The car was still covered in early morning dew, a film of rime catching the pale light, but she came out in hiking shorts, her long legs shivering in the cold. She threw her knapsack in the back as she motioned him to the passenger seat.
“Are you trying to be provocative?” he said.
“Come on,” she said quietly. “It’s bloody freezing. I want to get the heater going.”
“Next time you could wear nothing at all.”
“You’d like that, would you?” she said, pulling the car away and heading west. “You’d be surprised how fast it heats up here. It’ll be boiling in a few hours. Any trouble getting away?”
“Not when you write your own passes.”
She grinned at him and he saw that she was excited, as if they were children ducking out of school and the day an adventure.
“Where are you going? The gate’s that way.” He pointed behind them.
“West gate. We’ll take the back road-it’s faster.”
“Oh.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said, thinking about the investigation. “I just forgot there was another gate. I’ve never been there.”
“You haven’t missed much.”
In fact it was much smaller than the east entrance, with a single sleepy MP at the barrier, stifling a yawn as he checked the passes and waved them through.
“There’s tea in the Thermos. Hope you don’t mind, but I hate drinking coffee all day.”
“As long as it’s hot.”
They turned right onto Route 4 and climbed higher into the mountains, the mist burning away from dense green forests of pine and aspen. The heater blasted at their feet, a cocoon of warmth, and tiny streams of condensation streaked off the hood of the car.
“You brought coupons?” she asked.
“Isn’t that what I’m here for?”
“It’ll do for a start.”
“How far is this place, anyway, or are we just going to a hotel?”
“Miles and miles. It’ll take the morning, so just sit back and relax. Oh, but wait till you see it. It’s marvelous-nothing like it anywhere.”
He watched her drive, remembering the trip back from Tesuque, when he first thought it would be possible. They kept climbing, the sun rising with them, so that when they finally reached the high ridge the land was flooded with light. Aside from one rusty pickup truck with goats in the back, headed toward Santa Fe, theirs was the only car on the road. Connolly rolled down the window, breathing in a rush of fresh air, and looked out across an immense valley of grass. A handful of cattle were grazing, clotting the rippling fields like miniatures in a diorama, the grass arranged in folds of green velvet. A series of peaks surrounded the bowl. It was a world away from the Rio Grande Valley, with its low, twisted conifers and dry riverbeds.
“That’s the Valle Grande,” she said, nodding to the right. “Except it isn’t. It’s really a caldera-you know, the top of a volcano. It stretches for miles back there, beyond those hills. It just kept bubbling and falling in until you had this great lake of lava. And now this. It’s wonderful riding. Oppie likes to come here-you can really let the horses out. Down the other side you’re always running into arroyos, but up here, well-”
She trailed off, letting him watch the view.
“You spend much time with Oppenheimer?”
“A little. Not lately. Last year it was easier, things weren’t quite so tense.”
“Like him?”
She considered. “Yes. Oh, it can be a bit much, all that man-of-destiny business, but I suppose he is, really.”
“He’s difficult to read.”
“Everyone’s difficult.”
“Are you?”
She laughed. “Ask anybody.”
They were in the high mountains now, the trees close, with patches of alpine wildflowers dotting the clearings by the road. She was driving fast, putting distance between them and the Hill as if they were racing horses across the caldera. The car throbbed a little as they climbed, then galloped across the open stretches.
“Do you still have to go away?” she said.
“No. They made a mistake. I’m back to square one.”
She took her eyes off the road for a second to look over at him. “Is that such a bad place to be?”
“Not at the moment,” he said, smiling. “Trouble is, you can’t stay there.”
“No,” she said. “But maybe for a little while.”
She put her hand on his thigh, nothing more than a comforting pat, but it jumped at the touch, an involuntary spasm. The reaction made her laugh. “My,” she said, withdrawing her hand.
Connolly felt teased, embarrassed to be so sensitive to her. “You can put it back if you like.”
“Mmm. Maybe later,” she said. “You’ll need your strength for the hike. Where’d you get the boots, by the way?”
“Borrowed.” He was going to tell her about Bruner’s closet, the disconcerting moment when the boots fit, as if he had learned something new about him, but Karl had been left behind at Los Alamos. There wasn’t room for anyone else in the car.
“How do you manage this?” he said. “Being away. With your neighbors, I mean.”
“Eileen? Oh, she doesn’t think anything of it. I’m always going off. It’s my project, you see. That’s the great thing about the Hill-everyone’s trained not to ask. So they don’t.”
“What does she think you’re doing?”
“What I am doing-studying Indians. Whatever that means. Actually, I don’t think she cares, really. She just swans around in blissful ignorance.”
“Listening at walls.”
She giggled. “Well, that’s something different, isn’t it?”
“What about your husband?”
“I left him a note,” she said quickly, not wanting to talk about it. “In case he’s back early.” Then, as if shifting into second, “God, it’s good to get away, isn’t it? Look at this morning.”
So he let it go, glancing out the window at the shafts of light through the trees, thinking about Los Alamos. Everything was secure, so nothing was noticed. Then Los Alamos faded away too, left behind in a rush of miles and the bright, sharp air. They were heading west, where the day, even the landscape, was new.
They drove for a long time without talking, as comfortable with the silence as an old couple, and then he sensed the gradual beginning of the descent. The dips seemed longer now, the road twisting to skirt the uneven hills. The speed they’d kept on the high ridge began to seem faster, hurtling them toward curves so that Emma was forced to brake to check the pull of gravity down the other slope. They raced up the sides of hills, unable to see over the top, pausing carefully before the downward plunge. The views were closed in, a series of hollows and bends. It reminded him of mountain roads in the East, up and down waves of hills.
When they reached Jemez Springs, a cluster of buildings stretched a few blocks along the road, they had already slowed to thirty, so he was startled to hear the short whoop of a siren behind them. A police car, its roof light now shining in the morning sun, had slid out of its hiding place to follow them, motioning the car over to the side. “Oh God,” Emma said, pulling to the curb in front of a white clapboard hotel with the wide rocking-chair porch of an old Adirondack resort. The policeman, in full uniform, took his time getting out of the car. On this sleepy street in a notch of mountains, there was never a reason to hurry.
