When she finally appeared, she was wan and abstracted. “Satisfied?” he asked, and now there was no anger in his voice, only concern.
She shook her head. “I’m trying too hard. Want to start back?”
Manuel came with the horses, guaranteed gentle and safe, he had assured them earlier, and he had been right. They rode slowly, not talking. Night fell swiftly after the sun went down. It was nearly dark when they reached the house and their room again. Would they like dinner served in their room? Manuel had asked, and, after looking at Constance, Charlie had nodded.
“Can you tell me what you’re doing?” he asked her after Manuel had left them.
“I don’t know.”
“Okay. I thought so. I think I’m onto something, but I have to go to Denver. Will you fly out in the helicopter, or should we plan a couple of days and drive?”
“I can’t go,” she said quietly, and added, “Don’t press me, please.”
“Right. I’ll be back by dark. I sure as hell don’t want to try to fly in here blind.” He grinned with the words. She responded with a smile belatedly.
He summoned Manuel, who nodded when Charlie asked about the helicopter trip. “
Si
. When do you want to go?”
And Manuel was not at all surprised that he was going alone, he thought grimly after making the arrangements. Constance went to bed early again. He stood regarding her as she slept and under his breath he cursed Deborah Rice and her father and Ramón. “You can’t have her!” he said silently.
The managers had been in the swimming pool; others had been in the dining room and library. Constance finally had started to gather her books to search for someplace quiet. Manuel gently took them from her. “Please, permit me,” he said softly. “It is very noisy today.”
She had had lunch with Deborah Rice. Tony was coming tomorrow, she had said, and he was both furious and excited. He had something. There would be a showdown, she had predicted gloomily, and her father had never lost a showdown in his life. Deborah was wandering about aimlessly and would intrude again, Constance knew, would want to talk to no point, just to have something to do, and Constance had to think. It seemed that she had not thought anything through since arriving at the Valley of Gorgons. That was the punishment for looking, she thought wryly: The brain turned to stone.
She was reluctant to return to her rooms. Without Charlie, they seemed too empty. “I’ll go read out under the gorgons,” she said finally. At least out there, no one bothered her, and she had to think. She felt that she almost knew something, could almost bring it to mind, but always it slipped away again.
“
Si
,” Manuel said. “We should take the Jeep, señora. It is not good to ride home after dark.”
She started to say she would not be there that long; instead, she nodded.
Charlie had been pacing in the VIP lounge for half an hour before his pilot, Jack Wayman, turned up. It was 7:15.
“Where the hell have you been?” Charlie growled. “Let’s get going.”
“Mr. Meiklejohn, there’s a little problem with one of the rotors. I’ve been trying to round up a part, but no luck. Not until morning.”
He was a fresh-faced young man, open, ingenuous. Charlie found his hands balling, took a step toward the younger man, who backed up. “I’ll get it airborne by seven in the morning, Mr. Meiklejohn. I’m sure of it. I called the house and explained the problem. You have a room at the Hilton—”
Charlie spun around and left him talking. He tried to buy a seat on another flight to Pueblo first, and when that failed—no more flights out that night—he strode to the Hertz rental desk.
“I’m going to rent a plane for Pueblo,” he said, “and I’ll want a car there waiting. Is that a problem?”
The young man behind the desk shrugged. “Problem, sir. They close up at seven down there.”
“I’ll rent a car here and drive down,” Charlie said in a clipped, hard voice. “Is
that
a problem?”
“No, sir!”
By quarter to eight, he was leaving the airport. He felt exactly the same rage that had swamped him at times in the past, especially in his final years with the fire department, when he knew with certainty the fire had been set, the victim murdered. It was a cold fury, a savage rage made even more dangerous because it was so deep within that nothing of it showed on the surface, but an insane desire, a need, fueled it, and the need was to strike out, to lash out at the criminal, the victims, the system, anything. He knew now with the same certainty that the pilot had waited deliberately until after seven to tell him he was stranded in Denver. And he was equally certain that by now the pilot had called the valley to warn them that he was driving, that he would be there by midnight. And if they had done anything to Constance, he knew, he would blow that whole valley to hell, along with everyone in it.
