Phases of Gravity

Part Three Uncompahgre

'Are we all set to climb the mountain?'

Richard Baedecker and the other three hikers stopped in their last-minute adjustments of backpacks and hip belts to look up at Tom Gavin. Gavin was a small man, barely five foot seven, with a long face, short-cropped black hair, and a piercing gaze. When he spoke, even to pose a simple interrogative, his voice seemed propelled up out of his small frame by a wire-taut sense of urgency.

Baedecker nodded and bent over to shift the weight of his pack. He tried again to buckle the padded hip belt, but it would not go. Baedecker's stomach was just ample enough, the belt just short enough, that the metal teeth on the buckle would not secure on the webbing.

'Damn,' muttered Baedecker and tucked the belt back out of sight. He would make do with the shoulder straps, although already the weight of the pack was plucking a cord of pain on some nerve in his neck.

'Deedee?' asked Gavin. His tone of voice reminded Baedecker of the thousands of checklists he and Gavin had read through during simulations.

'Yes, dear.' Deedee Gavin was forty-five, the same age as her husband, but she had entered that ageless state which some women disappear into between their twenty-fifth and fiftieth birthdays. She was blond and bantam-thin, and although she was constantly animated, her voice and movements held none of the sense of tightly controlled tension that marked her husband's demeanor. Gavin usually appeared to be slightly frowning, as if preoccupied or mentally wrestling with some internal conundrum. Deedee Gavin showed no such signs of intellectual unrest or activity. Of all the various astronauts' wives Baedecker had known, Deedee Gavin had always seemed the least well matched. Baedecker's ex-wife, Joan, had predicted the Gavins' imminent divorce almost twenty years earlier after the first time the two couples had met at Edwards Air Force Base in the spring of 1965.

'Tommy?' asked Gavin.

Tom Gavin Jr. looked away and nodded tersely. He was wearing tattered denim shorts and a blue-and-white Campus Crusade for Christ T-shirt. The boy was already over six feet tall and still growing. At the moment he carried anger like a palpable thing, weighing on him like a second backpack.

'Dick?'

'Yo,' said Baedecker. His orange backpack held a tent and rain fly, food and water, extra clothes and rain gear, backpack stove and fuel, mess gear and first-aid kit, rope, flashlight, insect repellent, a Fiberfill sleeping bag and ground cloth, foam pad, and an assortment of other trail necessities. He had weighed it on the Gavins' bathroom scale that morning and it checked out at twenty-eight pounds, but Baedecker was sure that someone had surreptitiously added a few bowling balls and an extensive rock collection to the load since then. The pinched nerve on his neck felt like an overtightened guitar string. Baedecker idly wondered what kind of noise it would make when it snapped. 'Ready to go,' he said.

'Miss Brown?'

Maggie took a last tug at her pack's shoulder strap and smiled. To Baedecker it seemed that the sun had just come out from behind a cloud even though the Colorado sky had been cloudless all day. 'All set,' she said. 'Call me Maggie, Tom.' She had cut her hair since Baedecker had seen her in India three months earlier. She wore cotton shorts and a soft-looking plaid shirt open over a green halter top. Her legs were tan and muscular. Maggie carried the lightest load of any of them, not even a frame pack, just a blue canvas daypack with her goose-down sleeping bag tied beneath it. While everyone else wore massive hiking boots, Maggie wore only her short-topped Nikes. Baedecker half expected her to float away like an untethered balloon while the rest of them continued to trudge along like deep-sea divers.

'Okay, then,' said Gavin, 'let's get going, shall we?' He turned and led them away from their parked car at a brisk pace.

Above the meadow the road became something less than a jeep trail as it switched back and forth through stands of ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, and occasional aspen groves. Deedee rushed to keep up with her husband. Maggie fell into an easy gait a few paces behind. Baedecker worked hard to keep up, but at the end of the first three hundred yards of hill he was red-faced and staggering, his lungs laboring to find more oxygen than was available in the thin air at nine thousand feet. Only Tom Jr. lagged farther back, occasionally throwing a stone at a tree or carving something into an aspen with the sheath knife from his belt.

'Come on, let's keep up the pace,' called Gavin from the next switchback. 'We're not even on the trail yet.' Baedecker nodded, too winded to speak. Maggie turned around and bounded back downhill toward him. Baedecker mopped his face, shifted the pack against the sweat-soaked shirt on his back, and wondered at the sheer insanity of anyone going downhill when they would just have to turn around and go back up again.

'Hi,' she said.

'Hi,' managed Baedecker.

'It can't be too long before we camp,' she said. 'The sun'll be behind the ridge in forty-five minutes or so. Besides, we'll want to stay in the lower part of the canyon tonight, the terrain gets pretty steep in another two miles.'

'How do you know that?' Maggie smiled and pulled a strand of hair back over her ear. It was a gesture Baedecker remembered well from India. He was glad to see that her shorter haircut hadn't eliminated the need for the motion. 'I looked at the topo map Tom showed you last night in Boulder,' she said.

'Oh,' said Baedecker. He had been too disconcerted by Maggie's sudden appearance at the Gavin household to pay much attention to the map. He adjusted his shoulder straps and began moving uphill again. Immediately his heart began pounding, and his straining lungs could find no oxygen.

'What's wrong with him?' asked Maggie.

'Who?' Baedecker concentrated on lifting his feet. He did not remember asking for lead-lined soles when he bought his new hiking boots the week before, but obviously he had.

'Him,' said Maggie and nodded her head downhill at the sullen figure of Tom Jr. The boy was staring back the way they had come, his hands thrust deep in his hip pockets.

'Girlfriend problems,' said Baedecker.

'Too bad,' said Maggie. 'Did she walk out on him or what?'

Baedecker stopped again and took a few deep breaths. It did not seem to help. Tiny drummers performed solos in his ears. 'No,' he said, 'Tom and Deedee decided it was getting too serious. They broke it up. Tommy won't be allowed to see her when he gets back.'

'Too serious?' asked Maggie.

'The possibility of premarital sex was raising its ugly head,' said Baedecker. Maggie looked back at Tom Jr. 'Good grief,' she said. 'He must be almost seventeen.'

'Try eighteen,' said Baedecker, moving again, waiting for his second wind to catch up. It was overdue. 'Almost your age, Maggie.' She made a face. 'Uh-uh, guess again,' she said. 'I'm twenty-six and you know it, Richard.' Baedecker nodded and tried to pick up his pace so Maggie would not have to take half steps to stay back with him.

'Hey,' she said, 'where's your hip belt? It helps with those frame packs if you wear it. Gets the load off your shoulders.'

'Broken,' said Baedecker. He looked up through the trees and saw Tom and Deedee two switchbacks above, moving quickly.

'You still mad?' asked Maggie. Her voice had changed slightly, shifted down a register. The sound of it made Baedecker's straining heart beat even faster.

'Mad about what?' he asked.

'You know, me showing up when I wasn't invited,' she said. 'Staying to come along on this weekend with your friends.'

'Of course not,' said Baedecker. 'Any friend of Scott's would be welcome.'

'Hunh,' said Maggie. 'We've been over that already. I didn't fly here from Boston just because I used to be your son's friend. I mean, classes have started already.' Baedecker nodded. Scott would have received his master's degree this year if he had not dropped out to stay with his Indian guru. Baedecker knew that Maggie was four years older than Scott; she had spent two years in the Peace Corps after graduating from Wellesley and was now finishing up her graduate degree in sociology.

They emerged into a clearing on a broad switchback and Baedecker stopped and pretended to appreciate the view of the canyon and surrounding peaks.

'I loved the look on your face when I showed up last night,' said Maggie. 'I thought you were going to drop your teeth.'

'My teeth are my own,' said Baedecker. He tugged the pack up and tightened a strap. 'Most of them.' Maggie threw back her head and laughed. She brushed at his sunburned arm with cool fingers and then she was bounding up the rough road, pausing to turn and beckon him on, then running again. Running. Uphill. Baedecker closed his eyes for a second.

'Come on, Richard,' she called. 'Let's hurry up so we can make camp and have dinner.' Baedecker opened his eyes. The sun was directly behind Maggie, surrounding her with radiance, illuminating even the fine, golden hairs on her arms. 'Go ahead,' he called. 'I'll be there in a week or so.' She laughed and ran up the hill, apparently unruled by the gravity that pulled at Baedecker. He watched her for a minute and then followed, stepping more lightly himself, feeling the load on his back lessen slightly as he moved higher toward the dome of thin, blue Colorado sky.

Baedecker had enjoyed nothing of his life in St. Louis so much as his leaving it.

He resigned his position at the aerospace company where he had worked for the past eight years, his sense of almost complete uselessness there being accidentally confirmed by the way his boss, Cole Prescott, had let him go with deep and obviously sincere regret but without need for an interim period to train someone new. Baedecker sold his town house back to the firm that had built it, sold most of his furniture, stored his books, papers, and the rolltop desk Joan had given him for his fortieth birthday, said good-bye over drinks to his few acquaintances and friends there — most of whom worked for the company — and left, driving west early one afternoon after having a leisurely lunch at the Three Flags Restaurant across the Missouri River in St. Charles.

It had taken Richard Baedecker less than three days to liquidate his life in St. Louis.

He crossed into Kansas at Kansas City during rush hour. The insane flow of traffic did not bother him as he sat back in the leather upholstery and listened to classical music on the car's FM radio. He had originally planned to sell the Chrysler Le Baron and get a smaller, faster car — a Corvette or Mazda RX-7 perhaps — the kind of performance vehicle he would have driven eighteen or twenty years earlier when training for a mission or flying experimental aircraft, but at the last moment he realized how stereotypical it would be for the middle-aged man to go hunting for his lost youth in a new sports car, so he kept the Le Baron. Now he relaxed in its upholstered comfort and air-conditioning while listening to Handel's Water Music as he left Kansas City and its grain elevators behind and headed west toward the lowering sun and the endless plains.

He stayed that night in Russell, Kansas, driving into the small town to find a cheaper motel away from the interstate. The sign outside said CABLE TV FREE COFFEE. The old tourist cabins were not air-conditioned, but they were clean and quiet, set back under large trees that created pools of darker shadow in the twilight. Baedecker showered, changed clothes, and went for a walk. He had dinner in the bleachers of the town park, buying two hot dogs and coffee at a concession stand beneath the ball diamond's bleachers. Halfway through the second game the moon rose, orange and waning. Out of old habit, Baedecker looked up and tried to find the Marius Hills in western Oceanus Procellarum, but the site was in darkness. Baedecker sensed a sad, end-of-season flavor to the evening. It was four days past Labor Day and despite the summer's final attempt at a heat wave and the softball tournament, the children had returned to school for the year, the city pool was closed, and the fields of corn beyond the edge of town were growing yellow and brittle as harvest approached.

Baedecker left after the sixth inning of the second game and went back to his motel room. The 'CABLE TV' consisted of a small black-and-white television offering two Kansas City channels, WTBS from Atlanta, WGN from Chicago, and three fundamentalist networks.

It was on the second of these religious channels that he saw his old Apollo crewmate, Tom Gavin.

A mile and a half above the meadow where they had left their car, the dilapidated jeep road narrowed into a trail and wound its way up through heavy forest. Baedecker was moving more easily now, setting his own pace, enjoying the evening and the movement of shadows across the valley floor. It had become much cooler as the ridge's shadow filled the narrowing canyon up which they were hiking.

Maggie was waiting for him at a curve in the path, and they walked awhile in companionable silence. Beyond the next curve in the trail, Tom and Deedee were busy setting up camp in a clearing ten yards above the stream, which the trail had been paralleling. Baedecker dumped his pack, stretched, and rubbed some of the soreness out of his neck.

'Did you see Tommy back there?' asked Deedee.

