of my stay with the Kleins, Herr Klein asked me to please address him as Abe. His middle name was Abraham and he preferred it to Hermann. This worked fine for me, what did I care what he wanted to be called?

I had awakened that morning from a vivid dream. My dream started back in Pennington Gap Va., just before my family moved to what would become West Virginia after the war broke out. The dream moved on, as we did when Papa took a job working in a coal mine in a place called Clarksburg. While we were there he tried supplementing our income by farming, but he soon found out the only thing that would grow there were rocks. He only lasted six months as a coal miner before he died in a mine collapse. It wasn't long after his death that the war started, so my brother Aron and I joined the Union Army. It wasn't like there was any other work available around there.

My brother made it as far as Shiloh, a place I'd never heard of before I learned he had died there. Smallpox took my mother and sister less than a year later. All of these events flowed through my dream in a series of clear visions, like acts in a play. Dreams like this make a man glad to wake up, and think twice about closing his eyes again. I had awakened feeling alone and lonely, thinking of all I had lost.

Waking in the cabin, even with a hurricane lamp burning, seemed like being in a cave, it was so dark. I got up, opened a window to let some light in, and found a note Abe had left saying he had business in town. Not that there was really a town anywhere nearby, it was more of a trading post for trappers and people passing through on their way to Denver. It didn't have an official name but people hereabouts called it Hays Crossing. In the note, Abe asked me to keep an eye on Helga for him and to cut some firewood.

After a couple of hours splitting firewood, I began to wonder where Helga had gotten to. I hadn't seen her since I woke up. I walked across the little clearing, where the cabin nestled up against a small hill, towards the sound of a stream I could hear coming from a stand of aspens. The noise of water flowing over rocks grew louder as I approached the spring, but other sounds attracted my attention as I began to hear splashing and the lovely trill of a woman's laugh.

I crested a small rise and was greeted by the most beautiful thing I had seen in many a year. There stood Helga, with the morning sun gleaming on her wet skin. There was a lot of wet skin for me to see too since she was not wearing a stitch of clothing. I stood, stunned, for what felt like hours, but could only have been a moment. I knew that I shouldn't have stared at her like that. After all, her father had saved my life, taken me in, shared his food and shelter with me, but I could not help myself. It had been a very long time since I had seen such an enticing vision, and I had never seen a woman quite like Helga.

After standing in a stupor, like a man who'd lost his wits, I became aware that Helga was looking back at me. She made no attempt to cover her stunning body. Instead, like a Siren in an ancient tale, she beckoned to me. I felt like I was falling down a long, dark hole, incapable of forming a coherent thought, but my feet moved forward of their own accord.

What is love? Is it the physical attraction to another person, or something deeper that reaches into one's soul and makes a person believe that there is more to life than pain and suffering? I don't know exactly what it was I felt as I reached out for Helga but, at that moment, nothing in the world could have stopped what happened next.

  My feet moved of their own accord, I walked as if in a dream. Perhaps I was, or maybe I had died and was now in Heaven. Since the moment I had met Helga, a need had been growing inside me. Not just the need for the physical touch of another, but the deeper, stronger ache that comes from our very souls.

  As we fell into each others' arms, Helga tore at my clothes in a frenzy. She seemed as frantic, as needy as I was. Helga threw my clothes by the side of the stream as we fell to the ground. Our bodies entwined as we made love like it was meant to be, as if we belonged together and had been waiting for this moment for all our lives. I wasn't sure about Helga yet, but I was in love.

  As the fire in our bodies cooled we began to talk, about our lives, our hopes, and dreams. I told Helga how nice it was that Abe needed to go into town, but I dreaded his return under the circumstances. I was surprised by Helga's laugh. I asked her about that, as I saw little funny in the idea of her father returning to see us like we were.

  She gave me a sly look and said, "He didn't need to go to town. We just went a few days ago, remember? That was the day we found you. He did tell me just last night how much he thought of you, how you were just the kind of man he hoped I would marry one day."

  I didn't know what to think about that. I never thought I had much to offer a woman in the way of a husband. That was why I left Dallas behind in Denver.

  The thought of Dallas gave me pause, but this was definitely not the time to think of another woman. I did come to a realization at the moment, though. What I had felt for

  Dallas was a dim shadow of what I felt at that moment for Helga. I knew I had never really loved Dallas. She just represented a dream of what I had always wanted, a home, family.

  Despite Helga's optimistic outlook, I was apprehensive about seeing Abe when he returned. I soon discovered my fears were groundless when he greeted me warmly and asked, with a certain sparkle in his eye, if I had enjoyed my morning. He soon became much more serious, though, when he said he hoped he hadn't been wrong about me. I knew this was the part where he would ask me about my "intentions" where his daughter was concerned. I suspected he already knew what they were, or he would not have left us alone. I began to think he had a higher opinion of me than I did of myself. I only hoped I could live up to it.

  Abe was overjoyed when I asked for Helga's hand, and the rest of her as well, even when I explained that I wasn't sure how I would support her. I had nothing to my name and a bad leg to boot. I didn't imagine I was any father's ideal husband for his only child. Abe didn't seem too worried about that, though, and I wondered if he knew something I did not.

  It seemed a little like Abe was dealing from his sleeve, the way he set up Helga and me. But I knew what I was getting into and Abe wasn't cheating in any way. I also understood his position. He was getting up in years and, after the war, most of the guys who made it back couldn't take care of themselves, much less anyone else. To be honest, I don't think he expected things to get quite so out of hand but, then again, what he didn't see couldn't hurt him. Could be that he understood how certain feelings are hard to deny when they come upon you.

  Whatever he was thinking about the whole situation, he seemed more excited than Helga when I asked his permission to marry his daughter. He rummaged up a bottle of whiskey and got his fiddle down from a shelf. Don't take this the wrong way, I think Abe is a fine man and a good father, but he tortured us with that fiddle for a good two hours. The whiskey helped quite a bit but I was sure happy when he got tired.

  We thought we would have to settle for a civil ceremony, there weren't many preachers to be found where we were. Rabbis were even scarcer. We headed into what passed for a town to see what we could do to formalize our situation. In small settlements like this one, people will use any excuse for a get-together or celebration. Everyone living in the vicinity was happy to be witnesses to a marriage. As luck would have it, there was even a preacher passing through when we arrived so it worked out well all around.