“Ma’am,” he said in a cowboy drawl, “we got a twenty-mile speed limit in this town. It’s clearly posted. Can I see your license?”
Connolly could see Emma about to rise to the bait, could already hear her sharp answer, but her shoulders shrank in resignation and wordlessly she handed the cop her wallet.
“Oh, another one of these,” he said, glancing at the anonymous project license. “Well, I reckon we can write a ticket to a number just as well as a name.” He pulled out his ticket pad. “You from up that ranch school, huh? Funny thing, all you people with no names. Enough to make a person wonder. But that’s wartime-that’s what they tell me, anyways. You ought to slow down, though. Live longer.” Connolly recognized the tone, the mix of folksiness and swagger, as familiar as a blue uniform.
“How much is it?” Emma said.
“Ten dollars.”
“You’re joking.”
He looked at her sharply. “Well, no, ma’am. We don’t consider putting our children at risk a laughing matter.” The road was deserted.
“But ten dollars,” she repeated, injustice rising in her voice.
He smiled. “Well, you can mail it in. Lots of folks like to do that. Be sure you do, though. We’ll yank that license sure as shooting, name or no name.” He handed her the ticket, bending down to peer into the car. “You ought to get your wife here to slow down. Buy her a new dress. Cost you less in the long run.”
“I’ll do that,” he said, automatically polite. He was struck by the smooth assumption of it. How easy it was to become someone else. The policeman would probably swear to it.
“Bloody thieves,” she said after the cop had left. Connolly smiled. “It’s what we call a speed trap. It’s how they make their living.”
She had begun driving out of town with exaggerated slowness, creeping along the street.
“That’s one word for it.”
“Anyway, now we’ve been arrested together. You said this would be an adventure.” He noticed that she was trembling, clutching the wheel to hold herself steady. “You all right?”
“It just gave me a turn, that’s all. I must be mad to do this. I run off with a man and I’ve got the police onto me before I’m even down the mountain.”
He laughed.
“I suppose it is funny. But it’s not. The police. What if-?”
“Do you want me to drive?”
“It’s not the driving.”
“What, then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I don’t like being married off so fast. Maybe I’m not very good at this.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to buy you a dress.”
She smiled. “No, you wouldn’t.” She drove quietly for a minute. “I just don’t want anybody to get hurt,” she said softly.
“Nobody’s going to get hurt.”
“Yes they are,” she said, her voice distant. “We’re all going to get hurt.”
He waited, afraid now of easy reassurance. “Does it make any difference?” he said finally.
She didn’t answer, then slowly shook her head. “No. That’s what’s so awful. It doesn’t make any difference.” She shifted. “Oh, to hell with it,” she said suddenly, stepping on the gas. The car shot forward. “You never get two tickets in one day, do you? We might as well do as we like.”
The road continued twisting downward, its curves even narrower, bordered only by a margin of soft shoulder. Emma hugged the center line, letting the sloping grade make its own speed, trusting the road. Connolly felt his ears pop. Here and there he saw signs of settlement, the surprise of a few fruit trees blossoming after so many miles of dark pine. The views began to open out to a wider sky, until finally they were near the bottom and the hills disappeared entirely, like curtains pulled back to show an immense panorama of red sandstone buttes and mesas, a sky beyond measuring. It was the most spectacular landscape Connolly had ever seen.
On 44 they drove on a highway river, entering sandstone canyons dotted with slides of red rock and juniper whose walls grew higher and higher around them until they were completely surrounded by rock and then, a bend in the road, opening out again to a blue tent of sky. This was the West he had always imagined and never seen, not the cactus emptiness of the desert at Trinity, not even the greasewood and sage arroyo country of the Rio Grande, but land that seemed to exist at the beginning of time, monumental, so resistant to man that it found its beauty in geology, as if vegetation were a hapless afterthought. The mountains to the right seemed the border of the known world. Before them, the giant mesas rose up like islands from an old ocean floor, the distances between them whole seas of sandy earth. The walls were striated, discrete sediment layers of white and yellow and maroon and red, a color map of time, with slabs of rock broken or withered into shapes, statues of what might have been gods.
He felt her smiling beside him, enjoying his reaction. When they finally left the twists of canyon walls and headed straight across the empty flat plateau, the promised heat arrived in a bright glare that flooded the open country with light. They rolled down the windows now to catch the dry air, baked with dust and sage. Clouds were everywhere, darting back and forth making shadows, so that the tawny grass would turn gray for an instant, then gleam yellow again when they passed. He saw chollo cactus and thin bushes whose names he didn’t know, survivors. The sun burned through the windshield. They were alone on the road, nothing around them for miles but a desolate landscape alive with clouds and shadows and hot wind.
When they entered Chaco wash, they left the highway and bounced along a narrow dirt road, trailing dust behind them like smoke. Emma slowed down, dodging ruts and dry potholes with only a trace of moisture on their cracked muddy bottoms.
“You said it was remote,” Connolly said. “How much more of this?”
“Twenty miles or so.” She grinned. “It discourages the fainthearted.”
“God. Let’s not break down.”
“Think of the Anasazi. They walked.”
He looked out at the desert again, trying to imagine it filled with people. “Why here?”
“No one knows. Presumably it was wetter then, but not much. They’ve found logs that must have been carried over forty miles-so why not build where the trees were? But they didn’t. It’s one of the mysteries.”
“What are the others?”
“Mainly what happened to them. They disappeared about eight hundred years ago. Just like that. It all just stopped. There were settlements everywhere-there’s a big one near the Hill, in Frijoles Canyon-and then nothing.”
“They all died?”
“Well, the archaeological record did. Probably they became the Hopis. Pueblo architecture’s much the same-block dwelling, kivas, the lot. But no one really knows. It’s difficult without writing. Imagine the Egyptians without hieroglyphics.”
“Then how do we know their name?”
