

### Run Billy Boy Run

### Book Three: The Confluence of Disorder

By Neil Ackerman

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Copyright 2013

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Adult Reading Material

Author's Note

_Run Billy Boy Run_ is divided into four books:

Book One: _A Job for a Specialist._

Book Two: _Flying High._

Book Three: _The Confluence of Disorder._

Book Four: _Billy Boy._

An unorthodox rafting company is introduced in Book Three. Grand Canyon Zen Adventures caters to rich eccentrics in need of spiritual enlightenment, and on one fateful float trip in 2004 characters from Books One and Two merge with those of Book Three in what can be described as a "confluence of disorder."

CHAPTER ONE: ZACK CANNON AND VICTORIA BUGG, 1998

"Listen Son, you're makin' a big mistake!"

"No, Dad, selling insurance is a big mistake." His dad looked hurt. "Come on Dad. Not for YOU, you like it. It has meaning for you. For ME it's nothing. It's not what I want to do the rest of my life."

"But Zack, you're a natural. You could be a millionaire by the time you're thirty."

"I sell insurance and annuities. Yes, I make money at it, but I feel nothing here," Zack Cannon pointed to his chest while pleading his case. "I want to work outdoors; I want to make people happy!"

"You want happy? I'll show you happy. Sell some schmuck a policy. Three days later he drops dead. Hand the widow a check for 200 grand! That's happy! Without a genie and three wishes, you can't get any happier than that!"

* * *

Zack Cannon replayed in his mind the conversation that he'd had with his dad a month ago. He'd replayed it three times in the last five minutes. Sitting at his desk with the conversation running through his head, he looked at a shelf in the corner where three identical gold-colored, plastic beavers resided—awarded annually by the Golden Beaver Annuities and Life Assurance Company for a job well done. The grim-faced beavers wore runner's shorts, singlets, and track shoes, and were posed, tails erect, in the familiar stance assumed by sprinters in starting blocks awaiting the sound of the gun.

When he wasn't explaining the advantages and disadvantages of Roth IRA's or of Golden Beaver's Golden Age-Golden Annuity to Flagstaff's older citizenry, Cannon daydreamed of kayaking and rafting through the Grand Canyon. An outdoor kind of guy Zack was caught in an unnatural, indoor world, and he considered his nicely appointed office to be little better than a cage.

A month and a half before breaking with the company Zack Cannon looked at the same three Golden Beavers resting on his shelf. He adjusted the beavers so that they were perfectly aligned then looked into their faces, and, like Zack's face, their faces did not appear happy. The thought that someday there could be as many as thirty unhappy Golden Beavers burdening the same shelf was too oppressive for Zack to consider, and he checked out of the office early to drink a beer.

As Cannon walked from the building he thought of a place on the east side of town that he had not visited since college. He was certain that his would be the only Mercedes parked in front of the Red Dog Saloon.

* * *

Zack drove east on Old Route 66. After pulling into the parking lot, he put his coat, tie, and cell phone in the trunk, hit the lock/alarm button on his remote, which made the car's lights flash once, and then he walked inside the red metal building—its windows crowded with bright neon beer signs. Inside sawdust covered the floor, country music twanging on the jukebox, and the pleasant sound of conversation supplied a steady buzz. The bar had a reputation of being a bit left of center, and that was alright with Zack Cannon because he was contemplating giving up his six figure income and getting into a business where the financial rewards were substantially less and were more along the lines of fresh air and sunshine—two commodities that were in short supply inside the Red Dog.

The saloon was reputed to be a second home to "river rats," that is, guides and oarsmen who worked for various Colorado River rafting companies based in "Flag." Cannon stayed late, talked to many patrons, and began to formulate an escape from the cage that was the Flagstaff sales office of the Golden Beaver Annuity and Life Assurance Company. Zack Cannon wanted his beavers to be happy beavers with flaccid tails and laid-back attitudes. He wanted to trade in his Mercedes and drive a pickup—maybe even wear a cowboy hat. And why not?

Up until this point Cannon's attempts to break away from his dad's agency had been largely flights of fancy, which would usually wear off about the same time as his hangover. But not any more.

Despite strong objections from his father, who proudly sported twenty-seven Golden Beavers and was virtually assured of number twenty-eight, Zack made a partial break with the company. Cannon boxed up his Beavers and moved into a small, second-story office in "Old Town." He had stationery printed up with "Frontier Rafting Adventures" as a banner across the top.

The break was not total. Zack worked it out with the elder Cannon that he would float March through October and sell insurance during the winter months. His dad agreed because he figured his son would make a hash of the rafting business, and that Zack would someday return, tail between his legs. The older Cannon would give his only child enough rope to hang himself, and then accept him back into the fold fulltime when the enterprise had run its course. After all, he had been young once himself. He must have been; he just could not remember much about it.

Frontier Rafting Adventures would start business with seven, eighteen-foot, five-person rafts—four clients per raft. The fifth person would be oarsman and guide and would handle a pair of oars from the middle of the boat. He explained to his skeptical father that he wanted his clients to have more of a "feel" for the river. Many of the companies were going with motorized, bus-sized rafts and were piling the customers on top of one another—big profits but not much personal touch.

Zack Cannon, the super salesman, had no trouble filling his float trips. But after the first season, he was not breaking even. There were a lot of rafting companies, and Zack had to reduce his prices to stay competitive. Despite dipping into his savings to keep his company afloat, he was having the time of his life and decided not to give his father the satisfaction of saying, "I told you so."

_One more year_ , he promised himself. _If it doesn't turn around, maybe then I'll throw in the towel._

* * *

Quite by accident Cannon did one thing right. He hired a receptionist who had recently graduated from Coconino Community College. Shy but efficient, the young woman came cheap. She kept her blonde hair in a tight bun, weighed barely ninety-seven pounds, and wore thick, dark-rimmed glasses that were a throwback to the 1970's. Once Miss Victoria Bugg had settled into her position at Frontier Rafting Adventures, she proved herself to be resourceful and energetic, reporting to work early and staying late.

Miss Bugg was named after Queen Victoria whom her mother had admired. In fact Victoria's mother had often fantasized that she herself was a queen. And like a queen, she chose not to demean herself by accepting employment outside the home. She raised three children, Victoria, Elizabeth, and Charles and would shrivel like a slug crawling across a salt block when the neighbors perverted their names into Vickie, Beth, and Chuck. The matronly Mrs. Bugg tended to royal affairs, watched soap operas, and did everything that she imagined real queens did, except for the fact that her spouse earned his living driving a truck, which meant she had to clean her own toilets (in her favor, it was a task she performed in an aristocratic manner and to genteel perfection and for which she dressed tastefully yet not ostentatiously). Her husband did not own polo ponies and thought that cricket was an insect only. Yet the queenly Mrs. Bugg loved her mate despite his obvious shortcomings.

Fortunately Victoria turned out to be much more down-to-earth than her regal mother. Victoria Bugg had graduated with three certificates: accounting, office administration, and graphic design. At first glance one would not have known that Victoria possessed the drive and determination that seethed within her small frame because she hid her talents rather well behind a mousy and understated exterior. However, her Williams High School yearbook included a prediction that Victoria Bugg would be "The person most likely to rule the World!" and listed her credits as: editor of the _Williams High Bugle_ , float builder, class treasurer all four years, and special events chairperson. Miss Bugg's picture appeared on almost every page of the yearbook her final year of high school.

Victoria had put together her senior prom almost single-handedly. The theme had been _Religions of the Far East_. A stickler for authenticity, she read extensively on Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Zen Buddhism. The band dressed in orange robes, and she somehow convinced the musicians to shave their heads for the occasion. Miss Fortune's home economics class whipped up vegetarian snacks, and couples, dressed in formals, posed for pictures in front of an eight-foot paper maché Buddha.

The stage, which Victoria Bugg designed and built with the assistance of Mr. Moon's industrial arts students, was an ethereal "Golden Pavilion" and was used for the crowning of the King and Queen. Despite objections from the local Baptist minister whose sermon that Sunday morning centered on false gods and idolatry, the prom was truly a night of magic and is still a subject of delight with the class of 1997.

* * *

Zack Cannon had always gotten by on charisma and athletic good looks. People wanted to be with him in hopes that some of what Zack had would rub off and make up for their own shortcomings.

Despite his personal magnetism the second floating season had come and gone, and Frontier Rafting Adventures remained in the red. It looked like Cannon was condemned to selling Golden Beaver investment products fulltime, and he called Victoria Bugg into his office to break the bad news.

He explained to the Bugg how the company teetered on the brink of insolvency. She listened patiently. But, hell, she kept the books; she knew that they were hanging by a thread, so she decided that this would have to be her moment.

After hearing her boss out, the astute Ms. Bugg produced from her attaché case a thirty-two-page, typed business plan complete with charts, graphs, and projections. It teemed with new, fresh ideas and yet was backed by an accountant's sound practicality. _Grand Canyon Zen Adventures_ appeared prominently on the cover page.

The upshot was that they would cater to a different clientele—well-healed sophisticates in need of spiritual overhaul. They would keep the personal touch and provide their customers with meditation sessions, a gourmet vegetarian diet, specialty teas, and an advisor who would insure that everyone aboard would contract a case of "canyon euphoria." A Grand Canyon Zen Adventure would not be simply a river trip; it would produce a spiritual awakening! It would amount to therapy and would spark rejuvenation; it would be a true ZEN ADVENTURE! And the best part of the business plan: they would charge three times the going rate. Suddenly Cannon saw another side of Victoria Bugg—a quiet dynamo unleashed!

Zack Cannon leafed through the entire thirty-two pages. It contained an artist's rendering of hairless river guides in Buddhist monk-style orange robes. There were specifications for fabrics, and detailed plans for a foldable, lightweight "Golden Pavilion" with Persian carpets rolled out to form a floor. Appendix B provided a listing of publications with reader demographics and advertising expenses. One of the publications entitled _Eastern Religions Outdoors_ had a small, but affluent, patron list. Another the English language edition of the _Katmandu Times_ , whose circulation was limited mostly to coastal California, held high the fact that the median family income of its U.S. subscribers was $493,000.

Appendix C laid out an Internet strategy and included web pages, pop-ups, security, forums, server . . .

All was there. Zack Cannon, his head spinning, said, "Give me twenty-four hours."

That evening he called with his answer, "Yes."

Victoria could hardly contain her enthusiasm. She said, "Okay." The next morning at 7:00 A.M. she was hard at work turning her brainchild into reality.

CHAPTER 2: VIRGIL COOK

Virgil Cook seldom showed emotion, but he had the dubious distinction of throwing more bean balls than anyone in Texas Baseball League history. When it came to registering insults, both real and imagined, he had the eye of an eagle, the memory of an elephant, and the imagination of a paranoid schizophrenic.

Cook did his talking with "errant" pitches: he had a curveball that was, perhaps, the most articulate in all of southeast Texas, and possessed a fluent slider as well as an eloquent sinker. But he used his fastball more than any other pitch to redress his many grievances.

It was said that Virgil's arsenal of pitches included a voluble knuckle ball until one got away from him during a game against the South Padre Stinging Jellies and killed a low-flying sea gull. He was against killing under any circumstance, for sport, for food, or for revenge, and he never again threw another knuckle ball.

The last straw for Cook came when Karl Onion, looking like a Samurai in his catcher's gear, set up behind a batter's back. On the previous pitch Onion could tell there was something on Virgil's mind, and he trotted out to the mound to have a word. Virgil Cook said his piece.

"Yeh sure?" Karl asked, and Virgil calmly nodded.

Cook's fastball grazed the batter's buttocks before slamming squarely into Onion's mitt exactly where Virgil's battery mate had positioned his glove.

"Sonuvabitch was crowdin' the plate. I was just givin' him the rest of it," Virgil explained to the unsympathetic umpire as he was being ejected from the game. It proved to be his last game.

"Cook, get some counseling!" Virgil did not take the ump's advice, but he did head directly toward the showers.

One hour later Virgil Cook held an official release notice in his hand. Just minutes before, it had been delivered to him personally by the General Manager. "Fifteen fuckin' years in the minors," was all that the washed-up pitcher for the Galveston Fighting Sand Crabs had to say.

"Whad'cha gonna do now, Virg?" Karl Onion asked his longtime friend in the locker room after the game. Onion's voice betrayed his sadness at the prospect of Cook's eminent departure.

That evening Cook and Onion staggered back from the Blue Lagoon, a sleazy strip club not far from the ballpark. Virgil began a drunken babble in answer to the question that Karl had asked several hours before.

"I'm movin' back ta Arizona. Get a job as a chef. Would suit me jus' fine if I never throw another baseball da rest ah my life."

Ten minutes later Virgil was on his hands and knees emptying the contents of his stomach on the Fighting Sand Crabs' pitcher's mound—officially his last hurl in the Texas Baseball League.

Playing for the Fighting Sand Crabs meant being parked on the bottom rung of professional sports. The job did not pay a lot of money, and Virgil, along with Karl Onion and most of the Crabs for that matter, took other jobs during the off-season. K.O. (Karl Onion's nickname), for example, worked as a bartender/bouncer for his dad's brother in Kansas City at a place, not surprisingly, called "The Onion Bar and Grill."

Virgil Cook had taken a succession of jobs during his fourteen off-seasons, but liked restaurant work the best. And with baseball behind him, a "cook" was what Virgil became. He was serious and focused when it came to the kitchen, and the "bean-ball king" did not suffer fools or critics lightly. He never got mad when customers, bosses, or co-workers offended him. However, the former pitcher always managed to get even, but, unlike his baseball days, in secret and quiet ways which seldom drew attention to himself. Virgil had learned his lesson well.

Victoria Bugg discovered Virgil Cook working in a vegetarian restaurant near the university in Flagstaff. It was exactly one year before the "birth" of Grand Canyon Zen Adventures. She had been a vegetarian since her senior year of high school despite her mother's insistence that royalty were, without exception, meat eaters.

The Bugg became a regular at Vishnu's Cantina and Sports Bar and routinely sent her compliments to the chef. Twelve months after first tasting the meatless creations of Virgil Cook, Victoria offered the ex-ball player a job with a few sticking points: he would have to shave his head, wear an orange robe, do the laundry for himself and five others, and learn to row a raft through the Grand Canyon's rapids.

Cook responded with an emphatic, "No." And abruptly returned to his stove where he had been in the midst of preparing a curry.

But the Bugg persisted. Reappearing the following week with an amended offer, she dropped the shaved head requirement.

Virgil Cook, again, said, "No." But not immediately and, after excusing himself, disappeared into the kitchen to begin soaking twenty pounds of dried lentils.

On week three Ms. Bugg traded the "orange robe" requirement for "chef's hat and apron" and sweetened the money side of things as well.

Virgil asked, "Just how would I go about learnin' to handle a raft?"

She explained.

He said, "I'll get back to you," and accepted the business card that Ms. Victoria Bugg slid across the table.

The card read:

GRAND CANYON ZEN ADVENTURES

An Awakening

Rafts, Nature, Meditation, Vegetarian—

A Renaissance of the SOUL

Victoria Bugg, Business Manager

On the reverse were address, phone number, fax, email, and a picture of a Buddha serenely sitting in a raft.

Two weeks later Virgil Cook was taking rafting lessons from Zack Cannon and was finalizing the menu for the first ever Grand Canyon Zen Adventure.

CHAPTER 3: THE DOCENTS, July 2001

Though none of them knew (nor cared) anything about "soul restoration," meditation, or Buddhism, Zack Cannon felt an obligation to the five rafting guides who were carryovers from Frontier Rafting Adventures. He called a meeting and explained to them that, if they chose to stay on with Grand Canyon Zen Adventures, they would have to shave their heads. Most of the five showed concern but ultimately nodded their approval. Next he pointed out that the new company's guides would have to meditate in a group and on a daily basis.

The guides' faces erupted in smiles. Four of them lifted their cowboy hats into the air in celebration followed by three high fives, a couple of "All rights!" and one "Praise da Lord!"

But the smiles quickly vanished once Zack explained the difference between the words "medicate" and "meditate," and the boss spotted dissention in the ranks. Still, most of the guides acquiesced and signaled their agreement with a few grunts and wary nods.

Cannon saved the worse for last—the orange robe requirement. "Now what we're gonna do with Grand Canyon Zen Adventures is create a Tibetan kind of atmosphere," Zack paused and took a breath.

At this point one of the guides, the one thought to be the "brains" of the bunch, frowned and asked suspiciously, "Tibet, isn't dat in Africa?"

"No, Tibet is a part of China. . . . It's where the Dalai Lama is from," Zack's answer seemed to reassure the guides, but only momentarily.

The same guide, who in a former life must have been a teacher's pet, interjected, "Llamas! Dey'll spit on yeh. Good spitters . . . dey really are." It was as if the "Brain" spoke from experience, however, Zack Cannon was virtually certain that his employee had never been targetted in such a manner by the Dalai Lama.

"I know what yeh're sayin,'" another oarsmen chimed in. His face temporarily went blank then brightened, and he added, "One of 'em spit on Conan in dat _Barbarian_ movie. Me and da missus, we watched it on cable last night."

The Brain responded quickly, "You dick weed! Dat was a camel. Don't yeh know nuthin'? Llamas are smaller; got more hair."

Zack Cannon said a silent prayer before continuing. "The Dalai Lama is a person. He's the leader of a branch of Buddhism known as the Lamaist religion."

There was a moment of silence.

"I bet he can spit real good," the Brain added and looked around at the other guides who were "seconding" his statement with head nods and mumblings. Cannon could see that they were clearly impressed by their peer's extensive knowledge.

Zack knew that the Frontier guides admired "good spitters" and recalled how they had held spitting contests on most float trips.

Cannon swallowed and decided to cut to the chase, "Followers of the 'Chief Spitter' all wear orange robes." At this point Zack flipped off the lights and turned on a projector. A picture of an orange-robed Buddhist monk with a shaved head materialized on the wall.

The guides made "umm" noises but seemed disappointed that the monk was not spitting or even preparing to spit.

What Zack had to say next was best said in the dark, "I want you to dress like this."

The pronouncement was met by disbelief and by stunned silence.

The Brain, having recovered from his initial shock before the others, asked, "Yeh mean, yeh wants us ta wear dem pajamas when we go ta bed?"

A second wave of astonishment, but smaller than the first, went through the room. "Pajamas? Hell, dem's not pajamas; dat's a dress." "My Henrietta would look real good in dat." "Yeh mean dat guy's Africa's best spitter?" . . . were a sampling of the comments that Cannon heard while standing in the darkened room.

"Not just to bed. All the time."

Cannon's statement produced a vigorous chorus of boos. Plus there was one "No way," and he heard "Shit," three times. Except the guides routinely altered the explicative by inserting an extra syllable for emphasis so it came out: "Shee-IT!"

Only two of the guides enlisted with the new company. The other three made noisy and indignant departures.

One of the remaining two (the Brain, who had wrecked four cars in eight months and had to pay for high-risk auto insurance) asked the Commander, Zack Cannon's nickname, "If we go around bald like da guy in da pick-chur, ain't we gonna git sun burnt kind'a bad?"

Zack admitted to himself that it was a reasonable point, but he remembered that the Bugg's plan did not allow for headgear, and he offered to get back to them on the question of hats.

The photo was still projected on the wall and the Brain noticed that the monk wasn't wearing shoes, "What about boots? Dat dude's barefoot."

Cannon, perhaps too hastily, went out on a limb; "You can wear anything on your feet that you care to wear. No problem!"

The two guides simultaneously and enthusiastically said, "YES!" thankful for the concession.

Promising to return in five minutes Cannon stepped out of the room to consult with the Bugg whom the guides had months before began calling "The Nazi," but not to her face and not in front of Cannon either. They assumed that the Commander was sleeping with the Nazi, and every time they spied Victoria the guides would immediately picture her dressed in a skimpy military uniform and carrying a riding crop. Only in their minds they enlarged her breasts to the size of cantaloupe, and they made her lips a bright, ruby red and gave them the slightest pucker. Suffice it to say the guides' "naughty Storm Trooper" version of Victoria was in stark contrast to her mother's "princess" version.

Despite his good looks, the Commander felt awkward around women, but his character flaw was offset by respect and sincerity. Seldom tempted to voice the inappropriate, Zack Cannon expected the same from his employees, and when he looked at Miss Victoria Bugg, he did not picture a Nazi.

Victoria was hanging up the phone when Cannon stepped into the reception area. She had a victorious smile on her face, "You'll never guess who I just signed—$6,500!"

"Who?" Cannon asked, while noticing for the first time that the Bugg was not wearing glasses.

"Barry Allen Fudge!" Victoria positively beamed.

"Who?" Cannon asked and at the same time smiled at the ecstatic Bugg.

"He's an actor! He's a singer! He's . . . HAM SALAD!" the Bugg announced, while sitting at her desk, then shot both arms straight into the air in celebration.

"Wow!" Zack Cannon was impressed and was looking forward to dropping the name in front of his dad whenever he got the chance. In the excitement "The Commander" almost forgot to ask Victoria about the guide's headgear.

"Hats, I think that's okay. Sure!" the Bugg chirped and reached to make another phone call.

Five minutes later the two remaining guides were once again saying, "YES!" as Cannon informed them of management's decision to approve the wearing of hats. After that he announced the signing of the famous actor/singer.

It took an additional five minutes of explanation for the guides to understand that they were not about to be served ham salad, fudge, and a berry compote.

* * *

Grand Canyon Zen Adventures management soon discovered that the number of practicing Zen Buddhists living in Northern Arizona, and who were also looking for work on the river tallied zero. Bugg and Cannon were going to have to accept something less authentic than what they'd originally planned.

With one visit to the Red Dog Saloon, Cannon managed to recruit two ex-wranglers with river experience. They grimaced when shown a picture of the orange robe but said, "Yes," after three pitchers of beer. Fortunately, "shaved head" was not an issue with them for the two had virtually no hair to speak of.

A day later Zack was sitting at his desk wondering where he was going to find the fifth guide needed to round out his crew when there came a knock on the door.

"Come in," the Commander said absently, while admiring a draft of a new brochure that Ms. Bugg had placed on his desk. She'd clipped a note to Zack's copy asking for his suggestions "and/or" approval.

_Victoria is some talented woman!_ Cannon thought as he leafed through the flyer.

The door opened a crack, "Boss, yeh busy? I can come back later if . . ."

Zack looked up in time to see a cowboy hat, a forehead, and two eyes peak around the edge of the door. "Come in, come in," Cannon stood and pointed to an empty chair.

The rest of Benjamin Franklin Bucket entered the room and the whole awkward package lumbered sheepishly over to the empty chair. The uneasy Bucket sat down facing his former employer, but he looked from side-to-side carefully avoiding the Commander's eyes. Ben was one of the three Frontier Rafting Adventures guides who had noisily rejected the original offer to work for G. C. Zen Adventures.

"Suh . . . sorry what I said about da guy in da pick-chur . . . 'bout how he looked like a fag and all. He's not a friend of yehrs is he?"

Cannon, not sure at first which picture Ben was talking about, shook his head no just the same.

"Well, I got ta thinkin'. Money's kind'a tight round home. My daughter's been accepted ta Harvard an' all."

Cannon interjected, "Harvard?"

"Yeah, Sam Harvard's School of Aroma Therapy. It's down in Tempe, but yeh probably know dat." As a boss with a college degree Zack Cannon was expected to know just about everything. "Well, I was just wonderin' if yeh still got an openin' in dat Zen thing yeh was talkin' about."

Bucket had been a slow but competent guide, and Zack was happy to have the man back on board.

CHAPTER 4: MELANIE

Two years prior and just after accepting the receptionist job at Frontier Rafting Adventures, Victoria Bugg found herself reading a poster while on her daily walk through the NAU campus. The poster announced a series of lectures to be presented by "Melanie" (like Cher, Madonna, and Lassie, the speaker used no last name). Melanie listed her areas of mastery as Meditation, Hypnotherapy, Psychic Massage, Aura Analysis, Power Breathing, and Financial Planning, and in the fine print at the bottom of the placard she identified herself as Arizona's only authorized distributor of official Zen meditation supplies. _A businesswoman_ , Victoria thought. It struck a chord.

The first of the three lectures carried the curious title of _Change the Color of Your Spirit-Self—Healing Through Meditation._ Victoria felt a pleasant tingle. She attended the first session and the other two presentations as well: _Zen Is a Verb—Reawaken Your Inner Child_ , which helped her recognize and come to grips with her dowdy look and her workaholic tendencies. The other lecture _Discover Your Aura—a Guide to Mutual Fund_ _Investing_ presented information that gave the earnest Victoria sound ideas as to where to place her small but growing nest egg.

Miss Melanie was in her late thirties, had long blonde hair, and possessed hypnotic eyes that reminded Zack Cannon of Marshall Applewhite and his Heaven's Gate cult. More than once Zack suspected that Melanie was biding her time waiting for the Hale-Bopp comet to make another pass through the inner solar system so that she could join her fellow Heaven's Gaters. But Victoria Bugg really liked her and was firmly convinced that the unusual Melanie would be a perfect fit for Grand Canyon Zen Adventures and could weave that "canyon euphoria" amongst the clients that would set their company apart from all the other rafting outfits.

On August 3, 2001, the first Zen Adventure departed from Lee's Ferry with seven rafts. The group included company president Zack Cannon, chef Virgil Cook, meditation specialist Melanie, five guides (Benjamin Franklin Bucket and the Brain among them), and twenty-three paying customers including Barry Allen Fudge. The gross was $149,500.

There was one last-minute change. With her arms folded tightly across her chest and while wearing a flowing, white robe Melanie stood obstinately on the riverbank at the Lee's Ferry boat ramp. Just moments before her eyes had closed involuntarily and one of her cheeks had twitched noticeably. After the episode had run its course, she declared that she'd seen a vision. She then pronounced with head held high and arms extended skyward that the word "guide" had created "dissidence in the cosmos," and she demanded that the guides NOT be called guides but that they should be called docents "from this time and forever." Melanie proved to be a stubborn meditation specialist and steadfastly refused to climb aboard raft Number One rowed by Cannon himself until the boss had conceded. Zack grudgingly called it in her favor.

"The guides are now 'the docents,'" Zack announced, and with face flushed, he turned to the men whose job title he'd just changed at Melanie's behest. He shrugged apologetically then said, "Come on. Let's get out of here before she has another epiphany."

Dramatically settling into her seat, Melanie mumbled that the cosmic adjustment was necessary. Until then the boss had not realized that the cosmos required fine-tuning.

Unfortunately, the guides liked their old title just fine, and even though they weren't exactly sure what an epiphany was, they were certain that they did not like epiphanies and commenced huffing indignantly while tugging at their cowboy hats until their headgear assumed aggressive slants. The word "docent" impressed them as strange, not unlike their orange robes. The hems of these "dresses" tended to hang down and get wet, so the guides routinely stepped on their hems and stumbled rendering fair impressions of inebriated cross dressers.

At mealtime four hours later the group hit another snag. Busy getting their business started, management, had forgotten one thing, and the omission was huge. Both Zack and Victoria neglected to tell the guides (er, "docents") that the menu would be 100 percent vegetarian. Apparently, like royalty, docents, too, are meat eaters, and the news was a blow to their collective digestive systems. The meatless menu created a lot of hostility, which, unfortunately, the docents aimed at the innocent Virgil Cook who seemed to field their jibes without emotion. Virgil did not react to the many insults directed his way. In fact to Zack Cannon, it appeared at times that his chef was a deaf mute. But Virgil Cook, actually, saw and heard all and remembered everything.

Victoria Bugg, of course, remained in Flagstaff preparing for the next Grand Canyon Zen Adventure.

CHAPTER 5: MORE ABOUT THE FIRST ZEN ADVENTURE

Given the rocky start of the first Zen adventure no one was surprised that the routine of management and staff remained, in a word, tense. The "docents" eventually learned how to tie off their robes so they no longer stumbled, but the maneuver did not stop them from grumbling, and, if anything, their dissatisfaction increased. The adjustment to prevent tripping caused the robes to look even more like dresses and drew to them more unwanted attention. The five river guides were cast into a state of perpetual embarrassment when they met other groups floating the Colorado. What unnerved the docents most were the stares and comments they received from people spying the orange-robed cowboys for the first time.

On countless occasions, "What'da fuck?" could be heard coming across the water.

Once a child from another party pointed directly at Benjamin Franklin Bucket and asked his mother, "Mommy, is he a fag?"

The question was followed quickly by an embarrassed, "SHHHH!"

But a drunken man in the same inflatable continued the line of questioning by asking loudly, "WELL, IS HE?" The comment produced a humiliating chorus of laughter and Ben's reddening face began to clash with his orange vestment.

After that, the other docents began to refer to Bucket as "The Fag," and somehow it stuck. Years later the unwanted nickname would follow Ben to Chandler, Arizona, where his youngest child had opened a successful aroma therapy clinic, and where Mr. Bucket now drives a bread truck.

Zack Cannon soon learned that confrontation was not the best approach to handling the mysterious Melanie. She was very good at getting what she wanted mainly by fomenting insurrections in front of the clients with whom she'd built a strong bond. Cannon gave her a wide berth and kept his grievances mostly to himself. Many times before the first float was finished, he found himself wishing that the Hale-Bopp comet would reappear in the night sky.

The docents still harbored ill feelings toward meditation specialist Melanie over their unwanted name change. Sensing correctly that the cosmic energy that the docents radiated in her direction was negative cosmic energy, Melanie attempted to keep her distance from the rebellious bunch. But this was not entirely possible because they were required to attend her daily meditation sessions.

The clients, on the other hand, loved Melanie, and she encouraged them to refer to her as "Sister Melanie," and by the end of the third day everyone was calling each other "sister" this and "brother" that, to the point that the docents were ready to regurgitate the latest of Virgil Cook's meatless concoctions.

Even Benjamin Bucket said in disgust, "I never seen so much friggin' har-MO-ny in ma AN-tire life."

With a toothpick protruding dangerously from his mouth and his ten-gallon hat tilted threateningly downward, the Brain said to no one in particular, "It's COM-U-nizm; what it is. It's just how it got started in Sweden, by Gaud."

Virgil Cook went about his duties seemingly unfazed by any-and-all. Twice a week he washed the docent's robes, socks, and underwear as he had been contracted to do. He prepared three meals a day plus an evening snack for thirty-one people. Constantly soaking lentils, beans, and dried vegetables and mixing spices for exotic curries, life on the river for Virgil Cook meant always getting ready for the next feed. While Zack Cannon found Melanie temperamental and quixotic, he found the chef nothing short of extraordinary, as Virgil continued to even-temperedly absorb the docents' criticisms.

_Virgil Cook is a saint!_ Zack Cannon wrote in his journal after overhearing the Brain say directly to Cook's face, "Dis food would be real good if I was partial ta dog shit!"

Knowing that the brainy docent had few culinary options Cook just smiled and asked sarcastically, "Well then, may I tempt you with some more?" Saint Virgil then lifted a full ladle of mixed vegetables in a dark curry and let some of the contents plop back into the stainless steel kettle from which it had just been scooped trying his best to mimic the sound of someone taking a dump—a sound he replicated with surprising accuracy.

But Zack did not know the half of it. The docents were constantly making their objections to meatless meals known to the "saintly" Virgil Cook.

"Cookin' without meat. It ain't nachural," was the daily refrain that Virgil heard from the docent everyone called "Zigzag" because the man had the word prominently tattooed across his right bicep.

One day as Virgil ladled up heaping platefuls of Chickpeas Rangpur with Bean Curd smothered in Maharashtra Sauce, the Brain challenged the very legitimacy of vegetarianism by pointing out the obvious: "If God meant people ta be vegetarian, why'd'E make cows outta meat?"

The docents within earshot mumbled seditiously, saying, "Yeah!" and "How come?" over and over again, but the sounds of grumbling eventually trailed off replaced by those of labored chewing. They envied the "smart" docent and wished that they, too, possessed the ability to cut through to the heart of an issue. To them the Brain was living proof that genius paired with objectivity could expose society's frauds. In the not-too-distant future the "brainy" docent's critical thinking skills were to become legend. It would set him apart, make him practically famous even to the extent of intruding into his privacy, and sometimes he would find himself wishing that he was not quite so special but was more like all of the rest.

* * *

Melanie, it turned out, had lived for a number of years in Sedona, Arizona, and, therefore, was an expert at locating "energy vortexes." The self-proclaimed vortex authority talked about them endlessly and "spotted" several small ones along the river. Many of the clients were well versed on the subject and shared Melanie's enthusiasm. Cannon was beginning to think that this was going to be a very long trip.

The mesmerizing sister, in her white robe and long, blonde hair adorned with a garland of wildflowers, explained to clients and crew, "Vortexes are the intersections of vast amounts of the cosmos' electromagnetic energy. They present rare opportunities to cleanse our spirit-selves with just a few simple breathing exercises."

The Brain had been listening and could not help but interject when he recognized a parallel: "Kind'a like da filter on a cigarette!"

Melanie grimaced and let the comment pass without affirming the offending docent's "life force." She had decided early on not to nurture docent spirit-selves, figuring quite correctly that Zack Cannon's docents were "negative nonregenerators" (a label known only to herself) and were completely without aura. Even doing them the favor of changing their titles from guides to docents could not restore them to psychic balance, so she wrote the unpolished characters off as common roustabouts whose diminished "levels of vital essence" put them on par with (or just below) clods of dirt.

Melanie made notes detailing the locations of the best vortexes and whether the vortexes were male, female, or balanced. She personally favored the balanced vortexes, explaining that "they can go either way" and claiming that their auras switched from blue to yellow depending on which eye she looked through.

As the Grand Canyon Zen Adventures rafts headed into the Tanner Rapids on day five of that first Zen adventure, Cannon witnessed Melanie's eyes turn "Marshall Applewhite." She raised an arm and pointed at nothing. "DO YOU SEE IT?" she shouted as if in a deep hypnotic trance.

"What?" Cannon asked.

"THAT!" Melanie again seemed to be pointing at nothing. "It's balanced and leads to a doorway!"

The vortex she had spotted at the beach immediately downstream from the Tanner Rapids simply astounded her and left her in a weakened condition. An exhausted Melanie declared breathlessly, "We MUST stop here now! NOW! And on EVERY trip hence forth, for there is here a doorway. I can feel it—a doorway of 'good' that will someday deliver to us 'travelers' in need. And we must NOURISH these wayfarers and see to it that their NEEDS are met! As citizens of the cosmos it is our most sacred duty!" This message she repeated until Zack Cannon's eyes crossed and his stomach turned.

The Brain thought to himself: _All I can say is that the "TRAVELERS" better be vegetarian if dey want deir needs ta be met by this outfit_.

Melanie explained later that doorways lead to other parts of the universe. Choose the right doorway, and one is given eternal life. Picking the wrong one could mean death and damnation.

Still stinging from Melanie's slight over his filtered cigarette comment, the "brainy" docent grumbled under his breath, ". . . or a chance to wear a stupid orange dress and listen ta some Hippie bitch run on 'bout vor-TAXES."

After hearing Melanie's explanation of cosmic doorways, Zack Cannon could not help adding, "The old 'What's-behind-curtain-number-two?' thing only with a Heaven or Hell sort'a twist."

Melanie detected sarcasm in the infidel's voice. The first time that she met her new boss she had noticed signs of psychic damage and said to herself, _Now here's a guy with a tiny aura_. She gritted her teeth while recalling her employment interview. It was the recommendation from that nice Victoria Bugg that got her the job; she knew it had to be true. If Melanie was anything, she was frank, and right away she had detected hostility from Zack Cannon when she informed him during the interview that he had a tiny aura.

Cannon steered toward the shore. The clients seemed to be really into vortexes. So a Grand Canyon Zen Adventures tradition was born: spend the night at the Tanner Rapids and in the morning look for losers in need of nourishment.

Two hours after landing at the beach just below the rapids, Zigzag stood at the exact location that Melanie proclaimed to be the vortex's focal point. Arms extended, he held out a bowl of Lentils in Kripalu Sauce, trying to reheat it in what he thought was the vortex's center. Naturally curious, Zigzag was attempting to discover if the Tanner's concentration of cosmic forces could double as a microwave oven.

* * *

Several years before getting into the spirit business, Melanie had dabbled in the adult film industry, and she had a lingering fear that someone, client or docent, would remember seeing a video featuring one Chiquita Love emerging naked from a vat of chocolate syrup. Her co-star a German Shepherd named Floyd, had become gravely ill during its taping. No one associated with the production knew that chocolate in large quantities was lethal to a dog. Floyd, a consummate performer with an apparent sweet tooth, had to be taken to an animal hospital after the fourteenth take of a particularly crucial scene.

Despite this setback, the producers brought what they had to a talented video editor, and the result was both a critical and a commercial success. _Chiquita Takes a Licking_ enjoyed a wide distribution and sold particularly well to overweight perverts, a surprisingly large portion of the pornography market.

CHAPTER 6: EVOLUTION

Victoria Bugg created brochures that were blends of art, poetry, and Madison Avenue, and Zack Cannon paid her the ultimate compliment, "Wow, Victoria, looking at this brochure makes even me want to meditate!"

Zack soured on the practice after the first Zen adventure because he associated the activity with Melanie. When he did meditate, Cannon's thoughts were likely to stray from _being one with the cosmos_ to _one particular part of the cosmos—the current location of the Hale-Bopp comet_.

One line in Victoria's latest brochure struck Cannon as especially appealing, "A Grand Canyon Zen Adventure weaves an ethereal spell that winds its way through canyon, time, and soul alike."

He read the line out loud then looked at Victoria who sat across from him. "Did you write this?" he asked.

She said, "Yes." There was confidence and pride in the way she spoke. Victoria Bugg had come into her own.

The Commander noticed for the first time that Victoria no longer wore her hair in a bun. Her new style perfectly framed her face. _Are those highlights?_ he asked himself and gave his business manager another look. Aware of his attention she smiled and blushed at the same time.

Speaking of hair, the docents were allowed to grow theirs back, but the term "docents" and the orange robes definitely had to stay. The decision to retain the robes was based on a customer satisfaction survey conducted by business manager Victoria. After the survey, the docents blamed the Nazi for their embarrassing orange "dresses," which continued to be a major obstacle to improving the docents' sagging morale. The angry oarsmen did not fail to notice that THEIR opinions were NOT surveyed.

The comments returned to the Nazi from appreciative clients included one from Calvin D. Muck the Third: "The docent's outfits are a reflection of the balance existing in the cosmos as it is. Though outwardly male, the cosmos has vestiges of female and is not entirely male! Hammerschmidt refers to this as the 'He-She Steady State Equilibrium' and proposes that the cosmos is in every way an open system that can be influenced by the fall of a leaf or, yes, by the color of the docent's garments. Changing their _vestimentum_ could alter that stasis. IT COULD BE CATASTROPHIC or, at the very least, could produce unpredictable consequences!"

After reading the message twice, Cannon summarized what he thought Mr. Muck had tried to say: _The cosmos is bisexual and could fall to pieces if the docents change their underwear._

The president of Grand Canyon Zen Adventures knitted his brow and turned to some of the other client comments that Victoria had placed on his desk:

. . . The canyon's song was mellowed by the colorful assistants who kindly saw to our physical comfort, freeing us to find our own spiritual peace. Thank you. Molly Sandstone

. . . The docents in their delightful orange Zentras added to the ambiance. Yours. Dharma Davidava

. . . They seemed at one with nature, at home and as much a part of the canyon as a drop of dew, the rustle of the wind, or the call of the eagle on the wing. May You Find Serenity. Mary June Moss

. . . Compliments to the terrific chef—however, contemplative states of mind are best fueled by fruits and nuts, (so next time let's have less eggplant and more strawberries and cashews). Oh, and Chef's Maharashtra Sauce was to die for!!!!! Cosmically yours. D. Braselton Dittmeier

. . . Docents were really awesome man!" Stoner Tom

The guides eventually got used to their new title. In the scheme of things, "guide" verses "docent" was not that big of a deal. It would have helped, however, if Melanie had explained the meaning of the term to them up front. The docents assumed that it was a "made-up" word that had popped into the "Hippie's" head that first float trip in 2001.

Usually when a docent was asked the meaning of "docent" by a client, the questioner would get the "you are an idiot" treatment. To the docents the answer was as plain as the nose on one's face, "Why, I am a docent!" and pointing to the others in turn, "He's one, and dere's another, and over dere, and dats one . . ." It was on such occasions that Zack Cannon had wished he had listened to his meditation specialist when she pointed out that the business' tone would improve if the docents were required to take strict vows of silence.

Melanie had grown to understand and accept something about the men in their orange smocks—that the oarsmen by whatever name, whether docent, guide, or dirt clod, would forever be psychically "off key." They were, in a word—hopeless—the flotsam of the cosmos, forever adrift.

Zack Cannon was afraid that he would loose Virgil Cook after the chef's rough treatment by the docents during the first float trip, but Cook was chipper and eager to go again. Zack offered to assign someone else to takeover laundry duty. Curiously Virgil said that he wanted to continue doing the docent's wash saying that it was a nice break from cooking, but what he needed most was a docent to help with the routine kitchen cores. He got his wish. Benjamin Bucket was installed as "kitchen assistant" and was issued an apron to wear over his orange dress.

Instead of protesting as a group to management concerning "The Fag's" arbitrary and unwanted assignment, the other four docents laid low, thankful that it was not one of them that got "aproned," as Zigzag put it.

Whereas Melanie and Zack never actually grew to like one another, they each developed a tolerance for the other. Cannon had to admit that the Bugg was right. As far as the clients were concerned, Melanie was a perfect fit. In the years that followed, due largely to the "power" and personality of the mystical Sister, his company received numerous referrals from satisfied customers with such high-octane surnames as Kennedy, Gere, Paltrow, Gore, and Reubens.

The docents never did believe the Commander when he let it slip that Mr. Reubens and Pee Wee Herman were one-and-the-same.

"No way man! Dat Reubens guy's in his fifties!"

Fifty or not, it turned out that Brother Paul won the docent's spitting contest and ultimate respect by propelling a watermelon seed eight feet farther than anyone else. Reubens attributed much of the distance that he got on the seed to the "dynamic breathing exercise" taught to him by Sister Melanie just two days prior.

However, Mr. Reubens' victory was, in a way, tainted. Ever since the beginning of the second Zen adventure, the docents' collective genitalia had developed a severe and debilitating itch. The condition was so bad that they were not able to launch the seeds (an important yardstick by which river guides everywhere measure a person's character) quite as far as in the past. The horrendous itching had taken a toll on their distance.

Nothing seemed to provide relief. Even though nearly everyone volunteered their services, an effective remedy remained elusive. Liberal applications of petroleum jelly produced a temporary cooling sensation, but whenever two or more docents gathered together on warm afternoons, the place began to smell like an oil slick.

A cardiac surgeon from New York City suggested that poultices of tea be applied. And the docents, after every breakfast, would stand around uncomfortably waiting for the clients to hand them their spent tea bags so that the afflicted could hustle off into the bushes and "apply" in private. The tea approach did not seem to work either and had the unanticipated side effect of tinting the docents' scrotums an unusual shade of burgundy.

One of the clients, a veterinarian from Burlington, Vermont, thoughtfully scratched her chin and said, "No, it's more of a brown than a burgundy." The pronouncement prompted several others to weigh in on the issue.

"Looks like a greasy, chocolate donut," observed a sculptor of some renown Thompson Pembridge Joyce.

"With a dusting of powdered sugar," added Patricia Parker Buns, a poet with one published poem to her credit.

Zigzag's balls had never been so thoroughly scrutinized. Still, when he looked in his pants, he saw nothing that resembled a chocolate donut.

About the powder—fortunately Chef Virgil had a large box of medicated talcum powder that he claimed could cure a host of ailments. When he had played professional sports, a trainer passed the formula onto him, and, since then, he'd always kept some handy. But, unfortunately, the docents found that it too did not provide relief and gave up on Chef's remedy after only three applications. But it was nice of the cook to make an effort, and after that, the docents lightened up on the ex-baseball player.

However, the docents unwittingly continued to irritate Virgil. Each of the boat handlers thought it to be endlessly funny that the cook's last name was also Cook. Everyday at least one of them would make a crack about the coincidence.

"Hey Cook what's cookin'?' Or "Hey, what's up Cook the cook?" _Ad nauseam_.

It all started when the "smart" docent made the connection two days into the second Zen adventure.

