“Are you sure you wanna do this?”

I glanced across the table at my husband sipping his morning coffee. He seemed unsure. After all, it really didn’t make sense. Our wedding business was booming and going into its busiest season yet. But we had to make the call. It was already January 6th and the Christmas Engagements were starting to contact us for their 2017 elopements. We had more than enough weddings already booked for our year, but I have a hard time saying no. More often than not I would find a way to squeeze their wedding in.

But this…this was different. This was not photography. Nor was it weddings. It was a whole new ball game. It was risky. Especially since our new Colorado Wedding business was starting to blossom as well.

“Let’s sell the Kentucky business. It’s done well for us but I’m ready to hang the car keys up and stay in Colorado. It’s time, Dave. I can’t keep up this pace of driving back and forth four times a year. Listen, we can keep the Colorado business to supplement the coffee shop. Take it down to 30 or 40 weddings a year from our usual 175-200.” I tried to speak with confidence. Like I had a plan. I was the one who always had the plan…and Dave was the one who pulled in the reins when I got a little crazy with my plans.

“Now hold on. Listen to what you are saying. Are you sure you want to sell My Tiny Wedding? It’s booming.”

“But I’m not. The traveling is starting to wear me down. And…” I felt the tears threaten to flow. It’s hard for me to open up to Dave. This was before the summer of 2018 when we finally, after six years of marriage, opened up to each other and talked about our feelings. “And…well…I miss you when I’m there and you’re here.” And then there was the promise he had made many years ago. But I wasn’t going to bring that up.

For a moment, a short moment, Dave’s eyes glistened. He cleared his throat, “Ok then. If we’re going to do this now is the best time. We have the money to do it.”

I let out a sigh. I’ve always been a photographer. I managed to make it work for the past 28 years and it’s done well for me. But I was ready to do something that I had dreamt about for the last 20 years. I was going to open up a coffee shop. And Dave was going to back up my decision to let go of the Kentucky business.

“So. What are you going to name this so-called coffee shop?”

“Dunno…throw me your ideas.” This was me trying to get him involved. Over the years we communicated best when we talked shop. Back in Kentucky on cold winter days during the wedding’s off-season we’d sit around the woodstove in our tiny cabin and brainstorm on how to make our elopement business better than the year before.

Here in Colorado there was no wood-burning stove to brainstorm around so our talks convened at the kitchen table. While discussing the next business move, we would take turns at the telescope lens watching the herd of elk up on the ridgeline of the mountain behind our house. Even from a distance we could tell the bulls apart from each other. This was a rookie year for the herd. The head bull had disappeared the winter before and the new, younger herd bull was still learning the ropes. He didn’t appear to take his job as seriously as the previous, older bull. On this particular morning he was busy lollygagging and leading his cows and young spikes into a herd of very upset mule deer.

“Buzz Café….wait this is Colorado…that would have a completely different meaning. Sangre de Cristo Coffee House…too long. San Luis Valley Coffee Shop…has potential.” He went on and on. Dave has little creativity when it comes to naming a business and I tried to be supportive of his awful name suggestions. It’s times like these when I feel like the Ralphie’s mother from the Christmas Story. When her husband insisted on placing the leg lamp in their front window. I don’t want to discourage but I know a bad idea when I hear it. If I wasn’t careful I was going to end up owning a coffee shop with a very awful name.

“Keller came up with a great name.” I smiled my best smile while attempting to sway the conversation. I had already been working on a logo using her fantastic name. But I didn’t want him to know that. Had he known I was already working on menus and names and color schemes my plan would have been foiled. I had to gently bring him into this.

“Sips Café” I blurted it out with way too much enthusiasm. He would never go for it. Truth is I was already sold on that name. I liked the thought of telling folks that my best friend had named the shop.

“No. That won’t do. I don’t like it.”

He gave no other reason other than he didn’t like it. Who’s coffee shop was this anyway? It wasn’t his damn coffee shop. Did he even remember the promise? I could feel my temper rising. About that time the dogs started barking at a rabbit hopping across the back patio. They were stir-crazy since the last few days had been windy and there was no opportune time to take them for a long walk. This morning however was perfect. The wind had died down over the night before and the sun was out in full force.

“Let’s take the dogs for a hike.” An obvious attempt at changing the subject. The name game would have to wait for another day.

Within 10 minutes we were making our way across the yard and towards BLM property. The dogs were ahead of us sniffing out rabbits and tracing the trails of the coyotes from that morning.

“I just want to ask again. Are you sure you want to do this? Owning a restaurant isn’t easy.” I looked back at him. He was concerned.

We stood at the edge of our property facing each other. This was a big step. We had made so many big steps in the last year. But it seemed like every year since 2012 had big steps in it. This was no different in my eyes.

We crossed over the fence in silence and slowly walked away from each other but headed in the same direction towards a small foothill in the distance. We needed some separation between us. He was on the verge of telling me no. He needed time to arrange his words and put together a few logical reasons. He had made me a promise many years ago and now he was going to break it. I wanted very much to bring it up. But that’s fighting dirty. The words were said in jest, I’m sure. He didn’t actually plan on following through with his promise and he didn’t expect me to hold him to it.