Maggie answered. 'He was a hundred yards or so down the trail. He should be here in a minute or two.' Baedecker spread the ground cloth and staked down the two-person orange tent he had been carrying. There were several fiberglass poles and wands to connect, and it took Baedecker and Maggie several moments of laughter to get the exoskeleton rigged and the tent properly draped from it. When it was finished, Baedecker's low tent sat a few yards from Tom and Deedee's blue dome.

Gavin came over and kneeled by Maggie, offering her a nylon bundle. 'This is Tommy's old one-man tent,' he said. 'Pretty small. More of a bivouac bag, really, but we thought it would do the trick for one or two nights.'

'Sure,' said Maggie and went to rig the small tent a few yards downhill from Baedecker's. Tommy had come into camp and was speaking animatedly to his mother as she gathered wood on the far side of the clearing.

'You and Tommy in the two-man, okay?' asked Gavin. He was watching Maggie pound stakes with a rock.

'Fine,' said Baedecker. He had removed his hiking boots and was wiggling his toes through his sweat-soaked socks. The relief was a functional definition of heaven.

'Known her long?' asked Gavin.

'Maggie? I met her this summer in India,' said Baedecker. 'As I said last night, she's a friend of Scott's.'

'Hmmm,' said Gavin. He seemed about to say more but rose instead and brushed off his jeans. 'I'd better get the fire going and the food on the grill. Want to help?'

'Sure,' said Baedecker. He stood and walked gingerly across the grass, feeling the pressure of each twig and pebble beneath his feet. 'In just a moment. I'll help Maggie get her tent raised and I'll be right there, Tom.' Stepping lightly, Baedecker moved down the grassy slope to where Maggie was working.

The cable TV's program had been one of the many clones of the PTL Club that filled the fundamentalist network's schedule. The set was done in Kmart gothic, the host's gray hair perfectly matched the gray polyester of his suit, and a ten-digit phone number remained permanently affixed on the screen in case a viewer was suddenly moved to pledge money and had forgotten the address which the host's white-wigged wife displayed every few minutes. The wife seemed to be afflicted with some neurological disorder, which set her off on crying jags for no apparent reason. During the ten minutes that Baedecker watched before Tom Gavin appeared, the woman cried while reading letters from viewers who had repented and converted while watching the program, she cried after the paraplegic ex-country-western singer gave a rendition of 'Blessed Redeemer,' and she cried when their next guest told of a miraculous disappearance of an eight-pound tumor from her neck. Incredibly, the wife's mascara — which looked to have been applied with a trowel — never ran.

Baedecker was in his pajamas and was rising to turn the TV off when he saw his ex-crewmate.

'Our next guest has seen the glory of God's creation in a way which few of us have been privileged to witness,' said the host. The man's voice had taken on a sonorous, serious-but-not-quite-solemn tone, which Baedecker had heard all of his life from successful salesmen and middle-level bureaucrats.

'Praise Jesus,' said the wife.

'Air Force Major Thomas Milburne Gavin, besides being a war hero in Vietnam . . .'

Tom ferried jets from California to bases in Okinawa, thought Baedecker. Oh well.

'. . . was decorated with the president's Medal of Freedom after his Apollo spacecraft went to the moon in 1971,' said the host.

We all got a medal, thought Baedecker. If we'd had a ship's cat, it would've received one too.

'. . . a test pilot, an engineer, an astronaut, and a respected scientist . . .'

Tom's not a scientist, thought Baedecker. None of us were until Schmidt flew. Tom got his degree in engineering from CalTech later than most of us. It was either that or drop out of the program at Edwards.

'. . . and, perhaps most importantly, the man who may well have been the first true Christian to walk on the moon,' said the host. 'My friends, Major Thomas M. Gavin!'

Tom never walked on the moon, thought Baedecker.

Gavin shook hands with the host, received a kiss from the host's wife, and nodded at the paraplegic singer and the woman who had lost her tumor. He sat down on the end of a long couch while the host and his wife settled themselves into what may have been wing chairs but which — at least on Baedecker's small screen — looked like crushed-velour thrones.

'Tell us, Tom, when was it that you first heard the Lord's voice while you were walking on the moon?' Gavin nodded and looked at the camera. To Baedecker's eye, his old acquaintance looked no older than he had when the two of them and Dave Muldorff had spent endless hours in simulators in 1970 and ‘71. Tom was wearing Air Force flight coveralls with an assortment of NASA mission patches sewn on. He looked lean and fit. Baedecker had added twenty pounds since their mission days and could fit into none of his old uniforms.

'I'm looking forward to telling you about that,' said Gavin with the thin, tight smile that Baedecker remembered, 'but first, Paul, I should mention that I never walked on the moon. Our mission called for two members of the crew to descend to the lunar surface in the LM — the lunar excursion module we called it — while the third crew member remained in lunar orbit, tending to the command module's systems and relaying communications from Houston. I was the crew member who remained aboard the command module.'

'Yes, yes,' said the host, 'but, gosh, after going so far, I mean, it was almost to the moon, right?'

'Two hundred forty thousand miles minus about sixty thousand feet,' said Gavin with another thin smile.

'And the others came back with some dusty moon rocks, while you came back with the eternal truth of God's Word, isn't that right, Tom?' said the host.

'That's right, Paul,' said Gavin and proceeded to tell the story of his fifty-two hours alone in the command module, of the time spent out of radio contact behind the moon, and of the sudden revelation over the Crater Tsiolkovsky when God spoke to him.

'By gosh,' said the host, 'that was a message from the real mission control, wasn't it?' The host's wife squealed and clapped her hands together. The audience applauded.

'Tom,' said the host, even more serious now, leaning forward and extending one hand to touch the astronaut's knee, 'everything you saw on that . . . on that incredible trip . . . everything you witnessed during your trip to the stars . . . I've heard you tell young people this . . . it all bore witness to the truth of God's Word as revealed in the Bible . . . it all bore witness to the glory of Jesus Christ, didn't it, Tom?'

'Absolutely, Paul,' said Gavin. He looked directly into the camera, and Baedecker saw the same resolve and angry determination there that he remembered from the team handball tournaments held between Apollo crews. 'And, Paul, as exciting and thrilling and rewarding as it was to fly to the moon that couldn't compare to the reward I found on the day that I finally accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and personal savior.' The host turned to the camera and nodded his head as if overcome. The audience applauded. The host's wife began to cry.

'And, Tom, you've had many opportunities to bear witness to this and bring others to Christ, haven't you?' asked the host.

'Absolutely, Paul. Just last month I was privileged to be in the People's Republic of China and to visit one of the few remaining seminaries there . . .' Baedecker lay back on the bed and put his wrist on his forehead. Tom had not mentioned his revelation during the three-day trip back, or in the debriefing during the week-long quarantine they had shared. Actually, Tom had not mentioned it to anyone — or acted upon it — for almost five years after the mission. Then, shortly after his distributorship had failed in Sacramento, Gavin had talked about his revelation while on a local radio talk show. Shortly after that he and Deedee had moved out to Colorado to start an evangelical organization. Baedecker wasn't surprised that Tom hadn't talked to Dave or him after the mission; the three of them had made a good crew, but they had not been as close as people might imagine given two years of training time together.

Baedecker sat up and looked at the television. '. . . we had an eminent scientist on our last program,' the host was saying, 'a Christian and a crusader for equal time for creationism in the schools . . . where children are, I'm sure you're aware, Tom, now being taught only a single, seriously flawed, godless theory that man came from monkeys and other lower life forms . . . and this eminent and respected scientist made the point that with the number of shooting stars that hit the earth each year . . . and you must have seen a lot of them when you were in space, hey, Tom?'

'Micrometeorites were a concern to the engineers,' said Gavin.

'Well, with all those millions of little . . . like little rocks, aren't they? With millions of those striking the earth's atmosphere every year, if the earth was as old as their theory says, what? Three billion years?' Four and a half, thought Baedecker. Idiot.

'Somewhere over four billion,' said Gavin.

'Yes,' smiled the host, 'this eminent Christian scientist made the point, in fact, he showed us mathematically, that if the earth was really that old, it'd be buried several miles deep in meteorite dust!' The audience applauded wildly. The host's wife clasped her hands, praised Jesus over the noise, and rocked back and forth. Gavin smiled and had the good grace to look embarrassed. Baedecker thought of the 'orange rock' that he and Dave had brought back from Marius Hills. Argon-39 and argon-40 dating had shown the chunk of troctolite breccia to be 3.95 billion years old.

'The problem with the theory of evolution,' Gavin was saying, 'is that it goes contrary to the scientific method. There is no way, given the brief human life span, to observe the so-called evolutionary mechanisms they postulate. The geological data is just too doubtful. Gaps and contradictions show up in those theories all the time, whereas all of the biblical accounts have been confirmed time and time again.'

'Yes, yes,' said the host, nodding his head emphatically.

'Praise be to Jesus,' said his wife.

'We can't trust science to answer our questions,' said Gavin. 'The human intellect is just too fallible.'

'How true, how true,' said the host.

'Praise Jesus,' said his wife, 'God's truth be made known.'

'Amen,' said Baedecker and turned off the television.

It was just after dinner, during the last minutes of twilight, when the others entered the clearing. The first two were boys — young men of college age, Baedecker realized — carrying obviously heavy backpacks with aluminum tripods lashed atop them. They ignored Baedecker and the others and hurried to dump their packs and set up the tripods. From the packs they removed foam padding and two sixteen-millimeter movie cameras. 'God, I hope there's enough light left,' said the overweight one in shorts.

'There should be,' said the other one, a tall redhead with a wisp of beard. 'This Tri-X is fast enough if he gets here pretty quick.' They concentrated on attaching their cameras to tripods and focusing on the section of trail from which they had just emerged. High overhead a hawk circled on the last of the day's thermals and let out a lazy screech. A final ray of sunlight caught its wings for a few seconds and then the evening twilight was absolute.

'Wonder what's going on,' said Gavin. He scraped out the last of his beef stew and licked the spoon clean. 'I chose this old Cimarron Creek approach to the mountain because hardly anyone ever uses it anymore.'

'They'd better get their shot pretty soon,' said Maggie. 'It's getting dark.'

'Anyone want S'mores?' asked Deedee.

There was pale movement in the gloom under the fir trees and a man appeared, bent under a long load, moving slowly but surely up the last few yards of trail into the clearing. This man also appeared to be of college age but seemed older than the two bent behind their cameras: he was dressed in a sweat-soaked blue cotton shirt, torn khaki shorts, and solid hiking boots. On his back he carried an oversized blue climbing pack with nylon webbing attached to a long, cylindrical burden wrapped in red-and-yellow sailcloth. The poles must have been fourteen feet long, extending six feet beyond the small man's bent shoulder and dragging in the dust an equal distance behind him. The man's brown hair was long and parted in the middle, hanging down in damp folds to curl in along his sharp cheekbones. As he came closer, Baedecker noticed the deep-set eyes, the sharp nose, and the short beard. The man's posture and obvious exhaustion added to Baedecker's feeling that he was watching an actor reenacting Christ's final journey up the hill to Golgotha.

'Great, Lude, we're gettin' it!' shouted the redheaded boy. 'Come on, Maria, before the light's gone! Hurry!' A young woman emerged from the darkening trail. She had short, dark hair, a long, thin face, and was wearing shorts and a halter top that seemed several sizes too large for her. She was carrying a large pack. She moved forward quickly as the bearded hiker dropped to one knee in the meadow, loosened shoulder straps, and lowered the cloth-covered poles to the ground. Baedecker heard the sound of metal striking metal. For a second the man appeared too exhausted to rise or sit; he remained on one knee, head bowed so that his hair covered his face, one arm resting on his other knee. Then the girl named Maria came forward and touched the back of his head gently.

'Great, we got it,' shouted the heavyset boy. 'Come on, we gotta get all this shit set up.' The two boys and the girl went about setting up camp while the bearded man remained kneeling.

'How odd,' said Maggie.

