by Various
She smiled and allowed his hands to remain. "I thought you were pretty nice too. A little shy, but cute. Definitely an underachiever."
They remained standing, faces a few inches apart, for a while longer. "Well?" he said.
"It's been a lot of years," Carroll said. "I'll sleep on the couch."
Steve said disappointedly, "Not even out of charity?"
"Especially not for charity." She smiled. "But don't discount the future." She kissed him gently on the lips.
Steve slept soundly that night. He dreamed of sliding endlessly through a warm, fluid current. It was not a nightmare. Not even when he realized he had fins rather than hands and feet.
Morning brought rain.
When he awoke, the first thing Steve heard was the drumming of steady drizzle on the roof. The daylight outside the window was filtered gray by the sheets of water running down the pane. Steve leaned off the bed, picked up his watch from the floor, but it had stopped. He heard the sounds of someone moving in the living room and called, "Carroll? You up?"
Her voice was a soft contralto. "I am."
"What time is it?"
"Just after eight."
Steve started to get out of bed, but groaned and clasped the crown of his head with both hands. Carroll stood framed in the doorway and looked sympathetic. "What time's the reunion?" he said.
"When we get there. I called Paul a little earlier. He's tied up with some sort of meeting in Casper until late afternoon. He wants us to meet him in Shoshoni."
"What about Ginger?"
They both heard the knock on the front door. Carroll turned her head away from the bedroom, then looked back at Steve. "Right on cue," she said. "Ginger didn't want to wait until tonight." She started for the door, said back over her shoulder, "You might want to put on some clothes."
Steve pulled on his least filthy jeans and a sweatshirt labeled AMAX TOWN-LEAGUE VOLLEYBALL across the chest. He heard the front door open and close, and words murmured in his living room. When he exited the bedroom he found Carroll talking on the couch with a short blonde stranger who only slightly resembled the long-ago image he'd packed in his mind. Her hair was long and tied in a braid. Her gaze was direct and more inquisitive than he remembered.
She looked up at him and said, "I like the mustache. You look a hell of a lot better now than you ever did then."
"Except for the mustache," Steve said, "I could say the same."
The two women seemed amazed when Steve negotiated the disaster area that was the kitchen and extracted eggs and Chinese vegetables from the refrigerator. He served the huge omelet with toast and freshly brewed coffee in the living room. They all balanced plates on laps.
"Do you ever read the Gazoo?" said Ginger.
"Gazoo?"
"The Salt Creek Gazette," said Carroll.
Steve said, "I don't read any papers."
"I just finished a piece on Paul's company," said Ginger.
"Enerco?" Steve refilled all their cups.
Ginger shook her head. "A wholly owned subsidiary called Native American Resources. Pretty clever, huh?" Steve looked blank. "Not a poor damned Indian in the whole operation. The name's strictly sham while the company's been picking up an incredible number of mineral leases on the reservation. Paul's been concentrating on an enormous new coal field his teams have mapped out. It makes up a substantial proportion of the reservation's best lands."
"Including some sacred sites," said Carroll.
"Nearly a million acres," said Ginger. "That's more than a thousand square miles."
"The land's never the same," said Carroll, "no matter how much goes into reclamation, no matter how tight the EPA says they are."
Steve looked from one to the other. "I may not read the papers," he said, "but no one's holding a gun to anyone else's head."
"Might as well be," said Ginger. "If the Native American Resources deal goes through, the mineral royalty payments to the tribes'll go up preciptiously."
Steve spread his palms. "Isn't that good?"
Ginger shook her head vehemently. "It's economic blackmail to keep the tribes from developing their own resources at their own pace."
"Slogans," said Steve. "The country needs the energy. If the tribes don't have the investment capital—"
"They would if they weren't bought off with individual royalty payments."
"The tribes have a choice—"
"—with the prospect of immediate gain dangled in front of them by NAR."
"I can tell it's Sunday," said Steve, "even if I haven't been inside a church door in fifteen years. I'm being preached at."
