Chapter Three
Hiram and Michael had set up camp in a forest of juniper trees alongside the Colorado River. The canyon was wide enough to allow the river a little room to meander. The wide flow of water was fenced in on the southeast and the northwest by high, red rock walls. They’d found a ring of scorched stones around old charcoal beside a small patch of bare sand, indicating a prior camper’s use, and they’d pitched their tent on the sand. The junipers in the area were sparse enough that Michael could drive from the road to the campsite, but thick enough to hide the Double-A from the view of casual passersby.
The Preece house—a surprisingly modest cabin—was visible farther from the river, against the south-eastern cliff and near where the road cut through the canyon.
Fifteen minutes of exploring the riverbank found the cable car Lloyd Preece had told them about. An iron cable stretched across the river, bolted into a cliff on the northwest side, and on the southeast into a boulder larger than a house. The big stone had once been part of the cliff, but had been carved out and then left behind by the millennially-slow action of the river. A rusty iron bucket hung suspended from a track of wheels that gripped the cable; the bucket was shaped like a bathtub, but was large enough to hold two cushioned seats, one at each end, both facing the center and riveted to the floor. A long, thick spring coiled around the cable kept the car from touching the boulder. A second cable ran alongside the first, but slightly lower. Hiram and Michael set their knapsacks on the floor and climbed into the seats, Hiram facing forward while Michael faced back. They hauled themselves across the river, hand over hand along the second line.
“We’re pulling uphill.” Michael grunted.
Hiram nodded. “The cliff on the other side is much taller than the boulder on this side. Don’t let go or we’ll slide back.”
Michael grinned. “Crossing the other way will be tons more fun.”
The ride ended on a red-rock ledge high over the river. Rock cairns marked their trail onward, up a narrow defile. Hiram improvised a brake for the cable car by shoving a dried-out bit of juniper wood into the wheels above the car.
“What if that breaks while we’re gone?” Michael asked. “The car will cross the river without us.”
“Good thing we know how to swim.”
“As a mode of transportation,” Michael said, “this cable car has some limitations.”
They shouldered their knapsacks and started up the trail. The bags held food but especially water in the wire-topped glass bottles. They also brought along wool blankets, as well as a few select items from Hiram’s toolbox of accouterments that he thought they might need. Hiram, in particular, carried a kerosene lantern.
They hiked up the trail plotted out by cairns. The Schoolmarm’s Bloomers were marked on Hiram’s map—the Bloomers were a rock formation with multiple names, one of the many red-rock arches that had caused President Hoover to declare the area a national monument. Hiram had seen arches before, but never the Bloomers. Apparently, this arch was one of the most striking, and that fact, together with the area’s new status as a national monument, had some people anxious to find an official name for the formation, something a bit more reserved.
Hiram had also heard the stones called the Cowboy Chaps and the Devil’s Crotch. He found himself looking forward to actually seeing it.
Once through the defile, they found themselves hiking across a broken tableland. Sagebrush, juniper, and thin clumps of tall grass decorated a landscape that seemed to have no water and a large surplus of red stone sculpted into improbable shapes. Red goblins haunted the turns, and orange trolls with long noses leaned forward out of the rock overhangs. The neat stacks of rock continued to lead them, but otherwise, there was little to indicate a trail. From time to time, the fading print of a boot suggested prior human passage.
An hour’s walk brought them to their first tire-rutted road. They rested there briefly and drank water. Hiram’s fedora was so full of sweat he nearly twisted it to wring the moisture out.
The next time they came, they’d bring the truck and drive the long way around.
From this point, their trail paralleled the road.
After sunset, with the light waning, they passed a campsite, a hundred feet from their trail and right at the edge of the ruts. A large tent stood beside crates, suggesting that the camper had come in by automobile, but there was no car in sight, and when Hiram hailed the camp, no answer came back.
“What do you think?” Hiram asked his son. “Does that look like a preacher’s tent to you? Or a prospector’s?”
“I don’t see stacks of Bibles lying around,” Michael said, “or pickaxes.”
They kept hiking.
Later still, they passed a dugout house, built into the side of a tawny yellow landslide, the walls stacked like rock pancakes. A black tarpaulin-reinforced roof stuck out of the side of the hill. A wax-paper window showed a yellow light inside. Woodsmoke and bacon perfumed the night air. A silhouette near the window might be a Plymouth Model 30U, though without a moon there wasn’t enough light to be certain.
Hiram’s stomach rumbled, but they had work to do.
The night sky was moonless, so they found their way with flashlights.
“I’m not complaining,” Michael said, “but this is somewhat farther than I had appreciated.”
“I’m glad you’re not complaining.”
An hour later, they were tramping up a wooded wash fenced in by steep-sloping stone walls, and Hiram consulted his map. “We should be able to see the Bloomers any moment.”
“I looked at your map earlier,” Michael said. “I believe you mean we should be able to see Pants Crotch.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from that knowledge.” Hiram chuckled.
“I almost had to use the smelling salts on myself.”