'Some sort of documentary,' said Gavin. 'I wonder what it's about,'said Maggie.

'Marshmallows,' said Deedee. 'Let's whittle some marshmallow-roasting sticks before it gets too dark to find them.' Tom Jr. rolled his eyes and turned his face to the dark woods.

'I'll help,' said Baedecker and rose, stretching the cramp out of his muscles. Above the ridgeline to the east, a few faint stars were visible. It was getting cold quickly now. On the far side of the meadow, the two men and the young woman had erected two small tents and were busy gathering firewood in the dark. Farther out, barely visible in the gloom, the one called Lude sat cross-legged and silent in the tall grass.

Baedecker had arrived in Denver at five-thirty in the afternoon on a Wednesday. He knew that Tom Gavin had his office in Denver but lived in Boulder, twenty miles closer to the foothills. Baedecker found a gas station and called Tom's home number. Deedee answered, was excited to heart that he had arrived, would not hear of Baedecker staying at a hotel, and suggested that he catch Tom before he left work. She gave him the phone number and address.

Gavin's evangelical organization was called Apogee and was headquartered on the second floor of a three-story bank building on East Colfax Avenue several miles from downtown Denver. Baedecker parked his car in the lot and followed posters and signs saying ONE WAY with upwardly pointing fingers and JESUS IS THE ANSWER and WHERE WILL YOU BE WHEN THE RAPTURE COMES?

The office was large and staffed with several young people who were dressed and groomed conservatively even to Baedecker's out-of-date eye. 'Can I help you, sir?' asked a young man in a white shirt and dark tie. It was very hot in the room — either they had no air-conditioning or it was not working — but the young man's collar was buttoned, the tie firmly knotted.

'I'm here to see Tom Gavin,' said Baedecker. 'I think he's expecting . . .'

'Dick!' Gavin came into sight from behind a partition. Baedecker had time to confirm how fit and trim his old crewmate looked and to extend his hand before Gavin threw his arms around him in a hug. Baedecker raised one hand in surprise. He remembered Tom Gavin as being anything but a physical person. Baedecker could not even remember seeing Tom hug his wife in public. 'Dick, you're looking great,' said Gavin, squeezing Baedecker's upper arms. 'By gosh, it's good to see you.'

'Good to see you, Tom,' said Baedecker, feeling pleased and a bit trapped at the same time. Gavin gave him another hug and led the way into his office, a cluttered cubicle formed by four partitions. Office sounds filled the warm air. Somewhere a young woman was laughing. One wall of Gavin's office was covered with framed photographs: a Saturn V rocket spotlighted at night on its mobile launch pad, the Peregrine command module with the bright limb of the moon beneath it, a group portrait of the crew in their spacesuits, a shot of the LM Discovery beginning its descent, and an autographed picture of Richard Nixon shaking Tom's hand in a Rose Garden ceremony. Baedecker knew the photographs well; duplicates or near duplicates had hung on the wall of his own office and den for twelve years. Missing from Gavin's collection was only one of NASA's standard photos from the mission — a color print blown up from a picture taken from the lunar rover's video camera of Baedecker and Dave Muldorff, indistinguishable in their bulky spacesuits, saluting the American flag with the white hills of Marius Crater in the background.

'Talk to me,' said Gavin. 'Tell me what's going on in your life, Dick.' Baedecker spoke for a minute, telling Gavin about his old job in St. Louis and his departure. He did not explain the reasons for leaving. He was not sure if he knew all the reasons.

'So you're looking for work?' asked Gavin.

'Not right now,' said Baedecker. 'I'm just traveling. I have enough money saved to be a bum for a few months. Then I'll have to look for something. I have a few offers.' He neglected to say that none of the offers interested him at all.

'Sounds great,' said Gavin. A framed poster over his desk read SURREN-

DERING YOUR LIFE TO JESUS IS THE GREATEST VICTORY YOU CAN EVER WIN. 'How's

Joan? Do you keep in touch at all?'

'I saw her in Boston last March,' said Baedecker. 'She seems very happy.'

'Great,' said Gavin. 'What about Scott? Still at . . . where was it? Boston University?'

'Not right now,' said Baedecker. He paused, debating whether to tell Gavin about his son's conversion to the teachings of the Indian 'Master.'

'Scott's spending a semester off, traveling and studying in India,' he said.

'India, wow,' said Gavin. He was smiling, relaxed, his expression open and affectionate, but in the deep-set, dark eyes Baedecker thought he saw the same cold reservoirs of reserve he could recall from their first meeting more than two decades earlier at Edwards. They had been competitors then. Baedecker did not know what they were now.

'So tell me about this,' said Baedecker. 'About Apogee.'

Gavin grinned and began speaking in a low, firm voice. It was a voice much more used to public speaking and storytelling than the one Baedecker remembered from the mission days. It had been a standing joke that Tom liked to answer in words of one syllable or less. At the time, Dave Muldorff had been nicknamed 'Rockford' because of a supposed similarity to a television detective played by James Garner, and for a while the other pilots and ground crew had called Gavin 'Coop' because of his laconic 'yeps' and 'nopes.' Tom had not been amused, and the nickname did not stick.

Now Gavin spoke of his years after the lunar mission, of leaving NASA shortly after Baedecker did, of the unsuccessful pharmaceutical distributor-ship in California. 'I was making money hand over fist, we had a big house in Sacramento and a beach house north of San Francisco, Deedee could buy anything she wanted, but I just wasn't happy . . . do you know what I mean, Dick? I just wasn't happy.' Baedecker nodded.

'And things just weren't good between Deedee and me,' Gavin went on. 'Oh, the marriage was intact, at least it looked that way to our friends, but the deep part . . . the committed part, that just wasn't there anymore. We both knew it. Then, it was one day in the fall of 1976, a friend invited Deedee and me to a Bible retreat weekend sponsored by his church. That was the beginning. For the first time — even though I'd been raised a Baptist — for the first time I really heard God's Word and realized that it applied to me. After that, Deedee and I received some Christian marriage counseling and things got better. It was during that time when I did a lot of thinking about the . . . well, the message I'd heard, felt really, while orbiting the moon. Even so, it wasn't until spring of ‘77, April fifth, that I woke up one morning and realized that if I was going to go on living that I had to put all of my faith in Jesus. All of my faith. And I did it . . . that morning . . . I got down on both knees and accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior and Lord. And I haven't been sorry since; Dick. Not one day. Not one minute.' Baedecker nodded. 'So that led to this?' he asked, nodding at the office all around them.

'Sure did!' Gavin laughed, but his eyes were still intense and unblinking. 'Not all at once though. Come on, I'll show you around, introduce you to some of the kids. We've got six people working full-time and another dozen or so volunteers.'

'Working full-time at what?' asked Baedecker.

Gavin stood up. 'Answering phones mostly,' he said. 'Apogee's a nonprofit company. The kids arrange my speaking trips, coordinate with local groups — usually ministries and Campus Crusade — put out our monthly publication, do some Christian counseling, run a drug rehabilitation program — we have specially trained people for that — and generally work the Lord's will when He shows it to us.'

'Sounds like a busy schedule,' said Baedecker. 'Sort of like the old days preparing for the mission.' Baedecker did not know why he said that; it sounded inane even to him.

'A lot like the mission,' said Gavin, putting an arm around Baedecker. 'Same busy schedule. Same sense of commitment. Same need for discipline. Only this mission is a million times more important than our trip to the moon.' Baedecker nodded and started to follow him out of the office, but Gavin stopped suddenly and turned to face him. 'Dick, you're not a Christian, are you?' Baedecker felt surprise change to anger. He had been asked that before and the question agitated him by its strange combination of aggressiveness and self-serving provincialism. Yet the answer, as always, eluded him. Baedecker's father had been a lapsed member of the Dutch Reformed Church, his mother an agnostic, if anything. Joan had been a Catholic, so for years, while Scott was growing up, Baedecker had attended Mass each Sunday. For the past decade he had been . . . what had he been? 'No,' said Baedecker, shielding his anger but returning Gavin's stare, 'I'm not a Christian.'

'I didn't think so,' said Gavin and squeezed Baedecker's arm again. Gavin smiled. 'I'm going to tell you right up front that I'll be praying that you become a Christian,' he said. 'I mean that with love, Dick. I really do.' Baedecker nodded and said nothing.

'Come on,' said Gavin. 'Let's go introduce you to these wonderful kids.'

After the cooking pots and utensils were washed in water heated over the campfire, Baedecker, Maggie, Gavin, and Tommy walked over to speak to the other campers. The group sat around their campfire and looked up as the others approached.

'Howdy,' said Gavin.

'Hi,' said the redheaded boy. The girl and the overweight young man stared up at the visitors. The one called Lude continued to stare into the fire. Firelight illuminated everyone's faces from below.

'Going over the pass and plateau to Henson Creek?' asked Gavin. 'We're going to climb Uncompahgre,' said the heavy blond boy in shorts. Gavin and the others squatted by the fire. Maggie plucked a strand of grass and chewed it. 'That's where we're headed tomorrow,' she said. 'The map says it's about another nine miles to the south ridge of Uncompahgre. That right?'

'Yeah,' said the bearded redhead. 'That's about right.' Baedecker pointed to the long metal tubing wrapped in sailcloth. 'That's quite a load to carry all the way to the mountain,' he said.

'Rogallo,' said the girl named Maria.

'Ahhh,' said Tommy, 'I shoulda guessed that. Far out.'

'Rogallo,' said Gavin. 'I see it now.'

'What's a Rogallo?' asked Maggie.

'A kite,' said the blond boy. 'A hang glider.'

'What make?' asked Baedecker.

'Phoenix VI,' said the redhead. 'You know it?'

'No,' said Baedecker.

'Going to go off the south ridge?' asked Gavin.

'Off the summit,' said Maria. She glanced sideways at the silent, long-haired man next to her. 'It's our gig, Lude's and mine.'

'Off the top,' breathed Tommy. 'All right.' The redheaded boy stirred the fire. 'We're gettin' it on film for our film-making course at C.U. We figure about forty-five minutes after editing. We're gonna enter it . . . you know . . . festivals and stuff. Maybe some sports company or something will want it as a promotional thing.'

'Should be interesting,' said Gavin. 'But tell me, why are you taking the long way in?'

'What do you mean?' asked the girl.

'This old jeep trail down the Cimarron is more than twice as long as the way if you'd driven up Henson Creek Road from Lake City and hiked north,' said Gavin.

'This is the way,' said Lude. His voice made the others pause. It was a deep, raspy voice that did not seem to leave his throat. He still had not looked up from the fire. Looking at him, Baedecker could see flames reflected in the deep orbits of the eyes.

'Well, good luck to you,' said Gavin and stood up. 'Hope the weather holds.' Baedecker and Maggie rose to leave with Gavin, but Tommy remained squatting by the fire.

'I'm going to stay a few minutes,' said the boy. 'I want to hear more about the hang glider.' Gavin paused. 'Okay, see you in a while.'

Around their own fire once again, Gavin explained the others' plans to his wife. 'Is that safe?' asked Deedee.

'It's idiocy,' said Gavin.

'Hang gliders can be pretty elegant machines,' said Baedecker.

'They can be murderous,' said Gavin. 'I knew an Eastern Airlines pilot in California who was killed in one of those things. The guy had twenty-eight years' experience flying, but it didn't help a bit when his kite stalled. He put the nose down to pick up airspeed . . . same thing I'd do, same thing you'd do, Dick. Natural instinct. But that's all wrong in one of those toys. The thing mushed in on him from fifty feet and snapped his neck.'

'And off a mountain,' said Deedee. She shook her head.

'A lot of hang glider pilots fly off mountains these days,' said Baedecker. 'I used to watch them fly at a sandhill called Chat's Dump south of St. Louis.'

