footprints of those insensitive enough to walk off the paved trail.
The expected pinch of claustrophobia failed to materialize, and Anna enjoyed the trip. After the suffocating confines of parts of Lechuguilla, the light, airy cavern felt like what it was: a walk in the park. Spiraling ever downward, each turn producing a view more splendid than the last, Anna considered the words she would use to share it with Molly. Inadequate metaphors were all she could muster: a cathedral, a ballroom, a whale's belly, a set for
Periodically Anna drifted by a troglodyte in the green and gray of the NPS uniform: rangers roving the trail, providing information, assistance, and a watchful eye for a resource so domesticated it could no longer protect itself. Cloaked in darkness and civilian clothes, she passed with a nod or a wave, happy to be another faceless tourist.
On a zigzagging segment where the path descended steeply toward the Big Room, a chamber the size of fourteen football fields according to the brochure, Anna found Zeddie Dillard. One foot on the low stone wall with which the Park Service bordered the asphalt-an attempt to keep people from stomping the entire cave floor into a likeness of a Safeway parking lot-she addressed a group of girls. Blue Birds or Brownies, something organized by age. Mellifluous in speech as in song, her voice hummed warmly in the dim cavern.
They were stopped at a natural viewpoint. A thoughtful government had provided a tasteful stone bench by the trail. Anna sat, half listening to the lecture and marveling at the panorama. The trail was considerably above the Big Room. Several more twists, turns, and tunnels would have to be negotiated before reaching the promised land. The zig where Anna sat provided a sneak preview, a peek from the stone shrouded mountainside into the valley. Faint lights marked a sinuous path through a vast plain dotted with unimaginable monsters frozen for all eternity. Seen from above, it reminded Anna of flying into a strange city by night: pinpricks of light, canyons of darkness, mystery, unvoiced hopes and veiled threats.
The gaggle of girls trickled downhill. Zeddie turned, the professional smile of the tour guide barely discernible even to eyes accustomed to the dark.
'Hey, Anna,' she said with what sounded like relief. Dropping heavily onto the bench at her side, she said, 'Boy, am I beat. I've got half a mind to come down with the flu myself. I could use the time in bed.'
Both of them thought of Peter McCarty. Anna didn't so much as snicker, but Zeddie felt the vibrations. 'Rest. Sleep. Hell…' Her words petered out. Then Anna did laugh.
Sniffing audibly, Zeddie said, 'Do I smell Plumeria?'
'I've been playing with your toys,' Anna admitted.
'Good for the soul. Even Xena the Warrior Princess wears a little eye shadow. I'm bored with men who think strong and sexy is an oxymoron.'
'Heavy on the moron?' Anna suggested. Zeddie leaned over, bumping her with a shoulder that was no longer cold. Anna was touched. She liked Zeddie, liked to think well of her and be thought well of in return.
Two tourists, twined together like unpruned ivy, walked past. They smiled and nodded at Zeddie. The flat hat, the uniform, brought that out in people. Rangers, like firemen and comic-strip bears, were considered benevolent creatures. That as much as anything made Anna wince when she had to bust somebody. It was bad for the image.
'I oughtn't to be sitting,' Zeddie said idly. 'It looks bad.' She made no move to get up. The morning's tour would have taken a toll even on such a robust specimen as Zeddie Dillard. She was tired, vulnerable. Anna might not get a better opportunity.
'Have you ever sung in the Big Room?' Anna asked, putting off the inevitable dissolution of their budding friendship.
''Ghost Riders in the Sky.''
Leaning her head back, Anna stared into a heaven eternally dark. Thunderheads, canyons, spires, defied gravity. Utah's Canyon Lands in a Salvador Dali nightmare. 'Good choice,' she said.
Carlsbad, the destination of as many as three-quarters of a million tourists each year, had none of the baffling silence of Lechuguilla. She and Zeddie were no more isolated than two women on a bench at the Guggenheim on a Sunday afternoon. In exposing the visual grandeur of the cavern, the soul of the cave had been compromised, as outer space was compromised by the bits of metal flung into it. Once man intruded, perfect solitude was banished. In this instance, Anna felt it was an improvement. Safety in numbers.
The comfortable quiet on the bench grew strained. Zeddie broke it first. 'Dare I hope this is purely a social call?'
'I wish it were,' Anna replied wearily.
'Are you going to accuse me of murder again?'
'More or less.'
Zeddie snorted, but there was humor in the rude noise, and Anna took heart.
'Well, let's have it,' Zeddie said. 'Jealousy? A fortune in jewels? An inheritance: Frieda was my secret twin separated at birth?'
Anna searched for the words that would convey meanings only slowly becoming clear. 'It's kind of a two- parter,' she said. 'There's Frieda. Then there's Sondra McCarty.'
'Sondra's gone,' Zeddie said with a frankness that caught Anna off guard. 'And good riddance. That woman was a boil on the butt of humanity.'
'Gone?' Anna tensed for a confession laced with hard-core rationalizations.
'Peter got rid of her,' Zeddie said, pride of ownership in her voice. ''Bout damn time.'
She was too open, cheery. Anna was getting confused and a little nervous. What she had here was either a misunderstanding or an undiagnosed psychopath. She sought clarification with a gentle probe. 'I hate to pry-'
'Hah!'
'Okay. I like to pry. How about this: Why in God's name did Peter think it was such a terrific idea to go on an expedition with his wife and his girlfriend and his ex-girlfriend?'
'The ex is no big deal,' Zeddie said. 'That was years ago. Frieda and Peter were friends. Shoot, Frieda and I were friends. With the notable exception of the Boil, I've always liked Pete's taste in women.'
A clutter of tourists, jangling cameras and Anna's nerves, clattered down the trail. Duty calling, Zeddie left the bench and answered questions for a few minutes. Anna's favorite came from a scrawny youth in trousers so large the crotch hobbled him at the knees. 'What does the cave weigh?'
The group was swallowed by the shadows, and Zeddie returned to the bench. 'What do you want to bet that boy'll piss in the Urinal?'
Bowing to Zeddie's greater experience in things scatological, Anna declined the wager.
'Where were we?' Zeddie said, then, 'Oh, right, you were interrogating me about the most intimate personal aspects of my life that are none of your business.'
'That's it in a nutshell,' Anna conceded. 'You, Peter, and the Mrs. along on the same trip. That's where we left off.'
'It does sound kinky when you put it like that. I was going through a bad time. Peter wanted to be with me. The sentiment was mutual. This survey came up. I wangled two places on it through Frieda. At the last minute Sondra dug in her heels. It was bring her or call the whole thing off. He brought her. Peter and I have known each other a long time, been through a lot together. We don't have to sleep in the same bed-though I've got to admit it's nice. Just being together, having a chance to talk, was enough.'
'I take it Sondra didn't know about you two?'
'We were broken up when they got married.'
'Why did he marry her, blackmail?'
'Rebound. I broke up with him. He's older than I am, established. I'm not ready to become Mrs. Doctor anybody. There are things I want to do. To make it stick, I made it brutal. Just fooling myself. I'm as addicted to Peter as he is to me. But I'm damned if I'll marry him. He was beginning to feel like an aging Warren Beatty with no Annette Bening in sight. Sondra showed up and waltzed him down the aisle. Therapy waiting to happen.'
'Does he want a divorce?'
'Yeah. It embarrasses the hell out of him. They haven't been married all that long. He did make a fool of