Hiram looked up and saw the arch, and it took his breath away.
Some arches were hard to see, clinging tightly to canyon walls. Others stood overhead and a person could follow the river that had formed them and walk right underneath. The Schoolmarm’s Bloomers stood alone on a promontory of rock above the head of the wash, as if in defiance of all geological probabilities. If a river had carved the arch, it had also wiped out everything around it, and then disappeared. The arch was tall, majestic, and irregular, but also perfect; it did look like someone’s long legs and hips, cocked slightly to one side, and Hiram wasn’t even seeing it very clearly—with no sun and also no moon, he saw the Bloomers mostly as the starless darkness of the rock’s silhouette, with a faint silver-orange icing around the edge where the light struck it.
“She could kick me to the Gulf of Mexico,” Michael said. “If that were my schoolmarm, I’d be on my very best behavior.”
“If that were your teacher,” Hiram said, “so would I.”
“Do we climb?” Michael pointed out the slope leading up to the Bloomers. A man might have to lean forward and steady himself with his hands at several points, but the rock wasn’t a sheer cliff, and could be ascended.
Hiram looked about. The yellow grass shivered in a faint breeze. The presence of a pair of cottonwoods and a grove of aspens suggested that there was water near the surface. Maybe a rock seep Hiram couldn’t see in the darkness, though he didn’t smell moisture, either. “I don’t think so. We’re in the wash below the Bloomers now.”
Michael took one step closer to Hiram. “I’m not going to tell you what science says about ghosts.”
“I guess I don’t think you need to.” Hiram set down his pack and took the lantern in hand. He shook it gently to be sure its fuel tank was full, then turned the wick knob to get a suitable amount of cotton available.
“What are you going to do?” Michael asked.
“Talk to the ghost,” Hiram said. “If there is one.”
He found a raised bar of sand and set the lantern down. With a long match, he lit the wick and then replaced the glass chimney.
“Where should I stand?” Michael asked.
“Just take a step or two back,” Hiram suggested. “Maybe here with me.”
Michael quickly found his place at Hiram’s side. “I don’t suppose ghosts have vocal cords, even if they do exist. So how do they talk?”
“Various ways,” Hiram said. “But they can all manipulate flame. Fire and light are highly refined matter—everything is matter, even spirit. Spirit is just the most highly refined matter there is, that’s what Brother Joseph taught. Almost sounds scientific, doesn’t it?”
“It’s not like any science I’ve ever heard of.”
That made Hiram laugh. “We’ll ask the ghost to manipulate the flame.”
Michael reached his hand inside his jacket. He was touching his chi-rho medallion, the iron amulet that both men wore that protected them from enemies. When Michael was younger, Hiram had hidden the metal disk in the heel of his son’s boot, but now that the youngster knew his father was a cunning man, he wore the amulet on his chest.
Hiram resisted the urge to touch his own talisman. He cleared his throat.
“My name is Hiram Woolley,” he said in a loud voice. “I’ve been told there’s someone here.” Silence. Then a distant hoot. “Maybe someone in distress.”
“Would it help if we knew the ghost’s name?” Michael whispered.
“It probably would.” Hiram raised his voice again. “If there’s anyone here, I’ve brought a light so we can communicate. Maybe you can see it. It’s an oil lantern, and I’ve set it on the ground. I just want to talk.”
Silence. The air was still, and the flame of the lantern stood straight upright.
“If you can hear me,” Hiram said, speaking slowly and loudly, “make the flame of my lantern dance.”
The lantern’s flame bent sharply sideways, once.
Michael sucked in a sudden breath. “Impossible.”
Hiram nodded. “I want to help you,” he called out to the ghost.
The night was still and cold.
“I’m going to ask you some questions,” Hiram continued. “If the answer to any of my questions is yes, make the flame dance again, just as you did a moment ago.” He considered his questions. “Are you an adult?”
The flame stood still. No.
“Are you a child?”
The flame danced. Yes.
“Are you from Moab? Did you live near here somewhere? Did you live on the Monument?”
No. Yes. Yes.
“Do you know what killed you?”
Yes.
“Was it an accident? Were you killed by disease? Were you murdered by a family member?”
No. No. No.
“Were you killed by wild animals?”
Yes.
“That’s a bit odd,” Hiram murmured.
“No,” Michael said. “It’s really odd. Not only is there no wind, but the lantern has the glass chimney over it. That flame should be still as a stone, but it’s snapping sideways. Pap, I…it…” Michael struggled to find words.
“It’s answering my questions,” Hiram said.
“Unless there’s some other explanation.” Michael chuckled nervously. “But if you’re talking to a ghost, Pap…is it really an it?”
Hiram addressed the ghost again. “Are you a boy?”
Yes.
“He, then.” Michael was trembling, just a bit.
“What’s slightly odd,” Hiram said, “is that he was killed by animals. Usually a ghost has unfinished business, like revenge. So ghosts tend to result from murders and suicides, or strange supernatural deaths.”
“Huh.”
“Did you die in the last year?” Hiram asked. “Less than nine months ago? Less than six months ago? About eight months ago?”