'A sandhill or seacoast cliff is one thing,' said Gavin. 'Uncompahgre Peak is something else. You haven't seen it yet, Dick. Wait till you get a glimpse of it up the canyon tomorrow. Uncompahgre's a big wedding cake of a mountain, shelves and ridges running off it in every which direction.'

'Doesn't sound good for thermals,' said Baedecker.

'It would be a nightmare . . . plus there's almost always a high wind at fourteen thousand feet. It's a three-thousand-foot drop to the plateau, and even that's over ten thousand feet high . . . and most of the plateau is rocks and boulders. It would be insane to fly there.'

'Then why are they doing it?' asked Maggie. Baedecker noticed how green her eyes were in the firelight.

'Did you see that one fellow's — Lude — his arm?' asked Gavin. Maggie and Baedecker looked at each other and shook their heads. 'Track marks,' said Gavin. 'He's on something hard.' From the other campfire across the meadow came a sudden burst of laughter and a blast of music from a tape player. 'I hope Tommy comes back over soon,' said Deedee.

'Let's tell ghost stories around the fire,' suggested Maggie.

Gavin shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'Nothing supernatural or demonic. What do you say we sing camp songs?'

'Great,' said Maggie, smiling at Baedecker.

Gavin and Deedee led them in a round of 'Kum Ba Yah' while from across the darkened meadow came laughter and the taped sounds of Billy Idol singing 'Eyes without a Face.'

On Thursday evening Baedecker had been in the Gavins' family room, planning the weekend backpacking trip with them, when the front doorbell rang. Gavin had excused himself to answer it, and Baedecker was listening to Deedee tell about the problem with Tommy and his girlfriend when a voice said, 'Hello, Richard.' Baedecker looked up and stared. It was impossible that Maggie Brown was standing there in Tom Gavin's family room but there she was, wearing the same white cotton dress she had worn when they had toured the Taj Mahal together. Her hair was shorter, bleached blonder by sunlight, but the tanned and freckled face was the same, the green eyes were the same. Even the slight, somehow pleasing gap between the front teeth attested to the fact that it was, indeed, Maggie Brown. Baedecker stared.

Gavin said, 'The lady asked if she'd come to the right house to find the famous astronaut Richard E. Baedecker. I said sho' ‘nuff.' Later, while Tom and Deedee watched television, Baedecker and Maggie took a walk down the Pearl Street Mall. Baedecker had come to Boulder once before — a five-day visit in 1969 when their team of eight rookie astronauts had studied geology there and used the university's Fiske Planetarium for astrogation exercises — and the mall had not existed then. Pearl Street, in the heart of old Boulder, had been just another dusty, heavily trafficked western street, populated with drugstores, discount clothing stores, and family restaurants. Now it had been turned into a four-block walking mall, shaded by trees, landscaped with rolling hills and flowers, and bordered by expensive little shops where the cheapest thing one could buy was a single-dip Häagen-Dazs ice cream cone for $1.50. In the two blocks Baedecker and Maggie had already walked, they had passed five street musicians, a chanting Hare Krishna group, a four-person juggling act, a lone tightrope walker stringing his wire between two kiosks, and an ethereal young man wearing only a burlap robe and a gold pyramid on his head.

'Why did you come?' Baedecker asked.

Maggie looked at him, and Baedecker felt a strange sensation, as if a cool hand had suddenly cusped the back of his neck. 'You called me,' she said.

Baedecker stopped. Nearby a man was playing a violin with more enthusiasm than skill. His violin case lay open on the ground with two dollar bills and three quarters in it. 'I called to see how you were,' Baedecker said. 'How Scott was when you saw him last. I just wanted to make sure you got back from India all right. When the girl at the dorm said that you were still visiting your family, I decided not to leave a message. How did you know it was me? How on earth did you find me?' Maggie smiled, and there was a hint of mischief in her green eyes. 'No mystery, Richard. One, I knew it was you. Two, I called your company in St. Louis. They told me you'd recently resigned and moved away, but no one seemed to know where you'd gone until I talked to Teresa in Mr. Prescott's office. She found the emergency forwarding address you'd left. I had the weekend off. Here I am.' Baedecker blinked. 'Why?' Maggie sat on a low redwood bench, and Baedecker sat down next to her. A breeze rustled the leaves above them and set lamplight and shadow dancing across them both. Half a block away there was a burst of applause as the tightrope walker did something interesting. 'I wanted to see how your search was going,' she said.

Baedecker stared blankly at her. 'What search?' he asked.

As if in answer, Maggie unbuttoned the top two buttons of her white dress. She lifted a necklace in the dim light and it took Baedecker a few seconds to recognize the Saint Christopher's medal he had given her in Poona. It was the medal his father had given him in 1952 on the day Baedecker had left for the Marine Corps. It was the medal he had taken to the moon and back. Baedecker shook his head. 'No,' he said, 'you didn't understand.'

'Yes, I did,' said Maggie.

'No,' said Baedecker. 'You admitted that you made a mistake following Scott to India. You're making a bigger mistake now.'

'I didn't follow Scott to India,' said Maggie. 'I went to India to see how he was doing because I believed that he was passionately involved in asking questions that I happen to think are important.' She paused. 'I was wrong. He wasn't interested in asking questions, only in finding answers.'

'What's the difference?' asked Baedecker. He felt the conversation slipping out of his control, dropping away from him like an aircraft that had reached stall speed.

'The difference is that Scott took the line of least resistance,' said Maggie. 'Like most people, he found it too uncomfortable to be out in the open, unsheltered by some shadow of authority. So when the questions got too hard, he settled for easy answers.' Baedecker shook his head again. 'This is gobbledygook,' he said. 'You've got things all mixed up. You have me mixed up with somebody else, Maggie. I'm just a middle-aged guy who's tired of his job and just well-off enough to take a few months of unearned vacation.'

'Bullshit,' said Maggie. 'Remember our conversation in Benares? About places of power?' Baedecker laughed. 'Right,' he said. He pointed to two young men in ragged shorts who had just passed, weaving their skateboards through the crowd. Behind them came a runner in tight shorts and a self-conscious pride in his body as evident as the sweat that glistened on his tanned skin. Stepping out of his way was a pack of surly-looking teenagers with purple mohawks. 'I'm getting closer, aren't I?' he said.

Maggie shrugged. 'Maybe this weekend,' she said. 'Mountains have always been fairly reliable as places of power.'

'And if I don't come down off what's-its-name . . . off Uncompahgre Peak with a couple of stone tablets, then you'll go back to Boston on Monday and get on with your education?' asked Baedecker.

'We'll see,' said Maggie.

'Look, Maggie, I think we have to . . .' began Baedecker.

'Hey, look, that guy's sitting on a chair up there on his wire,' she said. 'It looks like he's doing magic tricks. Come on, let's go watch.' She tugged Baedecker to his feet. 'I'll buy you a chocolate cone after.'

'So you like tightrope walkers and tricks?' he asked.

'I like magic,' said Maggie and pulled him along with her.

'Six-six-six is the mark of the beast,' said Deedee. 'It's on my Sears charge card.'

'What?' said Baedecker. The campfire had burned down to embers. It was quite cold out. Baedecker had pulled on a wool sweater and his old nylon flight jacket. Maggie huddled next to him in a bulky goosedown coat. The campfire across the meadow had gone out some time earlier, the four young people had gone to their tents, and Tommy had stumbled back and silently crawled into the tent he would be sharing with Baedecker.

'Revelation thirteen: sixteen, seventeen,' said Deedee. 'And he causes all small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a MARK in their right hand, or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save that he has the MARK, or the name of the beast, or the number of a man: and his number is six hundred, threescore and six.''

'On your Sears card?' asked Maggie.

'Not only there, but on their monthly statements also,' said Deedee. Her voice was low, soft, serious.

'The Sears card shouldn't be a problem unless you carry it on your forehead, should it?' asked Baedecker.

Gavin leaned forward and threw two twigs on the fire. Sparks rose and mingled with the stars. 'It's really not funny, Dick,' he said. 'Revelation has been amazingly accurate in predicting events leading up to the beginning of the tribulations era. The code six-six-six is used frequently by computers . . . and on Visa and MasterCard accounts as well. The Bible says that the Antichrist will be the leader of a ten-nation confederation in Europe. Well, it might be coincidence, but the big computer in the Common Market Administration Building in Brussels is called ‘the beast' by some of its programmers. It takes up three floors.'

'So what?' said Baedecker. 'The NASA centers at Huntsville and Houston used more computer space back in ‘71. It just meant that computers were clumsier then, took up more room, not the coming of an Antichrist.'

'Yes,' said Gavin, 'but that was before the UPC was developed.'

'UPC?' asked Maggie. She shivered and shifted a little closer to Baedecker as a cold wind came up.

'Universal Product Code,' said Gavin. 'Those stripes on all the packages you buy. Like at the supermarket . . . the laser scanner reads the code and the computer records the item price.'

'I shop at a little corner market in Boston,' said Maggie. 'I don't think they even have an electric cash register.'

'They will have one,' said Gavin. He was smiling, but his lips formed only a thin line. 'By 1994 the UPC scanners will be in use everywhere . . . at least in this country.' Baedecker rubbed his eyes and coughed as the smoke drifted his way. 'Yes, Tom,' he said, 'but the scanner reads the price markings on my cans of soup and packages of Tater Tots, not on my forehead.'

'Laser tattoos,' said Gavin. 'Professor R. Keith Farrell of Washington State University developed a laser tattoo gun several years ago for registering fish. It's fast — takes less than a microsecond — is painless, and can be invisible except to UV laser scanners. Social security checks already carry an F or an H under their computer coding. It almost certainly stands for ‘forehead or hand.' The next step will be for the government to begin marking social security recipients themselves for fast identification and coding.'

'That would be handy to get back into rock concerts,' said Maggie.

Deedee leaned forward into the red light of the dying campfire. Her voice was soft. '‘If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they rest no day or night, who worship the beast and image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.'' Deedee smiled shyly. 'Revelation fourteen: nine to eleven.'

'Gosh,' said Maggie and there was admiration in her voice, 'how do you memorize all that? I couldn't memorize the first two stanzas of Thanatopsis in high school.' Gavin reached across and took Deedee's hand. 'Maybe an easier verse to memorize is John three: sixteen, seventeen,' he said. '‘I find no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.'' A few heavy raindrops hissed in the fire. Baedecker looked up to see the stars gone, the sky above as dark as the black canyon walls. 'Damn,' he said, 'I wanted to sleep outside tonight.'

Baedecker lay in the small tent and thought about his divorce. It was a topic he rarely tried to bring to mind; the memories were as blurred and painful as those of the two months he had spent in the hospital after crashing an F-104 in 1962. He rolled over, but the rough ground poked at him through the sleeping bag and thin foam pad. Tommy Jr. snored next to him. The boy smelled of wine and pot. Outside, a few raindrops pattered on the tent, and the Cimarron River, no wider than a stream, made gurgling sounds thirty feet away.

Baedecker's divorce had been finalized in August of 1986, only two weeks before their twenty-eighth wedding anniversary. Baedecker had flown to Boston for the formalities, coming a day early to stay at Carl Bumbry's house. He had forgotten that Carl's wife had been a closer friend to Joan than Carl had been to him. The next night was spent at the Holiday Inn in Cambridge.

Two hours before going to court, Baedecker dressed in his best three-piece summer suit. Joan liked the suit, had helped him pick it out two years earlier. A few minutes before it was time to leave, Baedecker realized that he knew precisely what dress Joan would wear to the divorce proceedings. She would not have bought a new one, because she would never wear it again. She would not wear her favorite white dress or the more formal green suit. Only the purple cotton dress would be light enough and formal enough for her on this day. And Baedecker had always disliked the color purple.

Baedecker immediately changed into tennis shorts, a blue T-shirt, and tennis shoes. He put his sweat-stained wristband on and threw the racquet and a canister of balls in the backseat of his rented car. Before going into court, he called Carl Bumbry and arranged for a four-thirty game at Carl's club immediately following the divorce action.

