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Having no credible answer, A
"Mentally ill," Harland said bluntly.
"Yes. And to take care of myself. I've given that some thought. Not much, because I don't know what in the hell I'm supposed to make of it. Care to elaborate?"
"Not really," Harland replied.
For a minute, or nearly so, they walked without talking. When they were at the seasonal housing where A
It was the latter.
"Please say this will stay between you and me," Harland said, not looking at her. "Because I'm going to tell you anyway and I'd just as soon sleep sound at night."
"It will," A
"Craig suffers from paranoid delusions. He's been institutionalized twice for it. He's on medications but he has had violent episodes in the past. You know how he feels about human beings in general, how protective he is of the land. But maybe you didn't know that he particularly fears women. Especially women he is sexually attracted to. He feels women use sexual politics to outdistance him. Just something I wanted you to be aware of, take care about. That's all."
"How do you know?" A
"Craig was at the mental institution where my wife lives," Harland said simply. "In Austin."
"Oh," was all A
Harland Roberts laid a hand on her arm. "It's okay," he said kindly. "They've got trees and flush toilets, chicken on Sunday-everything. It's a far cry from Mrs. Rochester's attic."
A
"Give my regards to the high country," he said and strode off toward the "real" houses.
"I will," A
There was no time for that second cup of coffee. A
"Three-eleven; three-one-five en route up the Tejas." A
With each step up the glaring limestone of the Tejas Trail, she felt a thread break; one of the peevish tethers of social and professional minutiae snap. Alone, in the backcountry, politics, sex, murder, and all their derivations would fade. They never vanished entirely; mostly the clamor just dulled, like the roar of trucks on 62/180 that poured endless trailer-tank loads of natural gas into Mexico.
One day, A
A
Someday.
Bucolic splendor, peace of mind, oneness with Nature, all the elevated thoughts buoying A
Shaded from the rays of the morning sun by a fist of wind-carved stone, Craig Eastern sat with his back to a rock and his legs across the trail. The bill of a white baseball cap with the green fist of the EARTH FIRST! logo emblazoned on it covered his eyes. Muscular neck and shoulders, displayed nicely by a gray tank top, sloped down from small flat ears.
A
"Howdy, A
Because of this man-or, more accurately, because of what Harland had told her about him-A
Surely, she thought, no one with that choirboy grin would do any real damage.
"Howdy, Craig," she echoed. She wanted to be friendly, easy with him, but she knew too many things she had no right to know. Things that made her look past the smile and the dimple; made her look for the insanity that Roberts assured her lurked behind what they'd all accepted as yet one more form of the desert lunacy that made the Southwest a place of heroes, tall tales and strange truths.
"Backcountry patrol," he informed her of her mission, then tapped the zipper pocket of his daypack where the rubber ante
"Carrying a radio on your day off. I'm impressed." A
"No," Craig contradicted her. "I've heard you going with Paul on ambulance runs. Do you like saving people?"
The question was almost a challenge. The dimple flashed but A
"Maybe because you don't care?" Craig asked shrewdly.
A
Momentarily, he looked confused, then his face clouded. "Harland?"
A
"I'm real sick of his bullshit," Craig fumed. "I saw something and everybody makes this big joke. I saw green lights, moving low, and heard these thumping sounds, like footsteps. I was a mile or so away, I couldn't see clear. They'll be back. So will I. With a camera. Harland's a bastard."
His anger had effectively silenced A
"Paul told me about you and the lion hunt," Craig said abruptly, clearly wanting to change the subject as much as she did. "Cori
Again he smiled. He gave them out like earned sweets. Despite what A
"You won't climb the NPS ladder that way." The smile winked out, the choirboy, the elf vanished. In their place was a young man wound a little too tight, eyes glittering too brightly, muscles strung too taut. As he spoke, the slight ducking of the head, the defensive twitch of the shoulder that A