“But what if a hiker finds him up there?” asked one of the students.
“I believe you were far off the trail, yes? Between the scavenging of ravens, coyotes, and deer mice, it is unlikely that anyone ever will. And if human remains should be found up there one day, well then, he was hunting lichens, as he was accustomed to do, and must have suffered a lethal fall. Everyone who knows what happened is in this room. Other than his, no crime has been committed, nor any injustice. I say, leave it. Are there any objections?”
Only the fire spoke. The conspiracy was sealed. And fifteen years later, some of those present would remember this decision when they heard that Ed Abbey had died and his body disappeared into the Pinacate Desert without a death certificate, his last instructions to his friends having simply been, “Lots of rocks.”
“Has anyone got a beer?” asked Carolinus Bagdonitz.
40
A kind of resolution seemed to have settled over the group, who were now mostly dry and warm. Beer, brandy, red wine, cocoa, and broth were circulating along with what food Sylvanus could find. Kate sat with Mead and stroked his thunderstruck head in her lap as Annie did Oberon’s. Mead, dressed now in a dry robe of the pagan brothers, lay back and let the fire’s glow fill him. He thought he might sleep again. Then a new volley of lightning ignited, making him start in reaction as he never had before. He spilled Kate’s wine. “Sorry,” he said. “That may be a permanent condition after today.”
“It’s only jeans,” said Kate. “It’ll wash out.”
“Uh, good. But I meant my response to the fireworks. Now I know why dogs go under the bed in electrical storms.”
Kate thought of a related, altogether preferable response, but kept it to herself. Mead was in no state for play. That did not keep him from making the most of the proffered lap, or from loving it when Kate painted his temples with feathery strokes. If lightning is what it takes for this, he thought, hit me again.
The lightning had also served to block the glare of the headlights that shone uphill as a car turned off the highway toward the chapel. Thunder followed like the bass drumrolls in Lohengrin, and a dam broke overhead as an inch of rain fell on the roof of the Great Hall in thirty seconds. Or so it seemed to those mesmerized within. When, at the same instant that a fat pine knot exploded in the fire, the great lion’s-head knocker came clapping down on the door three times, more than one body jerked like a tickled cricket.
A member of the field team closest to the door asked, “Should I open it?”
“Of course!” said Oberon. “Now who could this be?”
Aided by the tug-of-war wind, the heavy door swung open to reveal one large figure and one petite one in the cast firelight. They stepped into the beam of a lantern, and Mead yelped like a cat mistaken for a log and tossed on the fire. “Jesus!”
“No, just George.”
“You can tell,” a smart-assed field assistant pointed out. “No lightning rod.”
“And Noni!”
“Hello, James. Nice dress. Who’s the pretty woman?”
“Greetings, James,” said George. “How are my roaches doing?”
Before Mead could even begin to reply to either or even ask himself if they were really there or just part of some strange, post-shock dream before the fire, Oberon raised his torso and issued a labored greeting. “Professor Winchester? Welcome to Magdalena Mountain. Forgive me for not standing. We’ve had a couple of shocks here . . . I’m delighted you could accept my invitation, and glad to meet you at last. I am October Carson.”
James Mead, bolt-struck all over again, just lay back and gaped. George Winchester knelt beside October-cum-Oberon, extended his hand, and expressed concern over his present condition. Noni Blue disappeared into a welcoming and admiring knot of young male lepidopterists. Then the door of the Great Hall burst open again as an ebullient crowd of nature monks and feminist peaceniks blew in. Fresh from the antinuclear demo, jail, and the storm, which seemed to be waning at last, the returning brothers and sisters filtered into the room. Providentially, they had stopped at a liquor store and a pizza place in Golden before the power went out all along the Front Range. One by one they were filled in on events, in varying versions.
Catherine Greenland spotted Oberon’s horizontal form and came over to him. “Catherine,” he said.
“Try Cybele.”
“Eh?”
