004 - Meet the Caplan’s

Roxanne Caplan stirred, and then slipped deeper into sleep. She dreamed. She was on a ledge on the side of a high mountain, looking west. Footprints that were not hers led into the center of a formation of rocks. Then she was flying. Faster than she had ever moved before, accelerating up, and across space at the sun, until it consumed her.

Rox awoke, just before her alarm started. Carefully she pulled herself out of bed, doing her best not to disturb Steven. After pulling on some sweats and picking up her gym bag, she slipped out the back door and crossed the yard. The crisp Sierra Nevada mountain air refreshed her as she walked. One of the dogs noticed her as she crossed the yard, but did not otherwise stir from its house. Behind the backyard, in her garage, she kept the latest car. She put the bag in the front seat of the ‘67 Camero, and then opened the swinging garage doors. Climbing into the Camero, she started the car up.

The engine growled to life. Rox sat for a few moments letting the custom restored V-8 idle, and warm up. She then backed it slowly out of the garage. The pre-dawn light was bright enough to see by, but she still turned on the marker lights as she stopped, and closed the garage. Rox then slipped back into the Camero, and secured the four point harness. That done, she eased out the gravel driveway to the road, and drove to the gym.

She had had several vivid dreams the last several nights, but no real memories of them. Try as she did with her workout, she could not completely put off a sense of foreboding. This wasn’t about the tournament that night. Something else was going to happen.

Living in a small town in western Nevada has several advantages. One was that everybody knew everybody, for good or ill. Another was that Rox had some influence over the gym and it showed. At the gym, Rox changed into her workout clothes, black pants and a torn up red tee-shirt over a spandex top in the ladies locker room. She warmed up on a treadmill, and then started working through the dumbbells. Two brothers were the only other people in the place, and all three kept to themselves as they exercised. Quickly finding her usual rhythm for lifting, Rox lifted mainly for the exercise of it today, rather than to build strength. She preferred to come in the early morning, or late evening, to avoid the posers who came to be seen, not that there were many; most of them preferred to drive north to Carson, or Reno. As such Rox had most of the rack of weights to herself, for most of an hour. She moved through the various lifts in a steady rhythm and then finished, and moved to the rooms where she trained and taught a second level martial arts class.

*          *          *

Steven Caplan got up to find his wife had already left. That was fine. She did not like to be disturbed before matches and tournaments. So he had the kids today. He was going to take them with on the errands, then out to play. A warm shower and clean clothes started the day. He roused Diana and Alex and took then into the kitchen for breakfast. They sat on the stools as he cooked a skillet of eggs, bacon, and toast. They munched on some peaches as the rest cooked.

Diana, ten, and Alex, eight, rarely squabbled over dividing up the food. They preferred to fight over other things, such as who got to shower first. The winner showered upstairs. The looser had to wait, or go downstairs and use that one. Steven cleaned up breakfast as his children cleaned and dressed themselves.

Steven let the dogs in and gave them the scraps, and their normal breakfast. Tyrell and Dru, retriever-mix breeds, then went back out. They were staying home today. Steven briefly wondered if it was yet time to have Drusilla bred or fixed.

He then went into his bedroom, and to the closet. In the side was a small safe. He opened it, and pulled out his gun, and its stuff. The holster would go onto his belt behind his right hip, magazine holder sitting opposite on his lift. His belt went on, with all of its other paraphernalia. His Batman-utility belt was a running joke, and a holdover from his combat gear from his years as an active duty Marine. His cell phone, a leatherman, and one or two other things were threaded through his belt as Steven put it on.

Steven went around the house once, gathering the things he wanted to take, and generating the list of errands to be run. That done, he went to the front garage, which attached to the house, and began to load the truck. The target stands and gongs were put in first, with some 2 x 4’s put over top, and the other stuff put on them and tied down. Diana helped him get the last bit in. Then Alex showed up, and they went downstairs to the locked room.

In here, Steven kept all his other gun stuff, among other camping and similar things. He opened the gun safe, as Diana and Alex each set out an open rifle case. Steven put his ‘toy’ rifle in one, and the kids’ .22’s in the other. These were then closed and locked. Alex then took one case and Diana the other, up to the truck. Steven grabbed a brick of .22’s, and two other boxes of pistol ammo. These went into the range bag with all the ear muffs, safety glasses, and field cleaning stuff. Last he grabbed one of the five gallon buckets of reloaded ammo, segregated into two bags, and closed the room back up.

The range bag and bucket ended up in the bed of the truck, the two rifle cases on the floor in the back seat, and the kids on the front bench with Steven. Alex, sitting in the middle, got to push the button to open the garage door. Once it was going up, Steven started the truck, and rolled out. Diana got to close the door once it was stopped, and the truck out. Steven turned onto the road and headed for Carson, waving to Mrs. Winchel weeding her front lawn as they drove by.

*          *          *

Rox thumped the bag, going round and round, sweat starting to show on her light haired brow. Her eyes focused on the bag, but the tournament this evening occupied her thoughts. Her mood was still set by the unease she felt. With a final set of thumps she stopped, leaving the bag. She didn’t want to wear herself out before getting to the contest.

She went into the dressing room, stripped, and showered. At six foot two, Rox was the tallest woman in the gym, most of the time, and had to duck to get under the shower head. Easily one of the stronger women to workout here, she was considered overly skinny for her height, measuring little more around than a woman a foot shorter. Having those measurements she always looked a bit ungainly. But thanks to daily time at the gym she was too muscled to be called delicate, while not showing excessive overall definition; just a smooth, hard figure.

After drying off she dressed in her street clothes, left the gym, and drove the hour long drive to Sparks, just east of Reno, and the school where the Martial Arts Tournament was being set up. Roxanne’s agitation distracted her from her habitual driving pattern to only moving through the traffic instead of leaving it behind.

*          *          *

Steven’s first errand was to get some hiking boots for Diana and Alex. They would be camping over summer vacation, and neither had adequate footwear. Diana had outgrown hers. Alex had worn his out. Steven considered getting a new pair for himself, but there were none in stock to fit his size 12 feet that he liked. And his were not worn out yet.

With new shoes on, they went shopping for new binoculars. Alex kept quiet about this, and seemed extra careful about what he touched in that store. Steven had said very little about ‘the binocular incident.’ Alex had learned that lesson very well. On the bright side, Steven ordered a new top-end set with an integral digital camera. He then purchased for each child a quality mini set.

Steven was pleased to see how much care Alex took with his; Diana dropped hers twice, to no effect.

Next, they traveled to Reno for lunch.