* * *

While the clients and the commander occupied themselves with finding an antidote for itchy balls, Melanie was secretly burning mad. In her considered opinion far too much psychic energy was being wasted on the docents' problem. She felt that the line in the new brochure, ". . . weaves an ethereal spell that winds its way through canyon, time, and soul alike," was a mission statement, and there was nothing "ethereal" about the docents' itchy scrotums (p.s. after a brief glance, she sided with Zigzag—in no way did his balls resemble a chocolate donut).

* * *

The boat handlers were never very enthusiastic about sitting on the sand with legs crossed, while repeating mantras that seemed to them like so much baby talk, and they tried to take advantage of their itchy condition by claiming that the root of their problem stemmed from excessive meditation. Consequently, they asked to be excused from all such activity. The Brain slipped in the words "injunction" and "OSHA" when he made the docents' case to company's top management (Zack), except the docents' glib spokesperson said "OH-CHA" instead of OSHA and substituted "injection" for injunction. Even though something was lost in the delivery, he did prove that it is possible to speak and to vigorously scratch at the same time.

Since none of the clientele developed rashes, and the clientele meditated far more than the docents, Cannon eliminated meditation as a causative factor and denied the docents' request on those grounds. But ultimately the men got their way and demonstrated that in union there is strength.

The Zen Adventure diet involved the daily consumption of large amounts of lentils and beans. Most normal humans on such a regimen respond by producing significant quantities of intestinal gas—clients and crew alike. High caste and low, this digestive reaction makes no distinction. Despite the fact that flatulence is a part of nature, the paying customers tended to view their gas as a problem rather than as an engaging pastime every bit as exciting as golf and requiring approximately the same degree of physical exertion. For the docents "ripping a big one" would be the closest to spiritual perfection that any of them would ever come. The well-healed customers, on the other hand, tended to suppress their gas, saving it to be expelled discreetly and not in the presence of mixed company. To them, gas was not something of which to be proud. But to the docents, gas was both comedy and sport rolled into one.

The Brain ultimately made the breakthrough. It was he who realized that by farting whenever they felt the slightest pressure, the oarsmen were wasting valuable political leverage. While meditating with the group one morning, with the sun shining and the sky a brilliant blue, the "gifted" docent farted. It was loud and every bit as natural as the trill of the cactus wren or the roar of water flowing through the nearby rapids. The Brain's sudden rush of gas produced a sublime smile on its author's otherwise blank face—the satisfaction of a job well done. But immediately Melanie impaled him with her evil eye. Her cutting stare delivered rebuke and disapproval to the brainy docent's fallow mind but brought with it enlightenment as well—just as enlightenment had come to the young Prince Siddhartha while he meditated under the sacred bodhi tree twenty-five centuries before; the solution to the docent's problem came as a revelation to the Brain as he sat in the Lotus Position. To meditation specialist Melanie, farting was a spell breaker. That fact was key. To make a long story short, docent farting, combined with teamwork and careful coordination, could be a form of political action. The resource would be harnessed; "docent power" was born.

The Brain was to speak of it later—the moment he received his revelation—his flash of insight into the way things worked—the moment that he became _Samma-Sambuddha_ —THE FULLY ENLIGHTENED.

An alert Melanie brought the docents' excessive flatulence to the attention of management. "The noise coming from their butts makes self-actualization through meditation virtually impossible! Never mind the smell!" She, once again, spoke frankly to Zack Cannon, and her argument compelled.

The Commander thought: _What the hell. They got plenty to do anyway, what with the tents to put up and take down, airing out the customer's sleeping bags, and putting up the golden pavilion. Besides one good fart is worth thirty minutes of meditation, hands down._ Though Grand Canyon Zen Adventures catered to the eccentric, the company's president was strictly middle-of-the-road American.

The docents were excused from meditation.

The Brain's "stock" shot through the roof.

* * *

Back when Zack Cannon first got into the rafting business, in the days of Frontier Rafting Adventures, his rafts did not have names. Numbers worked just fine:

"Yo! Ben, you think _Number One_ is riding low on the left side?"

"Boss, what'd you say was wrong with the D-rings on _Number Three_?"

But during the second river trip, Melanie declared, "Numbers are what prisoners are given!" and signaled that things were about to change. By then the mysterious Melanie had unknowingly collected a variety of names herself, due mostly to the creative efforts of the docents. The two most commonly used nicknames were "The Hippie" and (toward the end of long days when the docents were feeling tired and underfed) "The Crazy Bitch." In his thoughts, no doubt owing to his practically nonexistent aura, Zack Cannon, often referred to Melanie as " _Sister Ozone_ ," adding yet another handle to the odd assortment.

When it came time for the raft naming ceremony, Ms. Ozone had arranged for the clients to stand in a semicircle and directed them to chant a special incantation. Sister Melanie, adorned with flowers, entered their midst and stepped slowly toward _Number One_. Like a priestess, she raised her arms to the sky then knelt in the sand, putting her hands gently on the nose of _Number One's_ twenty-four-inch-in-diameter top tube. She closed her eyes while concentrating, as if she and _Number One_ were locked in a Vulcan mind meld.

The docents stood in the shadows scratching both their chins and their scrotums.

Finally Melanie opened her eyes, and looking at the raft as though she was looking at the baby Jesus she pronounced, "Brothers and Sisters I present to you . . . _Wind Color_!"

The clients voiced their approval. By their reaction you would have thought she had given birth to the raft and not simply renamed it.

The Brain wisecracked just loud enough for the other four docents to hear, "Well fellas, I don't know 'bout yehrs, but I'm pretty sure my wind color is brown." He then looked over at Ben Bucket and added, "Not yehrs, Brother Fag. Yehrs is probably pink."

One-by-one the high priestess named each of the rafts. _Timeless Path, Pure Blessing, Clear Awakening, Great Truth,_ and _Deep Pool_ were born-again after revealing their inner secrets to the mystifying Sister Ozone. Finally she got to _Number Seven_ , which was Virgil Cook's "kitchen" boat. Virgil was a short ways off preparing supper, and everybody was getting hungry except, it seemed, "The Hippie." Prompted by the smell of simmering Masala wafting from the food tent the clients speeded up their chant hoping to give the Sister a psychic nudge, but if anything, she conversed with _Number Seven_ longer than with the others. Possibly the cook's raft had more to confess. At any rate, a full five minutes passed before _Horn of Plenty_ was introduced to those assembled.

The Brain said mutinously, "Ought to be called _Horn 'a Sewage_ fer da shit dat Virgil Cook cooks."

The other docents found his comment to be doubly funny and laughed off-and-on far into the evening.

* * *

If what Melanie and the clients were doing during their Zen adventure could be considered religion or religious, then it was the light beer version of religion—not as full-bodied as the real stuff. Real religions start Crusades, Jihads, and Inquisitions and can convince the impressionable of the virtues of self-immolation. Real religions move armies. Melanie and the clients could not even "part the waters" wide enough to reveal the cause of the docents' itchy balls, though the answer practically stared them in the face.

CHAPTER 7: THE EVENTS OF MAY 7, 2004

Just as Sister Melanie had been able to discover the Grand Canyon's many vortexes while aboard _Wind Color_ (the raft formerly known as _Number One_ ) and had also been able to determine the vortexes' gender, or whether they were balanced, or cat, or dog, or whatever, she had also been able to ascertain if they were "good" vortexes or "evil" vortexes.

"Though extremely rare an evil vortex," Melanie explained to clients and crew alike, "represents the confluence of disorder and can make decent people do crazy things, and bad people do the unspeakable."

Of course she had wanted to avoid the evil corners of the cosmos in much the same way that teachers want to avoid committee meetings, which are the worst kinds of vortexes and have been known to suck any-and-all enthusiasm from even the most inspired. When Sister Melanie Ozone completed an inventory of the canyon's vortexes, her map contained fifteen green X's of various sizes and only one red X, but, regrettably, it was gigantic. A note on the map's margin explained what the large red X meant: "A PLACE TO AVOID AT ALL COSTS!" The red X was marked at the mouth of the Red Canyon in the immediate vicinity of Hance Rapids.

The red X lay just eight miles downstream from the best vortex (and the largest green X) in the Grand Canyon, a power for good so strong that it had been made mandatory that all of Zack's river trips spend the night there—the Tanner beach. The Tanner beach's "vortex of good" was mated with a "good" doorway as well, and while camped at that spot, Melanie kept an eye peeled for "travelers" issuing from its portal so that she could both nourish the cosmos' vagabonds and meet their needs.

But the Tanner Beach's "good" was held in check by the Hance Rapid's "bad." It was as if good and evil were faced off in an astrological tug of war with eight miles of tension in between. The red X marked the lower end of the New Hance Trail, a trail that wound its way down from the South Rim. It was a decent camping spot, and Zack Cannon regretted that his "vortex detector" had declared it off limits. This was the very place where Sam and Hunter Hobson and the park ranger named Pringle with the multiple-personality problem had spent the night of May the sixth. The three men would have been surprised to learn that they'd spent the last twelve hours in the midst of a (in Melanie's words) "confluence of disorder."

Zack Cannon enjoyed watching Melanie Ozone's antics on each trip when they passed the Hance Rapids. She would stick fingers in her ears (hear no evil), close her eyes in a vice-like grimace (see no evil), and begin to chant an incantation to avoid speaking evil—"um pa pa, um pa pa, um pa pa . . ."—which reminded Zack of a tuba. He wondered if tuba music was a good choice suspecting that the strange sounds were far more likely to invoke demons than to scare them away. And, judging from Melanie's fractious disposition after passing the evil vortex, her rituals did not always provide adequate protection.

* * *

It was Zack's fourth year of operation under the Grand Canyon Zen Adventures banner, and on the morning of May 7, their party was camped at the foot of the Tanner Rapids beginning the fourth day of a fifteen-day float. The sky was blue for a change; they had gotten a heavy rain the day before, and Zack Cannon noticed that spirits had flagged during the sodden weather. He could count on the blue skies to turn things around.

Virgil Cook was hard at work preparing food for twenty-nine people. The headcount included both clients and staff. Two patrons had cancelled at the last minute so the kitchen raft, _Horn of Plenty_ , traveled without passengers, Virgil being somewhat of a misanthrope.

Cannon sat by himself enjoying a cup of hot tea. His thoughts drifted to his business partner. _Lets see . . . it's Friday_ , he glanced at his watch. _Quarter 'til eight. She'll be opening the office in another hour. I wonder what she looks like when she first gets out of bed?_

Because they wished to coax a second cup of tea from a single bag, the docents were bothering the cook for more hot water. Virgil signaled for them to help themselves, which they did, and the docents were soon sitting on boulders by the river, sipping watery tea, scratching their balls, and watching the clients doing their "Zen thing" under Melanie Ozone's tutelage.

Sometime back in 2001 Sister Ozone had determined that specific mantras worked best at specific vortexes—for the Tanner she prescribed a long drawn out "BAAAAAAAAA" followed by an "UMMMMMMMMM" of equal length and the two sounds would be repeated over and over until Zack Cannon had a throbbing headache.

Plus, she had choreographed specific moves for the clients to perform, tailoring them, also, to the vortex in question, in some cases a yoga position, in others a dance step. At the Tanner vortex Melanie had them doing the cosmic version of the Hokey Pokey. Zack, watching in the distance, wondered if this was how Marshall Applewhite had gone about it; he shook his head, and turned to face another direction.

* * *

The docents looked on as Melanie stood in the middle of a circle of clients. She had positioned herself directly underneath the Tanner Vortex on the upper part of the beach and near the base of a brush-covered sand dune. The clients in unison kept moving in, making the circle smaller, then moving out again increasing its diameter while shaking this part of their body or that part of their body, but staying in step with Melanie as they did so. And as they moved in and out and were shaking all about following the meditation specialist's lead, they chanted:

"BAAAAAAAAAA." When moving out.

"UMMMMMMMM." . . . moving in.

"BAAAAAAAAAA." . . . out.

"UMMMMMMMM." . . . in.

"BAAAAAAA . . . ," and so on.

The strange doings prompted Ben Bucket to comment, "Sounds like somebody's humpin' a goddamn sheep ta me!"

"Well, Brother Fag, yeh'd be the one ta know fer sure," the Brain was the first to jump on Bucket's assertion, with the others not far behind.

"Bucket, yeh go fer da girl sheep or fer da boy sheep?"

"Ben, are dey doin' it right? I think dey need an expert. Why don't yeh give em a few pointers?"

"Take yehr apron off first dough. Don't want yeh ta embarrass yehrself."

Even Ben got into the swing of things by doing a fair impression of the former president, "I did not have sexual relations wid dat sheep!"

After five minutes the docents had pretty well exhausted the subject of copulating with sheep and had started in on the broader topic of "copulating with farm animals in general" when their nimble repartee was interrupted by a commotion in the midst of the circle of clients.

All five of the orange-robed docents wearing cowboy boots and hats turned then stood to get a better look. They gawked at two characters (one, a giant and the other more in the order of skinny dwarf) who appeared to have dropped in out of nowhere and who were laying on the sand at Melanie's feet.

Despite being buffeted by the excited customers as they surged forward trying to get a better look, the Sister flexed some muscle and successfully held her ground. Next she extended her arms in a welcoming gesture and, to everyone's surprise, spoke briefly in tongues, "Auf fedder fawn willful."

Though no one was able to decipher the cryptic message, her words sounded as soothing as water flowing from a fountain, and the clients nodded approvingly.

"What was it Melanie said 'bout dis place?" an animated Zigzag asked, while staring in wide-eyed amazement. "Der's a door here . . . a door to another part'a space . . . and people would be delivered . . . people in need of punishment . . . er . . . no . . . nourishment? Yeah, dats it. People in need of nourishment!"

The Brain, reluctant to rush to judgment and desiring to restore reason to his peers, counseled suspiciously, "Holt on one minute! Before yeh go believin' dose two just now fell outta da sky, we gotta ask some questions. There can't be nuttin' ta dem vor-TAXES!"

Just then Melanie ducked from view, and one of the two newcomers, the little guy with big ears and funny nose, looked out from between the thicket of clients' legs and gawked open-mouthed at the five colorful boat handlers.

"What's da madder? Don't dey have docents on da planet yeh comes from?" the Brain asked purely for the benefit of his associates knowing full well that the phony "alien" could not hear him.

The other docents were too surprised to say more and halfway expected the two "travelers" to emerge from the circle of clients and request in strange, mechanical voices: "Take us to your leader."

When the orange-robed oarsmen got a better look at the two "aliens" who moments before "dropped in" on the clients from the great unknown, the "smart" docent exclaimed, "Well by God! If dis is a doorway to the rest of the cosmos, den we must be standin' in the cosmos' friggin' soup kitchen!" because the two fugitives looked like they could, indeed, use a helping hand.

For the time being the docents just stood there with their mouths agape trading off between sipping weak tea and digging at their genitals. Later, when they found out that the two "travelers" lived in a part of the cosmos known as Flagstaff, the docents were not quite as impressed—a fact that did not seem to diminish Ms. Ozone's enthusiasm.

* * *

Zack Cannon was not sure how much time had passed before he realized that the BAAAAAAAAAing and the UMMMMMMMMing had ceased. He'd seated himself closer to the rapids than the others, mainly because the noise of the rushing water drowned out the customers' mantra. _Must be time for breakfast_ , he said to himself and began to walk toward the kitchen tent.

Zack had just gotten to his feet when he spotted Melanie and the clients escorting two scruffy-looking characters toward the food table, and he decided he'd better find out what was going on.

"Commander, what I once prophesied has come to pass!" Melanie, the Earth-Mother-Goddess, exalted as she presented the "travelers" to the president of Grand Canyon Zen Adventures who demonstrated considerably more self-control than the goddess by keeping his effusion entirely in check.

Initially the huge traveler simply nodded instead of actually saying hello, and was already devouring a second plate of chef Virgil's Krishna Broccoli Casserole sprinkled with raisins. The large stranger's little partner was only slightly more personable. Zack thought he said his name was Vernon something or other, but Cannon thought he might have misunderstood. He'd become distracted by the red mud plastered to the back of the short man's head and pants and by the fact that the little traveler was carrying a bag of Snickers bars. Cannon never did catch the giant's name though the big guy had attempted it twice but with little success—both times his mouth was stuffed with casserole. Zack, fearing that he would get sprayed by the stray bits of broccoli that were flying left and right as the famished traveler chewed, did not risk asking a third time.

_They aren't your typical hikers_ , Zack Cannon thought to himself as he looked suspiciously at the peculiar strangers. On their pants and underneath their coats Cannon spotted specks of paint. They were dressed more like house painters or common laborers than backpackers, and he decided that he had better keep an eye on them both.

* * *

As related in "Book Two" when Vernon Pickle and Oscar Pum stumbled into the midst of Melanie and her disciples, Oscar was struck dumb by Melanie's beauty and Vernon found the docents choice of clothing to be unusual.

Whatever it was that Melanie had said initially to the two fugitives, Vernon and Oscar did not understand, but it must have meant "welcome" because she bent down where they were lying and embraced them both in a loving hug. It was at this time that Pickle noticed that the nice blonde lady was not wearing a bra. She had gripped Vernon in such a way that his nose and mouth were pressed firmly against her right breast and feelings other than hunger and fatigue were beginning to stir inside of the little Pickle.

When Melanie released the two travelers from her embrace, it seemed as if the smaller traveler continued to, like a barnacle on a rock, cling to the ample Miss Ozone, and she had to give the little guy an encouraging nudge to dislodge him from her boob. At this point Vernon Pickle wanted to strike up a conversation with the woman with the grand set of ta-tas, but he struggled to come up with something to say. Eventually the overly anxious Pickle decided to tell her about the most exciting thing that had occurred to him in the last twenty-four hours, which resulted in the little guy blurting out, "I met Ham Salad."

"Oh?" she said.

"Yeah, up there," and Pickle pointed to the rim.

But Melanie was unclear and assumed that the smaller of the two travelers was pointing at the doorway, which she believed, to be nearby. And Vernon, in turn, did not understand what Melanie meant when she replied, "Ham Salad is one of us."

It was then that Vernon noticed her eyes—big spooky eyes. He had seen eyes like hers in movies, scary movies mostly.

Out of politeness and not to sound stupid Vernon Pickle said, "I did not know dat," and began to look suspiciously at those around him. He had heard of cults before, except Pickle thought the word was "occults."

Vernon and Oscar were treated like royalty; they became the center of attention; a veritable feast was spread before them, but they were puzzled when asked about their "NEED." It kept cropping up, "What is your NEED? . . . How can we serve your NEED?"

"Oh, I suppose a ride would be good. We're kind'a lost," Vernon spoke for the two of them because the voice of the enamored Oscar Pum still had not returned.

Upon hearing the "little traveler's" modest request, Miss Melanie exuberantly offered them a ride in _Horn of Plenty_. Part of her prophesy was that Grand Canyon Zen Adventures would be able to both NOURISH and meet the NEEDS of those coming through the doorway, and she desperately desired to be two for two.

Unsure what a _Horn of Plenty_ was, Vernon tried to clear up the confusion, "No, yeh see, M'am, we was hopin' ta get a ride in one of yehr boats."

"The _Horn of Plenty_ is the chef's raft. We had two cancellations so we have lots of room. We're twenty miles from Bright Angel Creek. We can drop you off there. We'll put a good word in for you with the ranger, and then you can hike out on the main trail tomorrow morning."

Just like that their NEEDS were practically met. But because Vernon Pickle still believed that Bulldog Finch was alive and working his way closer to the two who had stolen his truck, Pickle was anxious to know just exactly when the "occultists" were planning to shove off.

"As soon as the dishes are done and the Pavilion is struck," declared the spooky blonde with the gigantic rack. The guy wearing an apron over his orange dress started the proceedings by plunging his hands into a tub of dishwater, and Vernon and Oscar immediately set about clearing tables and assisting in anyway they could. Pickle and Pum had never seen a person simultaneously scrub dishes and scratch balls, and the soapy wet spot in the vicinity of the man's crotch grew larger and larger as the stack of clean plates grew higher and higher.

Pickle recognized the chef by the clothes he wore and introduced himself adding how wonderful the food was while a mute Oscar Pum nodded enthusiastically in the background. Lastly Vernon hesitantly informed the cook, "Well . . . ah . . . we're ridin' wid'ya I guess,"

The cook nodded and put the two hitchhikers to work carrying cargo to the _Horn of Plenty_.

It was going on three days, maybe four—Pickle was not sure—since he'd last taken a proper shower, and he, naturally, began to suspect that he smelled a tad "gamy." On top of one of the chef's containers was a box of laundry detergent and next to it rested a package with a handwritten label that spelled out "Medicated Body Powder." Vernon sniffed. _Perfumed_ , he thought to himself and turned to the cook who was a few feet in front of him rearranging containers in the _Horn of Plenty_.

"Hey mister, da yeh think I could use some of yehr body powder?" Ordinarily Vernon Pickle was not overly concerned about how he smelled but on this occasion he wanted to be ready in case he was pressed into service and was offered a goodbye hug from the blonde. The little traveler was having a tough time keeping his mind off of " _las ta-tas mas grande_ " even if the woman was the leader of an "occult."

Virgil Cook's face lit up with alarm, and he said, "NO!" a little too quickly and a little too loudly for such a small request, but he immediately came closer to Pickle and whispered, "It's not body powder. Can yeh keep a secret?"

Vernon nodded yes.

"It's a very powerful itching compound!"

A half hour passed; the rafting party had been on the water for ten minutes, when Vernon Pickle pressed his hand against his forehead having just made the connection between the cook's "Medicated Body Powder" and the special problem that plagued each of the cross-dressing cowboys. Pickle decided then and there that it was best to stay on the good side of the man wearing the chef's hat and who currently toiled at the oars.

About this time Oscar was beginning to speak again, but getting out only the most rudimentary sounds and syllables, "Look . . . Wow . . . Wet . . . Beer."

"Beer?" Vernon's ears perked up.

"Beer," Oscar answered and pointed to a cooler in the corner of the raft whose lid was ajar.

Virgil Cook asked, "You drink beer?"

Vernon quickly responded, "Yeah. He does too," and pointed to Oscar who once again had turned mute.

"Have one," the cook's words had a musical quality about them, and Pickle and Pum proceeded to drink two beers apiece.

