We found out his brother, Owen, was living in Santa Fe. Owen and his family came up on our last day when Vance’s Mom had a barbeque for us at noontime before we were going to take off.

The reunion with Owen didn’t go so well. Owen sized up Vance immediately and didn’t like what he saw (pure jealousy, if you asked me).

Owen was married with two young boys, was shorter than Vance and clearly took after his Dad in the looks department. Vance looked like his Mom, as in gorgeous. Owen wasn’t much but then again I could be prejudiced, Owen was kind of a jerk, I thought that right off.

Around about the dessert stage of the festivities, Owen teetered over the rim of happy-drunk and got shitfaced drunk, loud and obnoxious in a way you knew he did it a lot especially when both Roslyn and Owen’s wife got very tense and started to shrink into themselves.

The whole time we were there Vance had been, well, Vance, cool and laid back. It put Roslyn and all of us at ease and our time with his Mom had been good. She was funny and sweet and obviously happy to have us with her. Sometimes though, I’d catch her looking at Vance in a way that was lost and infinitely sad. Thank God Sniff was there, his motor mouth usually served to snap her out of it.

But his brother’s drunken behavior got a reaction from Vance, who looked at his two nephews, his mother and sister-in-law then he took his brother around the front of the house for a chat.

The chat degenerated when Owen became not only drunk, loud and obnoxious but also seriously pissed off. We heard the shouts all the way to the back and I got up and ran around to the front, the whole party following me. I tried to intercede as Owen yelled in Vance’s face and Vance stared him down.

Owen turned an enraged face to me and screamed, “Shut up, bitch. Who the f**k’re –”

Then quick as a flash (as was the way of Lightin’ Crowe), Owen was up against the house, Vance’s forearm to his throat and Vance in his face.

There went the reunion barbeque.

Owen looked stunned that one second he was five feet away and shouting mad and the next second he was pinned and powerless against the house.

“Not smart,” Vance said in a scary, quiet voice, then shoved off and looked at Roam. “Pack it up.”

Roam, not looking all that happy himself, didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Sniff and they ran into the house.

“But we haven’t got to the pie yet,” Roslyn cried.

Vance was not in the mood to change his mind. We were packed up and ready to go in fifteen minutes. Owen had disappeared, his wife and kids stood by Roslyn as we said our good-byes.

“You’ll come back?” Roslyn asked Vance, standing a foot away, not touching him and the sound of her voice made tears crawl up my throat.

“I’ll be back,” Vance told her.

I was standing at Vance’s side and her eyes moved to me.

“You’ll bring him back?” she asked, even though Vance had already answered the question.

I smiled at her. “I’ll bring him back.”

I gave her a hug and told her to come visit us in Denver.

Vance touched his young nephews’ heads, nodded to his sister-in-law and turned to kiss his mother’s forehead.

Then we were gone.

* * * * *

After the emotional start to our vacation, we spent the rest of the week camping.

Two street-smart, urban runaways roughing it in the mountains outside Ouray was pretty hilarious. They didn’t have a clue.

Vance was a patient teacher.

I on the other hand never stopped giving them stick.

* * * * *

It was late March and May and I were hanging in the surveillance room with Vance, Monty and Mace.

May and I had brought a lunch of calzones from Pasquini’s for the boys and Shirleen and we were consuming them and giggling ourselves silly while watching Tex and Duke argue about what happened at Kent State (though, I didn’t understand what the argument was about considering it sounded like they both agreed) when Vance got tense and he leaned forward.

He turned down the volume to the Fortnum’s monitor and moved to the monitor that showed a visual of the reception area.

Shirleen was sitting behind the reception desk, consuming her own calzone while alternately painting her fingernails, a mean feat, and a woman had walked in.

I looked at her and liked her immediately.

Tall, curvy, super-pretty and definitely cool in a female James Dean, throw-away-cool type of way. She was wearing a pair of very faded Levi’s, so faded, they were worn nearly through in some advantageous areas; a pair of black flip flops; a black Green Day t-shirt over a white thermal; silver rings on nearly every finger; several silver necklaces around her neck; a mess of silver bracelets on both her wrists and wide silver hoops at her ears. Her long, streaked-blonde hair was up in a twisty, untidy knot with chunks falling around her face in a way that looked artless and kickass.

Her look was sah-weet. She had Rock Chick written all over her.

Vance turned up the volume to the reception monitor in time for us to hear Shirleen say, “… help you?”

The woman was looking at Shirleen and she didn’t look happy. Why, I couldn’t fathom, but she looked like she wanted to be anywhere but there and was about ready to turn on her flip flop and leave.

She hesitated for a moment then said, “I’m looking for Lucas Stark.”

Uh-oh.

I drew in breath.

“You got an appointment with Luke?” Shirleen asked, looking through the total mess on her desk as if she actually kept appointments for Luke. Luke didn’t even take appointments. Luke was wherever Luke was and if you caught him you could count yourself lucky.

“No, I’m an…” the woman hesitated, licked her lips and said, “old friend.”

“Holy f**k,” Monty muttered under his breath, staring at the monitors with a pained expression and shaking his head, “here we go again.”

May and I looked at each other and grinned.

“He ain’t here, girl, you want, I can call him,” Shirleen told her.

“No,” the woman said quickly and she sounded downright relieved. “I’ll just…” she hesitated again and looked around. She still looked tense and I was pretty certain she was about to bolt. “Forget it. Could you please just tell him Ava Barlow was here? I’ll try to catch him later.”

Yep, I was right, she was about to bolt. Vance picked up the phone and hit a button.

Shirleen was smiling huge. “No problem to give him a bell. I got his number on speed dial.”

“No!” Ava cried suddenly them continued. “Really, thanks, but I’ll just go, I’ve got to be somewhere anyway.” She was edging away, definitely losing it now. She was beginning to look jittery.