Yes. Yes. No. Yes.
“This is getting eerily precise,” Michael said.
“What else should we ask?”
“It might take some time,” Michael suggested, “but we could get him to spell out his name. Twenty questions again.”
“Do you know how to spell your name?” Hiram called out to the ghost.
No.
“Oh,” Michael said.
“Were you less than twelve years old when you died?” Hiram pressed. “Eleven? Ten?”
Yes. Yes. No.
“He was ten,” Michael said. “Ten’s kind of old to not be able to spell your own name.”
“Is your family poor?” Hiram asked the spirit.
Yes.
“There can’t be that many families living on the Monument,” Michael said.
“No,” Hiram agreed. “For starters, I’d like to talk to the people in that dugout we passed, not to mention whoever is staying in the campsite.”
“What do we do when we find out who the ghost is?” Michael asked. “And what he wants?”
“We lay him to rest.”
“How do we do that?” Michael asked.
“That depends,” Hiram said.
“On what?”
“Whether he resists,” Hiram said. “Whether we can get him the justice he feels he needs.”
“Could you just, I don’t know, exorcise him right now? Cast him out and be done with him?”
“I could try,” Hiram said. “But that might be a wicked act. Wouldn’t you rather see justice done, if possible?”
“If possible,” Michael agreed. “But if justice means we’re hunting some three-toed ghost wolf that ranges all over the Rocky Mountains eating bears and ten-year-old children, I think I might be willing to just go straight for an exorcism now.”
“There’s probably no three-toed ghost wolf.”
“You said ‘probably,’ Pap.”
“Well, there are strange things in the world.”
Hiram could think of no more questions to ask the spirit, and neither could Michael. Hiram thanked the ghost boy and then blew out the lantern, plunging them into darkness relieved only by a few stars.
They bedded down among the aspens, wrapping themselves in their wool blankets. Michael made his bed closer to Hiram than he usually would have, as if he was nervous, but his breathing fell immediately into the rhythms of sleep.
Hiram lay awake, watching the stars. Hercules and the Summer Triangle stared down at him with no answers. He touched the ring on his left hand with the fingers of his right, evoking Saturn and the power of visionary dreams it possessed. With his crop in the ground, Hiram didn’t need to be back at the farm immediately, but still, he didn’t want to linger too long in Moab. He wanted to help this ghost, but he also wanted to do it quickly.
Who was the boy and why had he died?
Hiram jerked awake. Overhead, Hercules and the Summer Triangle were gone, replaced by…Andromeda? Perseus? He wasn’t sure. In any case, hours had passed.
Michael’s breathing was deep and regular.
Hiram’s mouth was dry, and he had a kink in his neck. Sitting up, he reached for a water bottle—
and saw the boy.
The boy, however refined the matter that comprised him, shouldn’t have been visible. With no moon, even a boy of flesh and bones should have been an invisible shadow, one more object in the sea of shadows swamping the bottom of the wash.
Instead, Hiram saw him clearly. The jacket, too big for him and frayed at the sleeves and collar, with one button missing, so probably a hand-me-down. Alive, his sun-pink skin might have had freckles. Dead, his pale flesh made those freckles look like mud spackle. His curly brown hair was long enough to make him look wild. The boot-laces were knotted and re-knotted to repair them.
“Hello,” Hiram said.
The boy slowly raised his arms. The sleeves of the jacket fell down to his elbows and the front hung open, exposing his forearms and neck. All down his arms, Hiram saw bite marks. The indentations left by teeth were raw and red, bleeding slightly. The boy tipped his head back and Hiram saw more bite marks on his throat.
The jawline that had left those marks was circular, and the canines were understated.
They looked like bites left by human teeth.
Hiram sat up suddenly.
Morning light filled the wash, revealing explosions of golden grass and pale green weeds near the dusty red of the stone walls. Above, pink in the bright early sunshine, the Schoolmarm’s Bloomers presided in a calm and stately fashion.
Michael snored deeply beside him.
Hiram rubbed sleep from his eyes. He didn’t need to consult his dream dictionary to know what he’d seen; the ghost had appeared to him.
But bite marks from human teeth? Hiram dug the dream dictionary from his knapsack and thumbed through his handwritten notes, looking for any explanation. He found none.
He jostled Michael gently. “Come on, son. Time to get a move on.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to see the widow Artemis.”
Michael rose, groggy, his black hair dusty from their night out under the sky. “That’s right. From ghosts to widows. I almost forgot about the so-called Diana Artemis. We wouldn’t want you miss your hot date.”
“I wouldn’t call it a date. But yeah, let’s go see what she might know.” She might know something about the ghost. Or, if Hiram could get a permanent solution to his sleeping sickness, then Michael would be free to go on to college. Hiram could then drive himself around to do his work.
As he watched Michael fold up his blanket and strap it to his knapsack, Hiram found the idea lonesome. But Michael deserved a better life than to be a beet farmer and a village cunning man.
Hiram rose and began rolling up his bedding.