When Helga subsided, he rose to get his things.
“You’re leaving tonight?” she asked from far away when he returned.
“No point in staying, is there? I seem to be lost on you, and you’re lost to everyone—yourself included. I don’t know what I could possibly do.”
He carried his backpack out to the Mercury. When he came back in to say goodbye, his mother faced him, as pale and old as she’d ever looked. Her face had corroded even since he’d arrived. Her dress seemed hung on a rack. Her hands were motionless beside her thighs. “Jimmy,” she quavered.
He held her lightly and said. “I’ll be back in a few weeks, Mom. Try to be here.”
“James—I know it isn’t you. It’s just . . . Molly . . . she never had a chance. Not a damn chance!”
“That’s true—poor, sweet girl. But let her go, Ma. I’m still here, and I love you. How about giving me a chance?”
He jumped in the car and pulled hard out of the drive.
37
One day later, Mead arrived at the monastery to find it nearly deserted. The brothers had almost all gone to Rocky Flats to join the women’s camp in another demonstration. Sylvanus had fallen and suffered a broken ankle while checking on a northern three-toed woodpecker’s nest in a beetle tree. He sat on the porch nursing his fresh cast as Oberon paced the flagstones.
“Mead!” Oberon called out upon seeing him. “Have you seen Mary?”
“No, I haven’t. I’d hoped to meet her again today.”
“We can’t find her. She never leaves . . . where could she be?” Oberon’s long face looked drawn, his eyes afraid.
Mead remembered Mary’s plan. “When I talked with her, she said she hoped to go up on the mountain with Annie or you to see the Magdalena alpine butterfly.”
“Up on the mountain! So that’s what she was talking about. I was too busy, thought she only wanted to go for a walk. She must have gone by herself, as Annie’s come and gone. But that was yesterday—good gods, I hope she’s all right!”
“What worries me,” Sylvanus put in, “is that Attalus has not been seen, either.”
“Oh, hell.” Oberon clenched his fists and looked about in a fever of worry. “Mead, will you help me look for her?”
“Of course!”
“Sylvanus, you’re stuck here anyway, so please watch the place and stay near the telephone. We may be required to post bail in Golden if anyone’s arrested today.”
The two tall, bearded men, one graying, the other not, set off for Magdalena Mountain immediately. Oberon took just enough time to trade his robe for jeans and a flannel shirt and to squeeze into his boots and grab some water, raisins, and a first-aid kit. Mead already wore his boots, and he had some apples from home. Clouds were rising behind the distant summit. Sylvanus wished the pair godspeed as they took off up Cabin Creek for the mountain face.
Oberon said nothing as he led the way. The searchers burned up the creek trail, through the willows, past the pines, and into the subalpine firs. They entered the avalanche trough where it drops from the subalpine, weeping the water for Cabin Creek from its snowfield like some deep tear gland. Mead thought of the annual contest at the lodge, to guess the date when the snow’s all gone. Once they reached the rotten snow, a decision had to be made on which way to go. To split up now would be dangerous. Oberon decided they should work uphill in parallel, along the right-hand side of the tear-track cleft, toward the ridge on the north. They would stay in sight of each other, one working his way across the slope a hundred feet or so above the other’s traverse.
Magdalena Mountain is a very big peak, and Oberon began to regret that they hadn’t called in Park and Front Range search and rescue teams instead of trying to find Mary by themselves. But in his fervor to prove her safe and to keep their order beneath the notice of officialdom as much as possible, poor judgment ruled.
The lay of the land brought the two men together again partway across the great central stone face of the peak, rockpits like pores making every step a gamble. “Watch for orange,” Oberon said, “and blue. She was probably wearing a sort of saffron cape over a long blue dress. That’s what she’s had on lately.”
“Right,” was all that James could reply, trying to maintain his balance as well as his hopes against the odds of Mary’s survival through the night up here so clad. He wondered about the simultaneous absence of Attalus and Mary, but he didn’t ask.
Just that filled Oberon’s mind. He’d thought that Attalus might have reconciled himself to the women, albeit with great reluctance. How naive! He should have expelled him, even at the cost of unhousing the brotherhood. And he should have listened more carefully to what Mary had proposed, and he should have taken time to come up here with her. Should, should, should—what good are “should haves” when in fact you didn’t? And what chance could Mary have up here alone with a psychopath, probably intent on her destruction, on a cold mountain where destruction means nothing?
