Ariel's Crossing - Bradford Morrow [118]
Peligro se prohibe la entrada
Campo de tiro armas defuego en uso
And another, several posts upbasin:
Danger
Unexploded Munitions
Keep Out
Marcos halted and Ariel followed suit so Delfino could enter first. He did, with slow surreal dignity. Jet indigo and dim silver in ranging ephemeral threads were the last colors woven across the sky over the western mountains, colors that clung to the cirrus like psychedelic streamers. The riders, consumed by thoughts as different as the oily pigments ranging over their heads, advanced into a part of the valley that had been sequestered from the public for half the century. Fifteen miles more—much easier miles than those they just negotiated. Ariel couldn’t help but glance around, astounded by the secluded peacefulness of the scene.
In the name of Matthew, the name of Mark, in the names of Luke and Saint John. In the name of the prophet Jeremiah, confined by the King of Judah during the war in which Babylon besieged Jerusalem. In the name of Paul who wandered and Noah who would not have but that he had no choice. In the name of Christopher, patron saint of travelers. In the name of any saint possessed of ears to listen, hear my question, I beseech thee. When will the Lord’s children ever learn to stay put?
Bonnie Jean, who found herself covering Ariel’s watch, argued, “I never ran away from you, did I?”
“You were always a fine young lady, Bonnie. I’ve never said otherwise.”
No denying that. But listen to this. John Howard Payne, who was destined one day for sainthood, good great American that he was, knew whereof he spoke. “Oh yesh,” said Granna, whose lispings and likings off-centered her speech less and less with every passing sentence, it seemed. “John Howard Payne mortalized the idea. Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam … he it ever so humble, there’s no place like—”
Bonnie smiled, she who always frowned on these routines in the past. How wonderful to hear her going off on one of her crazy jags this afternoon.
—but what she’d like to know was, just when and how had Ariel lost her will to stay home? While Mother didn’t express this verbally, the sigh she gave on learning that her granddaughter had probably spent the night in Nambé—given that she hadn’t answered at Pear Street when Bonnie phoned to find out how it had gone with Kip Calder—was a sigh that meant, For crying out loud, what’s going on with the world?
“I wish I knew,” said Bonnie, able to interpret her wordless language.
Millennial madness, no doubt, thought Granna. Things such as this were augured. The sane would act crazy. The crazy would see the light. But this wasn’t like Ariel. She wasn’t a believer, no, though she seemed to be trying, in her way. She was possessed of common Christian wisdom, wasn’t she?
“Remember, I told you she went there last night to find Kip,” Bonnie said.
“Nobody will ever find Kip Calder, mar my words.”
Granna was amused by the missing consonant, but it made her all the more conscious of Ariel’s unhappy absence, since Ariel would have picked up on the vagrant meaning of the phrase, might even have lobbed a little comeback. Mar your words? Aren’t they marred enough, Gran? And that would have been a sweet kindness, making all this business of recovery roll along with smoothing laughter. As it was, Bonnie caught a glimpse of her grin and gently smiled, tipping her large head to the side like an inquiring cat.
“Like I say, she thinks he’s her real father.”
“What about Brice?”
“He adopted her.”
“I don’t believe any of it. I’m worried for the poor girl.”
They were sitting on the convalescent center’s patio, at the far end. A large glass vase of blue delphiniums on the table, paper cups of cranberry juice, some not-too-fresh meringues. Brice had called