The guy whom Vernon assumed was the boss rowed in the lead raft and his passengers included the blonde and three customers. The next five rafts carried some cargo but mostly clients and each had its own orange-robed cowboy at the oars. The _Horn of Plenty_ was loaded with food and kitchen supplies and followed in the rear.

Ninety minutes after shoving out into the current and slipping away effortlessly with the cook at the oars, the rafting party entered a large set of rapids, "Hang on boys, it's the Hance."

When the _Horn of Plenty_ was halfway through the rough water, Vernon shouted loud enough to be heard over the rapid's roar, "THIS RAFTING BUSINESS IS PURDIE FUN, ISN'T IT OSCAR?"

As Vernon spoke he looked over at his friend who began vigorously shaking his head yes. A second later the big man pointed up ahead and signaled to get the cook's attention. The rafts in front were pulling over preparing to land on the left shoreline, and the cook began rowing to that bank as well. They hit the beach well below the other six rafts. Apparently the stop was unscheduled because, once the lanky chef pulled the _Horn of Plenty_ up on the shore, he looked at his two passengers and said, "Boys, this is a first!"

To Vernon Pickle the cook appeared more than a little surprised so he asked outright, "Oh? Whad'cha mean?"

"Well, the blonde, she hates this place. Thinks it's haunted or somethin.' I never pay attention ta her. But what she says usually goes."

Just then the cook looked up the beach toward where the lead raft had landed. The boss was speaking to two strangers, one was a hiker who looked a bit like Tom Cruise only younger and the other guy was a redheaded park ranger. "What the hell's a ranger doin' here?" the cook spoke his thoughts out loud.

CHAPTER 8: ONE MONTH AND ONE DAY LATER

Zack Cannon leaned back in his chair and began proofing the memo that he had just composed. After the first read-through, he crossed out part of the fifth paragraph, made some additions which completely changed the paragraph's message, then tacked on a couple of extra sentences to the end of the communiqué. The memo seemed satisfactory, but he wanted to run it by Victoria just in case she did not approve or in the event that he had left out something major.

Standing up slowly with paper in hand he read the memo for a third time and walked to the reception area where he found Victoria toiling over an accounts-payable ledger.

Zack Cannon paused in the doorway. Miss Bugg looked up and smiled.

"Zack," she said breaking her concentration.

Perhaps because she loved to hear his voice, or maybe it was his strength of character, but for whatever reason, Victoria never made Cannon feel like she was being interrupted. Besides, ledgers could always wait. As Zack handed her the memo and asked Victoria for her opinion, he noticed the contour of her lips and realized that she was wearing lipstick. She had never worn lipstick to the office before.

Victoria took the rough draft and started to read:

TO: Grand Canyon Zen Adventures Guides

FROM: Zack Cannon, President

SUBJECT: Update On Aborted Raft Trip

DATE: June 8, 2004

I want to apologize for the unfortunate events which took place May 7th. Word is that Reverend Smith is out of the hospital and is recovering from his wound.

Understandably the patrons demanded full refunds. Refunds were issued, however, they were prorated. Obviously revenue for the month of May has taken quite a hit.

Therefore, I am sorry to announce that I must pay each of you on a prorated basis also. In your cases through May 7th, the day most of us returned to Flagstaff. I wish it could be more.

We have had to hire an attorney, as our insurance company has been reluctant to settle our claim, but a disposition should be made any day now. We remain optimistic.

Concerning the white powder found in your underwear, I regret to inform you that it was part of a practical joke perpetrated by Virgil Cook. More on that later when I can explain in person. A preliminary report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has ruled out the possibility of Anthrax. A more definitive analysis will be forthcoming. As of this writing, it is unclear how the powder got there.

As most of you probably know, Melanie our former (yes, former) meditation specialist, has filed a law suit against the company claiming wreckless endangerment for, I quote "approaching a negative energy vortex despite repeated warnings not to do so." The good news is the law suit was judged to be frivolous and was thrown out of court. So on that score we are golden.

As you may have gathered from this memo, we are scrapping the title "docent" and returning to the use of "guide."

One final item, I have decided that Virgil Cook will no longer be responsible for your laundry, and that each guide will assume the duty on a rotating basis. As compensation, each of you will receive a five percent increase in pay. Thank you for your patience.

The memo passed Victoria's scrutiny. She looked at Zack, took a deep breath, and spoke, "I think it's a good thing what you're doing—protecting Virgil. And, well, paying for his anger management therapy is simply wonderful."

There was a thoughtful look on the face of Zack Cannon. He was hoping that the guides would forget about the forthcoming "definitive analysis" that he had falsely promised in the memo. Beer usually worked; maybe he would invite them to the Red Dog after floating season was over and buy them all the beer that they wanted—a form of profit sharing—and a way to take some of the edge off of his guilt. Zack did not lie very often and was not very good at it—one more thing that Victoria liked about the man.

After retyping the memo, copies were made and sent to the guides. Zack Cannon asked Victoria Bugg if she would like to join him for lunch, and she accepted. The next hurdle that they would face together would be the hiring of a new meditation specialist.

CHAPTER 9: AN EVIL VORTEX, May 7, 2004

Nathaniel Eddington Bezer, heir to Bezer Electronics, was not into the whole Zen thing. While the others participated in morning meditations, Nathan normally spent quality time passed out in the bottom of one of the rafts. Ironically Nathaniel had formed an attachment to _Clear Awakenings_ , or the raft formerly known as _Number Four_.

Bezer had a rather detached view of the world and found life a little boring without a drink in his hand, so he made sure that rarely occurred. When he learned that his father intended him to have a Zen adventure, Nathan carefully packed enough Scotch to last the duration.

Busy insuring that the gears of industry turned without interruption, his father routinely sent his son on junkets—junkets that served no purpose other than to insure that Nathan could do nothing to impede the operation of those gears.

Twenty-nine years earlier his parents thought that naming him Nathaniel Eddington would lend their only child a certain pedigree, but, in truth, the latest Bezer was a mutt, a fact that no name, no elite prep school, and no diploma would ever or could ever change.

Ebenezer, his grandfather and the founder of the Bezer dynasty, watched in disgust as Nathan, the old man's only grandchild, staggered toward adulthood. The family patriarch thanked God daily that his fortune could be held in trust—placing it safely out of the reach of Nathan's drunken fumbling.

To Nathaniel his Grandfather Bezer's disapproval had become evident at a young age. The old man's eyes reminded the child of those of a predatory bird, and Nathan cowered every time he felt the eyes staring at him in much the same way that a rabbit cowers when a hawk's shadow sweeps across the pasture.

With Ebenezer Bezer's death, Nathan's father took charge of the business, and every attempt was made to groom young Nathan to follow in his footsteps. But those attempts failed, and it became evident to all, friends and family alike, that the youngest Bezer would spend much of his adult life barely conscious.

Bezer's flight into Flagstaff had been booked on a small commuter airline called Air Mormon, and he was distressed to learn that they did not serve alcohol. When a member of the Grand Canyon Zen Adventures staff met an uncomfortably sober Nathaniel Bezer at the airport, Bezer was quite anxious to remedy his deplorable condition. But instead, the next in line at Bezer Electronics was whisked away to a banquet facility in the downtown, was given a sample of the food that would be prepared while on the river, was shown a video on river safety, and was introduced to Melanie, the company's meditation specialist. Melanie looked vaguely familiar to Nathan. He had seen her before, however, he could not quite put his finger on where, but the sight of the woman stirred within him a craving for chocolate. He told her so, and, mysteriously, she never spoke to him again.

One morning there was an unusual event, maybe a week into the trip; Nathan was not certain because he rarely consulted a calendar. While sound asleep in the bottom of _Clear Awakenings_ , the intemperate multi-millionaire heard a loud pop followed by a strange but brief noise that reminded him of air leaking from a gigantic tire.

Opening one eye he discovered that _Clear Awakenings_ had been pulled part way up on shore while the back end of the raft still lay in the water. He thought this was odd because he distinctly remembered that they had been floating just minutes before, and surely it was too soon to stop for lunch. Nathan Bezer did not have the luxury to ponder any longer because another unsettlingly loud blast, attended afterwards by the same sound of escaping air, disturbed his contemplation. His head throbbed, and the loud noises were not appreciated.

Young Mr. Bezer continued to lie on the bottom of _Clear Awakenings_ in his drunken, slow-witted stupor. With one eye propped open, he assessed the nature and the cause of the blasts, which sounded suspiciously like gunfire, and he became alarmed by his conclusion that the second shot was closer than the first.

Nathaniel Bezer struggled to sit up and was pleased with himself when he succeeded. He swiveled his head slowly in the direction of the commotion and opened his other eye. He saw two identical red-haired park rangers each holding a gun. Nathan blinked, squinted, and blinked again. The two rangers merged into one. _That's better_ , he said to himself just as the park ranger fired his revolver point blank into _Timeless Path_ puncturing one of her twenty-four inch tubes, leaving the raft unseaworthy.

Apparently, the ranger with the gun had already decommissioned _True Enlightenment_ and _Deep Pool_ and was taking aim at _Wind Color_ when one of the clients, a minister named Smith, slowly approached the errant ranger. A solemn expression graced the minister's humble face and his arms were extended in a manner meant to beseech.

Bezer growled. He recognized Smith because the first day on the river, the reverend had been wasting his time trying to convince Nathan to "fight the demons" that were within him by going easy on the booze. But over the years Bezer had grown used to those demons—had actually become attached to the beasties—and he bristled when the minister offered to empty his Scotch onto the sand. The drunken fat man had considered raising a fist at the gross and unholy suggestion but only managed to summon a belch, which filled the air with the odor of rotted grain and half-digested hummus. The minister retreated, and Bezer had seen very little of the pest after that.

As Nathaniel looked on from the relative safety of _Clear Awakenings_ , he could see that Smith was saying something to the ranger, which the inebriated witness could not quite understand. The ranger yelled at Smith to stay back, but the reverend kept coming and put his hand on the ranger's gun. That is when it happened; the pistol discharged. Smith reached for his leg. Shock and disbelief transformed the reverend's formally humble face. The minister wobbled, fell over backwards, and in the next instant (Bezer was to tell the police later), "Tom Cruise was tending to the wounded man."

Nathaniel Bezer assumed at the time that he was witnessing the Park Service's new "no nonsense, get tough" policy modeled, no doubt, after Grandpa Bezer's own management style, and he pledged to himself that he would cease throwing his "empties" into the river.

Nathan also thought that perhaps the action was moving a little too close and so with great effort and with modest success, he staggered to his feet. He turned to leave, but forgetting where he was, tumbled off the back of _Clear Awakenings_ and into the river.

Fortunately Bezer was blessed with large amounts of body fat and floated like an iceberg. With forehead, two eyes, and a nose protruding from the water, he drifted with the current, passing _Wind Color, Deep Pool, True Enlightenment_ , and _Timeless Path._ He was about to pass _Horn of Plenty,_ the last raft on the beach, and continue solo on his own Zen adventure when he felt a large hand grab him and pull him safely onto the shore.

It was not long before Nathan Bezer lay motionless on the sand. He heard the gun discharge a few more times. But by then he'd lost interest and was soon sound asleep. Nathan was to explain all of this to the cops more than once.

Later an uninspired policeman advised him, "Tom Cruise was not there. You could not have seen Tom Cruise."

Bezer yawned, relieved himself of gas, and responded, "Looked like Tom Cruise ta me."

Nathan then wondered what had become of his supply of Scotch and, growing a little impatient, asked, "Say, when's happy hour start around this place anyway?"

CHAPTER 10: ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE

One of the clients riding with Melanie and Zack in _Wind Color_ spotted a park ranger and another man on the south shore of the river just below the Hance Rapids. The ranger was waving them over, and the client assumed that there was an emergency. He turned to say something to Melanie, but Melanie's eyes were clamped shut. She'd jammed fingers into her ears, and, on top of that, she chanted.

So the client got Zack's attention instead and pointed to the two standing on the riverbank. Cannon immediately began rowing toward shore, and the other rafts followed Zack's lead.

Melanie became aware that they were landing only when she felt _Wind Color_ scraping bottom. All at once her eyes popped open, she halted her incantation, removed her fingers from her ears, and looked around with the expression of a sleepwalker discovering that she had awakened inside of a tiger's cage.

"WHA . . ? WHAT?" she yelled. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DOING HERE? ZACK CANNON, GET US OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW!" Melanie was terrified of the evil vortex that resided at the Hance Rapids and could see that Cannon did not appreciate the peril that he had placed them in.

"Have no choice. Ranger flagged us over." Zack seemed embarrassed by Melanie's reaction. Then again, his meditation specialist had been embarrassing Zack Cannon for close to three years— _or was it longer?_ At least it seemed longer to him.

"WELL, WHAT THE HELL'S HE WANT?"

"Don't know. Maybe we were speedin.' Why don't you ask him yourself? He's right behind you."

Melanie turned and sure enough a park ranger stood ten feet away and five feet behind him gawked a Tom Cruise look-alike with three days worth of stubble.

Glaring suspiciously at the ranger Melanie, demanded, "Well, what DO you want?"

Ranger Pringle seemed unfazed by the woman's rudeness, plus the sight of the cowboys in their unusual orange attire had no apparent affect on him either, two claims that Hunter Hobson could not make. Hobson looked first at the fire-breathing blonde in the raft, then at the strange cowboys, then back to the blonde, and so on. He was self-conscious about staring, but the dragon lady was obsessed with getting out of there fast, and the cowboys appeared interested in only two things: first, relieving an itch that obviously originated in the area of their groins, and, second, finding out what the ranger had up his sleeve. It seemed that they were not used to being "pulled over."

In a professional, unemotional tone Pringle asked, "May I see your satellite phone, please?"

Ignoring Melanie who by then was looking left and right and up and down, certain that at any minute the sky would begin falling, Zack Cannon answered, "Sure!" and immediately went to work digging for his emergency phone. As he rooted around in one of the waterproof bags lashed inside of _Wind Color_ , Zack asked, "Anything the matter?"

"Just routine," the ranger responded—an answer that struck Zack Cannon as curious but plausible.

He handed Ranger Pringle the phone, and Pringle asked if anyone else in the party had a "sat" phone as well. Zack standing five feet away in _Wind Color_ shook his head no and watched Pringle inspect the $700 emergency phone. In what seemed one motion the ranger threw the phone into the river and pulled a gun out of his belt, which he then leveled at Zack Cannon.

"NOBODY MOVE!" Special Agent Fred Pringle demanded in a clear, determined voice, which captured everyone's attention, and caused Vernon Pickle to feel a touch of envy.

Hunter Hobson no longer stared at the cross-dressing cowboys; in fact he forgot about them altogether, and exclaimed excitedly, "PRINGLE, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, MAN?"

And that was nothing compared to what Cannon had to say on the matter, and yet Cannon's protestations paled in comparison to the dragon lady's hysterics. The blonde erupted with a force that rivaled Mount St. Helens, except she was not blowing lava and ash, but something equally pestilent. A dark, poisonous cloud of invectives spewed from the crater that was her mouth and engulfed any and all. In fact everyone stopped talking, including Cannon, the docents, the clients, Hunter Hobson, Virgil Cook, Vernon Pickle (Pum you will recall had not spoken in quite sometime) and the ranger with the gun. All those present turned and watched in disbelieve as the volcanic woman revealed herself to be something other than an Earth-Mother-Goddess.

Somewhat dumbstruck Cannon mouthed, "Whoa!" while Oscar Pum suddenly regained his power of speech, a curtain having been "violently" lifted from the big man's eyes.

But Oscar seemed sad as if the shattering of his illusion had taken with it a piece of his heart, and in order to ease his friend's pain, Vernon Pickle counseled as best as he knew how, "Oscar, she's pretty and all dat, and, well, she has tits the size of camel's humps . . . (Oscar blinked) . . . but I'm purdy sure dat she's a lesbian."

"Yeh think?" Oscar asked. The possibility had not occurred to him. "What makes yeh say dat, Vernon?"

Pickle searched for the clue that first tipped him off, "Well, yeh see, lesbians dey have dis aggressive way about dem. . . . Kind'a like Republicans around money."

Pum didn't know any Republicans, but he had viewed plenty of lesbians on the Internet, and he was trying to recall if he had ever seen one that had blonde hair, big breasts, and a white robe. Then he remembered that the lesbians that he had leered at while using the computers in the public library weren't wearing clothes so he tried to imagine the blonde naked. But, as the blonde in question was currently in the midst of releasing a string of molten expletives that would have made the Colombians at Eastham crown a new champion, Pum's image of a naked Melanie got derailed, and the big guy's train did not make it into the station.

When Melanie finally ran out of steam and just lay in _Wind Color_ randomly hissing and spitting like the character in the _Exorcist_ , Pringle got his mind back in the game and shouted, "EVERYBODY REMAIN CALM; THIS WON'T TAKE LONG. Now, Hunter get over there with them."

Hunter Hobson thought he'd better comply; he had heard of unstable people going crazy and shooting everyone in sight. Suddenly it occurred to Hunter what he was witnessing: _This is another one of Fred Pringle's personsalities! "Billy The Kid" Pringle!_

Hobson was in the middle of wishing that he had taken more psychology courses in college when "Billy the Kid" Pringle threw him a curve. "Now, Hunter, I'm going to trade you shoes. Take yours off and toss'em over here."

Hobson thought: _Damn! Is this "Billy the Kid" Pringle or "Emelda Marcos" Pringle?_

In case there was a "Charles Manson" Pringle waiting in the wings, Hunter decided to humor whichever Pringle was presenting just then. So he grudgingly untied his favorite hikers and tossed them carefully in the ranger's direction. The shabby pair he received in exchange needed airing, so Hobson sat shoeless in the sand hoping that his dad would not appear and do something to startle the renegade ranger.

Unfortunately, Ranger Pringle's crime spree was not over; he set about shooting execution-style six of the Zen Adventures rafts.

* * *

The Fairly Free Methodists, a member of the Southern Christian Confederation, had split from the Free Methodists, when "The Most Reverend" Bertrand Russell Smith had doctrinal issues, which simultaneously involved the church secretary and the choir director of his parish in Cottonelia, Mississippi. After deciding that too much freedom leads naturally to inappropriate touching, Reverend Smith broke from the church, which had ordained him and organized the Fairly Free Methodists—a stricter, salt-in-the-eyes, version of Methodism.

The project that he was most proud of, since separating from the Free Methodists, was the creation of a quarterly journal entitled _The Fairly Free Methodist Beacon_. The publication ferreted out false gods and exposed fraudulent causes. The most recent issue contained two of his own articles: "The Salvation Army, Not Really Salvation, Not Really an Army" and "Mohammadism, Religion or Cult?" which denounced Islam largely on the grounds that it encouraged intolerance. The Southern Christian Confederation embraced the latter discourse as "thought provoking."

Reverend Smith would have two great disappointments during his lifetime. The first had occurred prior to his fifteenth birthday when he discovered that he could not walk on water, and the other was about to occur on that day of multiple disasters: May 7, 2004. The Reverend had gone undercover researching two articles for an upcoming issue of the _Beacon_. He had already roughed out the titles, "The Grand Canyon, Proof That God Created the Earth in Six Days" and "Meditation—Communicating with Satan." On that tragic seventh of May, while standing on the shore of the Colorado River, he attempted to disarm a person he falsely believed to be a distraught park ranger. The ranger was in the midst of shooting rafts and the Reverend Smith thought it a simple matter of quoting scripture to a soul adrift, weighting him down with guilt, and then gently relieving the man of both his sins and his gun. The procedure was not new but had been tweaked and perfected through the ages and most recently employed with great success by televangelists who were relieving their viewers of substantial amounts of cash.

But, apparently, the unstable man wielding the gun was an atheist, not with the program, and, instead of complying, the heretic chose to hang on to his weapon. The Reverend made a note to assiduously check for religious affiliation the next time he found himself in a similar situation. When the gun discharged in the middle of their "conversation," the correspondent for the Fairly Free Methodist Beacon best summed up the event when he yelled, "THE BASTARD SHOT ME!"

* * *

"Hobson," Pringle directed, "I'd be obliged to yeh if yeh could keep this asshole from bleeding to death. For what it's worth, I didn't want to shoot him!" Hunter used his tee shirt as a tourniquet to staunch the flow of blood.

* * *

Pringle put bullet holes in all of the rafts except the one containing the food. In that one he planned to make his getaway, leaving the confusion and devastation behind. Besides, the conversation had started to get a little ragged. There was just one hitch—he had never rowed a raft, but it appeared easy enough.

Before pushing off from shore, the ranger relieved the clients of their watches and expensive jewelry including the Hobson family's link to the Civil War. Pringle asked twice for the signet ring, and only after a tense and uncomfortably long moment, did Hunter Hobson reluctantly comply.

As Pringle clumsily left the crime scene fumbling with the oars of his means of escape, Zack Cannon kept repeating, "WHAT KIND OF SICKO WOULD SHOOT A RAFT?"

The Tom Cruise look-alike yelled, "TWO DAYS! I HAVE THE RING FOR TWO DAYS! IT'S BEEN IN THE FAMILY SINCE THE CIVIL WAR. I CAN'T HOLD ON TO IT FOR TWO LOUSY DAYS!"

While, "CANNON, YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH! I TOLD YOU NOT TO STOP HERE!" became Melanie's newest mantra, which she iterated with the dedication and persistence but not the aplomb of a Hindu Holy Man.

Having heard the shots, Sam Hobson came running down the beach appearing in time to see Pringle pulling on the oars of the _Horn of Plenty_ heading quickly downstream.

Shirtless and tending to the wounded minister, Hunter attempted to fill his dad in on the bizarre events as best he could.

Sam asked his son, "So where are your shoes?"

By way of an answer the younger Hobson pointed to the raft receding in the distance. And with devastation written on his face he further confessed, "Dad, he took the ring!"

The news ignited something inside of Sam Hobson who let out a primal yell that concluded with, "THAT DIRTY BASTARD!" Next the elder Hobson took off running on a trail that paralleled the river and lead in the direction of Pringle's vanishing raft. His son's plea for his father to stop fell on deaf ears.

Meanwhile the docents had chosen, "What da fuck?" as their mantra and kept looking in the air trying to spot the evil vortex. Some were looking with their right eye then switching to their left as they had seen Melanie often do in the past. Each wished to avoid standing in the middle of all that negative energy. Until then, they had suspected that Sister Melanie was pretty much full of shit, but "seeing is believing" and none of the five docents were to set foot on the shore below Hance Rapids ever again.