Thus darkly musing as he watched his every step and the near and far distance too, Oberon almost failed to notice the brown flicker in the foreground—almost, but not quite. Mead saw it too. In the partial sunshine, one of them had kicked up a Magdalena alpine, which settled now between them to resume basking. Its flight was fairly weak, the wings old and faded, but the butterfly was whole and still viable, and for a moment it drew the attention of both distracted men. Mead looked closely, for something about it had struck him. Then he saw what it was: this Erebia bore a crisp, shiny brand on its left forewing, the sort of broad imprint, Mead thought, that a bird such as a nighthawk might leave. His mind shot back two thousand miles and two months, to George Winchester’s drawer of bill-marked butterflies and the conspicuous gap in the cabinet.
Mead noticed that Oberon was studying the butterfly too, but he felt the grave circumstances scarcely called for small talk about tattooed butterflies, so he left it unremarked. Oberon simply said, “Mary’s butterfly. I thought it might be finished by now,” and strode off across the talus. His movement put Erebia to flight. Mead took one more look as it disappeared into the horizon of the north ridge, and he muttered, “Damn, I wish I had my net!” Then he felt ashamed, and suffered an insight having to do with loyalty.
That summer, Mead was learning rapidly a truth that few people know, though millions forget it every day: that the heart is a fickle beast, subject to the charms of the moment, prone to forget yesterday’s thrall for tomorrow’s, under the influence of the novel and the fresh. Whether circus women or saints, cowboy collectors or beak-marked butterflies, someone or something is always lying in wait to grab your attention. Wasn’t he ready to die for Mary the other day? And now, with Mary in real danger of dying, he forgets her momentarily in favor of some bird-marked bug. In a strange way, he supposed that was what Noni had been talking about in the hot springs—her conundrum. There was nowhere more to go with that, and an endless expanse of rock to range across in search of Mary. How would they ever find her? Just let her be safe!
As they bought space dearly across the stingy stones, the men cast their eyes in every direction for a stain of saffron, a swatch of blue, a soft form among the hard edges of the rockworld. In his own way, Mead was as anxious as Oberon, as eager to find Mary. He wanted her to know that he didn’t think she was mad. Mary Glanville, Mary Magdalene, whoever—just be there! Where the hell are you? He just wanted her gentle self to be safe. Oberon’s thoughts ran through similar channels, over and over. And neither of them could see how she really could be safe.
Roaming the phantasmagorical boulderfall, Mead was haunted by visions almost like waking dreams, brought on by fatigue, hunger, and worry. The raisins and apples were long gone. Visions of Erebia, Carson, and Annie, of the absent Noni and the missing Mary, not to mention Molly and, behind them all, his tortured mother, all these and more trundled through his field of vision as he tried to place his feet. “This is not fun,” he muttered as he lost his balance again and skinned his last
fresh knee. What was going on in Oberon’s mind, he could only guess, and scarcely even wanted to know.
As the sun rises, igniting Magdalena Mountain to a cool yellow, Mary stirs in her granitic hideout. She has survived the night, and somehow she doesn’t feel cold upon awakening. The fresh scent of hay fills her nostrils, and she finds that she has pillowed her head on a pika’s stack. She sucks more ice, slaking her thirst and damping her hunger. Though she longs to stand and stretch her legs (there is no side to lie on that isn’t bruised or sore), she scarcely dares even to poke her head out. For a tortured hour she lies there, too petrified to leave her safe haven. Then, at last, she gathers confidence that Attalus might be gone. With the greatest care, she peers out and around. The sight of a vigilant gray lump on the ridge turns her stomach sour with fresh fear, and she says, “Oh!” What if I scream and scream? she thinks. But who would hear, except him?
Mary can’t help sobbing, just skirting resignation. But before her sobs can gather into a defeated curse and a dead giveaway, she sees Attalus rise and resolutely cross the ridge to the other side. Clearly, this is the time to act. She creeps out of her cleft, pika hay in her hair, and slowly, quietly begins to make her way down the back side of Magdalena Mountain toward the busy Longs Peak Trail, toward safety in numbers.
