Stopped in at the little ranch on the north side of the mountains in the afternoon. Visiting with the rancher's widow.

Got greeted by more than a half-dozen loose dogs, and couple that were tied up. Most belonging to the elk hunters who had dropped them and their trucks and trailers off at the ranch.

The living room was as neat as ever, the television on a half-static local channel, probably the only one they get up here. This was my first visit since last year, so I got to hear the news on each and every one of the children and grown grandchildren. And about the night her husband died.

You can tell the story is well told now, like running a finger over a new scar. But she needed to tell it again, out there on the porch where the thermometer said it was 100^o in the sun. No tears or outward signs of emotion. Just a recitation of that night, after they had moved back into town.

The night she heard her husband's last breath, as he lay on the hospital bed in their living room.

He died as he wanted. At home, not wracked and weakened by the chemotherapy that would have offered him his only chance for a longer life.

A little longer.

He never had regrets, nor did she. Except for that night. I could tell as she spoke, showing her only sign of real emotion as she related his last hours, that she did one thing that night that she truly regrets.

She called 9-1-1.

And the EMTs did their jobs, performed as trained. Ravaging her husband's peaceful body with tubes and hoses and electric shocks as they tried, vainly, to resuscitate.

She shakes her head as she tells me what she did, what she watched. Heavy with guilt.

I know, if they had one last Ghost-like moment to share before he moved on, she would take that opportunity to apologize. To apologize for bringing that last indignity and insult upon him, after he had decided to let himself go naturally, when his body decided it was time.

Of course, I knew him as well. He would stoically laugh it off with a light chuckle, and tell her not to worry about it.

And ask if they'd gotten any rain.