“Let’s climb to the top. I’ve never been all the way up.” I was feeling energetic. It had been two months since I had returned from Kentucky and my lungs were starting to adjust to the altitude. The past two windy days had also made me stir crazy. Dave must have felt the same. He made no argument as we climbed the steep southern side of the hillock, slowly making our way to the top.

The space gave me time to come up with my words. “Let’s just ponder on things for a few days. The answer will come to us. It always does. I don’t want to do this unless I have your support. You don’t need to help. I can do this alone. I just want your support.”

“Ok. Let’s not talk about it any more. Give it a few days and we’ll come back to it.”

We stood on the ridgeline listening to the silence. Suddenly a Magpie called out in the distance, warning the wildlife of intruders. Magpies are such noisy, tattletales. The bird’s loud warnings reminded me of the pileated woodpeckers back in Kentucky…those lovely green woods of Kentucky with their peepers and crickets and woodpeckers…would I ever consider Colorado my home? It seemed I was always thinking about Kentucky while I was in Colorado and wondering about Colorado when I was in Kentucky. Over the the last year I would wake up every morning and my first thought was ‘where am I?’ and my second was ‘how many days until I go back?’ I was tired of it. Tired of not being grounded.

“Well, I’m going to go down this other side and hit the trail at the bottom. It makes its way around this foothill. Too many cacti up here for the dogs. You coming?” I could tell he was a bit irritated. We still needed some space.

“I think I’m going to hike the ridgeline and then meet up with you at the other end.”

“Whatever. I’ll meet up with you at bottom on the other side.”

For a minute I watched my husband as he headed down with the dogs zigzagging along the steep terrain and then I slowly started to make my way along the ridgeline heading east. The view from above was stunning. Off in the distance, the sand dunes were in clear sight and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains were standing like silent giants on the horizon. I was heading back to Kentucky in just six weeks to start up another wedding season while Dave stayed behind with the animals. Too soon. Too soon. I was going to miss this. I was going to miss him.

I glanced downward behind me searching for Dave. I could see he had finally made it to the bottom and the pups were happily leading the way down the trail. I smiled as I watched his familiar gate following behind.

And that is when I saw it. About three quarters down the side of the shady hill was a single patch of light. Right smack in the middle of this small patch appeared to be an antler…a very large antler that seemed to be bleached white. My mind must have been playing tricks on me. Since we moved to Colorado I often would mistake the bleached out tree branches of the scrub oak as antlers. It was a running joke with Dave and me. He thought rocks were bears so he had no room to talk.

I reached for my binoculars but realized I had left them on the kitchen table. Giving up, I returned to my path on the ridgeline. It was most likely another dead scrub oak. But something told me to stop. I turned around again and studied the bundle of white lines again. I reached in my pocket and felt my phone. Dave was too far away for me to yell down to but maybe he had his phone. So I called him and started making my way down to the bundle of white spokes. I just had to go see if it was scrub oak or antlers. He answered and looked up at me at the same time.

“I think I see antlers. Huge antlers!” I tried to sound as confident as I could. There is no way I would be able to convince him to hike back up the hill unless I sounded like I was positive they were antlers.

It didn’t work. Dave started to laugh, “If you are sooooooooo sure then you get your butt down there and see for yourself. I’m not climbing up….holy cow!! Those ARE antlers! They are HUGE!” He hung up the phone and we both started running and laughing. We finally found antlers! After hiking in the foothills for over a year, we finally found antlers! This is exactly what we needed to ease the tension between us from the morning’s conversation.

Dave reached them first. He started screaming and laughing at the same time. “You are not going to believe this! Get down here and check out your find!”

I picked up my pace and half ran half fell down the hill. There at Dave’s feet was a set of HUGE antlers and a skull and a full skeleton of a very large elk. We both stood there in awe of the sheer size of this creature, magnificent even in his death. He had been there for about a year Dave had guessed. There were still some patches of fur holding onto the bones. The antlers were not bleached out at all but still held much of their ivory coloring. From the condition of his teeth and size of his antlers we could tell this boy was old. He was in a sheltered area of the hillside. We wondered why he was down so low off the mountain. We had never seen elk in the low foothills and this close to houses.

After awhile we gathered up the skull with the antlers and slowly made our way down the steep incline and back to the house taking turns carrying the skull every hundred yards or so. Suddenly Dave stopped and turned to face me. “We know this elk.”

And that is when I knew. We did know this elk for there would have been only one elk this large and this recently in the foothills. It was our elk. The one we had watched the winter before. The herd bull that was so respected that none of the other bulls dared challenged him. The elk that slowly started stepping away from his herd a little more each day until he was no longer in our telescope viewfinder for he was hidden behind the lower foothill. From what we could gather he had made his way down the south side of the mountain and up the north side of the lower foothill. It was there where he found shelter and stood watch on his herd up high for as long as he was able. It was there Mother Nature gave him a graceful death.

We continued walking back to the house in silence, each in our own thoughts.

As we reached the fence line Dave turned and looked at me. “The Wapiti.”

“What?” I was confused. What was going through his head now?

“Wapiti. It’s the Shawnee word for elk. You know…the Shawnee Indians…from the Red River Gorge. Where we had our first date and I made that promise. Their word for elk was wapiti.”

He remembered.

“Oh. I didn’t know that. It’s lovely.” The wind was starting to pick up.

“The Wapiti Coffeehouse” his eyes were glistening again. This was our sign.