But at the time,
our life together was as rosy as the Eastern sky, Kansas II having a very nice
magnetic field but the temerity to spin the wrong way. We were driving more or less south, where
wheatfields give way to unimproved Nature at a wide, meandering river.
The road ends at
long bridge across the river. The bridge
ends in a lift section, a nice, ugly Chicago-style bascule drawbridge that normally
stays up. There’s a warning sign. To
lower the bridge, you’ve got to put at least hundred kilograms (plus or minus –
KS2 runs to 0.98 G) on a sidewalk slab in front of the bridge for ten minutes.
They can’t make
you read the sign but aside from muddy water below, sky overhead, a long bridge ending in wheatfields behind
and raw, rolling, red and green pseudo-veldt on the other side, there’s nothing
else to see:
LIMIT OF SETTLEMENT!
LOCAL FAUNA PRESENT!
Beyond this bridge, the land remains as it was before humans
settled Kansas II. Cross at your own risk.
Persons who are allergic to whirlweed or who have not yet had and recovered
from planetary fever should not cross.
Emergency services are not available. Buffalion, trap-door weasels and all other
native animals are not to be molested.
The larger species can injure or kill an unprotected person. BUFFALION
TRAILS AND HERDS ARE PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS.
AN AUTOMOBILE WILL NOT PROTECT YOU.
If you encounter a buffalion herd, move away immediately at ninety
degrees to their direction of travel.
BUFFALION DEATHS SINCE SETTLEMENT: 491 THIS YEAR TO DATE: 17
CROSS AT YOUR OWN RISK.
It took both of us
to start the bridge-lowering process. I stood
next to Don, reading the sign and wondering if he’d decided to take me out here
and leave me.
“Not exactly a friendly
place you’ve got here,” I told him.
“What, the sign? It’s an idiot-filter. They don’t even keep the numbers updated;
those are from two years ago.” He
grinned at me.
I didn’t find it
reassuring.
My doubts must have showed, since he frowned
and continued, “Really, it’s okay.
People come here all the time. I’m
surprised we haven’t seen anyone yet.”
“And it’s a
surprise,” I reminded him. Can’t you at
least hint?”
His grin
returned, impish, charming. “Nope. But you’ll like it.”
I never could
resist that grin.
Once the bridge
started down, we got back in his truck – a tiny SUV, a Bonzai or something, I
never was very good with the names of cars – and drove on for another couple of
miles. A kind of gray shape started to
loom above the rolling grass(like) land, and as we got closer, I could make out
some specks or blobs on it. Eventually
the land flattened out more and in the dimming light, I saw it was a huge slab
of rock, slightly tilted, rearing up out of the ground, maybe thirty feet high
at the highest part. There were a
half-dozen trucks packed close to the steeply-rearing side. The blobs on top were people, in pairs and
one larger group.
The ride smoothed
out. I looked lower. We were crossing packed, bare earth – well,
Kansas II dirt, anyway.
“Don, this is a
buffalion pathway, isn’t it?”
“Un-huh. Don’t worry.
They never get too close to The Slab.”
We suddenly
started getting jostled again, as the ground became rougher. It stayed bumpy all the way to the very base
of the rock, where he parked and turned off the engine.
“There’s a picnic
basket and a blanket in back,” Don said, “Help me carry it up before it gets
too dark.”
“Maybe. Don, what is this?”
“This? It’s a geologic anomaly.”
“Not what I
meant.”
He gave me that
grin again. “C’mon. This’ll be fun.”
We settled down at a relatively level spot, after a tricky scramble up a narrow but well-worn path to the top. People were scattered across the top with plenty of room between them and for a while, we were busy unpacking dinner and eating. By the time we were done, it was nearly full dark. Don checked his watch, a quick flash of light on the dial. “Almost time.”
We settled down at a relatively level spot, after a tricky scramble up a narrow but well-worn path to the top. People were scattered across the top with plenty of room between them and for a while, we were busy unpacking dinner and eating. By the time we were done, it was nearly full dark. Don checked his watch, a quick flash of light on the dial. “Almost time.”
“Time for what,
you scoundrel? Shouldn’t you be telling
me at last?”
“Won’t have to. Lay back and look up. See the stars?” He had laid next to me. Pointing, he said, “There’s
the Lion, and just this side of it is the Hexagram. See how the stars make a pattern of six
lines?”
I did.
“Okay, watch just
to the left of it and up—"
Already, twinkling stars had started to look odd
to me: stars ought to burn steadily. I
kept watching. Suddenly, a line of light
sprang into being almost where I was looking and raced across the sky!
There was a low
murmur from the people around us.
The first streak
was followed by another, and another, and another. A meteor shower! It was like popcorn popping; there’d be a
few, and then a pause and then more, and then maybe a lot more and then nothing
for a time. With each one, we were oohng
and aaahing as if it were fireworks. In
a way it was.
I was laying there, comfortably snuggled up
next to Don, watching the meteors in a kind of dream-like state, when I heard
the sounds. A kind of dull thud, then a
bell-like tone and a softer thud.
Another set of
noises answered, the belling slightly higher in pitch. Then another, closer and lower: Plop! BONG!
Pop. It was a little worrying, but I didn’t
hear anything from the other people around us except the occasional sigh when
an especially impressive meteor drew a line of fire on the night sky.
Overhead, the meteor
shower continued, maybe a little more sporadic, while the strange sounds seemed
to move around us, each bell in a different pitch, a sonic counterpoint to the light
show overhead.
“Don—“ I
whispered.
He rolled a
little, hugged me and whispered back, “It’s okay.”
I pushed up on my
elbows and looked around. I could barely
see the nearest couples and they didn’t seem alarmed.
Meanwhile, the
chorus continued, accompanied by an occasional streak overhead. I was just relaxing again when a huge, deep
BONGGGG! rang out, echoing around the slab, and then the night fell silent.
I realized I was
holding my breath, waiting for the next bell-sound.
“Bobbi, you can
breathe,” Don said, very quietly. “That’s
the last one.”
“What – was –
that?”
He grinned again.
I could hear it in his voice.
“Trapdoor
weasels. They do that. Nobody knows why. ‘Bed check,’ I reckon.”
They’re not
weasels at all, but a large, spider-like creature that’s a nasty ambush hunter:
they build their burrows across Buffalion runs and open the “trapdoor” after most
of the herd has passed, hoping to trip up the young, the old and the weak. They’re a pest on settled land, sometimes
pathetic (their methods don’t work on tractors and trucks) and sometimes not; a
new nest of them can do a lot of harm to cattle, horses or even sheep. They’re about as ugly a thing as you can imagine. I’d never liked them.
Until that night.
Don left me a year later for a younger and, as he by then was devastatingly pleased to tell me, much girlier girl. Most men don’t like it when you’re better at small home repairs than they are. It turned out he positively loathed it. I don’t know if it was rewiring the second-floor bedrooms or replacing the water heater that did it, but somewhere along the way I’d stepped on his mojo too often, too unheedingly, and no amount of my (very good, if you ask me) home cooking and (ahem) native charm could repair it.
But I’ll always have the memory of the meteor shower and the trap-door weasel belling and your little-boy grin when you shared it with me, Don, you sonuvabitch.