There is no sign of her hunter. Her pace quickens as her muscles wake up, but she cannot move swiftly, as stiff and bruised as she is, trying hard not to fall any more. Mary has almost begun to believe she will be safe when a cobble meets her square between the shoulder blades, sending her sprawling onto the rocks below with a thud and a cry. She lies crumpled in the talus like an overheavy marmot dropped by a golden eagle from far above. A pair of circling ravens, disturbed by the spectacle, wheel and whinny away.
Stunned but sentient, groaning, Mary turns over just in time to see the form of Attalus outlined above her, a great leaden cloud eclipsing the silver sky behind him as he raises his right forearm to sling another pellet. Mary hears thunder and feels rain pelt her cheeks just before the stone strikes her left temple, leaving her senseless.
Attalus crows, spittle flecking his jowls, his eyes and forehead red but his slit-thin mouth white. “Now, woman, I shall end all fleshly temptations, as they should have ended before they began!” Straining, he lifts a boulder as big as a basketball to his waist. An old hernia cries out, but he ignores it. “God was wrong to drive Eve from the garden. He should have left her there with the serpent and given the rest to Adam!” He fumbles with the boulder as he struggles to raise it high enough to hurl.
Mary’s shape lies fluid across the sacrificial slab, still and limp, yet fundamentally female. Attalus looks his victim over in spite of himself, and he drops the rock. The rain comes on now. Her blue dress wetted, Mary’s strong thighs and brown areolae show through, and the material gathers darkly at her Y. The monk steps down to the lifeless form. He kneels, running one hand over her breast, another along her thigh. But instead of stiffening, he weeps. Again he gutters, “Anna . . . Anna.”
Then he rips his hands away as if they’d been fondling molten ingots. He straightens, raises his swollen face to the gathering weather, and cries, “You see? It’s she, SHE . . . WOMAN . . . and it is SHE! I didn’t do it, didn’t, God, oh God. Why did she?” and he crumples, whimpering, in his misery. For a time, he weeps and mumbles confused prayers, imprecations, and babble. Then he struggles up, grunting, to finish what he has begun. He takes up the boulder again in his wet, trembling hands. The rain and cloud and sun dance over the mountain in a confusion of light and darkness.
In a guttural whisper, Attalus speaks: “Scripture says, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live . . . nor an adulteress’ . . . and suffer her I have not, and shall not!” He wrests the rock higher, against his belly and then his chest. Panting, he raves: “Jezebel was eaten by dogs for her sins. Many were burned. But you—when you were found out, and the people tried to stone you as instructed, you escaped! Jesus stopped them.”
Attalus’s words are lost on the rising wind, but there is no one to hear them anyway. “He said, ‘Let ye who have not sinned, cast the first stone,’ and they dropped their rocks. Fools! Jesus too was bewitched by the temptress. All flesh is weak when you are near . . . even mine, incorrupt, even mine! But you shall corrupt us no longer,” he croaks. “I’ll make up for Christ’s mistake, and He’ll thank me for it.” His crazed voice rises with the gathering howl on the air. “I will finish the job that they abandoned!”
Pressing the stone over his head at last, he shouts, “Sorceress! Whore! WOMAN—DIE!”
Oberon and Mead had reached a spot below the south ridge when the rain began. “We’d better find shelter, Oberon,” called Mead. “It can be Electricity City up here!”
“NO! Got to find Mary. She wouldn’t have crossed the ridge. Let’s work back toward the trough, higher up.”
Mead knew they would be prime lightning targets, but Oberon would not be deterred, and they were far from safe shelter in any case. Soaked and slipping on wet rocks, they clambered back across the face. Weirdly, every now and then the sun broke through. There was a sundog over the peak, and once, they saw orange, but it was only a rockslide checkerspot they spooked during one of these sunbreaks. Then the cloud and rain returned, and the thunderstorm broke.
Cold mountain breath howled around them, the rocks became grease beneath their feet, and Mead was afraid. His hair really did stand on end, and Oberon had a ghostly glow about him. They could actually smell the ozone. Mead felt like a sparkplug awaiting ignition.
“Keep looking!” Oberon yelled above the thunder. How stupid, Mead thought, to end my summer cooked on a mountain—even if it is Magdalena Mountain.