“We don’t know what they called themselves. Anasazi’s our name for them. Navajo. Park Service says it means ‘the ancient ones,’ but I read somewhere that it actually means ‘ancestors of my enemies.’ Quite a difference. Of course, that fits perfectly with the Hopi theory-they’re still fighting the Navajos. Here we are. Watch out for the park ranger. Nobody comes here anymore, since gas rationing, and he’ll talk your head off if you let him.”
They were entering a broad open canyon formed by a long mesa along the north and two smaller ones on the south that opened like gates to the desert beyond. Connolly could see clumps of stone ruins backed against the walls of the canyon, small villages placed up and down the valley. A dusty official pickup truck was parked next to the building at the southeast end of the canyon road. The park ranger, an incongruous uniform in the emptiness, stared casually at her legs as he warned them to take water on the trail. But Emma seemed not to notice his interest, as if she had left all that behind in the miles of desert that separated them from the world. In fifteen minutes they were back on their own, the ranger another shadow, as they ate sandwiches on the kiva wall of the Bonito ruin, their faces lifted to the sun. With his eyes closed, he could hear the faint movement of insects. When he opened them, the sound retreated back into the stillness of the canyon. He looked over at her, at the line of her raised throat running into the now blazing white of her blouse, and marveled at their being here, away from everything.
She guided him through the site, pointing out the masonry patterns, the low chamber entrances, the arrangement of the rooms, so that what had been an inexplicable maze of stones now became real, filled with imagined life. People had lived here, moving from ceremonial kiva to irrigated field to storage room. The valley floor had hummed with noise. As they walked from room to room, the place began to make sense, there was an order to things, and he wondered suddenly if years from now people would walk like this on the Hill, picking their way through its buildings and rituals and puzzles until they arranged themselves in the simple pattern of a town. Maybe it would keep its mysteries too, and maybe they would seem just as inconsequential.
“But why here?” he asked again. “It can’t have been easy to farm here.”
“No,” Emma said. “Frijoles makes sense-there’s a river there. And Mesa Verde-I haven’t been, but presumably it’s green. Of course, they liked difficult places, they were always building on cliff faces and overhangs. But I agree it’s a problem. The archaeologists think there were as many as five thousand people here at the peak, so it may have been an administrative center of some sort. Perhaps religious. I think it’s more likely it was geographic-you’ll see what I mean at the top. It’s pretty much in the middle of their territory, so they may have picked it for just that reason. You know, an artificial capital. Like Canberra or Ottawa.”
“Or Washington.”
“Or Washington. What are you looking at?”
He took her hand. “I’m just looking.”
She was flustered but pleased. “You haven’t listened to a thing I’ve said.”
“Yes I have. They built in the middle of nowhere because it was the middle. Keep the bureaucrats away from the fleshpots.”
He leaned over and kissed her, a soft, long kiss because now there was so much more time.
“That’s never a bad idea, is it?” she said, her face still close to his.
“I don’t know. Maybe they need it more than anybody.” He kissed her again, but then she drew away.
“He’ll see,” she said, nodding her head toward the park station.
Connolly laughed. “All this way and it’s still the neighbors. Is there anywhere we can go?” he asked playfully, taking in the vast stretch of land.
“Later,” she said, pushing him away. “Are you always so anxious?”
“No, I’m shy. I just hate to pass up an opportunity. We could always go behind that wall.”
“No we couldn’t. If you think I’m going to lie down on a kiva for you, you’re very much mistaken.” But she had come closer to him.
“Afraid of disturbing the spirits?”
“Maybe. Maybe I just don’t fancy a stone floor.”
“You can be on top.”
“Later,” she said again, laughing at him. “Come on. You could do with the exercise.”
But the moment had made the emptiness around them sensual. He was aware of her skin in front of him as they climbed up the mesa trail, her leg stretching to a rock footing, flexing as it pulled the rest of her upward. The heat was tangible now, his body suddenly damp with sweat, and the air was busy with the crunch of their boots on the rocks and the sound of breathing. They climbed through a chimney between tall boulders, the path cluttered with loose rocks and sand and the tough root of a broken bush. When they cleared the top, on a shelf of slickrock, he found himself slightly winded, his heart beating faster. Except for the hint of a little breeze, everything around them still lay inert, but the torpor of the valley heat was gone. He felt alive with movement, his leg muscles straining as they went up another steep stretch. She looked behind her and laughed, leaping goatlike to another rock, daring him to follow. The canteen tied to her belt slapped against her hip. A trickle of sweat ran into his eye. The trail switched back, following a series of cairns he imagined the ranger had made, then rose steadily on packed earth until the great ledges of slickrock began, like sidewalks running around the rim of the mesa.
She waited for him on top, her blouse sticking to her, shading her eyes with her hand as she looked south to the valley floor. From here the ruins below took on the cellular shapes of a blueprint, circles and squares spreading out flat with only their dimensions to suggest buildings. She handed him the canteen. In the landscape nothing moved but shimmering heatwaves rising lazily off the desert. They were the only things alive in the world.
They followed the slickrock around the edge, steps away from steep drops into canyons, but the path was level and broad and they could walk together, moving quickly from the view of one site to another. The strain had left his legs and he was unaware of his steps now, buoyant, sometimes not even sensing the cairn markers. When she stopped suddenly, sticking her hand out in front of him, he almost pitched forward, carried by the unconscious momentum. She stood motionless, not breathing, so that the quiet was its own alarm. He darted his eyes around, not seeing anything on the barren slickrock until she extended a finger, pointing silently toward the edge. Ahead of them, on a ledge a few steps below, he saw the gray gnarled twist of an old juniper branch, nothing more, and then his eyes focused and the branch, sharper now, took on markings of gray and brown in a thick unnatural coil. The rattlesnake stirred slightly, adjusting itself to catch the sun, then settled back on the rock. Connolly stood frozen, feeling his muscles twitch with fear. It was the surprise of it, the unexpected lurking while they paid no attention. He had a city boy’s terror of wildlife; it crept up on you, alert only to its own rules. Frantically he looked around the trail for a rock, even a stick, to defend himself. But the snake lay still, coiled motionless in the sun. Connolly felt the slightest sound would arouse it, but Emma was already drawing him away, stepping carefully from the edge. He almost jumped when he saw it move, a nearly imperceptible tremor along the markings as it began to uncoil. He watched, fascinated as prey, while it sluggishly stretched out its length and glided down off its ledge to a sunnier shelf below, unaware of anyone else in its garden. Emma continued quietly moving away and he followed her, his eyes still on the ledge, expecting the snake to spring back. He was embarrassed by his own fear, but his blood kept jumping.