“You guys can’t have all the fun. Now that you’re finally letting the Goddess into her own Grove, we’ve decided to adopt the goddess names of the fritillaries. I’m Cybele, and we’ve got an Aphrodite, an Astarte, both a Freija and a Frigga—gave the clerk fits at the county jail.”
“That’s a hoot, Cybele—but how did you know those were fritillary names?”
“I told you we were going to be studying our Peterson Field Guides.”
“So how did it go?”
“Well. But it’s a long row to hoe. We all agreed that we can imagine a day when both Rocky Flats and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal will become wildlife preserves. It might not be in our time, but we’re helping it along.”
“Good work. And you’re joining us?”
“We are. At least for the winter. We’ll see how it all goes.”
“Spoken like a true Great Mother, which is what the Romans called Cybele, yes?”
“Well, I’m hardly that. But it’s a pretty name, as is the English: great spangled fritillary!”
Oberon leaned back into Annie’s lap and closed his eyes.
Kate got up to pee. Mead, unsteady and dizzy, standing on his own feet for the first time since electricity had taken him down, stepped outside to do the same: they’d been pumping him full of fluids for hours.
Noni intercepted him. “Ducking out, huh?” Now it was hardly raining outside, the wind down to a light gale. She pulled the door shut behind them. “Oh, James!” She embraced him around the waist, almost knocking him over, and he held her silky head against his chest.
“I came here with George because I heard you were here—I want you to come back to Gothic with me for the last of the field season and then travel with me in the mountains until we both have to leave. Will you come? I’ve missed you so much.”
“Noni, Noni.” Mead struggled to stand, and to think—to not cry and hold his pee and speak all at the same time. He was never very good at even double tasking. “No,” he said. “I can’t. There are things I need to finish up here.”
“So I see. You jerk!”
“What . . . you mean Kate, in there? Oh, Noni, she was just being nice to me because I was hurt. I like Kate, and she likes me, but I hardly know her.”
“Really?”
“Really. But you don’t mean it, anyway. No holds, right? And isn’t it a good thing, with you off to Cambridge?”
“You’re right, I don’t mean it. I was just spitting out quid pro quo and it came out sounding like jerk. I’m sorry. But, James, I’ve changed my mind.”
“You’re not going to Cambridge after all?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Oh. So?”
“The other one. Harvard gave me a better deal.”
“Wonderful! So how about you coming here for the duration?”
“Well . . . I’ve got to finish up one experiment . . . but I could come after that!”
Mead got to pee at last. Back inside, Noni took over lap duties for his juiced head. Kate had rejoined her bunch. The women exchanged looks and then winks. James didn’t even try to keep up. He looked across at Oberon, who was awake, and said, “Good gosh! So you’re October Carson!”
The older man nodded and frowned, as if to say “so what’s it to ya?”
“I’ve sort of been looking for you,” Mead admitted. “I’ve read . . . I’m curating your journals and specimens at the Peabody. I’ve been eager to find you and discuss magdalena, among other things. Imagine being so close to you all this time!”
Carson’s eyes went way up at the mention of
his journals. “So they’re still around, are they? Yes, we must talk. We’ve already had quite a field trip together.”
“Somehow I suspected you two would be simpatico should you ever meet,” said George, “but I hadn’t anticipated quite such electricity between you.”
One of Bagdonitz’s students overheard and issued the sort of bleat usually reserved for his own prof’s more egregious puns. Winchester shot him a withering look, then revived him with a grin.
“Professor Winchester—” James began.
“Reverting to formalities are we, Mr. Mead?”
“George . . . I meant to tell you before now . . . hoped to find you at Gothic, but you were away . . . I’ve been trying to write . . .” Mead was unable to continue.
“James, I’ve long been aware of your defection. Steve called me for advice.”
“Advice?”
“It seems a colony of giant hissing roaches somehow got loose in Kline Tower and settled into Professor Griffin’s labs. Strange, none of mine were missing. Manton told me your plans to come out here; he probably thought we’d already talked.” George spoke gravely, giving nothing away.
