The snake nailed to the ground, Anna’s bare legs on the ladder—
He brought his chair back onto four legs with a bump.
Anna Pigeon’s legs were bare, her bottom was not. Anna had been wearing shorts.
“What’s wrong with this picture?” Regis whispered. “Riddle me that.”
TWENTY-NINE
Molly had begged Anna to come home. Knowing it would hurt her sister’s feelings, Anna didn’t say it: She had no home. Molly had the luxury of a twenty-eight-hundred-square-foot apartment and there was always a room there for Anna, but, without Zach, she couldn’t face Manhattan, stages, theaters, or any of the places that were now only places where he wasn’t—small, enclosed spaces where he wasn’t. Small, enclosed, windowless spaces. Spaces like sandstone jars. Despite the heat and the monster, Anna had taken to sleeping with her windows open, bedroom door ajar, and was considering sleeping on the porch.
Besides, she had a monster to catch. Molly had been right about fools rushing in. Anna didn’t know how she was going to go about this. What scraps of detective lore she had been exposed to—mostly through movies—only worked in cities. In the vast playground that was Lake Powell, cops couldn’t very well check license plates. The vehicles were largely aquatic and/or rented and in constant movement. They couldn’t question neighbors since they changed daily and came and went without identifying themselves. For all Anna knew, sandstone and rope wouldn’t hold fingerprints. She doubted there was a local fence or informants. Catching a criminal in a wilderness recreation area would be like trying to catch a feather in a windstorm.
Crime in the park was a dark version of Brigadoon. The monster appears, does his song and dance, then vanishes into the fog for another hundred years.
Jenny banged out the front door of the duplex. In her NPS uniform short-sleeved shirt and shorts she looked more like an overgrown Girl Scout than a ranger. Anna had liked that at first—that rangers, even those bristling with weapons, looked gentle, like they were just pretending to be cops and were really only there to tell you the Latin names of plants. She still liked it on the interpreters. On the gun-toting rangers an edgier look would have been reassuring. Maybe an ensemble in black and red with tall boots like the Canadian Mounties wore.
“Smokey the Bear doesn’t make a girl feel protected,” Anna said, voicing her thoughts.
“That is because Smokey Bear—no middle name—is a Forest Service bear. A park bear, a grizzly or Kodiak or polar bear, would tear Smokey to pieces in a paw-to-paw match. Take Smokey’s shovel away and he might as well check into the nearest petting zoo.”
Anna smiled. “Wish I was going with you.”
Jenny put on a ball cap, then slung her daypack over her shoulder. “This isn’t one of your lieu days, is it?”
Anna didn’t answer. She hadn’t the faintest idea what day it was. She wasn’t even sure what time it was. In the jar, Kay’s watch was a gift, found treasure. Out of the jar, it was the ill-gotten gains of a grave robber, and Anna wouldn’t use it. Along with her uniforms, Zach’s picture, and everything else, the mysterious moving man—or woman—had taken her purse and wallet containing her driver’s license, Visa, MasterCard, Equity card, library card, and ninety-seven dollars in cash. As soon as she got her new credit cards she would make a shopping trip to Page and buy shoes. Then Kay’s sandals would be released from duty.
“Steve has some more questions. He didn’t say if the chief ranger was coming or not. I figured I better hang around so he can arrest me for lying to federal officers, obstructing justice, and murder.”
“Not to mention harassing the wildlife and keeping a pet in seasonal park housing.” Jenny added. “It’s an overnight in the grotto,” she enticed. “Warm sand, pellucid waters, godlike pictographs, plenty of human waste, and soiled TP.”
Out of doors. Away from any place the monster might think to look for her. “What about Buddy?” Anna asked. The baby skunk was nosing around on the square of grass captured within the phalanx of gray buildings.
“You can’t keep him, you know,” Jenny said gently.
“I know,” Anna said.
“Even if you de-stink a skunk, they don’t make good pets. They’re wild animals.”
“I know,” Anna said.
“Even if you did de-stink him and he did make a great pet, you couldn’t keep him in seasonal housing.”
“I know,” Anna said.
“Even if you didn’t keep him in seasonal housing, you couldn’t feed him. Feeding wild animals in parks and rec areas is verboten.”
Anna knew that, too. “Buddy’s too little to set free to fend for himself,” she said.
Both women watched the toddling fluff of black and white investigating a fascinating leaf fallen from a honey locust.
“I’ll talk to Steve—or you can,” Jenny suggested. “He’ll know if there are any groups that raise beasties and return them to their natural habitat when they’re old enough. He grew up around here. His folks owned a trading post.”
Anna thought trading posts became extinct when the Alamo fell. “I’ll talk to him,” she said, “and thanks.”
“If they decide not to throw you in the hoosegow, radio me and I’ll come get you when you’re finished.”
Anna nodded. The hoosegow was probably located at the nearest trading post.
After a while Regis’s wife came out of their duplex and sat on the steps. She wore shorts and a tank top, both of which were snug, as if she’d recently put on weight. She carried a can of diet soda with her, which she set on the step beside her feet, then covered with a saucer.
“Yellow jackets,” she said to Anna. “They crawl in, then sting you when you take a drink. I think it’s the sugar that attracts them. I’m Bethy,” she said, eyeing Anna narrowly. “Regis’s wife.”
Anna had not only met Bethy but shared a potluck picnic table with her more than once. Apparently Bethy thought decades had passed in the jar while only a handful of days passed on earth. Since Anna felt the same, she was kind. “I remember you, Bethy. You don’t seem to have aged more than a few days since last we met.”
Bethy giggled. “It’s so weird,” she said. “I’m, like, self-conscious to be talking to you. Like you became a big rock star or something.”
That surprised Anna. Focused on shame, shame she struggled with and shame others would see as hers one way or another, she hadn’t given a thought to the power of notoriety. Anna could star in a movie of the week about her exciting capture and escape. Except they’d never let Anna play the lead. The role of “Anna, Wilderness Sex Slave” would probably go to one of the Baywatch babes, an actor who had the talent to fill Kay’s bikini bra.
“It’s weird on this side of the lights, too,” Anna admitted.
“Aren’t you getting off on it just a little bit? I mean, one day you’re just this nobody and then, presto! Everybody’s All Anna All the Time,” Bethy said.
Either Bethy was staggeringly insensitive or there was a stream of malice running through her. “You all thought I’d packed up and gone back to New York?” Anna asked.
“Yeah.” Bethy removed the saucer from her soda can, took three neat little sips, then put the can down and replaced the saucer. “I mean, like, all your things were gone and you don’t—you know—exactly fit in.”
“Is that a fact?” The comment annoyed Anna, but it was true. She had not fit in. She had not tried to fit in. She had not worked and played well with others. She had not come to Glen Canyon for what it had but for what it lacked: memories.
Anna hadn’t left New York City, her job, and her sister to spend forty days and forty nights in the wilderness healing. She had come to suffer in silence, to wallow in grief where no one would pester her with good advice or helping hands. She had come to purgatory to work off her sins that the gods might relent and give Zach back.