“Shouldn’t we kill it?” he said when they were farther down the path.
“He won’t bother us now. He lives here, you know.”
“But they’re poisonous.”
She smiled, calming him. “I know. But they don’t come after you unless they’re provoked. The first time I heard a rattle, I nearly died, but he was just telling me to go away. At least they give you fair warning. Not everything does. What they don’t like is being surprised.”
“I guess I don’t either,” he said, catching his breath. “I’ve never seen one before.”
“Maybe you’ll never see another. I’ve only seen two. The horses spot them. But they’re here, you know, they come with the territory.” She put her hand on his arm. “Come on, we’ll go up to the Pueblo Alto. Just be careful where you walk. It’s probably like speeding tickets, you never get two at once.”
But the snake had unsettled him. The limitless space had been exhilarating and now made him feel exposed. What if it hadn’t gone away? He saw himself holding an ankle full of poison, miles from anywhere, any cry for help muted by the wind. He had thought they had got away, that all this bright, uncomplicated space was theirs, and now he saw that he had merely intruded in it, made unsafe by what he couldn’t see.
They cut across the land to the center of the mesa, where the high ruins were, on the roof of the Anasazi world. There was wind up here, constantly drying their skin and blowing their hair, and as he watched her striding ahead, the white sleeves of her blouse fluttered back like little banners. He wondered what had brought her here, coolly avoiding snakes and climbing over slickrock, so far from the rainy hedgerows of Hampshire. But it was hers now. He liked the way she delighted in the land, as if she had made it all up.
At the Pueblo Alto they could see miles in every direction, and she pointed out the faint traces of straight roads coming from the north, then going out the valley to the south.
“Of course, why they had roads is another mystery, since they didn’t have wheels. Not even pack animals, apparently.”
“You couldn’t walk for miles in that,” he said, pointing to the desert.
“But they did. Hundreds of miles. They’ve found macaw feathers that must have come from Mexico-you know, on the Gulf. And conch shells from lower California. Somebody must have brought them.”
They were sitting on the wall, smoking. Connolly felt the heat of sunburn on his face, but the clouds kept moving across the sun, throwing the mesa into cool late-afternoon shadow.
“Right up that road, too,” she said, pointing toward the straight track between South Mesa and West Mesa. “Can’t you imagine it, though? Feathers and beads and whatnot-a whole stream of people, all coming here.”
He smiled at her. “I don’t believe it. Maybe a handful staggering with thirst. It’s some place, though,” he said, looking around again.
“Yes, it makes it all worth it.”
“Makes what all worth it?”
“You know, the Hill. The life there.”
“Why don’t you leave?” he said quietly.
“Where would I go? I don’t mind, really, as long as I can get away like this. Besides, I’ve come this far. I wouldn’t go back now.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“I know.” She crushed her cigarette, then stripped it, letting the bits of tobacco blow away. “But it’s true just the same. I like it here.”
“But it has to end sometime. The project’ll be finished.”
“And everyone go home? Do you think so? I don’t know. I used to think that-it was all so temporary in the beginning. But now I think it’ll just go on.”
“It has to end when the war ends. You know what they’re doing there?”
“Everybody knows. We just don’t like to talk about it. It’s nicer to think of it as pure science,” she said, an edge in her voice, “not blowing everything up. Anyway, they’ll want to make another. Something bigger, perhaps. We won’t be going anywhere. You can’t just build a whole city like that and walk away from it.”
“They did here.”
“Yes. But did they walk away?” She got up, tired of sitting, and paced idly, turning over a loose rock with her boot.
“Didn’t they?”
“You like a mystery. What do you think?”
A question in school. He looked out at the landscape and shrugged. “I think they ran out of water.”
“Hmm. That’s the obvious answer, isn’t it?”
“But you don’t think so?”
“They may have. Just moved on to greener pastures. Of course, anywhere would be, wouldn’t it? But then, why not pack up? They just left things, you see. Pots, farm tools. I mean, you’d take your tools. And valuables. Feathers, shells-the sort of thing you’d take with you if you were moving on. Like your good china. Turquoise beads.”
“Turquoise?” he said. “They left turquoise behind?”
“Yes,” she said, puzzled at his interest. “They had turquoise-it was their jewelry. Funny sort of refugees, leaving jewelry behind.”
“Maybe they thought they’d be coming back,” he said, his mind in Karl’s drawer now, wandering.
“But they didn’t.”
“Because they were killed.”
She looked at him. “What makes you say that? We don’t know that.”
“Nothing. I was thinking of something else.” He stood up. “Maybe they were too weak. Maybe there was too much to carry.”
“Jewelry?”
He smiled at her. “You’re reconstructing the crime.”
“They say that’s what archaeology is. Reconstructing the crime.”
“If there was one.”
“There usually is, one way or another.”
“So what do you think?”
She paused, looking out again across the mesa. “I think the Germans came.”
“The Germans?”
“Their Germans. I think they rounded them up and took them away.”
His mind, already distracted, now leaped to magazine photos, a man weeping at a cello.
“Why?”
“Well, there’s never an answer to that.” She shrugged, as if she could shed the thought with her skin. “This is a funny sort of conversation to be having.”
“Maybe they did it to themselves.”
“What? Had some Hitler who led them away?”
“Or just went mad. Blew themselves up.”
She looked at him again, then crossed her arms, holding herself. “Don’t let’s talk about it anymore. We’ll never know anyway.”
“But wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I suppose so. But what does it matter? Maybe it was drought-everyone thinks so. I rather like its being a mystery.”
“But if we knew-”
“Then this would only be a place, wouldn’t it?” She turned to go. “Come on. It’s getting late.”
