Stone Junction

Wyoming.’

‘You might find a Fort Bridger there around the Green River, but they didn’t bury ol’ Gabe where he belonged. Shipped his body home to Saint Louie. I don’t know, but I think it’d be hard to rest easy on city ground. All that bustle and traffic and chatter.’ This piece of information from his youthful reading had particularly moved him.

Jenny looked at him appraisingly. ‘Who are you?’ she said.

‘Name’s Hugh Glass, ma’am.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ Jenny said. ‘Take off your foxy cap.’

Daniel removed it, turning to face her.

They looked at each other, both afraid they were going to start trembling.

Jenny said, ‘You’re a kid like me, barely twenty.’

‘My name’s Daniel Pearse.’ He felt light-headed speaking his own name.

‘I’m Jennifer Raine,’ Jenny said. ‘Susanna Rapp if anyone should inquire.’

‘Am I to take it we share outlaw status in the culture at large?’

Jenny cocked her head, smiling, the rainbow tassel on her hat sliding across her left shoulder. ‘And am I to take this radical change in diction and voice as an indication of candor?’

‘Please do,’ Daniel said.

Jenny said, ‘I’m not sure what I am. I escaped from a mental hospital in California and won about two hundred thousand dollars last night on three rolls of the dice and here I am, no longer sure where to go. But it’s odd – just before I saw you staring at the moon, I was thinking about what I am. Not who – I’ll be working on that one for a while – but what. What I am. For now I’m an apprentice poet and I’m a Lover of Fortune. Not a Soldier of Fortune. A lover. And I suppose that’d make me a borderline outlaw.’

‘You forgot something else you are,’ Daniel said.

Cautiously, Jenny said, ‘What?’

‘A mother. Unless you’ve kidnapped that child bundled in back.’

Jenny stared at him, stunned by terror and relief.

Afraid he’d offended her, Daniel said quickly, ‘If you’re offering me a ride – and I want you to – let’s agree to respect necessary secrets.’

Jenny reached over and lifted his left hand into hers, pressing it softly between her palms. ‘She’s my daughter,’ Jenny said huskily, ‘but Daniel – she’s imaginary. She’s my imaginary daughter. How can you see her?’

‘I don’t know,’ Daniel said. He thought he would faint. She squeezed his hand harder. ‘I saw her swaddled in that lovely blanket when I got in the car and I still see her now. Certainly I have a strong imagination, but I’ve never experienced anything like this before.’ Then he remembered that he could see a spiral flame inside the Diamond when he was invisible, and added, ‘Well, there is one similar.’

‘You can imagine my imaginary daughter? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Yes. But probably only because you let me.’

Jenny released his hand and reached for her door handle. As she opened the door, she glanced back at Daniel and said, ‘C’mere, sailor.’

He followed her about twenty yards away from the car into the scrub-sage desert. She told him to stop. He did. She walked another ten yards then turned around to face him. She kicked off her four-leaf clover shoes. Took off her hat and shook her dark blond hair, the color of sugar just before it burns. She said, ‘Tell me what you see,’ and turned around, deftly unzipping her dress down the back, gracefully shedding it with a wiggle of her hips.

Over her shoulder Jenny said urgently, ‘Daniel, what do you see?’

‘I see,’ Daniel began, his voice quavering, ‘a scar at the base of your spine, shaped like a lightning bolt, and I see a beautiful woman, her shoulders wet with rain, who I want to hold in my arms so bad I can’t keep my voice from shaking.’

Jenny turned around.

If it weren’t for the Diamond’s weight, which seemed to be gaining an ounce every five minutes now, Daniel would have lifted off the earth. He watched her delicately touch herself, the moonlit whiteness of her exposed inner thigh, rain dripping from her tight nipples. He saw the nakedness beyond her flesh. Her eyes promised what they might know together: fearless hunger, fearless trust. He wanted to meet the offer with all of himself, heartbeat to heartbeat, breath to breath. Though he felt his assent with a serene clarity, light without shadow, he was speechless.

Jenny wasn’t. She nodded toward the Porsche and told him, ‘Bring Mia’s blanket.’

When Volta arrived home he cleared the living room of every stick of furniture except a long low maple-top table and a cushion to sit on while he worked. He put the goldfish’s bowl directly in his line of sight on the far side of the table. He finished listening to various messages – nothing urgent – and turned off the tape deck. He gathered a pen and pad of paper and began to compose his letter of retirement from the Star. The tiny goldfish was darting wildly around the bowl.

On impulse, Volta leapt up and ran to his bedroom. He returned a few minutes later, wearing only his old magician’s robe, indigo silk randomly patterned with small golden stars, the phases of the moon emblazoned on the back and up each sleeve. He sat cross-legged on the cushion and cupped the goldfish’s bowl in his hands. The goldfish was circling around the glass edge of the bowl, but now less frantically. The fish kept slowing as Volta watched. With a flick of its tail, it swam to the center of the bowl and stopped, suspended, fins barely shimmering. Volta could feel the Diamond grow denser in Daniel’s mind.