"If you'd get off your ass and think," said Ginger, "nobody'd have to lecture you."
Steve grinned. "I don't think with my ass."
"Look," said Carroll. "It's stopped raining."
Ginger glared at Steve. He took advantage of Carroll's diversion and said, "Anyone for a walk?"
The air outside was cool and rain-washed. It soothed tempers. The trio walked through the fresh morning along the cottonwood-lined creek. Meadowlarks sang. The rain front had moved far to the east; the rest of the sky was bright blue.
"Hell of a country, isn't it?" said Steve.
"Not for much longer if—" Ginger began.
"Gin," Carroll said warningly.
They strolled for another hour, angling south where they could see the hills as soft as blanket folds. The tree-lined draws snaked like green veins down the hillsides. The earth, Steve thought, seemed gathered, somehow expectant.
"How's Danny?" Carroll said to Ginger.
"He's terrific. Kid wants to become an astronaut." A grin split her face. "Bob's letting me have him for August."
"Look at that," said Steve, pointing.
The women looked. "I don't see anything," said Ginger.
"Southeast," Steve said. "Right above the head of the canyon."
"There—I'm not sure." Carroll shaded her eyes. "I thought I saw something, but it was just a shadow."
"Nothing there," said Ginger.
"Are you both blind?" said Steve, astonished. "There was something in the air. It was dark and cigar-shaped. It was there when I pointed."
"Sorry," said Ginger, "didn't see a thing."
"Well, it was there," Steve said, disgruntled.
Carroll continued to stare off toward the pass. "I saw it too, but just for a second. I didn't see where it went."
"Damnedest thing. I don't think it was a plane. It just sort of cruised along, and then it was gone."
"All I saw was something blurry," Carroll said. "Maybe it was a UFO."
"Oh, you guys," Ginger said with an air of dawning comprehension. "Just like prom night, right? Just a joke."
Steve slowly shook his head. "I really saw something then, and I saw this now. This time Carroll saw it too." She nodded in agreement. He tasted salt.
The wind started to rise from the north, kicking up early spring weeds that had already died and begun to dry.
"I'm getting cold," said Ginger. "Let's go back to the house."
"Steve," said Carroll, "you're shaking."
They hurried him back across the land.
PHOSPHORIC FORMATION PERMIAN 225-270 MILLION YEARS
They rested for a while at the house; drank coffee and talked of the past, of what had happened and what had not. Then Carroll suggested they leave for the reunion. After a small confusion, Ginger rolled up the windows and locked her Saab, and Carroll locked her Pinto.
"I hate having to do this," said Carroll.
"There's no choice any more," Steve said. "Too many people around now who don't know the rules."
The three of them got into Steve's pickup. In fifteen minutes they had traversed the doglegs of U.S. 20 through Thermopolis and crossed the Big Horn River. They passed the massive mobile-home park with its trailers and RV's sprawling in carapaced glitter.
The flood of hot June sunshine washed over them as they passed between the twin bluffs, red with iron, and descended into the
miles and years of canyon.
TENSLEEP FORMATION
PENNSYLVANIAN 270-310 MILLION YEARS
On both sides of the canyon, the rock layers lay stacked like sections from a giant meat slicer. In the pickup cab, the passengers had been listening to the news on KTWO. As the canyon deepened, the reception faded until only a trickle of static came from the speaker. Carroll clicked the radio off.
"They're screwed," said Ginger.
"Not necessarily." Carroll, riding shotgun, stared out the window at the slopes of flowers the same color as the bluffs. "The BIA's still got hearings. There'll be another tribal vote."
Ginger said again, "They're screwed. Money doesn't just talk—it makes obscene phone calls, you know? Paul's got this one bagged. You know Paul—I know him just about as well. Son of a bitch."
"Sorry there's no music," said Steve. "Tape player busted a while back and I've never fixed it."