The trail down was easier, but they stopped several times to take in the view. The white light of the day was gone, replaced by the late afternoon sun with a deep yellow fire that colored the rocks. Part of the valley was in shadow and the sandstone had lost its bright reflection; it was now just harder earth, dark as dried blood. By the time they reached the bottom, even the sky had changed, its steady blue beginning to streak with color.
“My legs are going to feel this later,” he said, rubbing his calf.
“Tired?”
“Not too tired.”
She grinned. “That’s good. We’ve miles to go.”
“Where now?”
“We’ll drive north to Nageezi, then cut across on the road to Taos.”
“Can’t we stop at Nageezi?”
“That’s just for the maps. There isn’t anything there-it’s a trading post. Just a filling station. When it’s open.”
“Where, then?”
“Anxious? I thought we’d go to Hannah’s.”
“That’s hours from here.”
“Everything’s hours. We’d have it to ourselves.”
“We’ll be exhausted,” he said, taking her by the waist.
“You can sleep in. All day.”
He smiled. “Let’s go. What if we find something on the way?”
“It would be a mirage,” she said, getting in the car. “There isn’t anything. Don’t worry-I’m worth the wait.”
They said a courtesy goodbye to the ranger, then headed northwest out of the valley into the orange sky. This access road was rougher than the one to the south, and Connolly, driving now, cursed as the car bounced through deeper holes. Even on a straight stretch of dirt he was forced to slow down, dodging rocks. Emma put her head back against the seat, squinting dreamily into the light.
“Why did you ask about the turquoise?” she said, mildly curious.
“I was thinking about Karl.”
“Oh,” she said, opening her eyes. “Why him?”
“He left turquoise behind in his room. It just seemed an odd coincidence, hearing about it. Well, not really a coincidence. It just reminded me of it, that’s all.”
“What was he doing with turquoise?” she said, genuinely surprised.
“I don’t know.”
“Is that why he was robbed?”
“No. It was in his room.”
“Oh. So it’s a mystery.”
“For now it is.”
“But you don’t like mysteries,” she said.
“I don’t like this one.”
She laid her head back again. “Is it so important to you? He’s dead, isn’t he? Like my Indians. What does it matter what happened to them?”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I suppose not. But sometimes-oh, why not let things be? Let them be mysteries.” She looked out the window, arguing with the landscape.
“This didn’t happen eight hundred years ago. Whoever killed him is still around.”
“I thought he was robbed in the park. Whoever did it must be long gone.”
“Maybe. Maybe he’s on the Hill.”
She was silent. “Is that what you think?”
“It’s possible.”
“That’s horrible. Then it wouldn’t be an accident-some robbery, I mean. You think someone murdered him? Planned to kill him?”
He was quiet for a minute, thinking. “Planned? That’s interesting. No, I don’t think so. Not planned. I think it just-happened.”
“How do you mean?”
“He may have provoked someone. Like the snake,” he said, a sudden thought. “They only attack if they’re provoked. Isn’t that what you said?”
“Well, surprised. They’re defending themselves, that’s all.”
“Yes,” he said, his voice drifting off again.
“Anyway, it wasn’t a snake. Murder,” she said softly. “No. Why would anyone want to murder Karl?”
But he wasn’t listening.
“What is it?” she said, bringing him back.
“What you said. I hadn’t thought of that. What if he surprised someone?”
“Doing what?” she said. He didn’t answer. “I hate all this. It scares me. You just want to believe he was murdered. It’s too absurd. Things like that don’t happen.”
“Yes they do.”
“Not here.” And then, before he could contradict her, “But why not a robber? It’s the obvious answer.”
“I thought you didn’t approve of obvious answers.”
“But you’re just guessing. Is that how this works? You make a guess and see if it fits?”
“No,” he said, “that’s how science works, or so they tell me. I need a little more than that.”
She looked over at him. “Is that why you’re here? It is, isn’t it.”
“The army just wants to know what happened.”
She turned away to look out the window again. “So you’ll turn over every rock in the place. I wonder what else you’ll find.”
“I haven’t found anything yet,” he said lightly. “Not even one skeleton in the closet.”
She looked back at him. “Be careful you don’t surprise someone too.”
“That would be one way of finding out, wouldn’t it?”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I,” he said, still light. “Don’t worry, I can take care of myself.”
“God, listen to you. It must be the Irish cop in you.”
“Which don’t you like, the Irish or the cop?”
She smiled. “The cop, I suppose.”
“Good. Not much I can do about the Irish. We can retire the cop, though. Today, anyway.”
She shook her head. “Maybe it’s all of a piece.” She laughed. “I never thought I’d end up going to bed with a cop.”
“Technically speaking, we haven’t actually been to bed yet,” he said, smiling.
She put her hand on his knee, a promise. “No, we haven’t, have we?”
“You’ll make me go off the road,” he said, turning to her.
It was then, his eyes off the road, that they hit the rock. There was a loud pop, as startling as gunfire, then the sudden lurch as they felt the car swerve to the right, sinking to the flapping tire.
“Christ,” Connolly said, stopping the car. “Now what the hell do we do? Do you have a spare?”
“In the boot.”
“Christ. He got out to look.
“Can you fix it?”
“This one’s shot,” he reported. “We’ll have to change it.” He looked around the empty landscape in the dwindling light. “Do you have a jack?”
“Whatever’s back there. There’s some sort of toolbox, I think.” She opened the trunk. “This? I don’t know what any of it is. What’s the matter-don’t you?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“I thought Americans knew everything about cars.”
He didn’t answer but instead started struggling with the jack, trying to assemble the handle, and getting down to look under the chassis.
“Can you manage it, do you think?” she said.
“Let’s hope so. Unless you want to spend the night.”
“Can I help?”
“You can stand out of the light.” He looked up. “What’s so funny?”
“You. Nothing. You should see your face. Like a cross little boy. Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”
“I’ve seen it done. You have a better idea?”
“I could walk back to the ranger station and bat my eyelids and get him to fix it. He’d come like a shot.”
“I’ll figure it out,” he said, fixing the jack in place.
She sighed. “Men. What makes you all like that, anyway?”
“Like what?” he said, only half paying attention.
