Wild Man Creek by Robyn Carr

he had enlisted with that as his single objective. He couldn’t wait to get off the ground!
    Art was his sideline, just as it had been in high school. He was good at caricature and entertained his Army buddies with his drawings. He’d done an oil portrait of the five Riordan boys, ages ten to eighteen; he’d copied it from a photo and given it to his mother. He’d painted a huge, wall-size mural of a Black Hawk in a house he’d owned about ten years ago and when the new owner bought it he swore he’d keep it on that wall forever. But all that had been for fun. While in treatment—all kinds of treatment—he’d been drawing and painting. Ballroom dancing or squash certainly weren’t options for rehab.
    The injuries Colin sustained from the crash led to addiction to Oxycontin, which led to being arrested for buying from a dealing doctor, which led to addiction treatment, which led to depression, which led to… Put allthe pieces together and he’d been in one form of therapy or another for six months. Colin had been painting with oils, watercolors and acrylics for a few months now, one of the only parts of his past he’d been able to hang on to and something that was now part of his therapy. It slowed him down enough to let his mind move easily rather than crazily. He’d painted all the bowls of fruit and landscapes he could stand, but the thing that got his juices flowing was painting wildlife.
    He was frighteningly good at it for a man who hadn’t been professionally trained. He could replicate some of the best wildlife portraits he found; then he discovered his own images through the lens of a camera.
    He had taken one, and only one, professional art instruction in his life after high school and that was in the nuthouse. He went from the hospital to physical therapy to drug rehab to depression rehab—and it was in the third rehab that some wise guy counselor suggested a bona fide art instructor, since painting had become so crucial to Colin’s recovery.
    The art instructor had said, “The hardest part of training a painter is showing him how to introduce emotion into his work, and you do it naturally.”
    And Colin had said, “Don’t be ridiculous—I don’t have emotions anymore.”
    After repeating this to his assigned counselor, they had decided to slowly reduce and eliminate the antidepressants and increase the group therapy sessions. To that idea Colin had said, “Can’t you just shoot me instead?”
    It had worked in spite of Colin’s dislike of those touchy-feely group-hug sessions. He must have been ready to come off the antidepressants. Now he was glad; his senses were no longer dulled by drugs of any kind.
    He’d never even considered art as a career. Butwhy would he? He was into fast, edgy living; he was a combat-trained Black Hawk pilot who lived hard. He drove a sports car too fast, occasionally partied too much, played amateur rugby, had too many women, went to war too often. And then it all came crashing down on him, literally. In slowly learning to pick up the pieces of his lost life, he reclaimed his art. Art moved slow and exercised feelings he had been able to ignore for a long time.
    Now, after many long months, he was released to pursue his continued healing and his art. He had a good digital camera with an exceptional zoom lens. Obviously wildlife couldn’t pose for him—but he could catch them in the wild, get several photos and work from them.
    Though he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, Colin was looking forward to really getting into his art and to reclaiming the life he had nearly lost.
     
    As promised, Luke helped Colin get the internet up and running, talking a little more than he used to. It was probably the influence of living with a woman. Colin recalled that most women had that talking gene hardwired.
    Colin spent the next couple of days cautiously prowling around the forest, confirming to himself that he’d made a good choice. He liked the quiet; he enjoyed the sounds