*
He is gone. The darkness that has come upon the Canyon is of no matter. You are walking with a new cane, one you took from a fallen tree. It is too long and curved. You try to break it, but it is green and bends under your foot. It taps the ground wrong. The end is split and rattles when it hits. You walk with the south rim to your right, to the left, a forest. The smell of pine needles is stifling. You wonder how long it has been since the sounds on the path turned silent? The Little One is walking next to you, telling you of the blanket of clouds, which is so low she wishes you to touch them with your stick. She is predicting rain and asking where the two of you will spend the night? She has been walking at your side for hours, accepting the steps as though each is a lesson she must memorize to repeat at some grand inquisition.
You hear a thicket move and know an animal is ahead. He has taken a new form, trying a new strategy. Now lying in wait.
You stop.
She's heard it too. "Do you think it's a kitty?" she asks. "Maybe a puppy? Should we catch it now or look for it tomorrow in the daylight?"
You turn closer to the Canyon, holding your cane to the side and keeping her between you and the rim, allowing her to lead. "Are we going back into the Canyon?" she asks, her voice hesitant and full of dark memories. You pass and nothing stirs. Then you hear it behind you again with quick yet halting, impatient steps, keeping pace. You feel the first drops of rain.
"It won't be raining tomorrow," she says. "The sun will shine. Maybe I can hunt mushrooms in the dark sides of the Canyon, even pick yellow flowers to make the evening brighter. Will you pick flowers with me?"
From behind, you hear the soft tread of padded feet. You stop. Then move again, this time with increased gait. The rain comes. The cane is ever more useless. Mud forms on the end, and it no longer slides along the surface. You hold it at your side, balanced in the middle as if it were only a weapon.
You see it before she does. Only to you it's just the blackness of your vision turned grey.
"Is there a light?" you ask.
"Oh my, yes! And it's out in the Canyon. A light on a pole."
That will be it, you think. A shack on a tall column of earth jutting up from within the Canyon.
"Move faster, Little One. Don't forget the one behind us. Move swiftly until we reach the bridge."
"Do you think the rain will wash the earth from beneath the house? Who do you think lives there? I don't think they are going to like me. Shouldn't we keep going? I don't like bridges. Do you like bridges? Besides, the boards look loose. Do you think they know of me?"
You are at the narrow bridge now, and need the cane. You beat the mud from the tip and tap it quickly before you, feeling the cracks and missing planks. She leads on. The updraft whistles through the planks and travels up through the bottom of your clothing. You are safe now. It cannot walk upon the bridge. But she stops and is abruptly gone from your reach. You assume she has gone ahead to the door, then hear her behind, walking her way back to the rim. The tip of the makeshift cane travels a half circle, then taps and rattles nervously back down the bridge. She is with someone, some thing.
"Look. It's a puppy," she says. "It won't come though. It doesn't like the bridge either."
You stoop to kill it, searching around with your hands in your blindness, but she has scooped it into her arms and is already walking toward the shack, totally without concern, talking to the puppy like it is her baby. You start after her, slumping with arms limp at your side, dragging the cane behind and wondering if this can possibly work now. What a price humanity will have to pay for that mistake. The updrafts come stronger than ever through the holes in the bridge. She tells you those inside the shack have heard voices and footsteps on the bridge and now are at the window, pulling the curtain and staring with hands cupped around their faces.
"One of them," she says, "is tall and old. The other is fat but with a pretty, happy face."
You stand at the door expecting it to open any second, but it remains stationary like it wasn't meant to open, taking on the appearance of a wall in your mind. You are thinking of what words to use, trying to remember what manner of speaking to address those inside, conjuring up memories that go all the way back to the beginning. The rain is beating through the darkness, dripping from your eyelashes and nose.
Grand Canyon Lament, A Fateful Lesson in Extraordinary Measures Page 2