“You never want to ask for help. Directions. A man will never ask directions. Just drive round and round and never ask.”
“Want to hand me that?” he asked, pointing to a wrench. She jumped up, ready to help.
“Scalpel,” she said, handing it to him. “Sponge.”
He looked up at her. “You’re having fun.”
“I know. Isn’t it awful? I am. I’ve always wondered what it would be like, stuck in the middle of nowhere. Rather exciting.”
“It’s going to be a lot more exciting if we don’t fix this before it gets dark.”
“Never mind. We can always sleep in the car.”
“There’s something to look forward to,” he said absently, unscrewing the lugs on the wheel.
“Oh, poor Michael, still longing for bed. Jinxed, that’s what it is. Still, there’s always the car. I’ve never done it in a car, have you?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
“Really? What’s it like?”
He stared at the wheel, trying to determine the next step. “Right now, I don’t know which is more annoying, you or this tire.”
“All right,” she said, “I’ll be quiet. That’s the thanks one gets for being cheerful. What is it like, though? In a car.”
“Cramped.”
She got a cigarette out of the car, then sat near him, watching him work. The heat had gone with the sun and she drew her legs up, huddling over them and smiling to herself in unexpected contentment. After a while he needed the flashlight, so she held it for him, training its beam on the tire while she studied his face in the shadow.
“I wonder what else you can’t do,” she said, “besides fix cars. I mean, I don’t know anything about you. What do you like? What are your politics? Why aren’t you in the army, for instance?”
“Eyes. I have a lazy muscle in my left.”
“What’s that? You mean you don’t see properly?”
“No, the right compensates. It’s not serious, just serious enough to keep me out of the army. They figured I’d make a lousy shot.”
“Did that bother you?”
“For about ten minutes. Then I felt grateful. There, now you know something I’ve never told anyone.”
“What else?” she said softly.
“I don’t know. Hate team sports, except baseball. Not very handy fixing things around the house either. That help?”
She shook her head. “Uh-uh.”
“What, then?”
“Nothing, I guess.”
“That’s a load off my mind,” he said absently, still concentrating on the lugs. “Damn.” The wrench clattered to the ground.
“Have a break,” she said, handing him her cigarette. His sunburned face glistened with sweat in the narrow light. “This is jolly, isn’t it?” She looked around and up at the sprinkling of early stars. “I love the desert at night. It comes alive then.”
“Don’t tell me with what.” He took a drag on the cigarette, following her gaze upward, then settling back on her face.
“There, that’s better,” she said. “We may as well enjoy it.”
“What, breaking down?”
“Mm. Being marooned. Can you think of a better way to get to know someone?”
“Hundreds.” He handed back the cigarette. “Is that why we’re here? To get to know each other?”
“It’s away. I wanted to get away. From the Hill. I couldn’t know you there.”
“And now you do.”
“A little. You always learn something out here.”
“Such as?”
“All sorts of things. You’re stubborn. You like to finish things.”
“Don’t you?”
She paused for a minute. “Not always. Sometimes I just-walk away. Go somewhere else.”
“Stubborn. That’s not much.”
“And you’re jealous.”
“Of whom?”
“The ranger.”
“Well, he was after you.”
She smiled. “You see? That’s what I mean.”
“You just didn’t notice.”
“Oh, I noticed all right. That was just cabin fever, you know.”
“Cabin fever. He couldn’t take his eyes off you.”
“Window shopping,” she said. “There’s a difference. One can tell. Like you.”
“I’m that obvious.”
She nodded. “Your eyes.”
“When?”
“At the ranch, the music-every time. I always feel your eyes.”
“Do you like that?” he said, his eyes touching her now, moving over her face.
“What do you think?” She leaned forward to kiss him. “But you are jealous.”
“I can’t believe everybody doesn’t see you the way I do.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” she said, kissing him again. “Tell me some more.”
“Are you flirting with me?” he whispered, his breath close to her.
“No, I told you,” she said, brushing his cheek, “I’m just getting to know you. Isn’t it lovely here? This place? Didn’t I tell you?”
Then he kissed her full on the mouth, she lay back on the packed earth, and there it was again, the quickness to his touch, as if her whole body were always waiting for even a trace of a signal. He lay over her, his elbow poking into the ground, everything dark except for a sliver of moonlight. His feet felt the rim of the tire behind them.
They heard the car before the headlights swept up the road, catching them in the beams like the surprise flash of a camera. Connolly looked up, his eyes dazzled, then rose to his knees, brushing himself off as he stood.
“You folks all right?” the ranger said, pretending he had not seen. Connolly caught the eager tremor in his voice. He got out, keeping his motor running, his lights still shining on the small screen of an unexpected blue movie.
“Flat tire,” Emma said, getting up and dusting her blouse, her voice cool and matter-of-fact.
“Well, sure,” the ranger said. “These roads. Let me give you a hand. Lucky I happened along.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Emma said, and Connolly could hear the faint beginnings of laughter.
The ranger looked at her, not quite sure whether he should grin, then at Connolly to see what would be allowed. But neither said anything, and Connolly saw him fall into awkwardness, backing away from the silence with an embarrassed shuffle, as if he were the one who’d been caught. For a moment they stood there, listening to the hum of the idling motor, unable to move. In a second, Connolly knew, Emma would laugh, turning the scene, the ranger’s own excitement, into an off-color joke. But suddenly the ranger took charge, bending down to inspect the tire, moving the spare into place. Emma watched, amused, as he twirled the lug wrench, fitting the tire with sure, swift movements in some exaggerated sexual display of competence. Connolly stood nearby, not even asked to help, frowning as he followed the performance. Then, in a minute, the ranger pumped the handle of the jack and lowered the car with an absurd sigh of climax. He stood up, wiping his hands on his pants.
“There. That ought to hold it. You want to be careful in the desert. Not a place to be at night.”
Connolly glanced at him, alert to innuendo, but the ranger had lapsed into official courtesy, unaware of any effect he might have had.
“You best follow me out. I’ll just go on ahead. Holler if you need anything.” And then, his point made, he swung into the carryall and started down the road.
