He waited five minutes, then ten, holding this empty fractal perfection in his head, preparing himself. And then, slowly, he began to put the landscape back together; but it would not be the same landscape he had just stripped away.
First the light returned. Then the grass rolled over the landscape, virgin tallgrass prairie dotted with prairie aster, wild poppies, cornflowers, rocketweed, and lupine. Then he piled back the bronze mountains of cloud, the rocky outcrops, the shady creek wandering free across the Great Plains. Now other things began to take shape: a herd of buffalo in the far distance; shallow water pans blazing silver in the late afternoon light; and everywhere an infinite array of wild grasses, undulating from horizon to horizon like a great rippling sea of green.
A thread of smoke came up from below. There were black dots of people moving about, a few ragged tents. Fifty horses were grazing the bottomlands by the creek, their noses in the grass.
Slowly, Pendergast permitted first the sounds, and then the smells, to return: voices laughing and cursing; fecund humidity; the whiff of woodsmoke and roasting buffalo steaks; the distant whinny of a horse; the jingle of spurs and the clank of cast iron cookware.
Pendergast waited, watchful, all senses alert. The voices became clearer.
The chunk of wood on fire.
Laughter. Men were standing around, battered tin plates in hand. The scene was still vague, tremulous, not yet fully formed.
The late afternoon sun refracted through a bottle and there was the sloshing of drink. There was a clank, the sound of an iron lid settling. A gust of wind swept up a skein of dust, settled back down. A piece of wood popped in the fire.
More laughter.
Gradually, the scene crystallized. Men were standing around a fire at the base of a mound. They were wearing greasy cowboy hats, frayed bandannas, ragged shirts, and pants that looked so stiff from dirt and grease they almost crackled as they walked. All had scraggly beards.
The hill was a dusty island in the sea of grass. Below, the land swept away, open and free. The thick scrub that then covered the base of the mounds cast long shadows. The wind was picking up, rippling the grass in restless, random waves. The clean scent of wildflowers drifted on the air, mingling the sweet smell of cottonwood smoke, simmering beans, unwashed humanity. In the lee of one mound the men had unrolled their bedrolls and upended their saddles, using the sheepskin linings as headrests. There were a couple of pitched pole tents, badly rotted. Beyond, partway down the hill, stood one of the pickets, alert, carrying a rifle. Another picket was on the far side.
As the wind picked up, more clouds of dust swirled upward.
A man with a narrow face, narrow eyes, and a scar across his chin stood lazily and shook out his legs, causing his spurs to jingle. Harry Beaumont, the leader.
There was some muffled laughter.
More laughter.
From one side, a man began to sing in a fine low voice:
