Richard Powers - The Echo Maker

Her edginess rubs off on this year’s colt. Contagious distress lifts him into a leap. He kicks out at the surrounding emptiness. His primaries spread like splayed fingers. His neck curls back and calls, curdling the air. He tosses leaves up over his arcing back, cowling his wings. And for the first of a thousand times in his life, he dances. In the falling dark, other species might mistake it for ecstasy.

He quits the so-called cognitive therapy.He should have quit long ago. Anything that Kopy Karin pushes so hard can’t possibly be in his best interests. It’s just a trick to distract him, get him to think about everything except what’s happening all around him. A kind of brainwashing to trick him into taking all these fakes at face value. He only hopes it hasn’t yet messed him up for good.

Dr. Tower freaks. She practically pleads with him: But we haven’t even gotten out of assessment. Well, he’s ready to give her a full assessment, if she’s interested. But she just rags on. Is he sure he’s ready to leave? Doesn’t he want to feel better about things, before…? All pretty pitiful and self-serving. He tells her to get professional help.

But he needs to talk to someone, someone who can help put all the facts together. Bonnie’s out. Okay: she’s still his Bonnie-baby. Call it love, whatever. But Kopy Karin has gotten to her, turned her, as the federales say. Convinced her there’s something wrong with him. Even when he lays out all the accumulated evidence — his missing sister, the fake Homestar, nobody admitting to the note, the new Karin hooking up with the old Daniel, the disguised Daniel following them around, training animals to watch them — she says she’s not sure.

He could ask Rupp and Cain. He might have, a long time ago, but for that little seed of doubt. Where were they, after all, on the night he rolled the Ram? He’s held back, waiting for an explanation that never quite materializes. But now it occurs to him: Who planted that doubt? Karbon Karin again, trying to do to him what she’s managed to do to Bonnie. Convince him his friends are foes, and vice versa. The whole three-car theory: all the impostor’s idea. He’s crazy to give it a second thought.

He looks for a chance to enlist the guys. He gets it, one chilly afternoon, when they come by to take him on a squirrel dump. One of Ruppie’s specialties: all summer long he picks off gray squirrels in his yard with a pellet gun, then stashes them in his freezer until he has enough to justify a disposal run out of town. Then the three of them take binoculars, a couple of sixes, some brats, and a Hefty Bag full of the thawed rodents and head out to a little strip of uncultivated prairie along the South Loup. Build a little squirrel pyramid in the open field, set up camp a hundred yards away, and wait for the turkey vultures. Rupp loves those things, could watch them all day. Cathartes aura , he calls out when they start circling overhead. Ave, Cathartes aura , like they’re something out of the Bible, and the squirrels are their burnt offering. And it is kind of biblical, in fact: the swarming cloud of them.

Mark and Duane are in jeans and sweats. Rupp is in shorts and a black tee; unfreezable. They set up camp and kick back. Talk turns to desirable women. Want to know who’s hot? Cain says. That Cokie Roberts is hot.

Seven, Rupp says. Seven and a half. Great face, but the super-abundance of ideas lowers the property value. So what’s up with that Christiane Amanpour? I mean, what’s her angle? Is she even American, or what?

Talking in code. The one says: You know what would look good around Britney’s neck? And the other answers: Her ankles? It gets on Mark’s nerves after a while. He watches the squirrel pile. Why do you kill those things, anyway? he asks Rupp.

Because they kill my best and brightest tomatoes.

That’s their job description, Duane-o says. Your basic yard rat is supposed to wreak havoc on your typical tomato. Were you aware that the tomato is a fruit?

I have long had my suspicions, Rupp says. I wouldn’t mind if the rodents actually ate the things. But they like to just pull them off the vine and play polo. No reasoning with them, short of the deep freeze.

Killing is a sin, man.

I am aware. I wrestled with my conscience and beat the bastard, two out of three falls.

The three of them sit, drink, cook up some brats on the little hibachi. The vultures arrive, and it’s two kindred species, fraternizing over a little shared picnic.

Ah, Labor Day, Duane says. You gotta love it.

Rupp agrees. Vita doesn’t get any dolcier than this. Day like this calls for some poetry. Recite some poetry for us, will you, Cain?

I’d rather yank a fart out of a cow’s ass, Cain says.

Rupp shrugs. There’s a herd over that hill. It’s your America. Knock yourself out.

Duane suggests they take some target practice, but Rupp just slaps him upside of the head. You don’t shoot at Cathartes aura . It’s nobility. The finest we have. You wouldn’t take potshots at the president, would you?

Not unless he wings me first. Speaking of which: You hear anything more about your unit? Orders to mobilize, or what have you? Rupp just laughs. But Duane-o is all: It’s gonna be any minute now. You know America is going on a tear before the year’s out, and nobody better get in her way. Afghanistan’s going to look like a training bike with streamers. The big one’s coming. Armor get-on. Direct flight from Fort Riley to Riyadh. You’re going on the hajj, bud. One weekend a month, my ass.

If it be not now, yet it will come, Rupp says. We have to do something . Can’t just sit here, burning. But it’s going to be cruise missiles against camel jockeys, all over again. All I personally have to do is keep the wheels greased. Home by Veterans Day. He shoves Duane’s shoulder: Come on, dipstick. Join up. No knowledge without suffering.

Get shot at? I’d sooner be anally savaged by Hastings escapees.

Hey. Who says you can’t have it all?

Got a letter from the National Guard, Mark says.

What? Rupp shouts. Like he’s upset. What did it say?

Mark waves his hand around his head, swatting gnats. Just a letter; friendly and personal, in a legal sort of way. Not something you can just sit down and read through.

When was this, Rupp wants to know. Like it’s an issue.

Who knows? A while back. No biggie. They’re the damn army, man. It’s not like they’re in any hurry.

But Rupp is all upset, ball-busting him. We’ll get on that puppy instantly, soon as we take you home. Remind me.

Sure, sure. But just chill for a minute. Listen. It’s possible that the government has other plans for us, altogether.

This gets their attention. But Mark has to take it slow. The big picture is a little hard to grasp, and he doesn’t want them to overload. He starts with the stuff they’re already familiar with. The substitutions: sister, dog, house. Then the note, given to him, he now believes, by somebody who was there, in the truck with him.

That’s impossible, both fellow Muskrats say at once.

He gives them a hard look: I know what you’re going to say. There was nobody there. Nobody in the wreck when the medics came. Except me. He walked away. He called in the accident.

Rupp shakes his head, holding a cold beer to it. No, no man. If you had seen…

Duane jumps in. Dude, your truck looked like a big old Angus on the other end of the cutters. Picture in the paper. Nobody was walking away from that. It’s a miracle you…

Mark Schluter gets a little upset. He flips over the hibachi. A rolling coal burns a brown spot in the tops of his Chuck Taylors.

Okay, okay, Rupp says. Let’s assume. For point of argument. What makes you think this guy was…? Who was he? What was he doing in your truck?