His own concern for Mary battled with images of being snug between the sheets at the lodge, safe in Noni’s bosom, or someone’s. Then a great flash blotted out those thoughts and all others as both men were dashed to the ground. The rocks sang as electrons danced their crazy steps all along the wet circuits of the stone. Fried grass and burning ozone stank in their noses. Blinded for a moment but unhurt, Oberon called, “You all right, Mead?”
“Scared shitless! Get me offa here!”
When they could see again, Oberon signaled toward the trough. “If we get down in there, we won’t be as exposed.” That sounded good to Mead. They scrambled toward the middle of the mountain. But reaching it, they found the great tear-track running brimful. As one, they both thought to slip down the waterslide of the chute as a quicker way to the shelter of the forest. It was no smooth ride, more like a freefall over Niagara than an otterslide. But it worked, and they were not far from the pines when another pyrotechnic went off in their faces. They went down again, and this time stayed down. The lightning bit stone a hundred yards away. It was the ground flash that got them.
And that’s where Annie Cloudcroft found them an hour later.
38
Since completing their twelve-pass circuit, the BFC team had returned to the research house in Lyons, where the hogback meets the mountains and the Morrison Formation gives forth the town’s famous red flagstones. Days of spreading specimens and recording data drove the field team close to revolt, so Carolinus Bagdonitz promised them a return to Rocky Mountain National Park, their original hunting grounds. Their collecting permits were good for another month. The members were working on an annotated checklist of the butterflies and moths of the park, and Bagdonitz hoped a quick trip might help fill in some gaps as well as soothe their cabin fever. Like their boss, not to mention Michael Heap, James Mead, and F. M. Brown himself, these kids had grown up on the loose. They’d joined the field team because it promised summers out-of-doors while their peers were working between walls in town.
“We’ve never light-trapped the high-country moths this late in the summer,” CB said. “Sterling, you take half the team into the Never Summers for three days. I’ll take the rest of the kids up to the base of Longs Peak. We leave tomorrow at four. Load up. And don’t f
orget the beer, like last time!”
Though the Hamm’s would remain in the cars at the trailhead, their packs were heavy with supplies as CB’s team trudged up the Longs Peak Trail. Spirits rose with the elevation as the Flying Circus clowned its way up into the alpine. When other hikers challenged their nets, CB said with a straight face that they were sampling killer wasps for the Department of Defense. After their interrogators hurried on, he said to Lisa, “Funny, isn’t it? We’re cool with the rangers, who dig what we’re doing. But these self-appointed game wardens think we’re catching all the butterflies, and they want to turn us in.”
“Yeah,” she said, “as they slap mosquitoes—as if leps weren’t insects too. Last time on Hoosier Pass, Nancy and I told one pain-in-the-butt person we were conducting a pollination survey—true enough, in a way—and that satisfied her.”
“Good thinking,” said the boss. “And after all, back at camp, we do nectar studies.” They made camp at Jim’s Grove and ranged out for sampling at Mills Moraine, Peacock Pool, Chasm Lake, around Mount Lady Washington, over to the Boulder Field below Storm Peak, and back via Granite Pass. At the first campfire, after a bottle of gentian schnapps made the rounds, CB surprised the team by whipping out Bel’s poem and reading it to them:
“Longs’ Peacock Lake:
the Hut and its Old Marmot;
Boulderfield and its Black Butterfly;
And the intelligent trail.”
One of his colleagues, a professor of Russian literature, had brought it to his attention, and he shared it, and its context, with the team. “I knew you were related to Humbert,” joshed Kate. But a genuine thrill ran around the fire ring as they realized they were in the very place where Vladimir Nabokov had commemorated Magdalena in his latest novel.
From every point, they shared the presence and the view of that great, improbably carved chunk, Longs Peak, with its flat top and flat face and every other feature anything but flat. It was named after Colonel Stephen H. Long, who sighted the mountain from the Poudre River in 1819 but never set foot upon it. Perhaps a better nominee would have been John Wesley Powell, the one-armed conservationist who first climbed it in 1868. Instead, he got Lake Powell, the abomination that inundated Glen Canyon and inspired Abbey’s fictional insurrection in The Monkey Wrench Gang.
Magdalena Mountain Page 31