Joan wore the purple dress. Baedecker spoke to her before and after the brief ceremony but later could remember nothing of what they said to each other. He did remember the score of the tennis match — Carl had won 6-0, 6-3, 6-4 — and Baedecker could recall vividly details of play from each set. After the match Baedecker showered, changed clothes, tossed his clothes into his old military flight bag, and drove north to Maine.

He went alone to Monhegan Island, he realized later, because Joan had always wanted to go there. Long before they had moved to Boston, even back during the hot, Houston days, Joan had been intrigued by the thought of spending time on the little island off the coast of Maine. They had never found the time.

For Baedecker, the image that stuck in his mind was of his arrival after an hour's boat-ride on the Laura B. The little boat had entered a thick fog bank a mile or two from the coast and water was beaded along the ship's wires and lines. People had quit conversing; even the youngsters playing near the bow had stopped their shouts and horseplay. The last ten minutes of the ride had been made in silence. Then they passed the two breakwaters of broken concrete slabs and moved into the harbor. Gray-shingled houses and dripping piers shifted in and out of existence as the fog curled, lifted, and settled again. Gulls wheeled and dived above the wake of the boat, their cries ripping the silence into sharp-edged fragments. Baedecker had been standing near the port rail, alone, when he noticed the people standing on the dock. At first he could not be sure they were people; they stood so straight and still. Then the fog lifted and he could make out the colorful sports shirts, the vacation hats, even the make of cameras hanging around some of their necks.

It had given Baedecker a strange feeling. He learned later that the crowd gathered twice a day to meet the boat: tourists heading back to the mainland, islanders greeting guests, and vacationers, bored by the lack of electricity on the island, merely waiting to see the boat. But although Baedecker spent three days on the island, reading, sleeping, exploring the trails and druidish woods, he would later remember only the image of the dock and the fog and the figures standing silently. It was a scene from Hades with shades of the long-dead waiting passively to greet the newly departed. Sometimes, especially when Baedecker was tired and tempted to recall details of the divorce and the painful year that preceded it, he would dream that he was on that dock, in the fog, a gray form in a gray mist, waiting.

The rain stopped. Baedecker closed his eyes and listened to the river moving over rocks in the streambed below. Somewhere in the forest an owl called, but Baedecker heard it as the screech and cry of gulls calling above the sea.

Tommy Jr. was throwing up when Baedecker awoke. The boy had managed to get his head and shoulders out of the tent. Now his legs kicked and his back arched with each series of spasms.

Baedecker pulled on his shirt and jeans and squeezed out the other flap. It was almost seven A.M. but the sunlight had not touched the canyon yet, and there was a deep chill in the air. Tommy had finished vomiting and was resting his face on his arm. Baedecker knelt next to him and asked if there was anything he could do, but already Deedee was bustling over from her own tent, swabbing the boy's face with a damp handkerchief, and murmuring reassurances.

Several minutes later Maggie joined Gavin and Baedecker at the breakfast campfire. Her face was pink from washing at the icy stream and her short hair looked recently brushed. She wore khaki shorts and a bright red shirt. 'What's wrong with Tommy?' she asked as she accepted hot water from the pot and stirred instant coffee into her Sierra cup.

'Altitude maybe,' suggested Baedecker.

'Not altitude,' said Gavin. 'Probably something those hippies gave him last night.' He gestured to the other side of the meadow where a cold fire ring and trampled grass were the only sign the others had been there.

'When did they leave?' asked Maggie.

'Before dawn,' said Gavin. 'When we should've been moving. We'll never make the summit of Uncompahgre today.'

'What's the plan?' asked Baedecker. 'Shall we pack back down to the car?' Gavin looked startled. 'No, no, the schedule might work out better this way. Look.' He pulled out the topographic map and spread it on a rock. 'I'd planned for us to reach here last night.' He stabbed a finger down on a white area far up the canyon. 'But because of the late start from Boulder and our slow pace yesterday, we camped here.' He pointed to a green area several miles north. 'So we'll take it easy today, pack up to the plateau today, and camp here tonight.' He pointed to an area southwest of Uncompahgre Peak.

'That way we'll get an early start on Sunday morning. Deedee and I hate to miss church, but we'll be there for the evening services.'

'Where was it that you left the other car?' asked Baedecker.

'Right here,' said Gavin, pointing to a green area on the map. 'It's just a few miles south of the pass and plateau. After we do the mountain, we hike out, pick up the other car on the way north, and we're on our way home.' Maggie studied the map. 'That campsite would be high,' she said. 'Over eleven thousand feet. It looks like it would be pretty exposed if the weather gets bad.' Gavin shook his head. 'I checked with the weather service yesterday and there is only a fifteen percent chance of showers in this region through Monday. Besides, there will be plenty of sheltered places as we get close to the south ridge there.' Maggie nodded but did not look satisfied.

'I wonder how the hang glider group is doing,' said Baedecker. He looked up the canyon but could see no one on the few stretches of trail visible between the trees. The sunlight was moving down the west wall of rock to their right, exposing strata of pink rock like muscle and tissue opening to a scalpel's blade.

'If they had any sense, they turned around and headed back north toward Cimarron,' said Gavin. 'Come on, let's get things packed up.'

'What about Tommy?' asked Maggie.

'He'll come along with Deedee in a few minutes,' said Gavin.

'Do you think he'll feel up to it?' asked Baedecker. 'According to the map, the next ten miles are all uphill.'

'He'll feel up to it,' said Gavin and there was no hint of doubt in his voice.

It was not so bad after the sheer hell of the first hour.

Despite the food consumed, the pack seemed heavier at first than it had the previous day. The canyon continued to narrow and so did the trail, winding along the canyon wall above the stream. Here and there a mudslide or fallen tree had the three of them moving carefully on a steep slope of rock or grass sixty feet above the water. At first Baedecker was convinced that the hang glider group could not have come this way, but then he began noticing bootprints in the soft dirt and furrows in the mud where the poles had been dragged. Baedecker shook his head and continued on.

By nine A.M. the direct sunlight was burning on the rock and filling the air with the scent of heated pine and fir trees. Baedecker poured sweat. He wanted to stop and change from his jeans into a pair of shorts, but he was afraid that if he fell behind the other two he might never catch up. There was no sign of Deedee or Tom Jr. on the trail behind them, but Deedee had been cheery enough when they said good-bye after striking camp. Tom Gavin never really rested, he just stopped moving for a few seconds, fidgeted from foot to foot while squinting ahead up the trail, then only to say 'Ready?' and be off and moving before either Maggie or Baedecker could reply.

After the first hour it was not so bad. By the second hour Baedecker had fallen into a rhythm of pain and panting, which seemed tolerable enough. Sometime before noon they came around a bend of rock, and two tall peaks were visible ahead, the summits still holding pockets of snow despite the hot summer just past. Gavin identified the tiered, flat-topped peak as Uncompahgre and the sharper one as the Wetterhorn. A third summit was just visible above the ridgeline. 'Uncompahgre looks like a wedding cake, the Wetterhorn looks a little like the real Matterhorn, and the Matterhorn does-n't look at all like the real Matterhorn,' said Gavin.

'Gotcha,' said Baedecker.

They continued up the deteriorating trail past spires of red rock and occasional waterfalls. The Douglas firs were eighty feet tall in places, rising high above any area flat enough for them. They passed through a thick cluster of ponderosa pine and Maggie had them all sniffing the trees, explaining that the sap of the ponderosa smelled like butterscotch. Baedecker found a recent scar, sniffed the sap, and announced that it was definitely chocolate. Maggie called him a pervert. Gavin suggested that they all move a little faster.

They had lunch where Silver Creek ran into the Cimarron River. The trail had been completely eroded away, and it had taken the three of them half an hour to pick their way down the last few hundred yards of scree to the floor of the canyon. Baedecker looked back down the canyon, but there was still no sign of Deedee or Tommy. To the south the trail resumed on the opposite side of the river, but Baedecker could see no easy way across the twenty-five feet of water. He wondered how Lude and Maria and the others had managed to cross.

Maggie wandered away up Silver Creek and came back a minute later to lead Baedecker to where a dozen violet columbines grew near a fallen log. A ring of Engleman and Blue Spruce enclosed a small clearing carpeted with grass and ferns. A tiny stream bubbled through it, and scores of white-and-purple flowers spotted the grass despite the lateness of the season. Somewhere nearby a woodpecker was tapping out a frenzied code.

'Great place to camp,' said Baedecker.

'Yes,' said Maggie. 'And a great place not to camp, too.' She took out a Hershey bar and broke it in half, offering Baedecker the half with more almonds.

Gavin strode into the clearing. He had reshouldered his heavy pack and had binoculars dangling around his neck. 'Look,' he said, 'I'm going to ford the river down there above where the creek comes in. I'll leave a line across it. Then I'm going to reconnoiter the trail up the west side there. It should be about a half mile to that final set of switchbacks. I'll wait for you above tree line, okay?'

'Okay,' said Baedecker.

'The map says that the old Silver Jack Mine is up this creek,' said Maggie. 'Why don't we take a few minutes to hike up to it? Deedee and Tommy should be along pretty soon.' Gavin smiled and shrugged. 'Suit yourself. I want to get up on that plateau to find a campsite so we can scout the south ridge before nightfall.' Maggie nodded and Gavin strode away. Baedecker accompanied him down to the river to make sure there were no problems when he forded the quick current. When Gavin reached the other side, he waved and secured his rope to a tree near the bank. Baedecker returned the wave and walked back to the clearing.

Maggie was lying on her red shirt. Her midriff and shoulders were darkly tanned, but her breasts were white, the nipples a delicate shade of pink.

'Oh,' said Baedecker and sat down on a log.

Maggie lifted her hand to shield her eyes and looked at him. 'Does this make you uncomfortable, Richard?' When Baedecker hesitated, Maggie sat up and pulled on her shirt. 'There, decent again,' she said with a smile. 'Or at least covered up.' Baedecker plucked two long strands of grass, peeled the ends, and offered one to Maggie.

'Thanks.' She looked up toward the west wall of the canyon. 'Your friends are interesting,' she said.

'Tom and Deedee?' said Baedecker. 'What do you think?'

Maggie returned his level gaze. 'I think they're your friends,' she said. 'I'm their guest.' Baedecker chewed on his stem of grass and nodded. 'I'd like your opinion,' he said after a while.

Maggie smiled and looked up at the sun. 'Well, after last night's numerology sermon, I was tempted to say that these folks have their porch light on but nobody's home.' She chewed off a bit of grass. 'But that's not fair. It's unkind. I guess Tom and Deedee just represent a certain type that I have strong reservations about,' she said.

'Born-again Christians?' said Baedecker.

Maggie shook her head. 'No, people who trade their brains in for sacred truths that can be boiled down to poster slogans.'

'It sounds like we're still talking about Scott,' said Baedecker.

Maggie did not deny it. 'What do you think of Tom?' she asked.

Baedecker thought a minute. 'Well,' he said at last, 'there's a story from our early training days that I've been reminded of recently.'

'Great,' said Maggie. 'I'm a sucker for stories.'

'It's a long one.'

'I'm a sucker for long stories,' said Maggie.

'Well, we were out on two weeks of survival training,' said Baedecker. 'For the grand finale they broke us into teams of three — crews actually — flew us out into the New Mexico desert somewhere northwest of White Sands, and gave us three days to find our way back to civilization. We had our Swiss army knives, some booklets on edible plants, and one compass between us.'

'Sounds like fun,' said Maggie.