“I really am sorry . . . not for going, but for not managing to tell you.”
“I cannot condone your unilateral actions, James, you know that. And of course I should have heard it from you first. This doesn’t reflect very well on our mutual trust.”
Mead felt called on the carpet, and rightly so, even though he was already on the carpet. “So . . . are we quits?” he asked.
“Certainly not from my standpoint. You handled the roaches responsibly—the beloved blabberids are fine. I would have set your mind at ease about that if I had known how to reach you. As for your choice of experiences, I can’t blame you at all.”
“I’m relieved. I was afraid you might not understand. So how come you’re here?”
“I’m to give a lecture at Science Lodge in a couple days, if it survived this storm.”
“I saw a poster for it at the lodge,” said Oberon. “I wrote inviting George to visit.”
“And I was delighted to accept, and for the chance to meet our most productive field collector at last,” said George.
“And I hitched along,” said Noni, “to see the scenery and discuss my results.”
“Weird,” said Mead.
“So what do you plan to do now?” Winchester asked.
“A little more here,” he said. “Then back on the bus to New Haven, if you’ll have me.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Your charges will have missed you.”
“I really do appreciate your understanding, Professor. But . . . what about Professor Griffin? Won’t he be sure to cook my goose for ducking out in spite of him?”
“Quaint mixed metaphor, James, but preferable to the way your peers would probably put it. I think not. All efforts to eradicate the roaches—overseen by Steve Manton—failed.”
“So what happened?”
“Frank was livid and wouldn’t go near his lab. He had to take tranquilizers, and then he took triennial leave while the eradication efforts proceeded. Apparently the ‘accidental infestation,’ as the dean ruled it, played a major part in our good colleague’s regrettable decision to accept a senior chair at Adelphi University, down-Sound.”
“Really?” James asked, thunderstruck a third, fourth, fifth? time for the night.
“Really. You owe Steve two big ones, James, and if he takes any more courses from me, they’ll be automatic As.”
Mead let the fact settle in.
“Only”—and for this Winchester assumed an attitude and tone that Mead had heard once or twice before, which struck him by turns as ironical and enigmatic yet at the same time entirely straight—“I do wonder where those roaches originated.”
Mead changed the subject. “Well, I hope Professor G. will be happier at Adelphi than I was with him at Yale.”
“Quite. And the rest of us. And so, welcome back, James, whenever you want to arrive—just so it’s before your committee meeting on”—he consulted his tiny blue vest diary, peering over his half-glasses and furrowing his Viking brow as Noni sneaked a look through a pass in their mountain range of shoulders—“September seventeenth. You should look forward to meeting your new committee member, Steve Kebler, a fine young wildlife biologist interested in public attitudes toward nature. He’s crazy about Gothic.”
“Holy cow,” said Mead.
“Another rhetorical relic,” said George. “Perhaps appropriate in context. Now, James, you know there really should be some consequences for your flight. You took care of the roaches, all right, but you also broke a trust. I suppose I could assign you to copy out the last paragraph of the Origin of Species one hundred times, but that would be more pleasure than punishment.”
Mead waited for what would follow. He glanced at Noni. September 17 seemed ages away, and her face shone like Christmas.
“So,” said George, “I’ve decided your penance should be to find me a bill-marked Erebia magdalena next summer to fill that gap in the collection.”
Carson had been listening in. His eyes met Mead’s, and the two of them erupted in laughter for no reason that anyone else in the room could possibly guess.
It had been quite a while now since anyone had shown up, and the roster seemed full. So when a woman now named Selene came back from a breather in the scoured air and announced that headlights were coming up the driveway, it came as something of a caution. When someone else reported that the car bore a state seal, all of Oberon’s alarms—recently charged—went off. He struggled to his feet. When the door opened, the face he’d feared to see, that of Tonkin of the state, was absent. Instead, there was Tonkin’s colleague, Dr. Ziegler, from the previous invasion, and a black woman in a nurse’s dress. Oberon wanted to shut the door, but he hesitated.
