"He's so--" Wade sputtered, his face reddening. "He never could see that meddling into their religion the way he persists in doing is just as bad as the Jesuits! He wants to change their history. Go back in time before the priests, before any whites."
Melina whispered: "You can't go back."
As the afternoon sun traveled the western sky we agreed that Marcus Tilden was a sorry excuse for an anthropology professor or human being. Melina was convinced that he drove Sylvie mad with his philandering. Wade was kind enough not to bring up that flirtation of years past but I felt it hovering in the air anyway. Wade traced Tilden's break with reality to his long-time fascination with pagan religious practices. He apparently had been a
member of the Native American Church in the sixties and ingested more than his share of peyote buttons. He tried everything, and when that didn't satisfy his craving for spiritual enlightenment, he made up his own religion.
As for me, I say he broke her heart. Sylvie couldn't reach into his world as much as she tried. No amount of marriage counseling or dream therapy or crystal-balling would let her touch that private part of him that needed so much nurturing. She saw that it did. But he wouldn't let her in.
And it destroyed her.
Epilogue
MENDEZ MADE A last appearance before I left. I was packing the Saab Sister, thinking about him and what I would say to him, when he drove up in the El Dorado. The weather had turned beastly hot again. All I could think about was my cool mountains, my Tetons, wetting a line in a trickling glacial stream.
He was wearing his jogging clothes, shorts and a tank top that showed off his physique. My resolve for a clean break with him melted in the afternoon sun. We lived too far apart, my reasoning went. Send me a Christmas card and we'll call it even.
Fifteen minutes later I had squirted him with the new sprinkler Wade had turned on to rejuvenate the lawn and we had made plans to go backpacking in August in the Tetons. If Wade hadn't come out on the porch with a thermos of coffee for me I probably would have had Carl in the backseat of my car, licking the sweat from every inch of his body.
As for Wade and Melina, they seemed to be starting over. Wade took leave for the fall quarter and will go back East with Melina while she begins her program. He promised to at least consider a position back there somewhere while she is getting her doctorate. This, to Melina, was a huge victory, more than she had ever hoped for. She positively glowed, making her plans.
The prospects for Tilden weren't so cheery. The scandal, with all its juicy details of sex, moonlit ritual, and religion, hit the Montana papers with a splash reserved for really hot stuff. Although Mad Dog (even the papers picked up his nickname) had a flurry of marriage proposals from lonely women, he retreated to his sweathouse. Every night you could hear him chanting loudly from the garage. The neighbors called in complaints regularly. The dean gave him a leave of absence pending resolution of his legal and personal problems. The police found only a few things to charge him with, Carl told me, so they may just let him walk. The scandal demolished his reputation and his ego so badly they felt society's ostracism of him was punishment enough.
When I climbed into the car, the Saab Sister headed north instead of south. Back to Flathead Lake, to the spot where we picnicked on Wade's Independence Day. I stood on the cliff overlooking the lake. Today the wind was brisk, whistling in my ears, tugging at the slouch hat. It riffled the water's surface into white caps, mirroring the blue sky dotted with puffs of cumulus clouds.
After the picnic, as we piled back into the red Cadillac, Melina had faced the lake. Her face was solemn. Not sad, but in a resigned state of grace. I didn't understand it on that confusing day.
Today I knew. The lake was immense and bottomless, a grand, mysterious inland ocean. This was the spot where our Rollie went flying off into the unknown, leaving us women to fend for ourselves in a world we struggle still to understand. A world of men-and women who try to love them. A world of women-- and men who try to love them back.
Rollie disappeared without a trace. Now I can thank him for that last favor. Whether planned or not, that was the way it happened. A simple exit without design. The world as we know it: unplanned, chaotic, filled with as much grief and tragedy as joy and happiness, humans ever grasping for morsels of caring, for bright, clear moments of fulfillment.
That is the way of the world.
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The Bluejay Shaman (Alix Thorssen Mystery Series) Page 23