Reverend Bertrand Russell Smith declared for the fiftieth time, "THE BASTARD SHOT ME!" and added enough other swear words that caused Oscar Pum to suspect that the Reverend had traveled extensively in Colombia, South America.

Two of the clients were doctors, and they took over the care of the wounded Reverend, relieving Hunter of the responsibility. This was a good thing on several levels because Hobson was finding the reverend hard to take and had considered harming the man himself. Besides, the aspiring actor worried about his father who'd chased after Pringle. What was his dad going to do, jump him from one of the cliffs if the ranger's raft swung in too close to the shore? Hunter Hobson's next thought was: _OH NO!_

Except for the two doctors, the rest of the clients seemed to have regressed. They were wandering around bumping into things while mumbling, "What da fuck?" and were beginning to sound eerily like the docents.

Nathaniel Eddington Bezer lay snoring in the sand having been pulled from the chilly water by the giant hand of Oscar Pum. The hero Pum had the distinction of saving the life of the richest drunk in North America but received not so much as a word of thanks.

While lying facedown on the beach in the midst of the commotion, Bezer was in the middle of a dream involving a naked women rising lustily from a vat of chocolate syrup. His tongue flicked out several times, and, when he eventually woke up, the man spent thirty minutes spitting sand from his mouth.

Vernon and Oscar were a little ways down the beach watching it all unfold. Each munched on a Snickers bar and wondered if Bulldog had, like them, caught a ride with an "occult," but one that was not prone to spells of bad luck like the "occult" that they'd hooked up with.

Just then a man who looked to be about sixty and who was wearing shorts and a tee shirt ran past them following a path that wound its way along the river. The man, whom Vernon and Oscar had not seen before, headed in the same direction as the psycho ranger who'd swiped the _Horn of Plenty_. Obviously, the man had a beef with the ranger because he was yelling, "PRINGLE, YOU DIRTY BASTARD!" at the top of his lungs as he jogged by at a surprisingly fast clip.

Vernon said, "Do yeh realize dat dat nut-job ranger just stoled our ride!"

The last day and a half had presented the two fugitives with a lot of twists and turns. They were thinking that they would feel a lot better if they could just start moving, since in the minds of Vernon and Oscar, Bulldog Finch was creeping ever closer.

Vernon Pickle pointed to the fat guy Oscar had pulled from the river and asked, "What's up wid him?"

Pum's take on the fat man was, "Oh, I suppose he's just dreamin.'"

"He's been barkin' like a dog fer da last five minutes. It's startin' ta get on my nerves."

CHAPTER 11: HELP ARRIVES

Everyone looked in on Bertrand Russell Smith at least once, as he lay wounded on the beach. But they found the Reverend in a vile, abrasive mood complaining that too little was being done, and the clients, after a perfunctory nod, quickly turned away as one might from fetid road kill or from an instructional video on do-it-yourself dentistry.

A weakened Melanie, while lying prostrate in the bottom of _Wind Color_ , suggested that the docents move Reverend Smith because he was directly under the worst part of the evil vortex. She insisted it was that which accounted for his nasty temperament never mind the bullet in his thigh. After giving the order, she sighed audibly, coughed faintly, then returned her careworn eyes skyward, patrolling the heavens for shifts in the powerful field of negative energy. Evidently, the vortex changed positions quite frequently, much to the Reverend's chagrin, because the exhausted meditation specialist had the wounded man moved three more times before help eventually arrived. Curiously, each move took the minister, from whom complaints spewed like smoke rising from a burning fuel depot, farther and farther from where Melanie Ozone lay spent and emotionally drained.

Zack Cannon hoped that another rafting party would be along later in the morning. All outfitters were required to carry a satellite phone, and this would give Zack an opportunity to call for a helicopter to take Smith to the hospital and to warn the authorities to be on the lookout for the demented park ranger.

Hunter wanted to make it clear that he and his dad had met Ranger Pringle only the day before and that he thought the ranger had a "personality disorder." At the moment Zack Cannon did not feel a need to chose his words carefully and responded rather heatedly to Hunter's diagnosis, "PERSONALITY DISORDER—THAT MAN IS FUCKING CRAZY!"

When Sam Hobson took off after "Billy the Kid" Pringle, he had left his pack and all his water behind so the son assumed that his dad would come to his senses and would return before much time had passed, consequently Hunter decided that it was best to sit tight until his dad reappeared. But Vernon Pickle and Oscar Pum overheard the Tom Cruise look-a-like tell Zack Cannon that he and the nut-job ranger had walked down a trail to this place. Vernon and Oscar feared staying put any longer because of Bulldog and, also, because they had just witnessed a crime and cops would be taking statements. And what if those cops linked them to the stolen truck found abandoned at Lipan Point? Pickle and Pum had grown more and more paranoid as the minutes ticked away, and the only way for them to scratch that itch was to MOVE.

Hobson stood staring in the direction that his dad had disappeared when the two fugitives approached. Pum got Hunter's attention by tapping him on the shoulder. Vernon, as usual, did the talking, "We'd kinda like ta hike outta here today. Right now, actually, but we're not sure how ta get started. Me and my friend would be obliged ta yeh if yeh could get us pointed in da right direction."

Still in his socks Hunter thought for a second. He looked at Pringle's old shoes lying at arms length where the unpredictable ranger had tossed them, and said, "Sure, why not," concluding that helping these guys would beat sitting on his butt.

Hobson laced up Pringle's shoes. They fit but they were not made for hiking and had curiously worn through on the outside of the right shoe and nearly through on both bottoms. He understood why the ranger had been eager to make a trade.

Pickle and Pum carried two four-liter water containers compliments of Zack Cannon and the one remaining bag of Snickers bars. Plus Virgil Cook had packed each a lunch of leftover Krishna Broccoli Casserole and threw in two extra handfuls of raisins.

Hunter Hobson escorted the unlikely hikers a mile and a half up Red Canyon to where the New Hance Trail lifts out of the canyon and begins a six and a half mile climb to the rim. The critical juncture was catching the point where the trail parted company with Red Canyon—miss that and Vernon and his large friend might have walked miles out of their way. The rest of the trail was fairly obvious.

The three mostly talked about the misfit ranger and his peculiar problem as diagnosed by Hobson. Pickle said that one of his aunts had three personalities, and all three of the personalities liked mixing Pepto-Bismol and beer.

Oh, and Oscar Pum made a joke. He said Vernon was lucky to have one aunt with three personalities because he had three aunts with no personality.

After waving goodbye to the two unusual characters as they plodded up the steep ascent out of Red Canyon, Hunter turned and began trudging back toward the Hance Rapids. But without company to keep his mind occupied, he soon grew anxious about his dad and, despite the protest from his aching feet, jogged much of the mile and a half back to the scene of the crime.

Hobson arrived just as two large rafts neared the shore. Banners on each announced that they were part of an outfit called River Madness hailing from Moab, Utah. Bob Marley blared from a huge speaker attached to the front end of the lead raft bringing a fresh round of complaints from the wounded Reverend Smith. The newcomers' party atmosphere provided a sharp contrast to the Zen folks who put one more in mind of a funeral.

Almost two hours had passed since Sam Hobson had taken off in Pringle's direction, and Hunter was visibly shaken when he discovered that his dad still had not returned!

* * *

Though both Grand Canyon Zen Adventures and River Madness were Colorado River rafting companies, they had little else in common. Zack's clients were wealthy, new age types open to unfettering their spirits and discovering the true meaning of life.

River Madness ran two sixteen-person motorized rafts and catered mainly to college fraternities, guys in the range of eighteen to twenty-two. The spirits they aspired to unfetter were alcoholic, and they were tired of discovering meaning, having wasted most of the previous two semesters vainly searching for the "stuff" in such unlikely places as "Wellness: Promoting Healthy Lifestyles" and "Introduction to Etruscan Art and Architecture." River Madness clients were ready to get drunk and get laid.

The party barges' unconventional leader was Lester Nester who hailed originally from the Chicago area and preferred to be called "Top Weasel." He sported dreadlocks and had that perpetually stoned demeanor so popular in the late 1960's. Tattooed on his back was a kokopelli, while a surf board graced his right arm, a marijuana leaf his left, and the planet Earth in the act of shedding a tear was displayed on the inside of his right forearm.

Each of the River Madness rafts carried waterproof sound systems and clever generators that produced power from the combined efforts of the river's current and the outboard motor. The speakers, fore and aft, blasted away at 120 decibels apiece and reminded a person of armament. You could hear River Madness before you could see them.

Whereas the Zen people described their meals as gourmet, Top Weasel whipped up mainly jerky, brownies, beans, pizza, and that Mid-western vegetable—macaroni and cheese. Everyone aboard was perfectly happy with this; the menu occasioned few complaints and, having built up both a tolerance and a taste for such fare during their early teens, River Madness clients rated their kitchen staff "Four Stars."

On flat stretches of the Colorado with little current the two party barges would broadside one another passing like naval destroyers engaged in battle. But in place of guns the clients on facing sides would "moon" their opposites and simultaneously expel gas. This was great fun and alone would have entertained the River Madness customers for the duration.

Standing on the bank below the Hance Rapids, Zack Cannon saw them coming in the distance with "guns a-blazing," as it were.

"What the hell are they doing?" asked a tanned Zen patron from Carmel, California, with a permanently upturned nose which supported a $300 pair of sunglasses.

Like a practical person viewing modern art Cannon frowned and then produced a disgusted snort, after which he asked in return, "You mean you've never seen two boatloads of young adults farting at one another?" It was quite some time before the Commander was able to regain his ability to smile.

As Top Weasel drew nearer, Cannon waved him to shore. The Zen rafts were a sad sight—the six partially deflated vessels reminded the Weasel of pilot whales that had beached themselves and had tragically died.

Running his own _Number One_ , which he had christened _Stairway to Heaven_ , onto the beach, Top Weasel adroitly stepped ashore, and in an accent that was a cross between the island of Jamaica and the beaches of California and had not one trace of suburban Chicago announced, "Ahoy dudes, what haupen?"

After Zack explained, Top Weasel summed up Cannon's feelings almost exactly, "Baud juju, maun."

Besides the disabled rafts Weasel saw a wounded man stretched out in the shade next to a stack of bloody rags, a delirious women moaning in the bottom of one of the partially deflated boats, and a fat man lying face down in the sand barking like a dog. And the Rastafarian wannabe from Naperville, Illinois, repeated, "Baud juju most certainly!" before adding slowly and thoughtfully, "Jee-ZOOS! I tink we 'ang 'ere fer some while." Glancing down river, he continued, "Geeve dot bustard wid dee baud aut-tee-tude plentee space."

Cannon seemed impatient with the laidback white guy in dreadlocks and with a nod toward the wounded reverend asked, "Your sat phone, is it operational? Need to make a call!"

"Baud An-DEE 'e be fine. You're welcome ta use 'eem," Top Weasel replied obligingly.

To which Zack countered, making little attempt to hide his frustration, "No, your satellite phone! I have to call for a helicopter!"

"Yeah, Baud An-DEE is dee saut phone, Maun. Whaut do you call yours?"

"You call your emergency phone Bad Andy?"

Top Weasel nodded yes and acted as if everyone had a name for their phone. As he searched through a container the Weasel continued talking, "You got dot whole Zen theeng goin,' Maun, and dot's cool, dot's cool. Wish I'd thought of eet me-self act-u-al-ee," the syllables rolled off his tongue one at a time, ". . . but your saut phone's gotta hauve a name, Maun."

"We call our phone, 'Phone,'" Zack admitted testily.

"Bummer," Top Weasel said as he handed Zack a satellite phone, which someone had painted with purple dots and to which had attached two horns and a tail.

Cannon spent five minutes talking on "Bad Andy" reporting the shooting to the National Park Police, and telling them about the crazy ranger; he had one of the doctors relay Smith's medical condition, which was "stable but guarded," and he read from a piece of paper handed to him at the last second by someone in the crowd. Zack Cannon read the note verbatim: "My name is Hunter Hobson, and I need a pair of size ten hiking boots."

* * *

In the meantime Vernon and Oscar's exit from the canyon was progressing much better than their hike in. The pleasant temperature compensated for the fact that they were going uphill, and having plenty of food and water helped immeasurably as well.

Four hours after waving goodbye to Hobson, Pickle and Pum had just ascended the Redwall Break and had approximately two more miles to go when they encountered four heavily armed National Park Police personnel hiking down the trail that the fugitives were hiking up. It was everything the fellows could do not to panic. Three of the cops (two men and one woman) were younger, and in the rear followed the fourth, an older, less-fit person who sported a gut and appeared to struggle. With no introduction one of the younger cops pulled out a photo and presented it to Pickle and Pum and asked pointedly, "Have you seen this man?"

Vernon and Oscar were staring at a picture of Bulldog Finch. But the Finch in the picture was twenty years younger and fifty pounds lighter and was barely recognizable as their Bulldog.

The two fugitive's eyes widened. Oscar coughed. Both shook their heads no, and Vernon choked, "Who . . . who is dat?"

"Deano 'the Bulldog' Brasso. He's wanted for murder in New Jersey."

Standing there with mouths agape Vernon and Oscar both said, "Murder?"

"Yeah, in New Jersey. Seems he's been hiding out in Flagstaff for a number of years. Been goin' by the name of Sydney Finch."

Again Oscar coughed.

The three young cops were ready to go, but the older partner, in a transparent attempt to wring more rest out of the situation, insisted on personally questioning Vernon and Oscar. Taking the picture from the one who had held it originally, he asked slowly, "Boys, you sure you haven't seen anyone like this? The photo was probably taken two decades ago."

Vernon and Oscar scrutinized Bulldog's younger face for a second time. Both recognized the hardness in his eyes. They shook their heads no one more time, and Pickle asked the older cop, "What makes yeh think he's down here?"

"Yesterday he left his truck and a stolen car at a trailhead just east of here. We had him trapped, and we think he gave us the slip by going into the canyon. So we got staff going down that trail, and we're going down this one thinking that he's gotta come out one or the other. No food. No water. Not many options but to come out."

Vernon and Oscar spent their time nodding yes, while trying their best to follow what the older man was saying.

Suddenly a dim light came on in Oscar's head, and he tentatively asked, "Yeh . . . yeh say he left his truck?"

"Yup," the cop responded.

Oscar inquired further, "Well . . . ah . . . say, what do yeh do when yeh find a truck like dat—one just aband . . . aband . . . Yeh know, ah, left?"

"We tow it over to impound, and if it's involved in a crime, as in this case, we hold it until the trial is over." The obliging cop with the gut seemed happy to discover that Oscar was not through.

"Impound? Dey got dat in cities, but where does da Grand Canyon impound dere vehicles?" the big guy asked scratching his chin like someone contemplating problems in Euclidean geometry.

"Well, our impound lot is in Tusayan a block behind the McDonalds."

Finally, the three younger cops, impatient to make tracks, began to leave without their overly thorough partner. Desperate not to be left behind, the older man sighed, shouldered his pack, and headed off following in their dust.

When the four were well out of earshot, Oscar, standing in the middle of the trail, began smiling broadly but did not move from the spot. Vernon looked at him quizzically. Still Oscar did not move. Finally, from his pocket Oscar Pum produced Bulldog's keys and jiggled them in the air.

To Vernon Pickle, the sound made music every bit as wonderful as anything Monty Tornado had ever recorded, and he too began to beam.

At 7:00 A.M. on the morning of May eighth a member of the National Park Police discovered that someone with bolt cutters had broken into the Tusayan Impound Facility and had stolen a late-model, green pickup. Pickle and Pum were sure that the only place in North America that they would be safe from the murderer Sydney Finch would be in the state of New Jersey.

* * *

Stranded at the beach below Hance Rapids the clients had been promised helicopter evacuations and were sitting tight thinking up phony reasons why they should be evacuated sooner as opposed to later, then forming a line based on their attempt at self-triage. The arguments went something like this: "In NO way does your migraine trump my swollen ankle!" Any tranquility seemed to have vanished hours ago possibly due to the power of the evil vortex.

Hunter kept wondering what happened to his dad, imagining any and all possible disasters from being attacked by a mountain lion to being bitten by a rattlesnake. Or: _What if he actually did meet up with Pringle?_ Which Hobson quickly dismissed as too far-fetched.

Melanie continued to lay in a fetal position in the bottom of _Wind Color_ and only occasionally emitted stray, malevolent sounds of protest. Thankfully, the volcano appeared to be growing dormant.

Zack Cannon and Virgil Cook went from raft to raft deciding whether they could be repaired. Unfortunately, the repair kit had been stowed in the one raft that was on its way down the river. The question that Cannon had to tackle was: After helicoptering the clients to the South Rim, what next? Paste the least damaged rafts together and float them out with one-person crews? That would be the cheapest alternative—but with no kitchen boat, it meant there would be no food. Ultimately, Zack concluded, and Cook agreed, that the rafts would have to be deflated and airlifted, but he seemed to recall that the Bell helicopter at the Grand Canyon Airport hired out for $600 per hour with a four hour minimum, and Cannon's disposition did not improve.

Fleetingly, the Commander glanced into the sky and wondered if there was anything to "this evil vortex thing," but quickly dismissed the notion, calling it another "Ozone-izm."

Three hours after meeting up with the ranger turned renegade, Zack Cannon heard a familiar far off "chop, chop, chop . . ." and turned in time to see a disappointingly small Park Service helicopter appear over the ridge which jutted north from Coronado Butte.

_At least it will be nice to get rid of that damn minister. I've had it with his bellowing!_ Zack thought. Reverend Smith had been relentless the entire three hours and in the last thirty minutes had, in a high, nasally voice, been carrying on about the excellent lawyers that the Fairly Free Methodists had on retainer.

The helicopter set down in a clearing some ways off. Dust and debris flew everywhere. Two park rangers each carrying a litter emerged and, bending until they cleared the copter blades, headed straight for Hunter Hobson who waved as if he recognized them. One of the rangers, a male with black hair, limped severely, the other a brunette, even from a distance, looked as if she had stepped off the cover of _Vogue_. Cook and Cannon hustled in the direction of the stretcher-bearers, and pointed to the injured Smith as they advanced.

* * *

The black-haired ranger was Jorge Costa, and Hobson was overjoyed to see his friend to whom he gave a quick rundown of events. And with the help of Cannon and Cook, they tended to the wounded Reverend Smith and to the comatose Nathan Bezer.

Jorge shook his head and shouted over the engine noise, "LOOKS LIKE THINGS ARE AS CRAZY DOWN HERE AS THEY ARE UP THERE! ABDUCTIONS, CHASES! IT'S BEEN A MESS! THIS SMALL COPTER IS ALL WE HAD AVAILABLE WHEN WE GOT YOUR CALL! EVERYTHING ELSE IS OUT ON RUNS!"

Hunter, also yelling to be heard, answered back, "I'M WORRIED ABOUT MY DAD! HE WENT AFTER PRINGLE OVER THREE HOURS AGO AND HASN'T COME BACK!"

"PRINGLE? FREDDIE PRINGLE?" Costa screwed up his face and looked bewildered.

"YEAH, THAT RANGER WHO WORKS WITH YOU! HE'S THE SHOOTER! GOD, I THOUGHT SOMEONE TOLD YOU! HE'S THE ONE WHO CAUSED ALL THIS!" Hobson hollered while motioning in the direction of the disabled rafts.

Jorge shook his head as he limped beside the litter bearing the ranting reverend to whom no one was paying the slightest bit of attention. "IT COULDN'T BE PRINGLE! WE GOT WORD THAT A HIKER FOUND HIM TIED TO A TREE IN HIS UNDERWEAR! THAT'S WHERE ONE OF THE OTHER COPTERS IS! THEY'RE TAKING HIM TO THE HOSPITAL—HYPOTHERMIA. IT WAS BILLY BOY BURK! HE TOOK PRINGLE HOSTAGE, STOLE HIS CLOTHES! . . . DAMN! THAT ISN'T PRINGLE YOUR DAD IS AFTER. THAT'S BURK!"

"HOLY SHIT!" Hunter exclaimed. "BURK! ISN'T HE THE KILLER THAT'S ON THE LOOSE?"

"ONE AND THE SAME!" Jorge yelled back as they drew nearer to the noisy engine. "DAMN, WE GOTTA GO SEARCH FOR YOUR DAD! AND I CAN'T. I SPRAINED MY ANKLE BAD THIS MORNING. I'M HAVING TROUBLE WALKING! . . . WAS GONNA HAVE IT X-RAYED LATER TODAY! JENNIFER, HOW BOUT YOU AND HUNTER START OUT? TAKE OUR SATELLITE PHONE!"

Hunter shouted toward the brunette holding the other end of the litter, "YOU CAN CARRY DAD'S PACK. WE GOT FOOD AND SLEEPING BAGS IN CASE WE'RE OUT A LONG TIME . . . AND PLENTY OF WATER!"

"OH," said Jorge suddenly remembering his manners, "HUNTER THIS IS JENNIFER. JENNIFER, HUNTER."

And she turned around briefly flashing Hobson a smile. It was the first time the aspiring actor actually noticed her, and he thought to himself: _WOW!_

Jennifer shouted to Costa, "WHEN YOU LIFT OFF, WHY DON'T YOU HAVE THE PILOT PARALLEL THE RIVER FOR A LITTLE WAYS AND KEEP A LOOKOUT FOR HUNTER'S DAD. IF YOU SPOT ANYTHING, CALL US FROM THE HOSPITAL!"

Five minutes later the drunken fat man was placed along side the Reverend Smith who complained about sharing with a Philistine, but no one took notice or seemed to care.

After tossing Hobson a new pair of size tens, Jorge shouted, "HUNTER, SORRY I CAN'T GO WITH YOU! AND THE SHOES, THEY BELONG TO HANSON; HE WANTS'M BACK!" Facing Zack Cannon, the young ranger continued, "I'LL RETURN IN THIRTY MINUTES FOR MORE OF YOUR PEOPLE!"

* * *

B. Allen Trout of the Arizona Highway Patrol sat at a computer finishing a report. He'd already typed in the year and was looking for the "M" key intending to record the date—May seventh.

"Ten thirty," he huffed. "I should be out partying with Honey Roundtree."

