Blind Descent

She sounded so hopeful that Anna didn't like to discourage her. 'You never know what's going to help,' she said.

'Hah!' Rhonda snorted. 'Too bad. That was some of my best stuff. Want to hear the rest?'

Anna did.

'This is more sad than pertinent, but it's what I got.'

'Shoot,' Anna said.

'Careful what you wish for,' Holden said from the backseat.

'Careful what you wish for,' Andrew echoed in a sweet piping voice.

'Who's telling this story?' Rhonda asked with mock severity.

'You are, baby,' said Holden.

'You are, Momma,' said Andrew.

'More sad than pertinent,' Anna said to get things rolling.

'Yes. Thank you. This is from the Minnesota connection. I called the secretary of the grotto up there. She's in love with Holden.'

'Unrequited!' came from the backseat.

'A healthy choice,' Rhonda told her husband. 'The secretary, Sarah or Susie or somebody-'

'Sally,' Holden interjected. A tactical error. 'Or maybe it was Silly…'

'Nice save,' Rhonda said, and laughed. 'Sally told me Zeddie had an older sister who was killed in a climbing accident when Zeddie was in high school. Her sister was a lot older, close to thirty at the time.'

'Sondra's age,' Anna said idly.

'You think it means anything?' Rhonda asked.

'I wouldn't know what,' Anna admitted. 'It would have to have happened more than ten years ago. Did this Sally know any details? Who was there, what happened, that sort of thing?'

'No. I thought of that. Like maybe Frieda was there and screwed up, got Zeddie's sister killed or something?'

'Frieda would have been twenty-five or so. She was already working for the Park Service. I suppose she could have gone home. Her mom said she was friends with Zeddie's sister. And the accident didn't have to take place in Minnesota. I don't know if there's anyplace to climb in Minnesota that's high enough you could kill yourself falling off of it.'

'I'll find out,' Rhonda promised.

Holden made squirmy uncomfortable noises from the rear seat. 'Daddy, you're squishing my bat,' came a complaining note.

'Sorry, son. Rhonda, I don't know if that's such a good idea,' Holden began. 'What with guns going off and avalanches and whatnot. I don't want you and Andrew-'

'What?' Rhonda cut him off. 'Talking long distance on the phone? This from Mr. Crawl-Down-Holes-and- Break-an-Ankle? Mr. Spit-in the-Face-of-Danger?'

'Aww, that's not how it is,' Holden said, but Rhonda had won her point.

'Is that all?' Anna asked. Her words sounded niggardly and ungrateful even in her own ears, but she was so tired. Reaching into her reserves she dredged up a few more. 'Not that it's not a lot,' she managed.

'Gee, thanks a heap,' Rhonda said, and, 'Ringtail!' She put on the brakes, her high beams spotlighting a graceful little brandy-colored cat with a black-and-white tail as long as its body crouched atop the stone wall beside the road.

Enraptured, the four of them watched as the cat studied them, gauged the personal danger, opted for the better part of valor, and disappeared over the far side of the stones.

'Pretty neat, eh, Andrew?' Holden asked.

'Pretty neat,' the little boy agreed. 'Can I have one?'

'They're wild animals, sweetie,' Rhonda told him. 'They only like to be seen once in a while like this. They wouldn't be happy in a cage.'

'I wouldn't keep him in a cage,' Andrew said stubbornly. 'I'd keep him in my room.'

The adults laughed. Offended, Andrew returned to his stuffed bat, carrying on a whispered conversation they clearly were not meant to be privy to.

Rhonda started the truck moving again. 'And, since you asked,' she said picking up the thread of conversation, 'no, that is not all. I saved the best for last. I mean the best if any of this is of any use. Sally was a veritable fount of information. Dr. McCarty may not be Marcus Welby material after all. Twelve years ago he was brought up on charges. She seemed to think pretty serious ones-lose-your-medical-license serious. But he settled out of court, and the charges were dropped. And no,' she said before Anna could speak, 'she didn't know what he'd been charged with.'

There was a party going on at Zeddie's house. Anna almost whimpered at the blaze of lights and babble of voices that blasted her when she opened the door. Rhonda and Holden had slunk away under cover of darkness as soon as they'd seen the symptoms of revelry. Tonight Anna wished she could have gone home with them, hidden out in their cozy little house. The Tillmans were a family. Childhood with mother and father, dinners around the table, chores and games, was decades past. If Anna'd ever really known what family meant, she'd long since forgotten. In her world it was merely a mechanism of exclusion, shutting out those who weren't connected. Anna had her sister, whom she dearly loved. Once she'd had a husband. There was closeness, trust, companionship-all the stuff of Hallmark cards. But did two constitute a family? Somehow it didn't, not quite. For family, more than one generation needed to be represented.

You have your NPS family, a saccharine voice in her head chanted as she hung her scabrous leather coat on a peg by the door. Looking as sour as she felt, she limped into the front room. The festivities weren't as vile as her tired mind had painted them. Oscar was there, Peter and Zeddie, Curt, and a young couple Anna didn't recognize: a handsome lithe man in his mid twenties with a beard close-cropped in the fashion of Curt's, his olive-skinned wife and their toddler, a child so apple-cheeked and curly-topped she would have been a shoo-in for a Gerber's ad from the fifties.

Zeddie was on the sofa with a guitar. Calcite curled up in a ball at her hip, apparently a devotee of stringed instruments. The young woman's hair was loose and clean. Anna realized it was the first time she'd seen Zeddie without a bandana tied buccaneer-style around her head. This night she looked impossibly young and strong, a willow, wide and rooted deep, able to withstand any of life's storms. In her rich contralto she was belting out an intricate ballad, the refrain of which was 'and I want a shot of whiskey!' From the laughter, Anna surmised Zeddie made up the lyrics as she went along, poking fun at the business of rangering and the politics of caving.

Peter McCarty leaned on the mantel of a fireplace that hadn't been used in so long it had been converted to a storage place for magazines. On his handsome face was a look of proprietorship and reflected glory that he had in no way earned. Not by matrimony, at any rate, or by any basic honesty that Anna had noted. Tonight she found the hypocrisy irritating.

Oscar was giving full attention either to the performance or the performer and spared Anna the barest of nods. The two strangers smiled politely, then glanced away. Curt Schatz held the apple-cheeked baby girl on his lap, looking almost as happy as if she'd been a cat. Perhaps all nonverbal animals share the same charm. Schatz dangled his keys in front of chubby grasping fingers in lieu of paws, percolating giggles taking the place of purring.

Anna caught his eye and he stood immediately, shifting the child to his hip in a practiced movement. A smile illuminated the shadows of his beard, and behind horn-rimmed spectacles, his eyes were welcoming.

Warmth brought Anna unpleasantly close to tears. If you want somebody who's glad to see you so damned bad, why don't you get a dog? she mocked herself. The self-inflicted cruelty stemmed the waterworks for only a moment. Then she remembered she had a dog, Frieda's dog, Taco, a trusting, slobbering, jowly, loving, jumping golden retriever.

'And I want a shot of whiskey!' Zeddie wailed, the depth of her voice filling the small room and pouring like hot wax into one's bones.

Anna's eyes filled.

'Uh-oh,' Curt said. 'Don't do that. I'll get you a beer if you'll stop,' he coaxed.