"Explain it to me," Merton said.
Mitch sat alone with Oliver under the sun shade. He sipped a beer; Oliver was working away, or pretending to, on his small slate. He had a tracer cap on one finger and typed on empty air. All the archaeologists from the camp, except for two younger women standing guard at the main site, were at the bluff, leaving Mitch grounded, "to recover," as Eileen put it, but he strongly suspected it was to keep him out of their hair, out of trouble, until it was determined what he had found.
"Explain what?" Mitch asked.
"How you do it. I sense a pattern."
Mitch covered his eyes with his hands. The sunlight was still dazzling.
"You undergo some sort of psychic revelation, enter a trance state, troop off in search of something you"ve already seen. . . . Is that it?"
"G.o.d, no," Mitch said, grimacing. "Nothing like that. Was I s...o...b..ating, Oliver?" he asked, and did not know himself whether he spoke with satisfaction, pride, or real curiosity as to what Merton thought.
Before Merton could answer, Mitch winced at a spike in his thoughts. His neck hair p.r.i.c.kled.
Something"s wrong.
"Oh, most definitely," Merton said with a nod and a sly little grin. "Sherlock Holmes, I presume?"
"Holmes was not psychic. You heard them. They still don"t know what I found."
"You found a hominid leg bone. All of Eileen"s students, searching for two months around this site, haven"t found so much as a chip."
"They were making us look bad," Mitch said. "Men in general."
"A camp full of angry women digging out a camp full of abandoned women," Merton said. "Look bad? Right."
"Have there ever been any men here?"
"Beg your pardon?" Merton asked petulantly.
"Working at the camp. Digging."
"Besides me, not a one," Merton admitted, and scowled at the screen on the slate.
"Why is that?" Mitch asked.
"Eileen"s gay, you know," Merton said. "She and Connie Fitz . . . very close."
Mitch thought this over for a few seconds but could not connect it right away with reality, his reality. "You"re kidding."
Merton tried to cross his heart and hope to die, but got it wrong.
The closest Mitch could come to acknowledging this bit of information was to wonder why Eileen had not introduced her lover to him as such. He said, very slowly, "You could have fooled me."
That"s not what"s wrong.
"Mr. Daney is amused by it all. He takes quite an anthropological view."
Mitch pulled back from somewhere, an unpleasant place coming closer. "They"re not all all gay, are they?" gay, are they?"
"Oh, no. But it is is a bit of a crazy coincidence. The others appear to be single, to a woman, and not one has shown any interest in me. Funny, how that slants my view of the world." a bit of a crazy coincidence. The others appear to be single, to a woman, and not one has shown any interest in me. Funny, how that slants my view of the world."
"Yeah," Mitch said.
"Nancy thinks you"re trying to steal their thunder. They"re sensitive about that."
"Right."
"It"s just you and me, until Mr. Daney gets here," Merton said.
Mitch finished the can of Coors and propped it gently on the wooden arm of the camp chair.
"Shall I crush that for you?" Merton asked with a twinkle. "Just to keep up masculine appearances."
Mitch did not answer. The camp, the bones, his discovery, suddenly meant nothing. His mind was a blank sheet with vague writing starting to appear, as if scrawled by ghosts. He could not read the writing, but he did not like it.
He jerked, and the can fell off the arm of the chair. It struck the gravel with a hollow rattle. "Jesus," he said. He had never had a hypnagogic experience before.
"Something wrong?" Merton asked.
"Eileen was right. Maybe I"m still sick." He pushed up out of the chair. "Can I use your phone?"
"Of course," Merton said.
"Thanks." Mitch sidled awkwardly one step to the left, as if about to lose his balance, perhaps his sanity. "How secure is it?"
"Very," Oliver said, watching him with concern. "Private trunk feed for Mr. Daney."
Mitch did not know whom to trust, whom to turn to. He had never felt more spooked or more helpless in his life.
No ESP, he thought. he thought. Please, let there be no such thing as ESP. Please, let there be no such thing as ESP.
39.
NEW MEXICO.
d.i.c.ken sat beside Helen Fremont on the couch in the trailer. She was staring at the wall opposite the couch, fever-scenting, he suspected, but he could not tell what she was hoping to accomplish, if anything. The air in the trailer smelled of old cheese and tea bags. He had finished his story ten minutes ago, patiently going back over old history and trying to justify himself as well: his existence, his work, his loathing for the isolation he had felt all these years, buried in his work as if it were another kind of plastic suit, proof against life. There had been silence for several minutes now, and he did not know what to say, much less what would happen to them next.
The girl broke the silence. "Aren"t you at all afraid I"ll make you sick?" she asked.
"I"m stuck," d.i.c.ken said, lifting his hands. "They won"t let me out until they can make other arrangements."
"Aren"t you afraid?" she repeated.
"No," d.i.c.ken said.
"If I wanted to, could I make you sick?"
d.i.c.ken shook his head. "I doubt it."
"But if they know that, why keep me here? Why keep any of us away from people?"
"Well, we just don"t know what to do or what to believe. We don"t understand," he added, speaking softly. "That makes us weak and stupid."
"It"s cruel," the girl said. Then, as if she was just coming to believe she was pregnant, "How will they treat my baby?"
The door to the trailer opened. Aram Jurie entered first and was almost immediately flanked by two security men armed with machine pistols. All wore white isolation suits. Even through the plastic cowl, Jurie"s pallid face was a pepperball of irritation. "This is stupid," he said as the security men stepped forward. "Are you trying to sabotage everything we"ve done?"
d.i.c.ken stood up from the couch and glanced at the girl, but she did not seem at all surprised or disturbed. G.o.d help us, it"s what she knows G.o.d help us, it"s what she knows. d.i.c.ken said, "You"re holding this young woman illegally."
Jurie was comically incredulous for a man whose face was normally so placid. "What in G.o.d"s green Earth were you thinking?"
"You"re not an authorized holding facility for children," d.i.c.ken continued, warming to his subject. "You illegally transported this girl across state lines."
"She"s a threat to public health," Jurie said, suddenly recovering his calm. "And now you"ve joined her." He waved his hand. "Get him out of here."
The security men seemed unable to decide how to react. "Isn"t he safe where he is?" one guard asked, his voice m.u.f.fled inside the hood.
The girl reached up to d.i.c.ken and tightly gripped his arm. "There is no threat," d.i.c.ken told Jurie.
"You do not know know that," Jurie said, staring hard at d.i.c.ken, but the comment was more for the benefit of the guards. that," Jurie said, staring hard at d.i.c.ken, but the comment was more for the benefit of the guards.
"Dr. Jurie has stepped way over the line," d.i.c.ken said. "Kidnapping is a tough rap, guys. This is a facility doing contract work under EMAC, which is under the authority of the Department of Health and Human Services. All of them have strict guidelines on human experimentation." And n.o.body knows whether those guidelines still apply. But it"s the best bluff we have. And n.o.body knows whether those guidelines still apply. But it"s the best bluff we have. "You have no jurisdiction over the girl. We"re leaving Sandia. I"m taking her with me." "You have no jurisdiction over the girl. We"re leaving Sandia. I"m taking her with me."
Jurie shook his head vigorously, making his hood waggle. "Very John Wayne. You got that out very nicely. I"m supposed to growl and play the villain?"
The situation was incredible and tense and fairly funny. "Yeah," d.i.c.ken said, abruptly breaking out in a s.h.i.t-kicking, full-out hayseed grin. He had a tendency to do that when confronted by authority figures. It was one reason why he had spent so much of his life doing fieldwork.
Jurie misinterpreted d.i.c.ken"s smile. "We have an incredible opportunity here. Why waste it?" Jurie said, wheedling now. "We can solve so many problems, learn so much. What we learn will benefit millions. It could save us all."
"Not this girl. Not any of them." d.i.c.ken held out his hand. The girl got to her feet and together, hand in hand, they walked cautiously toward the door.
Jurie blocked their way. "How far do you think you"ll get?" he asked, livid behind the cowl.
"Let"s find out," d.i.c.ken said. Jurie reached out to hold him, but d.i.c.ken"s arm snaked up and he grabbed the edge of the faceplate, as if to remind Jurie of their unequal vulnerability. Jurie dropped his hands, d.i.c.ken let go, and the man backed off, catching up against a chair and almost falling over.
The security men seemed rooted to the trailer"s floor. "Good for you," d.i.c.ken murmured. "Hire some lawyers, gentlemen. Time off for good behavior. Mitigating factors in sentencing." Still murmuring legal inanities, he peered through the door of the trailer and saw a cl.u.s.ter of scientific and security staff, including Flynn, Powers, and now Presky, hanging back beyond the open gate in the reinforced acrylic fence. "Let"s go, honey," d.i.c.ken said, and they stepped out onto the porch.
Behind, he heard a scuffle and swiveled his head to see Jurie, his face contorted, trying to grab a pistol and the security guards doing an awkward little dance keeping their weapons out of his reach.
Scientists with guns, d.i.c.ken thought. That really was the living end. Somehow, the absurdity cheered him. He squeezed the girl"s hand and marched toward the others standing by the gate. d.i.c.ken thought. That really was the living end. Somehow, the absurdity cheered him. He squeezed the girl"s hand and marched toward the others standing by the gate.
They did not stop him. Maggie Flynn actually held the gate open. She looked relieved.
40.
CALIFORNIA.
Stella and Will had left the car after it ran out of gas near a town called Lone Pine. They were in the woods now, but she did not feel any closer to freedom, or to where she wanted to be.
They had left Mrs. Hayden asleep in the car, drained after driving all night and then cutting back and forth across the state routes and freeways and back roads all morning. Will trudged ahead of Stella, carrying two empty plastic bottles.
At noon, the air was cool and hazy. Summer was turning into fall. The pines and larches and oaks seemed to shimmer as breezes blew and clouds raced over the low mountains.
They had seen very few houses along the road, but there were some. Will talked about a place that was in the middle of nowhere, with no humans for tens, if not hundreds, of miles. Stella was too tired to feel discouraged. She knew now they did not belong anywhere or to anyone; they were just lost, inside and out. Her feet hurt. Her back hurt. The discomfort from her period was pa.s.sing. That was a small blessing, but now she was beginning to wonder who and what Will really was.
He looked more than a little feral with his hair sweaty and sticking straight up at the back where he had leaned against the rear seat in Mrs. Hayden"s car. He smelled gamy, angry, and afraid, but Stella knew she did not smell any better.
She wondered what Celia and LaShawna and Felice were up to, what had happened to the drivers trussed up and left by the side of the road.
She had only a dim idea how the map in Will"s back pocket correlated with where they were. The road looked like a long black river rolling into the distance, vanishing around a tree-framed curve.
For a moment, she stopped and watched a ground squirrel. It stood on a low flat rock beside the shoulder, hunched and alert, with shiny black eyes, like the Shrooz in her room in Virginia.
She hoped they would end up on a farm and she could be with animals. She got along well with animals.
Will came back. The squirrel fled. "We should keep moving," he said. They trotted clumsily into the trees as two cars rumbled by.
"Maybe we should hitchhike," Stella suggested from behind a pine trunk. She smelled the cloying sweetness of the tree"s sap and it reminded her of school. She curled her lip and pushed away from the rough bark.
"If we hitchhike, they"ll catch us," Will said. "We"re close. I know it."
She followed Will. She could almost imagine a big blue Chevy or a big pickup barreling down the road with Mitch behind the wheel. Mitch and Kaye, together, looking for her.
The next time they heard a car coming, Will ran into the trees but she kept walking. After the car had pa.s.sed, he caught up with her and gave her a squinch-faced look.
"We"re helpless out here," Stella said, squinching back at him, as if that were a reasonable explanation.
"More reason to hide."
"Maybe somebody knows where this place is. If they stop we can ask."
"I"m not very lucky," Will said, his mouth twisting into a line that was not a smile and not quite a smirk. Wry and uncertain. "Are you lucky?" he asked.
"I"m here with you, aren"t I?" she asked, deadpan.