Ariel's Crossing - Bradford Morrow [156]
Marcos ferried to and fro between Ariel and his uncle. Ever since he’d traipsed back up the scree gulch a second time with the news that Kip had been found—the rangers had pulled back a hundred yards, not trusting Delfino to lay off the shotgun—he noticed Ariel withdrawing a little. Sitting beside her, he watched her write in her notebook. She didn’t seem to mind that he read over her shoulder, an oddly intimate allowance. The afternoon chickenhawks ellipsed way upstairs, and she made note of it in the heavy ledger on her lap. The freight train ran diminutive along the floor of the clay basin, whispering in its tracks, and she made note. Marcos sat beside her and said he was as torn as she about what to do now, and without much thought, she made note. Marcos and I don’t know what to do.
For his part, Delfino stood sentinel at his stone rampart. At the edge of his thoughts loomed one that was outrageous, maddening, in fact, grievous. They’d made it in, set up temporary camp, been confronted, handed over his documentation and demand—all had gone according to plan. The one thing he hadn’t over the years predicted was this strong, growing realization that even if they gave him Dripping Spring lock, stock, and barrel, he would never be able to bring the place back to life. Fact was, Delfino Montoya was an old man. He’d hitched every hope to the prospect of one day standing right here, and now that he was, he understood he was as razed as the very stone rampart on which his foot rested. Momentum was all that carried him forward.
The sun moved down toward its evening berth. They watered the horses, had something to eat. The army guys had made their contact and, it seemed, were content to wait and see. None of these tactics could work for long, all of them on both sides of the fragile fence knew that, and Ariel made note.
“Do you believe there’s a reason for everything?”
“That’s out of the blue.” She glanced up from her writing and looked into his eyes.
“Not really.”
Ariel thought about it for a minute. “No, I don’t,” she said, knowing she was being merely counterintuitive and didn’t in fact have any answer one way or the other. See what he’s saying.
“You believe in ghosts?”
Ariel laughed. “Marcos, the sun’s crisping your brain.”
“Probably.”
As they sat out of earshot, Delfino scanned the vertical ridges up behind them through his binoculars.
Remembering that curious moment only a few infinite weeks ago back at the farmhouse, when she could have sworn her cat Buddha nuzzled her where she slept on the warm bluestone wall, Ariel said, “Probability is, ghosts don’t exist and there’s not a reason for everything. But for argument’s sake, let’s just say they do exist.”
“I know they do.”
“Okay then. Why?”
Marcos thought about Doña Francisca de Peña. Or rather, about his ghost who he’d come to believe was Francisca. “Because they’re dead but don’t want to leave off living. I’ve seen a hundred foals that didn’t know for hours they were alive. Their mothers had to lick their eyes open for them to see. Same way you have to spank a baby to make it realize it’s got to breathe. No reason the reverse doesn’t happen. Some people just don’t know their life’s over.”
She sensed she’d begun to understand the blue from which these thoughts were arising. “You think there’s some chance your uncle Delfino is risking becoming