He could not believe how messed up everything had gotten—working this late AND on the same day that he was released from the hospital. Earlier, he had called Honey and cancelled. She sounded pissed, and he explained how he had no say in the matter. Then the power went out due to an electrical storm, and Trout had not "saved" and had to retype the entire report.

Before the patrolman could redo his paperwork, they brought in those Zen creeps in the orange dresses, and he was assigned to take their statements. _What a fiasco!_ Everything had been turned upside down. And to top it off, he caught some flack for drenching the South Entrance Welcome Booth with sewage.

_How was I supposed to know the liquid spilling outta that camper was shit soup?_ B. Allen Trout thought disgustedly.

As soon as patrolman Trout left the hospital that afternoon, the captain had him on desk duty typing up his account of the car chase that resulted in the wreck and his slight concussion. After that came the power outage, then the sewage lecture, and next the statements from the five river guides attached to the group that met up with Billy Boy down at Hance Rapids.

"What a day!" Trout sighed and spoke the words aloud as he waited for the printer to spit out the completed accident report. _Oh good, now I'm talking to myself!_

Suddenly Trout began to laugh. He had just remembered the only good thing that had occurred in the last twenty-four hours, and the exhausted member of the Arizona Highway Patrol, again, began speaking though no one was in the room to hear, "That silly ass Pringle, letting himself get caught by Burk! Pringle will never live this down. In fact, Mr. Pringle, I believe this is checkmate!"

Some asshole in the division (it was hard to tell which asshole because there were so many to pick from) had purchased a picture of Pringle from the hiker who had discovered him tied to the tree. Now Freddie Pringle was featured as the division's screen saver. Trout laughed out loud a second time as he thought about the compromising photo. Big as life, Freddie Pringle in his underwear tied to a Ponderosa and obviously screaming in the direction of the camera— _what a classic!_ Later the shot would be emailed to national parks throughout the country as an example of Billy Boy's handiwork. The caption would read: "Burk has Park Service tied in knots."

Earlier that year Pringle had written a letter to the editor of the _Flagstaff Daily Spew_ badmouthing the highway patrol for their failure to capture the escaped murderer, and now with the photo, extracting revenge would be as easy as squeezing juice from a rotten lemon.

B. Allen Trout looked at the screen saver, and noticing the pine tree to which Pringle was tied; he shuddered. It was one of those seismic shudders that start deep down in the body's core and grows as it works its way to the surface.

That morning in the hospital Trout lied to the doctor. Despite a blinding headache, the officer said he felt fine; and when the doctor showed him a picture of a Ponderosa pine, Trout was successfully able to mask the panic that gripped him.

Holding the picture of the giant tree in front of his patient, the doctor had asked, "What is it?"

Trout, struggling to hide his true feelings, said in a voice that faltered, "A . . . a tree."

"Good, good. Describe the tree."

"Brown trunk, green needles, um . . . tall."

The doctor next asked a leading question, "Not purple?"

Trout shook his head no while looking at the picture of the purple pine tree.

"And teeth? Any teeth?" the doctor probed deeper.

"No . . . no teeth exactly." Trout was hoping that his lie was convincing and felt a boost of confidence when the purple tree with the sharp teeth gave him a congratulatory wink.

"Much better!" the doctor said and added, "I think you are ready to go home."

Trout figured that he would have to stay away from trees for a few days. The concussion would run its course, then, undoubtedly, he and trees would return to good terms. Being immediately called back to work came as a surprise.

Trout asked his boss to at least assign him to the Brasso manhunt. After all, it was Brasso he was chasing when he drove Car 1-7-9 into the two Ponderosas while dodging an elk on East Rim Drive.

But the Captain said he thought it best that Trout wait a day or two before getting behind the wheel of another cruiser. That is why B. Allen Trout was manning a desk in the District Two Office in Flagstaff late in the evening of May seventh when five of the witnesses from the latest Billy Boy Burk encounter were marched in to give their statements.

Unfortunately the interview with Zack Cannon's boat handlers did not go all that smoothly, mainly because the docents were impatient. They had already given a statement to the National Park Police and did not see why they had to provide a second run through with the Highway Patrol.

Trout furiously took notes as the docents recounted what they had witnessed.

"We saw da ranger on da bank below Hance. He and dis guy . . . what was his name . . . Houston something?"

The docents began to hash out what Hobson's first name was.

"I think it was Huntley . . . yeah dat's what it was. . . . no maybe . . . humm?"

They agreed on one thing, "It started with an 'H.'"

Trout looked through some notes and offered, "Hunter, . . ah . . . Hunter Hobson," reading from another section of his notepad.

The Zen staff rejected Trout's contribution in concert, "No man, that wasn't it," and briefly gave the patrolman one of their "You Are An Idiot" stares.

Next the character with the "Zigzag" tattoo added, "Might have been Hamilton."

"Hamilton" seemed to please the majority of the river guides, and they told B. Allen Trout how the phony ranger stole "Hamilton's" shoes.

One of the docents did most of the talking. He seemed a little sharper than the other four who mainly nodded in agreement as the story unfolded. However a break in the ranks occurred when the spokesperson said, "First da guy shot _Deep Pool_ , den _Timeless_ _Path_ , den is was _True Enlightenment_ , . . ."

One of the others cut in, "Ah . . . no . . . _True Enlightenment_ den _Timeless Path_ . . ."

B. Allen Trout, his head wrapped in white bandages from his wreck the previous day, stopped taking notes. He closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips against his forehead in an effort to relieve the sharp pain, inside his skull.

Another one of the river guides interjected, "You're both wrong, Dip-shits! First it was _Pure Blessing_ den it was _Timeless Path_."

The other four turned on the speaker and challenged, "We never had a raft named _Pure Blessings_ , dick weed!"

"Oh."

Trout tried to put an end to the discussion by interjecting, "Yeh know fellas, I don't think it's all that critical to sort out the order in which the rafts were shot." However, no one seemed to have heard him, and things continued to deteriorate.

Fifteen minutes later the docents' spokesperson, after staring at Trout's nametag, asked the highway patrolman what the "B" on his nametag stood for. Trout did not want to answer but the guide stood fast and said, "Fine, den that's da end of da interview!"

When the other docents followed his lead and refused to say more, Trout reluctantly told them that the "B" stood for Brook.

Brook Allen Trout braced for what, like a gathering storm, would in all likelihood come next. The sharper docent's eyes lit up, and he said unmercifully, "Yeh mean dat yehr name is BROOK TROUT?"

Trout had been getting shit about his name all his life and sat there scowling as the five employees of Grand Canyon Zen Adventures laughed hard enough to produce tears. They were more than a little tired, and in such a state reading the day's farm commodity prices would have sounded funny to the weary bunch who were seditious to begin with.

The sharper docent asked as he continued to howl, "Yeh . . . yeh . . . have to . . . introduce me . . . to your . . . sister . . . RAINBOW! . . . Is she . . . is she hot? . . . And . . . if I . . . wanted to . . . impress her, . . . would I . . . bring her . . . worms or . . . or flies?"

Brook Allen Trout had to endure another ten minutes of humiliation. He could not help it that his dad loved fishing.

The character with the Zigzag tattoo, while doubled over, looked up and asked, "Hey Trout! She smell . . . at all . . . like fish?"

Another of the docents, the one the others called Fag, pretending to be serious, inquired patronizingly, "Trout, did your mom and dad have a drinking problem?"

Someone else in the crowd of orange clad miscreants offered, "Yeh think she's old enough to spawn? I mean . . . I mean legally."

Normally in one's life the moments of pure joy can be counted on one hand (if lucky, on two). The docents were having one of theirs just then—and at the expense of Brook Trout.

The Arizona Highway Patrolman learned nothing new from the docents, and, as he abruptly closed his notepad, Trout decided that if he were ever asked again, he would claim that the "B" stood for Bruce.

* * *

On October 3,1968, in a classroom at Southern Illinois University Sam Hobson met the woman who was to become his wife and the mother of his son. And for the rest of his life he carried with him the memory of that meeting—first impressions, parts of conversations. Some memories are meant to linger.

On the seventh of May, 2004, when Hunter met Jennifer, were the moments of that charged day going to last a lifetime? In forty years would Hunter Hobson summon these memories? Would he open his thoughts like someone opening a jewelry box and find pleasure in holding the contents up to the light?

. . . and she turned around briefly flashing Hobson a smile. It was the first time the aspiring actor really noticed the brunette, and he thought to himself: _WOW!_

CHAPTER 12: JENNIFER MASTERS

After leaving the helicopter, Hunter and Jennifer gathered Sam's backpack and water bottles then headed west. He'd already noticed the curve and fullness of her lips and the deep blue of her eyes. Remarkably self-possessed she had an earnestness about her that impressed and a calmness as placid as a mountain lake. Later as they worked their way down river on the Tonto Trail, she in front, and he not far behind, Hobson could not help but admire other assets.

_This Jennifer is one hell of a hiker_ , young Hobson thought to himself. _And she climbs too._

But Hunter Hobson was too worried to show the sparkle of his personality, and Jennifer appreciated the situation.

They saw no sign of Sam Hobson other than footprints in the dusty track. The trail stayed close to the river for a time then began to climb but continued to parallel the Colorado. As promised, Jorge called from the hospital but offered little news other than that they and another helicopter were going back to ferry out the rest of Zack's clients and crew. However, on the way to the hospital they did spot a single raft far downriver that probably was Burk, and they radioed the National Park Police that Billy Burk was headed toward Bright Angel.

Jorge closed by saying, "Burk's not gettin' away this time. The river is goin' to deliver him gift-wrapped. They'll be waiting for him at the bridge!"

The fact that Jorge had not spotted his dad from the helicopter struck Hunter hard, and for the first time he felt stung by the prospect that his father might be dead.

"He's in trouble! Why else would he be gone for four hours?" Hobson agonized.

Sam had no water; he could have become dehydrated and disoriented. The temperature was eighty-five degrees, fine for walking—but too warm for running with nothing to drink. They stepped up their pace and kept their eyes peeled for indications that Sam had wandered off the trail.

Dehydration can do strange things to a person, and Jennifer remembered the thirst-crazed hiker reported missing by his friends. Apparently after running short of water, the man experienced delusions. He thought that those searching for him were out to kill him, and for ten hours played "hide and seek" before a ranger spotted a red handkerchief and upon inspection discovered it attached to the missing man. During the helicopter flight to the hospital, the delusional hiker babbled, and then coherently apologized for assassinating Abraham Lincoln. Jennifer kept the story to herself.

Soon she found a place where Sam had run toward the cliff. Hunter prepared himself for the unthinkable, but avoided picturing what he might see when peering over the edge. They hoped to find his tracks leading back to the trail, then bingo! They were in luck, and Jennifer speculated, "Probably spying on Burk's progress." The vantage from the cliff provided a sweeping view of the river 500 feet below.

"Sorry, I've got to ask this," Jennifer said turning and looking into Hunter's eyes. "But what prompted your father to do this? I mean to go running off without water after a man carrying a gun?"

"Good question!" Hunter answered, and he thought about the "golden chicken"—an oft-told family story. Hunter had turned ten, and they were camping in Yellowstone. His dad had gotten back from jogging and began roasting a chicken on a spit. The chicken cooked slowly, but to Sam Hobson cooking chicken was an art not to be rushed. Pineapple, onions, celery, and green pepper were stuffed into the body cavity along with a liberal dose of oil and seasonings. The outside of the bird was encrusted in a golden coating of spices and rock salt and was worthy of a photograph. But a picture was not necessary because Hunter had retained a clear image of the tantalizing bird.

Before long succulent juices oozed from the meat and dripped into the fire producing an enticing sizzle and sending smells that teased all appetites within a mile. Smoke from the fire rose, hung in the air, and then wafted through the campground turning heads, casting spells, and conjuring visions. Two children stopped to watch but retreated when they discovered that watching the Hobson chicken turn on its spit without partaking was too torturous to endure.

During the wait Hunter caught himself imagining pulling the steaming chicken apart with his fingers. In his mind he saw the oozing, salty juices on his tongue and running down his chin. Waiting magnified everything. Finally when Sam Hobson announced that the main course was ready, all were famished.

His dad put the entree, glorious and golden, on a plate, which he placed at the edge of the picnic table. But humans had not been the only species drawn by the smells, and when the members of the Hobson family closed their eyes and bowed their heads, a spy in the undergrowth saw an opportunity (the only one present that day to directly benefit from prayer). Dashing from the tall grass, a small bear snatched their main course.

Hunter heard his mother scream, and he opened his eyes in time to see the bear wheel and bolt. After fifteen years he could still picture the thief loping off with the chicken protruding from both sides of its mouth. The thief looked back as it made its getaway with Sam in pursuit. And as Sam grew smaller in the distance he hollered, "GIM'ME BACK MY CHICKEN YOU BASTARD!"

Sam was gone thirty minutes. When he returned, he carried half of a dirt-encrusted chicken holding high his mangled prize. Afterwards he spent another thirty minutes carefully restoring the soiled trophy to its former glory but with limited success. Despite receiving advice to the contrary, he ate what he salvaged saying only, "Bear saliva is a natural tenderizer."

People in the campground found the episode amusing, and they pointed each time his dad walked past.

Hunter Hobson supposed that you had to be there, and to avoid embarrassment, he kept his answer to Jennifer's original question short, saying only, "Sometimes Dad gets a little carried away."

Jennifer sensed correctly that she was being held at arms length and dropped the subject for the time being. But she became curious to learn more about the almost sixty-year-old man for whom they searched.

Sam's tracks stayed on the trail, which contoured to the back of Hance Canyon then out again on the western side—still his prints led them on. They could tell that he had been running on this part of his odyssey because of the distance between footfalls.

Later Jennifer stopped and pointed as Sam's scuff marks left the trail and appeared not to have returned. Hunter and Jennifer stood in front of Horseshoe Mesa's eastern prong and were about to follow the footprints, which would have led them to another 500 foot overlook, when the satellite phone in a pouch in Hunter's pack came to life. He rotated so Jennifer could reach the phone.

Answering the call, Jennifer squinted and said loudly, "CAN HARDLY HEAR YOU. SAY AGAIN."

The person calling did most of the talking. Jennifer, concentrating, repeated for Hunter's benefit, "Big storm coming. Be here in two hours." She glanced at her watch and scanned the sky. Then what Hunter had been waiting to hear: "Your dad's okay!" the ranger with the deep blue eyes spoke the words excitedly while looking at Hobson.

Jennifer then nodded several times saying, "Yeah . . . right . . . huh . . . yeah." And as she nodded and uttered the string of single syllables her expression changed from elation to concern. She gave the caller their position then listened to more instructions—one of which she repeated for Hunter's benefit: "Ten A.M. tomorrow on top of the mesa. Check."

Turning off the phone she said, "Sam's at the Bright Angel Ranger Station!"

"BRIGHT ANGEL! How could he have made it that far?" Hunter asked making no attempt to conceal his astonishment.

"He floated in on a raft."

"WHAT RAFT!?" A picture flashed in Hunter's mind of Sam Hobson wrestling with a bear and coming away with half a chicken.

"A raft?" Hunter repeated more to himself than for Jennifer's benefit. _Did he hook up with Burk?_ he wondered _._ "Is that all they said? Was he alone?"

Jennifer answered apologetically, "Yes, he was alone, but the reception was bad. They're in a big hurry trying to get all those rafters out of the Canyon before a storm hits. The call I got was from Hanson on the rim, so it was all second-hand. He didn't know much, but Hanson did say . . .," and Jennifer was careful to quote Ranger Hanson word-for-word, ". . . your dad has no life-threatening injuries."

"No life-threatening Injuries!?" Hunter echoed breathlessly, translating that statement to mean that his dad had injuries but that they were not going to kill him.

_Did Dad come away with the chicken this time, or was he clubbed WITH the chicken?_ And he mumbled, "Hummm."

Hunter turned so that the brunette ranger could return the phone to the pouch in his backpack.

"Hanson suggested that we find shelter because the radar is picking up a really bad storm. The 'storm of the century' is the way he put it, and it probably won't clear out until after midnight. So they'll evacuate us tomorrow morning—come to get us up there." As she spoke she pointed in the air at the towering walls of Horseshoe Mesa that rose above them like a fortress of stone. "In the meantime," she continued, "I suggest we hike on around to the west side of the mesa to the back end of Cottonwood Canyon. There's a rock shelter I know about, and near the shelter is a trail that goes to the top of the mesa."

"Good, we'll need a shelter. Dad and I just carry tarps, no tents, and in a driving rain tarps alone won't cut it. Anyway, that's been my experience."

"Hanson said they were going to try to fly your dad out yet today if the weather holds off long enough."

They continued hiking west around Horseshoe Mesa's second prong, and as they did so, it dawned on Hobson that Sam must actually need medical treatment if Search and Rescue put Sam's extraction ahead of theirs. The ranger station at Bright Angel was equipped with beds and blankets. If his dad were not injured, the rangers would opt to keep him there.

It was then that Hunter looked at the sky and for the first time noticed a brooding darkness gathering in the northwest. A little later a breeze freshened, and the temperature dropped five degrees. The breeze brought with it the smell of moisture and renewed concern.

Hunter hoped his dad was on his way to the rim. He thought about borrowing the phone and calling his mom but decided he better wait until he had more facts. Besides, she was not expecting a call for a few more days, and his priorities were beginning to shift as he glanced more frequently at the troubling sky.

Jennifer and Hunter hustled and in twenty minutes rounded Horseshoe Mesa's western prong. It took another twenty to get to the back of Cottonwood Canyon where they found the branching trail that ascended the mesa. Jennifer led him a third of a mile above the trail junction where they found the rock shelter in the lower stratum of the Redwall Limestone.

People had camped there before. The floor was flat with few rocks, and the back wall rose vertically to chest-height then jutted forward eight feet forming a roof. Someone had built a windbreak by stacking rocks on the north side and dug trenches to drain water away from the sleeping area. The overhang was near perfect and stood 150 feet above Cottonwood Creek—high enough to be safe from flash floods.

They had time to eat before the storm hit. The weather swept in from the north, and clouds built up quickly like the loops of a python coiling around its dinner. Lightning arced in the sky and thunder rolled through the canyon, echoing from the cliffs overhead. Gusts of wind brought light sprays of water to the back of the shelter, misting their faces. But for the most part Jennifer and Hunter stayed warm and dry.

The worst of the storm struck to the north and west with continuous strokes of cloud-to-ground lightning. Battalions of clouds marched across the opposite rim and pummeled the tributary canyons north of the river. Luckily, as the weather advanced toward them, the storm's intensity diminished, having spent its energy on the far side of the Colorado.

Wrapped in tarps, the two watched the pageant unfold, each thankful that they were not in the center of the storm's remarkable fury. "Reminds me of the Fourth of July," Jennifer sighed wistfully while looking at nature's pyrotechnics. She sat on a sleeping pad while bundled snugly in Sam's goose down bag with the waterproof tarp wrapped securely over that.

"Only better," Hunter added.

As the spectacle ebbed, the two began to talk about their lives. Jennifer had numerous Freddie Pringle stories (The REAL Freddie Pringle, the Pringle with the huge head and whose hair was blonde not red), and she recounted a number of search-and-rescue adventures—some with good endings and some with bad.

They exchanged tales about climbing. Hunter was particularly interested in the Grand Canyon climbs that she had tackled.

He told her what he knew of the movie industry, about the set of _Gorgan_ , and the positives and the negatives of life in Southern California.

Jennifer liked her job but admitted to feelings of exasperation when she declared, "The tourists get themselves into so much trouble."

Hunter thought about his dad and hoped that she would not someday cite Sam Hobson as an example.

After two minutes of sitting contently in the growing darkness, Jennifer began again, "I like the canyon and all," she said grimly. "But in the summer, especially, it's too easy for people to get themselves into serious trouble. Heat makes people crazy!

"The worst part of my job is screening the emergency calls. People too exhausted to continue hiking, flag down rafts and use the rafting company's satellite phone to call for a helicopter. But in the summer, we get more requests than we can possibly handle. So the backcountry rangers have to decide who gets actual help and who just gets advice. Like if someone calls and they're asking about the price of an evacuation, that's not an emergency. An emergency is when you don't care about price.

"We tell'm to forget following the itinerary on their permit and find shade and water, which is not hard 'cause they're usually callin' from the river. We suggest they wade in the water—get wet. You know, cool off; take a day to rest; hike out at night. Normally, healthy people recover enough to get themselves out'a trouble. But it's tough convincing panicky hikers over the phone. Some people even breakdown and cry. Can't tell you how many times that's happened! I just hate it."

Hunter Hobson listened sympathetically as the attractive park ranger got things off her chest. He was content to lend an ear.

"Then there's the bizarre," she continued. "Last year we found a perfectly good lawn mower on top of the west prong of Horseshoe Mesa. That's at least five miles below the rim and maybe a mile from where we are right now. Brand new condition. Still had the price tag on it."

"A lawn mower?" Hunter sounded mildly surprised.

"Someone must have brought it down a piece at a time then assembled it on the mesa. The park service took it out by helicopter. Today one of the park police who lives in Flagstaff uses it to mow his yard."

"Probably art," Hunter pronounced.

"No, his name is Ralph something," Jennifer corrected.

"No, I mean the lawn mower . . ." Hunter got this much out of his mouth when he realized she was making a joke, and he laughed at his Gracie-Allen moment.

"Say, Jorge happened to mention you the other day."

"Oh, mention or warn?" Jennifer asked with a hint of suspicion.

"He had good things to say," Hunter spoke quickly then paused as he decided what to lead with, ". . . Said you were from Illinois."

"That's a good thing?"

"Point taken. I'm from there, too. A friend of mine in high school used to call it the 'corn desert' but it wasn't so bad. Nothing compared to this," and he gestured with a sweep of his arm in the direction of the canyon. Suddenly, he thought about his mom and dad and the house on Sycamore Street where he had been raised. "I'm from Peoria myself . . . well, a little east of Peoria actually, a small town," Hunter confessed figuring she'd never heard of Washington, Illinois.

"Ah, Peoria, I know it well. I grew up forty miles southwest of Peoria. A place called Lewistown. Ever hear of it?" Jennifer asked glancing at Hobson.

"Sure, near the Spoon River, Edgar Lee Master's country." Hunter perked up and in his best, theatrical voice quoted the Illinois poet:

Good friends, let's to the fields—I have a fever.

