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By Root 1639 0

wash ravine to the south, and someone else—Jim—shouted a universal order for calm. Marcos came running from inside the house, crying out Ariel’s name and his uncle’s. There was a flurry of buffeting against the air. Ariel reached out for Marcos and caught his hand before another hand shoved her from behind, toppling her forward onto the parapet and knocking the wind out of her. Different dark forms struggled above her. There was moaning. Somebody shouted. Shocked calm, fresh chaos. She’d lost any sense of where Marcos could be, though Delfino Montoya was there, stumbling with her, tripping as the shotgun he dropped discharged its own brisk flare while the moon breached the ridge hard by Sierra Blanca.

Part IV

The Forever Returning

New York, Tularosa Basin, Los Alamos

to Nambé

1996–2000

SINGING AND PENNYWHISTLES and gusts of laughter. Three generations of merrymakers sat at a long table centered by a big frosted cake. A pile of forks and stack of plates stood beside an old redware bowl heaped with melting vanilla ice cream. Happy birthday to you—roughly harmonizing their way through the familiar tune—happy birthday, dear Miranda, and after she blew out all three candles, cheers resounded in the room. Miranda clapped and giggled, her blue eyes beaming, as her father began to cut the cake. What a party. Sarah took the family photographs, which would be preserved in an album for this girl to view years later with an altogether different cast to those eyes. An adult’s knowing look, one that would register memories of her birthday in that first March of the new millennium. Later that evening, Sarah would upload digital images of the best shots and e-mail them to Miranda’s grandfather Brice so he could share in the celebration.

He would easily recognize most of the faces on his laptop screen. Ariel and Marcos and all the rest of the family, including Jessica, out visiting for the grand occasion. Some of the others he might not know, never having met any of the new ranch hands or the foreman, Diego Chavez, who’d come on at Pajarito to take over where Kip had left off. But whether or not he recognized Diego, he’d be reminded again of Kip Calder, the honorary Montoya whose suggestion it’d been to give their granddaughter her name. Miranda Montoya. Had a nice alliterative lilt to it, a good music. Not to mention its origins, like Ariel’s, in The Tempest—another way Kip, who’d never fancied his daughter’s name, had made one more fond compromise with his own revered child. Fine and dandy, though Marcos insisted that he was going to name their one on the way, and it wasn’t going to have any goddamn literary allusions. Kip Montoya? Maybe, maybe not.

But look at this. If there had always been a strong likeness between Kip and Ariel, little Miranda was a beautiful, feminine reincarnation of both. These photos of Miranda revived memories not only of Ariel back when she was this young, but of Kip back when he was vibrant with health, ready to take on the world. The images from those insane desert days three and a half years ago were as sharply clear as these of the birthday party on Brice’s screen. First seeing Kip in that claustrophobic military infirmary was like something straight out of Kafka, he’d thought at the time, and said as much. Granted, Kip had committed a federal offense and his accomplices were resisting being taken into custody on similar charges, but that didn’t mean he could be put to work luring the others out of Dripping Spring. Not legally. The fact he’d baited and switched, agreeing to talk to Ariel Rankin and Delfino Montoya, implying he might be able to help the MPs but then instead urging his daughter and friends to stay their course, rankled the hell out of his captors. But it was their own fault. Their risk and loss.

Kip might have flown off the handle in any direction at the sight of his so-called lawyer, Brice McCarthy, so it’d come as a relief when he tried, failed, then finally managed to stand and awkwardly embrace him, Kip’s intravenous tube and infusion bag getting joggled in the process.