They ignored him. "Damn it," said Ginger. "It took almost fifteen years, but I've learned to love this country."
"I know that," said Carroll.
No one said anything for a while. Steve glanced to his right and saw tears running down Ginger's cheeks. She glared back at him defiantly. "There's Kleenexes in the glove box," he said.
MADISON FORMATION
MISSISSIPPIAN 310-350 MILLION YEARS
The slopes of the canyon became more heavily forested. The walls were all shades of green, deeper green where the runoff had found channels. Steve felt time collect in the great gash in the earth, press inward.
"I don't feel so hot," said Ginger.
"Want to stop for a minute?"
She nodded and put her hand over her mouth.
Steve pulled the pickup over across both lanes. The Chevy skidded slightly as it stopped on the graveled turnout. Steve turned off the key, and in the sudden silence they heard only the light wind and the tickings as the Chevy's engine cooled.
"Excuse me," said Ginger. They all got out of the cab. Ginger quickly moved through the Canadian thistle and the currant bushes and into the beyond. Steve and Carroll heard her throwing up.
"She had an affair with Paul," Carroll said casually. "Not too long ago. He's an extremely attractive man." Steve said nothing. "Ginger ended it. She still feels the tension." Carroll strolled over to the side of the thistle patch and hunkered down. "Look at this."
Steve realized how complex the ground cover was. Like the rock cliffs, it was layered. At first he saw among the sunflowers and dead dandelions only the wild sweetpeas with their blue blossoms like spades with the edges curled inward.
"Look closer," said Carroll.
Steve saw the hundreds of tiny purple moths swooping and swarming only inches from the earth. The creatures were the same color as the low purple blooms he couldn't identify. Intermixed were white, bell-shaped blossoms with leaves that looked like primeval ferns.
"It's like going back in time," said Carroll. "It's a whole, nearly invisible world we never see."
The shadow crossed them with an almost subliminal flash, but they both looked up. Between them and the sun had been the wings of a large bird. It circled in a tight orbit, banking steeply when it approached the canyon wall. The creature's belly was dirty white, muting to an almost-black on its back. It seemed to Steve that the bird's eye was fixed on them. The eye was a dull black, like unpolished obsidian.
"That's one I've never seen," said Carroll. "What is it?"
"I don't know. The wingspread's got to be close to ten feet. The markings are strange. Maybe it's a hawk? An eagle?"
The bird's beak was heavy and blunt, curved slightly. As it circled, wings barely flexing to ride the thermals, the bird was eerily silent, pelagic, fish-like.
"What's it doing?" said Carroll.
"Watching us?" said Steve. He jumped as a hand touched his shoulder.
"Sorry," said Ginger. "I feel better now." She tilted her head back at the great circling bird. "I have a feeling our friend wants us to leave."
They left. The highway wound around a massive curtain of stone in which red splashed down through the strata like dinosaur blood. Around the curve, Steve swerved to miss a deer dead on the pavement—half a deer, rather. The animal's body had been truncated cleanly just in front of its haunches.
"Jesus," said Ginger. "What did that?"
"Must have been a truck," said Steve. "An eighteen-wheeler can really tear things up when it's barreling."
Carroll looked back toward the carcass and the sky beyond. "Maybe that's what our friend was protecting."
GROS VENTRE FORMATION CAMBRIAN 500-600 MILLION YEARS
"You know, this was all under water once," said Steve. He was answered only with silence. "Just about all of Wyoming was covered with an ancient sea. That accounts for a lot of the coal." No one said anything. "I think it was called the Sundance Sea. You know, like in the Sundance Kid. Some Exxon geologist told me that in a bar."
He turned and looked at the two women. And stared. And turned back to the road blindly. And then stared at them again. It seemed to Steve that he was looking at a double exposure, or a triple exposure, or—he couldn't count all the overlays. He started to say something, but could not. He existed in a silence that was also stasis, the death of all motion. He could only see.
