Land of Echoes

32

Edgar stood at the crumbling edge of the cliff, looking west, enjoying himself immensely and ignoring the rocks his feet sent tumbling into the ravine. His face was vivid from the climb and the crisp air. From here at the top of the mesa, they could see all the way to the higher land of the Defiance Plateau, a glowing pink-purple band along the horizon. The early-morning sun was at their backs, throwing their shadows off the cliff and spreading the mesa's shadow like a dusky lavender cape on the ground below.

"You know what it looks like to me?" Edgar asked.

"What?" Cree followed his gaze.

He gestured at the boulders, the slabs, the endless expanse of bare soil. "It's like… after God created the rest of the world, He had a bunch of raw materials left over. And He just sort of dumped them out here. Piles of stuff, just lying there for a few hundred million years, waiting for the next big project."

He was in a good mood. Last night, he had assented readily when she suggested they change plans and nap before visiting the ravine. Cree's confrontation with Lynn Pierce had drained her, and bringing up witches and demons had obliterated the fleeting sense of relief she'd felt after talking to Paul. Ed was tired, too. They had agreed to sleep for a few hours, go out in the early hours of the morning, and end the vigil with this morning trip to the top of the mesa. It was a good way to get a better sense of the lay of the land.

So for a while they'd lounged in the ward room, talking. Just being around Ed had calmed Cree. After a while she had caught some of his mood of curiosity and excitement, the thrill of the investigation. He loved the landscape here; like Cree, he felt exhilarated by it, wanting to embrace it, get out in it, immerse himself in it. Telling her about it, he'd paced around, gesturing expansively, unselfconscious and looking sexy in T-shirt and boxer shorts.

When at last they'd put out the light, the snores from the other bed told Cree that Edgar had fallen asleep immediately. Lying awake, she found herself soothed by the gentle rhythm of his breathing and the sight of his slumbering profile in the faint light.

The alarm clock had awakened them at two a.m. They'd dressed wearily and gone off into the desert night. At the ravine, Ed had taken up his post on the desert floor as Cree moved up the cleft, found what felt like an appropriate spot, wrapped herself with blankets, and waited.

Waited for nothing, as it turned out. For whatever reason, she couldn't get past the ordinary world and her ordinary, if frightened, thoughts. It never failed to astonish her, the way a haunted place could be so dense at one time, so empty at another. Was it the cycle of manifestation-there when it was there, not when it was not? Or was it just cycles of Cree Black's sensitivity? She'd probably never know. But it was an experience familiar to every serious ghost hunter: the long pointless wait, the empty hours. The only startling moment had been awakening from her drowse to see a blanket-wrapped figure standing before her in the predawn light. For a jolting instant she'd thought it was some Navajo or Anasazi from centuries past. Then she recognized it as Edgar, a blanket draped over his shoulders, grinning. Light was creeping into the sky. She'd left her little nest and they'd set stiffly off up the ravine just as streaks of cloud at the zenith burst into peach-pink flame against the depthless baby blue sky.

The rock dam where she'd sat the first night turned out to be a jumble of fallen boulders and slabs four or five feet high and about twenty feet across, tricky footing. Ed had brought a compact trifield meter and a Geiger counter, and as they picked their way he paused to take readings; though there was some rise in EMF activity, it was well within the normal variations he'd expect.

Beyond, the gully tapered as it rose, then split into shallower runs that meandered toward the mesa top. They walked quickly in the cold shadows, trying to work off the chill of sitting so long in the open.

It was wonderful to come to the top. Suddenly the sandstone walls angled away and then they were beneath the clear sky again, with the half risen sun blasting at them brassy as a trumpet and a coquettish breeze flirting with their hair. The mesa top was an uneven plane of soil and rock with only a thin cover of scrubby sage and rabbitbrush: as Edgar said, a pile of raw planet-building stuff left here for a few hundred million years, detritus left over from a huge construction project. The image made Cree smile.

They explored the edges of the big ravine for a time, moving very cautiously among the boulders: Some of the rocks seemed precariously perched on the crumbling, undercut cliffs, ready to tumble. After a while Ed informed her that, in his infinite wisdom, he had packed some bananas and a small thermos of coffee. They crouched against the sun-facing side of a boulder as he opened the thermos and poured the black liquid steaming into the plastic cup. Cree warmed her hands on it for a moment, took a scalding sip, and handed it back.