'Yeah,' said Baedecker, 'NASA thought so too. If we didn't show up in five days, they would've started a search pattern. They weren't too keen on losing any of their second-generation astronauts. So anyway, our team was the same as the crew we had later — me, Dave Muldorff, and Tom. Even then, Tom always worked harder than anyone else. Even after he made the cut . . . getting into the astronaut corps, crew selection, whatever . . . he still would work twice as hard as he had to, as if he was always on the verge of washing out. Well, all of us felt like that some of the time, but it never seemed to let up with Tom.

'Our other teammate was Dave Muldorff — we sometimes called him Rockford back then — and Dave was just the opposite. Dave once told me that the only philosophy he adhered to was Ohm's Law — find the path of least resistance and follow it. Actually, Dave was a lot like Neil Armstrong . . . they'd give a thousand percent and come out on top when they had to, but you'd never see either one of them up at dawn running laps. The main difference between Muldorff and Armstrong was that Dave had a weird sense of humor.

'So anyway, our first day in the boonies went all right. We found a water source and figured out a way to carry some with us. Tom caught a lizard before nightfall and wanted to eat it raw, but Dave and I decided to wait a bit on that. We had our course set to cross a road we knew ran into the mountains, and we were sure we'd find it sooner or later. On the second day, Tom was ready to have the lizard for lunch, but Dave convinced us to get by on plants for a while longer and save the main course for dinner. Then, about two o'clock that afternoon, Dave began acting strange. He kept sniffing the ground and saying that he could smell the way to civilization. Tom suggested sunstroke and we both got pretty alarmed. We tried to tie a T-shirt around Dave's head, but he just howled at the sky and took off running.

'We caught up to him within a quarter of a mile; when we came over a rock ridge, there was Muldorff in the middle of this desolate arroyo sitting in a lawn chair under a beach umbrella, drinking a cold beer. He had a transistor radio going, a cooler full of ice and beer under his feet, and a swimming pool — one of those little inflatable ones that kids use — a pool a few feet away with an inflatable raft and a couple of rubber ducks in it. And you have to remember that we were in the middle of nowhere — still about sixty miles from the nearest road.

'After he got through laughing, Dave told us how he did it. He had a WAF clerk at the base commander's office get into the files and find the proposed drop points for the various NASA teams. Then Dave vectored our probable route back and got a friend of his who was flying choppers out of White Sands to ferry the junk out to this arroyo. Dave thought it was funny as hell. Tom didn't. He was so mad at first that he turned his back and walked away from Dave and his beach umbrella and his rock music. At first I sort of agreed with Tom. Dave's stunt was the kind of thing that used to drive NASA absolutely apeshit. The agency had no sense of humor at all as far as we could tell. Our whole team could've been in big trouble.

'But after a beer or two, Dave packed all the stuff in behind a boulder and we got back to survival training. Tom didn't speak to him for twenty-four hours. Worse than that, I don't think Tom ever completely forgave or forgot for the two years we worked together after that. At first I thought it was just that he was angry about Dave screwing up our training and jeopardizing Tom's perfect record. Then I realized that it was more than that. Dave had broken the rules and Tom could never quite get around that. And there was one other thing . . .'

'What's that?' asked Maggie.

Baedecker leaned forward and whispered. 'Well, I think Tom was really looking forward to eating that damned lizard and Dave had taken some of the flavor out of it.'

Deedee and Tom Jr. showed up when Baedecker and Maggie were preparing to cross the river, and the four forded together. Tommy looked pale and somewhat subdued but remained as sullen as before. Deedee was chipper enough for both of them. The river was never more than knee-deep, but the current was swift and the water was ice-cold. Baedecker waited until the others were across, untied the rope from the east bank, and brought it across with him.

Forty-five minutes later they passed a waterfall, crossed the stream again — on a fallen log this time — and soon after that they were climbing switchbacks. The summit of the Matterhorn loomed above them and each time they paused to rest, more of Uncompahgre Peak had become visible to the southeast. They were within a few miles of the mountain now, and Baedecker began to realize how large the massif actually was. It reminded him of the huge mesas and buttes he had seen in New Mexico and Arizona, but this one was sharper, steeper, and it rose not from the desert but from a ten-thousand-foot plateau.

By mid-afternoon they had completed the last series of switchbacks and emerged onto the high tundra. The transformation was startling. The thick pine forests of the canyon had given way to a few aged and stunted fir trees, often weathered to the point there were no branches at all on their western and northern sides, and then to tall clumps of ground juniper, and then even these had disappeared and only grass and the low, red-and-tan gorse covered the rocky tundra. To Baedecker, coming up over the last ridge from the canyon was like stepping from the top rung of a ladder onto the roof of a tall building.

From the high pass they were now traversing, Baedecker could see dozens of greater and lesser mountain peaks and a seemingly endless vista of passes, ridges, high meadows, and softly undulating tundra. Patches of snow mottled the landscape. Overhead, a scattering of fluffy cumulus stretched to the serrated horizon, the white against blue above almost blending into the white against brown below.

Baedecker paused, panting, feeling the sweat pour from him, his lungs still demanding more oxygen than they could supply. 'Fantastic,' he said.

Maggie was grinning. She removed a red kerchief she had been using as a headband and mopped her face. She touched Baedecker's arm and pointed to the northeast where sheep were grazing along a rolling stretch of alpine meadow several ridges away. The gray bodies mixed with the clouds and snowfields and cloud shadows to give a sense of dappled movement across the entire panorama.

'Fantastic,' Baedecker said again. His heart was pounding at his ribs. He felt as if he had left some dark part of him behind in the shadows of the canyon. Maggie offered him her water bottle. He was aware of her arm touching his as he drank.

Tommy slumped down on a rock and poked at a clump of moss campion with his walking stick. Deedee smiled and looked around. 'There's Tom,' she said and pointed to a small figure far across the pass. 'It looks like he's setting up the tent already.'

'This is marvelous,' Baedecker said softly to himself. For some reason he felt light-headed in the cool, thin air. He gave the water bottle to Maggie and she drank deeply, throwing her head back so that her short, blond curls caught the sunlight.

Maggie offered the water bottle to Deedee, but the older woman took her hand instead. With her other hand she seized Baedecker's fingers. The three stood in a rough circle. Deedee bowed her head. 'Thank you, O Lord,' she said, 'for allowing us to witness the perfection of Your Creation and for sharing this special moment with dear friends who will, with the help of the Holy Spirit, come to know the truth of Thy Word. In Jesus' name we ask. Amen.' Deedee patted Baedecker's hand and looked at him. 'It is marvelous,' she said. There were tears in her eyes. 'And admit it, Richard,' she said, 'don't you wish Joan were here to share this with us?'

Their campsite had three tents arranged around a tall, flat-topped boulder that stood alone at the locus of a great circle of tundra. There was no firewood at that altitude except for the branches of the low shrubbery that grew between the rocks, so they set their two backpack stoves on a flat rock next to the boulder and watched the blue propane flames as the stars came out.

Before dinner they had reconnoitered their route as the shadows of the Wetterhorn and the Matterhorn covered the plateau and moved up the terraced sides of Uncompahgre. 'There,' said Gavin and handed the binoculars to Baedecker. 'Right at the base of the south ridge.' Baedecker looked and could make out a low, red tent set back in the shadows of the rocks. Two figures moved around it, storing equipment and working over a small stove. Baedecker handed back the binoculars. 'I see two of them,' he said. 'I wonder where the girl and the guy carrying the hang glider are.'

'Up there,' said Maggie and pointed toward the high ridge just at the point where sunlight still struck the massif.

Gavin focused his binoculars. 'I see them. That idiot is still dragging the kite along.'

'He can't be planning to fly it tonight, can he?' asked Maggie.

Gavin shook his head. 'No, he's still hours from the summit. They're just getting as high as they can before nightfall.' He handed the binoculars to Maggie.

'The early-morning conditions would be best for what he wants to do,' said Baedecker. 'Strong thermals. Not too much wind.' Maggie gave him the binoculars and Baedecker swept the ridge twice before finding the small figures high on the jagged spine of the mountain. Sunlight illuminated the red-and-yellow carrying bag as the little man bent under the burden of the aluminum and Dacron bundle. The woman followed several paces behind, bent under her own load of a large frame pack with two sleeping bags. As Baedecker watched, the sunlight left the mountain and the two struggling silhouettes became indistinguishable from the tumble of spires and boulders along the ridge.

'Uh-oh,' said Maggie. She was looking toward the west. The sun had not set, but along the horizon lay a band of blue-black clouds that had swallowed the last light of day.

'Probably miss us,' said Gavin. 'The wind is to the southeast.'

'I hope so,' said Maggie.

Baedecker turned the binoculars back on the south ridge, but the two human figures there were too insignificant to stand out as storm and nightfall approached.

Stars continued to burn overhead, but in the west all was darkness. The four adults huddled near the stoves and drank hot tea while Tommy sat four feet above them on the boulder and stared off to the north. It was very cold, and there was no hint of wind.

'You've never met Dick's wife, Joan, have you, Maggie?' asked Deedee. 'No,' said Maggie, 'I haven't met her.'

'Joan's a wonderful person,' said Deedee. 'She has the patience of a saint.

Her personality is perfectly suited to a camping trip like this because nothing phases her. She takes things in her stride.'

'Where are you going after Colorado?' Gavin asked Baedecker.

'Oregon. I thought I'd stop and see Rockford.'

'Rockford?' said Gavin. 'Oh, Muldorff. It's too bad about his illness.'

'What illness?' asked Baedecker.

'Joan was the most patient of all the wives,' Deedee said to Maggie. 'When the men would be gone for days . . . weeks . . . all of us would get a little cranky . . . even me, I'm afraid . . . but Joan never complained. I don't think I once heard Joan complain in all of the years I knew her.'

'He was hospitalized last June,' said Gavin.

'I know,' said Baedecker. 'I thought that was for appendicitis. He's all right now, isn't he?'

'Joan was a Christian then, but she hadn't really given herself to Jesus,' said Deedee. 'Now she and Phillip . . . he's an accountant . . .? I understand that they're very active in an evangelical church in Boston.'

'It wasn't appendicitis,' said Gavin. 'I talked to Jim Bosworth who lobbies on the Hill in Washington. He says that Muldorff's friends in the House know that he has Hodgkin's disease. He had his spleen removed last June.'

'Do you attend a church there, dear? In Boston, I mean.'

'No,' said Maggie.

'Oh, well,' said Deedee. 'I just thought you might have run into Joan if you did. The world is such a small place that way, isn't it?'

'Is it?' asked Maggie.

'The prognosis isn't good, I don't think,' said Gavin. 'But then, there's always the possibility of a miracle.'

'Yes, it really is,' said Deedee. 'One time when we were all getting ready for the men's mission, Joan called me and asked if I'd come over to stay with their little boy while she went out shopping for Dick's birthday present. I had a friend visiting from Dallas but I said, ‘Sure, we'll both come over.' Well, Scott was about seven then and Tommy was three or four . . .'

Baedecker stood up, crossed to his tent, crawled inside, and heard no more.

When Baedecker was seven or eight, sometime early in the war, he had accompanied his father on a fishing trip to a reservoir somewhere in Illinois. It had been the first overnight fishing trip he had been allowed to go on. He remembered sleeping in the same bed with his father in a tourist cabin near the lake and going out in the morning into a hot, brilliant late-summer day. The broad expanse of water seemed to both muffle and amplify all sounds. The foliage along the gravel road going down to the dock seemed too dense to penetrate, and the leaves were already covered with dust by six-thirty in the morning.

The small ritual of preparing the boat and outboard motor was exciting, a leave-taking within the larger trip. The life jacket was reassuring in its bulky, fish-smelling clumsiness. Their little boat moved slowly across the reservoir, cutting through the calm water, stirring sluggish rainbows where oil had been spilled, the throb of the ten-horsepower motor blending with the smell of gasoline and fish scales to create a perfect sense of place and perspective in Baedecker's young consciousness.

The old highway bridge had been stranded far out from shore when the dam had bottled up the river some years before. Now only two broken fragments of the span remained, glaring white as exposed thighbones against the blue sky and dark water.

