The Hollow Man

“moderate” is an obvious misnomer as the trail leads straight up rocks, past waterfalls, across ridges, and over minor peaks, while Jeremy is soon cursing that the “3.85 miles” was obviously measured by an aircraft, not a biped. Also he acknowledges that he may have overpacked. Gail suggests taking out the bag of charcoal or the second six-pack of beer, but Jeremy discards several bags of gorp and insists on keeping the essentials for a civilized trip.

At 2.20 miles they pass through a beautiful stand of white birch and scramble onto the summit of the Third Brother, a low peak that just manages to get its rocky snout above the undulating ocean of leaves. From there they get a glimpse of their destination—Big Slide Mountain—and between gasps for air, Jeremy and Gail grin at each other.

Big Slide Mountain is a smaller and much more secret version of Yosemite’s El Capitan. While one side rises in a gentle, wooded arc, the other drops off in a sheer rock wall to culminate in a tumble of house-sized boulders.

“That’s our destination?” pants Gail.

Jeremy nods, too winded to speak.

“Can’t we just take a picture of it and say we were there?”

Jeremy shakes his head and lifts his pack on with a groan. For half a mile they drop down into a col, the trail occasionally cutting back and forth in a gentle switchback, more frequently dropping straight down rock formations or steep slopes. Just below the Big Slide summit cliffs they hit the last section of trail, and the last three-tenths of a mile seems to be straight up.

Jeremy realizes that they have made the summit only when his downcast eyes see no rock in front of him, only air. He falls backward and sprawls on the pack with arms and legs askew. Gail politely removes her own pack before collapsing on his stomach.

They stay sprawled for almost fifteen minutes, commenting on cloud formations and the occasional hawk as they get enough breath back to whisper. Then a rising breeze makes Gail sit up, and as Jeremy watches the wind ruffle her short hair, he thinks, I’m always going to remember this, and Gail turns to smile at him, seeing her reflection in his thoughts.

They set up their tent back away from the south ledge, in among the weather-stunted trees along a rock overhang, but they lay their foam pads and sleeping bags along the edge of the drop-off itself. They prepare the charcoal in a natural hollow in the rocks along the tree line; the grill fits perfectly. Gail takes the steaks out of the small ice chest and Jeremy pulls one of the three cold beers out and pops the tab. Gail has already set the foil- wrapped corn on the cob in the embers, and now Jeremy oversees the cooking while Gail sets fresh radishes, salad, and potato chips on the two plates. She produces a pack-within-a-pack wrapped in towels and filled with paper, and carefully removes the two wineglasses and bottle of BV cabernet sauvignon from within. She sets the bottle to chill with the remaining beer.

They eat as the summer evening settles toward sunset, both perching along the sheer ledge, boots hanging out over space. There are just enough clouds to ignite the sky to the west in a blaze of pinks and deep purples. The ledge lies along the south face of the mountain, and they watch in that direction as true twilight deepens into night. There is much steak, and they eat it slowly, refilling the wineglasses often. Gail has brought two large slices of chocolate cake for dessert.

A night wind comes up as they are cleaning the cooking area and stowing the paper plates in their garbage bags. Jeremy does not want a campfire and he scatters the dead coals in among the crevices in the rock, leaving as little sign as possible that they had cooked there. They pull on fleece jackets while they are brushing their teeth and attending to private business back among the trees along the north ledges, but they are in their sleeping bags along the south ledge again by the time the stars come out.

This is right comes the image, and for a moment neither one of them knows who thought it first. To the south there is only forest and mountains and darkening sky as far as they can see. No highways or houselights mar the purple length of the valley, although now a very few campfires are visible. In ten minutes the sky is lighter than the valley as stars fill the dome above them. The stars’ brightness is undiminished by city lights.

The two bags have been zipped together, but there is little extra space as Jeremy and Gail shrug out of their clothes. They stack things in neat piles under the foot of their bags so underthings will not blow away if the breeze grows stronger in the night, and then they duck their heads in and huddle together, all smooth flesh and warm breath, defying the cold gale beyond their sleeping bags. Their lovemaking tonight is slow in the starting, gentle in the extreme, and promising more violent ecstasy than they have known before.

Always. Jeremy can tell it was Gail who sent the thought this time.

Always, he whispers back, or does not whisper.

They settle lower, intertwined, warm and out of the wind, while, overhead, the stars seem to blaze with the intensity of the universe’s affirmation.

In the Twilight Kingdom

They parked in a row labeled GRUMPY and took the long towed shuttle to the park’s gate. Vanni Fucci had taken off his white jacket and was carrying the .38-caliber revolver under it. “You do anything stupid,” he said softly to Bremen as they waited for the shuttle, “and I’ll whack you right here. I swear to fucking Christ I will.”

Bremen looked at the thief, sensed the resolve warring with irritation there.

Vanni Fucci mistook the look for disbelief. “You don’t fucking believe me, I’ll whack you right here in the fucking parking lot and be in fucking Georgia before anybody realizes you’ve been fucking shot!”

“I believe you,” said Bremen, feeling the surges of the man’s excitement. There was something about a public killing, especially here, that did appeal to Vanni Fucci, although the little thief would prefer that crazy Bert Cappi or his equally crazy buddy Ernie Sanza would do the deed. Either way, him or Bert and Ernie, it’d make a fucking hell of a story … whacking this citizen here.

The shuttle arrived. Bremen and Vanni Fucci piled on, the barrel of the .38 pressing through the coat into Bremen’s side. During the short ride to the gate, Bremen was able to pick out more of Fucci’s plan.

The meeting here had been prearranged for other reasons; more precisely, had been arranged between Don Leoni’s main man down here, Sal Empori, with Bert and Ernie as backup, and some of those crazy fucking Colombians … that was how Vanni Fucci thought of them each time, those crazy-fucking-Colombians … to exchange a briefcase of Don Leoni’s money for a suitcase of the crazy fucking Colombians’ best smack for the nigger trade up north in Vanni Fucci’s territory. They had been making the swap in Walt Disney World for some years now.

Sal’ll take care of this fucking geek. No sweat, no fucking muss, no mucking fuss.

“Pay your own fucking way in,” Vanni Fucci whispered as he bought his ticket and prodded Bremen in the ribs.

Bremen pawed through his pockets. He had stuck some of the fifties in there three days earlier. Six fifties, to be exact. He slid one across the counter, had to specify that he wanted only a single day’s entry coupon, and waited for his change, which was less than he would have guessed.

The thief moved him through the crowds, one hand on Bremen’s arm, the other hand out of sight under the jacket. It looked suspicious as hell to Bremen, but no one else seemed to be noticing.

Bremen hardly looked up as Vanni Fucci led him onto a monorail that took them around some lagoons and toward a distant congregation of spires, structures, and at least one artificial mountain. The monorail stopped, the thief pulled Bremen to his feet and out the door, and the two men moved into thickening crowds. The neurobabble around Bremen had risen from whisper to scream, from scream to incessant roar. And the roar had a particular and peculiar quality to it, as different from the rasp of normal neurobabble as the rush of Niagara Falls must be from the sound of a lesser waterfall. And the peculiar quality here was one of a frenetic and widely shared sadness, as pervasive and powerful as the smell of decaying flesh.

Bremen staggered, raised his hands to his temples, and covered his ears in a futile attempt to block out the waves of nonsound, nonspeech. Vanni Fucci shoved him onward.

Not like I thought it’d be … been waiting thirty-five years for this … not