After a little walk, and by your pardon,

I think I'll sleep. There is no sweeter thing,

Nor fate more blessed than to sleep. . . .

Hunter paused to draw a breath, and Jennifer picked up the verse:

. . . Here, world,

I pass you like an orange to a child.

I can do no more with you. Do what you will . . .

She laughed when she finished. Hobson found her laughter warm, and at the same time he was astounded. With the exception of dirty limericks at drunken parties, he had never met anyone who could finish one of his recitations.

"How'd you know that? Did you major in literature or what?" Hunter's voice revealed both astonishment and admiration.

"I majored in 'Or What.' But you go first. Why can you quote Masters?"

Hunter paused, "I had to memorize that passage for a theater class, plus . . . I've always been partial to Masters, and, well, I just like the image. 'Here, world, I pass you like an orange to a child . . .'" He rattled the line off quickly and not in his over-the-top dramatic style. "It's a comforting way to look at death. So how about you?"

"Well, first, brace yourself for a compound sentence: it's from poem of his called ' _To-Morrow is my birthday_ ,'" the young ranger began, "he chose some of the lines to be his epitaph and appear on his headstone, and his grave is in Petersburg where I am blessed with many cousins.

"And, to add insult to injury," Jennifer continued, "drum roll please, Edgar Lee Masters is a distant, distant, distant relative. My last name is Masters actually."

Hobson looked at her with renewed interest. "Royalty!" he declared while smiling broadly.

"At last, I have been discovered. You are, however, the only one I know who thinks so."

"How many distant's was that?"

"Three," Jennifer answered quickly.

No stars were shining, but the storm had gone its way. Hunter and Jennifer talked late into the night each wrapped separately in tarps and in their dreams. Neither was aware when sleep caressed them. But they slept soundly and awoke to discover a world made fresh by yesterday's rain and in time to see morning's gold move down the opposite canyon wall and down the distant mesas on the other side of the river. Each took comfort in the other's presence.

* * *

After two days, Freddie Pringle left the hospital and returned to the canyon as Special Agent. The famous picture of him tied to a tree dogged Ranger Frederic Remington Pringle far into the future. It did not help that the following summer the Arizona Highway Patrol District Two softball team wore tee shirts depicting Pringle roped to a tree.

Just as Freddie was checking out of the Flagstaff Medical Center, Brook Allen Trout was readmitted. The headache he experienced had gotten worse, and he began to claim that he had been bitten by a Douglas Fir.

According to the newspaper Sam Hobson suffered a broken leg while negotiating a steep descent in order to inspect the empty raft stolen hours before by Billy Boy Burk, and which Hobson spotted resting on the shore. Sam had been quoted as saying that he saw no sign of the fugitive and no indication that he had come ashore—no tracks in the sand, etc. He concluded that Burk had drowned having watched the fugitive make a hash out of rowing through the Sockdolager Rapids and getting tossed from the raft as a consequence. The assumption that Zack Cannon's only surviving raft had hung up on shore where Hobson encountered it, seemed plausible to the law enforcement agents who were on hand to greet the retired college professor when he showed up at Bright Angel Creek. His broken leg afforded Hobson no other option but to use the _Horn of Plenty_ to travel to a place where he could receive medical attention.

Hunter S. Hobson and Jennifer L. Masters were married four years later in June. They held the ceremony outdoors at Shoshone Point overlooking the great chasm that had brought them together. Jorge Costa served as Hunter's best man.

Following a reception at the El Tovar Hotel, and after a one-night stay, the newlyweds hiked down the Bright Angel Trail and spent three nights in a cabin at the Phantom Ranch. When the honeymoon was over, she returned to her job in the Backcountry Office and he to Venice, California, to resume filming a television series in which he was cast as one of seven principals.

Jennifer Masters Hobson eventually quit her park service job to start a family, and the couple was blessed with two girls, Jamie and Sammie. Today the four reside in Big Bear Lake nestled in the San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California. Hunter Hobson stars in movies, his latest, ironically, a fifth sequel of _Gorgan_ entitled _Gorgan Goes to Washington._

After that day by the river Billy Boy Burk had never been seen again but continues to be the subject of speculation and lives on in the hearts and minds of the patrons of the Red Dog Saloon.

CHAPTER 13: A GEOLOGY LESSON

_Three more years! Can I hold on for that long?_ Mrs. Beverly McCann mused as she looked out her classroom window before school on a Friday in late May, 2004. The answer to that question was: _Sure, piece of cake_. Mrs. McCann was a capable warhorse, as at home in her classroom chastising young trouble-makers and confiscating chewing gum as was the Australian Steve Irwin when patrolling a pit full of crocodiles. There were parallels.

_Retirement!_ The word continually popped into the mind of the veteran eighth grade teacher at Flagstaff's Horace Mann Middle School, and she smiled exuberantly. _Just three and one quarter Mays to go._

The month of May had always meant a clash of wills. Beginning about four weeks prior to graduation, the urchins were plagued by the notion that they were "top dogs" and began acting upon the fantasy, blatantly ignoring time honored rules such as, "raise your hand before speaking" and "no gum in the classroom." SUMMER VACATION with HIGH SCHOOL waiting in the wings—a volatile combination—the heady brew could turn even the most docile into spontaneous talkers and delinquent gum-chewers. No longer innocents, they responded only to whip and prod.

Plus, inside the typical eighth grader raged a sea of hormones as turbulent as the ebb and flow of Bay of Fundy tides. Who could guess where the worst of them would be from one minute to the next? Hanging from the ceiling, throwing spit wads, passing notes, or desperately trying to stay awake in the back row and having little success. Sadly, these were only the least of the teacher's worries. Some students were experimenting with drugs, engaging in sex, or were obsessing over video games—games which measured victory by body count, by blood spilled, and by limbs severed. On top of that, Mrs. McCann's students were too busy thinking about each other and about their social lives to care much about learning.

_Probably another Three Stooges Marathon on one of the cable channels_ , Mrs. McCann sighed. She found Larry, Moe, and Curly formidable competition in the battle for young people's minds.

_And diction!_ Just yesterday she intercepted a note from one of the Baxters to another boy: "Aftr skool!!! We havin a smackdown."

_A smackdown? I mean, REALLY! What planet are they from? We don't even speak the same language half the time. It wasn't like this in 1976_. Mrs. McCann's thoughts drifted nostalgically back to the "good old days." When she was young and pretty—the kids loved her. But, now, the best she could hope for was fear—the _Old Testament_ brand of fear. If it was good enough for the Israelites, it was good enough for the Horace Mann Middle School's eighth grade class. Besides, one needed to lead with one's strong suit—"hearts" thirty years ago, "clubs" in the new millennium.

She shook her head as she watched her students arriving for school. Bobby Bucket had come wearing tattered jeans and a dirty, over-sized tee shirt that announced proudly "Wrestle-Rama, 2003." Everyone picked on the kid. There was just something about him—the entire family really.

Mrs. McCann looked at the blue sky and wished it was not so beautiful. These were the facts: In the month of May the better the weather, the longer the school day. Time expands as the barometer rises—a form of "general relativity" that experienced teachers know all too well. The physics lesson gleaned after three decades behind the same desk taught her to dig in her heals and to pray for a deteriorating forecast.

Soon her mind returned to the Buckets: _The family hardly has a pot to piss in, and now it's rumored that Bobby's father is going to miss a paycheck all because of that run-in with Billy Boy Burk. What a shame. But it was sure nice of his dad to accept the invitation to speak today._

During the last month of school in an attempt to get through Friday afternoons with as few casualties as possible and without drawing blood, Mrs. McCann had instituted a program she entitled "Career Awareness—Exploring Your Future." Guest speakers representing different occupations filled the final two hours of class time with stories such as "The Exciting World of the Tax Accountant" or "Ophthalmology, Seeing a Lucrative Future."

Today promised to be more interesting than usual. Bobby's father was a Colorado River guide and was going to inform the students of the duties and responsibilities that the profession entailed. She just hoped he would not show up tipsy as he had for parent-teacher conferences.

After that, Carlos' step-dad, a helicopter pilot with the U. S. Forest Service, planned to land on the soccer field at quarter 'til two. He had participated in numerous rescues and specialized in dumping chemical suppressants on forest fires. _That should keep them awake._ Mrs. McCann, "Genghis," as the students called her, knew her audience, and what they would and would not tolerate.

The only speaker giving her doubts was the last speaker, Brian Green's dad, a college professor at NAU. _Paleontology could go either way_ , she considered silently. _Definitely a crapshoot!_

Young Brian Green sitting in the fifth seat of the third row thought so as well.

* * *

CAREER AWARENESS—EXPLORING YOUR FUTURE

Mrs. McCann's class had already listened to the first two speakers. On some afternoons hair grows faster than the minute hand of the classroom clock, but not this afternoon. So far things had gone quite well.

Brian squirmed in his chair. Squirming being a common symptom brought about by having to kiss an old-maid aunt or by having to explain to mother how the _Penthouse_ magazines found their way into the bottom of one's closet. The next "Career Awareness" speaker, Dr. Ridgeway Allen Green, in whom his son Brian had little faith, brought about this particular case of the "squirms."

Young Brian thought as he wriggled and sweated: _How can Dad compete with a helicopter landing and taking off on school property! And the rescue stories and narrow escapes! Carlos' dad is practically Indiana Jones, and he had even been the one who had airlifted Mr. Bucket out of the Grand Canyon two weeks ago after Billy Boy turned mean and shot that minister and those rafts._

_And it was really cool to hear how Bucket's dad and some of his buddies stood up to Burk and talked him out of shooting other people! Even though there was "blood in the man's eyes!"_ was exactly the way the elder Bucket had put it.

Bobby Bucket's dad told the class how they convinced the murderer to clear out, and now nobody's seen the fugitive since. Like he simply vanished into thin air. When asked where he thought Burk had gotten to, Bobby's old man gave a shrug and a knowing smile like he really knew but couldn't say just then, or like he actually had a hand in the disappearance himself. The Horace Mann Middle School's eighth grade class would remain split on the issue for quite sometime.

Brian Green was at the edge of his seat when Bobby's dad explained to them how the killer singled out and shot the reverend right before their eyes, and how one of their staff, a woman called "the Hippie," had lost her mind. The latter incident reminded the speaker to warn the class about something called an "evil vortex" and to never go near one if they could possibly avoid it.

At the end Mr. Bucket volunteered that he had not worked in two weeks, and added cryptically, that it was okay because "at least now my bag doesn't itch." Genghis McCann's eyes opened slightly forming a pair of narrow slits, and the eighth graders seemed confused, but thankfully, no one asked for clarification.

It was all pretty amazing, and the class was giving him a round of applause just when they heard the "chop, chop, chop" of the helicopter landing on the soccer field.

Brian Green glanced over at Bobby Bucket who sat ramrod straight, proud of his old man. And Brian wondered, after his own dad finished speaking, if he would be able to hold his head up, or worse, if the Baxter twins would see to it that he would no longer have a head to hold up.

Paleontology had the potential of being really cool—dinosaurs, digs in far off places, stuff like that. But Ridgeway Green specialized in the lowly packrat, and his region of study lay just eighty miles to the north, the Grand Canyon, not too exotic for kids growing up in Flagstaff, Arizona.

The presentation began slowly with a brief explanation of paleontology and segued to a Power Point slide depicting a giant animal standing on its hind legs.

Brian recognized it immediately but did not respond when his dad asked the class what it was.

Someone spoke up, "Dinosaur?"

"No, not a dinosaur."

Silence

Brian squirmed, sunk farther into his chair, and thought: _Dad, you're blowing it_.

Another student ventured, "Bear?"

"No, it's an extinct Shasta ground sloth, _Nothrotheriops shastense_ , and 10,000 years ago it inhabited this area."

"Did it eat people?"

The class seemed disappointed to learn that the extinct giant had been an herbivore.

"We've found partial skeletons in the Grand Canyon." And out of a box in the corner of the room Professor Green produced the articulated bones of a front paw the length of one and a half footballs. Attached to the paws were massive claws. Oohs and aahs went up from around the classroom, and students were invited to step forward to inspect the bones, the likes of which the eighth graders had never before seen.

After settling back into their chairs, Ridgeway Green went on to the next slide, and there it was. What Brian had feared.

"It's a rat," someone in the front row volunteered.

Giggling.

Genghis McCann's eyes opened once again, and this time she threw dart-like stares at Melinda Tompkins and Allison Ling.

"Not just a rat, it's a packrat," Professor Green corrected, and he added, "they live in Arizona today as they have for the past 50,000 years."

A few people in the room went, "Oooh," as if they were genuinely impressed, and Brian wondered why.

"Dr. Green," Martha Dempsey, the class "lawyer" and the eighth grade's chief source of ass-pain spoke up. "A minute ago you told us paleontologists study past life, but you're showing us an animal that's living today. How is a packrat connected to paleontology?"

"Well, very good question!" Ridgeway Green said enthusiastically as if Martha Dempsey was the most brilliant person on Earth.

Brian thought: _Oh, please!_

And while pointing to the screen, the professor answered Martha's question, "You're looking at a picture of another kind of paleontologist actually. Though it doesn't give lectures and doesn't do research, this paleontologist is a collector and has left its collections for us to study."

His dad had posed a riddle. Brian detected interest from the "brown-nose" section of class, but not much interest. Next young Brian Green suppressed a surge of panic when he noticed Wendy Wangker's critical and cruel smile flash in his direction, which in McCann's classroom was the same as a judge's decree. Apparently, the verdict was in, and it did not look favorable. _Well, that's that_ — _as Wendy goes, so goes the eighth grade._ A hard fact—the last two weeks of school were ruined: _I might as well call in sick_. And he wondered what the symptoms were for Bubonic Plague.

Brian Green gauged that so far his scholarly father's presentation was neck and neck with that of Arlene Burroughs' dad's who spoke the previous week on "The Lonely Life of the Proctologist—or Why No One Wants to Shake My Hand." Dr. Burroughs brought an endoscope and about fifty action photos he had taken with the curious instrument. The doctor used the word anus quite frequently and proceeded to spit on everyone sitting in the front of the classroom as he eagerly explained about removing polyps from large intestines—Brian Green had personally enjoyed watching those sitting in the brown-nose section bob and weave as each tried to avoid the "Lonely Proctologist's" flying spittle.

"Packrats have an unusual habit," Brian's dad continued. "They make a kind of plaster."

"Where do they get plaster?" Martha asked suspiciously and without raising her hand (an omission that miraculously escaped the attention of the Great Khan).

"This is not the kind of plaster we buy at Home Depot. No, packrats make their own plaster by urinating on their feces."

Brian heard several in the class ask quietly, "Did he say feces?" And here and there laughter erupted in small strafing rounds like sporadic gunfire in the streets of Baghdad. Fortunately, only a few of the eighth graders were familiar with the term "feces," and roughly a third had no clue what it meant to "urinate," otherwise the insurgency might have picked up steam—the use of more familiar terms such as "piss" and "shit" would have triggered all-out rebellion.

The experienced Genghis McCann strategically chose that moment to stand and glare. Her stare burned red-hot and cut like hellfire through the classroom's stale air. On more than one occasion she had witnessed a room full of fourteen-year-olds turn into _Lord of the Flies_ in the blink of an eye, especially when the subject involved excrement. The sedition was quashed.

Brian Green wiped a bead of sweat from his brow.

Quickly another Power Point slide flashed on the screen showing a brown lump, obviously the product of a packrat's unsavory habit. It looked to be a relative of the brown lumps captured on film by Dr. Burroughs' endoscope only larger and not as fresh. "These are called middens. Packrats deposit their middens in protected areas. In the Grand Canyon we find them in cracks and under ledges. If they are kept dry, they last virtually forever."

In the back of the classroom Butch Baxter whispered to his brother Buck, "Hey, hear that? You can find shit in cracks."—for either of the Baxters to even have a pulse at that time of the day, much less actually hear what was being said in the front of the room was in itself quite miraculous and a tribute to Professor Ridgway Allen Green.

"Can anyone tell me where packrats get their name?"

Three hands went up—each belonged to a hardened brown-noser.

Dr. Green nodded to Thomas "The Beave" Pokojski in seat one, row two.

The Beave offered tentatively, "Because they save things."

"Yes, that's correct, and some of the things they save get plastered into their middens." Next pointing to the picture of the moldy lump of packrat waste on the screen, the professor continued, "Can anyone tell me what the white object is in this midden? . . ." There were no takers. "You've seen one today." Still no response.

From his pocket, Professor Green pulled a bone roughly the size of a candy bar and stated, "This is it, the white object in the midden. Now can you tell me what it is?"

"BONE!" pronounced ten percent of the class—all of whom resided in the front.

Genghis McCann mused to herself that the Professor did not completely suck, and that the students were doing "alright" considering that it was both late in the day and a blue-sky-Friday.

"That is correct," Dr. Green enthusiastically enjoined. "But, can you tell me from what animal?" At that point the professor began moving down the rows to allow the students to get a better look at the object he held in his hand. ". . . From what animal did this come?" he repeated the question.

There were no takers until Brian Green's father stood next to dim-witted Bobby Bucket.

Young Bucket's eyes lit up, and he practically shouted, "IT'S . . . IT'S FROM THAT THING. THE SLOTH . . . uh . . . _NOTHROTHERIOPS SHASTENSE_. A . . . A METACARPAL BONE!"

"Phalange," Dr. Green corrected assuming he was talking to the class genius. Later they were to speak as colleagues. And much later, in the year 2012, Dr. Ridgeway Allen Green consented to be Robert B. Bucket's doctoral advisor at NAU and assist in directing the candidate's dissertation also involving packrat middens.

Mrs. Beverley McCann's head jerked like she had been rear-ended by a speeder. Other than to say something totally witless, this marked the first occasion that Robert Benjamin Bucket had opened his mouth in class. _All this time has the Bucket boy just been bored?_ The question flashed like lightning through the mind of the Great Khan.

In the back row the Baxter twins simultaneously emitted, "Woe! Dude!" Bobbie Fuck-it (the Baxter brothers tended to take liberties with their classmate's names) surprised them both.

Professor Green told the eighth graders how a packrat caches bones, plant material, and anything that catches its eye and then adds them to their midden by employing their special brand of plaster. Since packrats do not travel far from their dens, their collections document the ecosystem at that spot at a particular point in time. Using carbon fourteen analyses, a geologist can assign a date to any midden less than 50,000 years old, and by studying several middens of different ages, but all found in the same vicinity, an accurate picture of climate change can be reconstructed.

After that day, Bobby Bucket began to read incessantly on the subject of geology. So much so that his father worried that he was not watching enough television. For several years rumors swirled around Flagstaff that the senior Bucket had secretly done away with the fugitive Billy Boy Burk, and some even speculated that the Grand Canyon Zen Adventures guide had stolen the cash and diamonds that Burk had reputedly carried.

THE END OF BOOK THREE

Thank you for reading _The Confluence of Disorder._ What follows are the first two chapters of Book Four entitled _Billy Boy_

Book Four details the life of fugitive William (Billy) Boy Burk and his high profile run from the law including the killing which began Burk's run from justice and later the holdup of Honest Melvin's Jewelry and Pawn. Also, twenty years in the future a riddle is solved when a son opens his deceased father's safe deposit box, a riddle which began in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River.

CHAPTER 1: THE EARLY YEARS

The traffic outside of 900 North Tucker on the edge of St. Louis' downtown had slowed due to construction. Crews preparing a nearby building for demolition had temporarily eliminated a lane of the busy street, and cabbies honked at cars whose drivers gawked at the goings on. Noises drifting up from Tucker entered Mark Ruston's third floor window, but he did not notice. With brow furrowed, chair scooted forward, and fingertips on keyboard, he asked himself, _Where to start?_ The intern for the _Post Dispatch_ began typing, then stopped. Next, he picked up his note pad and, leafing through it, reflected on some of the entries:

Walter Worthington (Fredericktown Chamber of Commerce): "Rightly or wrongly Burk has put this town on the map—three news crews were here last week alone! AND, this is between you and me, it's rumored that the _Today Show_ might be in town next week. Do the weather right here on Courthouse Square! You listen to me boy; you can't buy publicity like that. This is the real stuff."

Mark recalled how Worthington reminded him of a carnival pitchman, and how the cigar-smoker in the ill-fitting suit saw Billy Boy Burk as Fredericktown's newest industry poised to bring in much needed currency.

Mildred Stilton (Neighbor two farms over): "I always knew he'd end up behind bars. We never let our son Percy play with him!"

Ruston thought of a line from the old TV show, _Kids in the Hall_ , "Well, Mildred, did you turn him gay yet?" And he wondered how things had worked out for Percy Stilton.

Thomas Duckworth (Fredericktown High School, former math teacher turned assistant principal): "Billy was a smart kid and talkative. I liked him. But he always seemed to be pointed in the wrong direction.

"He didn't have the best family, you know.

"Some people have a couple of wires crossed, and Billy was one of those. To tell you the truth, I wasn't sure if he'd become a convict or become a preacher. Fifty-fifty, he could have fallen on either side of the fence. I just wish I could have nudged him in the right direction."

Duckworth did seem truly sorry, then again the man was an administrator, and Ruston's experience with administrators taught him that they were capable of changing colors at the drop of a hat.

Reverend Cordell Bumpus (New Life Missionary Baptist Church): "The DEVIL had a-holt a' that BOY from the MINUTE he was borned! Ain't NO DOUBT about it!"

With an edge to his voice Bumpus had spoken to Mark Ruston like the minister stood behind a pulpit facing a congregation of unrepentant sinners, and he had seemed ready to personally carryout Billy Boy Burk's death sentence if it came to that, or at least oversee it. Ruston could envision the man turning the situation to his advantage. In the future he could use the threat of execution to keep Fredericktown's youth on the straight and narrow. The young reporter was sure that the story of Billy Boy, in the hands of Cordell Bumpus, would become a lesson not soon forgotten.

Jimmy (Three-J) Joe Justice (Burk's best friend growing up): "Billy Boy, he was okay! Always knew what to say. Girls loved him. His dad was, well, normal, 'til he got drunk, which was just too damned often. Drove his mom crazy actually—the beatings. She wasn't right in the head. Finally, she ran off. Left her boy behind. And an aunt moved into the house at the farm; took care of Billy from then on.