The young Baedecker was fascinated with the idea of boarding the bridges, of standing on them far out on the hot expanse of lake, of fishing from them. Baedecker knew that his father wanted to troll. He knew the infinite patience with which his father would fish, watching the line for hours almost without blinking, letting the boat creep across the lake or even drift with the motor off. Baedecker did not have his father's patience. Already the boat seemed too small, their progress far too slow. The compromise was to let the boy off — still wrapped in his bulky life jacket — while his father explored the nearby inlets for a promising hole. He made Baedecker promise that he would stay in the center of the larger of the two spans.

The sense of isolation was wonderful. He watched as his father's boat disappeared from sight around a point and continued watching until the last echoes of the outboard faded away. The sunlight was very hot, and the effect of watching his fish line and bobber soon became hypnotic. The small waves lapping at the moss-covered undersides of the bridge six feet below created an illusion of movement, as if the two segments of bridge were moving slowly across the reservoir. Within half an hour the heat and sense of motion created a slight nausea in the boy, a throbbing pulse of vertigo. He pulled in his line, propped the pole against the cracked concrete railing, and sat on the roadbed. It was too hot. He took off his life jacket and felt better as sweat dried on his back.

He was not aware of the instant when the idea of jumping from one section of the bridge to the other occurred to him. The two pieces of the shattered span were separated by no more than eight feet of water. The smaller span's roadbed was six feet above the water, but the larger section upon which Baedecker stood had not settled as much as the other and was almost a foot higher, making the jump seem even easier.

The thought of jumping quickly became an obsession, a pressure swelling in Baedecker's chest. Several times he paced his steps to the edge of his span, planning his run, rehearsing his leap. For some reason he was sure that his father would be pleased and amused when he returned to find his son on the different section of bridge. Several times he worked up his nerve, began the run, and stopped. Each time he felt the fear rise in his throat and he would stop, his sneakers making rough sounds on the concrete. He stood there panting, his fair skin burning in the hot sunshine, his face flushed with embarrassment. Then he turned back, took five long steps, and leaped.

He tried to leap. At the last possible second he tried to stop his forward momentum, his right foot slid out over the edge of the span, and he fell. He managed to twist in midair, there was a tremendous blow to his midsection, and then he was dangling — his feet and lower legs hanging above the water, his elbows and forearms flat on the roadbed.

He had hurt himself. His arms and hands were badly scraped, there was the taste of blood in his mouth, and his stomach and ribs ached more than he had ever imagined possible. He did not have the strength left to pull himself up onto the bridge surface. His knees were under the slab of the roadbed and try as he might he could not lift his legs high enough to find purchase on the cracked concrete. The lake water seemed to create a suction that threatened to pull him in. Baedecker quit struggling and hung there with only the friction against his torn hands and arms keeping him from sliding backwards into the lake. With his child's imagination he could see the great depths of darkness that lay beneath the bridge, could sense the submerged trees far below the surface, and could feel his descent to the muddy lake bottom. He could imagine the drowned streets and houses and graveyards of the valley turned reservoir, all waiting beneath the dark waters. Waiting for him.

Two feet in front of Baedecker's eyes, a weed grew out of a narrow fissure in the bridge surface. He could not reach it. It would not hold him if he did. He felt the saving pressure on his torn hands and arms lessening. His shoulders ached and he knew that it was only minutes, perhaps seconds, until his trembling upper arms gave way and he would slide backward with a terrible rasping of palms and forearms across the burning concrete.

Then, dreaming but rising from his dream like a diver rising from depths, Baedecker became aware of the wind rising and the tent flapping and of the smell of rain approaching, but he could also clearly hear — as he had heard forty-five years before — the steady throb of the approaching outboard motor, falling into silence now, and then the touch of strong hands on his side and the calm sound of his father's voice. 'Let go, Richard. Jump. It's all right. I've got you. Let go, Richard.'

Thunder was rumbling. A cold wind blew in when the tent flap was parted. Maggie Brown slid in, settled her foam pad and sleeping bag next to his.

'What?' said Baedecker. His palms and arms were sore.

'Tommy wanted to trade places,' whispered Maggie. 'I think he wants to do some solitary drinking. I said okay. Shhh.' Maggie touched her finger to his lips. The darkness in the tent was broken by sudden, brilliant flashes of lightning, followed scant seconds later by thunder so loud that it seemed to Baedecker that freight trains were rumbling across the high tundra toward them. The next explosion of light showed Maggie slipping out of her shorts, tugging them over her hips and down. Her underpants were small and white.

'Storm's here,' said Baedecker, blinking away afterimages of the lightning flash that had illuminated Maggie removing her shirt. Her breasts had looked pale and heavy in the brief, stroboscopic flash.

'Shhh,' said Maggie and slid against him in the darkness. He had fallen asleep wearing only his jockey shorts and a soft flannel shirt. Her fingers unbuttoned the shirt in the darkness, pulled it off. He was rolling next to her on the soft jumble of sleeping bags, his arms enfolding her, when her hand slid under the elastic waistband of his shorts. 'Shhh,' she whispered and pulled off his underpants, using her right hand to free him. 'Shhh.' The lightning illuminated their lovemaking in images of frozen light. The thunder drowned all sound except heartbeats and whispered entreaties. At one point Baedecker looked up at Maggie as she straddled him, their arms extended like dancers', fingers intertwined, the nylon of the tent bright behind her as lightning flash followed lightning flash and the waves of thunder rolled through them and across them. A second later, rocked tight in her arms, resisting the explosion of his own orgasm, he was sure he heard her whisper above the cascade of external sound, 'Yes, Richard, let go. I've got you. Let go.' Together, still moving slightly, they rolled over in the tangle of sleeping bags and foam pads, and listened as the wind rose to terrible heights, the tent strained and flapped wildly against its restraints, and the lightning flash and thunder crash were no longer separated by so much as a second. Together they huddled against the storm.

'COME ON, GODDAMN YOU GODS, LET'S SEE YOU DO YOUR WORST! COME ON, YOU COWARDS!' The scream came from just outside the tent and was followed by a blast of thunder.

'Good God,' whispered Maggie. 'What is that?'

'COME ON, LET'S HAVE A GODDAMN GOD OLYMPICS. SHOW YOUR STUFF. YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT! SHOW US, YOU SHITS!' This time the scream was so raw and shrill that it barely sounded human. The last words were followed by a lightning flash and a sound so great that it seemed the sky's fabric was being torn by giant hands. Baedecker tugged on his shorts and stuck his head out of the tent flap. A second later Maggie joined him, pulling on Baedecker's flannel shirt. It was not raining yet, but both of them had to squint against dust and gravel thrown up by the gale-force winds.

Tommy Gavin Jr. was standing on the boulder between the tents. He was naked, legs apart for balance against the wind, arms raised, head thrown back. In one hand he was clutching an almost-empty bottle of Johnny Walker whiskey. In the other he held a three-foot section of aluminum tent pole. The metal glowed blue. Behind the boy Baedecker could see lightning coursing through the belly of thunderclouds looming darker and closer than the mountain peaks illuminated by each flash.

'Tommy!' Gavin yelled. He and Deedee had thrust their heads and shoulders from their writhing tent. 'Get down here!' The words were whipped away by the wind.

'COME ON, GODS, SHOW ME SOMETHING!' screamed Tommy. 'YOUR TURN, ZEUS. DO IT!' He held the tent pole high.

A blue-white bolt of lightning seemed to leap upward from a nearby summit. Baedecker and Maggie flinched as the shell fire of thunder rolled over them. A few feet away, the Gavins' tent collapsed in the rising wind.

'THAT'S A SIX POINT EIGHT,' screamed Tommy as he held up an imaginary scorecard. He had dropped the bottle, but the tent pole still waved. Gavin was struggling to free himself from the collapsed tent, but the fabric was wrapped around him like an orange shroud.

'OKAY, SATAN, SHOW YOUR STUFF,' shouted Tommy, laughing hysterically. 'LET'S SEE IF YOU'RE AS GOOD AS THE OLD MAN SAYS.' He pirouetted, almost fell, and caught his balance five feet above them on the lip of the boulder. Baedecker saw that the boy had an erection. Maggie yelled something in Baedecker's ear, but the words were lost in thunder.

The two forks of lightning seemed to strike simultaneously, one on either side of the camp. Baedecker was blinded for several seconds during which he found himself incongruously reminded of electric trains he had owned as a boy. The ozone, he thought. When he could see again, it was to watch Tommy leaping and laughing atop the boulder, his hair whipping in the still-rising gale. 'NINE POINT FIVE!' screamed the boy. 'FUCKING AYE!'

'Get your ass down here,' yelled Gavin. He was out of the tent and reaching, his hands inches short of Tommy's bare ankle. The boy danced backward on the boulder.

'GOTTA GIVE JESUS HIS TURN,' cried Tommy. 'GOTTA GIVE THE MAN A TRY. SEE WHAT SHIT HE CAN THROW. SEE IF HE'S STILL AROUND.' Gavin ran around to the low end of the rock and grabbed for handholds. Lightning rippled through a dark billow of cloud low above, exploded outward, and struck the summit of Uncompahgre Peak a mile to the east.

'FIVE POINT FIVE!' screamed Tommy. 'BIG FUCKING DEAL.'

Gavin slipped on the rock, slid back, began climbing again. Tommy danced back to the highest corner of the boulder. 'ONE MORE!' he yelled over the wind. Baedecker could hear and smell the rain approaching now, dragging over the tundra like a heavy curtain. 'YAHWEH!' screamed Tommy. 'COME ON! LAST CHANCE TO GET IN THE GAME IF YOU'RE STILL AROUND, YAHWEH, YOU OLD FART, LAST CHANCE TO SCORE IN THE . . .' It all happened simultaneously. The tent pole in the boy's upraised hand glowed as bright as a neon sign, Tommy's hair rose from his head and writhed like a nest of snakes, and then the dark form of Gavin merged with boy and the two tumbled off the boulder just as the world exploded in light and noise and a great implosion pressed Baedecker into the ground and submerged his senses in pulses of pure energy.

Whether the lightning struck the boulder or not, Baedecker was never to know. There was no mark on the rock in the morning. When he could hear and see again, Baedecker realized that he had shielded Maggie with his body at the same instant she had attempted to do the same to him. They sat up together and looked around. It was pouring rain now. Only Baedecker's tent had withstood the storm. Tom Gavin was on his hands and knees, head down, panting, face pale in the retreating flashes of light. Tommy was shivering and curled tightly into a fetal position on the wet ground. His hands were clasped together tightly over his eyes and he was sobbing. It was Deedee who crouched above him, half-holding him, half-shielding him from the darkened skies. Her T-shirt was plastered against her back so that each vertebra showed. Her face was upraised and in the final flashes of lightning before the storm disappeared to the east, Baedecker saw the exultation there. And the defiance.

Maggie leaned toward Baedecker until the wet tangle of her hair touched his cheek. 'Ten point oh,' she said softly and kissed him.

The rain fell the rest of the night.

They reached the south ridge shortly before sunrise.

'This is odd,' said Maggie. Baedecker nodded and they continued to climb, staying ten yards behind Gavin. Gavin had been packed and moving before five A.M., long before the first, gray light of morning had penetrated the drizzle. He had said only, 'I came to climb the mountain. I'm going to do it.' Neither Maggie nor Baedecker had understood, but they had come along. Baedecker could see their two tents far below, still in the shadow of Uncompahgre. They had been able to repitch Gavin's tent in the night, but Tommy's had been a total loss with shreds of nylon strewn far over the tundra. When Gavin and Baedecker had gone out in the dark to bring back the boy's sleeping bag and clothing, they had discovered two more whiskey bottles in the debris of the tent. It was Deedee who mentioned that they had come from the bar that the Gavins kept stocked for company.

