Bentley Little - The Walking

The ride was long, and they were awkward with each other at first, but when the radio faded out they were forced to talk, and somewhere between Kanab and Page their conversation grew comfortable.

"Who's your favorite Beatle?" Janet asked as they drove through the eroded, Georgia O'Keeffe-like hills that were a prelude to Lake Powell.

"What?"

"That's supposed to be the best Rorschach test around.

You can learn everything you need to know about a person by finding out who their favorite Beatle is. Isn't that what they say?"

"John," he told her.

She smiled. "Good choice."

"Yours?"

"Paul. But I like men who like John."

He glanced over at her. "I'm seeing someone, you know. That's who I

called from your apartment." \020"I'm not hitting on you. I'm just saying that, as a general role, I get along better with men who like Lennon. And since we have a long trip in front of us, that's probably a

She laughed.

They talked of trivialities, kept the conversation light. By unspoken consent they avoided discussing what they were doing. It would have made the trip too long, put on them an undue pressure that might dissuade them from completing their journey. They needed to get away from that for a while, and they let the talk drift from movies to television to other equally innocuous topics.

By late afternoon they reached the turnoff. A small brown road sign announced: WOLF CANYON LAKE--22 MILES.

They had not seen another car for the past hour, had not seen a town since Willis, the little city in Arizona's Central Mountains where they'd gassed up, gone to the bathroom, and gotten oversized drinks from a surprisingly modern Jackin-the-Box.

He felt uneasy being this far away from civilization-from help

--and he wished he had brought his cell phone, but who knew if it would even work in a godforsaken area like this?

They grew silent. The road to the lake was two lanes, like the highway, but the lanes were smaller and the lines more faded. The asphalt itself seemed washed out, and huge holes in the pavement that had to have been years in the making made Miles swerve from side to side.

They came out of a series of small sandy hills into a flat barren floodplain, and far ahead, on the side of the road, black against the pale sand, he could see a man walking toward some low cliffs. He recognized that walk, even from this far away, the unnatural rhythm, the unvarying speed, and his heart lurched in his chest .... Janet saw the figure, too. "Is that She did not finish the sentence and he did not answer. They were coming up fast now on the figure.

This close, his eyes confmned what his gut already knew.

It was Bob.

His father was striding purposefully along the gravel shoulder, not trying to attract attention to himself but not trying to hide, either.

He was simply walking forward, head fixed, arms unmoving. Miles did not know what to do, whether to stop or slow down, and in a panic he ended up speeding past. The wind from their passage blew Bob's hair and caused the clothes to flap about on his frame.

Miles slowed the car afterward but did not stop, and he looked over at Janet, who was white-faced and staring at him. He knew she was thinking of her uncle. He was remembering the alien ness of his dad's movements, the complete influence inability his actions, to communicate with his father or in any way

He did not want to stop the car, he realized. He couldn't do anything for Bob, and the best tack would be to either follow alongside him, or wait for him at the lake to see what he would do next.

Miles chose waiting at the lake. He did hot relish the idea of slowly accompanying his father down the road. Why was his father walking to the lake? What was going to happen when he got there?

He kept driving, glancing at his father in the rearview mirror until they were off the plain and into the far bluffs and the ragged walking figure could no longer be seen.

They passed others on the road, six of them, men and women, scattered over a stretch of miles. All dead. All walking.

Janet's voice was low, subdued. "It's like in New Mexico," she said, .,There's this little church outside Santa Fe

that's supposed to cure people. It's built on what they call 'miracle dirt," and every Easter, Catholics from all over make a pilgrimage there. You can see them walking up the highway from Albuquerque. They walk hundreds of miles just to touch the dirt and pray at the church."

She looked out the car window, shuddered. 'that's what they remind me of. People making a pilgrimage."

"Dead people making a pilgrimage." ...... "To Wolf Canyon." .::..

They looked at each other, and Miles felt an unfamiliar tingling in his midsection. It was a strange sensation, and he thought for a second that he was having a heart attack, since there seemed to be a strange sort of flutter beneath his breastbone. But then it was gone, and he put it down to fear and stress. Perhaps this was considered a "panic attack." Hell, if anyone deserved to panic, it was him.

The land sloped down, and ahead they could see the lake, shimmering in the sun. The pavement ended, the road devolving into a narrow dirt trail defined by twin tire ruts that zigged and zagged for no discernible reason through the sparse desert vegetation toward the water. Aside from the occasional saguaro or paloverde tree, all of the plants here were low and pale gray, and the rental car bounced along between them on insufficient shock absorbers before finally reaching a dirt parking lot that abutted the northernmost cove of the lake.

To his surprise, an old Jeep was pulled next to a long wooden rail made to look like a hitching post. Miles parked several car lengths away, then shut off the ignition and looked over at Janet. "We're here."

"What do we do now?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

Janet unlocked and opened her door. "I guess we should get out and look around." She glanced over at Miles. "Before they come.

The two of them got out of the car and walked around the front of the vehicle to the railing. Stretched out before them, Wolf Canyon Lake continued almost to the horizon, bounded on the sides by a series of high rocky hills and sandstone bluffs. It had been overcast in Cedar City when they left, and Janet had not brought sunglasses. She stood squinting against the reflected glare on the water. Somewhere under there, Miles thought, was a ghost town, and he found himself wondering if there were still bodies down there, if not all of the corpses had been retrieved.

Maybe the bodies at the bottom were walking, too. Like his father.

Maybe that's where his father was headed. But why? She's here.

He looked south toward the far end of the lake. He could not see it from this spot, but he assumed that was where the dam was.

She's going after the dam builders, too.

Nothing quite made sense. There were huge gaps in his knowledge, and if he could fill in those gaps he might reach some understanding of what was going on, but until then he was in the dark, able to guess at some of the more obivous elements of what was happening but completely unable to see the larger picture.

"Let's walk down," Miles said. He stepped over the low railing and held Janet's hand to help her across. The two of them started down a barely discernible, gently sloping path that led to the water's edge.

They were at the end of the path, standing on the sandy lake shore, when Miles discovered they were not alone. He saw movement in his peripheral vision, and when he looked to the right he saw a young man sitting on a rock next to the water--a satchel, rolled-up sleeping bag, and scuba gear spread out on the sand beside him. This was clearly the

As the man stood up and looked at him walked

"Hey, Miles said. How is it going? "