Nevada Barr - The Rope

When his dad died at forty of a massive coronary, family and friends stood in a half circle around the casket at the viewing. His mother in her ecru suit, his father laid out in gray pinstripe. He was so lifelike. Everybody said so. At least he was more lifelike than his mother, until she broke down and wept.

Regis didn’t cry. Old Mrs. Burman, the pastor’s wife, nearly smothered him in a great fat hug, crooning, “Let it out, let it out, there’s no shame in crying for your poppa.” Regis never did “let it out.” For years he kept thinking that one day, boom, the dam would break and all that repressed emotion would flood the world. In his early twenties it dawned on him that wasn’t going to happen. There was no repressed emotion. He’d liked his dad, but it just wasn’t that big a deal. He was alive, then he was dead. So what?

He should have felt something.

He should have felt something—even just a glimmer of something—when he killed the damn snake. When his and Bethy’s dog, Kippa, was killed he’d felt plenty. In a way it was good just to feel. He wished he could blow off the afternoon, take the Cub up and catch thermals or—and this would get him fired in a heartbeat—fly through Rainbow Arch.

Putting his heels on the edge of the open bottom drawer of his metal desk, he tilted back in his chair and stared out the window. Headquarters was surrounded by a narrow belt of greenery. In keeping with the park ethic, mostly indigenous plants had been used. Mostly: Whoever designed it could not resist a few nice patches of grass, real, suburban, green, watered grass.

The juxtaposition of this lush chlorophyll belt against hills that looked as bleached as bone left too long in the sun suited his mood. Rampant life smacked up against near death. He wished he dared leave the office and find that risk that had given him such a lovely illusion of life that day on the boat, the kid in the grotto. He had that rush when he dropped that ladder down the solution hole.

The rest of that incident was a bit of a buzz kill.

The midnight black ops up the cliff behind the Rope, the desert at night, everyone asleep in their beds, little red-haired Anna Pigeon in the hole—that part he would gladly do over again. He’d felt alive that night. After she’d knocked him down with the canteen, the flashlight beam chasing her, the way it cut across her bare legs, her cutoffs low and loose on her hips threatening to slide off.

The image of the writhing flailing rattlesnake recurred behind his eyes. Sunlight through the cracks in the porch floor, strobing as it thrashed. Fighting for life, both Anna and the snake were preternaturally vivid, as if they had walked and slithered through a black-and-white world in black-and-gray skins, then suddenly, suddenly were in full color, finally completely alive.

The snake nailed to the ground, Anna’s bare legs on the ladder—

He brought his chair back onto four legs with a bump.

Anna Pigeon’s legs were bare, her bottom was not. Anna had been wearing shorts.

“What’s wrong with this picture?” Regis whispered. “Riddle me that.”

Molly had begged Anna to come home. Knowing it would hurt her sister’s feelings, Anna didn’t say it: She had no home. Molly had the luxury of a twenty-eight-hundred-square-foot apartment and there was always a room there for Anna, but, without Zach, she couldn’t face Manhattan, stages, theaters, or any of the places that were now only places where he wasn’t—small, enclosed spaces where he wasn’t. Small, enclosed, windowless spaces. Spaces like sandstone jars. Despite the heat and the monster, Anna had taken to sleeping with her windows open, bedroom door ajar, and was considering sleeping on the porch.

Besides, she had a monster to catch. Molly had been right about fools rushing in. Anna didn’t know how she was going to go about this. What scraps of detective lore she had been exposed to—mostly through movies—only worked in cities. In the vast playground that was Lake Powell, cops couldn’t very well check license plates. The vehicles were largely aquatic and/or rented and in constant movement. They couldn’t question neighbors since they changed daily and came and went without identifying themselves. For all Anna knew, sandstone and rope wouldn’t hold fingerprints. She doubted there was a local fence or informants. Catching a criminal in a wilderness recreation area would be like trying to catch a feather in a windstorm.

Crime in the park was a dark version of Brigadoon. The monster appears, does his song and dance, then vanishes into the fog for another hundred years.

Jenny banged out the front door of the duplex. In her NPS uniform short-sleeved shirt and shorts she looked more like an overgrown Girl Scout than a ranger. Anna had liked that at first—that rangers, even those bristling with weapons, looked gentle, like they were just pretending to be cops and were really only there to tell you the Latin names of plants. She still liked it on the interpreters. On the gun-toting rangers an edgier look would have been reassuring. Maybe an ensemble in black and red with tall boots like the Canadian Mounties wore.

“Smokey the Bear doesn’t make a girl feel protected,” Anna said, voicing her thoughts.

“That is because Smokey Bear—no middle name—is a Forest Service bear. A park bear, a grizzly or Kodiak or polar bear, would tear Smokey to pieces in a paw-to-paw match. Take Smokey’s shovel away and he might as well check into the nearest petting zoo.”

Anna smiled. “Wish I was going with you.”

Jenny put on a ball cap, then slung her daypack over her shoulder. “This isn’t one of your lieu days, is it?”

Anna didn’t answer. She hadn’t the faintest idea what day it was. She wasn’t even sure what time it was. In the jar, Kay’s watch was a gift, found treasure. Out of the jar, it was the ill-gotten gains of a grave robber, and Anna wouldn’t use it. Along with her uniforms, Zach’s picture, and everything else, the mysterious moving man—or woman—had taken her purse and wallet containing her driver’s license, Visa, MasterCard, Equity card, library card, and ninety-seven dollars in cash. As soon as she got her new credit cards she would make a shopping trip to Page and buy shoes. Then Kay’s sandals would be released from duty.

“Steve has some more questions. He didn’t say if the chief ranger was coming or not. I figured I better hang around so he can arrest me for lying to federal officers, obstructing justice, and murder.”

“Not to mention harassing the wildlife and keeping a pet in seasonal park housing.” Jenny added. “It’s an overnight in the grotto,” she enticed. “Warm sand, pellucid waters, godlike pictographs, plenty of human waste, and soiled TP.”

Out of doors. Away from any place the monster might think to look for her. “What about Buddy?” Anna asked. The baby skunk was nosing around on the square of grass captured within the phalanx of gray buildings.

“You can’t keep him, you know,” Jenny said gently.

“I know,” Anna said.

“Even if you de-stink a skunk, they don’t make good pets. They’re wild animals.”

“I know,” Anna said.

“Even if you did de-stink him and he did make a great pet, you couldn’t keep him in seasonal housing.”

“I know,” Anna said.

“Even if you didn’t keep him in seasonal housing, you couldn’t feed him. Feeding wild animals in parks and rec areas is verboten.”

Anna knew that, too. “Buddy’s too little to set free to fend for himself,” she said.

Both women watched the toddling fluff of black and white investigating a fascinating leaf fallen from a honey locust.

“I’ll talk to Steve—or you can,” Jenny suggested. “He’ll know if there are any groups that raise beasties and return them to their natural habitat when they’re old enough. He grew up around here. His folks owned a trading post.”