out.'
'What should we do?'
'Well, for starters I think we should be a little less aggressive.'
'Go to hell.'
'And next, I think we should find someone else to talk to.'
'You can star by talking to me,' a voice behind them said.
The Colsons whirled. Marilyn gasped. standing not ten feet from them was a man, tall and lean, wearing jeans, a plaid hunter's jacket, and a baseball cap Strapped to his waistband was a two-way radio.
The double-barreled shotgun cradled on his right arm was aimed at a spot just in front of them.
'You go on in to dinner now, Mary,' the man said.
'Else you'll get nothin' to eat tonight.' Without even a gesture of acknowledgment, the woman shuffled off.
'My my name's Marilyn CoLRon,' Marilyn said, clearing the fear from her throat 'This is my husband, Richard. We… we're lost.' She smiled inwardly at her husband's likely confusion with the direction 'Our Jeep has broken down about half a day's walk in that direction. We were hoping someone in your town might be able to help us get it towed in and fixed.'
'How'd you get here?'
'I just told you, we walked from where our-'
'No, no. I mean here.' The man gestured to the spot where they were standing.
'We came from the north,' Richard said, stepping forward. 'Over those hills, then down along an arroyo, and up into your cornfield.
I'm amazed at how you can get irriga-'
'What do you want?'
'Want?' Marilyn echoed with a hint of anger.
'What about someone to talk to who isn't pointing a gun at us?'
The man lowered the shotgun a fraction.
'And then we could use a place to stay and some help with our Jeep.
Isn't there anybody in this town who does cars?'
'This ain't no town,' the man said, spitting through a gap between his front teeth.
'Town?'
'I said, this ain't no town.' He spat again, then added matter-of-factly, 'It's a hospital… a mental hospital.
'Richard?'
'Okay if I move my bed next to yours?'
'Sure.'
'I'm sorry for the way I talked to you today. I was upset' Marilyn Colson pushed her metal-frame bed close to Richard's and lay on her side, staring through the window of their bungalow at the infinity of stars spattered across the ebony desert sky. Slowly she slid her hand up her husband's leg and began stroking him the way he liked.
The day, one of the worst in a marriage fun of such days, had taken a marked Turn for the better.
After a tense few minutes with the 'mental health worker,' as Garrett Pike, the shotgun-toting man, called himself, they had,been escorted to a low cinderblock building-the clinic and turned over to Dr. James Barber, the director of the Charity Project.
Barber, a psychiatrist, was a balding, cheery man, with an open smile and manner. And although he had explained little of the project, beyond that it involved the reclamation of an old ghost town and was a federally funded experimental installation for dealing with the criminally insane, he had made them feel welcome. Further, he had promised assistance with their Jeep as soon as his maintenance man returned from a trip to 'the city' with the only four-wheel-drive vehicle the project owned. His only requests were that until that time-probably by the following monday stay within the confines of the clinic and its fenced-in yard, and that they ask no further questions about the operation.
Now, after a hot shower, a meal of chicken-fried steak and red wine, and an after dinner conversation in which Barber believed himself to be well-read and thoughtful in a number of areas, they were alone in the guest bungalow, just behind the clinic.
'Richard?'
'Yeah?'
'Don't you think this is sort of romantic? I mean, how many of our friends have ever done it in a mental hospital?'
Richard continued to lie on his back, hands locked behind his head, unresponsive to her touch.
'Something's wrong,' he said finally.
'What are you talking about?'
'Just what I said. Something's not right here.
Remember after dinner when I mentioned StackSullivan's theory on maturation inversion in traumatized children?'
'Actually, I don't, no.'
'Well, I described it completely backwards.'
'You what?'
'I amp;rely for the sake of discussion. And Barber just agreed with what I said. He's either an absurdly uninformed psychiatrist, on'
'Richard, let me get this straight. Here's this man, being incredibly hospitable to us, and you're running a goddam test on him?' She pulled her hand away. 'I can't believe you!'
'Yeah,' he whispered. 'Now, I don't think we should talk about it anymore. For all I know, this cabin is bugged.'
'This is crazy, Richard. He probably just wasn't paying much attention to you. God knows I wasn't.
You're not exactly riveting when you get going with that psych theory shit of yours.'
Richard's response was cut short by a fit of coughing. He sat up on the side of his bed, hands on knees, until it subsided.
'What's the matter?' she asked.
'I don't know. I'm having a little trouble catching my breath. I had asthma as a kid, but nothing for years.'
'Maybe there's some mold in here or something.
Or maybe it's unexpressed stress.'
'I'm going out into the yard for a bit.'
'Should we go see the doctor?'
'I tell you, he's no-' Once again a spasm of coughs cut him off.
He pushed to his feet and stepped out of the bungalow into the cool night air.
Marilyn lay alone on her bunk, wondering how she ever could have thought the two of them were the match for a lifetime. Well, the hell with it, she decided.
She had given it her best shot. Now it was time to move in other directions. Unable to get comfortable, she rolled over, and then rolled back. She bunched the pillow beneath her head. The air felt heavy and sweet. Finally she went to the armoire and brought back a second pillow, which she bunched on top of the first.
Better, she thought as she lay back in bed. Much better.
One minute passed, then another. She began to feel calmer. Her eyes closed. Her breathing slowed and seemed to come more easily. The last sound she heard before the darkness of sleep drifted over her was her husband's coughing.
It was seven-thirty by her watch when the loudspeaker bell woke Marilyn from shallow, fitful sleep. She had been up for most of the night, in part from Richard's entering and leaving the bungalow several times, in part from his spasmodic racking cough, and in part from her own increasing shortness of breath-better when she sat up, more marked when she lay back.
She was alone in the cottage. The morning sun washed through the east window, highlighting a dense, shimmering mist of suspended dust.