Emma looked at Connolly, her eyes laughing. “Well, there you are,” she said, wiping her hands against each other as if she had done the job.
“Cabin fever, my ass,” Connolly said, throwing the tools in the trunk and slamming it.
So they drove north for half an hour in the path of the ranger’s red taillights, dipping and swerving while Emma coaxed Connolly into the laughter of a private joke. The stars rolled out in front of them, the darkness dissolving the horizon so that everything was sky. Connolly hunched over the wheel, watching for holes in the road, and when they finally reached the pavement of the highway and waved goodbye to the ranger, his shoulders were sore. They had the road to themselves again, the Nageezi post no more than a darkened shadow when they passed it. Emma fiddled with the radio, but in all this space even the soundwaves seemed to have been swallowed by the dark, trapped on the other side of some tall unseen mesa.
“I could use a drink,” he said.
“It’s Indian land. Not a drop for miles. Maybe when we get to Madrid.”
“Will anything be open by then?”
She ignored him, leaning closer to the open window. “You can smell the sage.”
“We have to eat sometime.”
“Hmm,” she said, but her voice was content, as if the rich night air were enough.
And after a while he didn’t mind either, following the small circle of their headlights in a trance. Once he saw a rabbit bounce near the side of the road, but then it vanished, just a dreamy speck of white, and they were alone again. He forgot the time, stretched out now to match the distance so that they became interchangeable, and the car sailed lazily by itself through both. There were no signs or markers. They had driven off the map.
It was almost another hour before he saw the light, a firefly wink, and then a candle until, finally, it became shafts of light pouring out the windows of a long building. A few dusty pickup trucks were parked alongside, their hoods catching the dim neon reflection of a beer advertisement. When they got out of the car, he could hear Western music. The place was as raw and makeshift as the buildings on the Hill, and for a moment he was afraid he had imagined it. There seemed no reason for it to be here in the empty landscape, just something conjured up because they were tired and hungry.
Inside, there was a brightly lit general store and next to it a dimmer bar area filled with smoke, beer signs, a gaudy swirl of jukebox, and a few wooden booths that looked filled with slivers. At the far end of the bar several Indians in jeans and ranch shirts were drinking silently, barely talking to one another, the bar in front of them a sea of beer bottles. Nearer the door, two old ranchers in Western hats were parked on stools. Everyone looked up when they came in. The Indians quickly retreated into their quiet huddle, but the ranchers looked openly at Emma, then smiled and tipped their hats. Behind the bar was a tall Indian woman, clearly of mixed blood, her long Anglo face set off by unexpected high cheekbones and long braided hair. Her breasts, drooping from years of nursing, spilled into a white blouse decorated with beads.
“Can we get a drink?” Connolly asked.
“Sure,” she said, her face as expressionless as her voice. Without asking, she set up a boilermaker of whiskey and a beer. There was no sign of anything else. Connolly handed one whiskey to Emma.
“You’re like to catch your death in them shorts,” one of the ranchers said to Emma, nodding toward her legs.
“Like ’em?” Emma said, stepping back to display them.
The rancher laughed, surprised at her boldness. “I guess I do.”
Emma took a drink. “Thanks. Me too. That’s why I keep them to myself.”
The rancher laughed again. “Well, I guess so.” Then, to Connolly, “I don’t mean nothing by it. You don’t see that every day around here.”
“Oh, I don’t mind a look,” Emma said.
“Well, I guess not,” the rancher said good-naturedly. “Where you folks coming from so late?”
“Chaco.”
“Well, now, isn’t that something? I thought they closed it. Not too many goes out there these days. With the gas. They say it’s real nice, though.” Everybody in the West, it seemed to Connolly, wanted to talk. Only the movie cowboys were silent.
“I know it’s late,” he said to the woman behind the bar. “Is there anything to eat?”
She hesitated.
“Come on, Louise,” the rancher said, “you give these nice folks some of that stew. Ain’t nobody here going home anyways.”
“Anything would be fine,” Connolly said to her.
“Sure,” she said, pouring two more whiskeys. She pointed to a booth.
“Nice meeting you. That’s a pretty wife you got there,” the rancher said to both of them. “You ought to cover her up, though. Never know who you’re gonna run into.”
“Oh, she can usually take care of herself.”
The rancher found this funny. “I’ll bet she can. Yes, sir.” His eyes followed them as they went over to the booth to nurse their drinks.
“Another window shopper?” Connolly said, smiling.
“Well, this one might be after a sample. Not like our Boy Scout.”
“Really?”
“Oh, he’s harmless. He just wants watching.”
“Can you always tell?”
“Of course. Any woman can. It’s what we’re trained for.”
“Is that so?”
“Uh-huh.”
He looked at her, aware now of the drink. The booth seemed surrounded by a faint haze. He took another sip. “What do you think this stuff is?”
“Firewater.” She giggled.
“You’re not kidding,” he said, holding his throat.
“Careful it doesn’t go to your head.”
“Like the song.”
“What song?”
“You don’t know that song?”
She shook her head.
“Just a song. You’ll hear it sometime. We’ll go to a club-they’re always playing it. Encourages the drinking.”
“Like here?” she said, cocking her head toward the jukebox, still pumping out Western music.
“They don’t need encouragement here. If you can drink through that, you can drink through anything. God,” he said, reacting to another sip. “I’d better slow down.”
“It always hits you when you’re tired.”
“That was before. When we were hiking and fighting rattlesnakes and then had to watch Charles Atlas kick sand in my face.”
She laughed. “Did we do all that?”
“On one lousy sandwich.”
“Sounds wonderful.” She put her hand over his. “Let’s do it again.”
He looked at her eyes, bright in the smoky light. “Whenever you say.”
The Indian woman stood at the edge of the table, waiting for them to separate hands before she unloaded the tray-big heavy bowls of mutton stew with a large basket of Navajo fry bread. She set the table with surprising delicacy, placing clunky spoons down without a sound, arranging a bandanna-like napkin.
“Thank you,” Emma said.
“Sure.”
“And another round of drinks when you get a minute.”
“Sure.” She moved slowly away, pulled by an unseen tug.
