“Cool,” Jason said.
He needed to go someplace higher and get a better view. For a moment he considered trying to get up on the roof, and then he remembered that there was a vantage place just behind his yard. The old Indian mound that towered over the property in back. Between the height of the mound and the reach of the scope, Jason could probably see Memphis.
There was a shoulder strap that had come with the scope, which would make it easy to carry—now Jason saw the value of the Astroscan’s compact design. He clipped the strap to the scope, put the big plastic lens cap over the objective lens, and put the eyepiece back in its padded box, then put the box in his pocket. He swung the shoulder strap experimentally over his shoulder and found that he could hold the Astroscan reasonably secure under one arm.
Then he bounced down the back stairs, paused by the fridge for an apple and some supernaturally charged water, went out the door. The huge mound loomed above him. A gust of wind rustled the oaks and elms that crowned its massive height.
The Huntley dog had given up barking and was whining now, whining as if it were in pain. Jason looked over the fence, but he couldn’t see anything wrong, and he couldn’t think of anything that he could do, so he passed by the propane tank, crossed the soggy backyard, and began walking briskly toward the mound.
There was a kind of steep earthen ramp that led to the top, with a path that zigzagged through the brush and trees. Jason began to climb. Within moments he was breathing hard, and his thighs were aching with the strain. The Indian mound was bigger and steeper than it looked.
On another side of the mound, by the highway, was a little plaque that the town of Cabells Mound had put up. It explained that it was this mound that had given the town of Cabells Mound its name, and that the mound had been built approximately 800–900 a.d. by the Mississippian Culture, and was once surrounded by a large town. About the year 900 the site had been abandoned for reasons unknown. Jason’s mother, on the other hand, held to the opinion that the mound had been built thirty thousand years ago by refugees from Atlantis, a theory that Jason had once dared to doubt out loud. “Who are you going to believe?” Catherine retorted. “A bunch of know-nothing archaeologists, or people who are in touch with the Atlantean survivors today?”
Jason’s mother had a knack for bringing conversations to a screeching halt with statements like that. Fortunately Muppet and his friends didn’t seem to mind hanging around with the son of the New Age Lady. They thought her beliefs were sort of interesting—when Jason had them over and showed them the house, they asked what the crystal in the water jug was for, who the Egyptian person in the photo was, and for details concerning the expected demise of California. When they met Catherine, a few hours later, they looked at her with a curious expectancy, as if she might begin chanting or channeling Elvis at any moment.
Jason figured he’d made some real friends here. Friends would stick by you no matter how crazy your mom happened to be.
Jason paused halfway up the mound, panting for breath. He turned and gazed out at the world below, the flat country that stretched forever to the north and west, eastward the gray-brown river spotted with silver flecks of reflected sun-light, the Ruth Caldzvell disappearing around a distant island. The strange white splotches on the brown, level fields were more distinct from this height than from the second floor of his home. Mr. Regan, he saw, was in his carport, bent over his boat. Birds chattered at Jason from the trees, but louder still was the howling of dogs. It sounded as if every dog for miles around had gone berserk.
His mom’s car, he saw, was just turning off the highway on its way to their house. He turned again and climbed steadily to the top of the mound. An old pumpkin oak stood on the mound’s verge. It had been struck by lightning, Jason observed. Part of the trunk was scorched black, limbs were splintered and bare of leaves, and much of the crown had burned away, but the oak had somehow survived the sky’s onslaught. New shoots were sprouting out of the burned part, looking frail in the sunlight, but waving their leaves proudly.
There were some bundles of dried flowers laid before the tree, Jason observed, among the tangled roots, and the remains of incense cones. His mother had made offerings here, though he could not say whether they had been to the tree’s burgeoning life or to the spirits of dead Atlanteans. The mound was thoroughly forested, and the view was largely blocked by the crowns of trees that grew on the steep slopes. Jason made his way to a little cleared space, where he found trampled grass and a used condom. Courting couples, he guessed, came up here to watch the sunset. He felt a sudden flush of distaste for the latex object, and he kicked it away, then reached into his pocket for the eyepiece to the scope.
There was nothing to rest the Astroscan on, so Jason just let it hang from the shoulder strap while he put his eye to the rubber eyepiece. He turned the scope on his own home, and through the back window he could clearly see his mother in the light of the kitchen, drinking a glass of energized water while frowning and contemplating something beyond the edge of the windowframe—Jason realized after a few seconds that she was looking into the open refrigerator, presumably trying to make up her mind what to have for dinner.
And then Jason realized that the image was, for a change, rightside-up. He wondered about that, until he realized that he was standing with the telescope under one arm and he was bending over it, head hanging down, to put his eye to the eyepiece. The image seemed rightside-up because his head was upside-down.
The ripping engine noise of an ATV sounded in the distance. Jason took his eye from the scope, and saw Muppet’s little green vehicle racing down the levee with Muppet bent over the handlebars. Behind, throwing up dust, was a Cabells Mound police car, lights flashing. Though Muppet had cranked the ATV’s throttle as far as it would go, the car, following behind, seemed only to be loitering.
“Asshole Eubanks,” Jason said. “You’re not even in your jurisdiction, damn it!” He bent his head and tried to focus the scope on the top of the levee. With more luck than skill he managed to catch Muppet in the scope’s image. He saw the green helmet turn, look over his shoulder at the car following so easily behind, and then glance down the slope of the levee, toward the cot-ton field below.
Yeah, Jason thought. He could almost read his friend’s mind. Go for it. He saw Muppet’s gloved hand twist the throttle, heard the change in engine pitch that came with the shift in gears. And then the ATV rolled off the top of the levee, accelerating for the field below, where the car might not follow.
“Go!” Jason shouted. “Run for it!”
The ATV raced down the levee’s flank. The police car slowed, hesitated. Above the chainsaw rip of the ATV’s engine Jason heard an eerie, collective howl, as if all the dogs in the world were crying in pain. He felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck.
And then the world rose and hit him on the chin.
NINE
A report prevailed in town yesterday, that a part of the town of Natchez had been sunk by an Earthquake, and that four thousand persons perished. —We trust that this report will prove to be unfounded; but if such a deplorable circumstance has taken place, it could not have been on the morning of the 16th December, as a letter dated on that date at Natchez, and published some time since at the city of Washington, says “A considerable shock of an Earthquake was felt here last night,” without adding anything further…
They were late in getting started because Viondi needed to pick up something to deliver to one of his relatives in Mississippi. What the object turned out to be was a large silver samovar, over two feet tall, tossed casually in a cardboard box in Viondi’s trunk, next to another card-board box that held Viondi’s clothes and toilet articles. Nick put his soft-sided suitcase and his satchel in the trunk next to the boxes.