"We were a wild pair, him and me. I'm ashamed to say it, but Lordy, we were a handful!"

The newspaper's intern could not help but notice the Christian cross Billy's high school friend wore around his neck, and Ruston supposed that Three-J got that "nudge in the right direction" that had somehow skipped over his former best friend.

Judith Duffie (Niece of Burk's alleged victim): "That sum-bitch is gonna spend the rest of his life in jail for what he done to Uncle Cyrus!"

Mark felt he made the woman's day when, later, he mentioned that Missouri was a death penalty state.

Deputy Roy Pope (Madison County Sheriff's Office, Retired, Discovered body of Cyrus Duffie after receiving anonymous tip): "Mischievous, but basically all right. Just made a bad choice—a real bad choice."

The retired deputy seemed reluctant to say much, and when he did, "Rusty" Ruston got the impression that Pope liked the man, even though, surely, Billy Boy Burk had been one of Deputy Pope's "better customers" in the late seventies and early eighties. Ruston wondered what it was about Burk that could cause a cop to like an accused killer.

Rupert Willow (Rural neighbor): "Billy was THE BEST coon hunter in Madison County and GOOD with dogs! You should have seen Tiger, Spike, and Ginger! They was some hounds he had."

The Willow fellow had a pen full of dogs himself, and Rusty remembered them erupting in a storm of barking and bawling when he had stepped on the Willow's front porch. For a terrible moment Ruston had wished he had conducted the interview by telephone.

* * *

Mark "Rusty" Ruston had been on the job one week when he'd been asked by his editor to call around and build a "bio" on Billy Boy Burk, the Missouri fugitive who'd been hiding in Arizona and who was now giving the authorities out west a run for their money. May was almost over, and Burk had been on the loose since March.

The latest wire service article stated that a man reputed to be Burk had shot holes in rafts in the Grand Canyon, wounded a minister in the process, and then had virtually disappeared. Ruston had been keeping up on the wire service articles; it was probably the sixth time that Burk had "disappeared" since his escape.

Billy Boy's lucky streak was bound to end, and Ruston's editor's idea was to run a feature on Burk, the elusive convict, once the man was caught and brought back to Missouri to stand trial for a murder and robbery that had taken place over twenty years before. Along with his interviews, Ruston's notebook contained the following:

William (Billy) Boy Burk.

Born May 7, 1964. Madison Medical Center, Fredericktown, Missouri.

Father: Rudy Wayne Burk.

Mother: Mary Catherine (Boy) Burk.

Attended school in Fredericktown. Did not graduate. Dropped out at age 17.

Home Life: Bleak!

Father's police record: Convicted of armed robbery, 1967. Served four years. Violated parole, 1972. Returned to prison. Released 1973. Convicted for receiving stolen property, 1976. Sentenced to three years. Released, 1978. Domestic disturbance calls, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1976 and 1979. No charges pressed. Deceased, 1995.

Mother: Treated for nervous disorder. Moved to St. Louis 1979. Today—whereabouts unknown.

W. B. Burk becomes ward of Julia D. Burk, an aunt, 1979.

Juvenile record: Sealed.

Religion: Protestant (Attended New Life Missionary Baptist Church sporadically).

Organized sports: Boxing—Golden Gloves runner-up, 1980.

Interests: Outdoors—hunting, fishing, camping, coon dogs. Drama Club—starred in school play.

Traits: Outgoing, popular, talkative, loud, and into trouble.

Crime: (Some information provided by anonymous caller the day after the murder) Burk allegedly broke into farmhouse owned by Cyrus Duffie, August 28, 1982. In struggle with Duffie, Duffie was shot and killed with handgun registered in Duffie's name. Forensics and autopsy reports reveal one shot was fired pointblank. Slug penetrated the heart. Gunpowder residue found on deceased's right hand. Fingerprints found on the Smith and Wesson belong to both Burk and Duffie. Gun discharged once.

* * *

Ruston had made two trips to Fredericktown in preparing to write Billy Boy's biography. The bio, when pieced together, would include a picture of a fifteen-year old Burk scanned from a high school yearbook, and another picture of Billy taken twenty-five years later—his mug shot snapped after his arrest in Winslow, Arizona for peace disturbance. The same picture had been circulating on a wanted poster (Ruston bought a copy on the Internet for eighteen dollars), and finally there was a shot of the Burk homestead, which consisted of a rundown house, vacant for thirteen years. The house partially hid two shabby outbuildings. The structures, a barn and a tool shed, leaned so precariously that they gave the impression that they were purposely peering around the side of Burk's boyhood home spying on the road out front. A weedy pasture lapped up to the road and surrounded the buildings. The weed patch bristled with twelve-foot high hawthorns. The intern for the St. Louis paper took the picture himself. It was a rainy weekend, and he had time to spare.

From the road Rusty looked at the empty house—a ghost of itself. He asked himself: _How many generations of people had called it home?_ He thought, also, of the holidays that the old house had hosted.

After taking the picture, and despite the sign that warned in faded orange letters, "TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED" Rusty Ruston left the road and stepped through the tall weeds, stopping now and then to pull stick-tights from his trousers.

The intern walked around the weathered remains of Billy Boy's boyhood home. Paint had peeled from the small house's wood siding; the windows were broken out. Inside he could see empty rooms. Between the tool shed and the barn, he discovered what appeared to have been a dog pen and next to the pen, all but lost in the tall weeds, Ruston found three small, wooden crosses standing upright. He knelt in front of the nearest cross, pulled back the wet grass, and looked closely at the letters carved deep with a knife, "GINGER."

Pet graves. Ruston thought to himself, Three of them where Billy Boy Burk had buried the three things that meant the most to him. It was almost as if he had come face-to-face with the fugitive himself, and Mark Ruston felt a chill like a spirit blowing through his soul. He stood quickly to leave but felt faint after rising. Waiting until the sensation passed, he looked around the grounds feeling as if someone or something was watching.

The young trees filling in the pasture and surrounding the house, the buildings crumbling where they stood—he could see the future. In time all would be lost. All vestiges of Billy Boy Burk, his mom, his dad, all testaments to their being would vanish as they had for countless others, and as they would someday for him.

The Burk property butted up against the Mark Twain National Forest, and from what Ruston had gathered, its timber-covered hills was where Billy, along with Tiger, Spike, and Ginger, had spent his formative years. As the young intern prepared to drive away, he heard the far off bawling of hunting dogs deep inside the forest—a haunting sound, and Mark Ruston climbed into his car and hit the accelerator hoping to leave his desolate feelings behind.

CHAPTER 2: THE DEATH OF CYRUS DUFFIE

At one time Cyrus Duffie raised pigs, but he was not very lucky when it came to pigs, and he got out of the business after loosing money seven out of eight years. He tried his hand with sheep, but before long realized that he hated sheep, and that sheep did not seem to care much for Cyrus Duffie either. Turkeys were a complete disaster, and the plans for a catfish farm never got off the ground.

Cyrus' break came in 1968 when he read an ad in _Fur and Forest_ magazine from an outfit selling deer urine. "Two squirts" were all that were required to lure a rutting buck to within range of a deer stand.

"Deer piss, imagine that!" Duffie said aloud as he sat at his kitchen table drinking coffee while surrounded by his dogs. Absently dropping scraps of bacon, none of which traveled far before disappearing into a hungry mouth, he read the advertisement three more times. Patches of dirty, late-January snow lay about the yard, and the temperature hovered just below freezing.

One year later, several eight-foot high pens had sprouted on his farm, and he owned six does and two bucks along with one milk cow, seven dogs, zero sheep, and an assortment of chickens, which he never bothered to count.

By 1974 his herd had grown to thirty-seven does and four lucky bucks. The deer piss business was good to Cyrus Duffie and kept him busy from mid-October to mid-December when the females were in and out of estrus. The urine collected from the ovulating does, was transferred into two-ounce bottles bearing labels, which boasted, "HORNY-DOE the BIG BUCK MAGNET." Amongst those who judge such things Cyrus' product was considered premium, and during hunting season cars were sometimes lined up for a quarter of a mile and on a road that was lucky to see one car per hour any other time of the year.

Success did little to change the man. His 1958 Chevrolet half ton continued to serve him well, and to everyone who met Duffie in town on Saturdays, it was abundantly clear that his bib overalls predated the Chevy. Since he spent little on himself, and since he had no wife, no kids, and no girlfriend to dispose of his money for him, people in Madison County naturally began to assume that Cyrus Duffie had amassed a fortune.

No one in Fredericktown had ever seen Duffie in either one of the two local banks, and, therefore, it followed that Cyrus Duffie was hording his riches somewhere in his house on Horny-Doe Acres, the name he called his small farm. That was the rumor that Billy Boy Burk had been hearing in hushed tones for almost his entire life.

* * *

On the twenty-eighth of August 1982, eighteen-year-old Billy Boy and his best friend Three-J Justice parked Burk's car a third of a mile up the road from the Duffie deer farm. They watched Cyrus Duffie get in his pickup and head toward Fredericktown.

A week earlier Billy had hatched a plan and let his friend in on the deal. "Yeh ever notice how old man Duffie's always in town on Saturday afternoon? . . . 'Cept in deer season."

Three-J thought for a minute, "Yeh, I guess so. . ," he agreed but wasn't absolutely certain that he knew Duffie's Saturday whereabouts.

"Well, it's like this," Burk leaned forward and in a low voice began to inform his friend. "In about fifteen minutes he'll drive right past this spot. Park as close to the front door of Marshall's Tavern as possible. He'll stay in there for two hours, usually. After that, he goes to the Piggly Wiggly, buys his groceries. Then, bam, he drives straight home. Gone about three and a half hours total."

"Bam, huh?" answered Three-J sounding skeptical and a little afraid of where Burk was going.

"Bam!" Billy Boy echoed then looked at his watch. "Okay, check this out. Duffie will drive past where we're sittin' in fourteen minutes."

Twelve minutes had gone by when Cyrus Duffie's '58 Chevy truck turned the corner and passed Three-J and his someday famous (or infamous) friend as they sat alone on a park bench on Fredericktown's Courthouse Square. Next Duffie parallel parked three spaces down from Marshall's front door.

Burk and Justice did not wait around two hours to see if the rest would come to pass. They cruised over to Farmington, and bought smokes and a six-pack. Billy's fake ID never failed. On the way back into Fredericktown they downed a beer each, and Billy Boy told Three-J about his plan. But Jimmy Joe Justice was not completely sold; down deep, he wasn't much of a criminal.

Ninety minutes after leaving the square they parked their butts on the same bench they had left earlier and were drinking beer from paper cups, sipping it through straws like it was Coca-Cola. They glanced toward Marshall's from time-to-time to check on Duffie's pickup.

Thirty minutes later Cyrus Duffie sealed his fate by walking out of Marshall's Tavern right on schedule and then driving to the Piggly Wiggly.

* * *

On Saturday the twenty-eighth Burk and Justice watched as Duffie's Chevy turned toward town followed by a cloud of dust. The truck grew smaller and eventually disappeared altogether. Nervously they glanced at one another, young Burk and the Justice boy. Starting his engine Billy Boy pulled slowly onto the road and headed down to the deer farm. He stopped in front of the driveway. They both looked and saw no other cars around. Billy's confidence was either growing or he just wanted to put up a strong front to counter his partner's reluctance, for he boldly drove his car right up to Duffie's front porch and parked in plain sight. Immediately the dogs out back started barking; the two would-be robbers braced themselves waiting in the car for the hounds to come tearing around the side of the house.

They didn't, and Burk declared, "Penned Up!" Like he knew all along, and he laughed concealing the fear that lay not far below his skin.

Burk stepped up to the door, sneaked looks in both directions, and turned the knob. Not locked.

"Okay, we're leaving in two hours. No matter what!" Billy Boy reminded Three-J of the plan. "You go upstairs; I'll look around down here. And if you see an attic, be sure 'n check it out!"

Once inside Three-J disappeared up the narrow steps, and Burk began in the kitchen at the back of the house.

Searching the refrigerator Billy found nothing. Ten minutes went by. He had no luck under the sink and was standing on the counter inspecting the space above the cabinets when he heard someone walking on the porch out front.

_The dogs aren't barking!_ was the first thought to race through Billy's mind. _It must be Duffie!_ was the second.

Burk jumped to the kitchen floor and reached for the back doorknob just as he heard the door in front of the house being yanked open. He intended to run out the rear of the building but discovered to his horror that Duffie's seven dogs were kept on the enclosed back porch. He would have had to run through a gauntlet of gnashing teeth and then hope that the porch door was not locked. Billy Burk retreated, closed the door, and, upon turning, found that he was looking down the barrel of the largest, rustiest revolver he'd ever seen. The gun shook violently in the nervous hands of Cyrus Duffie.

* * *

On Sunday evening the next day Deputy Roy Pope was enjoying a rare weekend off. Sitting in his living room, he watched a Cardinal game and was drinking a beer. Four empties had accumulated on the floor.

The Cards were on the west coast playing a double header with San Diego. Willie McGee was at the plate; there were two on and two out in the top of the sixth. St. Louis nursed a slim lead, having dropped the first game nine to four. The phone rang, and the deputy almost did not answer. On the fourth ring he reluctantly crossed the room, and keeping an eye on the TV screen, he spoke in a voice that did not mask his displeasure, "YEAH?"

The person on the other end did not speak.

Pope tried again, "HELLO!"

This time a voice, interrupted by deep sobs, faltered, "Mr. Pope, . . . it's . . . it's me, Billy Boy . . ."

The deputy forgot completely about the game, "Billy Boy? What is it, son?" Pope's voice had abruptly changed to one of care and concern.

"I . . . I killed a man."

Pope did not know what to say.

"Ye. . . yesterday."

"Where?" Roy Pope asked incredulously, his tone that of a parent desperately trying to understand.

"Duffie's . . . Duffie's deer farm. He . . . he caught me breakin' in. . . . He was gonna shoot me. . . . We fought for the gun. . . . And . . . and. . ." But Billy did not finish.

"Billy, son, . . . where are you? I'll come get you."

"No, . . . I . . . I just think it best . . . if I . . . if I disappear."

"But . . . but it sounds like self-defense ta me. You can stand trial. Burglary . . . manslaughter. . . . I don't know."

That's right, Billy Burk thought on the other end of the line. Pope doesn't know. But Billy was certain that he knew. Because of his dad and owing in no small measure to his own reputation, a Fredericktown jury would not likely side with a Burk.

About this time an operator interrupted saying, "Your three minutes are up. Deposit four more quarters, please."

Pope could hear the quarters being accepted by the payphone.

With the transaction completed, Billy continued, "I've made up my mind. I called to say . . . to say goodbye. . . . Also, I was alone. . . . It was just me. . . Would yeh send somebody out to Duffie's? His dogs are probably outta food."

"Billy Boy," Pope wanted to reason with the boy, but Burk had already hung up.

Roy Pope next drove to his brother's house and, pulling him away from the television, reminded him how several times he had gotten the man out of trouble, and that now it was time for payback. Pope gave his brother an opportunity to square things, and his brother agreed.

Ten minutes later Deputy Pope, standing in his own living room, got a second call from a payphone; only his brother had placed this call from a telephone booth across the street from the Fredericktown Post Office. While on the line, his brother asked, "How much longer before I hang up?"

"Just two more minutes and don't forget to wipe your fingerprints off the receiver," the deputy added, and looking at his watch, he noted the time: _6:17_.

After that Roy and his brother never talked about the strange phone call.

* * *

The night of the killing, Billy Boy drove Three-J back to the Justice house in Fredericktown. Billy Boy was upset, sure, but Three-J trembled like he was convulsing. Burk promised his buddy that, if caught, he would not implicate Three-J. But Billy Boy did not plan on being caught, and in his mind he was already thinking up aliases. Billy Boy Burk was about to vanish.

When asked where he intended to go, Billy hesitated and said, "I'm . . . I'm not really sure. Maybe head south. Yeah, south. Say _adios_ to winters forever."

In truth the young killer did not know where he would head other than the fact that he had just eliminated "south." Billy Boy Burk liked Three-J and all, but at the same time did not trust him—didn't trust anyone for that matter. Billy Boy suspected that if Three-J were pressured, well . . . Burk knew who would end up on death row.

As he drove toward Fredericktown for what he supposed would be the last time in his life to drop off his best friend whom he, likewise, figured he would never see or talk to again, Billy Boy began to reconstruct the events that occurred in Duffie's kitchen.

Cyrus Duffie had Billy Boy dead to rights. Duffie shaking, mad as hell, pointed that old pistol in Billy's face.

Billy Burk put his hands up and tried to let some of the air out of the situation by smiling, and he said with a grin, "All right, you caught me. I confess. Call the cops; I'll go to jail."

"Boy, you ain't a goin' ta no jail. YOU is about ta go ta HELL!" still shaking but beginning to break into a hideous grin, tobacco juice dribbling down his chin, Cyrus Duffie continued, "You is Rudy Burk's boy, ain't yeh?"

Billy thought: _Uh oh! What did my old man do to this guy?_ And he watched Duffie cock the rusty Smith and Wesson.

_HE INTENDS TO MURDER ME IN COLD BLOOD!_ The thought ripped through Burk's brain as fast as the bullet that was about to do the same.

Young Billy stood frozen waiting for death. The deer farmer squeezed the trigger, but the gun did not fire. Alarm registered on Duffie's face, and he pulled the trigger a second time but with the same result. Suddenly Billy Boy sprang to life. He seized the old man's hands in a fight for the revolver; they went to the floor, rolling and grappling. Unexpectedly the gun fired, and the struggle ended. Duffie's body went limp.

Billy Boy Burk jumped to his feet as Three-J Justice, white as a sheet, appeared in the doorway. "WHAT HAPPENED?"

But Billy did not speak. The dogs on the porch were going crazy. The kitchen floor was uneven, and Burk watched as blood flowed from the deer farmer and pooled in a low spot under the table. Cyrus Duffie's breaths came heavy and gurgled wet. Bloody bubbles formed on his lips with each gasp. Then his breathing stopped. Three-J stood transfixed and watched the last of the red bubbles pop.

When Burk realized that the gun was still in his hand, he dropped it like it was red-hot. Stepping back while releasing the gun, the antique Smith and Wesson slid across the floor and ended in the blood pool. The two robbers staggered from the kitchen and sat on the rug in the living room. Billy Boy felt faint and lay on the carpet. Three-J's eyes were the size of silver dollars.

* * *

When the two arrived at Three-J's house, the Justice boy told Billy that he had found seventy dollars and a checkbook in a drawer upstairs. Three-J gave his friend all the money.

"What'cha do with the checkbook?" Billy asked.

"Left it there." And he hesitated to tell Billy Boy what he'd learned, "The bank . . . Duffie's bank . . . He didn't do his banking in town. He went to Farmington . . ."

". . . And that's why everybody in town thinks he's got his money hid!" Billy did not remember to use the past tense in referring to the man whom he had just killed. In no time the realization had fully penetrated: he had bought into a rumor that probably had no foundation—he'd sold his future and had gotten nothing in exchange.

Later Billy Boy Burk drove home. He put some clothes in a laundry bag and stole some cash from his aunt's purse. On his way out the door for the last time, he turned and gave one final look, memorizing the details that had been a part of his life. Closing the door quietly, he crept around to the back of the house to say goodbye to Tiger, Spike, and Ginger buried under the half-dead apple tree next to the tool shed.

* * *

Roy Pope was a large, awkward man. He talked slowly and in a monotone so that some who met him for the first time thought that the deputy might be mildly retarded. But he wasn't. He was, however, kind-hearted, and if someone had problems, he was there to listen, and he would do what he could to help.

Roy had had only one love in his life, but she ran off with Rudy Burk and married him the first year out of high school. Before long she gave birth to a son, and the couple named him William. Pope never stopped loving Mary Catherine Boy, and when he got a job with the Madison County Sheriff's Department, he would drive past Rudy and Mary's place from time-to-time just to steal a glimpse at the life that he thought should have been his.

In 1971 the deputy answered a call at the Burk residence. Rudy was drunk and abusing Mary Catherine. Roy Pope, the first on the scene, beat Rudy Burk half to death. Billy Boy was eight years old at the time. He hated his dad with a passion, and it was then that he realized that Deputy Pope could be useful.

More abuse occurred in 1972, 1974, 1976, and 1979. The beatings were all late at night. Roy Pope was always the first deputy to respond. Sometimes he would receive a phone call directly from the Burk household, sometimes from the dispatcher.

In 1976 Deputy Pope learned that Rudy possessed a stolen tractor and had it hidden in his barn. Pope told the judge that he had received an anonymous tip. A search warrant was issued, and the deputy personally made the arrest. Rudy Burk was sentenced to three years in prison.

While Rudy was behind bars, Pope would stop by to deliver groceries to Mary Catherine and the boy. He helped with chores and petted Billy Boy's three dogs. In 1979 right before Rudy's release from the Potosi Correctional Center, his mother made Billy promise never to tell his dad about the kind-hearted deputy, and Roy Pope told Billy to continue to call him whenever he was in trouble or whenever he needed to talk.

* * *

One week after the murder of Cyrus Duffie, Roy Pope stood next to the desk of Madison County Sheriff Will Jarrett.

Sheriff Jarrett was bent over a computer printout that he had spread on his desk. With one finger he pointed to a line on the paper then, out of frustration, retrieved an envelope from a nearby shelf and set it on the line he had pointed to. "Says here you received three phone calls that Sunday . . . no . . . make that two. The first . . . let's see . . . from Albuquerque, New Mexico at 5:37. Humm. And you got the second call from a phone booth here in town at . . . 6:15. Now which call was the Duffie tip?"

Without emotion and in the same slow monotone he always used, the deputy answered his boss' question, "The second one. I wrote the time down soon as I hung up. The New Mexico call was from my cousin. He's a truck driver, just called to let me know he picked up a load to deliver on the west coast instead of heading this way. We were planning to get together."

The sheriff seemed satisfied.

Expressionless, Pope continued to watch his boss inspect the phone logs. As Will Jarrett did so, Roy wondered who Billy Boy was trying to protect that day he phoned from Albuquerque. Pope recalled Billy's statement word-for-word, ". . . _I was alone . . . it was just me_." Roy Pope knew the boy, and the comment sounded rehearsed.

###

Click on the link below to view other titles in Neil Ackerman's Run Billy Boy Run Series:

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