Emma giggled. “Do you think she can say anything else? I haven’t heard one other word. Shall we bet on it? A dollar?”
“No fair prompting.”
“Okay. How’s the stew?”
“Now I know why the Anasazi went away.”
“That bad?”
“Not when you close your eyes.”
But it was hot, and each thick gray spoonful filled him, spreading warmth through his body like a wonderful liniment.
“How do they stay in business, do you think?” he said.
“It’s probably just outside Indian land. There’s always a place over the border to sell liquor.”
He tore off a piece of fry bread, amused at his own appetite. When he looked up again from the stew, he found her watching him, part of the slow, easy warmth that enveloped them now like steam. The beer took on flavor as he gulped it. They talked of nothing, little snippets that kept them company as they ate, then evaporated, forgotten. Before the bowl was finished he had to sit back, flushed with well-being, his head buzzing gently now with half-heard sounds from the bar. The loud, twangy music had stopped.
He got up and went over to the jukebox, hoping to find something before the ranchers could fill it with more nickels. He scanned the selection slips glowing under the yellow light, running his eye down one unfamiliar cowboy title after another, and then, unaccountably, a wealth of music in the right-hand column-Teddy Wilson, Lester Young. Where had it all come from? It was the last thing he’d expected to find here. He stood there for a minute, fixated on the puzzle. Maybe the cafe was so remote that no one came to change the records. Maybe they’d siphoned off some free V Discs. The music was colored; maybe the record company traveler, unable to place them on his swing south, had dumped them finally into a juke for Indians. What did it matter? He fed nickels into the machine, pressed the ivory buttons, then came back to the table, a silly grin on his face, as the room picked up the tempo of “Sweet Lorraine,” the piano dancing over the steady bass. The ranchers looked at him, surprised, then turned back to mind their own business. The Indians never moved, a stocky frieze.
They sat back, listening to the music and smoking, the stew bowls pushed to the middle of the table. The Indian woman came over to fill their glasses but didn’t bother to collect the dishes, as if she were still waiting for them to finish. They didn’t say anything for a while, watching the smoke, smiling at their luck. It’s the mood that I’m in. The music seemed to change the room like some slow trick of the light, the rough edges receding, so that the cafe took on the mellow glamour of the sounds, all wet glass rings on a bar and ashtrays and the hope of taking someone home.
“Is this what it’s like?” she said quietly. “That club you’re taking me to?”
He smiled. “Just like.”
“And we’d sit and drink and look at each other.”
“And dance.”
“Yes.” She looked lazily around at the ranchers and Indians. “Someday.”
The record changed to the piano runs of Teddy Wilson opening “The Very Thought of You.” Looking straight at her, he took her hand and stood up, the drink making him slow and fluid at the same time, an underwater movement.
“Here?” she said, a little laugh, her arm extended in his, but her legs were crossed so she was unable to move.
“Why not?” He continued to look at her, willing her upward with a gentle pull until her legs righted themselves and her body rose up, leaning into his. They stood still, awkward, his hand feeling the small of her back, and then the music led them, asking nothing more than one small conscious movement to start. Billie Holiday was doing the vocal. Their feet, slow with drink, moved forward without their thinking. The room slid into the haze of peripheral vision. I’m living in a kind of daydream. One of the old ranchers laughed at them, and Connolly, looking over her shoulder, grinned back, joining in the joke. They must look drunk. But every inch of him felt her now. He moved slowly, lightheaded, happy. When she pulled her head back from his shoulder, they looked at each other, surprised. The dancing was supposed to have been a joke, a little parody of another life. Now it was something else, another kind of joke. He wanted to laugh out loud at the unexpectedness of it. He had held girls like this before, half-drunken nights of good times and smoky rooms and sex, but it was here, miles from anywhere, filled with mutton stew and cheap whiskey, that it finally happened, the hope of a million popular songs.
There was another record, then another, and they kept dancing, too tired to sit down. They didn’t see the ranchers leave. Could he have had so many nickels? The lights went off in the general store.
“It’s late,” she said.
He nodded.
“I don’t know where we can go.”
“Doesn’t matter.” His words were slow, part of the music.
She touched the back of his neck. “This isn’t what you had in mind at all, is it?”
“No.”
“But it’s all right?”
And it was. He wasn’t thinking about sex; he just wanted to hold her.
“Can you drive?”
“Can you?”
“If I have some coffee.”
But when they sat down, moving dreamily away from the empty floor, they found fresh drinks on the cleared table and they sipped them, the coffee forgotten. The music had stopped, but it was too late to play any more. They sat enjoying the quiet, the faint rattle of crockery in the back room, a scurrying of night sounds. He couldn’t stop looking at her. When the Indians left, two of them supporting the third, he only glanced at them for a minute. Then there was a sputter outside, a roar as the pickup ignition caught and pulled away, and it was quiet again. The Indian woman didn’t bother them, so they sat finishing their drinks, warm with sunburn and liquor, too drowsy to get up and go. His legs were heavy, glued to the scratchy booth.
When the woman finally came to clear the glasses, she was dressed to leave, an old army jacket covering the beaded blouse. Emma asked about coffee as Connolly got out his money, looking up at the woman for the bill. There was no check. She took a few bills, then tucked them into her jacket.
“No coffee. Back room,” she said, indicating a door and leading them there. She pulled the string of an overhead light to reveal a small storage room, piles of boxes next to an old rolltop desk, and, against the wall, a day-bed covered with Navajo blankets. “Don’t drive,” she said. “Stay here.” Then, with a small smile, “Nobody bother.”
She refused any money, waving off their thanks, and then turned the bar lights off and was gone.
“Our suite at the Waldorf,” Emma said, smiling at the linoleum and the narrow bed.
Connolly stood under the light bulb, unbuttoning her blouse.
“I don’t think I can move,” she said.
“No, don’t,” he said, kissing her.
“The light,” she said. He reached up and pulled the cord, turning the room black. In the pitch dark there was only touch, the gritty feel of dust, and the smell of sweat and liquor, and when they fell on the bed, their bare skin against the rough blanket, they finally made love, slow as dancing, as if they had already gone to sleep.