eyes. Took slow, deep breath. The water wasn’t cold enough, but it helped.
When at last she’d dried her hands, she turned to a full-length mirror on the wall next to the paper-towel dispenser. Leaving home, she’d thought that she was dressed to make the right impression, that she appeared businesslike, efficient. She’d thought she looked nice.
Now her reflection mocked her. The skirt was too short. And too tight. Though not shockingly low-cut, the blouse nevertheless looked inappropriate for a job interview. Maybe the heels on her white shoes were too high, as well.
She did look obvious. Cheap. She looked like the woman she had been, not like the woman she wanted to be. She wasn’t dressing for herself or for work, but for men, and for the type of men who never treated her with respect, for the type of men who ruined her life. Somehow the mirror at home hadn’t shown her what she needed to see.
This pill was bitter, but more bitter still was the way that it had been administered. By F. Bronson.
Though difficult, taking such advice from someone who respected you and cared for you would be like swallowing medicine with honey. This dosage came with vinegar. And if F. Bronson had thought of it as medicine, instead of poison, she might not have given it.
For years, in mirrors Micky had seen the good looks and the sexual magnetism that could get anything she desired. But now that she no longer wanted those things, now that parties and thrills and the attention of bad men held no appeal, now that she harbored higher aspirations, the mirror revealed cheap flash, awkwardness, naivete— and a desperate yearning, the sight of which made her cringe.
She’d thought that she had merely grown beyond the need to use her beauty as either a tool or a weapon, but something more profound had happened. Her concept of beauty had changed entirely; and when she looked in the mirror, she saw frighteningly little that matched her new definition. This might be maturity, but it scared her; always before, her confidence in her physical beauty was something to fall back on, an ultimate consolation in bad times. Now that confidence was gone.
An urge to shatter the mirror overcame her. But the past could not be broken as easily as glass. It was the past that stood before her, the stubborn past, relentless.
Chapter 38
Boy and dog — the former better able to tolerate the August sun than is the latter, the latter somewhat better smelling than is the former, the former thinking again about Gabby’s strangely hysterical exit from the Mountaineer, the latter thinking about frankfurters, the former marveling at the beauty of an azure-blue bird perched on a section of badly weathered and half-broken rail fence, the latter smelling the bird’s droppings and thereby deducing its recent history in significant detail — are grateful for each other’s company as they seek their future, first across open land and then along a lonely country road that, around a bend, is suddenly lonely no more.
Thirty or forty motor homes, about half that many pickup trucks with camper shells, and a lot of SUVs are gathered along the side of the two-lane blacktop and in the adjacent meadow. Attached to some of the motor homes, canvas awnings create shaded areas for socializing. At least a dozen colorful tents have been pitched, as well.
The only permanent structures in sight are in the distance: a ranch house, a barn, stables.
A green John Deere tractor connected to a hay wagon serves as the rental office, manned by a rancher in jeans, T-shirt, and straw sombrero. A hand-lettered sign states that meadow spaces cost twenty dollars per day. It’s also emblazoned with one disclaimer and one condition: NO SERVICES PROVIDED, LIABILITY WAIVER REQUIRED.
Encountering this bustling encampment, Curtis is disposed to pass quickly and with caution. So many motor homes in one location worry him. For all he knows, this is a convention of serial killers.
Here might be where the murderous tooth fetishists were bound. That while-haired couple could be nearby, proudly displaying their denial trophies while admiring the even more hideous collections of other homicidal psychopaths in this summer festival of the damned.
Old Yeller, however, smells no trouble. Her natural sociability is engaged, and she wants to explore the scene.
Curtis trusts her instincts. Besides, a crowd offers him some camouflage if the wrong scalawags come prowling with electronics, searching for the unique energy signature that the boy produces.
The meadow is enclosed by a ranch fence of whitewashed boards needing repair and fresh whitening. The tractor guards the open gate.
A tarp on four tall poles shields the hay wagon from the direct sun, and under the tarp, merchandise awaits sale. From a series of picnic coolers filled with crushed ice, the rancher and a teenage boy dispense cans of beer and soft drinks. They offer packaged snack foods like potato chips, as well as homemade cookies, brownies, and jars of “Grandma’s locally famous” black-bean-and-corn salsa, which a sign promises is “hot enough to blow your head clean off.”
Curtis can conceive of no way in which anyone’s head could be blown off cleanly. Decapitation by any means is a messy event.
He has no difficulty understanding why Grandma’s deadly salsa is locally famous, but he can’t comprehend why anyone would buy it. Yet several jars are missing from the geometric display, and as he watches, two more are sold.
This seems to indicate that a portion of those gathering in the meadow are suicidal. The dog has discounted the theory of a serial-killer convention, since she detects none of the telltale pheromones of full-blown psychosis, but Curtis is equally unenthusiastic about a gathering of the suicide-prone, regardless of their reasons for considering self-destruction.
In addition to beverages, snacks, and the infamous salsa, the hay wagon also offers T-shirts bearing strange messages. NEARY RANCH, one declares, STARPORT USA. Another shirt features the picture of a cow and the words CLARA, FIRST COW IN SPACE. Yet another states WE ARE NOT ALONE — NEARY RANCH. And a fourth insists THE DAY DRAWS NEAR and also features the name of the ranch.
Curtis is interested in Clara. Although he’s familiar with the entire history of NASA and with the space program of the former Soviet Union, he’s unaware of any attempt to place a cow in orbit or to send one to the moon. No other country possesses the capability to orbit a cow and to bring it back alive. Furthermore, the purpose of sending a bovine astronaut into space completely eludes the boy.
A book is displayed for sale beside the T-shirts: Night on the Neary Ranch: Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind. From the title and the cover illustration — a flying saucer hovering over a farmhouse — Curtis begins to understand that the Neary Ranch is the origin of a modern folk tale similar to those told about Roswell, New Mexico.
Intrigued but still concerned about the suicidal types that are at least a portion of this gathering, he again trusts Old Yeller’s judgment. She smells no prospect of exploding heads, and she’s eager to sniff her way through the fragrant throng.
Boy and dog enter the meadow without being challenged at the open gate. Evidently they are thought to be with attendees who rented a space and legitimately established camp.
In a holiday mood, carrying drinks, eating homemade cookies, lightly dressed for the heat, people stroll the close-cropped grass in the aisles between campsites, making new friends, greeting old acquaintances. Others gather in the shade under the awnings, playing cards and board games, listening to radios — and talking, talking.
Everywhere, people are engaged in conversation, some quiet and earnest, others noisy and enthusiastic. From the scraps that Curtis hears as he and Old Yeller amble through the field, he concludes that all these folks are UFO buffs. They gather here twice a year, around the dates of two famous saucer visitations, but this assemblage is related to some new and recent event that has excited them.
The campsites are organized like spokes on a wheel, and at the hub is a perfectly circular patch of bare earth about twelve feet in diameter. The meadow grows all around this circle, but the earth within is chalky and hard-