"When you were summing up the situation last night," he said, "I notice you omitted the issue of Julieta's being Tommy's mother. Was that because she doesn't trust the nurse? Or you don't?" Ed sipped coffee and grimaced at the burn.

"She didn't feel comfortable about it. I can imagine that having one of your employees know that kind of thing about your past… well. And Lynn certainly seems to have 'issues' with her boss. What do you think of her-Julieta?"

His eyes caught hers. "I admire what she's done here. Seems like a decent person."

"And gorgeous, sexy, compelling-"

"Not my type." He sipped some more coffee, blew a gout of steam into the sun, and then sat with his eyes closed, face to the light.

"The nurse told me last night she thinks Tommy's symptoms get worse when Julieta is around."

"You agree?"

She shrugged. "I've seen him sort of… fix on her. But I'm really not sure-I haven't seen much of them together."

Edgar nodded and thought about that as he peeled a banana, bit off half of it in one mouthful, and appeared to swallow it whole. "That would seem to support her idea it's the ex, no? Driven by lingering hatred or hostility?"

"Or the ex driven by regret and a desire to reconcile. I don't know enough about the dynamics there to tell."

"You know, when we were going over to the maintenance building, she told me some interesting things about her relationship with the McCartys. Did she tell you about the lawsuit she's got going against them? The uranium thing?"

"She said she often fought them in court, but nothing specific."

"Well, this one's still pending, some protracted process involving McCarty Energy and local townships and the Navajo tribe. Seems there's uranium here and there throughout the region-huge profit potential? So McCarty Energy wants to do what's called in situ extraction. That's where they pump a chemical solution into the ground that dissolves the uranium ore. They mix the dissolved ore with water, and pump the slurry back up for separation. But water's rare and valuable out here, right? So the problem with the process is, one, it consumes huge amounts of a crucial resource, and two, the liquefied uranium travels in the aquifers. Given that the process uses up or pollutes groundwater far beyond McCarty property, there's a lot of resistance. A number of nearby water users have joined the suits. Julieta got worried about radioactivity in the school's well, and she's been the ringleader among the other parties involved. And so far, they've won-there's an injunction against in situ extraction, pending resolution in the courts. It's been going on for years already, began while Garrett was still alive. In the meantime, needless to say, McCarty harbors no great love for Julieta."

"Jesus! No wonder Donny was so paranoid when we came to the mine! And why he was so convinced I was conspiring with Julieta."

"Yeah. Something to keep in mind when you meet with him today." Edgar poured some more coffee, recapped the thermos, and handed the cup to Cree. "You don't want to get caught in that crossfire."

Cree nodded, still not sure how she would deal with Donny. She finished the banana Ed had given her, then took a long swallow of coffee, hungry for the caffeine burn in her belly. The heat was nice, but her anxiety was rising again. So much to consider. The in situ issue and Donny's rather understandable distrust was yet another complication, another indication this thing was snowballing out of control.

They spent another half hour exploring the western side of the mesa. The small tableland sloped gently to the south and east, where a couple of miles away it broke up and descended to the desert floor in rounded hills and gullies, more thickly scattered with pinon and juniper. Faint vehicle tracks in the hard brown soil suggested that humans sometimes drove up from the gentler slopes at the south end. On this side, the cliffs were higher, and the ravine they'd come up provided the only access to the top. But Julieta was right, Lost Goats Mesa wasn't much, and there were no signs of earlier habitation. Just lots of God's raw materials, dumped after the big job.

Walking back, Ed swung himself along with easy strides. He looked around him with avid curiosity, humming quietly. Cree couldn't make out the tune, but it was energetic and upbeat, maybe some Paul Simon song. She couldn't help absorbing his mood, feeling more confident. Drinking black coffee on an almost-empty stomach probably helped: that feeling of being up for almost anything.

"You're in a good mood," she commented.

"Am I? Yeah, I guess I am."

"Any particular reason?"

He shrugged. "Nice day. New scenery. Good company. Belly full of Java. Getting an early start."

She chuckled. "I don't usually see you this early in the morning. I swear to God, Ed, your beard has grown a quarter inch since last night. Seriously."

He rubbed his sandpapery chin, then grimaced and shook his hand as if he'd hurt it.

"We gotta go for hikes more often, back home. I mean, it's been so long-" Cree stopped, aware that she'd moved into uncomfortable territory: Yes, it was the first time they'd done anything like this together since she'd gone to New Orleans and met Paul.