Now Gavin paused on the ridge as they caught up to him. They were well above twelve thousand feet. They had climbed directly east to the ridgeline, ignoring the easier approach from the south. Baedecker's heart was pounding and he was exhausted, but it was an exhaustion that he could deal with and still function adequately. Next to him, Maggie was flushed and breathing hard from the exertion. Baedecker touched her hand and she smiled.

'Somebody,' said Gavin and pointed far up the ridge to where someone was struggling on a steep section of trail.

'It's Lude,' said Baedecker. He could see the man slip, fall, and struggle to his feet again. 'He still has the hang glider.' Gavin shook his head. 'Why would anyone kill themselves to do something as useless as that?'

'How I yearn to throw myself into endless space,' said Maggie, 'and float above the awful abyss.' Both Baedecker and Gavin turned to stare at her.

'Goethe,' she said as if in self-defense.

Gavin nodded, adjusted his climbing pack, and moved on up the trail. Baedecker grinned at her. 'Can't memorize the first stanza of Thanatopsis, eh?' he said.

Maggie shrugged and grinned back. Together they moved up the trail toward the beckoning band of sunlight.

They found the tattered remains of the small backpack tent near the thirteen-thousand-foot level. A hundred yards farther on they found the girl named Maria. She was huddled against a rock, her hands clasped between her clenched knees, and, despite the direct sunlight now bathing them all in gold, she was shivering violently. She did not stop shaking even after Maggie wrapped her in a goosedown coat and sat hugging her for several minutes. 'St . . . st . . . storm t . . . tore the t . . . tent all to shit,' she managed, the words coming through clenched and chattering teeth. 'Got all w . . . w . . . wet.'

'It's okay,' said Maggie.

'G . . . got . . . t . . . to get up the h . . . hill.'

'Not today, young lady,' said Gavin. He was rubbing the girl's hands. Baedecker noticed that the girl's lips were gray, her fingers white at the tips. 'Hypothermia,' said Gavin. 'You've got to get down the hill as soon as possible.'

'Tell L . . . L . . . Lude I'm s . . . sorry,' she said and began crying. Her sobs were punctuated with fits of shivering.

'I'll go down with you,' said Maggie. 'We have hot coffee and soup down below.' The two women stood, the smaller one still trembling uncontrollably.

'I'll go down with you,' said Baedecker.

'No!' Maggie's voice was firm. Baedecker looked at her in surprise. 'I think you should go on,' she said. 'I think you both should go up.' Her eyes were sending Baedecker a message, but he was not sure what it was.

'You're positive?' he asked.

'Positive,' she said. 'You have to go, Richard.'

Baedecker nodded and had turned to follow Gavin when Maria called out. 'Wait!' Still shaking, she fumbled in her pack and came out with a rectangular plastic case. She handed it to Baedecker. 'Lude for forgot I was carrying it. He's g got to have it.' Baedecker opened the case just as Gavin walked back to join him. Inside the carrying case, set into niches in foam, were two disposable syringes and two bottles of clear liquid.

'No,' said Gavin. 'We're not carrying that to him.'

Maria looked uncomprehendingly at them. 'You've g . . . g . . . got to,' she said. 'He'll n need it. He forgot yesterday.'

'No,' said Gavin.

'We'll get it to him,' said Baedecker and put the case in the pocket of his flight jacket. He did not flinch when Gavin wheeled to confront him. 'It's insulin,' said Baedecker. He touched Maggie's hand again and moved ahead of Gavin up the narrowing ridge.

Lude had made it to within fifteen hundred feet of the summit before collapsing. They found him curled under the heavy pack with the long, sailcloth-covered poles across his shoulder. His eyes were open, but his face was parchment white and he was breathing in short, shallow gasps.

Baedecker and Gavin helped him out from under the unassembled hang glider, and the three sat on a large rock next to a two-thousand-foot drop to the high meadow below. The shadow of Uncompahgre reached well more than a mile now, touching the steep flanks of the Matterhorn. High peaks and snow-dappled plateaus were visible as far as Baedecker could see. He looked back down the ridge and picked out Maggie's red shirt. The two women were moving slowly but separately as they picked their way down the south ridge.

'Thanks, man,' said Lude, handing the canteen back to Gavin. 'I needed some of that. Ran out of water last night before the storm hit.' Baedecker gave him the syringe case.

The little man shook his head and ran a shaking hand through his beard. 'Hey, yeah, thanks,' he said softly. 'Stupid. Forgot Maria had that stuff. And all that crap I ate yesterday.' Baedecker looked away as the injection was administered. Gavin glanced at his watch and said, 'Eight forty-three. Why don't I go on up? You can help our friend down, Dick, and I'll catch up to you.' Baedecker hesitated, but Lude laughed loudly. He was packing away the syringe case. 'No way, man. I didn't come fifteen fucking miles to pack this stuff back down. Uh-uh.' He struggled to his feet and tried to lift the long bundle. He was able to take five steps up the steep and sandy slope before falling to his knees.

'Here,' said Baedecker, unlashing the sailcloth-covered poles from the pack and helping him to his feet. 'You get the pack. I'll carry this.' Baedecker started uphill, surprised at how light the long poles were. Tom Gavin made a noise and moved ahead of them.

The incline became steeper, the trail narrower, the exposure more dramatic just below the summit. But it was the altitude that almost did Baedecker in during the last hundred meters. His lungs could not pull in enough air. His ears would not stop ringing. Baedecker felt his vision blur to the heavy throbbing of his pulse. In the end he forgot everything except the task of setting one foot farther uphill than the other and then lifting his weight against the terrible gravity that threatened to press him down into the rocky mountain-side. He had crossed a wide expanse of flat area and almost stumbled over the precipitous northwestern face before he realized that they were on the summit. He sat down heavily and lowered the poles just as Lude collapsed to a sitting position next to him.

Gavin sat on a wide rock nearby. He had one leg up and was smoking a pipe. The smell of tobacco was sharp and sweet in the clear air. 'Shouldn't spend too much time up here, Dick,' he said. 'We have to pack down to Henson Creek.' Baedecker said nothing; he was watching Lude. The little man was still pale, and there was a tremor in his large hands, but now he crawled over to the long carrying bag and removed sections of aluminum tubing. He spread out a square of red nylon, took a cloth tool case from his pack, and began laying out parts.

'Cable,' said Lude. 'Stainless steel. Nico swedged.'

Baedecker moved over next to him and watched as more bags and baggies were brought out.

'Prone harness,' said Lude. 'Knee hangers fasten with Velcro. Attached with this carabiner.' Baedecker touched the metal ring and felt the sun's warmth on the steel surface, sensed the colder steel beneath.

'Nuts and bolts,' said Lude, laying bags and pieces on the red nylon according to some prearranged pattern. His voice had taken on the cadence of a litany. 'Cable tensioners. Saddles, brushings, tangs, nut covers.' He removed larger pieces. 'Wingposts, noseplates, brackets, crossbar, control bars.' He patted the mass of folded Dacron. 'Sail.'

'We should be heading down,' said Gavin.

'In just a minute,' said Baedecker.

Lude had connected the long aluminum tubes at their apex and swung them out to an angle of a hundred degrees. Orange-and-white Dacron unfolded like a butterfly's wings opening to the sun. It took him only a few minutes to secure a vertical post and cross-spar. He began working on wires connecting the various components. 'Give me a hand, man?' He was speaking to Baedecker.

Baedecker accepted the tools and followed the young man's lead, securing eyebolts, attaching flying wires to the control bar, and tightening nuts. Lude inflated pockets under the leading edge of the wing and Baedecker noticed for the first time that the camber there was adjustable. Thirty years of flying advanced aircraft made him appreciate the elegant simplicity of the Rogallo wing: it was as if the essence of controlled flight had been distilled into these few yards of steel, aluminum, and Dacron. When they were finished, Lude checked all of Baedecker's connections and adjustments and the hang glider sat there like some bright, oversized insect ready to leap into space. Baedecker realized with a shock how large it was, spanning fourteen feet from noseplate to keel, twenty-nine feet across the delta wing.

Gavin tapped his pipe out against the rock. 'Where's your helmet?'

'Maria's got the helmet,' said Lude. He looked at Gavin and then at Baedecker. Suddenly he laughed. 'Hey, man, you don't get it. I don't fly. I just build them, modify them, and show the way. Maria's going to fly it.' It was Gavin's turn to laugh. 'Not today she isn't,' he said. 'She went down to our camp. She's in no shape to walk, much less fly.'

'Bullshit, man,' said Lude. 'She's right behind me.' Baedecker shook his head. 'Hypothermia,' he said. 'Maggie took her down.' Lude jumped up and ran to the southwest corner of the summit. When he saw the two figures just leaving the ridge three thousand feet below he grabbed his head with both hands. 'Damn, I don't believe it.' He sat down heavily, his long hair falling over his face. Sounds emerged which Baedecker first interpreted as sobs; then he realized that the man was laughing. 'Fifteen fucking miles with that thing on my back,' he said and laughed. 'All this way up and it's off.'

'Messes up your movie-making,' said Gavin.

'Screw the movie,' said Lude. 'It fucks up the celebration.'

'Celebration?' said Gavin. 'What celebration?'

'Come here,' said Lude, standing and turning to the west. He led Gavin and Baedecker to the edge of the precipice. 'Celebration of that,' said Lude and swung his right arm in an arc that took in peaks, plateau, and sky.

Gavin nodded. 'God's creation is beautiful,' he agreed. 'But it doesn't take a foolhardy act to celebrate either the Creator or His handiwork.' Lude looked at Gavin and slowly shook his head. 'No, man, you missed it,' he said. 'It ain't somebody's thing. It just is. And we're part of it. That deserves a celebration, you know?' It was Gavin's turn to shake his head, pityingly, as if at a child. 'Rocks and air and snow,' he said. 'It means nothing by itself.' Lude looked at the ex-astronaut for a long moment while Gavin shouldered his pack. Finally he smiled. His long hair was blowing in the gentle breeze. 'Your mind's really fucked, you know that, man?'

'Come on, Dick,' said Gavin, turning his back on the other. 'Let's get started down.' Baedecker walked back to the Rogallo wing, crawled under the leading edge, and lifted the harness. 'Help me,' he said.

Lude ran over. 'You sure, man?'

'Help me,' said Baedecker. Lude's large hands were already buckling, cinching nylon webbing, and securing waist and shoulder straps. The crotch straps and D-rings reminded Baedecker of all the parachutes he had worn over the years.

'You can't be serious,' said Gavin.

Baedecker shrugged. Lude fastened the Velcro leg straps and showed him how to shift forward to get into a prone flying position. Baedecker stood and took the weight of the glider on his shoulder at the apex of the metal triangle while Lude held the keel parallel to the ground.

'You're insane,' said Gavin. 'Don't kid around, Dick. You don't even have a helmet. We'll have to get a mountain rescue team to get your body off the cliff face.' Baedecker nodded. The wind was gusting gently out of the west at less than ten miles per hour. He took two steps toward the drop-off. The kite bounced slightly and settled on his shoulders. He could feel the play of wind and gravity in the taut wire and billowing Dacron.

'This is preposterous, Dick. You're acting like an adolescent.'

'Keep your nose up, man,' said Lude. 'Shift your body to bank.'

Baedecker walked to within eight feet of the edge. There was no slope; the rock dropped vertically for a hundred feet or more to terraces of jagged rock and then fell away to more vertical faces. Baedecker could see Maggie's red shirt a mile below, a small speck of color against the brown and white of the boulder-strewn tundra.

'Dick!' said Gavin. It was a barked command.

'Don't start any three-sixties unless you got a thousand feet of air under you,' said Lude. 'Away from the hill, man.'

'You're a goddamned fool,' Gavin said flatly. It was a final assessment. A verdict.

Baedecker shook his head. 'A celebrant,' he said and took five steps and leaped.