“Mr. Oberon,” said Ziegler, extending his hand. Oberon-Carson took it, but kept his silence. “You’ve got quite a party in progress—forgive us for crashing it. What’s the occasion?”
“Storm, lightning, attempted murder, general mayhem . . .” Oberon replied. “Beyond that, I couldn’t begin to tell you. But if you’ve come for—”
“Has Mary been hit by lightning?” asked the nurse, spotting Mary and dropping to her knees beside her.
“No, but they have!” shot someone from the BFC, and “Hi, Iris!” said Howard Heap. Iris blew Howard a kiss.
“This is Iris Empingham,” said Ziegler, wearing a raincoat and a flannel shirt this time instead of a white coat. “She was Mary’s floor nurse soon after the accident.”
“Welcome, Ms. Empingham,” said Oberon. “No, not lightning—she met with other misfortune on the mountain.”
“May I look her over?” asked Iris.
“We’d welcome your opinion,” said Thomas from the shadows. He had remained near Mary in the inglenook. Iris saw his medical bag.
As Iris gently palpated Mary’s more obvious wounds, Dr. Ziegler spoke quietly to Oberon. “I became interested in Ms. Glanville’s predicament after our unfortunate prior visit,” he said. “I apologize for that. I’ve found little more. But recently a fisherman discovered her purse several miles down the canyon. From the still legible documents, I’ve been able to piece together something about her.”
“Let’s hear,” said Oberon. Mead was listening too, as was Michael Heap.
“Well, her documents are under a former, married name, Mary Jordan. Apparently she quite recently took the name Glanville. She has a recent PhD from the Yale Divinity School, and she was supposed to report for a faculty appointment last fall at Grinnell College in Iowa. When she failed to show up, they reported her missing. As did her family, what there is of it. But everyone knew her as Mary Jordan, so our efforts to find her under the name Glanville have been to no avail.”
“We too have recently learned some of that,” Oberon said. “But other parts of what you say are a surprise.”
“How
has she been, until this mishap?”
“She became wholly articulate, if still forgetful of her past. But she has recently been hurt in a fall, as you see. Our colleague, Thomas, a paramedic, feels she is likely all right, but she should have a full exam when possible.”
Iris said, “I’d agree, from what I can tell. But there’s no getting out tonight—the road is blocked.”
“Which is why we arrived here so late,” said Ziegler. “We had to talk our way around the state troopers at the roadblock by pleading medical emergency. They finally let us through. We barely made it, hugging the edge of the caved-in road. Won’t be open till morning, if then.”
“Flash flood?”
“Both ways. Big Thompson’s even worse, several cars and cabins swept away. They hope to have some way out cleared by morning.”
“So you didn’t come to take Mary back?”
“No, not at all. I decided after we left last time that you were right. Sam Tonkin blocked me for a while, but he finally went back to Corrections and got out of our hair. We came here merely to advise Mary, and you, of what we’ve learned. And to offer our help.”
“Mary was special,” said Iris. “I knew it.”
“I knew that too,” said Howard.
For some time longer, happy if subdued confusion reigned in the Great Hall of the Mountain Monastery. The pizza was long gone. Carolinus and the BFC set up a sleeping bag encampment on the far side of the hall and settled in, bantering softy about the memorable day. “Brained by his own boulder,” heard the cricket on the hearth. “A costly fumble.” “Incredibly gross.” Sterling started in on JC’s lightning rod and the workout it got that night, when Bagdonitz told him to cut it out. “You’re going to offend our hosts if you don’t watch it,” he said.
“Not to worry, Professor,” said Abraxas the Baptist, who had overheard. “We’re tough to offend. And besides, we’ve already worked that one for all it’s worth.”
Magdalena Mountain Page 34
