I met Danni In August 2002.

I was living in a small town in Colorado. Florence.

It was a hot summer day. The temp was around 120 degrees and I had just started a new job. I was restoring parts of an old schoolhouse and turning it into a large house.

I was standing at the top of a 15 foot ladder with a hammer and a crow bar. Ripping down the old ceilings and getting covered in dust, dirt and 40 year old carcases of all kinds of things that had taken up residence there since the place was last used back in 1961.

I heard a voice ask if I need help and I knew it was not the boss. And I was the only one working there. I looked down and saw what I knew was a girl, but what I thought was some homeless vagrant looking for some easy money.

Curiosity got the better of me and I had to go take a better look. From a distance she looked about 18 years old. A typical American teen. Close up you could tell she was older but she did not look the 34 years she turned out to be.

She wore one of those shirts that tie in a knot above the stomach. A pair of denim shorts. Or should I say very shorts. And a big pair of what looked like military boots.

She also had a good selection of piercing’s and a few very colourful tattoo’s.

The minute she started to talk, she impressed me. She spoke with a very strong German accent, and a very confident manner.

She told me all the jobs she had worked and the training she had done. Said she was a resident of Florence for the last 10 years and wanted to work.

Before I knew it I was asking her when she could start if I gave her a trial. She took the hammer and half way up the ladder she said “I have started “. “If you don’t like what I have done for the end of the day, don’t pay me “.

She put me to shame. She worked so hard and was more than capable of doing anything I was doing. We got two of the ten huge rooms done that day and all the rubble cleaned out and loaded into a skip. By the time the boss arrived at the end of the day we were both black from head to foot.

He saw two black workers instead of one, and his confusion showed. But he was so impressed with the worked that had been done, he just handed me $400 and drove away smiling.

Danni got $150 just like me and the other $100 was for tomorrow’s expenses.

Then Danni impressed me again by saying she would pay for the after work drinks at the bar.

Over the next few weeks, Danni and I became great friends. We worked hard together every day. And we relaxed in the bar after work for an hour each afternoon. We also helped each other a lot with different things outside of work. She would fix my bike when it needed it. And anywhere I had to travel to, she would take me. I showed her how to think and write poetry and how to use a computer.

As the work at the schoolhouse progressed more people were working there on any given day. Danni Quickly made friends and everyone seemed to love her.

She always seemed to be there when someone needed help. When ever anyone was troubled she was there to give advice that you would only expect from someone far above her years.

Wherever there was someone in need, Danni was there.

I’m not very religious. But she reminded me of those movies where a stranger comes to a troubled town, and one by one helps out the residents. And then just when everyone is ok again, the stranger vanishes as if sent by god to give a helping hand.

Danni was that stranger to me. And even though I didn’t know it then, it was gonna turn out just like that.

This was a very small town by any standards and most people knew everyone else in town. Or at least knew of them.

I had a pretty wide circle of friends that I used to socialise with on a regular basis. Like every day.

Even though I loved my friends, I have to say they were mostly a very strange bunch. And a few of them were very weird indeed!

At the time, one of them, a very attractive blond, was having husband trouble. Understandable, he didn’t like her being with a boyfriend most nights.

Things came to a head one night and he was found dead the following morning. Shot with one of his own guns.

The plan was for the wife to get rid of the husband to be with the boyfriend. But then the boyfriend didn’t want anything full time, he just wanted to have fun and move on.

Brave man I though, to tell a woman that after what she just did.

So in her grief she told me all about it. Even though I did not want to know. Danni also heard enough of the story to make her get up and leave.

With the husband and the boyfriend out of the way, in steps some other guy. This guy turns out to be Danni’s ex husband. The plot thickens!

Meanwhile, im walking around with information that lots of people think, but no one knows. Apart from me, Danni, the blond, and now Danni’s ex.

I am used to the strange people and strange ways of this place. And im no angel myself. But Danni is very troubled by what she has heard.

So troubled that she talks about going to the police. But she is talking to the wrong people and saying the wrong things. Word of this gets back to the blonde wife and before you know it, Danni gets visits from her ex and warnings that are pretty scary for her. Then he makes the mistake of confronting me when im in the bar playing pool with a couple of ex Special Forces friends. One of my friends takes him to the other side of the bar. And to this day I don’t know what my friend said. But I seen Danni’s go white and his legs began to shake. He left in a hurry.

One morning soon after, I waited for Danni to come pick me up to go to work and she did not arrive. I didn’t worry cos she was late sometimes. She had twelve hungry dogs to do breakfast for every morning.

After half a day at work and no phone call from her I started to worry.

I closed up shop and headed down to her house. When I got there, the place was empty. The neighbours said the only thing the heard was the dogs barking for a little while during the night, and then nothing.

I tried every day to find out what happened to Danni. I know she would not just leave. She couldn’t just leave.

I asked the blonde if she knew anything and I believed her when she told me no. But I will never forget the look and the face of Danni’s ex when I asked him the same question. He grinned and walked away.

That’s when I knew I was going to kill him.

The best friend I ever had walked into my life so suddenly one day. And she left the same way. I had never felt sadness like that ever before. My heart had been ripped out and I was sure the ex had done this.

Unfortunately for me. Or fortunately for him. Whichever way you look at it. I had to leave America very soon after under circumstances beyond my control. So I never got to see Danni’s ex again. Or the blonde. Or my friends. Or even my wife. But more importantly, I never saw Danni again.

That was 3 years ago.  And there is still a point in every day when I miss her.

She always called me “English”. That pissed me off so I always called her “Love”. I knew she hated that.

She loved learning poetry and so I wrote one for her. It is called “ love, wherever you may be “. It is on this site. I hope she reads it some day.