“Manuel,” Constance said when they arrived at the gorgons, “go on back to the house. You don’t have to stay out here with me.”
“Oh, no, señora. I will stay.”
“No, Manuel. I have to be alone so I can think. That’s why I came out here, to think. There are too many people wandering around the house, too many distractions. If I know I’m keeping you out here, waiting, that would be distracting, too. I really want to be alone for a few hours.”
“But, señora, you could fall down, or get lost. Don Carlos would flay me if an accident happened.”
She laughed. “Go home, Manuel. You know I can’t get lost. Lost where? And I’ve been walking around more years than you’ve been alive. Go home. Come back for me right after sunset.”
His expression was darkly tragic. “Señora, it is possible to get lost in your own house, in your own kitchen even. And out here, it is possible even more.”
“If you can’t find me,” she said softly, “tell Ramón. He’ll find me.”
“
Si
,” Manuel said, and walked to the Jeep unhappily.
She watched the Jeep until it disappeared among cottonwood trees that edged the stream at the far end of the meadow, and only when she could no longer see it did she feel truly alone. Although the mornings and nights were cold, the afternoons were warm; right now shade was welcome. She selected a spot in the shade, brushed rocks clear of sand, and settled herself to read.
First a history of the area. These were the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, named by the Spanish, long since driven out, leaving behind bits and pieces of their language, bits of architecture. She studied a picture of petroglyphs outside Pueblo, never deciphered, not even by the first Indians the Spaniards had come across. Another people driven out? Leaving behind bits and pieces of a language? She lingered longer over several pictures of the Valley of the Gods, west of Colorado Springs. Formations like these, but more extensive, bigger, and also desecrated. She frowned at that thought, then went on to turn pages, stopping only at pictures now: an Oglala Sioux medicine lodge, then the very large medicine wheel in Wyoming, desecrated. The people who had constructed the medicine lodges could not explain the medicine wheel, she read, then abruptly snapped the book shut. That was how history was written, she told herself. The victors destroy or try to destroy the gods of the vanquished, and as years go by, the gods themselves fade into the dust. The holy places that remain are turned into tourist attractions, fees are charged, guided tours conducted, books written about the significance of the megaliths, or the pyramids, or the temples, or the ground drawings. And when the dust stirs, the gods stir also, and they wait.
She began to examine a different book, this one done by a small press, an amateur press. The text was amateurish also, but the photographs that accompanied it were first-rate. The photographer had caught the gorgons in every possible light—brilliant sunlight, morning, noon, sunset… moonlight, again, all phases. During a thunderstorm. She drew in a sharp breath at a picture of lightning frozen on the highest peak. There was one with snow several feet deep; each gorgon wore a snowcap. The last section was a series of aerial pictures, approaching from all directions, with stiletto shadows, no shadows at all… . Suddenly, she felt vertiginous.
She had come to the final photograph taken from directly above the field of gorgons at noon. There were no shadows; the light was brilliant, the details sharp and clear. Keeping her gaze on the picture, she felt for her notebook and tore out a piece of paper, positioned it over the photograph. The paper was thin enough for the image to come through. She picked up her pencil and began to trace the peaks, not trying to outline them precisely, only to locate them with circles. When she was done, she studied her sketch and thought, of course, that was how they would be.
She put her pencil point on the outermost circle and started to make a line linking each circle to the next. When she finished, her pencil was in the center of the formations; she had drawn a spiral—a unicursal labyrinth.
Slowly, she stood up and turned toward the gorgons. She had entered in the wrong place before, she thought absently, and she had not recognized the pattern. Knowing now what it was, it seemed so obvious that she marveled at missing it before.
She walked very slowly around the gorgons to the easternmost pillar. Facing the valley, she saw that the low sun had turned the stream to gold; the shadows at her feet reached for it. She entered the formations. There was a right way and a wrong way, but now the right way drew her; she did not have to think about it. A step, another.
She did not know how long she had been hearing the soft singing, chanting, but it was all around her, drawing her on, guiding her even more than the feeling of being on the right path. She did not hesitate this time, nor did she retrace any steps. Her pace was steady. When the light failed, she stopped.
I could continue, she said silently in her head.
Si, Ramón’s voice replied, also in her head.
Will it kill me?
I do not know.
I will go out now.
Si. There was a note of deep regret in the one syllable.
It doesn’t matter how I leave, does it?
No, señora. It does not matter.
She took a step, but now she stumbled, caught herself by clutching one of the gorgons. It was very dark; she could see nothing. There was no sound. Suddenly, she felt panic welling up, flooding her. She took another step and nearly fell over a rock. Don’t run! she told herself, for God’s sake, don’t try to run! She took a deep breath, not moving yet. Her heartbeat subsided.
“Please, señora, permit me.” Ramón’s soft voice was very near.
She felt his hand on her arm, guiding her, and she followed gratefully until they left the formations and Manuel ran up to her in a greater panic than she had felt.
“
Gracias, Madre! Gracias!
” he cried. “Oh, señora, thank goodness you’re safe! Come, let us return to the house!”
She looked for Ramón to thank him, but he was no longer there. Tiredly, she went to the Jeep and got in. Although it was dark, there was not the impenetrable black that she had experienced within the formations. They swallowed light just as they swallowed sound, she thought without surprise. She leaned back and closed her eyes, breathing deeply.
At the house, they were met by a young woman who took Constance by the arm. “Señora, please permit me. I am Felicia. Please allow me to assist you.”
Manuel had explained the problem with the helicopter and she was glad now that Charlie was not on hand to see her drag herself in in this condition. He would have a fit, she thought, and smiled gratefully at Felicia.
“I am a little bit tired,” she admitted. “And very hungry.”
Felicia laughed. “First, Don Carlos said, you must have a drink, and then a bath, and then dinner. Is that suitable, señora?”
“Perfect.”
Charlie was cursing bitterly, creeping along the state road, looking for a place where he could turn around. He had overshot the private road, he knew. He had driven over forty miles since leaving Pueblo, and the private road had to be eight to ten miles behind him, but there was no place to turn. He had trouble accepting that he had missed the other road, the neat sign warning that this was private property, a dead end, but it was very black under the trees. And now he had to turn, go back even slower, and find it. It was fifteen more minutes before there was a spot flat enough, wide enough to maneuver around to head back, and half an hour after that before he saw the sign.
No one could work with the New York Fire Department and then with the police department as many years as he had done without developing many senses that had once been latent. Those senses could take him through a burned-out building, or into an alleyway, or toward a parked car in a state of alertness that permitted him to know if the next step was a bad one, or if there was someone waiting in the backseat of the car. He had learned to trust those senses without ever trying to identify or isolate them. And now they were making him drive with such caution that he was barely moving; finally, he stopped altogether. A mountain road in daylight, he told himself, would look very different from that same road at night. But this different? He closed his eyes and drew up an image of the road he had driven over before—narrow, twisting, climbing and descending steeply, but different from this one, which met all those conditions.
This road was not as well maintained, he realized, and it was narrower than the other one. On one side was a black drop-off, the rocky side of the mountain on the other, and not enough space between them to turn around.
“Well, well,” he murmured, and took a deep breath. The sign had been moved. He was on the wrong road. This road could meander for miles and end up at a ranch, or a mining camp, or a fire tower, or in a snowbank. It could just peter out finally. He let the long breath out in a sigh. Two more miles, and if he didn’t find a place where he could turn, he would start backing out. His stomach felt queasy and his palms were sweating now. He began a tuneless whistle, engaged the gears, and started forward again.
“You know about the holy places on earth, don’t you?” Don Carlos asked Constance. He had invited her to his apartment for a nightcap. Ramón was there, as she had known he would be.