Carroll and Ginger faced straight ahead. They looked as they had earlier in the afternoon. They also looked as they had fifteen years before. Steve saw them in process, lines blurred. And Steve saw skin merge with feathers, and then scales. He saw gill openings appear, vanish, reappear on textured necks.
And then both of them turned to look at him. Their heads swiveled slowly, smoothly. Four reptilian eyes watched him, unblinking and incurious.
Steve wanted to look away.
The Chevy's tires whined on the level blacktop. The sign read:
SPEED ZONE AHEAD 35 MPH
"Are you awake?" said Ginger.
Steve shook his head to clear it. "Sure," he said. "You know that reverie you sometimes get into when you're driving? When you can drive miles without consciously thinking about it, and then suddenly you realize what's happened?"
Ginger nodded.
"That's what happened."
The highway passed between modest frame houses, gas stations, motels. They entered Shoshoni.
There was a brand new WELCOME TO SHOSHONI sign, as yet without bullet holes. The population figure had again been revised upward. "Want to bet on when they break another thousand?" said Carroll.
Ginger shook her head silently.
Steve pulled up to the stop sign. "Which way?"
Carroll said, "Go left."
"I think I've got it." Steve saw the half-ton truck with the Enerco decal and NATIVE AMERICAN RESOURCES DIVISION labeled below that on the door. It was parked in front of the Yellowstone Drugstore. "Home of the world's greatest shakes and malts," said Steve. "Let's go."
The interior of the Yellowstone had always reminded him of nothing so much as an old-fashioned pharmacy blended with the interior of the cafe in Bad Day at Black Rock. They found Paul at a table nursing a chocolate malted.
He looked up, smiled, said, "I've gained four pounds this afternoon. If you'd been any later, I'd probably have become diabetic."
Paul looked far older than Steve had expected. Ginger and Carroll both appeared older than they had been a decade and a half before, but Paul seemed to have aged thirty years in fifteen. The star quarterback's physique had gone a bit to pot. His face was creased with lines emphasized by the leathery curing of skin that has been exposed years to wind and hot sun. Paul's hair, black as coal, was streaked with firn-lines of glacial white. His eyes, Steve thought, looked tremendously old.
He greeted Steve with a warm handclasp. Carroll received a gentle hug and a kiss on the cheek. Ginger got a warm smile and a hello. The four of them sat down, and the fountain man came over. "Chocolate all around?" Paul said.
"Vanilla shake," said Ginger.
Steve sensed a tension at the table that seemed t
o go beyond dissolved marriages and terminated affairs. He wasn't sure what to say after all the years, but Paul saved him the trouble. Smiling and soft-spoken, Paul gently interrogated him.
So what have you been doing with yourself?
Really?
How did that work out?
That's too bad; then what?
What about afterward?
And you came back?
How about since?
What do you do now?
Paul sat back in the scrolled-wire ice-cream parlor chair, still smiling, playing with the plastic straw. He tied knots in the straw and then untied them.
"Do you know," said Paul, "that this whole complicated reunion of the four of us is not a matter of chance?"
Steve studied the other man. Paul's smile faded to impassivity. "I'm not that paranoid," Steve said. "It didn't occur to me."
"It's a setup."
Steve considered that silently.
"It didn't take place until after I had tossed the yarrow stalks a considerable number of times," said Paul. His voice was wry. "I don't know what the official company policy on such irrational behavior is, but it all seemed right under extraordinary circumstances. I told Carroll where she could likely find you and left the means of contact up to her."
The two women waited and watched silently. Carroll's expression was, Steve thought, one of concern. Ginger looked apprehensive. "So what is it?" he said. "What kind of game am I in?"
"It's no game," said Carroll quickly. "We need you."
"You know what I thought ever since I met you in Miss Gorman's class?" said Paul. "You're not a loser. You've just needed some—direction."
Steve said impatiently, "Come on."
"It's true." Paul set down the straw. "Why we need you is because you seem to see things most others can't see."
Time's predator hunts.