He glanced at her quickly but didn't bog down in it. "Yeah. Jane and Bill Terry were telling me about a nice day hike they did, out on the coast trail. We should try it."

"You ought to ride Julieta's horses while you're here. It's a total and complete blast. Like you're flying."

"Huh. I'd break my neck."

"Nah, they're very well behaved. If we get any time, I'll ask her to take us out."

He tossed his head, whatever, and Cree puzzled at his reaction.

"What?" she asked. "You dislike her?"

He looked over at her, surprised. "Not at all. She's just as you described. Gorgeous, sexy, smart. Compelling."

"So why isn't she your 'type'?"

Ed's cheerful face had sobered and now drew into a speculative frown. He kicked at a rock and sent it bounding away. "I don't know. Maybe I'm just wary of extremely beautiful women."

"I don't think she tries to be beautiful. I think it's been a huge burden for her all her life. Beauty can be a lot of trouble for a woman. Men get their buttons pushed by it and act like idiots. Or they make unflattering judgments about intelligence and character based on it. Women envy it and compete with it. Lynn Pierce's response is probably typical-she's got Julieta pegged as a complete narcissist, which she emphatically is not."

"Huh. I can see why she would want a child so badly. For once to love and be loved without all those complications."

Ed was very wise, Cree was thinking. Very insightful.

"I know what it is," he went on. "Whenever I'm around her, I feel like she's… working on some internal process of great importance, and I instinctively want to defer to it. Not look at her too closely or intrude on her thoughts. On her isolation."

"Exactly," Cree asked. "But why has she isolated herself?"

"Love," Ed said immediately. "She doesn't trust love."

"Hm. With good reason. But what can she do about it?"

Ed didn't answer right away, and when he did, it was with another question: "What's going on between her and Joseph Tsosie?"

"Why do you ask?"

"When he came to the school yesterday, you know what he did? He checked the brakes on her truck-brought it over to the maintenance garage while I was there. He and I talked as he jacked up the front end, checked the pads and disks. A very competent guy. I guess she had mentioned there was a shimmy whenever she put the brakes on."

Cree smiled at the image. "Which implies-?"

He shrugged. "It's just a very… guy thing to do. It had more importance as a gesture than as a necessity, you know what I'm saying? Given that she's got a maintenance staff for that stuff-I mean, they work on the school buses all the time."

The implication was obvious, but that was difficult territory and neither wanted to articulate it: longtime friendship, deep and full, yet never quite matriculating into romantic love. Thinking about it opened up a deep reservoir of feelings too complicated to face.

They came around a curve in the mesa wall and saw the school. The sun was high enough to bathe all but the easternmost edge of the campus in its angled light. Students were spilling from dorm buildings and heading toward the cafeteria. Without saying anything, they both stopped to gaze at the scene.

As always, the sight moved Cree, a pang in her chest and belly. It was a rainbow of feelings, Julieta's and her own, admixed, and somehow central to it was the image of Joseph Tsosie fixing her brakes, making sure she was safe. It all had to do with love-the labyrinth that love of any kind had to pass through. Why did it have to be so complex? Why was it so easy to get lost?

An insight occurred to her, and though she shied away at first she forced herself to spell it out. One time, she told herself, just once. She'd let herself think it one time and then she had to let it go away for now. Julieta and Joseph: not unlike Cree and Edgar. But was that real, based on her own feelings, or another example of Cree Black's absorption of Julieta's state of mind? It hurt not to know. And the worst of it was, Ed must have noticed and was probably asking himself the same question. He deserved so much better.

"Hey, Ed," she said quietly. "That was nice. Up on the mesa-our breakfast picnic."

"Yeah."

"I've missed hanging out with you. I can't tell you how much."

He turned away as if there was something to look at in the empty land to the west, then checked his watch. "We should get back. Big day for both of us."

"Yeah. Okay." He was right: This was no time for her to be talking to him this way.

He started walking. When he spoke again it was as if she'd been harrying him for further explanation: "Look, Cree, I don't know how to solve Julieta's thing with love, past, present, or future, or where things stand with her and Joseph, or why. But I do know this-love won't leave us alone until we meet its gaze fairly and fully. Okay? That's what I know. That's my pontification for the day, take it for what it's worth. Now I gotta go be an engineer for a while."